In last week’s episode, I mentioned that I’ll be resuming my officiant duties, leading weddings and funerals. Even before I officially reopened the business, the requests started rolling in. This is a really nice feeling, stepping back into a job where I am still in demand. A job that, prior to a series of lockdown brides that broke my spirit, I loved with all my heart.
The secret to my success rests upon a number of factors: I’m great at what I do, I’m flexible, and, at least for some clients, they like the fact that I’m a known “Austin character.” But I’m pretty sure the thing that has gotten me the most gigs is that I’m not only willing to do secular services, I prefer them. As a non-theist with a great fondness for Buddhist philosophy, I’m not like ministers who insist on blathering on about a christian god, or judges who often use archaic cookie cutter scripts.
Still there are people who really want me to pray to Jesus on their behalf. I always let them know that I am a non-believer and that while I will speak these words if they insist, if they want them delivered with oomph and sincerity, they might want to pick someone else. Despite knowing I am a heathen, some folks still want me to utter these heavenly blessings. That I have not yet been struck dead by lightning could be luck or, as I see it, proof that it’s all just words and I’m not doomed to punishment doled out by their Sky Daddy of choice.
Weddings are often quite interesting and dynamic and I get to witness families on their best and worst behavior. Funerals are way more exciting though, because grief has a way of bringing out all sorts of curious shenanigans. Very often there will be at least one person who takes the microphone allegedly to sing the praises of the dead but then veers immediately into an ode to self. They tell us how THEY were the deceased’s very best friend. They explain, at length, why this is so, extolling their self-perceived fabulousness and nearly forgetting entirely the person they were supposed to talk about. Though part of my job description is to be mostly solemn, when one of these clowns starts yammering, I practically have to cross my legs to keep from peeing my pants laughing.
Yesterday I drove through the freezing rain, terrified on the flyovers, as I made my way to San Antonio to lead the service for an atheist. Or maybe he was agnostic. Either way, his widow, unable to find someone in her town to take the secular route, tracked me down. I was honored. Together we put together a beautiful service that truly captured the guest of honor. But as with most funerals, this one featured a wild card element. I do not ask to see in advance any eulogies prepared by additional speakers. It’s not my place to edit or shape their thoughts. Thus, despite my pledge to keep religion out of it when that is requested of me, there’s always a chance that one speaker or another will take it upon themselves to use their allotted “remember the dead” time to instead proselytize.
This is exactly what happened yesterday as one speaker worked god, Jesus and the gospels into a ten-minute speech more than you might hear at mass on Sunday. Seemed to me this was a get-even tactic, a younger sibling at long last procuring the final word seeing as his perceived opponent was unable to retort, on account of the fact he was stuck in an urn twenty feet from the podium.
As I listened to the living religious brother talk about how the dead atheist brother is now “in heaven” being greeted by and laughed at by his I-Told-You-So religious parents who pre-deceased him, I recalled other instances of religion serving as a disruptor rather than a comfort.
More than once I have been on the receiving end of lacerating condemnation when attendees realize I am an oxymoronic secular woman of the cloth. Typically they are already offended by the fact I’m a woman—because, you know, having a penis apparently makes one a better preacher. When they realize I’m godless, all heck breaks loose.
Once I was invited to preside over the public memorial of a 24 year-old woman who had died by suicide. The venue was packed. The parents had asked me very specifically to include Buddhist texts. I worked extremely closely with them, never losing sight of the fact that this task was agonizing for them, losing a child being roundly accepted as the most excruciating pain a human can suffer. Someone in the family had brought in a more traditional speaker, an Anglican priest as I recall, old and stodgy and yes, white and male. He offered a prayer for the public service but I was the primary emcee.
The following day, our roles reversed. I’m not often asked to lead graveside services but in this case the family had invited me to show up for the private burial and to again share a Buddhist reading. When I arrived at the cemetery, I asked the funeral home workers where I was to stand. They asked who I was. I said I was there to lead the service. They said no, there was a priest for that. So I wandered around in search of my cohort to make a game plan re: who would handle which part of the service? When I found him, floating amongst the headstones in his regal purple man dress, I said it was nice to see him again and reminded him who I was and why I was there.
I am not exaggerating even slightly when I tell you that he turned as purple as his man dress, puffed up, got right in my face, and, utterly enraged, SPITTLED in my face as he apoplectically declared, “NO BUDDHISM! NO BUDDHISM!”
Another thing that makes me good at my job is that I strive to not bring my ego to events I am leading. I don’t always succeed at this—I will, say, defend myself if some pushy wedding planner is up in my grill or a crazy uncle demands to know more about my “religious credentials.” Mostly though, I’m quite good at remembering I am there for a purpose, to serve my clients. That held true for this funeral. As this seventy-something overgrown toddler ripped me a new asshole, I had one thought. “Wow, this is awkward. I guess I’ll just leave because I don’t want this stressed out family feeling any more stress.”
