Third Coast International Audio Festival // Chicago Public Radio

This week we bring you an award-winning world premiere: Rebecca Sheirs The End as Beginning: An Audio Exploration of the Jewish View of Death. The trilogy blends interviews, personal reflections, and music, and focuses on death and the Jewish tradition. The work is an explanation, an illustration, and an investigation all in one — and it balances these elements so beautifully that "Honoring the Body: Taharah" the second segment won the 2006 Third Coast Festival Directors Choice Award.

I have experienced some of the things described in Part One as a friend of the family. It contrasts with the Christian traditions dealing with death – there are as many traditions there as there are denominations and sects.  The stages of ritual mourning in the Jewish faith are like a set of psychological prescriptions for getting through the stages of grief in a formalized way. In many ways, they are a healthy way of dealing with death; in my own faith there are no timelimits for any stage and I've known people long ago who seemed to be stuck in one stage or another. Mom had a horror of that sort of thing and prided herself on getting through to what we called the "acceptance" stage in what she considered to be a decent and timely manner. A neighbor friend of hers was always moaning about her lost husband, who had died at least 10 years before. Mom considered this to be a little unhealthy, and thought her friend was a bit "wet" and too inclined to feel sorry for herself. 

I doubt whether anyone I know or am related to would go on with all of the practices described in the next two sections of the trilogy, but it was interesting and moving. The second section deals with Tahara, the practice of washing the body of someone who has died.

In a very accidental but instinctive way, I did something like that with my sisters when we lost Mom. We were in the room with her after she'd been made more presentable by the hospice staff. and we all spoke to her. I put a little scented lotion on her hands, because when she'd still been in the hospital, I put some on her skin. She liked the scent, but complained that my hands were dry and rough.

Yesterday I attended the funeral of the father of a friend from church. It was very nice, held at an outlying parish where the parents had been attending the last year or so. Some of the other former parishioners (who mostly left after coming into conflict with our former vicar) were there as well, and we greeted each other warmly, or at least cordially.

One dear lady has stated that she won't attend the merged church now that Holy Innocents has officially been closed, and she was there. It was nice to sing hymns with her again, and we chatted about music. I hope that she'll be encouraged to drop by, and perhaps be a "ringer" for special musical offerings.  

She's grieving, though. It can't be rushed. Pity that there is no prescription mourning period for the death (and re-emergence) of a church.

The service itself was very nice, and the parish offered a very hospitable welcome. The sermon touched on the fact that the deceased had actually spent a lot of his life founding and worshiping at other Episcopal missions, and the officiant mentioned Holy Innocents in that regard. The dad and his wife (now widow) had stopped worshiping there, partly because they didn't care for the previous vicar, but mostly because they were beginning the struggle with his illness and it was just too far for them to drive comfortably. 

Ironically, the layout of the parish was very, very similar to the way Holy Innocents was, except that they had pews (which had obviously been made by a parishioner; I remarked that their handy guy and our handy guy must have had the same shop teacher). It was much smaller, though. The "program" parts of the church (parish hall, classrooms, offices) were much, much larger than expected for such a small sanctuary.

As the service ended, we few Holy Innocents people and a few other diehards who were sitting together close to the organ on the right hand side kept singing the verses of the final hymn, "For All The Saints." Everyone else followed the casket out to watch it be loaded into the hearse by the men of the family, so we acted as a kind of instant volunteer choir. It seemed meet and right so to do.  We sang our old friend and fellow parishioner out the door of the church properly, and and didn't let the hymn falter into silence, just because everyone who followed the casket out forgot to take their hymnals with them.  

I hope my friend and his family are coping with things now; and I hope they got him to eat something and take a nap, as he was actually sick and running a fever yesterday.