Cremation Lore - a Completely New Body

[Rain]

23 hours ago, pogi said:

Good thoughts.  

In regards to the ordinance of dedicating graves, I think that if it brings one comfort it is important.  If not, then it is not really important.  I think it is just as much based on perception as cremation.  It is not an essential or saving ordinance any more than a blessing of comfort is - which I think it is really about.  

Some families and cultures may have ties to place and find comfort in hallowing and protecting that place until the resurrection.  For others,  it is more meaningful to view all of creation as hallowed place for rest, rather than a 2.5 X 8 ft plot of soil.   Some don't need a protected place from disruption.   They embrace the cycles and evolution of the earth and erosion and earthquake and nature taking a toll on place.  They are not tied to any single location so no need to be discomforted if any single part is disrupted.  It feels liberating to me.  There is a greater sense of sacred oneness with the rest of creation for me personally.  I am fine without a dedicatory prayer.  I would rather dedicate my body by donating organs that others may live and by feeding new life by nourishing the soil of mother earth.  I want to be spread out and feed life across creation and not stuck in a dedicated 2.5X8 ft cubicle.  I want THAT as my final resting place.  I want my children and descendants to view THAT as hallowed more than a tiny plot of land. 

I have serious doubts that any part of my body will be able to be used for donations as 45 years of diabetes and other body problems have done serious damage to it, but if anything can be used I hope it is.

However, my daughter is becoming an occupational therapy assistant. The things she is learning so she can help others are so good. Her second year in college she had to learn some of her anatomy  from an actual body.  If that helps her help people then I love it.  So if all my body is good for at that time then hopefully someone can use it to learn from.

23 hours ago, pogi said:

Those are my personal views and feelings and I totally respect other personal cultural views as well.  Whatever brings one comfort.  

"Preferably a man who holds the Melchizedek Priesthood" thing is weird to me. Is that just evolutionary baggage akin to not allowing women to pray at General Conference? 

 

[Tacenda]

3 hours ago, Rain said:

I have serious doubts that any part of my body will be able to be used for donations as 45 years of diabetes and other body problems have done serious damage to it, but if anything can be used I hope it is.

However, my daughter is becoming an occupational therapy assistant. The things she is learning so she can help others are so good. Her second year in college she had to learn some of her anatomy  from an actual body.  If that helps her help people then I love it.  So if all my body is good for at that time then hopefully someone can use it to learn from.

 

My husband found out he's prediabetic a couple of days ago and we're doing a whole food change, and I'll have to try to not make it painful and eat foods that are terrible around him. I guess we just don't know when things in our bodies will fall apart. I'm so sorry for all your suffering with diabetes. It's a disease not to be messed with. I assume and you probably can answer, that your daughter wants to help others with diabetes from watching her mother go through it. Also, I wouldn't mind donating body parts when I die, especially my brain if I get early onset Alzheimer's like my mother.

Edited January 26, 2023 by Tacenda

[Rain]

15 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

My husband found out he's prediabetic a couple of days ago and we're doing a whole food change, and I'll have to try to not make it painful and eat foods that are terrible around him. I guess we just don't know when things in our bodies will fall apart. I'm so sorry for all your suffering with diabetes. It's a disease not to be messed with. I assume and you probably can answer, that your daughter wants to help others with diabetes from watching her mother go through it. Also, I wouldn't mind donating body parts when I die, especially my brain if I get early onset Alzheimer's like my mother.

Thank you.  

With your husband can I make one suggestion?  Don't have rules that he can't have certain foods. Instead start listening to your bodies to see what makes it feel good and bad and raises or lowers blood sugar. It amazes me now that I'm trying to work with food how my choices are different because of how it makes me feel rather than being told what to eat.  

[mfbukowski]

29 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

My husband found out he's prediabetic a couple of days ago and we're doing a whole food change, and I'll have to try to not make it painful and eat foods that are terrible around him. I guess we just don't know when things in our bodies will fall apart. I'm so sorry for all your suffering with diabetes. It's a disease not to be messed with. I assume and you probably can answer, that your daughter wants to help others with diabetes from watching her mother go through it. Also, I wouldn't mind donating body parts when I die, especially my brain if I get early onset Alzheimer's like my mother.

