Comment Responses To "Sound Bites"
Cuz Susie-
I think The Gift can be ordered from TLA. If not I'd try ebay. It is rare.
Blind Bird-
Of course souls hang out in funeral homes, they want to see what will be said about them
Sarah-
I like your funeral ideal
Anon-
I feel like I am in service here in Philadelphia in terms of volunteer related work, I'd like to learn another language and expand my understanding of third world living as well as understand life outside of the US. There are many reasons I want to join the Peace Core.
Rob- I have a lot to say about home funerals. I don't think they run counter to the separation (psychologically) between life and death. I believe the experience of having a dead body of your loved one in your home allows one to really understand that their loved one is dead. In home funerals the deceased is usually kept in the home in a bed or other favorite place until every family member feels they have made their peace with the person. Then the body is buried by the family. Because we use funeral services and coffins and all these other devices typically in America, I think that sometimes avoiding the true nature of death is actually encouraged. Especially having a body sent away to the funeral home to not ever again be viewed or only viewed during a religious ceremony or in a casket. I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on this as well.
Jennsee-
Ever had a fish funeral?
I think The Gift can be ordered from TLA. If not I'd try ebay. It is rare.
Blind Bird-
Of course souls hang out in funeral homes, they want to see what will be said about them
Sarah-
I like your funeral ideal
Anon-
I feel like I am in service here in Philadelphia in terms of volunteer related work, I'd like to learn another language and expand my understanding of third world living as well as understand life outside of the US. There are many reasons I want to join the Peace Core.
Rob- I have a lot to say about home funerals. I don't think they run counter to the separation (psychologically) between life and death. I believe the experience of having a dead body of your loved one in your home allows one to really understand that their loved one is dead. In home funerals the deceased is usually kept in the home in a bed or other favorite place until every family member feels they have made their peace with the person. Then the body is buried by the family. Because we use funeral services and coffins and all these other devices typically in America, I think that sometimes avoiding the true nature of death is actually encouraged. Especially having a body sent away to the funeral home to not ever again be viewed or only viewed during a religious ceremony or in a casket. I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on this as well.
Jennsee-
Ever had a fish funeral?
Why is it when you drive through a neighborhood and see a really nice house that catches your eye, it always ends up being a funeral home?
Posted by
Juno
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Thanks for the information, Emily.
I also think coming to grips with the reality of death is important, and can see how a home funeral might be helpful in this regard.
And I do realize that what might be helpful for one might not be helpful for another.
I guess I'd still wonder about those who are unable to make their peace with the deceased. I've seen a change here over the years; that because people live such frantic, busy, and isolated lives, many people try to use death to make up for what they didn't do or what they missed in life. I've not seen that work very well, though it's not for want of people trying their hardest.
So--and again I realize it could be otherwise--but if someone was keeping the deceased in their homes a bit longer as a way of keeping that person around to try and make up for what should've been done during life (and as much as I hate "shoulds", that seems to me to be the reality of it), that would concern me.
[I hope I am not coming off as dogmatic; that is not my intent. Just writing my initial thoughts as part of the process of thinking this through.]
The other thing that would concern me is that because death, even in a faith context such as my own, represents very real loss, that it would be hard to be comfortable in one's home afterwards. I think that is why various cultures have driven something of a wedge between the experience of life and the experience of death (so that traditional Navajos, for instance, die outside the home so the "ghost" doesn't linger in it).
Maybe it is something like affairs. I have known couples who have succesfully worked through the infidelity of a spouse. But if the affair was conducted in a home, or a room of the home, or in relation to a specific piece of furniture--most of the time people will move or change the room around or get rid of the furniture.
I am not meaning to compare death to an affair except in so far as both are an experience of grief, pain, and loss, and therefore of the need people have to disassociate themselves from that which keeps these things ever before them.
Perhaps I am missing the point on this one. Again, I don't mean for this to be a last word--only the next level of my thinking about it, trying to flesh out what (initially, at least) doesn't feel quite right about it.
Thanks for taking the time to educate me on this! I do appreciate it.
Posted by
Anonymous
Thursday, May 26, 2005