Mormons and funerals

Post by **_Legend** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 3:41 pm

I was watching the local news last night and they showed some video of mourners for GBH. Those people were having the time of their lives. I had a flash back from when I was a kid and how much fun the people in our ward and in our family had at funerals.
Man, if someone in our ward died, my Mom acted like it was Christmas morning! Those cackling hens in Relief Society love nothing more than a funeral and GBH's passing is like the biggest Mormon superbowl of the century.

Post by **_The Nehor** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:11 pm

I like funerals especially when it's for a fun person. Celebrate their life and you have a great time. The funerals of losers tend to be dour. BOOOORING.

Post by **_Legend** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:20 pm

The Nehor wrote:I like funerals especially when it's for a fun person. Celebrate their life and you have a great time. The funerals of losers tend to be dour. BOOOORING.

I agree with celebrating the life of a loved one who has passed on. But this Mormon thing is different and weird. Back in the day when my mom would hear of someone getting extemely ill, or a horrible accident and a ward member was hospitalized, she would be so excited as she called all her Relief Society sisters to spread the (bad?) news.

Post by **_personage** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:27 pm

I have to disagree. Mormon funerals are by far the most somber boring services of them all. They are pretty much all the same. Too much talk about the steps one needs to take to return to heavenly father and very little said about the life of the deceased. Usually no music is allowed other than church hymns and tribute videos are out of the question. Toward the end you always get the long winded remarks of the bishop and some scripture reading. That really isn't my idea of fun.

Post by **_Who Knows** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:39 pm

I went to a LDS funeral a couple months ago. Felt just like sacrament meeting. Actually, testimony sacrament meeting.

Post by **_Mercury** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:58 pm

Welcome Legend! Love the icon.

I find Mormon funerals to be boring affairs wherein the family who are not active or ever were Mormon is alienated by the service. Its a missionary opportunity for the Mormons and its largely treated as a burden for the bishop, slipshod at best.

Post by **_personage** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:12 pm

Mercury wrote:Welcome Legend! Love the icon.

I find Mormon funerals to be boring affairs wherein the family who are not active or ever were Mormon is alienated by the service. Its a missionary opportunity for the Mormons and its largely treated as a burden for the bishop, slipshod at best.

I'm glad you brought up the part about it being a burden for the bishop. I actually feel sorry for them. Any other clergy or celebrant gets at least $150 for officiating a funeral. These poor guys get bupkis. I remember telling a friend of mine who is a bishop how much most pastors make for doing a funeral and it almost broke his heart.

Post by **_Legend** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:47 pm

Mercury wrote:Welcome Legend! Love the icon.

I find Mormon funerals to be boring affairs wherein the family who are not active or ever were Mormon is alienated by the service. Its a missionary opportunity for the Mormons and its largely treated as a burden for the bishop, slipshod at best.

Thanks for the welcome. And yes, I am one of those crazy "constant readers" who waited 30 years to read the last installment of The Dark Tower.

I guess my forty something year old memories of Mormon funerals are unusual. I just remember my mom filled with glee whenever she heard of something that should have been sad news. Just another dysfunctional LDS family.

Post by **_Trinity** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:55 pm

I've actually been to some very good Mormon funerals, where they talked and laughed and cried about the events in the deceased life. I sing, and have sung at dozens and dozens of funerals. When I was 17 I sang I am a Child of God at the funeral of a four year old boy who had been getting out of the back of his grandpas pickup when grandpa backed up, running over the boy and killing him. It was the saddest funeral I have ever attended and that's saying a lot because I have been to the funerals of three suicide victims in the past few years. Two weeks after the four year old's funeral, I sang for the funeral of the grandfather. His family said he had died from absolute grief from the accident and loss of the grandson.

One of the best funerals was my mother. She had planned the program. She was always a great lover of music and my entire family are accomplished musicians. There was more music than anything else in the program, about 35 minutes of the hour long funeral. It was nice. And beautiful. Solos, duets, family choir, ward choir.

Post by **_charity** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 6:20 pm

I think it is a common, but nevertheless regretable practice, to make blanket statements about such events. I have been to very sad funerals and very uplifting ones. In our area, two young women died several months apart, both in accidents. Their funerals were lovely. For one, the high school choir, which the young woman had been a member of, sang a couple of songs which were definitely not from the hymbook.

And I have never seen anyone gleeful about a funeral. Can 40 year old memories be inaccurate? Especially if going back and trying to figure out what you were thinking in your child's mind?