Recomposition
Interesting story on US National Public Radio (NPR) here. Do listen to Bernd Heinrich, gentle and wise, talking about what he perceives to be our duty to return to nature in the most appetising way we can. No coffin for him. Some of the things he says: “You know, being sealed up, totally removed from […]
Spirituality in contemporary funerals
There’s some interesting research work going on at the University of Hull. This is what they’re up to: This project reflects the growing interest in spirituality which we are seeing in society generally and the changing shape of modern funerals. We are interested, for example, to see what the ‘spiritual’ content of a so-called ‘alternative’ […]
Showing up and just being there
This is Tom Lynch: There’s this wonderful essay that was written — I have it framed in the hallway there; the woman’s name, I think, is Sullivan who wrote it. She talks about how in her life the difference was not between doing good and evil. It was just doing the next right thing. I […]
WHEN I’M 64 – music for Babyboomer Funerals
Simon Smith of green fuse contemporary funerals had a piece published in October’s Funeral Service Journal, the undertakers’ trade journal, which, I feared, had something of a flower of the desert about it. Despite the best efforts of its excellent editor, Brian Parsons, funeral directors are not great readers, nor are they great writers. I […]
Funeralcare screwupdate
THE SCENE: An undertaker’s premises in a shopping centre in the middle of a council estate on the outskirts of Hull. ENTER three ten year-old children… Before we resume the narrative, consider for a moment what a ten year-old is. It is a half-size version of an adult. It speaks as a child. It understands […]
Marching to the edge of eternity
The purpose of a funeral is to express and reaffirm beliefs that make sense of a death in terms of, both, the tenets of the dead person and those of the living. We don’t see a lot of common purpose in an age in which faith has fragmented. All funerals alienate to a greater or […]
Going back for the – er, erm…?
There isn’t a name we all use for the gathering after a funeral, is there? Once upon a time there was the funeral feast, with bakemeats and all the booze you could drink—a good way of ensuring the dead person would be remembered fondly. But the feast petered out and became a bleak little tea. […]
Feeding the elderly
Here are some extracts from Nigel Slater’s essay Feeding the Elderly, taken from Eating for England. It is December 2004, and I am sitting in an old people’s home just outside Birmingham. I am holding my aunt’s hand. My aunt is ninety-nine, my eldest surviving relative on my father’s side of the family, and probably […]
Going Out Green
Rupert Callender made this observation of Dan Cruickshank’s The Art of Dying: I was surprised by how little thought Dan had apparently given the matter. I thought everyone mused endlessly about their own deaths. I don’t know that they do, Rupert. When, over in the US, Bob Butz was asked by his publisher to write […]
The Art of Dying
Is death really a taboo in our society? It’s a strong word, taboo, and I don’t know that it’s the right one. If there is a reluctance to confront death it is just as likely that it is because we are all having such fun being alive and feeling healthy. Reaper G is a spoilsport. […]
