I want to close my October series on change and awareness of death with a discussion on death. I worked in the church in a variety of capacities for twenty years. I was fortunate enough to preach on two funerals during this time and was with several families as they said goodbye to loved ones.
My first funeral sermon, however, was a tense one. My first daughter was born in December of 2002. While on our visit home for the holidays, she had a febrile seizure that sent her to Buffalo Children’s Hospital for a week. She turned out fine, she is 22 now, almost done with college. The challenge of this time was that I was due back in Ohio for a winter class on preaching.
Alone, I drove home leaving my infant daughter and wife in Buffalo. On the second day of class, we had to pick a sermon topic from a hat. I unfortunately picked a funeral sermon for an infant. I still remember the stunned look on my classmates and the quiet of the room as I announced my pick. My professor offered to let me pick again, but I chose to press on, knowing that ministry and life would have its challenges. I do not remember what exactly I preached on, though I do remember using a scripture verse that I was told was not a normal funeral verse and that I got a good grade on the sermon. Thus began my unconventional view of what death is and how we talk about it.
Simply, I offer two things around death, 1. death is the end of new meaning and 2. the person who has passed never “existed” until you/they came into your/their life and meaning was created. Sure, there are shared memories among those who knew the deceased, but only you have your experience of that person.
Kubler – Ross
I would be remiss if I offered a blog about death and dying without discussing our patron saint of death and dying, Elisabeth Kubler – Ross.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was a Swiss-American psychiatrist, a pioneer in near-death studies, and author of the internationally best-selling book, On Death and Dying, where she first discussed her theory of the five stages of grief, also known as the “Kubler-Ross model”.
My biggest pet peve is with people who talk about this model being linear. This was not Kubler- Ross’s intention and in reality, it is circular. The model was designed for terminally ill patients and eventually was appropriate for the overall process of grief. It is as follows:
- Denial – “No, not me, it cannot be true”
- Anger – “Why me?”
- Bargaining – attempting to postpone death with “good behavior”
- Depression – when reacting to their illness, and preparing for their death
- Acceptance – “The final rest before the long journey”
In being diagnosed with a terminal illness or the loss of loved one, experience or object, we can all go through these stages once, twice or many more times. In researching for this series, I found some countries that grief is lifelong.
Seneca on Grief
Seneca was a Stoic philosopher who writes several commentaries about grief and death. While people associate Stoics with the suppressing of emotions, Seneca surprises us by calling for the matter of managing these emotions in a measured and reasonable manner. Seneca isn’t calling for an attempt to alleviate the sting of death and grieving. He simply offers a question, should grief and emotions in general be deep or unceasing?
Seneca also offers these thoughts:
“No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it” (Seneca, Letter IV on the Terrors of Death)
“I am endeavoring to live every day as if were a complete life” (Letter LXI – on Meeting Death Cheerfully) and “Before I became old, I tried to live well; now that I am old, I shall try to die well; but dying well means dying gladly.”
“For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years be behind us are in death’s hands.” Nothing is ours, except time.” (Letter to Lucillius) (make the days count, don’t count the days).
The New Orleans Celebration of Death Teaches us that Life is a Burden
Death in New Orleans is a celebration of life, it is a homegoing ceremony. In the several bedsides I attended as a pastor, this always seemed to be the case. I remember one bedside I was called to. We were going to a prenatal appointment when I was alerted that one of my parishioners had fallen and was in the ICU, there was not much hope in recovery and the family had decided to turn off the machines keeping the person alive. They wanted a pastor to be there with the family. After the appointment, my wife dropped me off at the hospital and I would end up celebrating around 12 hours with the family while we waited for death to arrive. It would not actually arrive for another three days. The stories and the laughter that were told made those twelve hours fly by.
There are many ways to celebrate death, but in New Orleans the notion of how they celebrated death struck me. In process of mourning, mourners are reminded that grief can be shared. Influenced by African, Caribbean, and Indigenous cultures, these cultures have their fingers are wrapped around the understanding of life and all its cycles. An experience in the funeral proceedings known as the second line brings its lungs, its breath, and its room for anyone wanting a place to grieve their losses, no matter how amorphous or distant. Rather than a quiet funeral parlor, with mourners in stuffy suits and children fidgeting uncomfortably, a brass band plays, parasols swirl and parade led by a grand marshal in a loud suit leads the procession. Here they grieve not only for the life lost but also celebrates the life lived.
There feels like a lot to learn from this experience of mourning. It was scary to have my daughter in the hospital as an infant and certainly I did not want her to die, but a strange peace was with me in the fact that she was in my life in the first place. I had a similar experience with my second daughter years later. I honestly believed then as I do now, God will provide whatever answer needs to arise regardless of my clinging to my own feelings.
If You are Grieving
Death is painful and hard. Sometimes we don’t get to experience good death. I have been on the receiving end of a lot of painful stories of traumatic painful stories. If you are going through the grieving process, the spiritual practice of You is one to consider practicing. Each of us is a work-in-progress. The spiritual practice of you challenges us to become all we are meant to be as God’s beloved sons and daughters.
The spiritual practice of meaning can help us through the times of loss. Getting comfortable with the question “why?” and finding qualified guides to help us navigate through the absurdity of loss will aid in our practice of making us better versions of us.
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