More on Death and Respect for the Dead

Perhaps second only to student loans have been my posts about death and respect for the remains of of those who are no longer living among us. The Communion of the Saints and A Brief Postscript on the Place of the Dead are two among them. Meditation on death and dying is certainly appropriate in this season of Advent.

But this post serves primarily to send readers to Why We Need an Interfaith Gravedigger's Guild. J. Arthur Bloom observes that "Today if you die on the streets of Washington, DC, and nobody comes to pick you up, you will be turned over to a private contractor for cremation." This might not be so bad--after all, it saves taxpayers' money--except that the private contractor has failed to mark the graves. Sure, no one claimed the body but someday someone might be interested in paying a little respect.

As the title of Bloom's piece suggests, his solution is an interfaith (Christian, Jewish, and Islamic) charitable entity that could "could, with some lobbying, secure the contract from the city and give the indigent dead a decent burial." Bloom goes on to list several common-good reasons why this endeavor would serve a public purpose but for those you'll have to read it yourself.