Out of focus
23/10/14 05:14
I’ve been nearsighted for most of my life. I don’t remember exactly when I got my first pair of glasses, but it was early in my elementary school career. I required thick lenses and in those days there was no way for my correction to be made with plastic lenses. The lenses often fitted poorly in the plastic frames. The frames were fairly fragile. I went through much of my grade school years with a wad of electrician’s tape across the bridge of my glasses and there were more than a few pair that were lost in the river, broken beyond repair and otherwise damaged or destroyed. My parents were very patient with me, and I got replacements quickly, but it was 80 miles one way to the place where we got our glasses and it took a week or more to get new glasses once ordered.
I know what it is like to experience the world out of focus.
These days I always have a spare pair of glasses and I am much less likely to break or lose a pair, but occasionally I’ll walk around the house without my glasses. I remove them frequently for cleaning and they get fogged up when I ski and sometimes when I paddle, so I have a pretty good sense of what the world looks like when I’m not wearing them.
Yesterday I had an out-of-focus experience that didn’t involve my glasses. I attended the funeral of a 24-year-old who died by suicide after a very turbulent time in his life. He was in trouble with law enforcement, though not something that couldn’t have been worked out. He had made some poor choices in the period of time after graduating from high school and college, but he was young and we all make mistakes.
Of course no one knows what happened in the final moments of his life. No one knows what he was thinking. It is likely that there was undiagnosed mental illness that had gone untreated. What we do know is that he died and that the news of his death was sudden and traumatic for his family and friends.
A large group of people assembled in a gymnasium for the service. There were several tables of displays of his life and achievements. There was a slide show of pictures of his childhood and teen years, with lots of pictures with friends. There were several other pictures from his young adult years, some taken at parties and other special events. His obituary described him as “the life of the party.”
The officiant at the funeral began by acknowledging the pain of loss. Hs spoke in some very general terms about “a life of eternity,” though he avoided specific references to heaven and hell. He said, “If you believe the Bible like I believe the Bible” multiple times but never quoted the Bible and never read from the Bible. He stood behind a table with no notes speaking into a microphone. There was a brief prayer.
Then he asked for people to share. There were plenty of people who spoke. Mostly they were friends of the young man and they spoke of what a good person he had been, how he made others feel, how brilliant he was as a student, and how much fun he was to be with. Both of his parents spoke and told brief stories from his childhood. A friend sang three different songs as prompted by the officiant. After about 50 minutes of this “open microphone” sharing, the officiant invited people to share a lunch and the family was escorted from their seats by the funeral home staff.
Like I said, the entire experience seemed to me to be out of focus.
The majority of the mourners were under the age of 30. Some of them had young children in their arms. They were very emotional and tearful. The sadness and the trauma of the day were never addressed in the service. There was no hope offered for the grieving persons - no comments about how a community gets through such a loss.
There is something cathartic about gathering together. It is good to give people permission to remember. The young people at the service were showing genuine concern and support for one another. But they were offered little in the service itself to help them sort through their experience. No mention was made of the cause of death or of the resources that are available in our community for those who suffer from depression. Nothing was said about what we can learn from this tragedy and how a future tragedy might be avoided.
I have no doubt that the young man who died had many friends. I know that he was a brilliant student and a very personable companion. I know that he will be missed. I knew all of those things before the service began.
A funeral service is a critical element in the process of communal grieving and it can be instrumental in enabling the community to come together and move forward. I invested a lot of energy in academic study and preparation before I began officiating at funerals. Among the resources that I got to know thoroughly are the historic liturgies and prayers of the church. I do a lot of public speaking without notes, but I always work from a full manuscript at a funeral. The words are too important. A funeral is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for those who gather. The individual whose death we mourn is unique in all the world.
Grieving people need to be reassured that we are not alone and that this is not the end. Sharing the scriptures of our people is one way of offering comfort and the simple reminder that we have experienced loss and tragedy before and we have lived with our grief and discovered hope.
