How to die well

Lack of faith is no impediment to a decent death – or to helping another through theirs

Stand by me: Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort as cancer patients who fall in love, in The Fault In Our Stars.

By Johannes Klabbers

In the secular age you don’t need special authorisation to console a dying person. Just learning what it means to be there for someone is enough.

Death literacy” is officially a thing. People go to death cafés; books about death are in demand… and around 55 million people worldwide do it every year. But how do you actually do dying well? And who can dying people turn to for support?

Although I know exceptional doctors and nurses who can and do talk with patients about their looming demise, it is something that many don’t feel qualified to do.

Traditionally, expertise in dying was thought to be the remit of religion. The Catholic church recently revived their medieval handbook for dying people, Ars Moriendi, now illustrated with drawings of happy families rather than demons, like the original, and handily available in the form of a website: artofdyingwell.org.

But what are the options for atheists or agnostics today? When it comes to thinking about what it means to be mortal, many people find themselves in a kind of secular vacuum. But living a life without religion doesn’t mean that you have to be alone at the end.

As a secular pastoral carer, I learned that consoling a seriously ill and dying person is something that almost anyone can do, whatever their faith – or lack thereof. You don’t need a special qualification, or a badge, or permission from an authority figure, supernatural or otherwise, just your humanity and determination – and for the suffering person to want someone to be there with them.

The first crucial step is turning up. Too often, our anxiety about saying or doing the “wrong thing” leads us to decide not to visit someone. Offering to be there for someone, even if they decline – and they might – is never wrong. Being there for someone means giving your attention to the person not to their illness, and concentrating on listening, not on worrying about what to say.

You will need to accept that the dying person may not want to discuss their sadness and fears – at least at first. They may want to talk about the football or the latest episode of Bake Off. Or they may just need someone to sit with them in silence.

Remember that it is not unreasonable to feel awkward. You might feel uneasy in the setting, or be distressed by their appearance. But your job is to accept your discomfort and think beyond it. You can show sadness, but do not burden them with your grief. You may need to be supported and comforted yourself afterwards.

While there might not be any formal qualifications in death literacy with which you can arm yourself, there are a number of wonderful, entirely secular, books by brilliant writers who are in the process of dying or supporting dying people, from Jenny Diski’s In Gratitude (to Tom Lubbock) and Marion Coutt’s memoirs, which together form an awe-inspiring document of courage, humility and humanity.

There is a moment which perfectly illustrates how to console a dying person in the Dutch author Connie Palmen’s moving memoir Logbook, when her husband, a leading Dutch politician, lies dying. In a moment of lucidity he sits upright and exclaims, “I am sorry for my sins!”

“I absolve you,” Connie tells him.

Ultimately, our humanity is all the authority we need to offer consolation to dying people.

Complete Article HERE!

What to say to a dying person

A hospice chaplain offers some insight

By Rona Tyndall

[P]erhaps like I, you like to eat pizza and watch movies on Friday nights.

One night, I watched, “Cleaner.” Samuel L. Jackson plays a former police detective who owns a company that cleans up death scenes.
The opening scene takes place at his 30th high school reunion.  His former classmates are all standing around awkwardly with drinks, making small talk about what they’ve been doing for the past 30 years.  Someone asks The Cleaner what he does.   He responds with the utmost respect and compassion necessary for speaking an ugly truth,

“I handle the remnants of heartache and disappointment so that people can go about the business of healing. Most people don’t know this, but someone dies in your home, you are left to clean it up.”  

The classmates look confused.  The Cleaner shares in vivid detail, right down to the special mixture he invented from Listerine to un-coagulate blood.  Everyone is horrified; mouths agape, shifting from one foot to another, coughing nervously.  Noticing their discomfort, he tries to avert attention, asking one of the guys how things have been going for him for the last 30 years;

“Oh, married to the same woman since college, the kids are great, playing a little golf, just got a bigger house so my mother-in-law could move it.  It’s fine; she almost never leaves her room.  Some day she won’t come out.”
Then, a funny look of realization flits across his face and he says to the cleaner, “Um, can I have one of your cards?”  “Sure,” comes the response, “sooner or later, everyone needs us.”  One at a time, each person in the crowd steps forward for a card.

