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Quote by: Maryjane  Well, is it OK to be going around telling people they are going to hell?
I was at the cemetery one day attending my husband's grave. There was a child's funeral 4 sites over. The sermon wasn't about hope and faith, it was about sin and hell. At a time when these parents needed comfort and loving words from their pastor, he choose to turn it into a scared straight session. |
Oh that's awful. When our daughter died, my father, who is a practitioner of Native American spirituality, performed the service, more for his own sake than ours, honestly.... what little I remember (between crushing grief and 100+ degree weather.
) was the focus on how even such a brief life was able to bring together families, etc etc. I thought that was a nice little ray of brightness in an otherwise icky thing.
I have spoken with a *lot* of other parents who have suffered through prenatal/neonatal death and the only "positive" religious references have *still* been guilt laden.. like "God picked the precious flower and brought him/her home early", frequently interpreted by the (christian) parents as "We are not worthy as parents".
There isn't MUCH except time which can heal the ache from losing a child, I think, but spirituality doesn't seem to really speed that experience along. I think what DOES speed it along is community. The religion (whichever flavor) appears to do more harm, no matter what the intentions (with some exceptions, granted, but certainly not when it's used like in the example Maryjane cites!).