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I’m not a great fan of funerals either.

However, I do recognize that most of us need some sort of closure on a relationship with a loved one. And, for many, the funeral serves that purpose as no other event does. And, that’s OK with me.

I am most hostile to the GROSSLY UNNECESSARY charges and actions of the funeral folks. Embalming serves no eternal and even no greatly lasting purpose in this life. It mostly helps things smell tolerably at the funeral viewing.

In Taiwan, they have refrigerated glass coffin sorts of things that serve a similar purpose.

My mother, hearing her in-laws who managed the oldest cemetary in town—bringing it up to speed in a list of hard work ways—realized that EVERYTHING decays sooner or later—and was quite willing to put her mother in a cardboard coffin that we both picked out. That would be fine with me.

And, they can have a large recent pic at the funeral vs an open casket viewing. No need to embalm me. Take me from wherever I fell or am found straight to the hole in the ground. Though I may fall on some distant field somewhere and the birds take care of me.

Burial at sea would be tolerable though there’s a family plot for me here and I could be buried at a vet cemetary.

But I really DO APPRECIATE AND REJOICE IN AND WITH THE TRULY CHRISTIAN SERVICES where someone’s life is TRULY CELEBRATED AND WHERE IT IS CELEBRATED THAT THEY REALLY HAVE GONE TO THEIR HEAVENLY REWARD AND ARE IN A FAR BETTER PLACE THAN WE MORTALS. Some of those can be hymn singing, toe tapping glorious times of worship, laughter and uproariously great stuff amidst loved ones of the departed.

So, I guess I have a range of feelings. But personally, for me, the less hoopla, the better. And, I want whatever happens to be real and authentic. No phoney fluff and whitewashing.

And, I’d rather God be glorified somehow in the whole process.