Post by sonex on Oct 12, 2012 8:39:57 GMT 10
"THE popularity of I Did It My Way as a funeral song shows a ''vulgar egotism'' exists in society, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, says.
In his last presidential speech before retirement, Dr Jensen said society's shift towards ''deadly individualism'' had been driven by material wealth and technological mastery.
The cost of individualism, and the shift to self-love, had consequences for the quality of our community, family life and how we treat death. That was evident in the choice of ''our swan song of this generation'', Frank Sinatra's classic I Did It My Way, Dr Jensen said in his speech, titled ''Last Words''.
''It seems that we do not need each other as once we did. Nor do we need God. To think that a person is so proud of the phrase 'I did it my way' that they would use it as a summary of their life's achievement reveals an astounding moral ineptitude, a sort of vulgar egotism.''
Funerals were once opportunities to hear and pray to God, to think about sin, judgment, redemption and resurrection, Dr Jensen said.
Now they had become opportunities for eulogists to attempt to resurrect the dead by ''the power of fine words''.
''The last words come from friends and family, and their aim seems to be to build up the reputation of the dead person that all will believe how good a person he or she was,'' he said. ''All seems designed to avoid the truth that the person is gone, that death is horrible, that bodies turn to dust, that the person has not one chance in hell of avoiding hell based on the quality of their lives.''
Individualism was dangerous because people would not commit and unite around a common cause such as a charity group, trade union or political party.
People must reconnect, whether they liked it or not, because they ''exist in dependence on each other'', Dr Jensen said.
Read more: www.smh.com.au/nsw/gods-way-smarter-than-sinatras-says-jensen-20121008-279nb.html#ixzz2924z7Slz
I prefer the vulgar one where my rellies all say what a great person I was and how lucky they were to have me around. In case any of them didn't cry, I may choose the song "Time to say goodbye", that should get a few tears running down the cheeks.