14
Candler Connection | Winter 2014
purposeful response to that emergency is what a fu-
the changed reality death occasions is part of the
vaults and monuments, limousines and video trib-
neral is. In short, a funeral responds to the signature
essential response to mortality. Very often this is a
utes—all of them accessories, non-essentials. They
human concern of what to do about a dead human.
religious narrative. Often it is written in a book, the
may be a comfort, but they are non-essential. Same
text of which is widely read. Or it might be philo-
for funeral directors and rabbis, sextons and pastors,
Thus, the presence of the dead is an essential, defini-
sophical, artistic, intellectual—a poem in place of a
priests and clerks, florists and lawyers and hearse
tive element of a funeral. Funerals differ from all
psalm, a song in place of prayer—either way there
drivers—all of them accessories who may, nonethe-
other commemorative events in that the presence
must be some case to be made for what has hap-
less, assist the essential purpose of a funeral. And
of the dead and their subsequent disposition are
pened to the dead and what the living might expect
when we endeavor to serve the living by caring for
primary concerns. Memorial services, celebrations
because of it. “Behold, I show you a mystery,” or
the dead, we are assisting in the essential, definitive
of life, or variations on these commemorative events,
words to that effect are often heard.
work of the funeral and the species that devised this
whether held sooner or later or at intervals or anni-
deeply and uniquely human response to death.
versaries, in a variety of locales, while useful socially
A fourth and final essential, definitive element of
for commemorating the dead and paying tribute to
a funeral is that it must accomplish the disposi-
So much of what I know of final things I have
their memories, lack an essential manifest and func-
tion of the dead. They are not welcome, we know
learned from the reverend clergy: these men and
tion: the disposition of the dead. In this sense, the
intuitively, to remain among us in the way they were
women of God who drop what they’re doing and
option to dispose of the dead privately, through the
while living. Furthermore, it is by getting the dead
come on the run when there is trouble. These are
agency of hirelings, however professional they might
where they need to go that the living get where they
the local heroes who show up, armed only with
be, and however moving the memorial that follows
need to be. And while this disposition often involves
faith, who respond to calls in the middle of the
may be, is an abdication of an essential undertaking
the larger muscles and real work, it also enacts our
night, the middle of dinner, the middle of already
and fundamental humanity.
essential narratives, assists in the process of our es-
busy days to bedsides and roadsides, intensive care
sential emotions, images, and intellection about the
and emergency rooms, nursing homes and hospice
A second essential, definitive element of a funeral is
dead, and fixes their changed status in the landscape
wards and family homes, to try and make some
that there must be those to whom the death matters.
of our future and daily lives. Whether the dead are
sense of senseless things. They are on the front
A death happens to both the one who dies and to
buried, burned, entombed, enshrined or scattered,
lines, holy corpsmen in the flesh-and-blood combat
those who survive the death and are affected by it. If
hoist into the air, cast into the sea, or left out for the
between hope and fear. Their faith is contagious and
no one cares, if there is no one to mark the change
scavenging birds, our choice of their oblivion makes
emboldening. Their presence is balm and anointing.
that has happened, if there is no one to name and
their disposition palatable, acceptable, maybe even
The Lutheran pastor who always sang the common
claim the loss and the memory of the dead, then the
holy, and our participation in it remedial, honorable,
doxology at graveside: “Praise God from Whom All
dead assume the status of Bishop Berkeley’s tree
maybe even holy.
Blessings Flow,” his hymn sung into the open maw
falling noiselessly in the forest: If no one hears it, it
of unspeakable sadness, startling in its comfort and
did not fall, it never was. It is the same with humans.
These four essential, definitive elements, then: the
assurance. The priest who would intone the Grego-
And like Bishop Berkeley, it may become for us the
corpse, the caring survivors, some brokered change
rian chant and tribal Latin of the In Paradisum while
case for a god who sees and hears and claims every-
of status between them, and the disposition of the
leading the pallbearers to the grave, counting on the
thing in creation.
dead make a human funeral what it is.
raised voice and ancient language to invoke the heav-
A third essential, definitive element of a funeral
Once we can separate the essential elements from
who, at a loss for words, pulled out his harmonica
is that there must be some narrative, some effort
the accessories, the fundamental obligations from
and played the mournful and familiar notes of “Just
towards an answer, however provisional, of those
fashionable options, we might be able to assign
As I Am” over the coffin of one of our town’s most
signature human questions about what death means
relative measures of worth to what we do when one
famous sinners.
for both the one who has died and those to whom
of our own kind dies. We might be able to figure not
it matters. Thus, an effort to broker some peace
only the costs, but the values. Thus, coffin and cas-
My friend Jake Andrews, an Episcopal priest, now
between the corpse and the mourners by describing
ket, mum plants and carnations, candles and pall,
dead for years but still remembered, apart from
enly and earthly hosts. The young Baptist preacher