It's a Funeral

Dutch funeral expo digs up the latest in death trends.

I'm not a big fan of holding a "Celebration of Life" for someone who has died. I say call it what it is. A funeral. Body. Ashes. No body. No ashes. No nothing but a picture. It doesn't matter to me.  If you will be holding some sort of ritual gathering of family, friends, faith community, and others, call it a funeral.

I googled the word "funeral."  I checked it out at the Online Etymology Dictionary.  Not much to learn. Funeral is a word of somewhat uncertain origin.  It pretty much refers to death or corpse.  It pertains to the burial of the dead. Not exactly the most explicitly clear articulation.

My own assumptions have been that a funeral requires something present to bury.  I suppose the "purist" might say that the "something" is an actual intact body and that anything other than that is going to be pretty iffy funeral-wise.  If there is no body it's a memorial service. I think that's stupid. It's semantics.

In reality, when I am called to engage a family in the process of ... In the process of .. In the process of.. what? If not a funeral, then what?  Letting go? Entrusting them into the arms of Christ? Saying good bye?

This is my problem. I don't want to deny that death happens.  Let's not use euphemisms. I do not want to mitigate against the depth of grief people will feel when losing a loved one. I do not want to manufacture happiness when the authentic emotions present are so much more complicated. Nor do I want to shield any children from it, or try to soften it.  Death is death.

By the time St. Paul got around to writing his letter to the Romans, he'd had some time to work out his thinking.  He'd written to the Thessalonians, the Galatians, the Corinthians, Philemon, and the Philippians -- and those are just the letters that have survived through to today. By the time he writes to the Romans, he knew what he wanted to say, and he could say it pretty clearly and susinctly.  So, in Romans 8:31-39, when he says nothing can separate us from God's love in Christ, not even death, let's take his word for it. There is no need to protect ourselves from it or try to avoid it. There is no need to deny it or obfuscate it.  Why?  It's pretty simple.  God's won already.  The race has been finished. The hard work has been done.

It's true.  We don't like death all that much. Nor do we really like the things that lead to death. Death takes people away from us.  Even if they live to be 105 with all their wits about them and in good health and simply go to bed one night and don't wake up, they still leave us and we still miss them.

Even in the best of circumstances death still has a capricious, thief-in-the-night quality about it that we cannot control.  But we sure do try! "It's not a funeral. It's a celebration of life." or  "... It's just a memorial service." "The little ones should not have to go to the visitation (or funeral) it'll be too sad.  they won't know how to behave." I say let the children come be what may.  Death is what it is.. It cannot and should not be denied.

So, let us call a spade a spade.  It's a funeral.  Somebody died.  Place yourself in the middle of any given funeral. Emotions are present.  Emotions of every kind.  Each sibling, child, cousin, relative, and friend of the dead person has their own experience of that relationship. They have their own emotions that are tied to it. Are you going to hold a "Celebration of Life" for the guy that so many people think is great, but who had a complicated relationship with his children? Who cheated on his first wife with his second wife? Who was an alcoholic?  I really don't care how great people may believe the person was, someone there knows the truth. Let's not try to make the deceased more or less than they were.  Let's just let them be.

I'll tell you a secret.  If you look back at all the funeral bulletins that I have put together for funerals over which I have presided, notice the cover -- A simple cross, a name, a date of birth, and a date of death. No more than that is needed.  It is enough. We are there to acknowledge a child of God, an imperfect, yet God-loved child.

So, no semantic gymnastics needed. If someone dies, we hold a funeral, no more, no less.  It's just what it is.