I left the auditorium sad yesterday. I had been called to assist with the notification of the family on the night of the death. I had witnessed the tragedy of their loss. It seemed to me yesterday that I witnessed a second tragedy when an out of focus funeral service failed to give them the hope and assurance that is available. Not just the family, but also a room full of young adults with very little experience with death and loss and grief were left without the resources that are available.
It was the second tragedy in a week to fall upon the community.
I know what it is like to experience the world out of focus.
These days I always have a spare pair of glasses and I am much less likely to break or lose a pair, but occasionally I’ll walk around the house without my glasses. I remove them frequently for cleaning and they get fogged up when I ski and sometimes when I paddle, so I have a pretty good sense of what the world looks like when I’m not wearing them.
Yesterday I had an out-of-focus experience that didn’t involve my glasses. I attended the funeral of a 24-year-old who died by suicide after a very turbulent time in his life. He was in trouble with law enforcement, though not something that couldn’t have been worked out. He had made some poor choices in the period of time after graduating from high school and college, but he was young and we all make mistakes.
Of course no one knows what happened in the final moments of his life. No one knows what he was thinking. It is likely that there was undiagnosed mental illness that had gone untreated. What we do know is that he died and that the news of his death was sudden and traumatic for his family and friends.
A large group of people assembled in a gymnasium for the service. There were several tables of displays of his life and achievements. There was a slide show of pictures of his childhood and teen years, with lots of pictures with friends. There were several other pictures from his young adult years, some taken at parties and other special events. His obituary described him as “the life of the party.”
The officiant at the funeral began by acknowledging the pain of loss. Hs spoke in some very general terms about “a life of eternity,” though he avoided specific references to heaven and hell. He said, “If you believe the Bible like I believe the Bible” multiple times but never quoted the Bible and never read from the Bible. He stood behind a table with no notes speaking into a microphone. There was a brief prayer.
Then he asked for people to share. There were plenty of people who spoke. Mostly they were friends of the young man and they spoke of what a good person he had been, how he made others feel, how brilliant he was as a student, and how much fun he was to be with. Both of his parents spoke and told brief stories from his childhood. A friend sang three different songs as prompted by the officiant. After about 50 minutes of this “open microphone” sharing, the officiant invited people to share a lunch and the family was escorted from their seats by the funeral home staff.
Like I said, the entire experience seemed to me to be out of focus.
The majority of the mourners were under the age of 30. Some of them had young children in their arms. They were very emotional and tearful. The sadness and the trauma of the day were never addressed in the service. There was no hope offered for the grieving persons - no comments about how a community gets through such a loss.
There is something cathartic about gathering together. It is good to give people permission to remember. The young people at the service were showing genuine concern and support for one another. But they were offered little in the service itself to help them sort through their experience. No mention was made of the cause of death or of the resources that are available in our community for those who suffer from depression. Nothing was said about what we can learn from this tragedy and how a future tragedy might be avoided.
I have no doubt that the young man who died had many friends. I know that he was a brilliant student and a very personable companion. I know that he will be missed. I knew all of those things before the service began.
A funeral service is a critical element in the process of communal grieving and it can be instrumental in enabling the community to come together and move forward. I invested a lot of energy in academic study and preparation before I began officiating at funerals. Among the resources that I got to know thoroughly are the historic liturgies and prayers of the church. I do a lot of public speaking without notes, but I always work from a full manuscript at a funeral. The words are too important. A funeral is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for those who gather. The individual whose death we mourn is unique in all the world.
Grieving people need to be reassured that we are not alone and that this is not the end. Sharing the scriptures of our people is one way of offering comfort and the simple reminder that we have experienced loss and tragedy before and we have lived with our grief and discovered hope.
I left the auditorium sad yesterday. I had been called to assist with the notification of the family on the night of the death. I had witnessed the tragedy of their loss. It seemed to me yesterday that I witnessed a second tragedy when an out of focus funeral service failed to give them the hope and assurance that is available. Not just the family, but also a room full of young adults with very little experience with death and loss and grief were left without the resources that are available.
It was the second tragedy in a week to fall upon the community.