I've derived so much knowledge and enjoyment from people looking at bones that I'd be delighted to be dug up by archaeologists. Not, as BT says, that I'll know anything about it.
I'm reminded of Shakespeare's epitaph which urges the reader, ' ... for Jesus's sake forbeare' from disturbing the dust enclosed there.
'Blessed be he that spares these stones.
But cursed be he who moves my bones.'
Interesting how bones and 'relics' were still to be accorded some dignity even after the Reformation. Perhaps they were concerned about souvenir hunters?
Coming back to Madagascar again, they have the ceremony of the 'Turning of The Bones' whereby bodies are exhumed after around 3 years, cleaned and then carefully wrapped in white scarves before being reburied with their names written in felt pin or placed in caves. Bones are treated with great reverence and dignity.
I wouldn't mind an archaeologist examining mine and I've noticed on some of these archaeological programmes on the telly how they are beginning to take a more 'reverent' attitude than they used to.
But I can understand why people wouldn't want their mortal remains interfered with.
It wouldn't worry me but then I would prefer to be buried rather than cremated so I do have some concerns in that respect - although I wouldn't expect everyone to share my views on this issue.
In urban Greece they are running out of burial space. They don't do cremations there. I think you'd have to go to Bulgaria for that. They do exhume bones and put them in ossuaries.
People in the US frequently scatter ashes at a place the deceased loved, sometimes illegally. A friend's family scattered a loved one's ashes at Santa Anita racetrack.
I can’t speak to British Presbyterian or Reformed practice, but there’s a long-standing strand of American Presbyterianism (or at least Southern American Presbyterianism) with a preference for burial attended just by family and close friends, followed as immediately as possible by the service at the church. (And the service is often followed in turn by a reception at the church where people can speak to the family.) In my experience, this way of doing things was often the preferred way for ministers and their families. It’s what my parents wanted, as well as much of my mother's extended family (lots of ministers).
We've had one like that at our (Presbyterian) home church not long ago. There was a small family gathering at the grave for the burial, and then they met a huge crowd back at the church for the service and a celebration. I think the sense was, "We've taken care of Jim - now let's celebrate him!" Which we did - it was a happy funeral for a good man whose life was worth celebrating generously. His family has a long history here and burial within the community seemed exactly right.
On the other hand, living in the same place, we are far from any family and thousands of miles from the oldest of our friends and family. It makes no sense (to me) to have any permanent memorial memorial in a place that nobody would ever have any reason to visit. I would like cremation to take place as quickly as possible and, sentimentally - my sentiments - my ashes to be taken to one of a handful of places in Scotland that have a strong connection for me, but does it matter to anyone else? The easy solution is to be scattered in the nearby river that flows into Lake Erie, so a little bit will eventually go over Niagara Falls - fun to think about.
I hate the UK practice of a service at a crematorium. Doing it remotely is fine with me, and perhaps a small service later in the church, with plenty of good music. With our family, good singing is too much to hope for. A rushed ceremony for my father with a rent-a-priest at a production line crematorium, with smoke blowing down as we left, was a harrowing experience I hope never to repeat. We scattered his ashes in the Clyde not far from where he was born, and that was good.
I am curious about the objection to archaeologists poring over your bones. What would be the problem with that?
I've seen Time Team poring over bones, speculating how they lived and died, what illnesses they had. "Ooooh look, Boogie had metal plates in her neck, how interesting."
No thanks, not over my bones.
But I'm still puzzled as to what the problem is exactly. Why is it a problem for someone to think you are interesting? Obviously archaeologists will speculate about what illnesses someone may have had, it's helpful for understanding historical approaches to illness and can even help current or future people with said illnesses (archaeology and forensics are after all closely related fields). If you're an organ donor for eg, I don't see how donating your bones to archaeology is ethically much different.
Personally, given that I'm not there to use my body anymore I would prefer my remains to be used to make the world a better place. Cremation is extremely polluting and doesn't seem to benefit anyone.
A new crematorium opened in 2009 just a mile or two from our house. At the planning consultation stage I submitted an objection that I thought cremation was bad for the environment compared to burial. I received a reply that the opposite was the case. I can't remember what evidence was cited and didn't go any further into it -partly because most such planning applications get through anyway.
