Dumb Supper, Mourning Tea, Grieving, and Connections with the Dead

One facet of my recent trip to Salem interested me quite a bit, and I think it merits a separate post. It involves two aspects of the Festival of the Dead celebrations, including The Mourning Tea, and The Dumb Supper. The festival website describes the Tea like this:

"Don your finest mourning attire and hearken back to a time when mourning customs were elaborate and extravagant. Music will fill the air with sweet sorrow as the resident bards of the long black veil recite a selection of odes to the somber beauty of Death’s final waltz. High tea complete with courses of traditional tea sandwiches and desserts will be served.

"Share your favorite photos and tales of your family members, friends, mentors, or other loved ones who have passed away. You will be invited to place a photo and description of your loved one into our Salem Witches’ Book of the Dead, used to honor and invoke the ancestors. Through the sharing of these pictures and stories, those who have crossed over will live on in the hearts and minds of those who remain for generations to come."

And the Supper is described in this way:

"Join the Salem Witches as we honor the dead with a dinner observed in utter silence. Salem Witch Christian Day invites you to a banquet of sumptuous cuisine where the only sound heard is music chosen in memory of the departed. Bring photos and mementos to summon the souls of your loved ones on the other side as you partake in the most solemn of all the ceremonies of Witchcraft. The Dumb Supper is an ancient tradition where the dead attend the living for a magical night of communion!

"The evening opens with a ceremony welcoming the dead, after which attendees are guided into the sacred space where the feast is served. From this point on, no one may speak. By remaining quiet, you will open your heart and mind to those who have crossed over."

As I read culture I try to do so with Christian eyes that see the Spirit of God moving and where I might come alongside, and sometimes it is happening in ways that might not be seen by many other Christians. In this case I believe the Tea and the Supper represent significant parts of the Festival of the Dead that are similar to what I observed at Burning Man Festival with participants who memorialize lost loved ones at the Temple. Readers can read my previous comments on this aspect of Burning Man here, but in my view given Western failures at providing appropriate venues for the grieving process, and virtually no sense of connectedness and honor for deceased loved ones and ancestors, it appears that other cultures (such as Mexico with its Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead) and subcultures (such as Burning Man Festival and Salem's Pagan and Wiccan community with aspects of its Festival of the Dead) meet real needs that facilitate healthy and much-needed rituals and points of connection with the dead.

Conservative Christian readers should not misconstrue my meaning here. I am not advocating communication with the dead (so please don't post comments or send emails accusing me of necromancy or perceived scriptural violations), but I do believe there is a place, particularly within Protestantism, for new rituals associated with death that help the living better deal with grief, and maintain a sense of connectedness and honor for the dead beyond our Western tendency toward individualism and "gone and nearly forgotten" attitudes that privilege the living over the dead and do not provide for a sense of ongoing connectedness with family, ancestors, and lost loved ones.

I would love to experiment with a local and contextualized version of some of these things in my Utah context. I wonder whether a Christian community can be found with the interest (and daring) to put together a communal and memorial meal that involves ritual such as a Book of the Dead or the creation of a temple-like structure with personal offerings that are burned in memory and love for the departed. It would seem to me that several segments of Utah's population would resonate with such an event, whether Latter-day Saints with their emphasis on family in this life and beyond the grave, the Neo-Pagan subculture, and various other groups that make up Utah's people and community mosaic.

Last year Cornerstone Festival took an initial step in this area when they contextualized a Dia de los Muertos offrenda or family altar of offerings for the deceased, but unfortunatley they were met by charges of necromancy and syncretism by conservative Christian elements. (Readers should read my summary and response to such charges in my previous post on this topic.) There is a need to move beyond such shallow, knee-jerk reactions and to engage in more careful cultural and theological reflection. In so doing, perhaps a festival subculture like Burning Man outside Reno, and a Neo-Pagan subculture like that at Salem, have some valuable things to teach us about attitudes toward death, the dead as well as the living.