But Jesus said . . . Let the dead bury their dead. – Matthew 8:22
NORMALLY, the advice that the dead should be burying their own dead is taken to suggest that one’s time and energy ought to be spent on living people, not on those who had expired.
This often quoted saying has its roots in the Holy Bible, and the religious have preached that its original meaning is that the living should serve God rather than serve the dead. The expression is even said to connote an impatience to move ahead, without pausing for detail or ceremony.
Its “real interpretation” continues to be the subject of heated theological debate though. There was no doubt, however, what the Westbury Cemetery gravediggers had in mind when they downed their tools on Tuesday – supported by nigh 80 more Sanitation Service Authority (SSA) employees.
In their resolve that they would no longer work with their boss Superintendent of Cemeteries Ricky Cummins, the gravediggers left five grieving families to bury their own dead – literally, with hoes and rakes.
Without a doubt, people in grief deserve much better. This is no memorable way for mourning families and friends to spend their last moments with their beloved departed. Gravediggers of tradition, as do Mr Cummins and the management of the SSA, must know this.
That is why it is befuddling that this inappropriateness – this madness – could be allowed to be.
The gravediggers are upset that Mr Cummins is opposed to their subcontracting of their jobs to outsiders not under the SSA’s purview. The Superintendent of Cemeteries reasonably sees the practice as putting the SSA at risk; making the authority liable, by extension, for injury or otherwise to the said subcontracted.
Apparently, if we must go by an earlier admission of Mr Cummins’, the SSA’s management has no problem with the subcontracting. In the light of this, the gravediggers want said management to reassign their immediate boss.
Anywhere but the cemeteries.
But what did prompt Mr Cummins to act now? This grave subcontracting, again by the cemetery boss’ own admission, has been going on for years. Well, the gravediggers have gone back to the funerals. Did Mr Cummins recant?
There have been SSA meetings in the last 24 hours, and shop stewards are to meet again with the board sometime next week toward full resolution. Still, why did the National Union of Public Workers’ Roslyn Smith state that it was the “responsibility” of the SSA management to settle the row?
Thank God, mourners’ hoes and rakes will no longer have to bury the dead!
