Cremation- What should you believe?
At the beginning of last week, my blog topic was on breathing and life. At the beginning of this week, my blog topic is on death and cremation.
Today, many people plan ahead for what happens to them after they pass. They make their wills, and decide on their obituaries, and burial arrangements.
Having spent some time in a Christian religion, I know there is much controversy out there about cremation. I am not here to address the controversy, take sides or say what's right or wrong for you. That is your choice and for you to decide. Today, I am going to look at it from a different angle.
There are many people who question whether the burning of one's remains will affect their afterlife. I have been asked that before, and all I can do is look at what cremation is and where did it come from. I also want to look at what our ancestors did at death, and not what an organized religion tells us to believe.
Cremation is believed to have started in the early stone age. Evidence of decorative pottery urns show that cremation was a burial ritual across Northern Europe and in Western Russia.
The Roman Empire widely practiced cremation rituals and it was prevalent among the society. But, then came the Christians.
Cremation was rare with the early Christian church because they viewed it as pagan. In 400AD Constantine's christianization of the empire replaced cremation with Earth burials.
In North America there were only 2 recorded cremations before 1800. But in 1876 the first crematory was built in Pennsylvania and has grown to what it is today.
Cremation occurs in a cremator that heats up to 1800°F. The fuel used to burn is either oil, natural gas or propane. The cremation chamber is lined with heat resistant bricks. The body is requested to be in a coffin or combustible container to be quickly and safely slid into the cremator.
The cremated remains are not ashes in the usual sense. Dry bone fragments are swept out and pulverized by a machine to process them into ashes. After final grinding the ashes are placed in an urn or container.
The cremated remains can then be kept in an urn, put in a memorial building, buried in the ground or sprinkled somewhere at the request of the deceased.
The biggest controversy with cremation is simply this, people trying to push their belief system onto others who do not believe or live the same way we do.
What happens when we die? Are our bodies waiting to be resurrected and ascended to heaven like Christianity wants you to believe? Or, are they a shell that housed our soul while we journeyed this lifetime on Earth? After death is that shell left to be disposed of on the Earth, while the spirit moves on to another realm?
How did our Ancient Ancestors handle the death of their people? The most common burial practice among the Indigenous peoples of the world was…….cremation. Many indigenous people of the America's believed that the smoke from burning the bodies helps send the body upward on its journey.
Once again, Christianity has tried to change the customs of our Ancestors by trying to impose their beliefs onto other cultures. The goal is to make indigenous cultures conform to their beliefs by misleading them.
As I said earlier, it's not my goal to tell you what you should do. It's your choice on how you handle your death ritual.
To know who we are, we need to know where we came from. We need to know our ancestors. We need to know their customs and embrace them. We do not need to be programmed to be somebody different. I stand with the customs of our Ancestors.
Blessings
By Michael Walters
The Ancestor's Fire
Writing the voices of the unheard
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