Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Pardon Me While I Burst
So, I went to a funeral the other day.
It was a nice funeral, as funerals go, but it was a decidedly Catholic funeral. You see, Mrs. Inscrutable and I did the flowers for the funeral. My brother's wife's mother died way too young, and we were only happy to put together a wonderful flower arrangement for the family. We asked if they wanted us to stay for the service, and they said it was okay to leave after dropping off the flowers, but we thought that it would be nice if we stuck around and offered some moral support for my brother, his wife, and her family.
Can you say "uncomfortable"?
The priest - "Father Joe", had a high-pitched, whiny voice, which he acknowledged right up front, and had a tendency to repeat himself, to make his points. He insisted on calling the deceased "mom" and "grandma". Over and over. "Mom, and grandma, would have said...", would have wanted, would have been, etc. All I could think was, "didn't this guy have the decency to actually get to know the deceased and her family a bit before spouting off about her "wants" and "needs"? He also sang. In latin. Acapella.
I was embarrased. Which is weird, because I really didn't know my brother's mother-in-law that well. That whole "uncomfortable" thing came into play big-time.
In any case, after a thirty-minute-long talk that touched on about twenty old-testament bible scriptures, and Father Joe's basketball coaching (yeah, basketball coaching stories), and in no way referred to the actual person for whom this ceremony was ostensibly being held, he proceded to perform mass. Complete with the eucharist, and throwing holy water on everyone in the audience.
I know. Weird as hell. The eucharist ceremony started with Father Joe showing the crackers to everyone, then assuring us all that they had been consecrated "...just that morning". He them said that even if we were "unbelievers" we could come up and chow down on a cracker, and maybe we would see the light and - I don't know, become Catholic? (At a funeral? Why was this even an issue for him?) The first three rows of attendees got up and obediently filed by Father Joe and accepted the wafer. My mother, a born-again Christian of the protestant variety, in the fourth row, my father, my sister, and her kids never even moved. Mrs. Inscrutable and I held fast in the sixth row in our atheist idolatry, refusing to grow closer to Our Lord by cannibalizing His consecrated flesh. The seventh row contained my brother's bass player and his wife, who showed up to help with the audio. (Not Catholics, apparently.)
Undeterred by our unbelieving ways, Father Joe pulled out his Divine Shaker, and threw holy water on everyone. He even came back around the pews to make sure that he soaked us in the 6th and 7th row. Joy. Amazingly enough, I didn't burst into flames - despite my mother's side-eyed look as I was being hit with droplets of holy water.
Then the deceased's kids and grandchild got up and read their best memories of their mom and grandma. It was devastatingly poignant. Real tear-jerking memories read by the people who loved her the most. Absolutely heart-wrenching. I felt like they were letting me in on their family, telling me how wonderful their mom was, and how much they missed her.
Then Father Joe bustled up to the podium and started singing in latin again. Off key. Ruined it for me.
I was struck by how unnecessary Father Joe was to the whole damned thing. They could have left him out altogether, and it would have been a beautiful service.
But that doesn't surprise any of you, I'm sure.
I don't begrudge my brother's wife her chosen ceremony to honor her dead mother. Not at all. I respect that everyone deals with loss in a different way. The magical Catholic rituals obviously comforted her and her sisters and brothers.
However, I could not let it go by without commenting on the overall strangeness of it all.
But you know what? All of us have our rituals. Putting aside the civil-rights issues that surround the Christian influence in our modern American society, I truly do understand the necessity of ritual. The comfort that one can derive from a magical ceremony.
That does not mean that I have to be comfortable with it - and I'm not. In fact, it kind of freaks me out a bit.
Do you have any rituals that you use to be comfortable?
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No rituals except those inserted by my RC Mother in Law
I love that you all are talking about this. I come from an Evangelical Crazy Christian background, and even though I have not set foot in church in quite some time, I still find myself wracked with guilt. I am a mother, and sometimes wonder whether I should be introducing god to my children. When my daughter was three, she was about to start at a preschool at an Episcopal church. I grew up Episcopalian before my parents lost their minds...the teacher came over and asked if we went to church and kind of gave us the run-down of any religious content in the school day. I told her that my daughter's only image of or contact with god was Morgan Freeman in Bruce Almighty...