The opening scene touched me; it felt familiar.  People who deal with death know what it feels like to be a skunk at a lawn party.  

That’s pretty much how people react when I tell them I am a hospice chaplain; initial discomfort that such service is necessary, followed by the realization that almost everyone needs hospice care for themselves or a loved one eventually, and finally the realization that the person standing in front of them, who tends to the very deepest of sorrows, does so from a place of deep compassion and love. Then, they ask for my card.

Love, loss and longing…those are the themes that I work with every day in my ministry. 

I love my job, but the most frequent question I get asked is, “Isn’t it depressing?”  It isn’t.  It is sad, often, but not depressing.  Depression is isolating, lonely, hopeless.  Sadness (sorrow) is a point of deep connection, because as human beings, we all experience it at various points throughout our lives.  Joining in that emotion, and the emotions of love, loss and longing that drive sorrow (sadness) begets a deep heart-connection, one to another; the very antithesis of the isolation, loneliness and hopelessness of depression; the very essence of what it means to be in communion, in community, in common, with one another.

Do you know what people talk about when they are dying?  We talk about love; pretty much exclusively.  When we come to the end of our lives and the conversation has narrowed down to, “What was the point of me?” people reflect on love.  It is true that dying people never talk about the unfinished business at work.  We talk about the unfinished business in our intimate relationships.  We talk about the loves that made us whole; the loves that gave us joy and meaning and pride…and the loves that broke our hearts.  We talk about the ones that we loved well and the ones we forsook.  We talk about the intimate love of family and dear friends, and the love for humanity that compels us to reach out to strangers in our professional and private lives.

People are made for love.  We are made to love.  The measure of a life well-lived is always and only a person’s courage in loving.

But though our lives are meant to be a love story, we learn along the way that all love stories end in tragedy.  Whether through choice or through death, someone always is left to grieve. 

Leaving friends and family and home for school or work or marriage is a kind of a death.  Broken relationships are a death.  Divorce is a death.  The end of a life is a death.  The grief that goes with any death is heartbreaking.

Heartbreak hurts!  The feeling of ripping and then aching in our chest, the initial agony of waking up crying, being utterly consumed by the sense of loss, feeling hopeless. 

My eldest daughter loaned me a novel recently.  It was a light read.  Nevertheless, just as even the most simple people contain great wisdom, so does simple reading. 

“When you drop a glass of wine or a plate to the ground, it makes a loud crashing sound. When a window shatters, a table leg breaks, or a picture falls off the wall, it makes a noise.

“But as for your heart, when it breaks, it’s completely silent. You would think, as it’s so important, it would make the loudest noise in the whole word or even have some sort of ceremonious sound like the gong of a cymbal or the ringing of a bell. But it is silent and you almost wish there was a noise to distract you from the pain.” If You Could See Me Now by Celia Ahern

Isn’t that the truth?

When a heart breaks, it is completely silent. But loss is the price we pray for living into our purpose, which is to love.  Love, loss, longing; they are all of one piece.  Life.

In the months following my nephew, Mark’s sudden death at aged 7, none of us could have ever imagined that his parents would smile again.  But then, unexpectedly, like a rainbow arching over the deep, wild, mysterious ocean, something struck my sister-in-law funny one night at dinner, and she laughed.  We never stopped missing Mark, of course. His life and his love and his death shaped our lives and expanded our souls.  But his mother’s laughter was testimony that there is yet hope and joy and life to be had after loss.  Something good is always waiting to be had, eventually.  The resiliency of the human spirit is extraordinary.  The human capacity to hope beyond hope is truly amazing.

Every day, I keep company with men and women and children who are dying and with their families.  It can be a time of profound grace, even in the midst of deep sorrow. Time to look back, pay honor to, and close out a life is precious time. 

There are four phrases that chaplains often offer to people who are dying and to those they love the most, to facilitate sacred conversations:

  • “I love you.”
  • “I am sorry for what has gone wrong between us.”
  • “I ask your forgiveness for the part I had in any hurt between us.
  • “I thank you for your role in my life.”

There is no need to wait for such sacred conversations.  We can have them at any time, and be blessed by the sharing.    

