{"id":8060,"date":"2016-05-27T17:22:09","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T23:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8060"},"modified":"2016-05-30T22:20:57","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T04:20:57","slug":"thoughts-after-a-funeral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8060","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts after a Funeral"},"content":{"rendered":"

A member of my little rural volunteer fire department died last week at the age of 47.((It was not a line-of-duty death; other causes)) So the chief, the treasurer, and I put on our rarely worn dress uniforms for the funeral \u2014 M. came too \u2014 and we went off to a little rectangular funeral chapel in a nearby town for the “celebration of life.”<\/p>\n

The chief had quickly put together a quickie memorial display of an American flag in one of those triangular presentation boxes plus the man’s structural-fire helmet, which went onto the table with the urn and some other items, flanked by flowers and two easels holding collages of photographs. Pretty standard stuff these days.<\/p>\n

But along with that, you had people sitting in rows and whispering too each other. The building was too hot (aren’t they always?). The music was canned vaguely spiritual pop \u2014 the only lively tune was “Spirit in the Sky<\/a>” with its hard-driving opening chords \u2014 from way back in 1969.<\/p>\n

The rent-a-cleric gave a [put deceased’s names here] eulogy, tripping over the fact that while the man’s legal first name was “Larry,” most people there knew him as “Scott” or “Scotty.” (His business cards read “Larry ‘Scott’ Lastname.”)<\/p>\n

When the widow rose to speak \u2014 a tall, lanky woman clinging to the lectern for support, wracked by sobs \u2014 Scott’s mother rose and started waving her arms \u2014 the funeral director rushed up from the back of the chapel and led her away. She was not overcome by sadness, oh no, she apparently hates this woman, who was her son’s second wife.<\/p>\n

The older woman came by the fire station two days later, wondering if any of her son’s personal items were there (they were not). She said she was “not allowed” to go up to his house, which is up on a ridge further on up the road. After she left, we looked at each other, and the words “mother-in-law from hell” were heard.<\/p>\n

I ask that if I have a memorial service some day, there will be no recorded music. I think of these quasi-Protestant funeral-home services I have attended, where the rent-a-cleric sits on a bench gazing into the middle distance while some ghastly piece of “praise music” plays on cheap speakers.<\/p>\n

If I cannot have live music \u2014 a harper playing “O’Carolan’s Farewell to Music<\/a>” would be good \u2014 then just go straight to the fun part: “The evil bastard is dead \u2014 drink up!”\u00a0 Fire a volley to scare away ghosts. Please don’t sacrifice my dog(s). Then go home.<\/p>\n

Pagans, we need to do better than what I sat through last Tuesday. I know that some people are doing it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A member of my little rural volunteer fire department died last week at the age of 47.((It was not a line-of-duty death; other causes)) So the chief, the treasurer, and I put on our rarely worn dress uniforms for the funeral \u2014 M. came too \u2014 and we went off to a little rectangular funeral […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,96,34,5],"class_list":["post-8060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-death","tag-music","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-260","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2347,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2347","url_meta":{"origin":8060,"position":0},"title":"An Old-Fashioned Funeral","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In the southern Colorado town of Crestone, a woman gets an old-fashioned funeral. Belinda Ellis' farewell went as she wanted. One by one, her family placed juniper boughs and logs about her body, covered in red cloth atop a rectangular steel grate inside a brick-lined hearth. With a torch, her\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8019,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8019","url_meta":{"origin":8060,"position":1},"title":"Western Polytheists Have a Long Way to Go","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"For example, at our funerals, where are the dragon dancers? The all-female marching bands? The strippers? \"I want it to be boistrous. My father liked this kind of atmosphere.\" These Taiwanese make a New Orleans funeral look positively Lutheran. And it's much the same in mainland China, where the spicy-funeral\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"China\"","block_context":{"text":"China","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=china"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4147,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4147","url_meta":{"origin":8060,"position":2},"title":"Necrophilia: An Ancient Egyptian Tradition?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"This may be the worst sort of environmental determinism, but what is it with Egypt? Is there something in the Nile water? For centuries Egyptian Paganism seemed to function\u2014on one level\u2014as as sort of post office of the dead. All those mummified cats, ibises, crocodiles, etc. neatly stacked in little\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"death\"","block_context":{"text":"death","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=death"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":844,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=844","url_meta":{"origin":8060,"position":3},"title":"Cremation, public lands, and commerce","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Ladies in White, three women in Missoula, Montana, tried to start a business scattering human ashes--what the funeral industry calls \"cremains\"--on national forest land.The U.S. Forest Service doesn't like the idea, because they see a \"slippery slope\" towards permanent monuments:But the Forest Service has long had a firm policy against\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":497,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=497","url_meta":{"origin":8060,"position":4},"title":"The logistics of sacrifice (2)Part\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The logistics of sacrifice (2)Part 1Bard College is known for its Classics program. Somewhere on the Web there is a video clip transferred from film of 1930s students in ancient Greek costumes having an Olympic-style competition on the fieldhouse.This graphic series from Bard attempts to show the stages of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6240,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6240","url_meta":{"origin":8060,"position":5},"title":"Pentagram Pizza from Rome’s Enemy","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 The word went around last week of the passing of Jonas Trinkunas (1939\u20132014), founder of the revived Lithuanian Pagan group Romuva. This Lithuanian website has video of his funeral ceremony,\u00a0everyone in archaic ritual gear, lots of singing and drumming. (Video may be slow to load.) \u00b6 \"Perhaps the future\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Africa\"","block_context":{"text":"Africa","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=africa"},"img":{"alt_text":"pentagrampizza","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/pentagrampizza.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8060"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8091,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8060\/revisions\/8091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}