On the Planning of Funerals
I'm pushing thirty, right, and I'm at Chapter meeting with the other members of the community, and somebody mentions that we need to have another funeral-planning party. Another, first of all. And another what?
That's right. Funeral-planning party. Apparently there's a sort of tradition in Rivendell that everybody gets together on a yearly basis or so to plan their funerals. This year, the plan is to have the party on, appropriately enough, Memorial Day. And so we do.
In my musings on this phenomenon, I also notice that Cathy in particular tends to refer to the time of her death as the day on which she "gets to die." Like, "I get to go to the waterpark today!" -- except that it's about one's death. At first my reaction is, "How terribly morbid!" But as I think about it, and as I participate in the whole planning-of-funerals festivities, I come to change my mind.
*
Everyone who reads this blog and who knows me probably has picked up that I have an anxiety disorder. Which makes Worry About Death particularly -- um -- prominent for me at certain times. If I am having an attack, and I happen also to have a headache, more than likely I'm going to think I'm about to DIE of an ANEURYSM or Something Horrible of That Sort. Then I get well both of the attack and the headache and go back to thinking of death in the same uneasily nonchalant way as everybody else. If, however, I think in such moments that I "get to die," it puts a whole new complexion on the thing. It's not quite like the day in my childhood when I randomly asked my mother if one could avert the worst of a pain by pretending pain was pleasure, and was answered that it would be a sick thing to do. I didn't, and don't, exactly agree with that, but "getting to die" is different either from what she meant or from what I meant by pretending to like pain. After all, I recite the Apostle's Creed in the Daily Office of the Prayer Book; you know, the one that says "I believe in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting, amen." Sometimes I say it with a feeling of belief, and sometimes I don't. Even if it weren't true, it still sheds light on death as an end that is "not the end of the world." But if it is true, and I behave as though I believe it, then death, and specifically my death, has no sting. Frightening, yes; griefworthy, yes; world-without-end tragic -- no.
So if I think of it like that, and if I think of my own funeral as a celebration and as a chance to speak my last "word", then I don't have to spend another night maundering on and on about my imminent death and my legacy, cut -- ah! -- so tragically and brutally short. It's like George Macdonald's character Malcolm, cheerfully standing on the gunwale of his fishing boat as he works, explaining that holding his life lightly makes him much more sure-footed.
*
So anyway, we plan our funerals, and it turns out to be a great deal of fun and very moving, as we all sing snatches of hymns and read out our chosen readings from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Epistles, and the Gospels. Virginia collects them all at the end, to keep in case anyone gets to die this year -- which we don't expect and don't worry about. We laugh that it's too bad that we can't all have the funerals at once and enjoy each other's songs and readings. It's another little Easter day, without pretense or ostentation, but with deep joy.
My funeral, you ask? In addition to the readings from the Bible, I threw in a reading from the 32nd chapter of Lady Julian's Revelation of Divine Love. I chose Psalms 63 and 84; Philippians 2:1-13; Isaiah 43:15-18; and the passage from Luke 10 about Mary and Martha. Hymns include "Be Thou My Vision," "What Wondrous Love is This," and "All Creatures of Our God and King."
*
On a smaller scale, we experience deaths every day. We are disappointed, we are hurt, we lose things and people, we lay our hand down on our time and found it has slipped out from under our grasp. And yet we do every day "get to" experience the holy Present -- bearing this cross, drinking this cup (whether of bitterness or refreshment), loving this human, sharing this meal. It makes one much more Ready -- ready in its old senses as well as its new ones, ready as being well-counseled, well-"read", well-prepared.
Especially so, with my funeral plans reposing peacefully in Virginia's file folder.
I'm pushing thirty, right, and I'm at Chapter meeting with the other members of the community, and somebody mentions that we need to have another funeral-planning party. Another, first of all. And another what?
That's right. Funeral-planning party. Apparently there's a sort of tradition in Rivendell that everybody gets together on a yearly basis or so to plan their funerals. This year, the plan is to have the party on, appropriately enough, Memorial Day. And so we do.
In my musings on this phenomenon, I also notice that Cathy in particular tends to refer to the time of her death as the day on which she "gets to die." Like, "I get to go to the waterpark today!" -- except that it's about one's death. At first my reaction is, "How terribly morbid!" But as I think about it, and as I participate in the whole planning-of-funerals festivities, I come to change my mind.
*
Everyone who reads this blog and who knows me probably has picked up that I have an anxiety disorder. Which makes Worry About Death particularly -- um -- prominent for me at certain times. If I am having an attack, and I happen also to have a headache, more than likely I'm going to think I'm about to DIE of an ANEURYSM or Something Horrible of That Sort. Then I get well both of the attack and the headache and go back to thinking of death in the same uneasily nonchalant way as everybody else. If, however, I think in such moments that I "get to die," it puts a whole new complexion on the thing. It's not quite like the day in my childhood when I randomly asked my mother if one could avert the worst of a pain by pretending pain was pleasure, and was answered that it would be a sick thing to do. I didn't, and don't, exactly agree with that, but "getting to die" is different either from what she meant or from what I meant by pretending to like pain. After all, I recite the Apostle's Creed in the Daily Office of the Prayer Book; you know, the one that says "I believe in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting, amen." Sometimes I say it with a feeling of belief, and sometimes I don't. Even if it weren't true, it still sheds light on death as an end that is "not the end of the world." But if it is true, and I behave as though I believe it, then death, and specifically my death, has no sting. Frightening, yes; griefworthy, yes; world-without-end tragic -- no.
So if I think of it like that, and if I think of my own funeral as a celebration and as a chance to speak my last "word", then I don't have to spend another night maundering on and on about my imminent death and my legacy, cut -- ah! -- so tragically and brutally short. It's like George Macdonald's character Malcolm, cheerfully standing on the gunwale of his fishing boat as he works, explaining that holding his life lightly makes him much more sure-footed.
*
So anyway, we plan our funerals, and it turns out to be a great deal of fun and very moving, as we all sing snatches of hymns and read out our chosen readings from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Epistles, and the Gospels. Virginia collects them all at the end, to keep in case anyone gets to die this year -- which we don't expect and don't worry about. We laugh that it's too bad that we can't all have the funerals at once and enjoy each other's songs and readings. It's another little Easter day, without pretense or ostentation, but with deep joy.
My funeral, you ask? In addition to the readings from the Bible, I threw in a reading from the 32nd chapter of Lady Julian's Revelation of Divine Love. I chose Psalms 63 and 84; Philippians 2:1-13; Isaiah 43:15-18; and the passage from Luke 10 about Mary and Martha. Hymns include "Be Thou My Vision," "What Wondrous Love is This," and "All Creatures of Our God and King."
*
On a smaller scale, we experience deaths every day. We are disappointed, we are hurt, we lose things and people, we lay our hand down on our time and found it has slipped out from under our grasp. And yet we do every day "get to" experience the holy Present -- bearing this cross, drinking this cup (whether of bitterness or refreshment), loving this human, sharing this meal. It makes one much more Ready -- ready in its old senses as well as its new ones, ready as being well-counseled, well-"read", well-prepared.
Especially so, with my funeral plans reposing peacefully in Virginia's file folder.
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