I leave you with a reflection on love, from Dr. Peter Kreeft, from “The Turn of the Clock”

“What to say to a dying person: the profoundest thing you can ever say to a dying person is: I love you.  Not even God ever said anything more profound than that.”

Complete Article HERE!

The Role Of Mindfulness In End Of Life Care

by vimhsadmin

Mindfulness assists people with their end of life process by giving them and their caregivers a tool they can use in order to be fully aware of the present moment and their own physical and mental states

[T]he Venerable Yin Kit (pictured above) has spent decades in hospitals, hospices, and homes, assisting people through their death. Through these experiences, her understanding of how to compassionately and wisely care for those dying and their families has changed as a result of constantly reflecting on what she experiences and what she learns as a Buddhist nun living in the West in the 21st century.

The end of life is a transformation from one physical existence to another existence. Similarly, mindfulness is a transformation of one mental existence into another mental existence.

Emphasis on mindfulness

Buddhist teachings have always emphasized the contemplation of death; a subject that engenders so much fear and worry for many. Mindfulness can take on a role  that  compliments advanced medical technology in end of life (EOL) care.

Mindfulness assists people with their end of life process by giving them and their caregivers a tool they can use in order to be fully aware of the present moment and their own physical and mental states. This allows them to settle into each moment and open up to a wider vision of the future.

With mindfulness, a dying person not only sees their physical changes, but also how their mind influences the perception and experience of their waning body. With an aware and balanced mind, a person is more able to cope with the vicissitudes and challenges that come with this stage of life and be at peace with these experiences. This in turns greatly helps to console the family, friends and care-givers.

Mindfulness also assists in opening pathways for healing relationships and positive life reviews. One can be more receptive and capable of planning for, dealing with and understanding the constantly changing physical and mental experiences and in the end, one’s own death.

The role of mindfulness in end of life care

Venerable Yin Kit speaks at The End of Life: Dying, Suicide, Death conference in Vancouver, November 2016

Venerable Yin Kit spoke about the role of mindfulness in end-of-life care at Simon Fraser University’s Vancouver campus on November 3, 2016. She was also a participant in a “praxis panel” that included Rabbi Laura D. Kaplan, veterinarian Dr. Jeff Berkshire, and counselor Hilda Fernandez.

Venerable Yin Kit, also known as “Sister Jessie”, has been a Buddhist nun since 1992 and is the spiritual leader of Po Lam Buddhist Association in Chilliwack, B.C. She is involved in leading numerous workshops teaching hospice care and hospital spiritual care in Hong Kong and in Canada. The Venerable is also the advisor to the Hong Kong SPGA Hospice program.

In 2005, Venerable Yin Kit established the Compassionate Centre for Health, a service for the Chinese-speaking community in the Greater-Vancouver area. This group has grown to over fifty active volunteers who visit senior homes and palliative care units at several sites. The Venerable has spent decades in hospitals, hospices, and homes, assisting people through their death. Through these experiences, her understanding of how to compassionately and wisely care for those dying and their families has changed as a result of constantly reflecting on what she experiences and what she learns as a Buddhist nun living in the West in the 21st century.

Dr. Jeff Birkshire, Rabbi Laura Kaplan, Venerable Yin Kit Sik, and moderator Hilda Fernandez
on the Praxis Panel at The End of Life: Dying, Suicide, Death (November 2016)

The End of Life: Dying, Suicide, Death

Simon Fraser University’s Institute for the Humanities hosted a conference in November 2016 called The End of Life: Dying, Suicide, Death. The conference was intended to provide space for pondering the complex and agonizing decisions regarding the end of life. Space for such conversations is especially needed given the 2015 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada declaring that the prohibition on physician-assisted dying infringes upon Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the introduction of Bill C-14 which has resulted in debate about who, when and in what circumstances an individual may make such a decision.

Speakers included academics, graduate students and practitioners who spoke from their own particular perspectives: legal, ethical, medical, and spiritual or religious. The presentations also drew upon insights from literature and art, some of humanity’s most treasured resources.

Complete Article HERE!

