Friday, February 08, 2013
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Feeding
the five thousand
A funeral. 500 mourners. The body of the
deceased on display for the file past. In Ghana it is hard to gauge how many
people will turn up. You don’t send invitations after all – you post the day of
the funeral in the popular press. Ghana state television also has exceedingly
long sections where the obituaries are read out and the place and the time of
the funeral are stated. Dress can be critical. Black for an untimely end. White
for a ripe old age. Certain mixes representing subtleties of life span and
illness.
The problem in Ghana is that people you
would never expect to see, turn up. As I have said before, funerals are social
imperatives as well as having
their obvious, deeply spiritual side. Rather like being one of the five thousand being fed, it
is possible to go to a funeral once or twice a week and be fed. No-one is going
to question your presence. There is also the widely held conviction among Christians
that the more that turn up, the better the acceptance in heaven. It has a prid
pro quo element, too. When it comes to your turn to take the bus to that far
off land from which none return, everyone will reciprocate and be there for
your collection of the ticket and making sure you are seated comfortably with paeans
of praise ringing in your ears as the coach draws away.
As a religious ritual, I found the 18th
and 19th century hymns dreary. Their view of a just warrior god,
smiting his enemies and meting out justice with arcane references to Babylon
and the time of David, was surreal. The tunes (Methodist) hardly lifted spirits, even
the post-formal ones with a sprightly reggae beat from the all purpose electronic
music-box. On top of this, the bishop, rather than spending time on the
biography of the deceased, chose to vilify Christianity’s competitors,
highlighting ‘universalism’ which he defined as allowing everyone from any other religion into heaven.
This could not be. His God was very particular and certainly wouldn’t admit into
the vaulted reaches of heaven, those who strove under the base illusions of karma
and reincarnation.
What was moving was the reverence for the dead and the desire
to venerate the departed in her last moments as an intact person (no scattered
ashes, yet.) The very elderly, some a decade older than the 82 year old
deceased, filed past her on walking sticks and in wheelchairs, gazing upon her
embalmed and not-too recognizable features, seeing in her marble austerity
their own faces and their own ends of days. To some extent it raised a
celebratory breath in my lungs, despite the grim solemnity of the proceedings. It was stirring and authentic.
There are blogs before this one that
suggest we write living wills, choreograph our endings and decide exactly how
much of our mix of good, bad and indifferent should be the subject of tributes.
This might be in a church, mosque, temple or synagogue or a venue of humanist irreverence.
Choose your hymns NOW, or your classical pieces, or your rock anthems, write your
autobiographical parting or record it– the last everyone will hear from you about your life; what joys and tribulations you are leaving behind. Decide on your mode of
transport to infinite oblivion or the golden-lit, crystal sea beaches and verdant pastures
of paradise and give your mourners a break. Liberate them from
mouthing homilies and glossing uncomfortable truths. Let them say what they
actually think. That is the mark of a true celebration of a life.
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