Faith Works 5-15-21

Faith Works 5-15-21

Jeff Gill

On a hill, far away

___

This spring I've taken a longer than expected detour into cremation, ashes, and their disposition.

As a genealogist and historian, we're losing something with the end of the last best permanent record, an archive for past generations I've benefited from in many ways. Trust me when I say I have many and conflicted feelings about the skyrocketing frequency of "at the request of the departed, there will be no service, and a private service at a later date." 

What I've gotten myself into here is a side-effect of responding as a pastor and preacher to friends and acquaintances who find themselves in the position of having to take care of "the event." Some churches and faith traditions very specifically forbid scattering ashes; most no longer forbid cremation, but instruct survivors to handle the urn or container as they would a casket, with a reverent committal ceremony in sacred ground, a family plot or cemetery mausoleum.

Much more common, though, is a family decision to just ask the mortician to cremate the body, picking up the heavy small box of ashes, and scattering them on their own, at a later point and who knows what location. I see some parallels, which no one will thank me for pointing out, to the move towards event weddings, and having a friend officiate in a converted barn or banquet hall. Except apparently lots of people enjoy sending away for a ministry "certificate" and filing with the Ohio Secretary of State to become a legal officiant for a friend's wedding. The line is not as long to get the privilege of presiding over a scattering ceremony.

Just to be clear, in no state do you have to be licensed or ordained to conduct a memorial service. To prepare a body, yes; within a church building, those rules about who can officiate are for that faith community. But I'm perfectly willing to affirm that anyone can do a funeral, it's just that they aren't as simple as they appear (also something many ad hoc wedding officiants have learned the hard way). Having a clergymember assisting is a practical choice in most cases.

But let's say there is no one available or appropriate to the occasion, and the person presiding is you. What do you do? The word has gone out to family and friends, and you're arriving at a hilltop in a national park or a family cabin next to a public waterway, and everyone expects you to lead the service. How does it go?

I've gone into the practical at length because if you don't have a smooth, seamless set-up for those tangible issues (scissors or a very sharp knife, situational awareness of how the ashes will behave out of the bag, what to do with the remaining materials at the end) then the fumbling and confusion become most of what people remember. You don't want that, lay or ordained.

You need a rally point: a table, a stump, a place to set the container. You may need to guide people into where they should go to stand or sit (there being no aisle or pews to steer them). Once together, you really should have a clear start, regardless of time (but starting early is risky because late arrivals can be very distracting). A song or soloist is nice, or at minimum a "Thank you for coming."

You say why you're here not because they don't know, but because it clarifies matters. That's why we have any ceremony at all. "We are here to honor the life and mark the death of [Name]." If it's a purely secular ceremony you're after, that I can't help you with. I would advise anyone to pray after the opening; you don't have to call it an invocation, but I would want to ask divine blessing on the occasion and those gathered.

The rest is simple. You invite people to speak or not, as the family prefers; you tell as much truth as the occasion allows, but the happier memories tend to be central because the sorrow is already there, with that box and what it means. Be honest, within reason. Be humorous, when it's earned and not forced. Be reverent, whatever that means to you. And then scatter the ashes as you've prepared to do.

If it were me, I'd close in prayer. Keeping in mind the whole act, however engaged in, is a form of prayer, one that will be remembered.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; his ashes are not ready to be scattered in any case. Tell him what you have in mind at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.