celebrants

Who is mimicking who?

3 October 2013
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: celebrants, Humour, Religious funerals, Secular approaches to death

 Posted by Richard Rawlinson 

Two seasonal events coming up: the Nine Lessons and Carols is a traditional Christmas Eve ceremony, the most famous and widely broadcast being the service from King’s College, Cambridge; and Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, is showing for 10 nights in December at London’s Bloomsbury Theatre. A rationalist celebration of Yuletide, this year’s line-up promises music by Jonny & The Baptists (pictured) and stand-up comedy by Alexei Sayle.

Of course, members of the British Humanist Association, a non-prophet organisation, might enjoy the former, just as Christians might enjoy the latter. You don’t need to believe in angels to sing along to Robbie Williams’s Angels. And a bit of incredulous mockery doesn’t do the faithful any harm.

Though from an era of more restrained comedy, I’ve LOL’d at Dave Allen’s religious gags. Attending a funeral as a child, he recalls thinking the priest was saying: ‘In the name of the father and of the Son and into the hole he goes’. 

There are a few gentle jokes about non-believers, too. What do you get when you cross a Jehovah’s Witness with an atheist? Someone who knocks on your door for no apparent reason.

The there’s the one about a priest and rational sceptic both up for the guillotine. Asked for his final words, the priest says: ‘I believe in God who will rescue me in my hour of need’. The executioner then pulls the cord, but the blade of the ominous contraption of death suddenly stops just short of his neck. ‘A miracle,’ gasps the crowd, and the executioner lets him go free.

Next, the rationalist is asked for his final words. He doesn’t hear the question as he’s staring intently at the guillotine. The executioner asks again to which the rationalist finally replies: ’Oh, I see your problem. You’ve got a blockage in the gear assembly, right there.’

Now to the more serious question of who is copying who at funerals, the subject for which the Nine Lessons and Carols events were a mere prelude:

Are secular funerals still too closely following the ceremonial rituals and traditions of religion? Or is the trend among religious funerals towards emphasis on eulogy and celebration of life in fact aping secularism? Are they merging into one and, if so, should they define themselves more clearly?

Funerals as psychotwaddle

25 September 2013
Charles
12 Comments
Categories: celebrants, funeral trends

Writing about contemporary American memorial services (ashes optional), Thomas Long describes a funerary trend that some might discern in contemporary British celebration of life funerals — if you subscribe to his bracingly reactionary death-view: 

Even when they are crafted by caring people who are full of goodwill, these services often lack coherence. At their worst they are formless and aimless, without tradition or structure, sail or rudder. They can so easily slip into random odds and ends thrown together like a high school talent show, a pot-pourri of made-up pageantries and sentimental gestures combined with a few leftover religious rites that have broken loose from their moorings and floated downstream. Many have become a form of improvisational theater with upbeat emcees … less a story of what [the person who has died’s] life and death mean and more a pot of ritual spaghetti thrown against the wall in hope that something will stick.

The Good Funeral. 

Funerals must address dreams, too

14 September 2013
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: celebrants, funeral, funeral directors, Religious funerals

In an excellent article in the Christian Century, the Rev Samuel Wells, an American, describes taking a British funeral. There are lessons here for clergy, funeral celebrants and undertakers. 

And so it was that I was called to preside at the funeral of Michael. Michael had had a difficult life. He had Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

At the funeral tea I lingered and asked Michael’s mother what it was like to say goodbye. “Oh, it wasn’t much fun,” she said. “But d’you know what?” she added. “I slipped a packet of condoms in the coffin just before they closed it.” And she winked.

Was ever a parting gesture so laden with complexities of meaning? The young Tutankhamen, teenage pharaoh of the 14th century BC, was surrounded in his tomb by an array of golden artifacts. Michael was sent to the hereafter with a supply of prophylactics … The condom represented the adulthood Michael had never attained, the manhood he’d never inhabited.

Whatever the packet represented, it was a poignant symbol of care and abandon, restraint and permission, encouragement and playfulness, fertility and wistful regret. Michael’s mother had spent 14 years caring for his every bodily need: her final gift was a gesture toward the single bodily desire that remained out of his reach, the one that she couldn’t satisfy for him. It was a microcosm of what this life had not given him—and maybe the next life would.

Since that day I’ve changed the way I talk with grieving families about their loved ones. I ask if there’s something they want to put in the coffin. I wonder with them if there’s something their beloved had always longed for or something that remained out of reach. Is there a way the funeral can name and address what could never happen or the dream that could never be? I try in each funeral to include something visual, tangible, laden with unspoken meaning—a gesture, an artifact, a procession of gifts, a picture, a focus for prayer. Michael’s mother taught me that God makes heaven out of our faltering, foolish and fragile attempts to imagine and construct it.

