Friday 23 October 2009

Funeral directors overstep the mark?

I’ve had a bit of a narrow escape : I’m doing a funeral today and went to see the family three days ago. As I was leaving the house, something they said suggested that they had requested that “the curtain should not be closed”. I checked, and it was true. The funeral director had not passed on this important bit of information, and they had not specifically asked me. It sort of slipped out by accident. Partly for reasons I give below, it hadn’t occurred to me to ask. So we could have had a situation where they suddenly found themselves, at the most sensitive point of the service, facing a closing curtain they didn’t expect. I was not happy, and have raised it with the funeral director concerned. It has made me think a little bit harder about what’s going on here and thought I ought to share it.

I’d be interested to know whether you agree with me, and if so, whether any collective response is appropriate.

I suggested to the funeral director that rather than putting the idea of leaving out the Committal into people’s heads they should leave it to the family themselves to suggest it - at least, as long as it is a Christian funeral to be conducted by me as a Christian minister. The response was that ‘some families prefer it’. Choice is everything . . .

As far as I am aware, there is no Christian funeral liturgy or service that misses out the Committal : I feel the funeral directors are overstepping their boundary in deciding what the content of a Christian service should be. The funeral director was under the impression that ‘the Committal’ was the name given to ‘the whole service’; I think that ‘the Committal’ is that bit of the service (around which the whole thing revolves psychologically) which starts with the words “Therefore . . we commit his/her body to . . etc.” and is followed by the lowering of the coffin or the closing of the curtain.

To me, the ‘we’ in that sentence is important : this is the Christian community, united in grief and supporting one another, ‘handing over’ a loved one to God - together. Leave the Committal out (as I will have to do this afternoon, I guess) and you’re left with individuals ‘walking out on’ the deceased; although I shall suggest that they each take the time to stand before the coffin, acknowledge the deceased and make their own private act of ‘letting go’ in their hearts before leaving. In other words, it will become an individualistic thing. But still not a committal - the committal is more than a thought process. It’s a physical act.
When I used to conduct West Indian burials in London, the family would all help to fill in the grave then and there. I’m fairly sure that as part of a Hindu funeral a couple of men are deputed to accompany the body through the entire cremation process - no leaving it behind a curtain on the catafalque. Not closing the curtain is equivalent to leaving the coffin on the ground beside the grave.

Take out an act of committal of any sort and, it seems to me, you’re left not with a funeral service but a service of thanksgiving. That’s fine as far as it goes, but it’s not a funeral. In a funeral we stare death down in the light of faith. The curtain, for me, has particularly strong resonance - the lectionary is in Hebrews at the moment . . . The curtain in the Jerusalem Temple represented the material creation, but what was beyond it remained ‘most holy’ and obscure. The curtain represented the limit to our mortal vision, but also carried the promise of something more wonderful. It is very appropriate to be left staring at a curtain.
For myself I have said to the funeral director concerned that if they know they are going to ask me to conduct the funeral

> that they do not suggest to the family that they leave out the Committal, or offer it as a ‘choice’. It is my job, not the funeral director’s, to discuss with the family the content of a Christian funeral, and though I’m happy to accommodate their wishes, I would rather they made an informed decision.

> that if the family, on their own initiative, request it, then to be absolutely sure that this information is conveyed to me before I meet them so I can discuss it.

> that I would not feel it appropriate to suggest it to them myself because in my view Christian funerals include Committals (and I’ve been asked presumably to conduct a Christian funeral). Therefore if the funeral director does not pass on such a request and the family don’t mention it to me so that (in ignorance) I close the curtain and people are upset, I shall explain that the responsibility to communicate this rested with them and the funeral director because it is not normal Christian practice.

In all this, it is not my intention to be awkward, and if, after thinking it through with me, the family genuinely want to leave out the Committal then I have my ‘plan B’ as described above.

What I am uneasy about is funeral directors deciding what is and what isn’t a Christian funeral and then either presenting me with a fait accompli, or (worse) creating a situation where I unwittingly cause pastoral hurt.

It’s bad enough that they sell printed orders to people and are pressing me for the order of service before I’ve even had a chance to meet the family. It seems they want it both ways :

> they assume that the order of service is predetermined such that I can tell them what it is before consulting the family. (As a URC minister I can be a lot more flexible than that). But . .

> feel that they can offer the family (but not me) choice over whether to include an essential element of a Christian funeral.
What do you think?

6 comments:

Charles Cowling said...

Very, very interesting and knotty problem — brought about largely by the rise of the secular funeral, personalisation, individualism, euphemism, dumbing down, often, and, of course, from the undertaker’s point of view, consumer satisfaction. The un-drawn curtain is all part of the emotionally manageable funeral, too often a trivialised event containing no element of what you so splendidly describe as staring down death.

