The disturbing world of Mormon funerals
Vložit
- čas přidán 8. 08. 2023
- We dive into the controversy around Patricia Holland's funeral, Mormon secrets, the stern warnings of Mormon apostles about funerals, and how high-control groups limit our ability to grieve healthily.
SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
Patreon: / zelphontheshelf
PayPal: www.paypal.com/paypalme/zelph...
Venmo: @Samantha-Shelley-1
Merch: www.etsy.com/shop/ZelphOnTheS...
Our incredibly delicious and sustainable candle: exmocandles.com/candles/zelph...
Faith transitions coaching with Sam: samanthashelleycoaching.com/
Hi friends! We would love to have you be a part of our Patreon community! You can donate as little as $1 a month to join ✨
www.patreon.com/zelphontheshelf
If that’s not for you, you can also send us a little tip via Venmo @ Samantha-Shelley-1 💜
"pregnant and barefoot in the celestial kitchen" - LOL
I hope more people look into Heavenly Mother. She hides so much freedom and independence. I would love to see someone get up in sacrament meeting and pray directly to her.
@@jerrimenard3092 You mean "Mothers". I'm sure there's more than one.
It's like no not engaging right
"Pregnant and barefoot", is that a God's Not Dead reference?
It’s an old phrase referring to keeping women financially dependent on men/staying at home/focussing on child rearing. Was used from at least the early 20th century onwards
My mom passed away from cancer when I was 9. I spoke at her funeral and my whole talk was just about the plan of salvation, not even memories of our time together. I was praised for my testimony and optimism. No one asked if I needed a shoulder to cry on or recognized that I was suppressing my feelings. I felt I needed to be a good, faithful little girl. And that meant being happy that she was with Jesus again. I didn't start processing my grief over her death until I read The Fault in our Stars and started writing poetry in middle school. Now as an ex-mormon I am reckoning with that grief in entirely new ways. But I also feel like I'm connecting with her in such unique and important ways now.
💜💜💜💜💜
Same here My mother passed away from cancer when I was nine too , it’s a shitty experience by itself but not being able to grieve properly must be the cherry on top , hope you’re doing well,best regards
At my aunt's funeral, the stake president (who didnt know her) spoke for most of the time. He took the opportunity to give a talk about how you needed to receive all of the Mormon ordinances in order to enter heaven and see my Aunt again. It was really a strangely fire and brimstone talk for a mormon leader! He wanted to clarify that heaven is for mormons and nobody else.
He delivered this talk to a room that was filled all the way to the back with my gregarious, middle-aged aunt's many non-Mormon friends. Also her brother, my uncle, was sat in front of me with his head in his hands. He had been an ex Mormon for decades at that time and absolutely hates the church. Entering a church was painful for him at all, nevermind to be subjected to this awful parody of a funeral for his sister who had just died in a horrible car crash! He sat with his head down, his wife rubbing him on the back, comforting him, whispering to him, encouraging him to stay there and not to leave. My uncle was so upset you could see that he actually wanted to run out of the room.
I was asked to give the closing prayer at the funeral even though I didn't know my aunt very well. My uncle, who is the only family member who'd spent his adult life living the same city as her was not asked to participate in the funeral. He is a professional musician and could have made a beautiful musical contribution. Anyway, I got up to give the closing prayer after that horrible stake president's talk and I made my prayer into something that was passable as a Mormon prayer but was actually meant as a speech to the non-believers in the room. To apologize for the funeral and offer some kind of comforting words with them in mind. It was a horrible funeral.
"Ask a Mortician" here on youtube is GREAT at talking about the ecological and psychological aspects of death and funerals and stuff. I highly recommend watching her stuff ♡
She made a video for trans people who want to make sure their family doesn't impose things on them (like a deadname, outfit, pronouns and religion) at their own funeral.
I also ADORE her book Smoke gets in your eyes. It's amazing. It's funny, beautiful, real and political.
I love that channel!!! Great approach to death and being honest with your feelings
@stviz87 if you watched midnight gospel, she plays death and her episode is amazing
Caitlyn is amazing!
Thanks for this video. It was really cathartic for me. I was never Mormon, but in high school I had a Mormon friend who was tragically shot and killed at work by an armed robber. We didn't have many Mormon kids at our school, and my friend was very well liked, so a lot of non-Mormon kids attended his funeral. The Bishop who presided over the service practically had dollar signs in his eyes when he saw hundreds of grieving kids packed into the church. He barely said a word about my friend, then spent the rest of the service telling us we were misguided sinners who needed to find Christ and repent. I was furious. He didn't say a single word about who my friend was, what he liked, or what he meant to the people in that room. I got no closure from that experience, and it made me want to stay the hell away from the Mormon church. Those funerals are a travesty and I'm glad you're bringing attention to it. Thanks again.
Whoah, that’s such a hard story to read. 💜💜💜💜💜
Having a woman's casket put to the side so the male Church authority can take center stage is quite literally a "dick" move.
When I attended the Mormon funeral of a dear friend (as an ExMo) five years ago who died by suicide, the whole service filled me with so much anger. Not only did Mormon clergy (who didn't know her) soak us with doctrine that didn't apply or was speculative, but then proceeded to PUBLICLY promise her two small children that if they were very obedient, they'd see their mom again someday. Both children under 8. I am still not over it.