What is the truth? Ashwashing?!
There was a 'CHP' proposal around here to use waste heat from a proposed crematorium for a swimming pool, but it was knocked back as distasteful. That was a shame from my perspective - I'd like for my Joules to do something useful. @Qoheleth (I think) knows a lot about that kind of thing, but I haven't seen him here for a long time.
AI tells me that 'human composting' or 'natural burial' are the most environmentally friendly ways to do it.
These raise other issues of course, such as the use of land and the availability of space for burials. The Greeks get around that by putting bones in ossuaries after a few years.
The place where my husband is buried was until recently agricultural land. When the farmer retired he turned two fields into a woodland burial ground, leaving his son to farm the rest of the land. Now a housing estate has been built opposite, but no doubt they are glad to know that no houses will be built opposite them. On the other side of the houses is a country park, made from a reclaimed colliery site. A new crematorium has recently opened a mile away and that is also in a rural setting. All makes sense to me.
Another natural burial ground was in the news yesterday as thieves uprooted and stole many of its young trees. That’s awful.
As an archaeologist, I've dug up quite a few skeletons in my time, and I remember it as quite a contemplative experience. We were always quite careful with the bones - though there was one grim experience where I'd exposed the skeleton, and was going to do the planning and get the photographer the following morning. In the night, there was a storm, and the grave cut had filled with water. There was nothing for it but to roll my sleeves up and delve into the muddy water to lift the bones out!
In the finds hut, one of our volunteers used to talk to the bones as she washed them - but she didn't like doing children (it was a medieval cemetery, so there were a few of them).
When all the research had been done, the bones were returned to the church - the graveyard had been made smaller at the end of the medieval period, so the church was still there on the edge of the archaeological site - and they were reburied with a service as close to the medieval service as they could manage.
Yesterday afternoon I was at a funeral of a friend at a local church. It was the first time I'd seen a wicker coffin in use. He was buried in the historic graveyard - he'd been part of the history project researching the graveyard and the nearby ringwork/medieval small castle.
The widespread belief that as bone meal is used as fertiliser, cremains must be good for the roses, unfortunately turns out to be rubbish. The bone meal one buys in garden centres etc is made by grinding up animal bones as a by-product from slaughterhouses. The animals have not been burnt.
When one is cremated, all the nutrients have gone up the chimney.
No, shouldn't joke. The Orthodox Church is strongly opposed to 'water cremation' for similar reasons to why we don't like the idea of conventional cremation.
It involves deliberate destruction of the body.
If that happens by accident or other means that's one thing, but to deliberately burn a body or liquefy it into mush, is, to the Orthodox mind, to show it disrespect.
Some of us would see it as tantamount to flushing it down the loo.
Now, don't get me wrong and don't misunderstand me nor take any offence if you are comfortable with the idea of cremation.
I certainly believe that it is possible to cremate a body reverently, if I can put it that way. As we've got some archaeologists here, I was interested to hear that excavations of some Bronze Age barrows near here back in the 1980s revealed that the nearby cremation pits has flues at the right angle required to channel the flames at the right consistency and temperature to consume a human body quickly and efficiently.
The conclusion was that the bodies weren't simply flung on a pyre and burnt but placed there with considerable care and attention.
Whatever the case, for my own part as an Orthodox Christian I would prefer to bury my relatives and be buried myself rather than cremate them either conventionally or by the 'water' system.
It's not that I don't believe that God can't 'reconstitute' the remains for the 'resurrection body'. Nor does it mean that I think he will cast those who cremate their relatives into outer darkness.
But I do see the Orthodox position as congruent with the creedal belief that we to expect the 'resurrection of the body' rather than disembodied spirits floating in the ether.
I believe in a 'new heaven and a new earth', not in the way that the Jehovah's Witnesses depict in 'The Watchtower' with cuddly lions and tigers and so on, but very 'real' nevertheless.
Call me old-fashioned but that's where I'm at with this. Ours is an Incarnational faith. Matter matters.
The way @Eigon describes the treatment of bones by his archaeological colleagues makes complete sense to me.
That doesn't mean I don't find some relics icky. I do. But theologically, I 'get' them and venerate them.
