Prophetic Voices in Deathcare

This past weekend I attended a conference at Yale Divinity School, focusing on Pastoral Leadership. I enjoy going to these gatherings because it attracts so many interesting and diverse people in ministry. The conference began with a lecture by Professor Miroslav Volf, a renowned Croatian theologian. His talk was very relevant to the spirituality of deathcare. While talking about "religious malfunctions" he compared the mystic and the prophet. As I've said before, religious deathcare falls into those two categories, if you're willing to polarize the experience. Volf argued that the mystic ascends to experience God and remains within that experience, consuming the Godly experience; whereas, the prophet ascends to experience God and returns from that experience to share the encounter with others. In other words, the mystic encounters God and is mesmerized by Godliness, and the prophet does the same but sees his/her mission as a need to speak prophetically on behalf of God. Of course, there is a moral responsibility when "speaking on behalf" of God, like not implementing one's own agenda to perversely oppress others. However, I understood Volf to be speaking about the prophetic voice and our need to speak prophetically about matters of social justice.

In regards to deathcare, the prophetic voice that is obtained when encountering and experiencing God in death is a voice that calls for the healing of the bereaved and the preservation of a decedent's dignity. The prophetic voice gained from a mystical experience within deathcare views death as a reality that is not solely ugly and can and does possess beautiful attributes, such as the 70 year old woman who lived a wholesome life and is "prepared" to die.

What I hear Volf saying is that our encounters with God (and in this case through an experience with death) leads us to a better understanding of our life and our living. Therefore, through our ascension to wholeness we gain a knowledge about justice and mercy. It is for this reason that spiritualists are called to remove excessive consumption and wastes in deathcare, fulfilling our obligation to the manifestation of God in nature. Similarly, we are called to find new and unique ways to help the bereaved mourn and find healing in their deathcare practices. There is no one right way to do deathcare, as each family needs to express themselves differently, and there is no one structure in which deathcare should be done. It is for this reason that the Institute has principles which create a just model so that families have a guideline to follow when creating their own, unique deathcare practices. However, our society currently has only two practices: cremation and "traditional." Within these two practices, families do not participate other than to make financial decisions and arrive for a brief visitation and liturgy. The construction of a family's deathcare practices fits within a previously developed format with marginal characteristics inserted into it, such as videos, pictures, and some written word.

As spiritualists, however, we are called to define our mystical encounter with God in unique and personalized ways. Our ascension is through our individualized experience and emotions, and from this ascension we gain our new prophetic voice calling for something new, something just, and something Godly.

And with a little white smoke they were gone . . .

This morning on the CBS program Sunday Morning, Bill Geist did a story on launching cremains into outer space. Before discussing some of the people who were sent to space this past week, Bill gave a synopsis of some other mortuary options, most of which center around mechanically compressing cremains and then manufacturing objects out of the resulting material. He ran through the coral reef option, the copper bracelet (which, surprisingly, doesn’t have the same ionized “force” of the info-commercial fad, Q-ray, and I’m sure has upset a lot of cremains-wearing folks out there), the silver chalice, and the diamond ring. I was hoping Bill would mention green and natural burials, but he skipped those. Given all the options, you really have to wonder if divorce courts are ready to handle the feuding couple that shows up for their court date, with a diamond in hand, fighting over grandma. It’s one thing to lose a family heirloom to the ex, but to lose grandma herself, in the form of a compressed-ash gem, is a whole other story.

So as I’m waiting for Bill Geist to mention green burial, he has resumed his story about cremains in outer space. One man Bill interviewed was sending his father up-up-and-away in an earth-orbiting rocket, saving a little of him to send to the moon with his mother, while his wife shook her head and insisted that she would be having something “traditional” when she died. This woman’s mother-in-law will be spending eternity with actor James Doohan, Scotty from Star Trek. His one way ticket with Celestis Memorial Spaceflights was among many others from around the world. The bereaved had a memorial service at the launch site the day before and woke before dawn to trek out to the Arizona desert for the launch. Celestis kindly arranged for a bagpiper, at least that’s what I heard on the TV; and with a final countdown the dead were off to space (in case you’re concerned that these individuals won’t have a tombstone or some other way to “memorialize” them, Celestis offers a service for families to name stars after their deceased).

When the five minute segment was over I felt a little dumbstruck. Maybe I felt this way because of the son who saved some of his dad’s ashes so he could send them to the moon with his mom once that technology becomes affordable for the average consumer. Maybe it was the image of a harvest moon scattered with bolted-down urns and neon colored flowers that caused me to naysay the idea. Regardless of my reaction, you have to wonder why we’re locking up our dead in vaults to keep them away from dirt; selling expensive, air-tight caskets to keep out the germies (too bad they’re already in the area: mold and bacterias); putting turf around the grave so the family doesn’t have to see the hole (and dirt) that will hold their dead; and stuffing ashes in mini-rockets so that the dead can be as far away from soil as possible. Perhaps I’m just sad because I believe green and natural burials are the best thing going for deathcare these days and because Bill didn’t give them any press this morning. Nonetheless, I just want to make it clear that I don’t want to be on Apollo 49, packed in with my neighbors and floating about for 10 years to forever. But don’t get me wrong, I love astronomy. If you’re going to name a star after me make sure it’s near Orion.