:(
@@ZelphOntheShelf (thank you for all this healthy discussion of processing grief as well - so much love to you guys)
Ugh that’s AWFUL. I had a similar experience, I lost one of my best friends to suicide and the main reason he struggled with mental health was not living up to the expectations of the church. To see the church co-opt his life and his death was so painful and a huge item on my shelf.
That's horrible! Those poor kids!
Thank you for sharing. I thought it was just me; my brother died by suicide and I was so freaking angry at his funeral that I was literally vibrating with anger.
Reminds me of my aunt’s funeral. She had died of an overdose, and had stated in the past that she didn’t want a Mormon funeral and didn’t believe in that stuff anymore. My grandparents overrode her wishes and buried her in a fancy casket with her dressed in her temple clothes. It was totally the opposite of what she would have wanted. I know it helped my grandparents to cope, but it makes me sad knowing that’s not what my aunt would’ve wanted for herself and she couldn’t do anything about it.
:/
It's tragic that you lost your Aunt that way, and that your grandparents didn't abide by her wishes, but wouldn't the nature of her death exclude her from being buried in her temple clothes? I thought you had to have a temple recommend to be buried in your temple clothes, and we all know how dogmatic the church is about the word of wisdom.
@@bl3343 good point. I’m not sure how they were still able to do it. I didn’t ask any questions.
Ooh this topic is so so necessary. The worst post-Mormon experiences I’ve had with the church have been attending my relatives funerals.
It’s like my family isn’t allowed to actually mourn. They must project positivity and confidence about the afterlife. They have to focus the service on Jesus and not the deceased. It’s the gross pantomime that you know just festers under the surface as they are never given the space to truly grieve.
Thanks for covering. You guys are the best ❤
Yep, they commandeered my mom’s funeral! We were all numb just standing there, listening to the bishop in his counselor whoever talk
I honestly find it comforting believing that once you die, you’re DONE. That’s it. There’s nothing else. Eternity scares the literal shit out of me.
When my best friend passed after child birth last year, I truly felt like I wasn’t allowed to grieve and miss her because of the fact that she was Mormon. I felt like I was dishonoring HER beliefs by missing her. I felt like I was dishonoring her family by being sad at her funeral.
Not a Mormon, but my Reformed brother insisted that my mother's funeral be held in a church she didn't enjoy, and that it must be a "worship service." I was so angry.
1:32 this was covered in The Good Place and it was literally the start of my deconstruction. I had never had someone address the fact that someone in the history of time might have wanted to leave the afterlife and the system wasn't built for that issue. Eternity sounds so much worse than just dying and having nothing afterwards
I loved that The Good Place did that. It was the most satisfying ending to a show I've ever seen! I was completely at peace with the idea that the characters stopped existing
My spirit may not live on but I like the idea of the energy within me nurturing the plants and animals in the wild.
If reincarnation is real I’d love to become a house cat or a raven. Idk both of those things just sound nice.
This discussion is amazing...
At my 90-something grandmother's funeral, her 90-something brother stood up and told a few stories. He finished his part of the service by saying, "I'm the person here who's probably next going to see Doris... I'll tell her you all said 'hello.'"
So far in my life, the most iconic funeral line I've ever heard in person. I'm trying to figure out if I can ever top it...
For fun, consider looking up John Cleese's eulogy for Graham Chapman, last i knew it was easy to find on YT. One of the funniest things I've ever seen!
My mom had my siblings and I sing "I Can See Clearly Now" at our dad's funeral since he died by suicide. We were still Mormon but he had been excommunicated and my mom and older siblings were on their way out. Really how the church leaders responded to everything our family had gone through made everything worse than it had to be. Being told that because he broke his covenants we were no longer an eternal family was probably the most hurtful. But I also clearly remember being shamed for crying too loudly plus a few weeks later being asked in church why I wasn't smiling. I was only 12
🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵
I'm so sorry. My dad died by suicide as well. I remember his cousin telling me she was sorry I'd never see my dad again because of his selfish, sinful choice to leave this world.
My nephew died and his funeral is this weekend. This was such a comfy little chat that really helped my brain in a week that has been from hell. Thank you.
Ahhh yay. Hope you’re doing ok 💜💜💜
As a convert, I was surprised how a Mormon funeral I was involved with pretty much had NOTHING to do with the woman who died. None of her friends spoke. Instead, her hyper Mormon son-in-law - who she called ridiculously pious, and who fancied himself as an inspired, spiritual Mormon man - got up and spoke. The message seemed to be that we should be happy she faithfully made it to the end as a tithe-paying member, and we could do the same. It was pure religious puke.
One hyper Mormon son could barely contain his eagerness to get a hold of the inheritance. Family who never visited her showed up for the reading of the will as they were glazed with the happiness. Where were they when she was alive, or during her months hospitalized?
The makeup made her look plastic. She was buried in her temple clothes - she had told me she didn't like the temple, or the clothes, or the temple wedding. Her wooden casket was placed inside a fancy, metal casket painted metallic brown wood grain. (How much did that thing cost? All so it could be buried?). I placed a flower on her folded hands from her favorite rose bush, which was pretty much the only personal thing about her funeral.
The metal casket was locked shut with a crank. That metal casket was placed inside the concrete box with a heavy lid requiring a tractor to put it on. All that was then lowered into the hole as we all stood on astroturf and watched. So much for "returning to Earth." She's preserved and sealed in that box. No Earth will ever touch her.
That turned me off from Mormon funerals.