How funeral traditions differ across Abrahamic religions

Funeral practices are deeply integrated in culture, reflecting beliefs and values around death. Offering an index of religion, funeral traditions in Abrahamic religions bear quite different stages as well as certain similarities

 

An Islamic funeral in Pakistan

By AYŞE BETÜL KAYAHAN

[H]aving become a subject of philosophy, psychology, sociology as much as it has of anthropology and theology, mortality has always been a matter of interest throughout history as well in the present day. There is even a scientific field named “thanatology,” the science of death.

The anthropology of death brings us the very different funerary customs that have been in practice throughout history.

To start with a common example, ancient Egyptians used to embalm the deceased and built giant pyramids to house the embalmed bodies of their kings and pharaohs. Other interesting burial traditions include those of the ancient Greeks, recorded in anthropological records or literary works like those in Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey.”

As far as can be understood from historical accounts telling about the funeral of Attila the Hun, ancient Turks used to show their grief by hurting themselves. Before the 6th century, Turks were burning the deceased with their belongings and horses, and keeping the ashes to bury in autumn or spring. Certain Chinese and Arabic accounts report that it was the Kirghiz people who were the first Turks to burn the body. However, it was after this century that Turks began to bury their deceased.

In Iran, dead bodies used to be buried before the arrival of Mazdaism (Zoroastrianism). Fire, soil, air and the water are considered as sacred in Mazdaism and the body must not pollute any of these four elements. There was no burning or burying but the deceased used to be abandoned outside. The same tradition was visible among the Sasanians, as they used to abandon the dead outside and bury the separated bones and flesh in a special containers called “Ossuarium” later on. Today modern Mazdaists bury their deceased. “Burial customs always have been an index of religion,” American scholar Richard Nelson Frye says.

According to Abrahamic religions, Islam, Judaism and Christianity, the appropriate way is to bury the deceased. It is believed that Cain (Qabil), the eldest son of Adam killed his brother Abel (Habil) and committed the first crime of murder. It was the first death on the earth and the first burial. It is still observed that Muslim and Jewish communities bury deceased people as a funerary custom following the order of the Quran and Torah. Cremation and embalming are strictly forbidden by Islam and Judaism. In both religions, burials take place as quickly as possible to honor the dead. Jews never hold a funeral on “Shabbat,” while there is no similar restriction in Islam.

Muslims and Jews prepare the body for burial by washing the body with warm water from head to feet. Jews call this process “Tahara.” Muslims apply “ghusl,” or the ritual of ablution. While washing, the body can be turned from one side to another to entirely clean it but it is never placed face down. In Islam and Judaism, the body is dressed in white burial shrouds and put in a simple wooden casket. Men prepare men and women prepare women.

In Islam, a person who is about to die is expected to say the “Shahada,” or the testimony of faith, which translates to, “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” His family or close friends should encourage him to say it because it is regarded as one of the first pillars of Islam.

When the person dies, those present close the deceased’s eyes and cover the body with a clean sheet. Someone is expected to read the Quran. As soon as the “ghusl” and shrouding are done, the deceased’s coffin is taken to the mosque for the funeral prayer “Salat al-Janazah,” which is a communal duty among Muslims.

The deceased person is put in front of the imam and the community behind him faces to the “qibla,” the direction of Mecca, in the courtyard of the mosque. When the prayer ends, the casket should be transported to the cemetery for burial. The body should be placed in the grave on its right side, facing the qibla. A layer of wood is placed over the corpse and then the soil is filled. Following the burial service, the family of the deceased accepts visitors at home.

On the other hand, Jewish funerals take place at synagogues. A Jew who is a Cohen, a descendant of the priestly class, does not join the burial unless the deceased is a close relative since he is forbidden to come near the corpse. A Cohen is commanded to be in state of purity and avoid ritual defilement by a corpse which is ritually unclean.

Women wear conservative apparel and men wear jackets in dark color. The service is held by the rabbi and begins by cutting a black ribbon to symbolize the person’s leaving loved ones.

After the funeral service, people go to the cemetery where men carry the casket. With prayers, the deceased is put in the grave with the casket. Mourners tear their garments as an expression of grief, which is called “keriah.” They keep on doing it during the first mourning process called “shiva” which lasts seven days. In “shiva” mourners keep the traditions such as covering mirrors and lighting candles. People visit the home of bereaved. There the “kaddish” prayer is recited.

