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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1541 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 3, 2024

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Hey Mottizens, what are your funeral plans?

... am I the only one satisfied with threescore and ten?

I have no plans, and I'm hopefully young enough that I won't have to make serious plans any time soon, ojalá.

But I would very much like a traditional church funeral, where everyone dresses up, wears black, they play sad songs on an organ, and a traditional sermon is preached. It'd be nice if something was said about what I left behind in the world, but I would prefer if the focus of the funeral is not on myself but on the transcendent values I believed in during my life. I have never had a particularly intense fear of death, but I do very much fear the death of my ideas, my worldview, my way of life, my values. I would consider it the most meaningful celebration of my life if the focus were not on me, but on God.

I realize that sounds rather entitled, but my perspective is that very strict, formal funeral rites make clear the gravity of what's happened and provide order and familiarity to the horribleness of death. What I want for my family and friends is a participation in that, as well as a reflection of my values.

I have the same beliefs about weddings -- I think a big problem with Western culture is how flippantly and casually we treat everything, how businesswear has been eroded and even at funerals and weddings people don't put on their Sunday best. We apply the same flippant attitude to people dying and people making a solemn promise of commitment to each other -- is it really any wonder that people just go "bury me in a ditch," or don't get married? Where's the meaning and significance?

I want my funeral to be a funeral, and my wedding to be a wedding. These are not times for creativity and individuality, they're life scripts -- often literally scripted -- and the point is that it's not just random people doing random things, but the participation of particular people in a larger whole, a solemnization of something that many have gone through before and will go through in the future. You're not alone.

There's something about major services in our culture that's so empty, so lonely, so disconnected, that even at the times we are most vulnerable, dead or grieving, engaged and married, there's nothing to actually hold us up other than our own thoughts, our grief at a funeral or our hand-written cringey vows at a wedding. Big, important, meaningful things are happening, and instead of supporting people with the weight of a thousand years of tradition, we tell mourners or the betrothed to fly, bitch. I don't want that for either my wedding or my funeral.

As part of a Catholic family we don't believe in any particular sanctity of the body once the soul leaves it. Accordingly, we don't visit graves, because nobody is there to see. So having an actual gravesite isn't important to me. Given that, I want my body to return to the earth, and I see no reason for it to be preserved for eternity with embalming chemicals and entombed in a large metal coffin. Unfortunately, state and local laws make it very difficult for one to obtain a natural burial, so I want those close to me to steal my body and bury it in an undisclosed location in the woods. That way, it can help germinate a tree or perform some other useful function. This would seem to obviate a funeral but I definitely want a funeral, not for my own benefit but for the benefit of those close to me. I've had several friends and family members who have died and requested no funeral, usually on the grounds that it's too much of a hassle. While I can't say I'm a fan of the whole traditional funeral thing, it is nice to have an opportunity to gather together in a time of need. I remember when my aunt died and there was no funeral and it was just an empty feeling. So I want there to be some kind of memorial, but I'll leave the details to the discretion of my heirs.

As part of a Catholic family we don't believe in any particular sanctity of the body once the soul leaves it. Accordingly, we don't visit graves, because nobody is there to see.

Uh, what?

As part of a Catholic family we don't believe in any particular sanctity of the body once the soul leaves it. Accordingly, we don't visit graves, because nobody is there to see.

You can believe what you wish, but this doesn't align with my understanding of the approach Catholicism (and Christianity more broadly) takes towards the dead. In fact, it rather startles me that you would present this set of beliefs as typical of a Catholic family!

In particular, my understanding of the Catholic tradition is that Catholics are all about believing in the sanctity of dead bodies -- if not, what's with all the relics, and pilgrimmages to the burial places of saints?

What I was taught as an evangelical mirrors this, that dead bodies needed to be given respect and a Christian burial as Christ promises not just a spiritual resurrection but a resurrection of our mortal bodies like his body. Furthermore, I always understood that Christianity viewed the body as a fundamental part of the person, not a mere vessel for the soul, a view which I was taught was gnostic.

In confirming my suppositions, I came across this Papal letter by Pope Francis discussing the Catholic view of burial:

"By burying the bodies of the faithful, the Church confirms her faith in the resurrection of the body, and intends to show the great dignity of the human body as an integral part of the human person whose body forms part of their identity.... Furthermore, burial in a cemetery or another sacred place adequately corresponds to the piety and respect owed to the bodies of the faithful departed who through Baptism have become temples of the Holy Spirit...

