Last year, a friend of mine died in Washington state. Instead of being buried or cremated, he opted to have his remains composted in a process sometimes called terramation. It’s an environmentally friendly option to normal burial, and legal in several states including Washington. Illinois had House Bill 3158 on the docket this session to make it legal here as well.
The bill passed the house, but never made it out of the state senate committee, so it’s dead for now (no pun intended). I decided to look up how my state representative voted, and because I live in the red part of a blue state, I was unsurprised to see they voted against it.
I wondered why that might be – could it be a simple partisan thing? Of course, that’s part of it, but another part is the opposition. A little research shows that two groups opposing it are funeral directors (less $$$ for them), and <gasp!> the Catholic Church.
Why? Human dignity, they say – Daniel Welter, retired from the Archdiocese of Chicago, said turning humans into compost “degrades the human person and dishonors the life” that person lived. He compared it to composting vegetable trimmings and egg shells. Funeral directors also commented on the lack of dignity for the dead.
Thoughts? Mine are simple – I am built from the dust of stars, as is everything else on this planet. It’s my birthright to return to it. Anything that prevents that is anathema to me.
I also find it supremely ironic that, at “traditional” funerals, the priest says “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust” as they lower a preservative filled body in a lacquered box into the ground which is encased in sealed vault, completely separated from the earth and ashes and dust to which the dead is supposed to return.
Neither churches nor funeral directors should get to override the wishes of the deceased.
Compost the church
“The” Church? Surely it should be “a” church unless we’ve time travelled back to the middle ages.
Regardless… who cares what these irrelevant throwbacks to an age of superstition think?
who cares what these irrelevant throwbacks to an age of superstition think?
Agreed… right up until my Congress-critters start listening them to make policy choices which impact me. I’d like to make sure the people who listen to these irrelevant throwbacks can’t prevent me from being recycled as a patch of dandelions.
I would rather be turned to dirt/new life than slowly decay over hundreds of years in a shitty wooden box.
I was just thinking a new mantra to be read might be, “pickles to pickles, preserves to preserves, tinned meat to tinned meat. Good luck down there.”
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I used to think the easiest way to get back to the universe would be vaporization in an explosion but that would probably lead to other people being hurt so I’ll just go for cremation and being spread out into a lake.
My grandmother is spread in 4 places, where she was born, where she met my grandfather, the lake where we camped growing up, and under a rose bush in my parents yard.
My sister will be spread at that lake next when my mom is ready to let her ashes go back to the universe. She died less than a year ago and she told me that’s where she wanted to go if she didn’t make it through cancer treatment.
My mom will be there too some day and same with part of the ashes of my father along with part to the river he was born near.
Water is where the cycle of life begins again so it is a fitting place to cycle back into the universe.
