You can read a good piece about the slow financial death of American cemeteries in The Spectator here. (The Spectator lies behind a paywall but you can sign up for access to three article a month without charge.)
US Funerals Online, a “death care industry” resource, reported in March that “this year the cremation rate is predicted to reach close to 60 percent, with a forecast that the national cremation rate will now reach 80 percent by 2035.” In a piece published last year, the Washington Post reported on estimates from the Cremation Association of North America that “20 to 40 percent of cremated remains are interred in a cemetery — placed in the ground or a columbarium, a storage area for urns — while 60 to 80 percent are buried in another location, scattered… or kept at home, on the mantel or stashed in a closet.”
In other words, the financialization and commercialization of life and death in America means that even the graves of our ancestors--who knew there was more to life than money and commerce--will be lost to the ravages of time and entropy. The greater loss is ours, who suppress the certainty of death until is is too late. We live in the here and now only because our ancestors participated in the river of life there and then. May we participate in the rites of respect that have maintained this river for millennia.
For earlier thoughts on this topic you can read my Communion of the Saints, Good Friday and Respect for the Dead, and More on Respect for Death and the Dead.
For more on the additional plight facing old cemeteries for Blacks read this piece in the New York Times.
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