A Humanist Funeral Service and Celebration

A week after JL's memorial service I'm still pondering the last party I'll have to miss, though I'd love to be able to say I'll be there "in spirit"… and I do say it, naturally.

Since I've been instructed by my would-be survivors to write all this down, I refer them to JL's own remarks in Stoic Pragmatism about not counting on winning the supernatural afterlife lottery ("I am prepared to be surprised to learn that we have a supernatural destiny, just as I am prepared to be surprised at seeing my neighbor win the lottery. But I don't consider buying tickets an investment"); to Wallace Stegner's Spectator Bird (“The truest vision of life I know is that bird in the Venerable Bede that flutters from the dark into a lighted hall, and after a while flutters out again into the dark.…"), to Andrew Copson's books on humanism and possible humanist farewell ceremonial rituals, and to Corliss Lamont's pioneering work on the subject (below*).

I'm still working on the music, but at some point in the proceedings I hope they'll play John Fogerty's Put Me in Coach, Dire Straits' Walk of Life, maybe even Steve Goodman's last request. Go Cubs go! They should fly the W at my party too, even though I'll never shake my early-life birds-on-the-bat indoctrination.

I may seem to be taking all of this much too un-solemnly. Well, 'tis still the season for "It's a Wonderful Life," isn't it?

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good life. 🎄 

* "… She felt that this life is enough, without a promise of a reward elsewhere, and without some kind of supernatural intervention. 

She didn't feel the need to reach out to make a connection with traditional promises of a paradise in another world. She was aware, as each of us is, that life is all too short, this brief time in the sunshine between the two mysterious darknesses, those shadowed areas of our coming-into-being and of going-out-of-being. She knew, as most of us know, that the very fragility of life, even the precariousness of living, makes each human life even that much more precious. Humanists are so acutely aware of our mortality. 

We accept the responsibility, as———did, while we can enjoy being alive, of trying, in whatever way we can, to give joy to others, and to make this earthly existence tolerable, or at least as close as we can get it to the idealized concept of a mythical heaven; that is, living in peace and harmony with our fellow humans, finding an earthly reward in all of our endeavors, in our communities, in our homes, and in the sharing of compassionate, positive, productive, and loving relationships with our friends and family. 

Each of us confronts death in our own way. Each of us grieves in our own time. Each of us faces the reality of this irrevocable loss differently. No one set of words or rituals will speak to us as we journey through our personal grief. Yet, words and rituals are all we have. Limited, perhaps, words afford us the opportunity to give voice to the tangle of feelings that dwell deep within us. Sometimes collected readings, reflecting these diverse thoughts that deal with the wide range of questions and emotions that we experience in our grief, can bring some comfort by bringing into focus new dimensions that may have eluded us. That's what words of poetry and inspiration are all about. 

All of us here have been touched by death. What are we to do? How is it possible to comfort one another when all of us are overwhelmed by pain and sorrow? Where do we turn? Who will hold us and give us strength? This is when it is most important to turn to each other. It is almost like we are groping in the darkness, unsure of our path. In the darkness of this night, in the depth of our dispair, we reach out to each other. Though weakened, joining together gives us strength and courage and hope and knowledge that together, friend supporting friend, we will journey through the darkness to find the light of another day. 

When we come to grieve at the loss of a friend or family member, we face also, thoughts of our own demise. It is almost impossible to imaging NOT being. We can identify with sleeping, immersed in an unconscious world, and then, of course, waking! But to NOT waken seems so frightening. In dealing with this thought as a teen, when the reality of the finality of death was giving me panic attacks, I began to comfort myself with a little made-up verse that went like this: Before I was, I knew no pain; not being will take me there again. 

It is easy to understand why the primitives expected that the breath that made life possible was one and the same with the concept of spirit. And when the lifebreath escaped the body for the last time, it would go to another place where spirits dwelled. This has been a comfort in traditional beliefs. But———recognized the capriciousness of that mythical being in a spirit world that promises everlasting life. This is the same mythical being that belief in which can pit human beings against each other in wars of vengeance, and in its myriad incarnations, has wreaked havoc with the people of this beautiful Planet Earth.

———' s wish to have a Humanist remembrance ceremony shows her faith in something more tangible: that humans can manage their own lives in a rational and ethical manner. This is consistent with the Humanist philosophy that believes we humans have evolved and are still evolving..." —Corliss Lamont