There is one especially fascinating scene when the village crowds into church for the real Ned Devine's funeral service. Jackie stands to pay tribute to Ned, and is about to pronounce his name, when the lottery official stumbles into the church and Jackie, quick of wit, speaks of burying Michael O'Sullivan, who is in the congregation, and whom the official believes to be Ned Devine. How good it would be, says Jackie, if only we could be at our own funeral. He goes on to eulogize his dear friend who nods nervously and appreciatively.
Mark Twain had some fun with death. Once, while abroad, he read his obituary in an international paper, to which he wrote, "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."[1] In his acerbic and heretical Letters from the Earth, he satirized books on etiquette. Of funeral manners he wrote, "Do not criticize the person in whose honor the entertainment is given .... if the odor of the flowers is too oppressive for your comfort, remember that they were not brought there for you, and that the person for whom they were brought suffers no inconvenience from their presence.
"Listen with as intense an expression of attention as you can command, to the official statement of the character and history of the person in whose honor the entertainment is given, and if these statistics should seem to fail to tally with the facts, in places, do not nudge your neighbor, or press your foot upon his toes, or manifest, by any other sign, your awareness that taffy is being distributed. If the official hopes expressed concerning the person in whose honor the entertainment is given are known by you to be oversized, let it pass - do not interrupt." He concludes this burlesque, "Do not bring your dog."[2]
One of the assignments in my Building Your Own Theology 2 seminar is to draft one's own memorial service. Unitarian Universalists tend to have memorial services, without the body present, rather than traditional funerals, so we might focus on the spiritual more than the physical. I invite the students to act as if they were attending - and they will be, in a way - and indicate what they would like to hear. A similar experience might come from writing one's own epitaph or obituary. While these exercises might seem a trifle odd, they are powerfully value-clarifying experiences. Why?
Sometimes we are so close to the details of daily living we cannot see our lives whole. When we imagine ourselves at our own memorial service, living takes on a new dimension. We begin to realize we are not going to be here forever; what we wish to make of our lives we had better do so if we have not done so already. We see ourselves as other see us - if only in imagination. We sort out the consequential from the trivial. This is a perspective that we tend not to have in the crush and rush of daily routines.
Elie Wiesel writes that about the formal investiture of Rabbi Pinhas into the Holy Brothers, a Polish Hassidic order. While notables and dignitaries were extolling his virtues, a strange expression came over his face. "What are you thinking of?" he was asked. "I have the odd feeling I am attending my own funeral."[3]
To make this exercise still more real, take the case of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish chemist and industrialist, who once had the life changing experience of reading his own obituary. His brother had died, but a Paris report made a mistake in reporting the death of the "dynamite king." Nobel awoke to find his life laid out on the front page of his morning paper. The shock was overwhelming and life-changing. From the report, it would have seemed that death, destruction, the arms trade, and money were his life. Nobel had a kinder view of himself, but this was ignored. He was, to the public, simply merchant of death, dynamite king.[4]
Nobel resolved to make clear to the world the true meaning and purpose of his life. He devised the plan for disposition of his fortune so that it might support individuals and groups who were effective in working for understanding and peace. The Nobel Peace Prizes, then, were born from a mistaken obituary.
If you have read the best-seller Tuesdays with Morrie, you may remember that Professor Morrie Schwartz, dying of ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease, returned disappointed from a colleague's funeral at Brandeis University. "What a waste," he said. "All those people saying all those wonderful things, and Irv never got to hear any of it." And so he made some calls and set a date, and on a cold Sunday afternoon he and a small group of friends and family had a "living funeral" - for him. As author Mitch Albom describes the event: "Each of them spoke and paid tribute to my old professor. Some cried. Some laughed. Morrie cried and laughed with them. And all the heartfelt things we never get to say to those we love, Morrie said that day. His 'living funeral' was a rousing success.
Probably not many of us will emulate Morrie Schwartz. That might take more chutzpah than most of us can muster. I'm not even recommending it, save as a spiritual exercise. And yet, some of my most moving moments in ministry have been planning memorial services with those who were dying. Loving and courageous people have sat with me and loved ones to talk about how they would like to be remembered. That experience is moving beyond all telling. I don't know how they do it. I'm not sure I could.
Of course, I can do it in the abstract - now, when death seems somewhat remote. I would like my memorial service to be in this space. It should be simple, dignified, inexpensive. While I wish no offering to be taken, I would like memorial gifts to those causes in which I have invested myself.
My body is to go to the University of Rochester Medical School - if they will have it - and then my ashes scattered in sundry places that have meant much to me - our Memorial Garden, the Bristol Hills, Seneca Lake.
