One of the things that really bothered me about my father’s funeral was the body. It was in no way his body—he was long gone from it—and yet it was made to look “alive”. He had make up on, combed hair, a suit & tie, the whole deal. Even his favorite little aborted fetus feet pin. I really don’t understand the desire to make dead people look like they’re still alive. Like at any moment he might sit up and be all, “What’s up, guys?”
I was wandering through the cathedral here in Augsburg (oh, hey, I’m in Augsburg, now, guys! I’ll be here until mid-August) and there are dead people in the walls, dead people under the stone slabs, a crypt (with its own chapel directly above, dedicated to death), and everywhere acknowledgement of the impermanence of this life.
Now I will be one of the first to say that the Catholic faith is way too obsessed with Jesus’ death (and suffering and blood and the fluid that “flowed out of his wounds” along side the blood…and his blood some more), but I think that a healthy acknowledgement of our own deaths is…well, healthy. A lot of my pics didn’t turn out, so this is the best I could do to illustrate: this is a bishop’s grave set into the wall. At the top, covered in gold leaf, is a skull with a bishop’s hat, a cross, wings, and an hourglass. Not morbid when in the context of actual death. And this was by no means the only such grave. Most of them had skulls set into them as decoration. Almost as a reminder: we’re not just remembering this dude, we’re remembering that he had a body, a body that is right here behind this stone, rotting away, just like yours will, and if you can’t deal with that, have a seat where you can see it and think about it for a while; pray about it, if you will.
Our society could use a bit more of that, if you ask me. Maybe that’s why I find such affinity with the goth movement: we really do need to do a better job of acknowledging the darkness. Embracing it, without losing ourselves in it. Death happens. Night falls. Flowers, people, and buildings wither and decay. But life happens, too; the sun rises again, and new life springs from death. Hiding either behind the other is a crime against both.