But I do see the Orthodox position as congruent with the creedal belief that we to expect the 'resurrection of the body' rather than disembodied spirits floating in the ether. . . .
Call me old-fashioned but that's where I'm at with this. Ours is an Incarnational faith. Matter matters.
Mine is an Incarnational faith, too. But it’s also a faith that if God is capable of resurrecting a body from what remains in a coffin or in the ground after decades or hundreds or thousands of years, God is equally capable of resurrecting a body from ashes. “You are dust, and to dust you shall return,” and all of that. Cremation just speeds along the process of returning to dust.
I suppose it depends on your cultural context, and how the action (cremation, burial, whatever) gets framed in that context. In my own, it would probably make no ripples at all for us to choose any of the standard ways of dealing with a body--and this is a pastor's family. In others where there's a long history of "reading" such choices as making theological statements, well...
I'm glad I don't have to cope with that, it would complicate things a great deal for me at a time when I can't cope already. But I see how others do have to cope.
I suppose it depends on your cultural context, and how the action (cremation, burial, whatever) gets framed in that context. In my own, it would probably make no ripples at all for us to choose any of the standard ways of dealing with a body--and this is a pastor's family. In others where there's a long history of "reading" such choices as making theological statements, well...
Yes, I think that makes sense, and it’s consistent with the point I was trying to make. That one church body or religious culture would see it as important or meaningful to prohibit cremation as a way of affirming the Incarnation and the Resurrection doesn’t mean that another church body or religious culture that allows cremation is denying the Incarnation or the resurrection of the body.
If I recall correctly, and someone who knows better can certainly correct me, the Catholic Church used to prohibit cremation, or at least discourage it. While burial is still preferred, cremation is allowed as along as it is not chosen to actually deny Catholic doctrine in some way, such as with intent to deny the resurrection of the body.
But I do see the Orthodox position as congruent with the creedal belief that we to expect the 'resurrection of the body' rather than disembodied spirits floating in the ether. . . .
Call me old-fashioned but that's where I'm at with this. Ours is an Incarnational faith. Matter matters.
Mine is an Incarnational faith, too. But it’s also a faith that if God is capable of resurrecting a body from what remains in a coffin or in the ground after decades or hundreds or thousands of years, God is equally capable of resurrecting a body from ashes. “You are dust, and to dust you shall return,” and all of that. Cremation just speeds along the process of returning to dust.
When I said 'ours' I meant the Christian faith in general. We all believe in the Incarnation.
Also, I made it clear that I believe that God is more than capable of reconstituting matter from dust, ashes and whatever else.
I also made it clear that I don't believe that God will condemn those Christians who cremate rather than bury their dead.
The point of the Orthodox position is that we shouldn't deliberately destroy the human body. Sure, cremation simply speeds up the 'to dust you shall return' process and I'm certainly not accusing other Christians of having nefarious intent or a slap-dash approach. I'm simply setting out the Orthodox position.
We share the same Incarnational faith but we differ in how we work that out in practice. I would venerate icons and relics for instance as I see that to be in keeping with my application of that Incarnational faith. Others may not see things that way. That doesn't mean they don't believe in the Incarnation.
I suppose it depends on your cultural context, and how the action (cremation, burial, whatever) gets framed in that context. In my own, it would probably make no ripples at all for us to choose any of the standard ways of dealing with a body--and this is a pastor's family. In others where there's a long history of "reading" such choices as making theological statements, well...
I'm glad I don't have to cope with that, it would complicate things a great deal for me at a time when I can't cope already. But I see how others do have to cope.
Sure, but if I'm allowed to use the 't' word, I also think 'tradition' and Tradition come into these things as well as cultural conditions.
Lex credendi, lex orandi, lex vivendi.
I come from a culture that very much values funerals and celebrations of the departed. As a Welsh priest I know puts it, 'We don't care about you when you're alive but we'll give you a pretty good send-off when you're dead!' 😉
I don't come from a culture that venerates relics or leaves coffin lids open during pre-funeral rituals and funerals themselves.
But I have joined a church culture which does. Do I find it disconcerting to stand over an open coffin chanting the Psalms? Yes, I do. But I've done it as a service to the family and outvof respect for the dead and the funerary rites of my particular Christian church.
