A good funeral: part 1
Posted by Sweetpea In the light of our recent discussions about the merits of secular, civil and religious funerals, one interesting thread started to appear. Namely, what should a funeral not fail to include? Can a funeral ever really be meaningful to anyone? Does any funeral do the things that people need it to do? […]
Live burial – can you help?
Posted by Charles Once in a while we get a really interesting email here at the sweatshop we call GFG Central. The toiling minions are, as I write, clustering round the screen of the recipient. I’ll have to whip them back to their desks in a moment. The point is, it’s not for them. It’s […]
Dissolution
Bill Jordan is on a quest to have (when the time comes) his corpse laid out on the surface where it will be able to give most back to the ecosystem. He wants “to know I’ll be going back into the air, the soil, the rain, the mist, the snow–back to the ecstasy I […]
Tell them fully and tell them clearly
Regular readers of this blog will know of Teresa Evans and her campaigning work. If you don’t know Teresa, have a look at her website. I’ve always admired Teresa. She is an ordinary person possessed of extraordinary singlemindedness, tenacity and passion. She is also very nice. Teresa campaigns for better, fuller, clearer information for the […]
The sacred and the propane
It was a deepseated thing, this duty we felt we owed our dead. A sacred duty – literally. It goes back to the beginning of time. Throughout human history the dead body has always been treated in accordance with sacred diktat, its valedictory hullabaloos performed by shaman or sorcerer, soothsayer or priest. For the full […]
Not so first as he thinks
From Australia’s Herald Sun: A CANCER victim yesterday became the first person to be buried upright at Australia’s only vertical cemetery. Allan Heywood lost his battle with cancer last Tuesday and was buried in the unusual, space-saving grave in the new vertical cemetery outside Camperdown in western Victoria. “It’s nice to be first at something. […]
Hollowing out hallowed ground
Some interesting reflections here on humankind’s relationship with the dead human body and the forces of nature. I especially enjoyed the observation that the prairie dogs happily digging in this cemetery are no respecters of social status: they have even dug up a state governor. What deplorable absence of deference so far down the food chain! Hat-tip […]
Cremation: an alternative to burial or an alternative to bother?
There’s a fine new essay by Thomas Lynch in the The Christian Century. It’s as wonderfully well written as you’d expect – seductively so. Much of what he says about the modern funeral he has said before: that it “too often replaces theology with therapy, conviction with convenience.” Here are some extracts to whet your […]