In contrast: When a Jewish friend died, her funeral was all about her as anyone who wanted to speak was given the chance to get up and tell their stories of her. She was placed in a simple, unfinished wooden box, and that was put in the ground.
For me, they can toss my unpreserved corpse in a dirt hole, and plant a tree on top.
@danieljohncarey7917 I'm so sorry about how the funeral of your Mormon friend happened.
I also wanted to let you know that my "like" is for how your Jewish friend's funeral was conducted - they know what it is to respect the dead and to grieve with and care for the living - and for your comment about being buried with a tree planted on top.
I wondered if you'd ever heard of or considered a tree pod burial - that's the way I want to go. The deceased's body is cremated and the ashes are put in a biodegradable urn with a proprietary mix of soil and nutrients and the roots of a young tree. Then the urn is planted, and as the urn biodegrades, the tree should take root and grow.
I think I will claim I am now Jewish to thwart Mormons and their creepy ideas of an afterlife and shaming people who grieve. Their lives were meaningless when all their waking moments are hyper focused on the after death reward. They fail to live and in death, Mormons lack any kind of empathy for the grieving. Soul sucking inability to feel.
I love your idea of burial and the service. I think I will tell my 12 brothers and sisters that I am now Jewish. Their superiority complex from the weird religious beliefs has caused cognative dissonance and subsequent emotional disconnect that impacts their ability for critical thinking
From the current handbook (maybe you'll get to this farther on in the video) : Funerals are an opportunity to pay tribute to the deceased. However, such tributes should not dominate the service.
Before I converted to Mormonism (now ex Mormon) I remember in high school when my Mormon friends said they were doing baptisms for the dead I literally thought they were dunking corpses 😂
One of my nightmares is dying before I can find a goddamn notary to get my records removed.
I am exvangelical, and the church where I converted, became a member, and studied the ministry--burned a few years back, and now there is no record of my life as a Believer!
@@mizotterunfortunately for Mormons our records are kept on computers as well as on paper inside a hollowed out mountain, so there's no way to burn that down.
@@PrincessMicrowave I'm sorry, and I thought of that while typing. I was "lucky?" enough to be born in a town w/ one stop light, and the tiny church--which already consisted of 2 denominations that merged earlier in history due to a fire!--did not have the resources to digitize all the paper history. Also, they would never do a church funerals for anyone against their will; they rarely baptize a living person, never the deceased.
My aunt's funeral at the church was a good time! Many spoke about her; her grandson told how "Grandma taught me to swear," and we all celebrated Aunt Margaret and felt grateful for all she'd brought to our lives. I hope you and yours can reclaim funerary practice to celebrate your beloved dead and make space for grief. Learning how to grieve is important work.
That’s ok because when you’re dead you won’t care anymore
@@PrincessMicrowavecan you say more about this mountain? This is the first time I’ve heard of it
My grandma died within a year or two of me leaving the church and still working through my beliefs. I wasn’t there when she died so the viewing before the funeral was my first time seeing her deceased. I was sitting down quietly sobbing and my cousin comes up and slaps me on the shoulder and asked, ‘Why are you crying?’ I angrily replied, ‘I’m at my grandmother’s funeral.’ While I understand the ‘beauty’ in the belief of seeing loved ones again no one can guarantee that’s going to happen. So let me cry at my grandmother’s funeral and grieve the loss of never seeing her again, goddamit!
My estranged father died earlier this year and had a Mormon funeral. I'm on a different continent and had to watch the service streamed, and it was so depressing. They pointed the camera straight at the pulpit, so I never got a glimpse of the casket or of any of the people or the flowers I'd sent. The person officiating was a Church official who clearly knew my father and didn't like him, and he spent the entire service making little smirking comments about my father's various personality defects under the guise of "gentle humor." My dad was not a very good person, and many aspects of his life were a lamentable waste, but even so there was much more to him than that service encompassed. Seemed very much like a chore everyone involved was trying to get through as fast as possible.
💜💜💜💜💜💜
Lying again?
@@WatchingwaitingG2D Lol, no? Do I know you?
Excellent episode! Having worked in aged care I have been to an enormous number of funerals and supported a huge number of grieving families in those first days and weeks. Two things that came to mind:
It was my honor to get to know these people, their stories, what mattered to them, and it always made me sad when a funeral was just another boiler plate LDS service. It also made me sad to see frustration among some family members or leadership when someone would insist upon making room for the person at their own funeral. My favorite was a lady who for the last several years of her life had never been seen without this cheap pink purse that she would become very distressed without. There was nothing of value in it, but it made her feel more put together and prepared for the day. One of her children had insisted it be placed in her coffin with her in full temple regalia. Or she’ll be haunting us all looking for it we joked. Other family members were shocked and dismayed. What a sad thing to be at odds with your siblings over as you are grieving your mother.
Also, people NEED to grieve, and church culture’s emphasis on lack of visible grief and performative joy as a sign of full faith and moral superiority is so damaging. It sets people up for deep loneliness and dark depressions, for being ashamed of their grief and disappointed in the “moral failure” that is their grief. Grieving is hard enough without all the extra baggage. It further makes it very difficult for anyone to avoid saying stupid things to those who are mourning. Hot tip: “they’ve gone to a better place,” or “what a blessing that families are forever” is not helpful. Instead try “I’m so sorry for your loss,” or “my thoughts are with you at this difficult time.”