I would like the service to open with these familiar words: "In the presence of life, we say no to death; in the presence of death, we say yes to life." I would like a few favorite readings to be shared - perhaps e.e. cummings "I thank you god, for most this amazing day" and John Holmes' poem "The Green Door," which will conclude this sermon. And Kenneth Patton's lines, "Let this be a time of thanksgiving for a life lived, and not a brooding upon death." I would like the choir to sing Randall Thompson's "Hallelujah." I would like hymns to be sung, "Prayer for This House" among them.
If friends and family wish to say a few words in remembrance - happy or sad - about my many idiosyncrasies and foibles, let them do it - briefly. Let my life be remembered honestly in all its faith and folly. Let the service end with the "Salutation to the Dawn," "Look well, therefore, to this day." And then let there be a party!
But that verges on the romantic, for I do not know what the occasion of my death will be. I only know it will be not "if" but "when." And while spiritually I feel fine right now, I do not know what I will be like at the end - nor is that my main concern. As I was pondering this matter a few years ago, I came upon the letter of a man dying of Alzheimer's Disease, words that have transformed my attitudes about life and death and dying.
This devout Christian wrote, "The greatest fear I have is what this disease does to your personality. It can make you angry, ugly, obscene, paranoid, cursing, and very difficult to handle before you become comatose. Pray that I be spared part of this personality change. Pray that I in no way inadvertently disgrace the Lord, this church, or the people whom I love. Pray for Betty (his wife) as I turn guardianship over to her. I will not suffer nearly as much as she will... And please have patience with me.... Please remember me the way I was." I was prompted to write these words, which I often used at memorial services: Who are we anyway? What is our essence? Are we what we are now? Or what we have been? One day we will be at the last stage. Let us remember, let everyone remember that our lives are not simply what we are at the moment, for good or ill. We are the sum of the parts of an entire life. Please remember me the way I was.
Our mortality is tenuous. We are but guests of existence, brief visitors upon this earth. About immortality I am an agnostic. I do not know. But I am inclined to agree with writer Arthur Miller who said that "Immortality is like trying to carve your initials in a block of ice in the middle of July."[5]
I try not to be in denial about my mortality. I was once late for a funeral in Cleveland - I'd like to be late for my own. In this regard I'm a bit like Woody Allen: "It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens.... Death is nature's way of telling us to slow down.... Some people want to achieve immortality through their works or their descendents. I prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.... I do not believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear."[6] It helps to laugh before so somber a subject.
Yet I know I have to count on dying - thank heaven - I couldn't keep up this pace for more than a century. Happily my death is not the most important event in my life - nor was my birth. My purpose in life is not to get from the one to the other. It is to negotiate that troubled terrain with a degree of style, find some joy in it, discover some worthy work to do, and leave it in dignity and gratitude.
As Alan Watts once said, "No one imagines that a symphony is supposed to improve in quality as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing it is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it."[7]
Each moment of life is an event worthy in and of itself. Death points to the precious quality of each instant. I do believe in biological immortality - my ashes will help nourish the earth; I do believe in influential immortality - as the stone thrown into the pond causes ripples that reach the farthest shore, something of what I am and do will never be lost.
I do not believe in personal immortality, some conscious existence beyond death. If I'm wrong there surely is no better way to prepare for it that living this life as if it was all there is.
In one sense I am preparing for my memorial service - not as an event, but as a reminder to me that while life can be understood backwards, it is lived forwards.[8]
We have the benefit of time to do a summing up, a life review. We have the opportunity to create an "ethical will" - a legacy of words and deeds far more important than our material leavings. We can follow the example of Martha Carter. We have the luxury of contemplating that celebration of our lives without expecting it to be right around the corner - but, who knows? Who can ever know?
It is that exercise in spiritual imagination that challenges us to deeper and better living. The prospect of that service greatly concentrates our minds. Contemplation of death greatly intensifies our experience of life.
And so as I face up to the last third or so of my life and face my inevitable demise, I say not "please" more - but "thank you" for so much. Perhaps as we consider attending our own memorial services, contemplating how we wish to be remembered, we will be prompted to live so well, as Mark Twain says, "that even the undertaker will be sorry."
The poet John Holmes says it so well in his poem, "The Green Door":
But I have lived too much to guess of dying
That death's a garden, or to rhyme its fears,
And lived so long - a twelvemonth in a minute -
I think time goes by heartbeats, not by years.Here in my heart I hold such strong abundance,
I do not care what lies beyond that door.
Life is enough. There is always music,
Always more love, more sun, and always more.And if the green door opens on tomorrow,
And every friend still answers to his name,
A little death makes eloquent the daylight:
It will be glory that the world's the same.
And we have all been dead, who now are living!
Speak out the secret thing we're certain of:
We're back, we've all come back, we've all been given
A longer time to look, and touch, and love.[9]
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