January 2009

Before I begin, let me say that what follows may be a touchy subject for some, and my thoughts may seem disorganized and unintelligible -- I am fully aware that I am not an "expert" on this topic.

I was watching television the other day when a commercial came on that somehow related to a "Celebration of Life" service. Truth be told, I remember nothing else about the commercial except for its general subject matter, because afterward I was consumed by this thought:

There is something theologically wrong with "Celebration of Life" services.

Celebration of Life services do a great deal of wrong by bypassing or altogether ignoring the need for mourning, particularly mourning in community.

Take this, for example, taken from this Squidoo page titled "A Celebration of Life, Not A Mourning of Death":

A traditional funeral service with black suits and quiet church music and people gathered around a casket or urn, is okay for some, but it is not favorable for many people. Sometimes mourning a life does not feel right. Life should be celebrated. It is a special day when people who loved a person get together and celebrate their life, happily, and remember the person as they were... alive, and vibrant.

The logic makes sense at first: Why would anyone hold a service dedicated to sorrow -- to weeping, to unanswerable questions, to pain? Holding a Celebration of Life service instead of a funeral intentionally aims to bypass these things. But it's not an "either/or" situation as the title of the aforementioned article suggests. It is (and should be) "both/and".

I'm not familiar with the stages of grief and the respective time frames for dealing with death, but I don't think the short amount of time between death and memorial service allows sufficient space for the deceased's loved ones to properly mourn before celebrating their life.

This is not to say that life shouldn't be celebrated; it is to say that a Celebration of Life has its own time. Ironically, a Celebration of Life service may prevent proper celebration because the mourning hasn't ceased, hasn't begun, or has been discouraged altogether. Mourning must be voiced, affirmed by others, and allowed to run its course.

Peter Rollins recently wrote a piece called We need professional mourners. In it, he says,

Contrary to what people often think, the key to easing peoples suffering is not in offering some insidious theodicy but in allowing a place for people to mourn and to meet others who know what it is to have been burned by that black sun. By providing a public, theo-poetic location where we are able to symbolise our mourning we are able to trinagulate our pain (allowing it to be registered by a third) and place it into the symbolic realm. This is not about providing an answer but rather offering a site where we can speak our suffering.

Put simply, to be human is to endure suffering. Yet we are creatures crafted by the hands of God, and in His infinite wisdom we were all created with an inbuilt process for dealing with our unavoidable suffering: mourning. In mourning we join all of creation, past and present, in a collective groaning for redemption (Romans 8:19-22). Celebrations of Life -- even with good intentions -- largely ignore this theological reality, and at great cost.

I don't think it's selfish to assume that upon my death, those who loved me will be in grief. I pray that they will be able to speak their suffering and find a safe place for mourning before a celebration of my life is considered.

What do you think? Leave a comment and join the conversation.

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