I like how the camera knows who the REAL star of the show is: Paddington.🐻
I am from a family where on both sides only I and my brother are not diabetic. My husband is a type 1. My late mother was also type 1. The majority of death is related to having to ration insulin or to those who are later in life onset and they couldn't afford to go to a doctor and find out and pass from never getting care.
Ugh :(
No longer a member, but when my dad died years ago I really enjoyed that our ward listened to what we wanted: no singing “God Be With You Til We Meet Again,” kept it under 30min, no viewing (we cremated) and our family members spoke (not me or my sis or mom because we just couldn’t). We then played all his favorite songs for the food part (70s rock & roll😂) and just told stories. Tbh it was the best funeral I’ve ever attended as a member because it was the 1st time (in my memory) where the entire ward rallied around the mourners and actually did the whole “mourn w/those that mourn,” thing. Only attended 2 other funerals after that within the church where the grieving family’s wishes were respected and weren’t about ward/stake leaders showing off.
To anyone who had a Mormon funeral for your family member and didn’t feel supported/comforted by the ward members: I am truly sorry💔😢it’s literally the hardest thing/worst thing to ever have to plan & execute and as “Christ-like” individuals, it’s our job to help bear that burden. If anyone tells you that you HAVE to have a Mormon funeral a specific way then tell them to kick rocks and do your own because A) that’s a lie and B) no one gets to tell you how to grieve your loss/celebrate someone’s life!
Working in a cemetery the past 3 summers has made death so much more approachable and I find conversations about it (especially in the mormon/ex mormon space) so enlightening, excited to watch the video!
I've wondered about funerals for the dead since the moment I heard about them. I would be so pissed if someone gave me funeral of any sort without my consent.
To add onto the musket fire part: The guy that did the Colorado Springs mass shooting at a gay night club was Mormon. Allegedly he hadn’t been active (his mom is & her post in a Facebook group was how people found out they were Mormon). You should see the interview with his dad he said some awful stuff like “we don’t do gay” and that when he heard the news his first question was why his kid was at a gay bar. Your child murdered people, him being in a gay club is the least of your worries.
With the way people treat lgbtq people, that musket fire talk was so irresponsible. I’m glad nothing has happened (as far as I know) but it’s a bad message either way
I didn’t know he was Mormon! Wow.
@AChickAndADuck yeah he was
@WaffleSalad This murderer's dad sounds so much like Jeffrey Dahmer's dad. In one interview, Dahmer's dad said something like he'd rather his son be a murderer than be gay. These dads who think like this are just as sick as their murdering sons.
It's a weird coincidence you are doing this video now. My mormon dad is about to pass on and I'm kind of a mess. I feel like this video is preparing me for what I am going to see very soon, so I won't be as surprised/angered by it. Thank you both.
Ahhh, sending so much love. 🩵🩵🩵🩵
I hate the way society treats sensitive people. I am a VERY sensitive person and for most of my life, this part of myself is treated almost as an illness. This was ingrained in me so much that when someone used sensitive as a positive adjective, it shocked me. Sensitivity can be difficult to deal with sometimes but it is such an amazing thing. While it makes the lows lower, the highs make it all worth it. People are so uncomfortable with expressions of sensitivity and emotion but it can be so freeing to release it sometimes. Thank y'all for talking on this subject. The part about the people in the mountains releasing their grief made me tear up a bit. I would love to experience that.❤
Relatable 💜💜💜💜💜
The topic around 30 to 40 minutes in, the sometimes violent/sometimes loud expression of grief and the societal suppression and denial of those expressions is not something I knew would make me feel big things when watching this video. I think a rage room where you go and break things might be a useful tool for me to let all those emotions out. Knowing I'm allowed to smash and break those things and then doing it and letting myself cry and scream in a place where it's okay to do that, that might be helpful.
I think my sadness and anger from grief hasn't had a place to go because I know its a violent sadness and anger, and I need the right place to let that out. Maybe that's alarming to some people but at least I'm aware and I know I need to find the right, safe place to be allowed to do that. Rage rooms are probably going to be a thing for me now lol
In this year's newly-revised temple endowment the LOUD LAUGHTER line was removed from the covenant. Hooray for Progress!!! 😂
🥳🥳🥳
@32:50 when you point out that 99.8% of the world will blindly go through life with no knowledge of "the plan" and the 0.2% of the church is frantically spending their whole life working on temple work= I could not agree more!!!
you guys were talking about how some people think that you guys just wanna shit on the church. I think you guys are actually a lot more positive than other ex Mormon content I watch. Other ex Mormon content can make me just feel angry because they do just shit on the church and point out all the negative, so lately I've decided I'm not going to watch ex mormon content unless I come away from it feeling positive. You two do things to make it feel less negative and give solutions and things to think about, which have really helped me as I'm recovering from the church. Thanks for doing this!
This is the nicest comment!!!! 💜💜💜
No matter who the person is or what they've done or believe, they deserve compassion in their loss. As you said, "We all bleed the same."
Doesn't mean it's always easy...
I had to do a double take when i saw the title of this video because it's exactly what I have been thinking about while going through losing a loved one recently. Thank you for talking about grief ❤ i feel like it's a taboo topic even outside of mormonism
The "you'll eventually master everything and do everything" concept of immortality ignores the possibility of a Peter Pan-esque amnesiac immortality.
Figuring out what you want is difficult at the best of times, and all kinds of things make it harder, especially for me. ADHD, family expectations, caregiving, religion. It’s just so much easier to do what people expect and plan for you, especially if you don’t mind. Until you do mind, or the person you’re caregiving for dies, or your job falls apart.