Once a Catholic dies, the priest visits the home with a cross and a vessel of holy water to sprinkle over the deceased’s body. There is no washing or bathing but embalming is acceptable. It is also an appropriate way for the viewing and wake and vigil, which is a period of spending time with deceased before the funeral service at home or a funeral home. Relatives and friends of the deceased come, praying and sharing the grief of the immediate family. This is the most appropriate time to eulogize as the “Requiem Mass” (Catholic Church service) does not permit eulogies.

During the wake, the body is put on display in a casket. When the casket is brought to the church, the priest leads the funeral mass. Holy water is sprinkled and there is an opening song and prayer, and a sermon takes place from the Bible and a psalm. When the mass is completed the coffin is taken to the graveyard for the rite of committal.

For Eastern Orthodox Christians, there are differences in the funeral service compared to Catholics. When an Orthodox is about to die, the priest should be there to hear the final confession and administer the “Holy Communion” to the person. The first step is preparing the body that includes washing and clothing. When the body is bathed and dressed, the priest sprinkles the holy water on the four sides of the casket before the body is placed inside. The priest reads the first “Panikhida” (a prayer service). The wake lasts three days and during this, the “Psalter” (The book of Psalms) is read out loud by family and friends.

After this, the body is brought to a church in a form of procession led by the cross. There the coffin is opened and a bowl of “Koliva” (a dish of boiled wheat with honey) is placed with a candle on top, symbolizing the cyclical nature of life and the sweetness of heaven. A cross is placed in the deceased’s hand. Lit candles are distributed to those present in the funeral. The priest leads the “Divine Liturgy,” and recites “Memory Eternal.” Although saying goodbye differs in every society, from the preparation of the deceased to the disposal, the arrangements and funeral services in between actually show us all these funerary customs are important as much as for the bereaved of the deceased. The importance given to funerals is universal for honoring the deceased and consoling and sharing the pain of loss as well at the end of the day.

Complete Article HERE!

Americans want assisted suicide

Rev. Nancy Butler

On Wednesday the Rev. Nancy Butler of Riverside Family Church in Hartford died voluntarily. For two years she had been suffering the debilitating effects of ALS even as she continued to pastor the evangelical church she established in 2008 as “theologically open minded, diverse, empowering women and affirming of LGBT people.”

The letter she wrote to her flock last week begins:

I have decided to go off my feeding tube and vent this week and . . . how should I put it . . . die. I knew my suffering would reach this tipping point and caring for me would become impossibly demanding. What I didn’t know was whether or not God would want me to suck it up for some unseen purpose or end my life this way.

I am a little surprised God is confirming this decision. Nice to know He isn’t a sadist. He is oh so tender right now. He tells me my work is done and it’s the right time to come home.

Having a feeding tube removed does not legally count as assisted suicide, but we shouldn’t be fooled by the passive voice. Someone took the tube out, very likely a medical professional. Nancy Butler died of her own will, with assistance.

So did my mother Bernice, who consulted with her internist before deciding to stop eating and drinking six years ago. She was facing a painful death from peritoneal cancer and chose instead to end her life voluntarily. That was not, technically, assisted suicide either.

Assisted suicide is defined as “knowingly and intentionally providing a person with the knowledge or means or both required to commit suicide, including counseling about lethal doses of drugs, prescribing such lethal doses or supplying the drugs.”

Most Americans have no problem with that, so long as the person is facing a painful terminal disease. Indeed, according to a new study from LifeWay Research, fully two-thirds of them find it morally acceptable.

To be sure, a moral distinction can be drawn between providing a person with a lethal drug and withholding or withdrawing treatment or sustenance. But it’s a distinction without a difference, as far as most are concerned.

The moral issue, it seems, is not how death comes about but whether the terminally ill get to choose. The answer, increasingly, is yes. That goes for 70 percent of American Catholics, whose church has worked hard and with some success to prevent state approval of assisted suicide laws.

“The concept of physician-assisted suicide is a major affront to the teachings of the church,” Michael C. Culhane, executive director of the Connecticut Catholic conference, said last year.

