Awe And Destiny

Question And Answer, CHAPTER X.

Avery, the psychman, asks Thornton, the Dissenter, whether he would like to say a few words over the grave of Fernandez, a Papist. Thornton responds as well as he is able:

"'If you wish,' said the Martian. 'But he wasn't of my faith, you know, and we haven't anyone of his along. I will only say that he was a good man.'" (p. 78)

It might also be appropriate at least to recite the Lord's Prayer? 

Lorenzen wonders whether the burial involves hypocrisy. Five men stand around the grave of a sixth whom they variously disliked, disrespected, disagreed with etc:

"...unspeaking except to voice a sense of loss. Was it only a meaningless form, or was it some recognition of the awesome stillness and the common destiny of all life? There was nothing more they could do for the dead flesh down under those rocks; did they wish they had done more while it lived?" (p. 78)

It is never a meaningless form. Professor Ninian Smart, leading a post-graduate seminar, made the point that everyone present was agreed that, if one of us were to drop dead there and then, then it would be completely inappropriate for the rest to move the body to one side and to continue the seminar! (Many years later, I attended Professor Smart's funeral and wrote "Multa docuit multos" ("He taught much to many") in the book of remembrance. )

There is a recognition of awe and destiny. There is nothing more to be done and there might be a wish that more had been done. 

An agnostic funeral prayer on a Polar expedition in another novel:

"'This is Joseph Wentz, who came here with us to learn something more about the world he was born in. If there is a God and He's listening, He made this man. Through him He learned something new about Himself. Now we give Joe to His care, and we hope it will be better care than we gave him. We did not love him well enough, and we suspected that his Creator did not love him at all. We hope we were wrong."

(Pause.)

"'If You exist, God of the monobloc, and if You are still thinking of men, think of Joe Wentz. He admired Your fine workmanship in the stars, and never reproached You for spoiling him. We commit his body to Your ocean, in Your name. Amen.'"

-James Blish, Fallen Star (London, mcmlxv), Book Three, XI, p. 158.

I think that that is good for an agnostic.