• Replies 11 replies
  • Subscribers 86 subscribers
  • Views 248 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Flowers and roadside shrines

TheCatWoman

Over the years I've noticed more and more bunches of flowers left at roadsides usually the scene of an accident, when did that start? I don't remember it being a thing when I was younger. Obviously we use flowers at funerals and memorial services like Armistice Day. 

I remember it really being a thing when Diana, Princess of Wales died, the tons of flowers left at palaces around London and them being thrown in front of the hearse as they they drove to her internment.

But now they seem to be everywhere, not that I think it's a bad thing, I think it's good for there to be a place where people can show common humanity and compassion both for those who were lost and those who survive. 

I do find myself wondering at the symbolism of it though. Just after someone has died I can see that their spirit might be attached to the place of death, but after a year or two, shouldn't the symbols move on to the place of burial or scattering? Surely the spirit dosen't hang about it's departure point to the afterlife? 

As we're so much more of a secular country now and churches play a less important role in the lives of many, I think we might need a new narrative around death to fit a secular age, I don't think we're any less spiritual for being secular, the flowers show that impulse is there, but we dont' seem to know what to do with it.

 What do you think?

Parents

  • 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.

  • in reply to Lotus

    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.

Reply
  • in reply to Lotus

    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.

Children
  • in reply to ArchaeC

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

  • in reply to TheCatWoman
    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.

  • in reply to Homebird

    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!'

  • in reply to TheCatWoman

    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