One of the most important things i learnt from Ask a Mortician is how the funeral industry has taken a space in between the dead and their friends and families. The person dies and then disappears and if you even see the body it's strange and often waxy and weird and then they vanish forever. It used to be, for all humanity, the job of the people who loved the dead (mostly women who would take you in and out of the world) to take care of them. This job is strange to us now, but it seems to help the brain understand that death is real, that the person is not just out for a walk. And the rituals, closely held with the dead, seem to be primordial for healing and understanding.
I guess in a religious environment you can a) monetize death by having the monopoly, and b) disconnect people from the reality of death, not letting people grasp that they are really gone.
Okay i'm done talking about AaM lmao
My favorite funeral I ever went to was a big dinner where we all sat at long tables in a circle, ate good food, and passed around a microphone to tell stories about the deceased. All feelings were allowed. But laughing was the most common response.
Contrast that to my mom's funeral in March, which was quite stuffy. At the end, the stake president (who at least knew her because they were kind of coworkers) got up to speak last, even though he wasn't on the program, and proceeded to give us a 45 minute lecture on the plan of salvation. Talk about a sour way to end the service. And make the poor relief society sisters, who made us all a luncheon, scramble rework their plan for the food!
By the way, I've been trying to catch your live streams for the last couple weeks, but I keep missing them. Any way you can do one of those heads up things before you do your next one? I'll check in more often to see if I can see it
As someone not coming from a Mormon culture and a non-american culture it seems shameful to grieve the passing of a loved one in Utah.
Back home I heard a Mormon sister missionary tell a non-mormon that Mormons don't grieve because they know they'll see them again. The non-mormon thought it was a crazy approach and said what the missionary said turned her off from joining the Mormon church because it seems like a facade and they couldn't be themselves and a very disfunctional approach to death. Also the sister missionary was just smiles and giggles and seemed very fake. She was also a child preaching the gospel, not having a lot of life experience as someone from East Europe
I, an exmo, gave the eulogy at my grandfather's funeral and then cried so hard i slept through the rest of the service and oh man were people mad at me for being "disrespectful" with showing my emotions and claiming they made it about me. honestly i was happy i was unconscious for most of it if it was just another sacrament meeting. and not even atmospheric about it like a catholic funeral mass. but the bishop in charge kept pronouncing my sister's name wrong and that's now a funny family joke, so at least we got that out of it.
I love yours guys' videos and the more longer form content you've both been putting out, as an AUDHD girlie I really love zoning out to you two good friends chatting and discussing experiences and information.
🥺🩵🩵🩵🩵
i work at a crumbl cookie. i'm in a strange state of kinda being neither exmo or never mormom. i attended "the church" pretty regularly for a few years because of someone i loved and i genuinely inquired a bit too much and being autistic i routinely asked questions that are not expected or particularly appreciated. long story short, i know an uncomfortable amount about mormon doctrine and history for someone who works for and alongside them. its DEFINITELY not a social spot lmao!
this is part of the reason I'm working now to ensure my funeral is not held on church grounds. I am a public musician, and the last gift I have to give is a musical experience, not limited to a "plan of salvation" talk.
My dad died when I was nearly four and the fact that I didn't get to go to his funeral is still a sore spot for me, and probably still influences how i grieve today at 26. Hmm. I do so much journaling after I watch y'all's videos 😅
🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵
I have watched a bunch of your recent videos over the past few days, but this one was special. You highlighted how the church hijacks grief and essentially attempts to twist it into a sales pitch, and you continued by suggesting some beautiful ways in which we could engage with grief differently. Loved the way this conversation went. Thank you!
From Howards End by E. M. Forster, a book I'd recommend to both of you:
Death destroys a man, but the knowledge of death saves him.
Only connect.
omg ty so much for making a video on this topic. love you two.
My husband is a professional accordionist. We're playing his music at his funeral. As you know there is NO soft durges only polkas and happy tunes rhat come from an accordion! Then Leonard Skinner will be played and I'm Alright!! So long!! We are going out on a high note!! Oh from Missouri.
This is a GREAT episode! I really loved your conversation at the end.
Looking forward to this!
Loved this so much! ❤
i love so much listening to you two talk. you’ve both brought me so many new perspectives about this life. thank you for being here 💗
🥺🩵🩵🩵🩵
Being disabled, I am generally stuck inside my small apartment (half of which I can rarely access due to it being upstairs) unless I am going to yet another doctor's appointment. I can promise you that the lack of connection to physical people (I love my online friends!) has certainly made my mental health more challenging.
🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵
this channel is so healing. Thank you
I was never aware that Mormon funerals weren’t the norm until leaving and now I hope to attend a funeral outside the church.
Everybody called my Grandmother 'Mumma'. We would often sing Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody to her. It became a thing that we would do while partying, if the song came on we would call her and sing to her or her answer phone. At her funeral we had photos of her through her life on a projector with Bohemian Rhapsody playing. It was epic, so personal and moving but also funny and uplifting.
thank you for talking about the subject. it's a rough one and definitely impacts a lot of people. the way you talk about things is always very insightful and empathetic but amusing and i appreciate all the work you do. the perspectives on finding healthier ways to grieve, good ways to release and connect to others and just go through pain to come out stronger are much appreciated, they're definitely something that I personally need to work on and could be better implemented in general. Personally, I've definitely found a lot of comfort in releasing my grief through things like art and especially writing.