I digress. Sorry. I do miss some rituals--I love the Advent Sundays leading up to Christmas and the religious Christmas carols and Handel's Messiah...and Midnight services on Christmas eve. I do not really miss the content as much as the setting I remember so well from childhood. As I brush away the guilty feelings about not dragging my kids to church, my mind takes over--how on earth would they receive the beliefs of any church if they have had no experience with it whatsoever--wouldn't my eight year old look at me as if I had three heads? Jesus? Son of God? Healed people and was crucufied? Are you kidding me? I could not put that in my kids' minds. Yikes. The further I get away from organized religion, the more crazy the whole concept seems. I think I can do much more good with my kids hanging out on a Sunday and talking or coloring or reading together. Happy new year, everybody!!
Heather,
there's a reason I posted the thing I did about television - because I see it as quite similar to religion, in that the more you are away from it, the crazier it seems.
It sounds to me like you've got your head screwed on straight, and your kids will be fine - don't worry. Just keep on doing what you're doing, and trust yourself.
Cheers, and good luck!
Jim Downey
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Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Secular Funerals
A few days ago I went to the funeral of one of my best friends who died at 56. Being in Paris, it took place at Pere Lachaise at the crematorium.
The person in charge spoke a few words about having our own thoughts on how to remember our friend. There was no reference to a deity or any religious belief. I know my deceased friend had no such beliefs.
Then we had about 20 minutes or so to listen to music he liked well that apparently his son selected. Knowing my friend, I felt that it was an excellent selection. We were left to our thoughts and our memories.
In the end, many of us present and not only the family, were in tears. I realized how much I loved the guy and that I would miss him. One of the most moving ceremonies I have attended.
At least you got some relevant stories
I went to a catholic funeral for my step-grandmother a few years back, and the deceased was mentioned exactly twice in the entire ceremony, and only then in the context of what a good woman she was because she went to church regularly. Now this was not just a catholic family, this was a good old-fasioned Italian Catholic-a family. Dinner with the monsignor on a regular basis, church every week, all the midnight masses, for 30 or 40 years, and in 2 hours all you can think to say is she went to church regularly? Bloody hell.
I also liked the bit about turning to a friend in this time of grief, preferably a friend who's been through a similar situation, cause he'll understand and help you through it. And who can you think of that's been through really bad times? Why, Jesus, of course! (Saw that coming, didn't you?)
One good thing came of it though; I figured out why the priests like to stand there with their arms out to the sides with all those raiments draped over them. I used to think it was to look like a cross, but having been "studying" a bit of cinematography at the time, I realize that pose is to draw focus. Works, too.
So yeah, two hours of service (with good singing, by professionals, at least) and it was all about the church. Feh.
Then maybe a year later my father-not-yet-in-law died, and we had a wake at the local watering hole where he was friends with everyone (they provided their large banquet hall for free, is how close of friends). We all dressed in Steelers garb, sang his favorite songs, and told stories about him. Not a word of religion in the whole thing, just beautiful memories of the guy, and people helping each other feel better. Not really a ritual as such, but it should be.
To your point on that unnecessary guy
I have been to 6, yes, 6 weddings over the past few months. In some, I was amazed at how little the officiant (always religious) was interested in the couple. Lots about God, lots about Jesus, and in some there was lots about the virtues of commitment, lots about the challenges of commitment, but very little about the two people standing there -- particularly two very religious ceremonies in which you would hardly know that the couple was getting married, and we weren't just there to thank -- over and over -- whichever god was on the mind of that particular officiant.
The best ceremonies were about the couple, were about the reality and beauty of the union. My wedding, about a year and a half ago, was great: the officiant was a gay attorney friend of the family (you can do that in Maine, where we hitched), and he was fantastic; true to himself and perfect for us.
Bloody hell!
