THE ‘NO FUNERAL’ BURDEN

 

There are certain trends or practices that surface within the social life of a society that make us question “where is that coming from?” One such practice is the no funeral stipulation that the dying person imposes on their family. This is not healthy. It places serious burdens on the surviving family/friends.

 

Whenever we lose someone that we care about there is a real loss. We experience that a part of our life has been ripped away. We enter into grief. This is real feelings of loss, emptiness and incompleteness. There is the mistaken interpretation that somehow we should not feel grief or pain when the loved one dies. Grief is a real state of life. It hurts! I am suffering!

 

Our ancestors knew from long experience that if you do not come to terms with your grief or loss, you will deal with it somewhere along the line. These are not emotions that you can walk away from with no consequences. You have loss someone you love and care about. You pain inside. Now, how can you come to deal with your grief?

 

Too many Canadians think that a funeral is an event in the funeral home or a church. Many people will also say that ‘I don’t want people talking about me in a eulogy.’ 

 

No human can grieve alone. The purpose of coming together is to share and remember the life story of the loved one is. We  share our grief and rejoice in their love and friendship. A funeral (in whatever form it takes) is a place to hang our grief. We the living need to do this!

 

We want to say to all the people who burden their families with the ‘no funeral’ order that “this is not about you honey!” Funerals are for the living first and foremost. The living need to  work through their grief and suffering. We need to grieve with one another. 

 

A leave-taking (i.e. funeral) can take the form of  a family barbeque where we gather to share our memories and stories of the departed. It need be not only a time of remembering but also a time of building and nourishing friendships within family and friends. This is where people (who have no church affiliation) need to have do-able options to deal with the grief.

 

Several years ago, one Mother in Edmonton had made it clear to her four daughters that there was to be no funeral. The four women said: “We can’t do this.” They followed the suggestion of their pastor and they had “The Girl’s Memorial Service.” The name was clearly printed on the bulletin that was distributed. This was not a funeral. It was the girl’s service. After the memorial service and the lunch were completed the four women said: “That was so good.”

 

We have a very human need to grieve. The loss is very real. In this confusion we as a society must rediscover the wisdom of our ancestors. They knew from experience that you need to have a place to hang your grief. This is healthy. We need to walk with each other through our grief. 

 

 

MOVING INTO A WORLD SPIRITUALITY

                      

 

We are living through horrific pictures of crowds flocking around and trying to hang on to a big jumbo jet in Afghanistan. What fear? What danger? These people are very desperate to escape their country. What horrors are they running away from?

            We live on the world stage. It not only affects how we operate in our own country but it deeply affects our relationship with God. Religion must never be an escape hatch from the struggles of the world. Rather, religion is meant to give us strength and vision to embrace the struggles of this world. Our Christian faith is not protection from the onslaught of wars and natural disasters. Our Christian faith is empowerment to embrace what is happening with hope and with courage.    

            In front of all the political and economic tragedies which batter humanity we have the greatest of all wars right in front of us: climate change induced by human activity!

            Slowly people are coming to embrace the reality that human beings are actually causing the atmosphere to heat up. We want to recognize how hard this is to accept for so many people. They will have to make major changes into their lifestyle and their patterns of consumption. And they will have to take responsibility for their personal contribution to the threat of global warming. We are asking a lot of people to make these changes in their own lifestyle and their own self-image of their place on this earth. We are facing less and less resistance but more and more foot dragging to make any changes that will contribute to the sustainability of the earth.

            Christians are not people who try to build safe bomb-shelters that will insulate them from the problems of the world. Even though we have an unhappy history of building a fortress church to protect ourselves from the world we accept that this was a mistaken approach to the development of science and human rights in society. Christians embrace the world for what it is and are there to be the ‘yeast that makes the bread dough rise.” We are involved in the world to bring out the plans of God for humanity.

            Even though there is much resistance within the people of the Church this will demand that there be a shift in our understanding of our role and responsibility within creation. We must turn toward the created world and embrace the love and purpose God has given to each and every part of creation. This means appreciating the value of each tree, bird and blade of grass. What kind of respect does the Creator-God bring to each and every part of creation?

            Pope Francis in his encyclical ‘Laudato si’ (2015) has given official launch to the embrace of the values of creation for our faith, our prayer and our liturgies. We the people of the Church have to work the details out.

            We will be surprised what power and energy will come forth as we reach back into our beliefs and experience of God’s creation. Our religious faith has so much to offer us as we move toward building a sustainable world. We will be surprised in what our faith can actually offer us in this regard.         

             

TOUGH TIMES IN THIS SOCIETY

                    

This past Wednesday and Thursday we had such strong winds challenging the trees to hold their ground. It picked up so many loose ends and blew them against the hedge around the property. 

