Throughout the centuries, religion has played crucial role within the stages of grieving, and the lives those affected by loss live thereafter as either a crutch for the weak to lean upon or a boost of energy for the powerful to grow. The scope of religious practice is non negotiable, given that only 14% of the world’s total population follows a secular, non-religious, agnostic, or atheistic view on the powers of religion, and as such factors are ever present, the necessity of ced mystical forces varies within populations, from person to person. In the memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion, the conception of religious ideologies is portrayed throughout as varying degrees of necessity, where in the beginning Didion craved the
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In her writings she states, “ Later I realized that my immediate thought had been: But I did the ritual. I did it all. I did St. John the Divine, I did the chant in Latin, I did the Catholic priest and the Episcopal priest… and I did “ In paradisum deducant angeli.”(Didion 43) Didion refers to the funeral rites of her husband as a specific set of orders through which, should they be followed as concisely as possible, by some mystical force, she may feel some promotion of mental well-being for carrying out the necessary mandates. A similar context manifested in Didion’s mind while in the room off the reception area of the hospital, the idea that when placed upon the examination table of a higher being any daily passings, trials and tribulations seem but a speck in the grand scope of the universe’s happenings, as seen in her quote, “ a mote in the eye of God was the phrase that came to me in the room off the reception area”(Didion 15) Her husband’s funeral arrangements were just that, a passing phase within the expanses of history and the reels of the time. Along with Didion's perception of religion as a predetermined disposition of humanity, early on she begins to find there to be some dubiousness in the assumed clear cut line between the concepts of grief and faith. However, the line blurs and the two sides intertwine with one another, as seen in the quote, “ Credo in Deum. The first words of the Catholic catechism. Was it about faith or was it about grief? Were faith and grief the same thing?”(Didion 52) Joan Didion’s early recognition of the religious
In her writings she states, “ Later I realized that my immediate thought had been: But I did the ritual. I did it all. I did St. John the Divine, I did the chant in Latin, I did the Catholic priest and the Episcopal priest… and I did “ In paradisum deducant angeli.”(Didion 43) Didion refers to the funeral rites of her husband as a specific set of orders through which, should they be followed as concisely as possible, by some mystical force, she may feel some promotion of mental well-being for carrying out the necessary mandates. A similar context manifested in Didion’s mind while in the room off the reception area of the hospital, the idea that when placed upon the examination table of a higher being any daily passings, trials and tribulations seem but a speck in the grand scope of the universe’s happenings, as seen in her quote, “ a mote in the eye of God was the phrase that came to me in the room off the reception area”(Didion 15) Her husband’s funeral arrangements were just that, a passing phase within the expanses of history and the reels of the time. Along with Didion's perception of religion as a predetermined disposition of humanity, early on she begins to find there to be some dubiousness in the assumed clear cut line between the concepts of grief and faith. However, the line blurs and the two sides intertwine with one another, as seen in the quote, “ Credo in Deum. The first words of the Catholic catechism. Was it about faith or was it about grief? Were faith and grief the same thing?”(Didion 52) Joan Didion’s early recognition of the religious