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Funeral ceremony and ritual.

13:15 / 06.05.03

I’ve been thinking about the ceremony and ritual of occasions such as funerals. At my Dad’s funeral we had a Secular service. There was a hearse and 5 cars following and as we were driving to the crematorium I saw that the funeral director was standing in the middle of the roundabout, stopping all the traffic to let the cortege through. He had a black cloak on, a big cane which he was holding and he was wearing a top hat. All the traffic stopping and him standing there in his sombre outfit made me think how fitting and right, and more importantly proper that it should happen that way, and I started wondering about why I felt like that.

Why is the pomp and ceremony so important to us even in a non-religious service? What is it about people that makes us behave like this? The ritual of the cortege, stopping the traffic, etc. Why do we feel that everyone else must acknowledge the solemnity of the occasion, and why were all the people in their cars (who were obviously busy and on their way to work or whatever,) so accepting in the fact that they had to sit and wait? They didn’t know my Dad, so it can’t be about mourning or grieving.

13:51 / 06.05.03

It is fitting and right to honor the grief of others. It is proper to give them space and time and privacy, to give them a moment's piece from worrying about the bloody traffic for a moment, at least—I mean, when you're driving to a funeral you've got enough on your mind; you don't need the added worry of getting in a fender-bender.

It's a codification of human empathy. We may not have known your Dad, but we all know what it's like to lose someone—and so we honor that, we respect that, and we do not complain, because we know that one day our time will come to be in that procession behind someone we love, and in time we'll be the one lying in the back of the hearse.

It's John Donne's beautiful and justly famous meditation: (paraphrased slightly) "No man is an island, entire unto itself—every man is a part of the continent: and just as, if a clod is washed tothe sea, so Europe is the less, any man's death diminishes me; because I am involved with mankind."

I think that the ritual of stopping traffic for the cortege began, like many rituals, as a formalization of something that people did anyway, more or less instinctively: just as the preparation and eating of food (which is the most basic and primal of human needs) has evolved all sorts of culturally significant ceremonies around it, so the burial of the dead. These rituals don't serve any physical need, it's true—but they allow us to exercise our fellow-feeling, and as such they serve an important function in keeping us sane and compassionate: the heart is a muscle, after all, and it atrophies if it is not exercised.

On my good days, I like to think that even without a funeral director to orchestrate the public show of respect for the grieving, people would do it spontaneously.

14:10 / 06.05.03

Here's a question I've argued about a bunch of times - a relative of a friend of mine had requested to be cremated when he died. His immediate family, however, did not accede to his wishes but rather, had him embalmed and buried.

What (moral or legal) right do you have over the disposal of your body, one you're dead, and what (moral or legal) rights do your family have? If your family would feel better to put you in the ground than burn you up, for whatever reason (tradition or religion, perhaps), are they within their moral rights to do so?

I tend to side with the family - in that the ritual of the funeral is for the benefit of the family, whatever eases their grief more is appropriate. However, i can see how some would find the violation of the deceased's wishes to be a horrible crime.

15:28 / 08.05.03

A few days ago i passed the old Church of England church in my village just as a horse-drawn cortege pulled up. I couldn't help but stop and watch silently - despite not knowing who's funeral i had come across. I felt quite strange when i realised i had stopped walking, wondered if perhaps my observation had been rude, or what the family might have thought of this staring stranger on the other side of the road.

I think my reaction, and the reaction of those drivers who peacefully waited in your story, is natural, and should be cherished. Just as birth is miraculous and natural, so to is death. I think that too often in this age we have so much to think about that we overlook the natural and persistant ebb and flow of human life, and when suddenly confronted by the reality of passing we become connected for a moment.

Just as Jack said, even if we did not know the person whose funeral we witness, we are reminded of our own losses, and this in itself is, i believe, worth stopping traffic for.

Love & light xx

Tryphena Absent

23:12 / 08.05.03

It's a natural reaction, a need for ritual in the face of death, passion, empathy and respect. The thing about a funeral is that you don't need to feel weird if you stop and watch because grief is something that requires recognition. I've ridden in a number of funeral processions, all but one were those of people close to me, and felt some kind of satisfaction (perhaps I'm perverse?) that people do pay attention, do understand that you don't intrude but can watch from afar and recognise that something traumatic has happened. It strikes me as sad that we've lost so many traditions that relate to death- closing the curtains as the hearse goes by and wearing black for a set period of time afterwards- I believe that these particular rituals are those that make our respective cultures civil.