In defence of funerals

As someone who takes funerals, I observe a growing trend for essentially private committals followed by a public service of thanksgiving. It would appear that there are several factors at play here.

One factor is that in our society death has become a taboo, perhaps the only taboo currently alive and well. We are terrified to death by our mortality and go to great lengths to pretend it isn’t real. And so, we naturally assume that we are doing the friends of the deceased a favour in sparing them being confronted by mortality in the form of a coffin. But it is fact that we have a psychological need to see the coffin, not for that awful word ‘closure’—there is no such thing—but in order, accumulatively, to overcome our fear. And we are denying the last gift we can give to those who have loved us to more and more people.

Another factor is that we do not want to break down in front of other people. This is exceedingly complex, a mix of (at least) shame at the thought of being seen to lose self-control in public, and genuine concern not to place this burden on our friends. But in so doing we deny our friends the opportunity to help carry our burdens, and ourselves the help our friends long to offer. We leave ourselves alone and terribly exposed in our grief; rather than gathered-up and even, appropriately, hidden within the grief of a community. It makes what is inevitably a hard situation to be in far harder than it needs to be.

A third factor is the recent growth of humanist funeral celebrants. This is not a bad thing in itself, in a pluralist society we need non-religious options. But in general, they do not yet really understand what they are doing. They often do a very good tribute, a celebration of the life; but are ill-equipped to handle other psychological needs. And they have raised the expectation that you can have the bespoke occasion you want. But a popularist vision of what we are told we should want, as consumers, is not necessarily what is best for society. We are often told, on such occasions, that ‘Name would not want us to be sad’. When I die, I hope that those who knew me will be sad. Not only or always sad, but sad nonetheless. If they are not, I will have wasted my life. But regardless of what I hope, people will be sad. To dismiss their grief, and insist on celebration, a brave face and a rigor mortis smile, is not loving, and verges on (unintentional) fascism.

A final and pragmatic factor is the extent to which cremation has replaced burial (and burial in civic graveyards replaced burial in churchyards). Crematoria are often not especially local, and if the main part of the service takes place in a church, many people are unable to go on to the committal, and uncomfortable with waiting a long time for the family to return to a wake. It can be smoother—at least logistically—to turn the occasion on its head. Such circumstances call for flexibility, sensitivity, and creativity. However, they are not, in my experience, a driver for the trend I am seeing.

The service of thanksgiving, as opposed to a funeral, is proving popular among those who are religious enough (or respectful enough of the religious sensibilities of the deceased) to not want an atheist funeral, but agnostic enough (or sensitive to the diversity of views among those assembled) to want religious-lite. Conversely, services of thanksgiving are increasingly popular among certain churches, especially those of a more evangelical tradition, that want to emphasise resurrection hope and feel that a funeral gives death too great a part.

For all its well-meaning intentions, I have grave misgivings (no pun intended) about this trend. The funeral service does not magically appear out of thin air but draws on wisdom and experience to do several things that can only be done as the work of the people, together. The Church of England’s funeral service sets these things out in this way:

‘We have come here today

to remember before God our brother/sister Name;

to give thanks for his/her life;

to commend him/her to God our merciful redeemer and judge;

to commit his/her body to be buried/cremated,

and to comfort one another in our grief.’

All of these things flow from the first word, We. I have taken funerals where, at their insistence, there have been only two people present. They are more harrowing than funerals where there is no one present. A church path or a crematorium drive is not of a set length: they grow longer travelled alone.

The work of remembering and giving thanks for a life must be communal. My parents, both still alive, are in their mid-seventies. I lived with them for eighteen years. I speak to them weekly on the phone. We get together several times a year but live 300 miles apart. I think about them daily, as they think about me daily; but I have not been part of their day-to-day lives for most of their lives. To hold the pieces of a life together—that is, to re-member—calls upon the unique, albeit connected, memories of sibling, spouse, children, colleagues, friends…

…And while this can be done after they have been buried or cremated, that life is as a consequence brought to committal unremembered, not a whole but pieces in a box; un-thanked-for; which strikes me as incredibly, unbearably, sad. Alternatively, you end up doing it twice; and while we actually remember, reconfigure, the pieces of a life over and over again, to do so in such a formal manner in such a short space of time is more to churn up ashes and dust than to enable the living or the dead to rest in peace and rise in glory.

To commend someone to God is also communal, the work of the people. Regardless of our own personal beliefs, we all renegotiate our relationship with those we have loved who have died. This is a universal human experience, expressed in many ways. It is perfectly normal and healthy to have conversations with the dead, whether we believe them to be in heaven or watching over us in spirit form or recycled atoms; and, often, to have a sense that they are listening to us and even speaking to us, nudging us to the right conclusion when we have a decision to make. And, regardless of our religious beliefs, we have a need to trust that they are at peace. But in our most raw moments, we need the support of others. At a funeral, there is an important sense in which the next-of-kin are at the centre of a community renegotiating their relationship with the deceased; and a secondary sense in which we are all at our own centre, renegotiating our relationship with others we have lost, and with our own mortality. The funeral service gives space and form to this, and where we cannot fully and confidently subscribe to the form, we submit to allowing others to support us, rather than succumb to a super-abundance of thoughts and feelings.

To commit a corpse to the cold earth or a furnace is certainly too much to bear alone. The closing of the curtain is hard (choosing to leave it open is even harder, in the long-run). In the Bible, God is given voice saying, ‘When you pass through the flames you shall not be burned, for I am with you’. In the face of a universal experience, we tap-into a common hope in our moments of personal hopelessness.

Last but by no means least, we comfort one another in our grief. This is going on in the funeral service, though, of course, it is not confined to the service but carries on into the wake. Jesus said, ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted’. Comfort is the promise; but acknowledging our grief and having it acknowledged is the prerequisite. Private committals separated (not only in location, and for pragmatic reasons, but more significantly) in form from public services of thanksgiving do not allow for the grief of all but the most intimate next-of-kin.

All these things are at play in the funeral service, in a way that a service of thanksgiving does not fully accomplish. Not that the work is completed by a funeral, but that it is begun, and signposts provided for the way ahead. As we renegotiate our relationship with the deceased, who remains very much part of our lives, we all need those signposts. I am already regularly hearing people lament the loss of the funeral. Funerals are on the endangered list. Were they to become extinct, we would live in a greatly impoverished world.