The Good Funeral: Death, Grief, and the Community of Care - Softcover

Long, Thomas G.; Lynch, Thomas

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9780664239763: The Good Funeral: Death, Grief, and the Community of Care

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0664239765 ISBN 13: 9780664239763

Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013

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Two of the most authoritative voices on the funeral industry come together here in one volume to discuss the current state of the funeral. Through their different lenses—one as a preacher and one as a funeral director—Thomas G. Long and Thomas Lynch alternately discuss several challenges facing "the good funeral," including the commercial aspects that have led many to be suspicious of funeral directors, the sometimes tense relationship between pastors and funeral directors, the tendency of modern funerals to exclude the body from the service, and the rapid growth in cremation. The book features forewords from Patrick Lynch, President of the National Funeral Directors Association, and Barbara Brown Taylor, highly praised author and preacher. It is an essential resource for funeral directors, morticians, and pastors, and anyone else interested in current funeral practices.

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About the Author:

Thomas G. Long is Bandy Professor of Preaching at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, and one of the most popular preachers in the United States today. He is the author of many books, including Accompany Them With Singing—The Christian Funeral and The Witness of Preaching.

"What happened to me while working at my father's funeral home was that folks began to treat me like a hero. They were so grateful when we would show up at the hospital or nursing home or family home in the middle of the night, so grateful for the way we handled their dead carefully and with respect. Or leaving after a long day's visitation at the funeral home, when a widow would hold me by the shoulders and tell me how very comforting it was to have us parking the cars and holding the doors and taking the coats and casseroles, directing folks to the proper parlor and bringing the flowers and for 'just being there.' Or turning from the graveside once everything that could be done had been done, how they would shake my hand or hug me and thank me profusely because 'we couldn't have done this without you . . . thank you. . . God bless you. . .' or heartfelt words to that effect. Such effusions made me feel useful and capable and helpful, as if I'd accomplished the job well done and all I really did was show up, pitch in, do my part. Before long I began to understand that showing up, being there, helping in an otherwise helpless situation was made heroic by the same gravity I had sensed when I first stood in that embalming room as a boy—the presence of the dead made the presence of the living more meaningful somehow, as if it involved a basic and intuitively human duty to witness."
—from Chapter 1, "How We Come to Be the Ones We Are"

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