Don's grandmother passed away so we drove to NJ to spend most of the week with his family. It was interesting as usual. John and Beth served faithfully as our islands of sanity amidst the predictable escalating drama.
The actual funeral was difficult for me. Not so much because I miss Grandma... I really didn't know her well and I'm happy for her that she's not suffering anymore. My discomfort was related to the religious rites of the funeral itself. Let me preface this by saying that my intent is not to knock anyone's choices... I'm just stating my observations.
Grandma was Roman Catholic. The funeral was exactly what I would've expected based on my few experiences attending Catholic mass with friends. Sit, stand, kneel, stand, kneel, sit. I could NOT keep up! Bland songs. Somber expressions on all faces. Creepy-looking icons. Incense. Recitations. Going through the motions. Our family was sitting together in front, and I'm sure we looked like a group of heathens since obviously none of us had a clue of what we were supposed to be doing.
A few years ago, D's uncle died and he had a Russian Orthodox funeral which basically consisted of burning incense and chanting the same phrases over and over again for hours. I never heard any mention of Uncle Yogi, and that broke my heart. The priest and choir of chanters (or whatever they are formally called) spent the entire time begging God to have mercy on the soul of his servant who had fallen asleep. I didn't see any purpose to that at all. Why couldn't we have spent that time rejoicing and thanking God for Yogi's life? I was seriously upset after that one.
I can hardly bear taking part in these kind of services where God is reduced to some mythical, austere, impersonal, egotistical, demanding being in the sky. God is so real and alive to me. He's approachable. Warm. Loving. Just. He wants my heart and my trust in His plan. I can't understand how anyone can read the same Bible I do and still think that they have to "earn" their way into a relationship. I could light candles and chant and do the sign of the cross all day long, and still accomplish absolutely nothing of eternal value. Who started all of this stuff and what convinced them that God ever cared about these pseudo-pious rituals?
If that was what God was truly all about, I never would have given Him a second thought.
