My apartment looks out across the parking lot into the library windows. One Friday night a few weeks ago, the lights were left on in the second floor special collections room. It was sort of neat... you can't see very well in the photos, but I could see the bookshelves and the glass cases that are full of pottery and other artifacts. There's also a small mummy there, a fourteen-year old girl with a beautiful face painted over her wrappings. Sort of like this:
Sometimes, it seems wrong to me that we have someone's body in our library. When the lights got left on, I thought about her up there. You know, we're a religious school and community, shouldn't we commemorate her in some way? What does it mean that she's here? Where did her donor get her from?We have two bodies under our altar - a former bishop and his wife. We have another upstairs, in a glass case. Two were buried close to what was familiar to them, the ancient girl is far away from anything that would've been familiar to her. Maybe it doesn't matter - both are just bones and remains now. I've complained before about the BodyWorlds exhibits, because I find some of their body reconstructions strange and garish, and I'm not sure that the human body is just a vessel, or meat, or something to joke around with. Maybe a body is just an empty shell, but in Christian thought, a body is more than just a husk - it's a temple for God, a means of conveying and feeling love, a place God becomes incarnate, and an essential part of who we are - so much so, that God seems to promise a bodily resurrection, which I admit is very hard to understand when bodies so clearly decay.
I don't know that I feel strongly enough about to start a campaign, or even exactly what I'd campaign for. Maybe a plaque? Bishop Anderson and his wife have that.
What would I want for my body? I could go on for a while about the plusses and minuses of cremation, but I do think I want to be cremated. My parents want to be scattered to the winds. But I'd rather be interred somewhere around a church - in a memorial garden or wall. And I suppose I'd want a little plaque with my name. I guess I'd want my body to be known, to have a home somewhere. Isn't that strange? I wouldn't really be there, I don't think. But there's something about my body that I think is important, or that I want someone to keep. How do other people feel about this? The ancient girl, or their own dead bodies?
First, I strongly agree with you about the body being more than just a hunk of meat. It seems to me that this concept is central to Christian thought, especially when tied with Jewish concepts of the body and orthodox Christian doctrines of the resurrection of the body and the incarnation.
ReplyDeleteHowever, one small point of contention is the note about our body as a temple of the Spirit. This is my own little pet peeve, so feel free to ignore me . . . but . . . the Greek in Paul's letters when he refers to our bodies as a temple of the Spirit is plural. That is, each individual body is not an individual temple of the Spirit. Rather our bodies (collectively) are a temple (singular) for the Spirit. As with much Pauline thought, he's speaking corporately. :-)
But still, good post and good thought!
I can't believe more people haven't commented on this! Such an interesting question. But then, I don't really have anything to say on it myself. I have more pure wonder on this one than any insights I can articulate.
ReplyDeletei am all about being viewed at some service then cremated and put somewhere. and there needs to be a plaque with my name and dates. for sure. more for the living who need to go and remember.
ReplyDeleteI think I don't comment to your posts much because they always provoke thought, and being an internal processor, I sit around and think about what you write. I don't have a lot to say about our ancient neighbor mummy girl, though you make good points.
ReplyDeleteAs to myself, as a younger person I had always dreamed of being buried in a coffin on a grassy hill under a tree somewhere, but I am now thinking more of cremation and having my ashes put somewhere. I like the idea of what remains of my body (dust) returning to the dust of the earth, so there's a desire to be scattered in a special outdoor place, but considering my future ministry, I might want to rest in a church or church yard. I'm not even sure if I care about a plaque, though if those burying me want to have a place to connect to me, then I'd be fine with that. Part of me would like my body to remain whole and just decay naturally into the ground because I have an attachment to this body, but then again, the part of me that animates that body will no longer be here, so what would it really matter to me?
not too intense a post... too busy a weekend...
ReplyDeletei have weird hang-ups when it comes to thinking about my own body after death. they are lessening with time, but i have a lack of clarity about my wishes. i did finally fill out the organ donor bit on the back of my driver's license- that took years.
here's what i've been thinking for awhile. no cremation, no embalming (where this is allowed), simple pine box, buried quickly in a beautiful spot, a tree planted on the site of my burial, not sure what type of tree, but... this is as far as i've gotten.
the flaw with this plan is it doesn't give folks much chance to be with my body after death to say goodbye. so... maybe i'd give on the embalming.
the spot of burial is so tricky given my mobility already so early in life. i really have no idea what makes the most sense.
a mummy is your neighbor, wow.