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. 

            

            

 

OUR FAITH ROOTS US IN PLANETARY SURVIVAL

      

 

The most fundamental question facing every human being alive on the planet today is, ‘Will the planet survive or will we continue to heat up the atmosphere beyond the point of survival?’ What good will it do if we continue to develop human well-being if continuance of the earth will not sustain humans? 

 

There are still people who are skeptics on the conclusion that the atmosphere of the earth is heating up. The scientists have been trying to make this evident for the past sixty years. I am firmly convinced that they are telling humanity the truth: I am measuring the melting of the polar ice! The faster the ice recedes, the hotter the planet is becoming. There is a need to be alarmed at the warming of the atmosphere.

 

Everyone who claims to believe in God must ask what our faith stance can contribute to the survival of the one and only place we can call home.  They will be surprised at the resources and energy that our faith can give toward the survival of the planet.

 

Unfortunately, humanity has dominated during the past five centuries by it strength and power all living creation. We have completely divorced ourselves from nature. Nature and all parts of the physical creation were meant to be subservient to the demands of human beings. This attitude of human dominance, with no responsibility towards the created world, is leading us straight over the cliff of destruction. We know where this bus is headed and it is not in a good direction!

 

We must discover (because the past five hundred years of development has lost it) the Creator- God who created (and is still creating) this marvelous cosmos. Why would God have created such a marvellous creation and only bring forth humanity in thee last few thousands of years after 13.5 billion years? What joy did God create when each of the stars and solar systems were created? 

 

Our religion and prayer must root us in the original work of God: creation. Our prayer life must also take us into the heart and the joy of the God of creation. There is much power in our religion to bring us to share the great pride and satisfaction that God has in the creation of each blade of grass, each bird that sings and every drop of water on this planet. 

 

The survival of the human race and all parts of the planet demands a major cultural shift for humanity. We can do it if we choose survival. We have yet to mine (dig deep into) the beliefs of our religious faith. 

 

In 2015 Pope Francis issued the encyclical (official policy), Laudato si, which outlines the possibilities for a Christian faith that cares for and nourishes planetary (and human) survival. This policy paper encourages and challenges all Christians to work for the well-being and survival of the earth.

 

There is great power in religious conviction to work towards a sustainable world.

Do not underestimate the power of our religious faith to motivate Christian believers to work toward a sustainable world? 

 

The encyclical Laudato si is the articulation of deep-felt convictions in so many parts of the Christian world. We just have to be brave enough to implement this neglected part of our Christian faith.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE LONG HARD STRUGGLE FOR MEANING IN LIFE

    

 

This week I am on the move to a new parish in Moose Jaw. This is all brand new to me. This is one Saskatchewan community that I can say I am unfamiliar with and do not know a single person there. But this is Saskatchewan and there will many people who know people I know. Connections will abound. But as I pack up this becomes a season to reflect on what it means to plan for the remainder of your life.

 

Seventy years ago people did not live as long as we do today. Our lives have been extended on the average by almost twenty years over the past seventy years. The challenge facing every Canadian is ‘will these last twenty years be meaningful and purposeful or will this be treading water?

 

Every human being needs to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning. No one wants to be condemned to watching TV for a good part of the day because there ‘is nothing better to do.’ What emptiness?

 

Some years ago one of our thirty-some couples shared their experience with his aged father. The father was considerably older than the mother who had predeceased him at an early age. “We can see Dad going down from time to time. We try to find an excuse to leave the kids with him overnight. Well, next morning, there is Dad whistling and a humming!” 

 

He was needed! He had a purpose in life. Meaninglessness and boredom will accelerate your trip to the grave. What could give your day more purpose than two or three little grandchildren that need attention now?

 

If it could be possible we should have all our nursing homes filled with twelve year old volunteers who could become friends with our seniors, listen to their stories and experiences but enter into meaning conversations with them. It might be a littler noisy in the corridors of our nursing homes, but what welcome sounds?  People respond with joy to any interaction with a twelve-year old. This would be a win-win situation. 

 

What makes life meaningful is relationships. The lockdown of the past sixteen months has imposed great suffering on our elders. “No one visits!” Many families have observed that their mother has declined markedly because there was no contact with children and grandchildren. Loneliness shortens our life.

 

This is where we need to have reflection and planning for the last two decades of our life. What will make me want to get out of bed every morning?

 

Our Christian faith leads us out of our self into service and compassion for others. People can find great meaning to their lives by reaching out to those who have lost loved ones, need assistance with shopping and doing their income tax, and getting to their doctor’s appointments. We become more alive when we are helping others.

Horrors if meaninglessness limits us to watching TV to try to fill the empty spaces of the day. 

 

The last two decades of life can be the time to truly become the person God’s wants us to become: hands of deep compassion. But meaning for our own personal life does not fall out of the sky. We need to do the hard work (fearful thought it be) to make our life worthwhile, right to the very end.

 

 

IT IS MERCY THAT I WANT

                               

Several years ago, when we had many forest fires in Northern Saskatchewan, a scientist from the University of Saskatchewan pointed out that the power of nature to regenerate itself is so strong that ‘if you were to examine closely the dying embers and smoke of these forest fires you would see little blades of new grass sprouting even before the fire died out.’ Nature is determined to live and to thrive. 

 

Human beings are a resilient lot. We have suffered much at the hands of others but there is a strong push to survive and to thrive. The struggle to thrive are most often manifested through trial and failure.

 

This is where the thrust of Pope Francis that the Church work more and more to become a Church of mercy and healing is so welcome and needed. In all our ministry and interaction with people, what they need, is to receive  mercy and compassion. The ability and the power to share God’s mercy is a great potential in the life of every believer.

 

Anyone who has suffered a divorce or the breakup of your family is a person who carries many unspoken hurts and failures. These hurts may smolder and cause so much agony as they try to rebuild their lives. The divorced need mercy and understanding.

 

Countless and unspoken families carry the pain of a member who has died of an overdose (primarily males over the age of 29) from illicit drugs. These deaths, almost all are accidental are so needless. This son or brother whom you loved has been snatched from your life. There is a deep hole of sadness and incomprehension. The reality of the overdose epidemic crosses all social classes. Everyone is only one family away from this tragedy. This family needs the help of God’s mercy brought about your quiet support and compassion.

 

As we come out of the sixteen months of lockdown imposed on us by the Covid epidemic we have countless elderly parents who have not had physical contact with their children and grandchildren for so many months. The isolation has been very burdensome on the elderly. Many families have observed that ‘there has been a real decline in their mother because she has not had any meaningful contact with her family. Her memory is failing because of the she cannot hug her grandchildren. What a almost-silent call for mercy?

 

The young unemployed adults are too often the invisible people who also suffer. Work or meaningful employment is crucial to the well-being of people. We need to have a reason to get up in the morning. We need work in our daily lives. The frustration and emptiness of the unemployed needs understanding. They need encouragement in the long weeks of inactivity. The unemployed need the support of the mercy of God that can be given through our hands. 

 

AS a Church we want to move people from away from just feeling that they are good people who have good morals. The call from the Gospel is that we move into the world and bring goodness and mercy to others. We have yet to mine the potential for spiritual growth and meaning that living and practicing God’s mercy can bring. 

 

We want to claim the power of the final blessing at the end of each Sunday mass. We are bring sent into the world, not be secure and comfortable, but to practice the living mercy of God to those who are hurting, estranged or just on the edges of life.