Reply #7: Thanks for the comments [View All]

[YankeyMCC]

everyone.

The reason I asked the question is that last week my Dad died and I gave a eulogy at the church.

My father was raised catholic and went to catholic school as a child. He lost faith (not necessarily in god) in the church a long time ago and although he sent us to CCD and all that we stopped being regular church goers when I was young. We never really talked about the details of why he drifted away from chruch, but I do know it had more to do with the church not god. But he was a very smart and rational person and certainly would not deny scientific facts like evolution etc... So I believe he died a theist but the details of that belief I am not sure about I'm sad to say.

I wrote a eulogy in that had a question about the existence of an immortal soul. That was not the focus, the focus was on how he would live on if we (those who loved and knew him) would continue to remember him and allow what we learned from him to continue to affect our lives. But there was a line "If there is an immortal soul..."

I said to my sister that perhaps I should deliver mine at the funeral home and she do hers at the church. She was insistent that as the oldest I should give mine at the church.

I was upset at first that I felt that I should somehow temper and change that line. It turned out well because I ended up wordsmithing the entire thing and I think the whole came out much better after all. And I felt perhaps it was best not to throw something in people's faces at that time, I was not the only one grieving and many nice people were there who did believe in the teachings of the church.

There was still a question about the existence of the soul implied and a line that said that the immortal soul was essentially irrelevant in our lives because it would no longer affect our lives. I tempered my remarks by thanking the priest for doing a good job of talking about the things the church teaches about that were relevant to the day.

The priest was actually a cousin of my Dad's although they had not seen each other since childhood. He didn't know my father but didn't say anything inappropriate. In fact he said he liked what I said and it was very good.

Things turned out well for me and I worked hard at that but it is encouraging to know that someone as strongly atheist as me (sometimes admittedly hostile to religion) was able to coexist and come together with people of different beliefs and in a religious setting. I wanted to hear what other people's experiences were like.

Another controversial thing I did was accept the communion wafer. I haven't done this in years even when I have gone to services for other funerals and occasionally with my parents at christmas. But the in this case the priest was coming to me and it felt again like a moment where I would've caused more heartache than necessary if I had refused. I rationalized it by accepting it not as "the body of christ" but as a symbol of communion with the people there.

Perhaps this was wrong because to a deeply religious person that attitude would be unacceptable perhaps even insulting. But although many people there believe in the church most if not all are pretty casual about it (except the priest of course) and I think would be ok with my thoughts. I don't hide my atheism from those that were there and know me well.

Again, I'm still not sure taking that wafer was the right thing to do. But I am happy about how the eulogy turned out.