Because Reverend Man Dress was unrelenting in his assault on me, this put me in the unpleasant and unwanted position of having to talk to the parents mere moments before their beloved daughter’s casket was lowered six feet into the ground. But they had invited me, so if I was leaving I felt they deserved to know.
Delicately, gingerly, I approached the father and calmly said that the priest was going off on me and it seemed the best thing to do would be for me to leave. He insisted I stay. So I read my part and then I left. That was many years ago. I can still see the pinched nasty face of that priest who put his own ego and needs above those of a grieving family. I have no compassion for him. A narcissist in a fancy religious robe is still a narcissist. I hope he’s dead and that no one went to his funeral.
Another time I was brought in, again specifically to bring Buddhism to a service. This one was for a guy named Jerry. His widow was, as I recall, a friend of a friend. The whole thing was very last minute and she had no money. I try never to let money get in the way of people having a proper memorial service. Come to think of it, I did not get paid for either of the two services conducted for the dead 24 year old. I do have set rates, and they are not incidental. However, knowing that the funeral business is an incredible money suck, I do tell folks that if we need to go the sliding scale route, I can do that.
I arrived for Jerry’s service and took note immediately of the fact that the event was doubling as a St. Patrick’s Day kegger, which no one had mentioned to me. A statue of Buddha adorned in green Mardi Gras beads served as centerpiece. In lieu of a chapel or event center, Jerry’s service was held on his back deck. Many a salty story was shared and, my memory might be faltering a bit here, but I’ll swear the first speaker, at least a couple of sheets to the wind already, told a story about a vulture Jerry was friends with. This anecdote included the dropping of multiple F-bombs.
My crowd, thought I.
As we neared the end of this mashup event, I spoke—as I had been asked to—of Jerry’s love of Buddhism. I read texts his wife had selected to underscore his beliefs. And then I asked everyone to please recall that Thich Nhat Hanh says the best we can do for one another is to remind each other often: I love you. I am here for you. I added that his widow would need ongoing lovingkindness, that too often people forget to check in on the grieving after a few weeks have passed, and that it would be nice if folks didn’t go that route.
And then, as per the script that had been green-lighted by the widow, I turned to a friend of Jerry’s and invited her up to say some closing words. With a lack of subtlety so pronounced as to make Trump seem like a church mouse, she looked out at those gathered. Then she focused her stink eye on me and, acting as if I were a stranger who had crashed Jerry’s last hurrah—rather than the person invited to lead the service for free—announced to all with a pronounced hiss, “Jerry was NOT a Buddhist. Jerry took Jesus Christ as his lord and savior on his death bed.”
Well okay then. Whatever. That’s certainly not what his widow told me when she invited me to preside and told me exactly what she wanted said.
After yesterday’s service we left the warmth of the funeral home and drove across the large cemetery for the final event: a dove release. When the widow told me she had planned this, I recalled another dove release at a service I led years ago. Having a hunch there aren’t a ton of dove release operations in the area, I gave her a heads up that the last dove release I witnessed was very heavy on religion. I gently suggested she might ask the guy in advance to lay off the Jesus and focus on the birds. She did just that.
Bird man, not taking into account her request or the weather—by now it was really raining—took joy in holding a dove upside down before us, a crowd so cold we were willing to risk covid by huddling together to keep from freezing to death, went on at length about the symbolism of the dove, how many times it appears in the New Testament (91!) and then proceeded to quote scripture, delivering his lecture in the manner of a carnival barker compelling us to partake in a circus of his own creation.
I suppressed an urge to tackle him and spirit those doves away underneath my warm woolly sweater. Or to audibly heckle him.
And as I drove away, I had an idea. Maybe I will get my own doves. Maybe I will offer guaranteed god-free dove releases that skew toward the beauty of nature. Surely if there’s a demand for non-religious ceremonies, there must be a potential clients desperately seeking dove releasers who can get through their part of it without turning it into a tent revival.
Until then I will continue to experience awe (not the good kind) at how, even during the most planned events, there will always be someone eager to steal the spotlight with no concern for the wishes of those we have come to serve.
NOTES:
Check out my new officiant website: SpikeGillespie.com. If you know anyone in need of a heathen crone to make their special day more special, feel free to pass my name along. Thanks.
The inaugural Tiny T Tiny Flea Market is February 25th at the ranch. If you want to be a vendor, drop me a line. You can sell your garage sale stuff, your art, your crafts, whatever. I mean, not entirely whatever, but almost whatever.
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Thanks y’all! Stay warm.