I've taken pictures at a few weddings, and it's always terrifying, because I know that though it's just another photo shoot for me, for them it's the event of a lifetime. Along those same lines, a minister who doesn't know the couple has no business performing the wedding. You might as well go to one of those cheesy chapels in Las Vegas and get hitched by a boozy stranger in the presence of recorded organ music broadcast through scratchy speakers.
To not know the couple and THEN to use the event to advertise Jesus ... well, I will never think that's decent.
Some 10 months ago...
...at the memorial service for my MIL, the Baptist preacher who officiated did such a good and sensitive job that it left me thinking that it would be a textbook example of the good things about religion. Very little god-bothering nonsense, mostly just a quiet and sensible "emcee-ing" of the service. I was impressed.
Ritual? Sure. For me, I clean. After finishing a conservation project for a client, I go through and do a thorough cleaning of my bindery workspace. It helps to set my mental stage for embarking on the next project - clearing away the other worries or ideas I have kicking around in my head, and focusing my attention on the immediate needs of the work I have before me. Yes, I stole the idea completely from the Zen Tea Ceremony.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Had to think
I was actually somewhat hard-pressed by the question and came to the conclusion that I don't seem to have rituals, at least that I know of. Routines, yes, but really what I would consider rituals. The closest I could come up with was in my theatre work. Every actor gets ready to go on stage in a personal way; some have very elaborate machinations they put themselves through, others just sit around chatting till it's time to get up and wander on. I go off by myself to focus intently on what I'm about to do or say or on the state of mind I want to maintain or whatever seems necessary to me at the time to make what's about to happen work. I have been reminded how important this is to me by the occasional interruption, including the fellow actress who tapped me on the arm to assure me that she was going to concentrate during the upcoming performance, thus effectively destroying the work I had put into my own concentration.
As far as public rituals go, I did recently attend a catholic funeral, which was far more elegant and sophisticated than the one described here. My father was a retired major general, so he had a full-blown military funeral, the rituals of which he told me a year or so beforehand he considered nonsense. After that, though, I decided that, since I couldn't have something like that, friends and family should read some poetry, sing a song or two, and talk about the good times with their choice of bourbon, wine, or beer.
Frank Moorman, skeptic
That can be reported on a public forum?
Nuts. Seriously, if I am stressed, a couple handfuls of nuts, eaten one at a time. It helps me to focus, gives me some outward excuse for withdrawing from the world for a short time, and lets me think.
I used to use Good 'n' Plentys (apparently, liquorice does have some memory-strengthening properties, I just did it for the taste) but switched to nuts a few years ago because they appear more healthful. Also, if you're eating a handful of candy, people take it less seriously than if you're eating something with a higher nutritional profile.
FWIW, Brent, I've been to RC funerals, with incense on top of it all, and happily haven't been pressured or offended by the officiant. I guess it all depends upon the person in that role, and you got one of the should-be-on-SNL ones. I've also been to funerals where the officiant doesn't really know the deceased (including my grandfather's, where the rabbi was from the congregation my aunt and uncle attended and didn't really know anybody else in the family) and I always think it is a disservice to the deceased to do that. But they do say that funerals are for the survivors, not the deceased, who isn't there to participate anyway.
Aw, Nuts.
If I had to choose something, I guess the closest I could come to a ritual that really relaxes me and makes me feel comfortable would be lawn mowing. We have an acre of grass - which is really beautiful in the spring and fall. But it takes a lot of work to maintain. So, the ritual is preparing the mower, putting in the gas, checking the sharpness of the blades, etc. Then, the actual mowing is a solid two hours in which I usually attain a zen-like state. I become calm, centered. My body takes over and does the actual mechanical work of mowing the lawn, steering the mower, and my mind is free to wander around and think about stuff.
I enjoy it, anyway. :)
Too much Zen
I also enjoy mowing the lawn (except when I don't), but I get too Zenny (Zenish?) sometimes and find myself singing "Green Acres." Which is funny because I only have, like, 3/4 an acre of land, and I look silly enough on a riding mower in that little yard without belting out "New York is where I'd rather stay!"
Rob Miles
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There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.