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Wendell, NC, USA - [Two weeks ago,] we saw the death and burial of a pope. What might have been a wonderful opportunity was squandered in another display of ancient pagan ritual. Only at the occasion of a funeral do moderns perform so predictably stupid. I have long admired the death and burial practice of Muslims, where they take the body, wash it and wrap it in a shroud, form a procession, dig a hole and bury it -- if at all possible on the day of the death. [The events of the papal ceremony] brought back two memories I want to share with you.
HANK - The first was the death and burial of Henry Reimann. "Hank" was a teacher at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis ("the Rev. Dr. Henry Reimann," of course.) He was a wonderfully talented man who was himself not a genius but could enlist a class into going on intellectual ventures with him: he was a born teacher. After a few classes in the second quarter of my second year, Hank had a terrible cerebral aneurism.
He lay in the hospital, passing from fully awake and rational to coma, then back again. His wife, Margaret, knew that at one point -- probably soon -- he would go from fully conscious and rational to the coma, then slip away into death. This process had been going on for a few days, as Hank and Margaret tried to make the most of the moments when he was his old self. They carefully planned what to do when Hank died. And, of course, soon enough, he did die.
There was a brief graveside service for Margaret, the children and a few relatives of Hank as soon as possible after he died. Some weeks later, there was a memorial service, a "y'all come" sort of service, where the high mucky-mucks of the church and seminary could get up and say a few words, also friends of Hank, even a few students. Then we all gathered around informally to express our thankfulness for having been touched in a special way by this special man -- spoken and articulated many, many times -- especially to Margaret and the children.
VELTHEIM - The second memory begins in 1959, when I had an unexpected roommate. Ed Schewe and I planned to room together at the Wisconsin Synod Theological Seminary (Thiensville, Wisconsin) but we were j oined at the last minute by a German exchange student named Joachim Fiedler. He was born in Brazil, son of a German Lutheran missionary who died when Joachim was a toddler. Joachim's mother, sister and he returned to Germany -- just in time to sit through the Second World War.
His family lived in Lower Saxony, with its State Church, the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Lower Saxony. He attended the Theologicum at the University of Goettingen, but wanted to learn more about the American "confessional" Lutherans.
Well, he learned more than he planned and left the Wisconsin seminary before the end of the school year, returned to Germany, returned to the Theologicum and became a clergyman in the Lower Saxon church.
In 1970, I was studying at the Duke August Library in Wolfenbuettel (Lower Saxony). On Sunday, I went to Trinity Church and after the services asked the pastor if he knew Fiedler.
"Of course," he replied. "He lives in Veltheim." [Pronounced "Felt-hime". Veltheim an der Oehe (the Oehe is a ridge of hills, not a river, as some folks assume).] "He will be coming here in a few hours. This afternoon the clergy of this region are gathering with their families for an informal dinner in the church hall. You can come and see him there about 3 pm."
So I did and so we reassembled old friendship and memories. And I visited Veltheim a week or so later. Henry the Lion (1130-1195), who established Braunschweig as his imperial capital, rewarded the veterans of his armies with land and privileges throughout northern Lower Saxony -- among [these veterans was] a fearsome warrior and friend [of the King] who took the name of the village that he was given, Veltheim.
The von Veltheim family continues to own this huge property (farmed with beautiful dark green John Deere equipment), including the village and all its buildings, and the church and parsonage. The church is a Patronatskirche -- patron church: the von Veltheim family provides the church and parsonage, the State Church provides the clergy and a proper discipline for the clergy.
Joachim and I walked around the village, greeted people -- they were quite deferential, but clearly loved this young man -- and spent time at the little church. The original building had been made of wood: this permanent chapel had been built around 1300 of limestone and lead (the roof was covered with two enormous sheets of lead).
Behind the church was a small courtyard. I asked what it was and Joachim said it was the graveyard. There was room for four or five rows of burials, eight to ten in each row. The dead were wrapped in a cotton shroud (no artificial fibers, please), placed in a pine casket (no hardwoods, please), and buried in the next available spot. The graves were used and re-used: when they dug a grave, they found bones, of course; they put the bones at the bottom of the grave and lowered the new casket over them. In a few years, all that would be left of the casket and body were a few bones.
The graves were marked with a small stone marker, about four inches by sixteen inches and about ten inches deep. They were flush with the ground and the entire area was simple, mowed lawn. When a new grave was dug, the old gravestone was mortared into the wall. The wall around the graveyard was about ten feet high, with generation after generation after generation of gravestones.
Joachim told me that there are no dead bodies allowed in the church itself for services: they prefer a memorial service some time later after the funeral. The funeral is a simple graveside ritual, a few verses, a few prayers, a few tears and over.
All of [these memories and the papal ceremony] keep prompting me to think that the parading around with dead bodies makes no sense at all. A funeral director told me once that it was for the benefit of the family -- for "closure." From then on, the idea of "closure" meant less and less to me, to the point where it makes NO sense at all any more.I remember walking into the church for my mother's funeral and seeing the open casket and her lying in it. I almost vomited at the sight of it: there she was, dressed up so fancy, drained of blood, pickled with poisonous fluids, surrounded in satin (or whatever that was in the casket). Well, what do you expect? my clergyman brother Bob was in charge of the funeral, and as usual, everyone was busy with "closure."
When I lived in Dorchester (Boston), my neighbor Bob Boyd, used to go to Irish wakes in the neighborhood. Bottles of whiskey on the kitchen table, five bucks a shot and the proceeds went to the widow to pay for the damned funeral. Meanwhile, the deceased's clothes would be divided up among his old friends, so that by midnight everything of his would have been vacated from the premises.
Bob said it would be different with him: he was going to leave enough money so that at his wake there would be an open bar WITH SANDWICHES -- the precise symbol of incredible riches or a rich and rewarding life -- something like that.
No, no. It is not for me, this American ritual of dying. When I die, sure, ok, wash the body (I shower daily and my body should be washed only if it needs it). Wrap me in a shroud (over the top of it, put the burial shroud that hangs in my bedroom, the one I bought from Dimitri's shop next to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (only the Western Christians call the building by that name: the Orthodox call it the Church of the Resurrection). And deliver me to the crematorium. I do not want to pollute the good earth with my decaying juices and slimes: hasten the process with a good toasting.
I used to tell people that I wanted my ashes to be spread over the waters of the Gulf of California, because I am tired of cold winters (that was when I lived in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Ohio, Wyoming). These days, in warm and lazy North Carolina, I think it might be good to be spread under the limbs of a live oak tree -- I cannot imagine anything more fantastic than to become nourishment for an oak tree.
No, no, no metal casket. No concrete vault. Have you seen what anerobic decomposition looks like? Yuck!
Hey! I am not simply being morbid here: this was not my idea to take a dead pope and parade around with his body, dressed up doll-like in his vestments (did he or did he not wear clean underwear to the funeral?), officials talking to him about God and talking to God about him (old Hank Reimann would have gotten a chuckle out of that, too). All that nonsense prompted memories, and now I have told you about just two of them (there are more, but this suffices, doesn't it?).
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