I'm not saying everyone has to follow suit. You are all perfectly at liberty to practice whatever is in keeping with your Christian tradition, culture or approach.
And what you feel you can or can't cope with, whatever that might be.
Getting back to the original post, the daughter of someone I know just died (I'll be putting something about it on the prayer thread soon) and will have a wake/viewing on Tuesday of next week, church funeral Wednesday, and burial immediately after the funeral. No cremation.
Comments
'Blessed be he that spares these stones.
But cursed be he who moves my bones.'
Interesting how bones and 'relics' were still to be accorded some dignity even after the Reformation. Perhaps they were concerned about souvenir hunters?
Coming back to Madagascar again, they have the ceremony of the 'Turning of The Bones' whereby bodies are exhumed after around 3 years, cleaned and then carefully wrapped in white scarves before being reburied with their names written in felt pin or placed in caves. Bones are treated with great reverence and dignity.
I wouldn't mind an archaeologist examining mine and I've noticed on some of these archaeological programmes on the telly how they are beginning to take a more 'reverent' attitude than they used to.
But I can understand why people wouldn't want their mortal remains interfered with.
It wouldn't worry me but then I would prefer to be buried rather than cremated so I do have some concerns in that respect - although I wouldn't expect everyone to share my views on this issue.
In urban Greece they are running out of burial space. They don't do cremations there. I think you'd have to go to Bulgaria for that. They do exhume bones and put them in ossuaries.
We've had one like that at our (Presbyterian) home church not long ago. There was a small family gathering at the grave for the burial, and then they met a huge crowd back at the church for the service and a celebration. I think the sense was, "We've taken care of Jim - now let's celebrate him!" Which we did - it was a happy funeral for a good man whose life was worth celebrating generously. His family has a long history here and burial within the community seemed exactly right.
On the other hand, living in the same place, we are far from any family and thousands of miles from the oldest of our friends and family. It makes no sense (to me) to have any permanent memorial memorial in a place that nobody would ever have any reason to visit. I would like cremation to take place as quickly as possible and, sentimentally - my sentiments - my ashes to be taken to one of a handful of places in Scotland that have a strong connection for me, but does it matter to anyone else? The easy solution is to be scattered in the nearby river that flows into Lake Erie, so a little bit will eventually go over Niagara Falls - fun to think about.
I hate the UK practice of a service at a crematorium. Doing it remotely is fine with me, and perhaps a small service later in the church, with plenty of good music. With our family, good singing is too much to hope for. A rushed ceremony for my father with a rent-a-priest at a production line crematorium, with smoke blowing down as we left, was a harrowing experience I hope never to repeat. We scattered his ashes in the Clyde not far from where he was born, and that was good.
But I'm still puzzled as to what the problem is exactly. Why is it a problem for someone to think you are interesting? Obviously archaeologists will speculate about what illnesses someone may have had, it's helpful for understanding historical approaches to illness and can even help current or future people with said illnesses (archaeology and forensics are after all closely related fields). If you're an organ donor for eg, I don't see how donating your bones to archaeology is ethically much different.
Personally, given that I'm not there to use my body anymore I would prefer my remains to be used to make the world a better place. Cremation is extremely polluting and doesn't seem to benefit anyone.
I'm just as puzzled and I agree with you. Yes, I am down to be an organ donor.
But I can't shake off the feeling - and it's a strong feeling. No poring over my bones!
What is the most environmentally friendly way of disposing a body?
What is the truth? Ashwashing?!
There is a process by which you can be turned into compost or you can be buried in a mushroom coffin.
These raise other issues of course, such as the use of land and the availability of space for burials. The Greeks get around that by putting bones in ossuaries after a few years.
No easy answer to this one.
https://www.funeralguide.co.uk/help-resources/arranging-a-funeral/funeral-guides/a-guide-to-water-cremation
Another natural burial ground was in the news yesterday as thieves uprooted and stole many of its young trees. That’s awful.
In the finds hut, one of our volunteers used to talk to the bones as she washed them - but she didn't like doing children (it was a medieval cemetery, so there were a few of them).
When all the research had been done, the bones were returned to the church - the graveyard had been made smaller at the end of the medieval period, so the church was still there on the edge of the archaeological site - and they were reburied with a service as close to the medieval service as they could manage.
