Pay for Care Initiative

The Institute is excited to launch its Pay for Care Initiative. The objective of this campaign is to decrease the cost of funerals and wasteful consumption, while also supporting those individuals whose care has been sought by families. This first step in the restructuring of deathcare allows organizations to collaborate with funeral homes, while also establishing fixed costs and the ability to institute a system of checks-and-balances. I’m including the Initiative below, and it is also available on the website as a downloadable document (see “publications”). Please share your thoughts.

Pay for Care Initiative

The Institute on Religious Deathcare and Spiritual Healing proposes that congregations and hospices collaborate with local funeral homes, when appropriate and the need present, to assist with deathcare. IRDSH’s proposed plan for strategical collaboration has many positive components for all parties involved, and we encourage these collaborations nationwide and hope government assistance will endorse such actions.

Currently: The average funeral, as of 2004, costs $6,500 not including cemetery costs. The majority of this cost is for products purchased, not services offered.

Alternatively: IRDSH proposes that Funeral Directors earn their livelihood from care requested by families rather than products consumed. In other words, a Funeral Director may receive $2,500 from an $8,000 funeral. If a family forgoes excessive consumption of products, congregations and both community and governmental organizations can assist low-income families with cost since the accrued fees are drastically less. This change in mortuary practices will sustain local Funeral Directors, compensating those who are asked to perform familial duties.

Similarly, in order to decrease any excessive or illegitimate costs, IRDSH proposes that congregations, hospices, etc collaborate with local funeral homes to establish a fixed price for those families affiliated with the organization. Congregations and communities will need to educate its affiliates about decreasing costs by minimizing consumption, while also reconstructing a funeral home’s objective of self-reliance from products to compensating these individuals for their hands-on care.

Objective

As a result of decreasing the cost of funerals by minimizing the consumption of products, families, congregations and community groups are empowered to support low-income families, while also perpetuating the ability to care for the dead at home, as able. The support systems that are put into place via the decrease in cost enables foundations, organizations, and congregations et al to accumulate funds for those who cannot afford the service of a hired caretaker, i.e. Funeral Director. This not only results in a decrease in costs, but also a decrease in the consumption of precious woods, concrete, metals, and other materials, resulting in more environmentally sound practices; it also supports the intimate and spiritual benefits of familial participation and communal support, while saving tax dollars.

Stay with me

One of my hospice colleagues invited me to attend a Taize service at her church last evening. If you’re not familiar with Taize it is an ecumenical community in France, where many great songs are written. You can learn more about the community on their website: http://www.taize.fr

After trekking through the rain last night, I arrived at a very beautiful church. Unfortunately, I didn’t ask where the gathering was and found myself saturated as I ran from door to door. I eventually found where everyone was, sitting in a circle in the middle of a candle lit parlor. Several Taize songs were sung but one, in particular, stuck out. The song is called Stay with me—some of you Taize fans might know it. The words are simple: “Stay with me, remain here with me, watch and pray, watch and pray.” Taize chants are repetitious. We probably sang Stay with me 50-75 times, easily. The reason I’m sharing this with you is because the image of Jewish death customs immediately popped into mind. When a Jewish person, especially Orthodox Jews, dies the kaddish (a prayer) is said and their body is immediately covered. Until interment, the decedent will be cared for by shomrim (other Jews who guard the body until interment). The Jewish tradition’s reverence for the dead is quite impressive. Their dead are seldom stored in refrigerators nor are they violated by any intricate mortuary procedures. Rather, the dead are cared for by their community and not treated merely as empty vessels.

When I heard Stay with me last night, I pictured shomrim sitting around a decedent praying, watching, singing and caring for the dead. I believe these practices are the ideal for congregations to aspire towards and enact within their communities.

Jamaican Death Rituals and Western Conventions

Deathcare rituals vary in each society and religious community. Dr. Rebecca Tortello wrote an interesting article yesterday titled: A Time to Die – Death rituals. Her article on Jamaican and slave death rituals can be viewed at:

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070402/lead/lead5.html

The article identifies several things that I have been speaking about within the Institute. Dr. Tortello states that “some [Jamaican] death traditions remain strong,” despite the fact much of the ritual has been replaced by Western conventions. Often times, the decedent is still “taken from the house feet first;” the family stops clocks, covers mirrors, wears black, white or purple, and rearranges the furniture so that the ghost (duppy) of the dead doesn’t recognize their former home and can’t stick around for too long.

In addition to these old rituals and beliefs, the dead are now embalmed so that family can return to the island. Tortello also points out that the dead are embalmed for reasons other than temporary preservation: “[The funerals] can range from small to extremely large as they are also used to showcase the financial and social status of the deceased and his/her family.” Personally, I can’t help but wonder what the rich, disembody dubby must think when he returns to his home only to find that his home and body have received an exotic make-over (I’m assuming the house is exotic too since Jamaica is a Caribbean Island, after all, and I like to think that everything warm and Caribbean is delightfully—except the whole embalming thing—exotic).

The inherently exotic nature of Jamaica death rituals are a mishmash of African and European tradition these days. The cause of death is focused on, preparing the decedent for the after life with a knife or other weapon in case she has to fight the culprit that killed her. Proper handling of the deceased is important, and it is essential that “rituals were followed in a particular order so as not to offend the dead and ensure the spirit’s safe journey back to God.” I appreciate the notion that the dead can be offended. I’m not sure if Jamaicans are afraid that the duppy is watching or if they simply understand that the personhood of the dead can be irreverently disrespected. I assume, like many ritual protocols, it is more about the formality of the ritual and its proper execution, though.

I recently asked someone from Georgia if slave graves can be easily found or identified. Apparently, Savannah has an impressive cemetery and so does a small island off the coast, which is a slave burial ground. According to Tortello, burials for slaves in Jamaica were seldom conducted by ministers since plantation owners were quick to inter the dead. Of course, slaves did not receive large stone markers to record their lives, much unlike their owners. However, some slaves had crotons and coffee rose bushes planted on their graves to symbolize everlasting life, since these species easily survived droughts. As a result, Tortello reports, no slave cemeteries have ever been found in Jamaica. Today, the poor mark their graves with shells. Many memorial services last for up to a week, perhaps as a mourning time or for the practical purpose of remembering where the dead are buried.

I wonder if impoverished Jamaicans feel inadequate in their deathcare because they can’t afford the headstone, coffin or vault like their rich, fellow countrymen. I wonder how long it will be before the poor stop asking spiritual questions and start sacrificing basic human needs in order for to give their dead a ritzy funeral, if they aren’t already. I wonder how much longer it will be until the bereaved start wearing red to funerals, stop rearranging their furniture, remove their dead from their homes headfirst, and forget if the dead are to be buried east or west. I imagine change in their traditional, death ritual will come when they turn their attention to choosing satin or cotton coffin-lining and two or three hour funeral services, and if they decide to partake in someone else’s so-called tradition.