When We Mourn

I'm not one for vacuous public statements - you know, those ones politicians tend to make when they can't risk taking sides. I find all of that verbal bet-hedging very tiresome.  No comment is fine, maybe there's nothing more to be said, it happens.  But to be "all sound and fury, signifying nothing" is regrettable.

Tonight I was watching the memorial service for the Arizona shooting victims.  I've been to a lot of funerals: when I was younger, family funerals; in my teens and early twenties, funerals for friends (sad but true); now, mainly churchfolk and often strangers.  As bizarre as it sounds, I think memorials (or funerals, take your pick) are very moving and sincere, in a way almost no other modern ceremonies are.

Maybe this is because, as my friend remarked to me, "death is a form of justice."  I think she is right - seeing as how the rich and the poor, the famous and the obscure, death comes to us all.  I'm not sure.

But one thing that strikes me about funerals and memorials is the necessity of including music or art.  Even people who have never been involved in the arts, who probably couldn't name you more than three pieces of music, will have music at their funeral or the funeral of their loved ones.  Many people love to ridicule or ignore poetry in their day-to-day lives, but will have poems read or printed after a loss.

We live in a society which values the empirical and the measurable - money, status, studies, statistics, 'demonstrated track records.'  And yet, when a human life ceases, we find comfort in the unquantifiable (and often intangible) aspects of life: sound, figurative language, poetry, movement, the embraces of fellow human beings.  Maybe this is because grief calls us to be 'outside ourselves' for a time; I'm not sure why.

But as I watched the singers give their "Simple Gifts" during the live broadcast tonight, the swaying of their bodies and the sweetness in their voices reminded me that human beings will (almost always) use beauty as a means of self-defense when faced with tragedy or mortality.  I know that "time and chance" befalls us all, but I am grateful that at least a little beauty, and hence a little hope for the human race, can be called forward in times of great doubt and senseless destruction.