My four year-old grandson looked with awe at the chocolate iced donut. Was it all just for him? His immediate response was to break it in two pieces – half for his much-adored older sister, and half for himself.
I felt really privileged to have time to amble through the cemetery on one of those picture perfect mornings recently. As I ventured further in, the structure of the cemetery impressed me. Dating from the 1860s, I discovered that early graves and headstones were grouped according to the professed religion of the deceased. Some of the signs read: Catholic, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Other Christian, Muslim.
Towards the end of the 20th century the fashion became the lawn cemetery. However I noticed that these were still divided into groupings by religion. More than half of Australians prefer cremation now, and this number is growing, but the lawn cemetery is still the preferred method for a lot of people, though not necessarily divided into religious groupings any more.
Then I got to thinking. It seems that our idea of God, our conception of heaven and earth has dictated how we bury our dead. It was clear in the early days that it was believed that our wealth needed to be displayed so that a manlike god could decide where we fitted into a mortal-like heaven. He also needed to know whether we believed in Him or not, if we were in high church, the chosen church, or none.
Patrick looked with awe at the chocolate iced donut. Was it all just for him? His immediate response was to break it in two pieces – half for Lani, his much-adored older sister, and half for him. He was quickly reassured that Elena had already eaten her donut while he was having an afternoon nap and that it was all for him. He quickly complied by gobbling it down with sheer delight.