Caring of the dead is a weird topic because it combines two different states the living and the dead, for which the living handle the bodies of dead. Like what one of my classmates said "Its gross but sacred"(Sam Jossen). I defiantly agree with this statement, because people treat dead people with respect(there are certain things that the dominant view doesn't allow next to dead people), but then again its a decaying corpse that people don't want to be around. I think fear of the unknown plays a major role in the topic of death, and what makes it difficult to deal with is the fact that death connotes sadness, depression, and for some people anger.
With my experiences with the care of the dead, most of the funerals I've been to people want to be buried and when they die they want to be presented to look nice. You would think that because they dead it wouldn't matter, but apparently it does. Also my family and some friends view death as a happy thing rather then a sad thing. Because of our religion we believe if a person followed Jesus' teachings(not just living a good life) they will go to heaven. This does not mean we don't get sad that the person is no longer living, its just that its not as negative(unless the person went to hell).Caring of the dead is also unique not only because of what happens with the dead people but with how the living deal with the dead. For example why do we make people look more honorable after they are dead then when they were alive? You would think that it should be reverse but sadly it is not. Also because people try to hide death which is weird because, yet its every where. For example people try to hide death so much that they try to make dead people look alive even when they are dead(they make them look sleeping rather then dead at some funerals).
Something interesting that I thought of was brought up during class. When I was in class I was talking to a classmate and he asked why is it that we put dead people in the ground for a burial? That did make me wonder, but I remember hearing somewhere that one answer for this was that because from the ground we came and so unto the ground we shall return or something like that. This unit sounds interesting because of unique ways one can go about it and I know there is a lot to this topic I don't even know.
Stephen,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with what you said in the first paragraph. In my family once someone has passed on, you could never mention any negative things that the person who passed on has done in his/her lifetime. They feel its highly disrespectful. Also i agree with the fact that the fear of the unknown plays a huge role with copping with death. I can connect to your own experiences in which a person would look a lot better (lets say during their wake) then they did before they died. That happened to my grandmother. Overall i thought you kept everything interesting and i found myself thinking a lot about my own experiences, and when you brought up passed class conversations like with what sam said showed how learning all this or even just discussing it makes you question all the "normal" things about death you thought were normal. well done!