If we embalm our loved ones, we can stave off decomposition. One wouldn’t want water and the elements to get into the casket, and one certainly wouldn’t want any worms to invade. These things are marketed as “protecting” the body. The modern funeral industry in America encourages, and in some cases requires, metal caskets, “outer burial containers” (basic liners or vaults), and embalming. For me, it was enough to say, “I don’t want that.” He spares no details for the squeamish, giving us a look into the hidden side of funeral preparation. Harris tells the story of the embalming of Jenny Johnson. It also showed me the possibility of having a more natural, less expensive, less gaudy burial than those pushed on us by the modern American funeral industry. While the book itself is not religiously-leaning, it opened my eyes to how far our modern funeral practices have strayed from the stewardship of the earth with which the Lord entrusted us. It set me on a quest to make my passing as natural and as pleasing to God as possible. Grave Matters: A Journey through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial, New York, 2007: 41.Ībout seven years ago, my husband and I heard about a fabulous book called Grave Matters by Mark Harris.
The burial’s many environmental effects - the leaching chemicals, the consumption of resources, and the resulting pollution - live on.” *Harris, Mark. “On any given day then, some twenty-seven hundred licensed embalmers like Tom Fielding will wheel a newly deceased family member into their prep rooms and there ply their trade… Twice nearly every minute on average, one of these preservative-filled bodies will then be sealed inside a casket that’s sealed inside a vault and topped with a ton of dirt that’s all but prevented from ever reaching them. Although I have not yet gotten my coffin table, it hasn’t stopped me from trying to plan a burial that will respect the natural order of things and not cause harm to the earth.
I see my coffin table as a way to be a good steward of God’s gifts and resources. What else do you want?”įor a few years now, I have asked my family to give me a custom-made “coffin table,” a coffee table with a hinged lid that can store all the games and kids’ stuff that clutter our living room and double as a coffin when my husband or I die. “Mom, what do you want for Mother’s Day?”
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