If clergy will not shape liturgy to incorporate people’s longings and regrets and desires … then people will simply go ahead and construct their own. Only if they’re very lucky will the clergy hear about those homemade liturgies. With a wink.

Read the whole article here

David Abel answers his critics

14 September 2013
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: celebrants

 

If funeral celebrants suffer from anxiety, that is not surprising.

In addition to job anxiety, because they exist at the beck and call of undertakers, and financial anxiety because they must resign themselves to the vagaries of the mortality rate, there comes with the job, also, a degree of social anxiety — just try telling people what you do.

And then there is status anxiety. Until the British Humanist Association began training civvies to minister to the unchurched, all funeral obsequies in Britain had been presided over since the dawn of time by people, whether shaman or sorcerer, soothsayer or priest, who were imbued, in popular perception, with a special, sacred, qualification. Funeral celebrants need to have an answer to the question: “By what authority vested in you do you do this work?”

The full answer to this question is long and complex but can probably be condensed as ‘I (think I) am the Right Sort of Person’. What, precisely, is a Right Sort of Person? There was a discussion about this recently here. 

Which brings us to the question of money, wherein lies all manner of vexation. Celebrants need to put food on the table if they are to be able to act out  their vocation. In Africa, as Kathryn Edwards is wont to observe, it is the custom of villagers to leave a chicken at the door of the shaman. In our altogether more advanced society, celebrants must submit an invoice or specify the amount to be placed in the brown envelope customarily slipped into the back of the hand by the conductor as he simultaneously whispers from the side of his mouth, “Which one’s the widow?”

The vexed question of money has been at the heart of the distaste felt by many Right Sort of People towards what they feel to be an insurgency by the Wrong Sort of People, who are reckoned to be simply not up to it and, with an output level of up to ten funerals a week, only in it for the money. A complicating factor here is that the disapprobation of the RSPs looks a bit like, sounds a bit like, snobbery and is probably experienced as snobbery. Feelings are therefore running pretty high. 

The contumely of RSPs has been focussed on the unfortunate and possibly undeserving person of David Abel as the most visible personification of this insurgency of the simply-won’t-do’s. This was because he posted a video on his website which described the amount of money to be made from funerals, to the exclusion of any discussion of a wider ministry to the bereaved. There was quite a lot of howling about it. 

Not that RSPs are in it for the no-money. Most have a tender regard for their market value, especially relative to what bereaved people spend on accessories like flowers, and what undertakers bank in profit. Most think they’re worth more than they get. But they are, also, possessed of ideals. They see their work as ministry. 

David Abel has now posted a video on the Fellowship of Independent Celebrants’ website in which he acknowledges and addresses the criticism he has received. He talks of the importance of vocation, advising those who think they’d be able to do something else equally well to do that instead. 

He also tells potential candidates of his training course that celebrancy “is not a get-rich-quick scheme”. At the same time, he advises them to make a careful assessment of what they need to earn if they are to be able to follow their vocation: “I have to acknowledge … that this is a business.” He also addresses the matter of the number of funerals a celebrant might expect to take per week, and do them well. He reckons 8-10 probably too many, 3-4, plus a weekend wedding, more appropriate. 

I am sure you will agree that he deserves a hearing. See his new video here. (I can’t embed it) 

Short shrift for the overreachers

4 September 2013
Charles
12 Comments
Categories: celebrants

You probably missed all this and, in truth, had you been aware, you might have either snorted derisively or, like me, mischievously hung on in there for a bit to see what happened next. I’ll tell you the story now. It’s about a bunch of funeral celebrants who went off on one and had to be smacked.

How is the public interest served by making public a silly and ignominious enterprise which did no more harm than cost a few people a few bob, an acre or two of time and a little local damage to their vanity?

The answer is that the bereaved are best served by people with good hearts, good minds and good judgement. Eyebrows have rightly been raised at the spectacle of what some would characterise as an incursion, recently, by funeral celebrants who are not only reckoned second-rate but, also, unhealthily mercenary — those who seem bent on putting the ‘sell’ into celebrancy. Narcissistic windbags intoxicated by the sound of their own voices, some would add. The GFG has, of course, been even-handed and defended those so disparaged.

At the beginning of the year a bunch of celebrants — I’ll spare their blushes by not naming them — took it into their heads that they had received some sort of a licence from the government to form a regulatory body for celebrants, which they called the Association of Regulated Celebrants (ARC):

“ARC has been setup to oversee and regulate the future activities of Celebrants working within the UK. ARC has been accepted by the Secretary of State for Trade & Industry, to ultimately become the regulatory body for the Celebrant industry … under the umbrella of ARC, we hope that we can ensure the high standards of working ethics of true professionals within our own organisations, and start to regulate the registration of all working celebrants and the standards of regulating the training of them within that same industry. There can only be one ‘agenda’ and that is working to the regulation of our celebrant industry to the benefits of everybody…. and every organisation benefiting by it.”

