Why I Like a Good Funeral
There are good and bad funerals. I’ve learned that on the job and what I’ve learned is helping me get through this never-ending pandemic.
I sat on the altar watching and thinking, “Who says that in a eulogy?“
He stood behind the lectern. Facing the people in the pews. And in case any of us missed it he said it again, “Motherfucker!” This time glancing over at me. Expecting, I suppose, disapproval or at least shock. I smiled.
This was not my first rodeo and people do weird things when people die. I did raise one eyebrow, something to absorb the instantaneous reaction of the room, an intake of breath, and collective seizing of the jaw. Discomfort has to go somewhere and WASPs try hard not to get emotional.
Wealthy, educated, older churchgoers also like their traditional norms in social situations such as a church funeral for a well-known and respected matriarch. No one expected motherfucker, no one liked motherfucker, and most importantly, no one knew what to do with motherfucker.
Except me. The priest. Here’s what you do. Nothing. You just let it be. Because, as I said and as I’ve learned, people do weird things when people die. I have seen it. Well, actually it’s more like I bear witness to it. I’m sure you’ve done that too with a person in the depths of loss. You don’t look away when they say the wrong thing, or offer up some stupid cliché about God and heaven and angels when they ask questions that have no answer. You stand or sit beside them and let them be and do whatever they need to do because grief is overwhelming.
That guy needed to say, motherfucker. By the way, it was his mother’s funeral but that’s beside my point. I have walked alongside people in grief many, many times. And when my sister ended her life several years ago, I walked through grief myself and it forever changed how I “do” funerals as a priest. At her funeral, I surprised myself and did something on the altar the priest didn’t expect, though nothing nearly as sacrilege. I sang, “Amazing Grace.” Because at that moment I knew she would have wanted me to. That priest, God bless him, let it be and bore witness. Which allowed everyone else to do the same and sing with me. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.
You see, that was a good funeral. There are good funerals and bad ones. Let’s not spend time talking about the bad ones, ok? Suffice to say at their best they are performative, at their worst just plain awkward. But the qualities that make for a good funeral, in my professional and personal opinion, offer some really helpful insights for right now. It helps me to view my life through the lens of a sacred ritual sometimes. Invites me to take a long view. Encourages me to take care of myself. Helps me stay focused on what really matters and needs to get done even with all the anxiety, transition, death, and grief.
In a good funeral, everyone feels held. I don’t know how else to explain it. If I pay attention to my job to lead the service with intention and presence, everyone else starts to do the same. Like anxiety, calm is contagious. In my training, I was told you have to learn to be a non-anxious presence. It takes work (and a lot of therapy) but it’s real. You might know this from a time when you had an internal peace even though everything around you was crazy. Every spiritual tradition, or mindfulness school, teaches ways to cultivate this part of ourselves. It just takes practice. I have never leaned so heavily on the practices, tools, apps, and books that remind me and encourage me to keep this up right now. It helps me stay focused, centered, and able to do one thing at a time, one day at a time. Like, write this post.
In a good funeral, you are aware that you are in a time set apart. A little like when you're on vacation and you dread going back to “the real world.” In a good funeral, hopefully, you’ve turned off your phone and have stepped out of the Google calendar of life to just be. I do this more, now. Turn off my phone, my feeds, to step out of time and just be.
Because in a good funeral I remember what matters in this one wild and precious life (thanks Mary Oliver). It is not a cliché. Love, connection, joy, hope, yadda, yadda, yadda because you know what matters too. It’s a weird gift of my job to be thankful for the work of death in my life. That even though I am doing a service for others it also strengthens me. I did a funeral on my birthday last week. A friend said they were sorry. But I told her, it’s really not that bad to do something for others that reminds me of what’s important in my life as I start another year. This year.
We are living through something of life-changing importance. I want to be present to that reality. And I want to hold on to what is good. A good funeral holds the space for grief and laughter and four-letter words, even when they are twelve letters long. Just like a good and meaningful life.