Ever give a eulogy

[YankeyMCC]

in a church?

[fshrink]

1. NO way!

Churches are for me the equivalent of death-camps. I don't like them, I never get into them.

[Longhorn]

2. I was asked to read a poem at my grandmother's funeral,

which I did out of respect for her and my religious family. I don't recall if it was a religious poem but it wouldn't have mattered. It was all I could do to get through it without breaking down -- I was holding her hand when she died.

Other than that, I've never been able to speak at a funeral. If it's a close friend or loved one, I'm too broken up to speak and if it isn't, then I don't feel like I was close enough to speak!

I don't care for the formality of a funeral anyway, religious or not (though I've never been to one that wasn't religious.) I prefer the time spent before or after the funeral when people are sharing memories, laughing and crying, informally. That's what I want when I pass.

[Modem Butterfly]

3. Yes, I had to give one

One of my closest friends died of testicular cancer. As a gay man, he'd felt alienated from the church he was born into, which was the Episcopalian church, but as he neared his death he looked to his religion for comfort. It was one of the few times I've been in a church. It was the most difficult thing I've ever done. His partner asked me to write a eulogy with some laughs- talk about a tall order! My friend had a really biting sense of humor, so I wrote a eulogy with that in mind, trying to lighten the mood a bit so we could focus on his life and not how short that life was. I held up pretty good for the first 2/3rd. Then I got to the part about his wedding, including a Bible passage that had been read that day only the year before, and I lost it. It was from the book of Ruth, and I remember it nearly exactly:

"Whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. And where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me."

I'm sure the irony of an atheist choking up over a Biblical passage would not have been lost on my friend.

[Kolesar]

4. I helped my brother write my father's eulogy

He was an experienced public speaker, so he volunteered to deliver it. It was really tough managing his funeral. He had an unpleasant decline, with dementia. At least he did not have pain. We were so wrung out by the time we made funeral arrangements that us boys just planned a secular observance, and damn all the Catholics that were in my father's family. The closest we came to a prayer was a reference to "being blest" in a poem he read that I found in my father's bookshelf. We probably should have made it religious, it would not have cost us anything. My father used to be a believer, before the Orthodox Church pissed him off and he quit attending.

That was four years ago this week. I made a vow I was going to get politically involved when my father died to save the creatures that he so cared about. Now, I am doing it. My father taught me well.

[Philostopher]

5. My dad went in '96.

On December 20th, after a bout with cancer that really didn't have to kill him when it did (shadows on an MRI that were written off to something else for two years). I didn't speak at his funeral, however my mother's defective Protestant minister spoke, however little I thought he deserved to (I have issues with the guy, and so did Dad, that's why).

The most touching things said about my father were actually said by a retired priest, for whom my father had done odd jobs the last few years of his life. It was clear -- and should have been embarrassing for my mother's minister, though his ego is so huge I doubt very much it reached him at all -- that the priest knew my father a great deal better, and thought a great deal more of him, than Mom's minister. What he said wasn't religious so much as spiritual -- he said what I'd like to have said about Dad, and what Dad would have wanted said about him. He cracked a couple of gentle jokes, which would have pleased Dad.

My father's the one who made me a yellow dog Dem. My whole family are Dems, but Dad was the yellow dog of the bunch, and as I told my mother at Thanksgiving this year, 'I could never vote for a Republican because I couldn't stand the thought of Dad haunting me for twenty years over it!' She wouldn't understand what I meant, because she won't accept that I don't believe in an afterlife, but the joke was as funny to both of us.

[Bzzzz]

6. Eulogy for Father-In-Law

My father-in-law passed away 1 year ago Christmas Day. My husband gave a eulogy at his funeral in his parents church. It was very difficult for him. He and I are both 'agnostic' and both of our families are very religious. He centered his eulogy around memories of his father and ended it with a very touching poem. The remainder of the service was given by his parents pastor and he could only talk about the new church (mansion) that was being built. I was totally disgusted.

[YankeyMCC]

7. Thanks for the comments

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.

[Longhorn]

8. My deepest condolences on the loss of your father.

It sounds like you handled everything extraordinarily well! I, too, have been faced with the decision of taking communion and my dilemma was for the same reasons -- I have no trouble taking it but it seems rude to do so when my family knows it has no meaning to me. We very occasionally go to church with my mother and she's a lay minister at the church so I don't wish to bring that kind of attention to her. If they just pass it, I pass it on but sometimes, they have everyone come up in rows and take it at the front so my family and I are the only ones left in the row. But that's what we've done the last few times and my mother has even come back and squeezed my hand as if to let me know that it's okay.

A funeral is a different matter, though, and I think it is wonderful that you put the feelings of the other grieved family members, especially the older ones, ahead of your own. You sound like a great person and I'm sure your father was proud of you! :hug:

[Rhiannon12866]

9. Yes, I have given quite a few, most of them in churches

That seems to be my role in my family. When my uncle died, his daughter stood up and gave a reading. I was sitting with my father and he was incredibly impressed that she could do this. So when I lost my own father, at also too young an age, five years later, I tried to do her one better, by getting up and speaking to a packed church about my Dad. I guess I was still trying to make him proud of me. I mainly talked about something that business associates and political acquaintances wouldn't have known, about how much my father loved animals.;(

It must have gone over well, since everyone wanted to speak to me about it, afterwards, and, ever since, at family funerals, I'm expected to speak. I was even expected to do it twice for my grandmother and twice for my aunt, since there was more than one service for each of them. I always feel nervous, but focus on what I'm saying and not how I feel, so I won't totally lose it. *sigh*;(