mourning

• prolonged m. for ancient widows

82:3.12Un­der cer­tain mores wid­ow­hood was greatly to be feared, wid­ows be­ing ei­ther killed or al­lowed to com­mit sui­cide on their hus­bands’ graves, for they were sup­posed to go over into spir­it­land with their spouses. The sur­viv­ing widow was al­most in­vari­ably blamed for her hus­band’s death. Some tribes burned them alive. If a widow con­tin­ued to live, her life was one of con­tin­u­ous mourn­ing and un­bear­able so­cial re­stric­tion since re­mar­riage was gen­er­ally dis­ap­proved.

• costumes originally designed to disguise survivors

87:1.5But de­spite all this fear, men still sought to trick the ghost. If the death hut was not de­stroyed, the corpse was re­moved through a hole in the wall, never by way of the door. These mea­sures were taken to con­fuse the ghost, to pre­vent its tar­ry­ing, and to in­sure against its re­turn. Mourn­ers also re­turned from a fu­neral by a dif­fer­ent road, lest the ghost fol­low. Back­track­ing and scores of other tac­tics were prac­ticed to in­sure that the ghost would not re­turn from the grave. The sexes of­ten ex­changed clothes in or­der to de­ceive the ghost. Mourn­ing cos­tumes were de­signed to dis­guise sur­vivors; later on, to show re­spect for the dead and thus ap­pease the ghosts.

• great obstacle to civilization’s advancement
• self-torture was common form of

87:2.4Si­lence or mourn­ing was ob­served af­ter a death so that the ghost would not be at­tracted back home. Self-tor­ture—wounds—was a com­mon form of mourn­ing. Many ad­vanced teach­ers tried to stop this, but they failed. Fast­ing and other forms of self-de­nial were thought to be pleas­ing to the ghosts, who took plea­sure in the dis­com­fort of the liv­ing dur­ing the tran­si­tion pe­riod of lurk­ing about be­fore their ac­tual de­par­ture for dead­land.

• professional mourners

87:2.5Long and fre­quent pe­ri­ods of mourn­ing in­ac­tiv­ity were one of the great ob­sta­cles to civ­i­liza­tion’s ad­vance­ment. Weeks and even months of each year were lit­er­ally wasted in this non­pro­duc­tive and use­less mourn­ing. The fact that pro­fes­sional mourn­ers were hired for fu­neral oc­ca­sions in­di­cates that mourn­ing was a rit­ual, not an ev­i­dence of sor­row. Mod­erns may mourn the dead out of re­spect and be­cause of be­reave­ment, but the an­cients did this be­cause of fear.

• mourners shall be comforted

140:3.8“Happy are they who mourn, for they shall be com­forted. Happy are they who weep, for they shall re­ceive the spirit of re­joic­ing.

• mourners shall be comforted

140:5.161. “Happy are they who mourn, for they shall be com­forted.” So-called com­mon sense or the best of logic would never sug­gest that hap­pi­ness could be de­rived from mourn­ing. But Je­sus did not re­fer to out­ward or os­ten­ta­tious mourn­ing. He al­luded to an emo­tional at­ti­tude of ten­der­heart­ed­ness. It is a great er­ror to teach boys and young men that it is un­manly to show ten­der­ness or oth­er­wise to give ev­i­dence of emo­tional feel­ing or phys­i­cal suf­fer­ing. Sym­pa­thy is a wor­thy at­tri­bute of the male as well as the fe­male. It is not nec­es­sary to be cal­loused in or­der to be manly. This is the wrong way to cre­ate coura­geous men. The world’s great men have not been afraid to mourn. Moses, the mourner, was a greater man than ei­ther Sam­son or Go­liath. Moses was a su­perb leader, but he was also a man of meek­ness. Be­ing sen­si­tive and re­spon­sive to hu­man need cre­ates gen­uine and last­ing hap­pi­ness, while such kindly at­ti­tudes safe­guard the soul from the de­struc­tive in­flu­ences of anger, hate, and sus­pi­cion.

• flute played at

152:1.1Jairus was, of course, ter­ri­bly im­pa­tient of this de­lay in reach­ing his home; so they now has­tened on at quick­ened pace. Even be­fore they en­tered the ruler’s yard, one of his ser­vants came out, say­ing: “Trou­ble not the Mas­ter; your daugh­ter is dead.” But Je­sus seemed not to heed the ser­vant’s words, for, tak­ing with him Pe­ter, James, and John, he turned and said to the grief-stricken fa­ther: “Fear not; only be­lieve.” When he en­tered the house, he found the flute-play­ers al­ready there with the mourn­ers, who were mak­ing an un­seemly tu­mult; al­ready were the rel­a­tives en­gaged in weep­ing and wail­ing. And when he had put all the mourn­ers out of the room, he went in with the fa­ther and mother and his three apos­tles. He had told the mourn­ers that the damsel was not dead, but they laughed him to scorn. Je­sus now turned to the mother, say­ing: “Your daugh­ter is not dead; she is only asleep.” And when the house had qui­eted down, Je­sus, go­ing up to where the child lay, took her by the hand and said, “Daugh­ter, I say to you, awake and arise!” And when the girl heard these words, she im­me­di­ately rose up and walked across the room. And pres­ently, af­ter she had re­cov­ered from her daze, Je­sus di­rected that they should give her some­thing to eat, for she had been a long time with­out food.

• Jesus resented forced outward exhibitions of

168:0.12The hu­man mind of Je­sus was might­ily moved by the con­tention be­tween his love for Laz­a­rus and the be­reaved sis­ters and his dis­dain and con­tempt for the out­ward show of af­fec­tion man­i­fested by some of these un­be­liev­ing and mur­der­ously in­ten­tioned Jews. Je­sus in­dig­nantly re­sented the show of forced and out­ward mourn­ing for Laz­a­rus by some of these pro­fessed friends inas­much as such false sor­row was as­so­ci­ated in their hearts with so much bit­ter en­mity to­ward him­self. Some of these Jews, how­ever, were sin­cere in their mourn­ing, for they were real friends of the fam­ily.

• Jesus resented forced outward exhibitions of

168:1.42. He was per­turbed in his mind by the pres­ence of the crowd of mourn­ers, some sin­cere and some merely pre­tenders. He al­ways re­sented these out­ward ex­hi­bi­tions of mourn­ing. He knew the sis­ters loved their brother and had faith in the sur­vival of be­liev­ers. These con­flict­ing emo­tions may pos­si­bly ex­plain why he groaned as they came near the tomb.