(TW suicide and just. shitty behavior from mormons) gonna kinda rant about personal experience with mormon funerals for a sec if that's ok.
the first mormon funeral I attended after losing my faith was for my older sibling, who was my best friend. A few big problems outside of the average funeral problems, though; they were a severely traumatized exmo atheist, they were queer, and they were trans.
no one used their name or the correct pronouns, other than a small side note from the bishop about their 'nickname', and it in parentheses under their full deadname on the program. The bishop got to speak and my family members got to speak, but I got told if I went up and said even a fraction of what I wanted to (I had to send my full eulogy to the Bishop for approval, and it may have made me a little spiteful), they'd probably have me removed from the stand because I was just 'too bitter and full of grief' and might say something that would make people in the crowd feel uncomfortable. So, I wasn't allowed to give any eulogy or memorial in the first place. My sibling had committed suicide, so the fact that no one was supposed to feel uncomfortable or confront the difficult aspects of their life still kills me. No one would be taking accountability, some of the people who'd made their life a living hell were in the audience or on that stand and when I complained to my mom about the irony of giving a traumatized atheist a mormon funeral, it was brushed aside because 'they're in heaven and know the truth now, so I'm sure they'll agree and be very happy that we're doing it the way we want to.'
The most recent information about them that was actually fairly relevant was from a journal entry almost three years before, back when they were still the kind of kid that everyone in the audience wanted to think about: a determined and hard working yet tragic little people pleaser who never would have questioned them or stood up.
Any songs I suggested to represent them were ignored; I guess they were too secular even though I'd carefully chosen more innocent ones without any swearing/suggestive themes/more intense music. Hymns were sung, my sister sang a song she'd written about *Jesus* as part of her eulogy (I don't blame her, she's a kid and a victim of a strict church) and they closed it all off with all of my direct family singing 'I Am a Child of God' but myself, because I refused to participate in such blatant disrespect. It felt a bit symbolic to have my family up there together, then myself and the coffin below, separate, because we didn't quite fit in.
My sibling was then buried in a mormon dedicated grave rather than cremated, which I've since mildly blamed myself for because I knew they'd have preferred cremation but I was already being cut out of all the conversations so I guess I couldn't have done much anyways.
As if the loss wasn't bad enough, I consider the whole ordeal to be one of the most traumatic things I've ever experienced and I still can't stop crying every time I remember it, but I have little doubt that everyone else thinks it was nice and appropriate and they did the right thing. It was a consolation prize/pat on the back for all their abusers at my and everyone who loved the real them's expense.
My parents still have their ordinances reserved; they're just waiting to do them until they think they can without losing all contact with me forever.
Mormonism took a huge chunk of their life and far more of their happiness, but it still won't even let them have their death.
If anyone's family seems likely to pull something like this against their wishes, I'd recommend carefully designating who is or isn't allowed to plan/put on their funeral, where it's not allowed to be, how one wants their body cared for, and even a list of people who cannot come because after all of that and other's exmo-with-mormon-funeral stories, I'm a little too cynical to trust that family will do anything right.
sorry for such a long and heavy comment.
That is so sad, so upsetting, and I am not surprised to hear that you're traumatized by it. I'm so so sorry that this happened to your sibling. Breaks my heart to read this.
As a never-Mormon I've heard a lot about the squashing of grief in Mormon culture - this attitude almost akin to denial of, "Don't be sad! They live in Heaven now!" That concept is honestly so sad to me.
My grandma died in the summer of 2020, which was hard in a lot of ways, but it meant that we didn't have the Mormon chapel funeral experience, and instead had a couple of beautiful outdoor family get-togethers to talk about her and her life. We stood on the mortuary lawn, in the heat of summer, under a canopy beside her casket, and we sang a family favorite: a barnyard version of the Carol of the Bells, a chorus of cats and chickens and dogs and that one cousin who crows out the most dramatic clucking you've ever heard in your life. It brings me to tears with laughter every fucking time. So while a lot of the speeches that day were heavily focused on my grandma's love of the church and all of the music was religious, it didn't have the same soulless sacrament meeting feeling of a typical Mormon funeral. For that I am grateful.
🤍🤍🤍
I want to be cremated and some ashes put into a purple firework ! I had a Cousin Gary Who Had a Freddy Mercury mustache and was a hair dresser in San Fransico and He always came to Thanksgiving and such with a "friend" ! anyway He sadly got Aids (early 80s) and passed and His family gave Him a "Mormon" funeral which really made me mad as Im sure it is not what He would have wanted :(
I feel like your wishes for your own ceremony are also a desire to honor your uncle properly, and that is beautiful! ❤
The Mormons who think they will be God's of their own planets (shout out to my own family members)... I can not imagine having a more inexperienced and judgmental God. Good thing it isn't going to actually happen. 😅
Lol I remember when I was a kid I thought that when I get my own planet I would allow people to be in gay relationships. I think about that now, the church convinced me it was bad. Like holy shit that’s is so messed up.
This is so great today!!!!!
Hooo boy this is a big one for me! One of the main reasons I resigned was because I don’t want to be buried in temple clothes. Which is a little silly, because I don’t believe in an afterlife. BUT STILL. Cremate me and scatter me or compost me or to quote Frank Reynolds “Just throw me in the trash.” Just no awful polyester dress and veil!!🤣
I am nevermo but I visited a ward for about 6 months in high school. During my time visiting a little girl in the ward died; 7 years old. It was incredibly unexpected, she got the flu and a few days later she was gone. A couple of my classmates talked about the funeral and how it made them want to leave the church. Apparently everyone was super positive and talking about how it was her time and her death was meant to be. It absolutely sickened me to hear that.