And watch that blood pressure. I have a 40 year old relative on dialysis for kidney failure for undiagnosed high blood pressure 

[Tacenda]

15 minutes ago, Rain said:

Thank you.  

With your husband can I make one suggestion?  Don't have rules that he can't have certain foods. Instead start listening to your bodies to see what makes it feel good and bad and raises or lowers blood sugar. It amazes me now that I'm trying to work with food how my choices are different because of how it makes me feel rather than being told what to eat.  

Great advice! Last night when I knew I'd better do some changing along with my husband in the dietary dept, I immediately wanted ice cream, chips or ? So I thought, that it's not a good idea for my husband to eliminate every thing at once because of my immediate cravings may cause him the same reaction. But never thought about our bodies being the barometer. Thanks for the suggestion Rain!

Edited January 26, 2023 by Tacenda

[Tacenda]

5 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

And watch that blood pressure. I have a 40 year old relative on dialysis for kidney failure for undiagnosed high blood pressure 

Will do! That's scary how they'd not known about their high blood pressure

Edited January 26, 2023 by Tacenda

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

Will do! That's scary how they'd not known about their high blood pressure

He didn't like doctors and felt "fine" until he didn't.

[Teancum]

On 1/24/2023 at 3:36 PM, Pyreaux said:

Similar to Catholic tradition, the LDS tradition since 1830 did not encourage cremation of the dead, unless the law requires it. It's somewhat reflected in the customs that the body of a deceased member who has been endowed should be dressed in temple clothing and deposited into priestly dedicated soil. The idea seems to be the day of resurrection will involve the reconstitution of your original bodily remains, clothing you were buried in, and come forth at the very location you were placed. Like Jesus had. I can see how that might be hard, or simply won't happen, if your ashes were scattered into the wind.

The consequences according to the Lore as I was told, if there was nothing left of you, your body would then have to be remade entirely, a completely new body. Not a big deal, but there was this idea that your appearance and other such characteristics might be different. Some shutter at the thought, and others thought that it might even be appealing to those who may have not liked their old body anyways. I'm still looking for the origin for this portion of the lore. Perhaps, someone knows.

Any experiences to share? We cremated the family dog. We wanted it to move with us anyway. My mom wants it buried with her, and a few her rings which I'd never consider burying myself with material things.

Anyone want to argue the virtues of burials, respect for the dead and sacred ground? Or the practical, sanitary, economical, virtues of cremation?

  If God can resurrect a rotted body God can resurrect a cremated body.  If cremation is a problem then I guess people who die in a fire or explosion etc have a major problem as well.

[mfbukowski]

18 minutes ago, Teancum said:

  If God can resurrect a rotted body God can resurrect a cremated body.  If cremation is a problem then I guess people who die in a fire or explosion etc have a major problem as well.

More science fiction as usual. It's hard for me to even fathom why people speculate on this.  The LDS paradigm is that God uses natural means to do what He does.  

If you accept the paradigm,  that's His business - literally- to bring to pass the eternal life of humanity and He's had his patent for doing so for a while now.

It's like this Transhumanism stuff- a losing proposition from the start.

We should be talking about WHY He has done all this- the HOW is irrelevant and we couldn't understand it anyway.

Edited January 26, 2023 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

On 1/24/2023 at 4:44 PM, pogi said:

It’s legal.  The downside is that there is no guaranteeing that the home will remain in the family as a place for memorial.

But it will be such a nice surprise when subsequent owners want to have a swimming pool!

A great party for the FBI and sheriff and local cops!  What fun! 

[Rain]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

More science fiction as usual. It's hard for me to even fathom why people speculate on this.  The LDS paradigm is that God uses natural means to do what He does.  

If you accept the paradigm,  that's His business - literally- to bring to pass the eternal life of humanity and He's had his patent for doing so for a while now.

