Are You Just Compost?

What a strange suggestion.

I read this article in the last issue of Epoch Times written by Wesley Smith.  I wanted to share with you, my readers.  This article was so amazing to me that I felt you might be interested also.

I believe that each of us was made in God’s image.  A word coming from the Hebrew which means……”A shadow of”.  In other words, God put within us something special that provides us both spirit and a soul as well as giving us a human body.  Therefore that body He gave us is special…….both at birth and at death.  

Starting in 2027, California will allow composting of the dead.  Known officially as “natural organic reduction (NOR), this novel final disposition process transforms the deceased body into soil to spread on gardens or in which to plant flowers or a tree. 

Liquefication is another increasingly popular means of body disposal.  The human body is liquefied by alkaline hydrolysis which makes a liquid of the soft tissue which is used a fertilizer. The bones are crushed into powder.  This is now legal in 21 states and will some be legal in more. 

So, what about all those martyrs that were burned at the stake?  People who never received a body burial.  Can’t God remake them with a heavenly body?

Yes, of course. But these martyrs did not choose to be sacrificed.  It’s a completely different issue.  We are to honor the dead, not desecrate their bodies or to devalue the human body that God gave us. 

I know that many people want to be cremated.  Who am I to judge, although that too is decision made by many instead of a burial. 

Jewish people honor the dead.  They honor the body that once housed their family or friends.  Death is a ceremony which allows the family to grieve as well as remember the life that once inhabited that body.

 Human dignity matters even after we die.  As an ultimate example, look at how important the pomp and ceremony of Queen Elizabeth ll’s funeral were to millions of people around the world.  Imagine the different sense that would have been conveyed if her remains had merely been poured into the London’s water system!!

There is something ultimately diminishing about grandpa in a flowerpot.  It seems to me that these methods to unceremoniously eradicate the body convey a powerful symbolic message that we’re essentially nothing more the carbon atoms gathered temporarily in an animated form…….!!

All this recalls a movie called “Solent Green” made in 1973.  Over crowding in New York brought shortages in food and space.  Without anyone knowing, they were turning dead bodies into food called Solent Green.  Now, it doesn’t seem so farfetched. 

I might be old fashioned, but if our remains come to be perceived as merely so much waste to be disposed of as quickly and efficiently as possible and if we really come to see ourselves as unworthy of anything greater than anonymous death, we’ll be tempted in life, to treat one another accordingly! 

                                 You are worth more than compost.