But as a matter of public policy, the argument ought to be prudential. Will terminally ill persons be hustled into the next world without their really wanting to be?

The best empirical evidence we have in the U.S. comes from Oregon, where assisted suicide became legal in 1998. Since then, the annual number of legally sanctioned suicides has risen from 16 to 132, with a doubling since 2010.

That’s under four percent of Oregonians who died last year. Of them, 77 percent were dying of malignant cancers and 9 percent had ALS — as has been the case throughout the history of assisted suicide in the state.

I know that my mother chose what she wanted, and I’m confident that Nancy Butler did too. I’m with most other Americans in not wanting to stand in the way of those terminally ill persons who choose to do the same by way of lethal prescription. I cannot speak for God.

Complete Article HERE!

Ancient Americans Mutilated Corpses in Funeral Rituals

By Tia Ghose

A skull exhumed from the Lapa do Santo cave in Brazil shows evidence of modification such as tooth removal. Hundreds of remains from the site show that beginning around 10,000 years ago, ancient inhabitants used an elaborate set of rituals surrounding death.
A skull exhumed from the Lapa do Santo cave in Brazil shows evidence of modification such as tooth removal. Hundreds of remains from the site show that beginning around 10,000 years ago, ancient inhabitants used an elaborate set of rituals surrounding death.

Ancient people ripped out teeth, stuffed broken bones into human skulls and de-fleshed corpses as part of elaborate funeral rituals in South America, an archaeological discovery has revealed.

The site of Lapa do Santo in Brazil holds a trove of human remains that were modified elaborately by the earliest inhabitants of the continent starting around 10,000 years ago, the new study shows. The finds change the picture of this culture’s sophistication, said study author André Strauss, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

“In reconstructing the life of past populations, human burials are highly informative of symbolic and ritual behavior,” Strauss said in a statement. “In this frame, the funerary record presented in this study highlights that the human groups inhabiting east South America at 10,000 years ago were more diverse and sophisticated than previously thought.” [See Images of the Mutilated Skeletons at Lapa do Santo]

The site of Lapa do Santo, a cave nestled deep in the rainforest of central-eastern Brazil, shows evidence of human occupation dating back almost 12,000 years. Archaeologists have found a trove of human remains, tools, leftovers from past meals and even etchings of a horny man with a giant phallus in the 14,000-square-foot (1,300 square meters) cave. The huge limestone cavern is also in the same region where archaeologists discovered Luzia, one of the oldest known human skeletons from the New World, Live Science previously reported.

In the 19th century, naturalist Peter Lund first set foot in the region, which harbors some of the oldest skeletons in South America. But although archaeologists have stumbled upon hundreds of skeletons since then, few had noticed one strange feature: Many of the bodies had been modified after death.

In their recent archaeological excavations, Strauss and his colleagues took a more careful look at some of the remains found at Lapa do Santo. They found that starting between 10,600 and 10,400 years ago, the ancient inhabitants of the region buried their dead as complete skeletons.

But 1,000 years later (between about 9,600 and 9,400 years ago), people began dismembering, mutilating and de-fleshing fresh corpses before burying them. The teeth from the skulls were pulled out systematically. Some bones showed evidence of having been burned or cannibalized before being placed inside another skull, the researchers reported in the December issue of the journal Antiquity.

“The strong emphasis on the reduction of fresh corpses explains why these fascinating mortuary practices were not recognized during almost two centuries of research in the region,” Strauss said.

The team has not uncovered any other forms of memorial, such as gravestones or grave goods. Instead, the researchers said, it seems that this strict process of dismemberment and corpse mutilation was one of the central rituals used by these ancient people in commemorating the dead.

Complete Article HERE!

Humanist funerals: Finding meaning without God

humanist-funerals

[I]t’s no secret that British society has become decidedly less religious over the last 50 or so years. According to research by NatCen, just under half of adults in England and Wales define themselves as having no religion.

The funeral has traditionally been a religious affair, with a great proportion of the service dedicated to prayer and worship. But now, in a more secular age, humanist funerals are beginning to emerge as a popular choice for those who don’t follow a religion.

What is humanism?

