Columbarium

24 January 2024

Columbarium

Yesterday I went to a columbarium at a National Cemetery to pay my respects to a friend who died nine years ago.  The National Cemetery is superbly maintained and has a sense of quiet beauty throughout its acreage.  The columbarium itself is open-roofed because it is in Southern California, which gives the columbarium a spacious feeling.

Three of us visited on this anniversary.  We found the spot where his ashes are interred.  We offered flowers.  We prayed and bowed and remembered.

1.  I think it is a good thing to pay our respects to those we have known who have passed away.  And if there are those whom we don’t know, but have had an important influence on us, I think it is a good thing to pay our respects to those as well.  Doing this is a simple, and meaningful, contemplation on impermanence.  And it is also a simple contemplation on permanence, on eternity; by this I mean that we are reminded on such occasions of how we remain connected through our souls beyond our physical relationships with each other.

2.  As I have mentioned before, in Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus, he mentions in passing that they (the group around Plotinus) held memorial day celebrations for Socrates and Plato.  I think this is a good thing to do and it is helpful to set aside days for honoring various Platonist ancestors. 

Such a ceremony does not have to be elaborate; our visit to the columbarium was very simple.  Such a ceremony could consist of a brief expression of appreciation followed by a shared meal. We shared a meal at a restaurant after visiting the columbarium and I think a shared meal is a good and natural way to extend the meaning of the gathering back into our everyday lives.  

Such a ceremony could be more elaborate; the kind of ceremony that includes offerings, incense, flowers, maybe some hymns, and so forth.  It would be up to each gathering.

3.  This kind of thing does not happen at University Philosophy Departments.  I think that is unfortunate.  The absence of this kind of overt expression of appreciation for those who have died, for those who have made philosophy possible, emerges, I think, as an expression of the materialism and reductionism that is so prevalent these days.  My suspicion is that for University Philosophy Departments such a ceremony would look too religious and would, therefore, be something to avoid.  But Platonism is more religious than it is secular; depending on what one means by ‘religious.’  These days it is perhaps better to refer to Platonism as a ‘spiritual’ tradition.  And adding this kind of dimension to Platonist practice would help to make that clear.

4.  I think it is good to be reminded of the brevity of our lives.  And I think it is good to be reminded of the eternity of the soul.