It's like this Transhumanism stuff- a losing proposition from the start.

We should be talking about WHY He has done all this- the HOW is irrelevant and we couldn't understand it anyway.

The how isn't irrelevant.  We are taught to seek knowledge.  This is an important part of knowledge.  Does not knowing it keep us from the Celestial Kingdom. No.  Hmmm. Maybe.  We know we don't have to understand it now in this life (which is a good thing since "we couldn't understand it anyway"), but I'm not so sure that we can be celestial without understanding it.  I'm NOT saying we have to understand it, but I can see it being a real possibility of being some of the basics of celestial life. 

And even if that's true it doesn't stop us from talking about why. 

[mfbukowski]

16 minutes ago, Rain said:

The how isn't irrelevant.  We are taught to seek knowledge.  This is an important part of knowledge.  Does not knowing it keep us from the Celestial Kingdom. No.  Hmmm. Maybe.  We know we don't have to understand it now in this life (which is a good thing since "we couldn't understand it anyway"), but I'm not so sure that we can be celestial without understanding it.  I'm NOT saying we have to understand it, but I can see it being a real possibility of being some of the basics of celestial life. 

And even if that's true it doesn't stop us from talking about why. 

Well of course one has be a god before one can be a GOD. I am sure there is a little training involved, with what we know now about physics finished in the first 30 seconds.

We will be a little brighter then in more ways than one.

But I think we have no chance to learn here with our worm brains and the fact that our minds are limited, and only see what our present brains to allow.

When I see a whale sing Beethoven 's 5th, and then compose something better I might reconsider 

 

Edited January 27, 2023 by mfbukowski

[Rain]

25 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Well of course one has be a god before one can be a GOD. I am sure there is a little training involved, with what we know now about physics finished in the first 30 seconds.

We will be a little brighter then in more ways than one.

But I think we have no chance to learn here with our worm brains and the fact that our minds are limited, and only see what our present brains to allow.

So that means we shouldn't try to start to learn some of it? 

25 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

When I see a whale sing Beethoven 's 5th, and then compose something better I might reconsider 

 

 

[mfbukowski]

On 1/26/2023 at 7:34 AM, Rain said:

I think it is just as much based on perception as cremation.  It is not an essential or saving ordinance any more than a blessing of comfort is - which I think it is really about.

Remember that ALL WE KNOW ABOUT ANYTHING is based on human perception.

Think about it. Logically it cannot be otherwise!  

We pool interpretations of our perceptions in publications, intellectual papers, newspapers, the internet, movies, videos, social media, and even this board.

We look out at what we think is the "world" and all we can know is what human brains CAN know, so what we see is really the interpretations of OUR human brain of what other human brains have pooled over thousands of years of languages created by human brains!

We look out at the "world" and only see what other human brains have pooled-- WE ONLY SEE A MIRROR OF OURSELVES

All we know is what we CAN know as limited by a massive ball of interconnected nerves in our heads, INCLUDING religion and revelation. 

God made us this way, in his own image; we are on a path to be able to know all that he knows, at least this is the LDS paradigm!

""NOW WE SEE THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY, BUT THEN FACE TO FACE"" with Our Father himself.

It is a logical impossibility for it to be otherwise, it cannot be MORE than one human talking to another about human perception, in language which is itself garbled and ambiguous and untranslatable even to another garbled and ambiguous language 

Humans only know what humans CAN know.

A priori, like A=A.

As clear as human logic can say it.

All we can know was created by the WORD.

[The Nehor]

On 1/26/2023 at 3:37 PM, Teancum said:

  If God can resurrect a rotted body God can resurrect a cremated body.  If cremation is a problem then I guess people who die in a fire or explosion etc have a major problem as well.

I knew an older Christian who seemed to think only a buried body could be resurrected and hounded his children endlessly to make sure he wasn’t cremated. Several of his children stopped talking to him because he seemed to live in perpetual fear that his children were a bunch of pyros desperate to cremate him.

