When you cremate a human body by subjecting it for more than two hours to temperatures of 1,400 to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit in a specially designed chamber, what remains is between 5 1/2 and 8 1/2 pounds of granulated ash.
That was the approximate weight of the contents of the ceramic urn that Buck Kamphausen was holding over the bow of the Orca III as it idled off Angel Island on a sparkling afternoon with a misty San Francisco skyline and the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance.
He tilted the custom-made urn down toward the bay. “Once in a while, people take them home. It would make a dandy cookie jar,” he joked. The ashes formed a milky gray cloud in the bottle-green water.
The cremated remains — the word “ashes” is frowned upon in the industry — were just a drop in the bay, where many hundreds of people are scattered every month.
As cremation has overtaken burial as the most common form of disposal in California — about 52 percent of the dead are cremated, according to the National Funeral Directors Association — scatterings of remains have become a daily occurrence. Without anybody really noticing, San Francisco Bay has become an enormous burial ground.
“There’s something calming about the water,” said Kamphausen, 67, who own six cemeteries and six crematories, including some in Vallejo, Sacramento, San Jose and Oakland. “We’ve done it at night, in the fog, in the rain. You have to say that if there is something spiritual about it, this is one of the most beautiful places in the world to have it done.”
In case readers missed it in the confusion of the transition to the new blog, Kendall posted another article about cremation on May 28
http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/3224
In that posting, Kendall also included a link to a short article he wrote considering the theological implications of burial vs. cremation:
http://titusonenine.classicalanglican.net/?page_id=11714
I think Kendall’s brief reflection is the first of its kind I’ve read. It’s a topic one does not often hear discussed or taught about in our churches. This elf highly recommends it.
–elfgirl
I think that the occassional “wrong way whales” that come into the Bay and up the rivers are not mistaken at all – they are spirit-guides sent by Mother Gaia to convey the spirits of the departed to communion with the dolphins and ascended masters.
So, where’s my nomination for bishop some place?
WRT #1 – I remember getting earfuls about the evils of cremation during my RC days (my parish priest was decidedly pre-Vatican-II). I think (and someone please correct me if I’m wrong) that the RC Church still officially frowns on cremation, at least in part for the reasons that Kendall outlines in his article.
But more to the point – cremation is preferred in California??? I woulda thunk that the tree-huggers would’ve had it banned, because it uses some amount of that nassssty fossil fuel, and releases all that carbon-mono-whatever into the atomosphere, and it doesn’t provide food for all of Mother Nature’s daisies (interesting that “Matthews sees a rosy future for cremation.” 😉 ).
I trust another RC will correct me if I am wrong. RCC used to forbid cremation because it was seen as a denial of the doctrine of bodily resurrection. The Church now allows it provided the reason behind is not denial of that doctrine. But at a Catholic funeral mass the body of the deceased must be present. If the remains have been cremated before the funeral then only a memorial service is held.
Cremation will continue to be popular especially with land costs rising and cemetary space becoming more limited.
I read Kendall’s piece on cremation, and I respectfully disagree.
If bodies were interred without embalming in simple boxes so that they were truly “dust to dust” I might feel differently, but I don’t think embalming and burial in elaborate caskets is especially Christian either. We are dust and to dust we shall return; cremation returns our bodies to that state more quickly to be sure, but that is ultimately what should happen to all of us. I’m quite sure that God can effect bodily resurrection when the time comes no matter what the manner of our burial.
I’m really surprised that ashes were strewn in SF Bay at all. If so, the laws of California were violated, which were the most stringent in the country. I understand that changed at the beginning of this year, but before, the law stipulated that you must take them beyond the three-mile limit. The new law says 500 yards, and I guess you can get that far offshore in SF Bay. I still wouldn’t want to swim there!
As a funeral director in Texas, our firm is also right about 50-50 cremation/burial. You are right about the current issue in the RC. At least our communication from the RC Bishop agrees that cremation is acceptable as long as the intention is not denial of the resurrection. In this dioceses, we can often have a mass with cremated remains present, I think to make the same point from the liturgical side: that cremation (nor anything else that may befall our bodies in this world) is not a barrier to our Lord’s promise.
What I tell some of my client families when they ask about “how long will this casket last…†etc. is that in my opinion, the best way to think about it is that everything made from the elements of this earth will one day return to those elements. That may be 4 hours in a crematory, or 1000 years in an Egyptian pyramid, but it ultimately will happen. For some people, that time is important –they see it as taking as good care of the body as possible for as long as possible. For other people, (and I am one of them) it is simply a quantity of time, and changes nothing.†My job is to help folks discover what is important to them, and then address that issue.
