[net.suicide] Memorial Weinie Roast

hutch (06/12/82)

Regarding the Weinie Roasts for Jesus:

    I don't know what exactly you are referring to, but if you
mean to imply a daily meal which is blessed by a prayer, that is
hardly a memorial weinie roast.  Prayers blessing food are cross
cultural and seem to be a part of any culture that has risen to
the level of the chimps.
    The memorial meal for Christians is the Communion Meal, in
which we partake of His death on the cross (a mystery, in the
ancient sense of being something that is hard to comprehend and
whose mystic meaning is generally kept secret from unbelievers
who would ridicule what they won't understand - and not only Christians
have mysteries, nor are we immune to ridiculing others for their
strange secret mysteries) is in remembrance of a sacrificial and
substitutiary death.  Christ was no suicide and the underlying
meaning of His death is a positive one, since death could not keep
him.  We remember this with solemn rejoicing.
    This differs greatly from a flip, casual and insensitive party
whose promoters are likely only reacting to a personal fear of
death by trying to trivialize the reality of it's effect on
themselves and others.  This fear-denial reaction is especially
easy to slip into when the person was someone that you knew
or admired, since you had wanted to be like him or her and had
adopted parts of the admired traits,  and now YOU are threatened
by the *ultimate* judgement of that which you admired BY THE ONE
WHO YOU ADMIRED IT IN.
    The MWR is at best an immature response to an extremely hard
thing, and at worst, when treated as a joke or a game by the
callous, is an insult to the survivors and a numbing action.
And, yes, it is in VERY bad taste.

				Steve Hutchison
				...decvax!teklabs!tekmdp!dadla-b!hutch