Mourn with those who mourn

The TV people on "Fox & Friends" were perplexed and offended by the Native American blessing offered at the memorial service Wednesday night in Tucson, Ariz.

Fox's Brit Hume seemed to mock the prayer's inclusion of blessing for other living creatures. Hume said, condescendingly, "While I'm sure that is an honorable tradition with his people, it was most peculiar." (See video courtesy of Jon Stewart.)

That just strikes me as an incredibly egocentric and petty response to a memorial service. When people gather to mourn, you mourn with them. It doesn't matter if you don't follow their customs, if their rituals make you uncomfortable, if you disagree with the content or the direction or the language or the very existence of their prayers. When people gather to mourn, you mourn with them. And you don't get to pick how they go about mourning.

If Brit Hume would like, he could arrange to host a seminar on comparative religion, a forum for discussing the merits and demerits of burning sage or blessing the four-legged creatures or turning to the four corners of the world. In such a forum he'd be free to tell us what sort of rituals, prayers or blessings he prefers, what sort of rituals, prayers and blessing he doesn't care for, and why.

But if Hume ever shows up at a funeral or a memorial service or any other gathering of mourners, his job there is to shut up and mourn with those who mourn.

It doesn't matter if you find the way they choose to mourn "most peculiar," or "strange" or "offensive." It doesn't matter if you don't agree with them. You're not there to agree with them, you're there to mourn with them.

If you don't know what's going on, try to do what those around you do — peek a little when they close their eyes and follow along as best you can. If they stand up, stand up. If they kneel, kneel. If they all start to sing the theme from The Smurfs while hopping on one foot and hugging each other, well, guess what? Sing their songs with them, chant their chants, dance their dances, mourn with them.

I have known evangelical Christians who will not attend Jewish funerals. They feel excluded at such events — excluded and attacked and, of course, offended. Most of the prayers at a Jewish funeral aren't even in English, after all. How can we be expected to pray along if we don't know what they're saying? And  — even more importantly — if we don't know what they're saying, how can we be expected to evaluate the content of their prayers for correctness and compliance with our own religious views?

That is, after all, our role in attending others' rituals of mourning or celebration, isn't it? To observe and evaluate whether their beliefs correspond and comply with our own — refusing to participate should those beliefs diverge from our own and perceiving all such divergence as a personal affront, an attack at which to take offense. Isn't that why we're there? Isn't that the whole point of the ritual — to provide us with something to criticize and to feel criticized by?

No. We're there to show them that we are at their side, that we are with them — that we will kneel with them today and will stand with them tomorrow.