[Emily]

On 1/25/2023 at 9:00 AM, pogi said:

  I think it is just as much based on perception as cremation.  It is not an essential or saving ordinance any more than a blessing of comfort is - which I think it is really about.  

I don't disagree with you, but my letter was to a family member that I had been discussing the subject with earlier. In our extended family and amongst ward members who are close enough to the family to make a trip out to the grave, there are many people who wouldn't consider a person properly buried without a grave dedication.  They are iffy enough about cremation, but we found that if the ashes are in a lovely box, the box is buried in a proper cemetery, and the grave is dedicated, it calms the misgivings considerably. I suspect as the older generations pass away, new traditions will take the place of old. 

[Emily]

On 1/26/2023 at 12:20 PM, Tacenda said:

I immediately wanted ice cream, chips or ? So I thought, that it's not a good idea for my husband to eliminate every thing

One thing that helped with my Dad (who lived for eating sugary baked goods) when I was caring for him was teaching him what he needs to do to keep his blood sugar readings low, vs presenting him with a list of stuff he couldn't eat.

High fiber diets even out sugar spikes in the blood, so you can get away with small portions of goodies if your overall diet is very high in fiber.

For example, if he ate a big mixed veggie salad at dinner, Dad could also eat a small brownie for dessert. (Once or twice a week. Not every day. 😄)

You can also look for lower carb alternatives to replace favorite snacks. A bag of potato chips is a bad idea, but a bag of nuts, or sliced carrots and a small amount of chip dip can make a decent substitute. 

Adequate hydration helps lower blood sugar as well. And exercise. And losing weight.  All three help more, in the long run, than obsessing over lists of things you can't eat anymore.  So tell him, sure, he can have a chocolate chip cookie, after he drinks a bottle of water while you take a walk around the block.

 

 

[Tacenda]

9 hours ago, Emily said:

One thing that helped with my Dad (who lived for eating sugary baked goods) when I was caring for him was teaching him what he needs to do to keep his blood sugar readings low, vs presenting him with a list of stuff he couldn't eat.

High fiber diets even out sugar spikes in the blood, so you can get away with small portions of goodies if your overall diet is very high in fiber.

For example, if he ate a big mixed veggie salad at dinner, Dad could also eat a small brownie for dessert. (Once or twice a week. Not every day. 😄)

You can also look for lower carb alternatives to replace favorite snacks. A bag of potato chips is a bad idea, but a bag of nuts, or sliced carrots and a small amount of chip dip can make a decent substitute. 

Adequate hydration helps lower blood sugar as well. And exercise. And losing weight.  All three help more, in the long run, than obsessing over lists of things you can't eat anymore.  So tell him, sure, he can have a chocolate chip cookie, after he drinks a bottle of water while you take a walk around the block.

 

 

Love this! He actually wanted to play pickleball the other day, it's my go to sport. And lift weights, thanks, I will share this with him.

[BlueDreams]

On 1/24/2023 at 3:02 PM, pogi said:

I used to be a grave digger at the Orem City cemetery in my younger years.   After shoveling and squaring out the corners of the hole dug by a backhoe I would often find respite in the bowels of the cool earth, hidden from the heat of the sun.  It was a comfortable place which loaned itself well to contemplating the finiteness of life and the mysteries of death and after-life.  In one such session, I remember thinking about the cycle of life and how being enclosed in a casket, which is enclosed in a cement vault, which is enclosed deep in the earth, as an unfortunate disruption of the natural cycle of life (and death) feeding life, symbolizing eternity in the integral cycle of mother earth herself.  It was such a troubling thought that I leapt out of the grave in a claustrophobic panic.   I like the idea of having a memorial tree that my ashes feed and I become a part, that future generations of family can take respite under and visit with me, rather than a memorial headstone.  I like the symbolism of my smoke rising up as a sweet incense to the Lord, as seen in the law of sacrifice.  I like the symbolism of fire and purification, refinement, and newness of life like as seen in the baptism of fire.  I also love the practical, sanitary, and economical, virtues of cremation that you elude to, along with the ecological and environmental values that come with eco-friendly cremation options.  I do find value in the tradition and ceremony of the viewing where family members can be with the deceased and say their final goodbyes.  For me, my cremation will take place after the viewing.   Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. 

