Source: Wikimedia CommonsAuthor: Psyberartist
Yesterday I attended a memorial service for my wife’s sister in law. The event included a prayer service and homily led by a Catholic priest. With great seriousness, the priest gave forth the usual mumbo-jumbo of how the soul of the dearly departed would be going to heaven and someday we would be able to meet her again in the sweet hereafter. I understand the appeal of such words at a funeral, but how can anyone actually believe them?
It got me thinking, though, about how a naturalistic memorial service might go. I suspect there are such things, though I have never attended one. Or naturalistic celebrations of any of the other rites of passage – birth, coming of age, marriage. I know some of the secular pagan groups have these, but I don’t consider myself a pagan, and haven’t been a part of any of these.
There are also some of the everyday events for which Christians have well developed rituals. When my children were young, my wife and I tried to come up with a naturalistic equivalent to saying grace before a meal. I no longer remember what we came up with, but I know we abandoned it rather quickly. I think we also tried just having a moment of silence before the meal, but the kids made a joke of that. Ultimately we abandoned all attempts at adding such rituals to our family activities.
When I was young, our family said the rosary together every night. I thought it a waste of time then, and I haven’t changed my mind. Yet I think some kind of shared “spiritual” ritual could have value in providing additional unity to a family. I think the development of such rituals and rites is an ongoing challenge for groups like the Spiritual Naturalist Society.
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I’ve been trying to think of what words I would want spoken if a memorial like the one I just attended were held for me. Or what I would have said for my wife if she predeceases me. (I just asked her and she says she doesn’t want any type of memorial, so I guess I don’t have to worry about that.)
I have absolutely no belief in a personal afterlife. Further, I cannot understand why anyone would find “eternal life” a good thing. I have greatly enjoyed the life I’ve been given so far; I still make a commitment each morning to live each day the best I can; and I am still in awe about just what a strange thing it is to exist – that somehow this world has conspired to bring things like me into existence.
Though I continue to love life, I am not attached to it. I learned nonattachment from Buddhism, and I still consider it an important aspect of wisdom. Suffering and death are part of the price of admission to this life. Fighting those terms of the contract is folly. The ultimate test of my spiritual wisdom will be if I can in fact die cheerfully.
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In a post I published here several years ago, I wrote:
Each of us is a wave on the ocean of awareness. If we identify with our being a separate wave, we have to face the inevitability of the shore upon which we are doomed to break. If we identify with being part of the ocean, then we identify with that which will still be here long after any particular wave breaks. (1)
The idea expressed in this metaphor is how I try to think about life and death. This is another idea I got from the East, from the Upanishads in this case. In the Upanishads the idea is that we are all incarnations of God. God is the life of our life, the Self of our self. In other words, we are all otherness, and this Otherness is God. Incarnations come and go, God remains.
Translated into naturalistic terms, “God” is the great process of Nature. All life arises from this process, is sustained by it, and ultimately reclaimed back into it. Each of us, for our short period of life, are the eyes and ears, the thoughts and feelings of God, of the great process of Nature. The Great Process will continue, our little role in the great process will end.
A major aspect of spiritual wisdom is in the struggle to get beyond our egotism. Our egotism is ultimately based in our biologically based desires and appetites. The struggle to overcome egotism is the hardest of all struggles. I’m not sure any human ever totally succeeds, not even the Buddhas. The wisdom is in the struggle. It is only in those moments that we overcome our egotism that we can truly identify with “the ocean,” with God, Nature, Tao or whatever word one has for the ultimate source of existence.
Perhaps somewhere in these thoughts are the words I would want said at a memorial. I’ll have to give it some more thought.
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Dear reader: Do you have naturalistic rituals that work for you and/or your family. Have you attended a naturalistic funeral or memorial service? What was it like? Or have you presided over such a service? If so, I would love to hear about it. Perhaps you could say something in the comments section or even write an article about it for SNS. It would be great if we as an organization could start gathering information about this.
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Learn about Membership in the Spiritual Naturalist Society
The Spiritual Naturalist Society works to spread awareness of spiritual naturalism as a way of life, develop its thought and practice, and help bring together like-minded practitioners in fellowship.
SNS strives to include diverse voices within the spectrum of naturalistic spirituality. Authors will vary in their opinions, terms, and outlook. The views of no single author therefore necessarily reflect those of all Spiritual Naturalists or of SNS.
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Notes:
1 From the article: Spirituality: A Personal View, Part III.
I am a Quaker. Quakers conduct memorial services the same as other services – in silence. When one is moved to speak, they speak. Each person at the service has the chance to speak their piece, if they wish. The Meeting House that I attend is unprogrammed, meaning that there are no clergy, no hierarchy – each member is clergy and we minister to each other. Being unprogrammed also means traditionally, there is no music, however, there is a piano and attenders are welcome to bring musical instruments so there could be music if that meets with family wishes. Since many people are not familiar with Quaker memorial services, instructions are always given at the beginning.
Thanks for writing, Nancy. I have been attending the local Quaker meeting in my area for the past many months. After attending a Memorial Meeting for a member a few weeks ago, I realized, “This is what I want people to do when I die.” The clerk of the meeting gave instructions at the beginning; we sat in silence; people spoke one-by-one about the departed; and after an hour or so, the meeting concluded. Then we shared a meal together. It felt so beautiful, so human, so natural.
Also, in my work as a hospice chaplain, I am often asked by patient families to officiate funerals and memorial gatherings for their loved ones. One of the tasks of a professional chaplain is to support people with integrity in ways that are meaningful for them without necessarily sharing those views or practices myself. The predominant religious affiliation in my area is broadly Protestant Christian, so I often include such familiar elements as Psalm 23 and the Lord’s Prayer in the service order. My goal as an officiant is to facilitate the family’s memorialization of their loved one through story telling, sharing memories, showing photographs, and playing beloved songs. I don’t speak about the typical Christian metaphysics such as heaven or resurrection, but rather encourage an emphasis on the loved one who has died and the love that continues on through memory and action among those who are here. If I offer a reflection or meditation during the service, I also talk about the grief journey to help the family begin normalizing its baffling paradoxes as they embark on the path of coping with this loss.
A resource I have found helpful is, “Funerals Without God: A practical guide to humanist and non-religious funeral ceremonies” by Jane Wynne Willson.