"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" – and I'm sick of it! "
"A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal," – blah, di-blah, di-bloody-blah!
Of late I’ve been covering a lot of funerals in the day job. Not that I mind. Variety is the spice of life, and death adds its own piquancy.
But. I wonder how undertakers do it?
How do they survive the ever-repeated ritual; the ludicrous objects brought to the altar; the same all-purpose homily – because who needs a corpse when talking about the soul; the sensational eulogy outlining the walk-on-water qualities of the deceased; the screaming infant at the back of the church brought along by parents who think they're in a crèche; and bloody Ecclesiastes.
"A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together. . ." Indeed. And I know what I'd be tempted to do with them too!
I can't even listen anymore to Peter Seeger's version, Turn, Turn, Turn.
On first reading, with its juxtaposition of pithy opposites and steady rhythm, it can bewitch, even move. But listened to for the umpteenth time it sounds ever more ludicrous. The seeming profoundity gives way to an empty, numbing rhythm, its beat the only consolation.
I do not blame the bereaved. Why should I blame them that they fill my funerals with misery?
No, I reserve my direst wrath for those who push Ecclesiastes in the bereaved's direction as, distracted by grief, they will accept anything put before them when it comes to funeral readings. It's an abuse, a scandal.
So serious has the problem become that, primarily in the interest and welfare of undertakers as well as reporters like myself, I am considering setting up a new organisation – the Irish Society for the Banning of Ecclesiastes (ISBE).
We might raid churches, etc before funerals and remove all books from the altar which could contain Ecclesiastes and launch a fund to educate clergy, etc in alternatives, the better to remove the dread from remembering the dead.
And we might now Michael, so we might.
Ecclesiastes from Latin ecclesiasticus; Greek ekklesiastikos, meaning "of the church"
