Dear Readers,
A pest extermination company sent us a postcard with a dead mosquito on it. I’m not a fan of mosquitoes, prevalent here in central Virginia and at our house by a pond: we routinely change the water in our two birdbaths and are always on alert for the standing water in which they breed. Still, I was bothered by the picture of a dead one and recycled it (before thinking hey, I could take a picture of this and write about it in my newsletter).
Seeing that dead bug recalled a newspaper years ago that showed a photo of Saddam Hussein’s two sons, dead. By all accounts the men were horrible and their deaths at the hands of our military were newsworthy, but the photo disturbed me. Why show their bodies?
I’m not one to shy away from the dead. Being with people when they die or sitting with their bodies afterward or tossing dirt on their casket has been my holiest work as a priest. It’s also the hardest. I was grateful to be with my father when he died and deeply grateful that while I did not make it in time to my second mom’s death, I did get to spend about an hour with her body before the cremation company came.
But I didn’t take photos. A photo of either of my parents deceased would have horrified me. Far cry from a mosquito and the evil sons of a dictator? Maybe, but to me it seems like a desecration. In Victorian England, on the other hand, when photography was relatively new, some engaged in “death portraiture.” In one cancer support group on social media for survivors and caregivers, people sometimes post photos of their loved ones after they die. I quit following that group because this disturbed me. During hunting season, many Facebook feeds contain a form of death portraiture as hunters pose with their prey. My husband hunts, and while he eschews social media, he has sometimes texted me photos of deer that he has shot, particularly when he is impressed by the size of their antlers. I am not opposed to him hunting, but I don’t care for those photos. We also have several sets of deer antlers mounted in our basement, which seems better to me than stuffed deer heads and reminds me of the cow skulls adorning many homes and gardens in Arizona, where I grew up. I insisted they remain in the basement, however, instead of elsewhere in our home.
Caravaggio’s painting of Saint Jerome depicts him with a skull on his desk, and the Rule of Saint Benedict directs its followers to keep death before them. Christians observe Ash Wednesday when we remember we are dust and will return to dust, and I’ve long found this to be the holiest observance of the year. Several years ago I procured a rosary with beads in the shape of skulls to remind me of where I’m going and keep it in sight on my desk. Perhaps this doesn’t feel like a desecration to me because I remember I am dust and will return to dust. Perhaps this doesn’t feel like a desecration to me because the skulls are not real. Perhaps this doesn’t feel like a desecration to me because those skull beads are anonymous. I don’t know who they were or how they died or who killed them: a hunter, a pest control company, cancer.
Today I’m pondering my own inconsistencies. What do you think?
Blessings,
Elizabeth
What I’m Reading
The Night Lake by Liz Tichenor. Grief memoir by a young woman learning how to grieve and be a priest at the same time.
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. Novel of two perspectives about a marriage.
Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin. Thriller about the younger sister of a teenager killed on an island on vacation.
What I’m Writing:
I love preaching every third summer when the lectionary turns to the kings of Israel and Judah! In Bible study next month we’ll take it a step further, contrasting some of these stories from I and II Samuel and I and II Kings with those in the two books of Chronicles.
Sermon: Samuel Grieved Over Saul
Sermon: David and Goliath (this one has more musings about visual depictions of the dead if you didn’t get enough above)
When we were children growing up, we were dragged along to the funeral parlor (yep that is what they called it) for visitation for our deceased relatives. We had to go in, make a quick pass by the open casket and stand by our mother as she said beautiful words to the grieving. Then we were given some quarters and allowed to go to the break room where there were vending machines. Cokes and candy bars were our treat for being good children. Often cousins would join us there and we had our own visitation while our parents mingled in the other room. So seeing dead bodies was never shocking, even after I became clergy. But the idea of needed a photo, while not problematic, is not something I find I need. No one in a casket ever looked like they did in real life. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. They always get me thinking.
Thank you for this reflection on this images! I couldn't agree more, although for me they are just a little more macabre than I like, but I also know others and certainly our ancestors had much different views on this. I try not to judge the people of the past using today's morality as that isn't right on our part.
I also really appreciate the "Original Testament" stories and turn to them frequently for comfort and understanding of those people and their times!