Funerals: form and essence, convention and truth

On Charles' blog recently (Good Funeral Guide 11 October, "Parish Notices") , Jonathan's comment emphasising essense rather than trappings is spot on, as usual. I'm a little more puzzled about his idea that the essence, the spirit of a funeral is vulnerable to "absorption" by convention and tradition. I can see that an unthinkingly conventional or traditional exterior can suck the life out of the occasion, and leave the mourners unchanged by it.

But a convention is a way of doing something (wearing clothes, saying grace or not saying grace, not breaking wind in front of people unless you know them really well) that is widely accepted, or at least accepted by its audience. So doesn't each funeral need to find its own set of conventions, some of which might be new-minted (difficult....), some well-known, and some might be unusual but derived from something recognisable. If a funeral were to be totally unconventional, would the mourners recognise it as a funeral? Would this matter? Am I asking an irritating number of questions? (Yes. And by the way, breaking wind, at least audibly, is pretty generally seen as not a useful conventional element at funerals. To date.)

It's now a well-worn convention to choose pieces of music that relate to the life of the dead person. That would have been an outrageous innovation a few decades ago. Either way, conventional or not, it still works for a lot of people. The music is often the only thing that has clarified out of the emotional tumult by the time I call on people to discuss the funeral.

What is so wrong with tradition, provided it is still alive, as it were, if still helps those involved to create meanings around the end of a life? Cultures make ceremonies traditional because they work, and adapt them as/when they don't, vide the Cenotaph on 11:11 - seems to work for a lot of people, no? Some of us are reacting against traditional funerals because we feel they are no longer speaking to us, they are a short-cut. So we are trying to develop new conventions. They may become elements of a tradition, over time.

In any case, a funeral can surely be traditional in form but express the right things for the dead person and those close to her. Diana's funeral (you remember, the Princess one) was in many ways traditional, and in other ways not - e.g. her brother attacked the Royal Family, and Sir Elton John sung a song. It seemed to many people, I seem to remember, about right. (Views on the aforementioned song vary widely...)

If there is nothing new under the sun, then a unique funeral is still likely to consist of doings and words and actions that have been used before, and as soon as that happens, a convention is developing. Someone, somewhere, thought up "to celebrate a life" and a new convention was born. For some, it's now a cliche, a conventional element that is used unthinkingly, a moribund traditional element.

At a recent funeral, I was asked (well, told, really) to be sure to use exactly that formula,"celebrate her life" at least twice. For those people, it seems to mean something important. I used it, and sought to unpack it somewhat. Seemed to go alright.

Very interesting, this business of conventions and innovations. A brilliant writer and practitioner on theatrical improvisation, Keith Johnstone, in his 1981 book "Impro," pointed out that you can instantly tell "avant garde" drama because all round the world, it looks the same..! In those days, it meant taking all/most of your clothes off, maybe painting yourself white, and crawling over other actors and/or the audience... His message was that true originality isn't a matter of trying to invent new outwards, it comes from letting the innards, the works, dictate the casings, letting the essence help you find the outward form - which might be unexcitingly non-avant garde, but true, in a way an audience will instantly recognise.

Originality isn't a matter of straining for unconventional forms, it's a much more valuable exploration. Early Beethoven sounds like Haydn, I believe, but nothing else in the world sounds like Beethoven's late quartets. He couldn't, I guess, have jumped right in and said "to hell with Haydn, let's invent a different kind of quartet." The Beatles used to cover other rockers' songs very well - but only they could have made "Drive My Car," or "Strawberry Fields."

OK, ok, I know, off the point somewhat. Summary: I'm content to use traditional elements of funeral ritual and ceremony as long as they are true to what needs to be said and done, and what is true, as I've said before (wake up at the back) is a very long way from being just my decision.

So maybe I'm just a pretty unreliable revolutionary.