 

I recently read about composting bodies. It's only legal so far in 6 states, but I'm young and healthy enough to hope it catches on well before I die. The idea that my body would become compost to feed plants would be my ultimate wish. I want to continue to be a part of the healthy lifecycle of the earth and help maintain future generations. I love the idea of my body going full circle, returning to earth from which it was derived from. Becoming sources of new life. Plus the bones left over are crushed and can be kept like cremation with less pollution. So if my family wants a keepsake to bury and add a plack to they can. 

 

Now if only more states would adopt the practice....

If not I'll probably rank my options by how green they are and how pricey.

I think the ritual of burial can have a lot of good closure for the  living....but a lot of that ritual can be had without the things we've built up to preserve bodies for way too long. Beyond that I don't get the point. Dedicate the land or tree or wild seeds that my body will feed and call it good. My Spirit isn't there anymore so my body should be good for something else. 

 

 

With luv, 

BD 

[pogi]

10 minutes ago, BlueDreams said:

I recently read about composting bodies.

Sign me up! 

11 minutes ago, BlueDreams said:

It's only legal so far in 6 states

The idea that this process of nature which has fed the earth since organisms have existed could be illegal is troubling to me.  Who is the government to make such a natural process and cycle of life illegal, and why would they possibly do that?

[Scott180]

My Uncle said something to me that has always stuck with me on this subject.

People will gather around your grave when you are buried. If you are fortunate a loved one will visit monthly, maybe even weekly for awhile. Then on "special occasions" only. Finally you'll be forgotten by the world.

 

[Scott180]

My Uncle said something to me that has always stuck with me on this subject.

People will gather around your grave when you are buried. If you are fortunate a loved one will visit monthly, maybe even weekly for awhile. Then on "special occasions" only. Finally you'll be forgotten by the world.

 

[ksfisher]

On 1/30/2023 at 8:37 AM, pogi said:

The idea that this process of nature which has fed the earth since organisms have existed could be illegal is troubling to me.  Who is the government to make such a natural process and cycle of life illegal, and why would they possibly do that?

In urban areas this could be problematic if not properly regulated.  You probably wouldn't want the chemicals from a large number of decomposing bodies contaminating drinking water sources.  Rules like that seem to get made because someone did something stupid in the past.

[Scott180]

On 1/30/2023 at 8:37 AM, pogi said:

Who is the government to make such a natural process and cycle of life illegal, and why would they possibly do that?

Imagine the burial not being done properly. Dogs or raccoons dig up stuff and next thing ya know ya got Ed's dead head in your flower bed. 

[pogi]

37 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

In urban areas this could be problematic if not properly regulated.  You probably wouldn't want the chemicals from a large number of decomposing bodies contaminating drinking water sources.  Rules like that seem to get made because someone did something stupid in the past.

A lot of County governments actually compost human waste from water treatment facilities and sell it to the public to use in their gardens.  That is pretty popular across the country.   There are trace amounts of medications and other chemicals, but they deem it to be safe even on vegetable gardens - I don't think I would use it for that personally, but I would on other landscaping.  It is a really green and environmental solution to human waste that recycles the waste and the water for reuse.   I don't see why this couldn't be regulated in the same way. 

36 minutes ago, Scott180 said:

Imagine the burial not being done properly. Dogs or raccoons dig up stuff and next thing ya know ya got Ed's dead head in your flower bed. 

If the body is composted, it is not really a burial.  It is just spreading dirt.  If they can compost human waste for human use, I don't see why this would be much harder to do properly.   I don't think we should make things illegal because of a slight potential for something to go wrong when there are reasonable measures that can be easily taken to make sure it doesn't go wrong.  That is what other regulatory measures are for.   

Edited January 31, 2023 by pogi