 

The strong winds are an apt image of what is happening in our culture. We have disjointed ourselves from our traditional values and the institutions that structure these values into our lives. All institutions are held in suspicion. You can teach your children one particular value and truth only to have it contradicted by others in the very community you live in.

 

What is truth? What can we ground our lives on to make sense to where we are going? 

 

Human beings need to live in a society/family that has some very clear values.  These are the signs that give us stability. We do not have to invent the wheel again on what is right and wrong. Every human being needs to know when they are successful and when they have done wrong. Doing what is right gives us a personal and communal sense of well-being. Failure to live up to the standards opens the door to try harder and repair the harm done.

 

When the values of the society shift and crumble the human being turns more and more to a very individualistic style of life. Everything centers on my survival. I must use my talents, energy and money to survive; and on my own! 

 

As a culture we are not headed for good times. Individualism, and rugged individualism, heads for social collapse. Individualism on the part of a large section of our cultures paints a very bleak picture.

 

This is where religion  contributes strongly to human well-being. Religion tells us who we are and what our value in society is. Religion is the major interpretation of the meaning and purpose of human living. Religion gives shape and meaning to our society (whatever culture we might be living in).

 

Now, the more individualistic our culture becomes that less importance religion can have. 

 

It is in this desert of meaning that we must rebirth our Christian faith. For the people that still go to church or participate in the life of their faith community, we are in exile like our Hebrew ancestors were during the seventy years in Babylon.

 

We need to rediscover what it means to have our God who has chosen us. We need to rediscover what it means to have been joined to the very person and mission of Jesus Christ. Once again, we must get on board with the great things God is doing among us.

 

The upcoming generation of believers will be women and men who seek the truth that has been revealed to us by Jesus. We will need to rediscover what the truth of Christian revelation actually is. The reason that we know these values and teachings are true is because they work. As they have worked in the lives of the earliest believers, so now they can and must work for us.

 

Our survival as believers and as a faith community will depend on how we work to rediscover the truths of the Gospel, how well we seek to know Jesus Christ on a very personal level, and how well we mine the teachings of the Church on social justice and the care for the earth.

 

These are very difficult times but it is working to rediscover the truths of God’s revelation. Our ancestors did it before in their seventy years in Babylon. 

 

What challenges us today?

 

 

WILL WE CRASH IN LONELINESS?

 

 

We were reflecting on belonging to a larger community than just being an individual swimming in this individualistic culture.  The father observed about his son and family in Calgary. “They belong to nothing.” There was a pause. “They have membership in a sports club, but they pay a subscription for that membership.” He concluded, “They belong to nothing.”

            The heat wave of the past six weeks has raised some very alarming questions. During the height of the heat wave the province of British Columbia reported a sudden spike in the daily death count. The sudden surge in daily deaths was due to many elderly persons, with no air conditioning, dying alone of heat exhaustion. I want to ask, “But where are their families? Where are the people who would check up on them when it is so hot?” Is this where life is going to lead us? Dying alone with no one interested enough to check up on us during a heat wave?

            We have moved in the past five generations into a strongly individualistic society. Each one is on their own. I can pay my own way. I can look after myself and I feel no need to contribute to the larger society around me. Less and less we choose to live in inter-dependence.

As a society this rugged individualism leads us to a cliff where we will fall off in loneliness. 

            The majority of younger Canadians have opted not to belong to church or to anything else. Not only are our churches becoming smaller but all the service organizations have disappeared. Why do I want to become involved in a service organization when we have everything we need for a good life provided for? 

            We are living through a period when people will honestly say, “Why would I want to belong to a church when I don’t belong to anything else?” These people are looking after themselves quite well. They are contributing to their pension plans so that there will be resources for them when they can no longer work to support themselves. If they do not belong they do not contribute to anything in the community. This is a receipe for social disaster.

            If we have any doubts about our need to live as inter-dependent persons we have only to consider the two ends of life. The child needs about eighteen years of nurturing and support. The elderly grandmother may need almost as many years of support at the other end of life. 

            Our churches must live in this very individualistic world. This is a very lonely society. You could end up an eighty year old who dies alone in a heat wave because there is no one who would even be concerned enough to check up on you. 

            This is where we must work hard in our churches to actually become a community of faith. A community that is clearly focused on the project of Jesus and a community that grows and cares for one another. We must have a personal stake in our personal survival and the survival of others within the faith community. We need a conversion towards community, towards belonging and willing to work towards the well-being of each other. 

            Dig back into our roots. The first Christians were an illegal religion. They needed each other just to survive that that hostile society. It was also one of the most creative times of our Church’s life. 

            The challenge is right before us.