:/
My Mormon Grandmother had planned her funeral to an exact science. The music was supposed to be 50/50 church/secular. Instead, the music was 100% church. Side note, how can anyone mispronounce Jolene? Dolly Parton wrote an entire song to help people remember!
“It’s really wild how well people can solve their own problems once they can do that” wow, yes. I honestly never thought I could get past codependent, helpless behavior until I dealt with some deep emotional work for a few years. Mostly just allowing myself to feel a range of emotions without feeling shame because of it. Leaving the church was the #1 step and I wouldn’t have been able to move forward without getting out of that shame cycle first.
🥳🩵🩵🩵🩵
Prime example of women being pushed behind the curtains is Heavenly Mother. It disturbed me as a Mormon that a supposed equal to God was so sheltered that she couldn’t even have her name discussed by her own spirit children out of feared mockery.
Seriously??!! They baptized Hitler???!
Words fail me here
MULTIPLE TIMES
I used to wonder why the church refused to name Heavenly Mother, but then I learned that, according to the faith, Polygamy is still practiced in Heaven. Now it makes perfect sense. Of COURSE, they don't name Heavenly Mother, because who's Heavenly Mother is YOUR Heavenly Mother. Your mother could be God Wife #09, while mine could be God Wife #42.
Another banger of a video.
My grandparents had a big part in my upbringing, my mom was young and unwed, so we lived with her parents. I ended up buying the house across the street and started my own family there. My Gram was my person, we had a connection unlike no other, my cousins, Aunts, and Uncles didn't know her like I did. She asked me if I would write her eulogy and obituary, bc she loved my writing, and bc I knew her best. Our family was devote Catholic, I had been to plenty of funerals, most had a eulogy. I stayed by her bedside the last week of her life in the hospital, I didnt want to miss a minute with her, I was so exhausted my eye wouldn't stop twitching. After listening to her last breathe and last heartbeat, I went home, crashed for maybe 4 hrs, then started writing. I was proud of what I wrote, she was Lithuanian immigrant, escaping the USSR communist regime, she was to have an arranged marriage, and refused bc she didn't love him. I wrote about the amazing obstacles she went through and wanted people to know just how much she did for her family, friends, the church, and how she cared for all humanity. At the viewing the funeral director asked the family to pick the scriptures and hymns from a short list. I asked at what point in mass can I read her eulogy. He said that eulogies are not apart of the Catholic Mass. I started getting upset, I was still so exhausted, living on coffee and the eye twitch had yet to stop. So I spoke with the monsignor telling him that my grandmother asked me to write and read her eulogy. He told me that eulogies are not permitted at catholic mass, what? My grandfather's mass had a Eulogy, one of my best friends passed my senior year in high school, same exact parish, same Cathedral, she had a eulogy, and our vocal ensemble was allowed to sing a secular song!!!! But monsignor wouldn't budge, I said this was her wishes and I will call the Bishop. He said call the Pope for all I care, funeral mass is not for you, or your family, its so my grandmothers soul will ascend to Heaven. My lack of sleep, and mourning the woman who raised me hit me and I broke down hyperventilating screaming and crying, saying she is already in heaven and doesn't need your approval!! My entire family except my mother told me I was an embarrassment to the family, my cousin worked for the Diocese, and was secretary to the Bishop's assistant, she dragged me outside and told me I was embarrassing her and our entire family, I was then and still am 10 years later completely disowned by my family. You would think I would have left the Catholic religion and I did the opposite, I went on to worked at a Catholic Nursing home ran by the Fransican Order of nuns, as the nursing supervisor. The cousin who worked for the Bishop's assistant had an affair with assistant, she was married, he a priest and now they are a couple "living in sin" she always made me watch "The Thorn Birds" lol and I was the shameful grandaughter lol
Wow, that kind of rigidity is so sad! 💜💜💜💜💜💜
I had to get permission from the bishop in my parents ward so I could sing/play ukulele the song, somewhere over the rainbow, at my dad's funeral at the start of this year. It got under my skin that we had to wait like 3 or 4 days to find out if that would be allowed. We're adults, and he was our father/family. We should have been able to sing or play any music we wanted to. It wasn't as church focused as I was afraid it would be, except for the last speaker who was like the stake official or something. I just felt like, shut up, you don't know us, you didn't know him, sit down sir.
My grandpa died last year and 2 things happened that were rather disturbing to me. During the viewing the bishop opened the whole casket and called up all the great grandkids and said “look at your great grand father…” then gave them Angel pins. I thought it was unnecessary to open the whole casket. Then during the funeral service the bishop took the opportunity to attempt to convert any non-Mormons. It made me angry that he’d do that. Grandpa wasn’t even Mormon.
😬😬
This video is beautiful ❤
Good show, thx
We are all human
This podcast made me share with kids grandkids great grandkids we are all in this boat of love feeling loving th8nking caring together
Is it weird to say I consider you two part of my community? It's like going out meeting your neighbors and listening in to a conversation at a cafe. There is such a genuinely positive energy (yes even when you are angry ranting) and I especially love when tanner shares his experience grieving with others and Sam expand upon it with her perspective as a coach.
