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Programme Notes: Death |
| Cambridge Inter-Faith Group, UK |
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Notes arising from a Panel discussion at Cambridge Inter-Faith Group, 24 September 2002. The speakers were Prudence Jones (Pagan), Simon Eder (Jew), and Dina Ridge (Hindu)
Historically, the European tradition reveals a wide range of beliefs and practices about death, whether the ancient Greek’s need to appease the “gibbering shades” of the dead, the Druidic teaching that souls after death transmigrate from person to person, the rituals gone through by initiates of the Mysteries in order to be “reborn into eternity”, or the custom of the Swedish founders of Russia of burning the dead on funeral pyres “so that they go to heaven straight away”.
In the modern world, what links practically all the many denominations of contemporary Paganism is a readiness to see death as but one stage in a cycle. Life, death and renewal, seen literally in the plant kingdom and in the year’s cycle, symbolically represent the cosmic pattern within which modern Pagans situate their own lives, and many Pagans believe in reincarnation. Most traditions also have an annual festival of death, usually in the autumn or winter, acknowledging it as a painful but necessary process which gives new life space to grow.
Religion also gives us a framework for emotionally processing and mentally making sense of personal bereavement. Below is the farewell address given at a Pagan funeral recently (adapted by the celebrant from various unpublished sources). The imagery of life, death and rebirth is explicit here. Looking forward to the dead soul’s rest in the land of the dead and later rebirth, the living begin to be able to see beyond their own grief and forward to life without the person who has died. The dead person is commended to those greater Powers whose business it is to look after her soul, and the living can then start to feel less responsible.
O Guardian of the gate between our world and the world of Mysteries, receive thy servant into thy care, into thy embrace, into thy clasp which surrounds both worlds. Guide thy servant into the safe and sacred way, into thy glorious realm so that she may reach thy care to dwell awhile in safety and rest.
That which we know as Death is but a part of the great unbroken circle of life, death and rebirth. We in our human weakness cry tears and feel the sting of lost companionship, but even in our grief we truly know and rejoice that they servant moves but to a new creation, for all things in Nature must be quiet to be born again, even as the flowers of the fair fields vanish from our earthly eyes to spring anew when rested.
Guide her steps in rebirth that she may be reborn to her people within thy lands. Let her make good choice that she may come again into a rightful place that she may gain further wisdom on her journey through eternity.
Now do we cast aside our sorrow and face towards the dawning of a new day. Now do we ask that thou accept thy servant into thy lovely realms. Now do we bid her farewell on the path into thy great domain.
In the names of the eternal Parents of us all, even of the Child of Light whose symbol is the Sun disk; they who emerge from the Source of all things in everlasting embrace, the triple-faced Mother of all living, our Lady of the Moon, and the mighty God of Death and Resurrection: may this place and those who are here and she who goes before be blessed.
When I was an assistant priest in East London, most of the funerals I conducted were for people with little or no connection with the Church. They just happened to live in the parish. When I talked to the family, I tried to find something to build on - not necessarily a sign of faith, but goodness appreciated, or pleasures shared: some inkling of heaven. And I would usually say, during the service, "God loves him/her more than he/she ever imagined." I also tried to do was provide some silence for everyone there to say goodbye in their own way.