Bodies and funerals part 1

Part of the function of a funeral is to dispose of a body, and yet you don't need a funeral to do so. So: what is a body doing at a funeral? Not much, answered the wag, but what I mean is: why is it there, what should we do with it, how do celebrants and undertakers think it's best to help mourners with their feelings and attitudes towards a body? Can I answer all these questions once and for all? Well, erm, possibly not, since it's a huge question that opens out into psychology, philosophy, sociology, politics, theology and so on and on. But the debate we're engaged in via The Good Funeral Guide is so valuable to me that the least I can do is to try to blunder into a view or two for your disposal.

The GFG discussions have certainly developed my views on this. If you're interested, see "a body isn't a person and a coffin is just a box, but..." 29 January, on this blog.

Whatever else we are or are not: we are animals. We animate a body. The pulse of energy that is a life ( a tiny moment in the universe) leaves behind it the physical entity that generated and sustained that energy. All this is true whether you think there is a soul, a spirit or some other survivable essence. (As you may have gathered, I don't think that's at all likely, myself.)

In our world as it is, we can only find meaning by relating to animated bodies (and in different ways the rest of the physical universe, of course.) An animated body is a living person, but a dead body is not. It looks as though it should be, it sometimes looks as though it still could be. All this is a huge shock and a great mystery. A life has stopped. A life force has gone. What now?

We may or may not go and look at the body-that-was-a-person again after it becomes inanimate. We may or may not pay for some skilful people to do slightly odd things with the body so that it looks as though it is "only sleeping." Sooner or later we will put this thing which was a person who mattered to us, but isn't a person any longer, into a box and either burn it or put it into the ground.

We keep telling ourselves it's not a person any longer, but where is the person? asks the mourner. Gone. In the box? No. That's a body not a person. You're going to have let go of it. Jesus Christ, that hurts, that really hurts. You mean I have to let go of this - relic that was someone I loved? How can I do that? Why is she not here? Where is she? Help me, please, for God's sake help me.

Enter the funeral celebrant. Easy task, then. Wind her/him up with a bit of training so she can manage a crem, and off she goes. No worries, she has her professional distance.

Er, hang on, that's an ex-37-year old mother in her box and her three children are in the front row, tears streaming down their faces, alongside their heroic father, who is trembling with grey-faced tension.

How are you doing with the distance thing? Unless you are the stoic of stoics, or an unfeeling self-centred fool, possibly not so well.

They want you, celebrant, (that title seems a bit silly now, perhaps...) to help them part with all that's physically left of their mother, his wife. They need you to hold it together, they want something coherent; you can't feel as they do, you can't understand how they feel, there's no reason why you should, but I don't think they want too much professional distance. When they met you, they were looking for a sign that you understood just a little of what's happened to them, and shared just a little of their grief, enough to empathise, not enough to make your ego too prominent. You are not one of them, and yet in a particular sense, you are, for a few very important days. You need to enter their circle of grief as a guest, not stand outside it looking in. Then they can relate to you, and you can get from them what you need to make something of their half-hour in that shabby desolate dump of a crem you're all lumbered with.

Right. here you go then.