Went to a funeral today for a lady that has not been associated with the JW's for many years, and her husband has probably just been on the fringe of association, their children have been out for a long time. So they had the funeral at a funeral home, the place was full of family, JW's and other friends. In the newspaper obituary they referred to it as a Celebration of Life. I honestly did not know what to expect, but I figured since she had been out for so long the JW thing would probably be on the back burner.
The talk was given by a JW elder, but he did not follow any JW outline. He talked mostly about the woman and her family and her life from a manuscript the family had given him. There were a couple of scriptures at the end, one mentioning the resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous, and along with the scripture he said that those who accept god are the righteous, and those who do not are the unrighteous, but that everyone gets a resurrection. Interesting. Then he read a scripture from the prophet Job (I never heard of him referred to as a prophet), said a short JW prayer and then invited the audience to the families home. He ended it by saying "God bless you". I thought WTF! Since when is "god bless you" in the JW vocabulary?
It was a wierd experince, even more so at the reception where there was a mixture of family, long time JW's, DF'd people and faded JW's with goatees. I've been to a funeral like this once before, but the god bless you comment really caught my attention.