{"id":66,"date":"2011-06-03T19:18:20","date_gmt":"2011-06-03T19:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?p=66"},"modified":"2015-03-13T15:05:02","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:05:02","slug":"funeral-schmuneral-as-long-as-you-were-loved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/funeral-schmuneral-as-long-as-you-were-loved\/","title":{"rendered":"Funeral-Schmuneral, As Long As You Were Loved"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Today in National Catholic Reporter,<\/i><\/strong><\/a> Michael Sean Winters writes that the Church is at her best at funerals. And by gum, he likes those funerals like he likes his booze \u2014 straight up, no umbrellas:<\/p>\n

Still less should those who have just lost a loved one be expected to devise an entire service. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I ran a bookstore\/caf\u00e9 here in Washington and we lost many waiters, bartenders and cooks to the AIDS epidemic. Some of them had no religion and had left the request that their friends host a memorial service. These were dreadful. Lacking a liturgy, these memorial services consisted mostly of eight or so eulogies from friends, but because the friends had not coordinated their talks, the eulogies were invariably repetitive. And, because few people\u2019s friends have been trained in public speaking, they lack a pastor\u2019s ability to articulate clearly, measure the cadence of their words, and fill the room when the microphone fails, all of which are essential to communication. Finally, and most importantly, people who are unaccustomed to speaking about the tragedies of life may seek to give expression to their deepest sentiments but they can easily lapse into sentimentality. Every time I attended one of these unscripted memorial services, I gave thanks for the Catholic liturgy.<\/p>\n

Second, in our culture, there are reference points in the musical canon that help us to wrestle with the mystery of suffering and death, and these great cultural touchstones are invariably religious. Wednesday, at Joe\u2019s funeral, the soprano soloist Ellen Kliman sang \u201cI Know that my Redeemer Liveth\u201d from Handel\u2019s \u201cMessiah.\u201d At the Offertory, the mezzo-soprano Jennifer Goltz sang the Bach-Gounod \u201cAve Maria.\u201d At Communion, the quartet sang Bach\u2019s \u201cSheep May Safely Graze\u201d and Faure\u2019s \u201cIn Paradisum.\u201d These works of music do for a grieving family and community what words alone cannot do; they transport us emotionally. The emotions arrive at a place that is musically beautiful but utterly honest: These works of music haunt as well as comfort, inspire as well as ground the emotions, they grapple with the reality of death and new life that is at the heart of our faith. Maybe, in our secular age, there will be musical geniuses like Faure and Bach and Handel to write secular works of music that achieve similar emotional dexterity and profundity, but I doubt it and, in any event, there has certainly been no Bach in this century. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I can\u2019t help thinking he\u2019s being a bit rough on canonically unapproved funerals. So what if the speakers happen to be sentimental slobs? Maybe the decedent liked them that way. I, for one, wil be most indignant if nobody says anything gushy or silly about me when I\u2019m gone. And if the music\u2019s tacky, well, maybe the dead guy had no taste. Maybe the next of kin didn\u2019t, either. They could have danced to \u201cWind Beneath My Wings\u201d and made love to Enya, bless their hearts. If a funeral is not, in fact, a floor show, why critique the entertainment like John Simon?<\/p>\n

In my adult life, I\u2019ve attended \u2014 knock wood \u2014 only two funerals. Both were religious. In both cases the \u2014 what shall I call it? The effect? The vibe? The gestalt? \u2014 had much less to do with the service itself than with the way the guest of honor had died, and the sorts of relationships he\u2019d left behind.<\/p>\n

The first was my dad\u2019s. He died very suddenly one summer morning, of an allergic reaction to a bee sting. Nobody had seen it coming. All of his friends were on vacation, so the turnout was very small, Though he hadn\u2019t lived as an observant Jew, he\u2019d determined very early on to be buried as one, which meant that, on the shortest possible notice, his wife had to find: 1) a rabbi; 2) a team of Jews to wash and stand guard over the body until it was time for the service. (I believe these are called shomrim,<\/i> but I could be wrong.)<\/p>\n

In Manhattan, this would have been a cakewalk. He had lived on West 76th Street, only 50 yards east of Riverside Memorial Funeral Home. At the time of his death, however, he\u2019d been three hours north, at his country house in the Catskills. Since Jewish law requires that a body be buried as soon as possible after death \u2014 within 24 hours is the ideal \u2014 there was no question of lugging him all the way back to the City. She had to find her talent locally.<\/p>\n

That was harder than it sounds. By the time my dad bought his house, the Jews had migrated out of the Catskills \u2014 except, that is, for a colony of Lubavitchers,<\/strong><\/a> who ran what passed, according to their tastes, for a resort only half an hour away. For a Jew, helping to bury another Jew is a mitzvah,<\/i> or commandment. Even if you wouldn\u2019t have known him from Adam, even if he never observed any commandments himself, you\u2019re still supposed to pitch in. So they sent over a rabbi who looked like he\u2019d been ordained at eleven-thirty the previous night, along with an assistant who looked, marginally, younger. <\/p>\n

They did a surprisingly good job. During his very simple homily, the rabbi admitted not knowing my father, and read a few touching e-mails friends had sent. At the gravesite, he coached me and my half-brothers line-by-line through the Kaddish. (A good thing, too \u2014 none of us knew any of it past the first line. We mumbled, \u201cYisgadal yisgadash, um, uh, mm, crap\u201d sounding for all the world like SNL\u2019s Frankenstein, Tonto and Tarzan.)<\/p>\n

But even though everyone did the rites right, it just didn\u2019t work. My dad had died too suddenly, and left us with too many mixed feelings. None of the rituals left anyone feeling less frazzled than before. One exception might have been my aunt, who exclaimed brightly, \u201cWell, I guess I\u2019m an only child now!\u201d<\/p>\n

The second funeral was for the head of my old parish\u2019s RCIA program. To the worst which-would-you-rather question \u2014 that is, to die a quick and messy death or a slow and lingering one \u2014 he\u2019d split the difference and had a quick and lingering death. In March, he was diagnosed with malignant melanoma; by April, he was gone.<\/p>\n

I hadn\u2019t known him very well, so I attended the service mostly as a voyeur. It was beautiful \u2014 the church was packed, which meant there must have been 400 people in attendance. As far as I can tell, everyone felt an unqualified affection for the man. His family seemed to love him, his community liked him, and I\u2019d always felt a solid admiration for him. I remember looking around and thinking, \u201cWow, this is the kind of legacy I\u2019d like to leave behind me.\u201d The statements of his son, his sister and I believe his wife \u2014 which did, at times, get a bit weepy \u2014 just reinforced that thought. Just to make it clear I\u2019m comparing apples to apples, everyone \u2014 not just the tourists like me \u2014 left the service looking vivified, and kept up that appearance through the luncheon that followed. <\/p>\n

If two guys had come out and performed a Tyrolean fish-slapping dance, I doubt it would have changed the mood one bit.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today in National Catholic Reporter, Michael Sean Winters writes that the Church is at her best at funerals. And by gum, he likes those funerals like he likes his booze \u2014 straight up, no umbrellas: Still less should those who have just lost a loved one be expected to devise an entire service. In the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nFuneral-Schmuneral, As Long As You Were Loved<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Today in National Catholic Reporter, Michael Sean Winters writes that the Church is at her best at funerals. 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