With some minor quibbling, this also represents the evangelical view of death and burial that I learned as a child. I certainly knew, and know, Catholics and Protestants alike who believe people's bodies are simply vessels and 'prisons' to be escaped from, but this was always more of a folk belief than the Gospel, and when I was a theologically precocious evangelical kid I understood it to be incorrect. The one big thing about which Jesus and Paul agreed with the Pharisees was the resurrection of the body!

I respect that you have your own views about the meaning of death and burial, but I wanted to make it clear that what you said doesn't reflect the way Christian tradition has generally understood the meaning of the body and of death.

Just to add to this- visiting a gravesite today literally has an indulgence attached. It’s not just that Catholics are allowed to visit graves, but that it is officially encouraged.

I like walking in cemeteries. For that reason, a bit later in life I hope to set aside some funds for a burial plot and a headstone here in the neighborhood. Ideally, I can think of something neat to have them engrave on it. Then, someday, awkward teenagers on a semi-date amble can read it and think, "Wow, that guy must have been a kook when he was alive."

The funeral service itself, gee, idk. Let the pastor and my surviving kin do that however they think best.

Pray that whatever gets me gives me enough advance warning to make funeral plans?

My father wrote up his own funeral service, after a cancer diagnosis that came about a year and a half before he died. I wrote his eulogy, but he had everything else from decor to intro music to hymns picked out. It was astounding. It wasn't so much about his specific choices (though I loved that he'd asked my oldest daughter to play one of his favorite songs on the piano there, and I'd never have had the guts to deck out a church in helium balloons if I hadn't been under specific instructions), it was about the fact that he'd always been the sort of person to take charge whenever something important but unpleasant needed to be done, and make sure it was done right, and there he was doing it again from beyond the grave, for a room full of people who loved him and knew him well enough to find the situation hilarious.

Honestly, though, I'm not even sure if he needed a year to plan. If my daughter (who'd only recently started learning piano) hadn't been in the schedule I'd have wondered if it was a decade old. After the service we took his ashes out to put next to my mother's in niche #1 of the church's columbarium, which of course he'd reserved for the two of them several years earlier when he had the whole thing built.

My goal is to live long enough to see three centuries. Beyond that all my money and assets is split between my parents, in the likely event I outlive my parents will change it to my siblings or their children. Funeral-wise my only requirement is a Catholic funeral, if I anticipate having a lot of extra cash, will give money to the presiding priest, servers, pallbarers, and pay for the meal afterwards.

My kids will tell you that when daddy dies, just throw him in a ditch.

Do you want ants coyotes? Because that's how you get coyotes.

What do I care, I'll be dead!

To be at least one year after the heath death of the universe.

My plan is "I don't care". This might change if I become someone whose funeral will be a public event, but as a private person, whatever people that succeed me prefer works.

My mother has repeatedly told me and my brother that she wants us to cremate her cheaply rather than wasting thousands of dollars on an expensive burial and funeral. I see no reason to deviate from that course of action—though, really, it doesn't matter, since I'll be dead.

IMO, much more interesting than funeral plans are inheritance plans. I've been thinking that a cool way to divide up an inheritance would be to multiply each heir's share in proportion to the product of the square of his age and the square of his life expectancy. This would direct more money toward middle-aged heirs, in preference to (1) elderly heirs who already have enough money and will squander any new windfall and (2) child heirs whose money will be squandered by their parents.

My own will essentially follows the default for intestate succession, with a few changes:

  • The idea described in the previous paragraph is implemented

  • My brother is elevated to the same tier as my parents

  • "Per capita at each generation" is reverted to "per stirpes", which IMO makes much more sense

  • A parent or brother who has changed his name does not inherit (really just a backdoor way of ensuring that anyone so estranged that I don't even know his new name does not inherit)

"Per capita at each generation" is reverted to "per stirpes", which IMO makes much more sense

I feel like this is surely more common than per capita among heirs. The only exception I can think of is if the deceased grandparent’s child dies young, shortly after having children, and then the children are raised by the grandparent(s) and treated by the will as children.

According to the Uniform Probate Code's commentary, a survey showed that 71 percent of people prefer "per capita at each generation", while only 19 percent prefer "per stirpes". (9 percent prefer a third system that was used in older versions of the Uniform Probate Code but is not explained in the current code's commentary. I guess the remaining 1 percent prefer something else entirely.)

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