That is so lovely!! 🥺🩵🩵🩵🩵
“I for one am never going to die.”
And he stands by that
Thanks for this. We are blessed to have the word "grieve" in English. There's no real equivalent in some languages.
Whoah!
Imagine being in a horrible polygamist marriage for eternity😳 death isn’t even the end. That’s a nightmare. I’d cry at those funerals for sure.
Deep listening caring loving
Tears keep your heart soft and loving we r from God. Our emotions r 2
Best distillation of how incredibly fucked Mormon funerals are, from Sam: "this shit is whack"
Literally make this girl an American citizen
I’ve started going to ecstatic dance events and I love it so much. Taps into something primal for sure.
have you been to e-dance in salt lake? it’s at a mormon church that’s been converted into a hare krishna temple
@@ZelphOntheShelf I did go to the one in the Krishna temple a few weeks ago! Which reminds me it’s Wednesday and I missed it. I had no idea it was converted from a Mormon church tho lol. Makes sense now that I think abt it.
I'm so unexcited for my parents' funerals. They both want to be cremated, which is cool, but they're both super Mormon and both their kids are super not.
Same here. Very tbm parents, with 4 of their 5 kids completely out of the church. It will be on my one remaining active mormon sibling to dress my parents in their temple clothes when time comes.
We left the church four years ago and since then I've been dreading the day any of our grandparents or parents die. My husband and I have three living grandparents between us who are very elderly right now.
The last funeral I went to was for my aunt who died fairly young in a car crash. I was still a beleicer at the time, although with a heavy shelf and that funeral made me SO angry because I could see all of these issues that are mentioned in this video.
It's telling, in retrospect that at that funeral I was seeing it completely through the eyes of my aunt's nevermo friends and my exmo uncle (her brother) who hates the church. All I could see was how confusing, upsetting and awful this funeral was for them.
I've never been Mormon but i felt like my grandma's funeral at my parents Baptist church was just an excuse to preach at people and it pissed me off. The pastor had never met her and didn't say much about her.
If the church encouraged cremation then people would be constantly trying to covertly fulfill grandad's wish of being scattered on temple grounds
You quoted that talk from Boyd K Packer about funerals, but there is something much more important that I wish you would have followed up with: what the Church's own General Handbook says about funerals. An apostle's opinion will influence many, but the Handbook is the reference that every leader is supposed to turn to when needing to know how something should be done.
For one thing, it states: "A funeral conducted by the bishop, whether in a Church building or elsewhere, is a Church meeting and a religious service." So, yes, this makes the bishop the ultimate authority on what is and is not part of that funeral, not the family. As people I know have discovered, you can ask nicely for something, but the bishop can do the exact opposite (because The Spirit prompted him!) and there is nothing you can do.
Worse than that, though, is this:
*"Funerals are an opportunity to pay tribute to the deceased. However, such tributes should not dominate the service."*
Yes. The Church is actually telling members that the funeral is not about the person. So it is not just anecdotal or the result of "culture" that has lead to the feeling that a Mormon funeral is not for the family and friends of the deceased, is not a celebration of life or a time of reminiscing. It can have some of that, but should mostly be about THE CHURCH.
To me, this is disgusting. The Church really IS trying to be in control of every aspect of our lives, even once they are over. Learning that this is Church Policy, plainly stated in the Handbook, is what pushed me to full-on leave the LDS Church. I was gone with no chance of coming back, but this why I removed my records of the Church. We all deserve better than to be another excuse to try to get or keep people in the Church when they are vulnerable.
My dad passed 6 months ago and honestly I was dreading the Mormon funeral but it was much more contemporary than I remembered. Not too religious at all, we had 2 pieces of music that were not religious as well as 2 hymns and most of the service was about my dad, not the religion. When we were meeting before the funeral the person conducting said you know I have to talk about the beliefs but it wasn't overly done. I am in the UK so maybe things are changing more quickly here to reflect modern funerals.
Okay you two am big fan. Wish you would get together and write a book. Will purchase.
0:59 this is so wholesome😭💜
Evangelical funerals are often similarly unrelated to the dead. They are sermons about the need for salvation, with the deceased’s faith (which, Miraculously, always turns out to have been deeply held according to the presiding minister no matter how you may have thought the person actually acted during their life…right). The expression of their individuality comes primarily via hymn choice. Assuming those “favorite hymns” are actually ones they really cared about.
Perfect timing- Wired just released ANOTHER (i think the third one?) Death Support episode with the coooolest funeral home professional
What i hate about mormon funerals is that if someone did not believe anymore when they died, it never fails--mormon bishops use it as "a lesson" to others who might stray and pass on without temple ordinances, etc. So manipulative.
yes I got told at church when asked if someone in their will specifies no baptism after death they still would
!!!!!
My cousin and I sang “for good” from the wicked musical at my uncles Mormon funeral. (when I was active in the church)
In the chapel too, not at the graveside. 2017
Gorgeous!!!!
Y'all should do a read along of From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty!
Or maybe just chat about it and how all the different traditions compare to Mormonism. I love this vid and it made me think of when I read that book
Another factor is that you have to be a temple-recommend holding endowed member to participate in the dressing of the deceased. So when my mom dies, my sister and SIL, and presumably some nieces and aunts will have the opportunity to participate in that one last rite, but I won’t. It’s a repeat of the idea that “families CAN be together forever” with the implied threat that some won’t.
Ugh yes 💜