Flowers and roadside shrines

Sorry it must be someone else who's in Germany. I can totally get how these things can get frought and sectarian in NI.

TheCatWoman said:

ArchaeC, are you in Germany? Its

I’m in N. Ireland, a place where the majority of people are peace loving and get on, but the few use any excuse to display paramilitary or other divisive signs and symbols.

I think thats a good idea Homebird, naysayers would probably do on about the cost and possible vandalism, but roadside shrines can be vandalised too. 

I do think that people who create them should take some responsibility for removing them from the road side, maybe onto a garden of remberance? 

ArchaeC, are you in Germany? Its a shame that people have to politise things so much and that people are so divided. Like you I'm not bothered about being remembered or having a big fuss when I've died, I want to live well. I'm not a totally secular person, but when I die I'd like the Goddess to hold up my cast off meat suit and say 'What the bl00dy hell have you done to this, it's full of holes and patches!'

I think the idea of gardens of remembrance are good, but someone has to take care of them. I wonder if anywhere like National Trust or even local councils have thought of having these so loved ones could buy a plant for somewhere they liked to be. It would be a bit like people buy benches in memory of people and some places are rather crowded with them now 

I don’t like roadside shrines at all.

I think people generally should be free to choose how to live their lives so long as they aren’t harming others or the environment. The trouble is, many of these shrines look tatty and I don’t think it’s fair to impose them on people who live beside them or have to pass them every day. I think social media has contributed to the idea of a very public expression of emotion through roadside shrines. There is an individualism in the younger generation that people of my generation didn’t have, but at the same time, there is cultural collectivism that expresses itself through shrines.

There is an additional issue in my area as many shrines are filled with religious and/or political insignia which can alienate a significant percentage of the population. A shrine near me has a football scarf wrapped around a beautiful tree and football jerseys nailed to its trunks. It’s been like that for years. 

I don’t think it’s possible to guess the motives and religious/non religious leanings of those who make such shrines or gather round them. I would think there would be mixture of beliefs or life philosophies. There is definitely a cultural shift away from organised religion, particularly Christianity in this country. Many people are missing the sacramental practice of Christianity and perhaps making a shrine is filling the gap. 

Personally, I don’t feel the need to have a new narrative around death. I would like to be deposited in the ground without ceremony. I’m more interested in a narrative of ‘living a good life’. Asking questions such as, “What is a good life”?

I think theres a "gap in the market" as it were, people don't seem to feel the pull of traditional organised religion as they once did, but still want to mark the traditional big 3, hatchings, matchings and despatchings. We seem to have managed secular matchings, maybe hatchings, but not so much for despatchings. Death still seems an uncomfortable subject and I think we need different ways to learn to deal with it and maybe roadside shrines are one way of doing so. Crematoria feel lifeless, yes I know thats a bit of an obvious thing to say, but many people want to celebrate a life well lived, rather than have doom and gloom.

On a busy road near me there's a giant bulldog teddy bear attached to a fence, has been since around 2024 at least. God knows how bad that thing must reek now.

I don't get it, and I also don't remember it happening when I was young. Flowers were always taken to graves.

Being post-theist, I don't believe in an afterlife. I accept that there might be something after death, but I haven't got a clue what it is - I don't believe the spirits of people who've died that I knew are looking down on me, or even looking down on the earth, so I don't really see much point in "grave goods"

Of course, this is just my view and if it comforts people I have no issue with them doing it.

A tree is nice, I think its better for the environment than a lot of flowers still in their plastic wrapping, flown across continents and toys.

I wonder if the leaving of toys and momentos is a modern equivalent of grave goods? Looking at prehistoric graves, it often appears as if the whole comuntiy and other related comunities all left some thing in the grave, something that was thought to be needed in the afterlife.

This is something I’ve struggled with for ages, I do understand that a life may have ended there, it also might have ended  two miles down that road in a moving ambulance. 

To be honest some of the plastic flowers and toys are quite tacky, the shrines have actually distracted me at accident black spots.
There is a shrine on a bad bend near to my workshop, the family sometimes stop, park there and get a lawn mower out of the boot, it’s a matter of time until they join the deceased.

If I was to pass away suddenly in the supermarket toilets, I wouldn’t expect a shrine, ( maybe a blue plaque)  I can think of a few witty words for the plaque but better not share them.

While there's definitely some symbolism in leaving flowers at the place where someone was killed in an accident, there can also be a public-consciousness aspect to it depending on the nature of the tragedy, or the response to it by the authorities.

Several years ago, a young man was killed just up the road from where I live when he was the victim of a gang-related attack.  His friends subsequently planted a tree in his memory in the park across the road, and it had photos and mementos at its base for several years. There was a congregation at the site on the anniversary for the next few years, often with music in the evening. Nowadays, the tree is unadorned and left mostly to fend for itself, but I hope it was somewhat cathartic for those who planted it.