back to the funerals.

I have once again started reading over the funeral services. It seems to be a good way to stop thinking about Queens of the Stone Age. Quoting the funeral service is also, manifestly, less likely to be misunderstood in retrospect than Queens of the Stone Age lyrics [unless I come to an untimely end, but QotSA lyrics are often ambiguously about suicide, so it's a toss-up]. But, please, keep in mind, Mr. Thompson is a literary character with only a strong resemblance to the author. Please do not read anything into what Mr. Thompson says. If I, the author, wanted to communicate something, I would send you a letter. Check your mailbox!

What earthly sweetness remaineth unmixed with grief? What glory standeth immutable on earth? All things are but shadows most feeble, but most deluding dreams: yet one moment only, and Death shall supplant them all. But in the light of thy countenance, O Christ, and in the sweetness of thy beauty, give rest unto him (her) whom thou hast chosen: forasmuch as thou lovest mankind.

The funeral service recalls how much American culture has descended into a horrible Gnosticism which denies the place of the physical. The physical materialists are in some ways closer to Christian truth than the unreflective Cartesian dualism [which is essentially materialist as well] common in America.

Now is life's artful triumph of vanities destroyed. For the spirit hath vanished from its tabernacle; its clay groweth black. The vessel is shattered, voiceless, bereft of feeling, motionless, dead: Committing which unto the grave, let us beseech the Lord that he will give him (her) eternal rest.

More later, of course.

Now are all the bodily organs seen to be idle, which so little while ago were filled with motion; all useless, dead, unconscious. For the eyes have withdrawn inward, the feet are bound, the hands lie helpless, and the ears withal; the tongue is imprisoned in silence, committed to the tomb. Of a verity, all mortal things are vanity.

EDIT: I hate the Hapgood translation.