As I was saying last night about wanting a funeral that acknowledges my real death in a way that makes people confront their own (and my salvation through Jesus) and not a celebration of my life 📕 - ThreadSky

josephpmathews.bsky.social • 53 days ago

As I was saying last night about wanting a funeral that acknowledges my real death in a way that makes people confront their own (and my salvation through Jesus) and not a celebration of my life 📕

Reposted from America's Lounge Singer

bookmarking every post abt this guy for...later

Comments

vitabreva.bsky.social•53 days ago

My will specifically states “open casket at the rosary and funeral regardless of my age, health, or the brutality of my death” for that reason.

josephpmathews.bsky.social•53 days ago

Our funerals are all (supposed to be) closed casket — but the vigil / wake can be open, and that’s what I want. *makes provision for the donation of a pall if wherever I’m buried doesn’t have one so that I can be re-dressed in the baptismal garment*

sarahelawton.bsky.social•53 days ago

I had to plan my parents’ funeral when I was 25. That gave me a lot of perspective on the importance of doing it well, acknowledging the grief, the loss, the realness of death, the alleluias at the grave—in the midst of death, we are in life. We do funerals well in our tradition, when allowed!

rywig.bsky.social•53 days ago

To quote Hauerwas, “We're a society that rarely acknowledges death before it happens. Christianity is ongoing training in dying early.”

danielswise.bsky.social•53 days ago

I think this may be a generational trend with death for boomers and their parents. My dad was a Lutheran pastor of a church of mostly retirees in FL and I remember a lot of "celebration of life" talk as a kid.

josephpmathews.bsky.social•53 days ago

Oh totally and it overlaps with cultural and societal changes I’ve glossed in another reply — coupled with greater longevity and the overall “I will live and work forever”

ofvick.bsky.social•53 days ago

This guy's funeral is gonna be the bleakest since Livia Soprano's, can you imagine the good times his blood boy is gonna look back on having with him

danielbentley.bsky.social•53 days ago

I’m always confused by “celebration of life” used in a Christian context. It seems like the language of comfort for those who don’t believe in resurrection.

josephpmathews.bsky.social•53 days ago

What’s the point of making our song “alleluia, alleluia, alleluia” if we can’t be real that we’re at a grave?

josephpmathews.bsky.social•53 days ago

Tom Long gets into this in ACCOMPANY THEM WITH SINGING — it’s the current place of a long trend of avoiding and denying death that has partly come with urbanization (cemeteries are less in your face when they aren’t the literal church yard) and technology (have a service in 9 months w/ ashes)

josephpmathews.bsky.social•53 days ago

That’s a really slapdash summary of parts of it but he argues strongly that burials should absolutely happen in the same place we celebrate our weddings and are annually told “remember that you are dust”

josephpmathews.bsky.social•53 days ago

ACCOMPANY THEM WITH SINGING is the book I recommend for people who know another religious tradition pretty well and want an eyeful about Christianity that isn’t about petty behavioral stuff. It captures so much — in no small part because it’s grounded in creation’s redemption through Jesus

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