What would you do; or perhaps more accurately, what would you expect us to do?
First, get some kind of detectable beginning and end. Playing music while people enter the church and sit down really doesn't give a sense of "The ceremony is starting now". And almost any end at all would be better than the priest ceasing to talk and people milling around aimlessly! Second, drop the speaker/audience relationship, at least when the speaker is not the priest. Those who speak their memories of a recently dead close one don't need a spotlight and a distance, they need human closeness and a hug. Third, drop the schedule. Grief does not run to a timetable, so don't force people to speak according to one (or even in a predetermined order). Let words and tears come as they will.
AFAIK, none of that is incompatible with your beliefs. I even think there are (or at least have been) Christian variants that do things pretty much like that.
I wouldn't have said we think much about death at all; we think about resurrection, and being reunited with God.
Resurrection requires dying first. You reunite with your God after you die. The rewards and punishments offered by your God to make you behave as he likes are mainly to be delivered after you've died. The big thing your saviour did was to become human and die. You use the cross, the instrument of his execution, as your most important symbol. A requirement to reach the highest state available to a human, sainthood, is that the saint-to-be is dead. You may see it as being focused on what comes after death, but for someone who does not share your beliefs the difference between that and focussing on death is very hard to see.
no subject
First, get some kind of detectable beginning and end. Playing music while people enter the church and sit down really doesn't give a sense of "The ceremony is starting now". And almost any end at all would be better than the priest ceasing to talk and people milling around aimlessly! Second, drop the speaker/audience relationship, at least when the speaker is not the priest. Those who speak their memories of a recently dead close one don't need a spotlight and a distance, they need human closeness and a hug. Third, drop the schedule. Grief does not run to a timetable, so don't force people to speak according to one (or even in a predetermined order). Let words and tears come as they will.
AFAIK, none of that is incompatible with your beliefs. I even think there are (or at least have been) Christian variants that do things pretty much like that.
I wouldn't have said we think much about death at all; we think about resurrection, and being reunited with God.
Resurrection requires dying first. You reunite with your God after you die. The rewards and punishments offered by your God to make you behave as he likes are mainly to be delivered after you've died. The big thing your saviour did was to become human and die. You use the cross, the instrument of his execution, as your most important symbol. A requirement to reach the highest state available to a human, sainthood, is that the saint-to-be is dead. You may see it as being focused on what comes after death, but for someone who does not share your beliefs the difference between that and focussing on death is very hard to see.