Yesterday afternoon I was at a funeral of a friend at a local church. It was the first time I'd seen a wicker coffin in use. He was buried in the historic graveyard - he'd been part of the history project researching the graveyard and the nearby ringwork/medieval small castle.
When one is cremated, all the nutrients have gone up the chimney.
Over my dead body!
😉
No, shouldn't joke. The Orthodox Church is strongly opposed to 'water cremation' for similar reasons to why we don't like the idea of conventional cremation.
It involves deliberate destruction of the body.
If that happens by accident or other means that's one thing, but to deliberately burn a body or liquefy it into mush, is, to the Orthodox mind, to show it disrespect.
Some of us would see it as tantamount to flushing it down the loo.
Now, don't get me wrong and don't misunderstand me nor take any offence if you are comfortable with the idea of cremation.
I certainly believe that it is possible to cremate a body reverently, if I can put it that way. As we've got some archaeologists here, I was interested to hear that excavations of some Bronze Age barrows near here back in the 1980s revealed that the nearby cremation pits has flues at the right angle required to channel the flames at the right consistency and temperature to consume a human body quickly and efficiently.
The conclusion was that the bodies weren't simply flung on a pyre and burnt but placed there with considerable care and attention.
Whatever the case, for my own part as an Orthodox Christian I would prefer to bury my relatives and be buried myself rather than cremate them either conventionally or by the 'water' system.
It's not that I don't believe that God can't 'reconstitute' the remains for the 'resurrection body'. Nor does it mean that I think he will cast those who cremate their relatives into outer darkness.
But I do see the Orthodox position as congruent with the creedal belief that we to expect the 'resurrection of the body' rather than disembodied spirits floating in the ether.
I believe in a 'new heaven and a new earth', not in the way that the Jehovah's Witnesses depict in 'The Watchtower' with cuddly lions and tigers and so on, but very 'real' nevertheless.
Call me old-fashioned but that's where I'm at with this. Ours is an Incarnational faith. Matter matters.
The way @Eigon describes the treatment of bones by his archaeological colleagues makes complete sense to me.
That doesn't mean I don't find some relics icky. I do. But theologically, I 'get' them and venerate them.
I'm glad I don't have to cope with that, it would complicate things a great deal for me at a time when I can't cope already. But I see how others do have to cope.
If I recall correctly, and someone who knows better can certainly correct me, the Catholic Church used to prohibit cremation, or at least discourage it. While burial is still preferred, cremation is allowed as along as it is not chosen to actually deny Catholic doctrine in some way, such as with intent to deny the resurrection of the body.
When I said 'ours' I meant the Christian faith in general. We all believe in the Incarnation.
Also, I made it clear that I believe that God is more than capable of reconstituting matter from dust, ashes and whatever else.
I also made it clear that I don't believe that God will condemn those Christians who cremate rather than bury their dead.
The point of the Orthodox position is that we shouldn't deliberately destroy the human body. Sure, cremation simply speeds up the 'to dust you shall return' process and I'm certainly not accusing other Christians of having nefarious intent or a slap-dash approach. I'm simply setting out the Orthodox position.
We share the same Incarnational faith but we differ in how we work that out in practice. I would venerate icons and relics for instance as I see that to be in keeping with my application of that Incarnational faith. Others may not see things that way. That doesn't mean they don't believe in the Incarnation.
Sure, but if I'm allowed to use the 't' word, I also think 'tradition' and Tradition come into these things as well as cultural conditions.
Lex credendi, lex orandi, lex vivendi.
I come from a culture that very much values funerals and celebrations of the departed. As a Welsh priest I know puts it, 'We don't care about you when you're alive but we'll give you a pretty good send-off when you're dead!' 😉
I don't come from a culture that venerates relics or leaves coffin lids open during pre-funeral rituals and funerals themselves.
But I have joined a church culture which does. Do I find it disconcerting to stand over an open coffin chanting the Psalms? Yes, I do. But I've done it as a service to the family and outvof respect for the dead and the funerary rites of my particular Christian church.
I'm not saying everyone has to follow suit. You are all perfectly at liberty to practice whatever is in keeping with your Christian tradition, culture or approach.
And what you feel you can or can't cope with, whatever that might be.