I have long considered posting my old writings from when I was Amish. One publication I wrote for was called plain, published by a Conservative Quaker man that LOATHED all technology and did not want his periodical posted or discussed online. The magazine is long defunct. But I still held back. Then today I saw a question about Amish Funerals by Tammy Tuttle-Graham and decided to publish this one. Sorry Scott Savage, wherever you are.
One thing that has greatly changed since this writing is the attention span of the average reader. So this will come in two parts.
That We Might Consider the Latter End – Part 1 1996
It is but one step away– Something has been bothering our family lately, and it’s happened before. We found ourselves looking back at my Mom’s funeral seven months ago, and in hindsight some of what seemed fine at the moment now strikes us rather peculiar. This also happened when Dad dies a few years before, but we forgot until the whole routine played out again.
Our troubling thought is this: Why did we have to hire strangers to handle such a personal situation as Mom’s passing into eternity? What did that place or those people actually have to do with Mom? She never knew them; was never even in that building to our knowledge. We wonder now if we weren’t partakers in the institutionalization of the grieving process?
We are led to consider what contemporary American culture has done with other life passages. Birth has been hospitalized, early childhood increasingly takes the form of day care, the period of youth is publicly educated, old age and illness have been taken over by the medical establishment, likewise, alms giving by government assistance, and even church supposedly can be gained by just turning on the television.
Why, then, are we even surprised that even the tender stage of death is likewise made to fit into a tidy social pattern?And how “social” is it, really? It felt very businesslike at Mom’s services. This is not to say that the people at the funeral home were less than kind; they are sincerely compassionate people — but why must this personal moment take place in a strange location among strange people?
In our family, the answer has come to this: our societal sense of community has gotten so large, diffuse, and detached from real community that we need ‘professionals’ to make us feel bound to one another on a human level. Television offers a remarkable example of this process, as the morning news programs attempt to tie the whole great big U>S> weather map into a folksy “I know how your day looks” kind of false empathy, appropriating even our ability to converse with one another about the most ordinary of topics.
As a society, it seems we have grown too big for our britches. As our social depth of field grows, the particulars must fade into the background. Particulars such as the spiritual considerations of death.
We approach death from two angles, physical and spiritual. To make business out of of the spiritual issues would be sacrilegious, so our society tries instead to ‘assist’ on the physical level. The mortician comes in and is willing to totally relieve the family of responsibility, decisions, and unpleasantness. Clergy are called in to handle the spiritual aspects, and the undertaker takes care of the flesh. Thus, we humans are already severing the body and soul, a right that belongs only to the Creator of both.
To pit ourselves in this place where we can gloss over the eternal ramifications of death seems presumptuous. But we let it pass. During the time of grief we are not in the mood to dwell on inconsistencies. We have been trained to deal with life on a mass level, and are now quite ready to go with the flow. At the time of the actual event we are glad for relief–it is a very weak moment, after all. Even when we expect the death of a loved one, when it happens we feel dazed; nothing looks, feels, or seems normal. It feels so nice when the kind undertaker takes you by the hand and leads you through this strange place. In the sober light of dawn, months later, it may hit, as it did us, “Why must we hire people to fulfill these roles in the intimate experience of death?”
Unless the Day of the Lord comes fairly soon, death is certain. It is no respecter of persons, wicked and righteous alike, and it is very final. “For there is no work, no device, no knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave where thou goest” (Ec.9:10). This universal factor ties us all together. Are you ready? Because there is only one step between us and death.
Even now we are more vividly reminded of this fact. This morning we received the news of a sudden and tragic death in our immediate family. We have no reason to beleive he had even vaguely considered it a real possibility that, at age 27, his life might end. There is not one more chance to turn to the Lord. It is finished.
The embodied self- what we would call ‘the flesh’ – is repelled by death, and so those who live for the flesh see death as an enemy. But there are some who call out, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Co. 15:55). as Christians, we are in a strait betwixt dying and living. This experience sheds an entirely different light on the contemporary view of death. Where death is counted as a loss, we count it a great gain! For one, the thought brings panic, but the servant of the Lord Jesus wallows in peace at the mere notion. Two totally different concepts, two totally different plans. The joy and grace of salvation; the torment and fear of eternal death. To worldly wisdom, firefighting the many aspects of funeral preparation to a professional would seem like a good idea. But for us, the picture has changed. Things are a bit too tender, too personal, too intimate to allow heavy involvement of strangers. END PART 1 of 2