One thing I do like with cremation is that it lets us recover “churchyard burials†by having places for cremated remains either inside the church, or on the grounds. To me, long before I became a funeral director, this puts so much of an “incarnational†feel on words such as “seeing that we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…†and “…surrounded by angels and archangels and all the company of Heavenâ€
My favorite is in a Church in San Antonio, TX (St. Luke’s?) where the Baptismal font is in an apse, the back wall of which is a columbarium for cremation urns (The actual spaces are of course covered be matching bronze plates). For me, this very nicely closes the circle, being “baptized into Christ’s death†and dying to be raised in newness of life. I think there is a lot of architectural teaching there.
As for embalming, remember that it is temporary only. Not to preserve the body for years, let alone forever, but for days, so that one can have a traditional service with the body present, and perhaps viewing. The breakdown of the body into its elements, to await the final resurrection, still happens, just a little delayed. It is possible to embalm for long term preservation, the procedures are different when preparing gifts for use in anatomical studies, but even there, nothing in this world is permanent. We will inhabit “a New Earth†not a preserved old one.
The cremains are not released in SF Bay. The boat travels out past the Golden Gate Bridge. The Neptune Society is one of the primary outfits in the Bay Area for this type of “interment.”
cLink: http://www.neptunesociety.com/
I went out on several of these trips when I served a congregation in Orinda, CA. The tough part was watching elderly members of the family scattering the cremains. Once the position was reached, the captain would idle the engines. The boat would immediately start wallowing in the waves, giving a profound rolling to the deck. A couple of times I thought we’d lose someone over the side in the process.
Not a commercial plug, but I always found the boat crew and staff to be extremely professional.
MD Brian
Another family and mine went out on the local Boy Scout boat just before sunset. (Their mother was very active in the Sea Scouts and my husband was an avid small boat sailor.) The family generously allowed us to tag along.) It took us nearly an hour to get to the proper position, as we had to fight the wind and tide. Our priest said the Burial Office for each of them. Then an uncle sat on the transom and released the ashes downwind and low to the water. On the way back, a beautiful, full moon rose. It was altogether solemn, lovely, and not at all sad.
Me, I want to be cremated. And, don’t know if I’ve thought it “through”, but I have thought about it.
1) My grandmother was cremated, and others not, and I don’t have any trouble at all grieving for any of them. A coffin really doesn’t look like a person, especially closed up, and is MUCH heavier to carry. In an open casket, maximum effort is made so the person will look asleep rather than dead. Embalming stops at least for a while the bodily corruption which is a natural part of death. The whole effect, to me, is more to deny death than to celebrate resurrection.
2) Cost IS a factor. When I’m through using this carcass, I want its still-living parts given to anyone who can make use of them. After that, it becomes a problem in reverent disposal. I do not want my left-behind body to be a burden for my family. Additionally, I’m fully confident the Lord will be able to reassemble my body whenever he wants to, as easily if it is cremated as if it rots and disperses into the soil.
Someone wondered as to the Catholic position on cremation. According to the 1994 Catechism, 2300 and 2301, a dead body must be treated with respect in faith and hope of resurrection; cremation is OK if not a denial of faith in resurrection (this is just to provide the citation). I didn’t find anything on whether the body must be present during the Mass.
In faith, Dave
In addition to the above comments, I have read that the cremated remains of a Catholic may not be scattered; they must be preserved in a safe place as a matter of respect to the creation.
My favorite burial tradition is that of the old Cistercians, preserved in some Trappist (Strict Observance Cistercian) communitites. The body is dressed in a habit an (ideally) the cowl in which he was consecrated a monk. Burial is in the ground, with the folds of the cowl drawn around his hands, feet, and face. I attended a burial in a southern monastery (near Atlanta), where the heat made the voluminous woolen cowls impractical. The simple cotten cowl was not enough to cover the monk completely, so they tucked a handkerchief around his face. Anyway, the brother is laid in the grave, no casket, and some of the younger brothers fill it in. I once read of an older monastery where the cemetary was full. They opened the oldest graves, put what remained (shards of bone mostly) into a small box, and laid the newly dead out with his head resting on his brother’s bones. Besides being practical, it has wonderful symbolic value. How good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity!