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Tuesday 22 January 2008
Tuesday 15 January 2008
Three Minute Theology : 001
I took a funeral today, which, for the first time in a long while, took me to the local municipal cemetery. Standing by the grave side in the rain, waiting for the cortege to arrive, I was intrigued (like a rubber-necker on the motorway) by a grave over in the corner. Festooned with helium balloons (inflated and flattened), gee-gaws, nicknacks, cards and tinsel, was an enormous black marble headstone. I walked over to see that it marked the grave of a five year old boy called Davey. He must have liked Transformer, because, carved and coloured into the shiny black marble, was the image of a Transformer, and, in case any mourners didn’t get the message, on a separate black marble stone lying flat on the grave, was the Transformers' logo— beautifully coloured in gold and in no way understated. The grave digger told me that Davey’s mother had received a letter of direction from the council, asking her to remove the five foot high Transformer model which had appeared on the anniversary of his death. Stuck in the ground behind the grave was a Santa Claus lawn ornament, its message pathetically running in the rain, “Santa, stop here for Davey”.
Now one reaction to all this is to nod sagely and mutter about folk-religion, and to be angry at any implied criticism of what people do to get through their grief: “How dare you be superior about people’s sorrow!” And the good liberal in me recoils from that criticism. I want to be able to meet people “where they are”; I want to be affirming and not critical, liberating and not guilt inducing; I want, truth be told, to be likeable and to be liked.
But there are times in which folk-religion throws up something that is just so plain bad, that it’s impossible not to stop and say, forget what Christian theology might say about this situation, this behaviour is unambiguously unhealthy.
A story1 is told about the Zen master, Tanzan. Once he was travelling with his disciple Ekido down a muddy road. A heavy rain was falling. Coming to a ford, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the swollen river. ‘Come on, girl,’ said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud. Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. ‘We monks don’t go near females,’ he told Tanzan, ‘especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?’ ‘I left the girl there,’ said Tanzan. ‘Are you still carrying her?’
Carrying girls is a dangerous business. You should only do it if you are prepared to leave them as soon as you can. If carrying girls is so dangerous, how more so is carrying the dead around with us. We refuse to let them go, and believe that some how we honour their memories by strapping them to our backs all the days of our lives. I seem to remember another Zen master had something to say about that: “let the dead bury their own dead, and follow me.”
In Zen Flesh, Zen Bones ed Paul Reps (Penguin, 1971), p.28 ^
Now one reaction to all this is to nod sagely and mutter about folk-religion, and to be angry at any implied criticism of what people do to get through their grief: “How dare you be superior about people’s sorrow!” And the good liberal in me recoils from that criticism. I want to be able to meet people “where they are”; I want to be affirming and not critical, liberating and not guilt inducing; I want, truth be told, to be likeable and to be liked.
But there are times in which folk-religion throws up something that is just so plain bad, that it’s impossible not to stop and say, forget what Christian theology might say about this situation, this behaviour is unambiguously unhealthy.
A story1 is told about the Zen master, Tanzan. Once he was travelling with his disciple Ekido down a muddy road. A heavy rain was falling. Coming to a ford, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the swollen river. ‘Come on, girl,’ said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud. Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. ‘We monks don’t go near females,’ he told Tanzan, ‘especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?’ ‘I left the girl there,’ said Tanzan. ‘Are you still carrying her?’
Carrying girls is a dangerous business. You should only do it if you are prepared to leave them as soon as you can. If carrying girls is so dangerous, how more so is carrying the dead around with us. We refuse to let them go, and believe that some how we honour their memories by strapping them to our backs all the days of our lives. I seem to remember another Zen master had something to say about that: “let the dead bury their own dead, and follow me.”
In Zen Flesh, Zen Bones ed Paul Reps (Penguin, 1971), p.28 ^
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