“Humanism is a life philosophy, an umbrella term for atheist, agnostic and non-religious people,” explains Isabel Russo, head of ceremonies at the British Humanist Association. “Atheism can be seen as a very negative life stance by some, but humanism is a very positive life stance. It is based on the philosophy and the belief that we can be good without God.

“It’s a thought-through position that the meaning of life is to be happy and to help others be happy. We live by the golden rule ‘do unto others what you would have done to yourself’. It is a positive outlook on how you can be a moral, ethical person without any supernatural being guiding your behaviour.”

What is a humanist funeral?

“In religious funerals, God is in the spotlight, but in the humanist funeral God is absent,” Isabel explains. “Instead, the spotlight is on the person who has died. The funeral is centred around them, around their life, around the people who were important to them. The funeral acknowledges their life in all its light and dark, in all its glory.

“Humanist funerals can be a lot more frank in a way. We can be honest about the challenges that person faced and acknowledge their journey, whether they overcame those challenges or not, because not overcoming those challenges makes them human.

“We’re not deifying that person, we’re not trying to save their immortal souls, or to commit them to God and make them worthy of God. We say, ‘This is the person we loved, these are their achievements, these are the people they cared about, these are the things that made them laugh, these are the things that made them cry, these are the challenges they faced.’ So, really it’s about remembering the person in a really whole way.”

Can a humanist funeral be meaningful without God?

If you are used to attending religious funerals, you might be unsure whether a funeral without mention of an afterlife can be as meaningful. But, Isabel says, there is powerful meaning in the act of saying goodbye and remembering the life of the person who has died:

“The challenge of a humanist funeral, but where it is also successful, is being able to walk the line of being a genuinely sad occasion, where you are acknowledging that you are really letting go of someone – because we don’t believe that we’ll see them in heaven again – and at the same time remembering who they were for us, and who they’ll always be for us.

“Of course, for a religious person it will always lack that ultimate meaning for them, because God isn’t mentioned. We would never want to do a humanist service for someone who is religious. We want everyone to have the ceremony that is right for them. However, for a non-religious person it does have that ultimate meaning, because for them life is about life itself, not the afterlife.”

That said, Isabel says that a humanist funeral can be a meaningful experience for religious mourners who attend. She told us about a funeral she conducted for a man who was an out-and-out atheist, but whose wife was religious.

“There were people who were religious who spoke in the service, and there was nobody who came up to me at the end and said it wasn’t meaningful. Everybody, including the religious people, said, ‘That was so meaningful, that was so him, you allowed us the space to laugh and to cry, and to reconnect with who he was for us.’ In a funeral ceremony we always give time for reflection which, we explain, can always be used as time for private prayer.”

Humanist funerals often incorporate elements of ‘alternative’ funeral ideas, such as bright colours, weird and wonderful themes, and other non-traditional aspects such as balloon releases, eco-friendly burials and fireworks. But this doesn’t mean the funeral services are frivolous or light-hearted. On the contrary, the meaningfulness of saying goodbye is central to the humanist service.

“We’re very much in support of that creativity, but also in support of it being rooted in the profound experience of saying goodbye,” Isabel says. “It’s even more important for humanists, because we don’t believe we’re going to be meeting them again in the afterlife. You really are saying goodbye.”

“In a religious ceremony you’re committing the person to God, but in a non-religious ceremony, we like to see it as you’re committing that person’s memory to your heart. That is not to say that it can’t be full of joy, and laughter, and bright colours, but it’s just always remembering that at the heart of it, it’s a very profound thing you are doing.”

How to plan a humanist funeral

If you’re considering a non-religious funeral for your loved one, Isabel recommends working with a humanist celebrant you can trust. Currently there is no regulatory body overseeing the training and accreditation of humanist celebrants, but organisations such as the British Humanist Association have their own quality assurance and training programmes for celebrants.

“The world of funerals and death is just opening so much more, which is great,” Isabel says. “People have more choice now, so I would encourage people to shop around. You can ask questions and find the person who is right for you.”

Your funeral director will be able to help you get in touch with a non-religious celebrant, or you can find an accredited humanist celebrant near you via the British Humanist Association’s website.

Complete Article HERE!