Does the drawing of the curtain equal the stark and earthy majesty of lowering a coffin into a grave? I have my doubts. I think it may be a euphemism – what Professor Tony Walter calls a ‘false committal’. After all, the coffin doesn’t move once the curtain has closed – there is no continuous process. As a secular celebrant I always discuss witnessing the coffin go into the fire, and finding words to accompany that. Uptake, it has to be said, is infrequent! But I think that’s the way to do it.

For secular folk this walking out on the dead person, as you call it, does not register as such. If you don’t think the person is definitely going anywhere then a goodbye suffices. For them a committal is a farewell. The opportunity to come up at the end and say a few words works very well.

The funeral director had no right whatever, of course, to discuss anything of the ceremony with his/her clients. The ceremony is none of a funeral director’s business! I am glad you made that clear.

Yes, yes, all that badgering for an order of service. I know it well.

I do not know that the modern funeral is in very good health. I talk about things like this on my blog – www.goodfuneralguide.co.uk

Dick said...

Fascinating response, and thank you. If I understand you (and I must follow up your own blog), you conduct humanist funerals (as does my father-in-law). Though you personally don't entertain a hope for a personal resurrection after death you nonetheless seek honesty about death's finality and emotional cost, and regret attempts to avoid it.

So although a 'goodbye' suffices (i.e. there is no God to commit the deceased to) you still think the finality of that goodbye needs to be faced.

One thing that strikes me is that present culture entertains vague belief in immortality. For me, the Christian belief is not a belief in immortality - a sort of seamless transition to angelhood (if the deceased are children) or the fires of hell (if they're a paedophile - but of course 'I won't be going to hell; I never hurt anyone'). For me, as a Christian, death is utterly final. But resurrection life (the Christian hope) is not something intrinsic to mortal nature : it is in the gift of God alone. Someone with a vague belief in immortality can walk away from the coffin. ("Death is nothing at all" as that poem goes, which I find so personally difficult when the family ask for it). A goodbye will suffice.

The person who has vague hopes of immortality has no need of faith in God, and very often I find that whilst people talk of angels, and talk of the dead as if they were somehow around, God doesn't come into it. For me, unless God comes into it it's just superstition.

But for you (who entertain no hope of immortality), and for me (whose hope is in resurrection by God alone) "staring down death" to the end requires seeing the death process to its conclusion. How strange, if it's true!

Charles Cowling said...

Dick, I conduct all sorts of funerals short of a full religious rite. I'm not a humanist, but I'll happily do funerals for atheists. Most of the funerals I do, though, are informed by a briefing which goes along the lines of, "We don't believe in God but we do believe in Heaven, so we don't want any preaching or God stuff, we want it all to be about the deceased -- but we do want a hymn and the Lord's Prayer..." This is very fuzzy, incoherent spirituality -- what you call superstition. My own position is somewhere on this continuum. I have never succeeded in leaps of faith but I hold holiness in the highest regard.

Whether it's the end of the line, a seamless transition to a celestial picnic area or full-on sheep and goats judgement, I am a strong believer in addressing death as an existential, not a greetings card, event. For that reason I, too, resist 'Death is nothing at all' and if ever called upon to recite it, a little voice in my head keeps pace with the metre and says, "Yes, it jolly well is."

Whatever a person's belief, the awareness of death must inform the way they live and the way they address the deaths of those close to them informs their ability to absorb it and go on living effectively. I have a strong suspicion that the bereavement industry is the force it has become because people do not grieve best at the best time for grieving.

So, yes, I have a puritanical approach to my work. We'll celebrate the life, of course we will. But we will not move on to our pudding until we have eaten up our greens and explored and acknowledged how we feel.

A secular funeral need not be entirely hope-less!

Your own position, let me tell you, teaches me a lot. Thank you.

Tony Brett said...

This reminds me of my Uncle's funeral earlier this year. The curtain was not closed before we left the crematorium and it did feel exactly like walking out on him.

Dick, I think you are absoultely right to highlight this, and the funeral director's pressure to get you to provide an order of service before even seeing the grieving relatives.

A very clear case of overstepping the mark but the funeral director in my view. Thank you for highlighting it. I hope it be useful to others preparing to lead funerals and to grieving loved ones. I hope it will make funeral directors stop and think about what exactly it is they are doing too.

Charles Cowling said...

Dear Dick

A book I highly recommend: Thomas G Long, Accompany Them With Singing (The Christian Funeral). Beautifully written, shirks nothing and very inspiring.

With all best wishes,

Charles

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