Hmm, these have been rather formal posts lately; time for something a bit more personal. Something that I find challenging is being able to understand the need for a proper – whatever proper is to you – burial and send off. It’s an added stress for you while you arrange your death and service, it’s a cause of strife for your family as they try to do everything according to tradition as well as your will, and it is a cause for concern among alternate religion/culture groups in that you are being buried “incorrectly.”
Personally, I don’t have any real preference as to what happens to my body once I’m gone; it can be dissected by goof-off medical students, rot in a pit, or be turned into one of those museum exhibit specimens in the Body Works exhibit (that would actually be pretty sweet!). So whenever I read articles about ethical issues on burial or about conflicts over scandalous events where bodies were laid in the wrong orientation, I find that I have to try really, really hard to get over my nonchalant perspective on death, burial and respect for the dead – maybe I should lay off the zombie movies for a while?
FUN FACT: If you look up “Christian burials” on Google images you get this as your first result ---->
One of many reasons that I feel the need to better understand – if not relate to – the significance of funerary ritual to adherents of various traditions is my fascination with religion. I feel that if I cannot get into the heads of believers, I really can’t hope to learn anything of real value. After all, what use is a text like the Bible without the emotions, faith, and spiritual realness felt by Christians around the globe? It is the personhood and community that makes the religion, not the guidelines (in my opinion).
| Shiite Muslim Casket |
I was looking around for a non-Wikipedia article on Christian perspectives on sea burials – not much luck – and came across a webpage which inspired this post.1 The page is part of an institution called Christian Research Institute and it goes over why burial is the ONLY Christian option for Christians. Their sources are biblical, and I would say that their arguments around biblical passages are quite sound if the reader is already a Christian. As the article is written for an exclusively Christian audience, I would say that it is well written, informative and well argued. However, when I read through it, I couldn’t believe the intricate ties the authors made between varying and distant portions of the Old and New Testament in order to prove their point: that burial is the only option.
| Buddhist monks preparing for funeral ceremony |
My point with all this is more of a reminder to myself – and maybe anyone else out there with similar views on burial – that death and burial is incredibly important to a lot of people, and the fact that individuals are willing to spend months devoting themselves to proving the biblical importance of burial proves its significance. Although I do not hope to ever fully appreciate the emotional and cultural importance of funerary ritual, I am ready to accept and view with respect the rituals and specifications demanded by others. Hopefully I’ll be able to learn more with an open mind.
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