Yes, you have to read it twice. Yes, it makes you gasp. To adapt Mr Obama, it is the audacity of… ach, you fill in the missing word.

In response to an enquiry about the veracity of the claims made by the founders of ARC, an official at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills responded on 29 July 2013 as follows:

I have contacted the FOIC to ask about the claims you described and as a result they have taken them off their website. I have also received written assurance from the head of FOIC, who is also a director of the ARC, that these claims will not be repeated by either organisation. 

Not with a bang but a whimper, as the expression has it.

All celebrants are, to some degree, tainted by association with this escapade. How ‘good’ celebrants might respond is another matter. You may have an idea what that is. 

A eulogy sandwich is not enough to nourish grief

26 August 2013
Charles
13 Comments
Categories: celebrants, ceremony, Featured, Formality vs informality, funeral, funeral customs, funerals in other cultures, Grief, Personalisation, Ritual

As Jenny Uzell embarks on a series of posts which will consider the knotty question, What Is A Funeral For? it’s worth reflecting on what has been a game of two halves, funeralwise, in the last fortnight. Two people have expressed contrasting approaches to a funeral.

First, there was Dave Smith, who arranged the funeral of his daughter, Hannah, the 14-year-old who committed suicide after being bullied online. Desperately sad though this was, Dave wanted the funeral to celebrate Hannah’s life, and he asked mourners and relatives to wear colourful clothes, onesies, her favourite garment, in particular,  to reflect Hannah’s joie de vivre.

The church was decorated with purple and white balloons, photographs of Hannah, and a poster that read “Be Happy for Hannah”. Purple was Hannah’s favourite colour. Her coffin was purple. Her father did not want her to travel in a hearse, so he brought her himself in a blue Audi 4×4. The coffin was carried into church to In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins. The service was conducted by the Church of England vicar, the Rev Charlie Styles, who described the proceedings as informal and relaxed. Four hundred people came.

Hannah’s was a very zeitgeisty funeral, highly personal, focussed on positives. There were tears, yes, and there was also laughter.

At the other end of the scale, over in Ireland, the bishop of Meath, Dr Michael Smith, courted howling and outrage when he restated the Catholic church’s doctrinal ban on the personalisation of funerals. He outlawed eulogies. This embargo seems to be restated in a newsworthy way in a more or less five-yearly cycle. Since compromise is impossible, it is one that looks set to keep on coming round.

The good bishop’s rationale for resisting what he calls the dumbing down of funerals accords with Catholic dogma. In his words:

“The context of the funeral Mass in the church should be focused entirely on the celebration of the Eucharist. What we’re trying to do is focus on the essence of the Christian funeral rite. The essence is, of course, two things. One is to support the family, through prayer and the community, but also the other function of it is that we support the person on their journey to salvation. What we are trying to do then is maintain the integrity of the Eucharist.”

Can’t argue with that, can you? If you want to belong to the club, them’s the rules.

Both Dave Smith and the Bishop of Meath have very clear ideas about what they think a funeral should aim to accomplish, and how it should achieve it.

But the good bishop has other things to say about funerals that may be relevant to all of us. He says:

“I suppose that people’s understanding when they hear about a funeral is that they focus entirely on the funeral Mass but the rites of Christian funerals begin long before that. You have the vigil for the deceased, the wake house and the removal and, of course, the prayers of commendation at the graveside. So we’re saying look, there are opportunities for family members who want to pay a personal tribute to the deceased.”

He’s got a point, hasn’t he? Why do we feel that farewelling and remembrancing have to be packed into brief, bulging crem slot, leaving so much to be said in short order that, in order to get the biography recited and the grandchildren named, a celebrant must, with one eye fixed on the clock,  zoom through a script at 360 words per minute, ruthlessly fading the music for prayer and/or reflection on the way?

Why do we place so much of a burden on the single event of the funeral ceremony? After all, there’s the time before it, as the bishop says. And there’s time afterwards — oh god, all that time afterwards.

That’s the time we need to focus on.

Secularists are neglecting to develop a case for the introduction of practices and rituals either side of the ceremony which might promote both good remembrancing and, also, the emotional health of bereaved people. This is probably why no celebrant association has made a public statement in support of the e-petition calling for statutory bereavement leave. That they haven’t is nothing short of astounding.

The Jewish practice of sitting shiva is a brilliant example of the sort of practice I’m talking about. For seven days following the funeral, the close family take a complete time out — stop the world, I want to get off: “The mourners experience a week of intense grief, and the community is there to love and comfort and provide for their needs.” Find more here.

Jews mourn in a structured way for a year. Shiva is followed by three weeks of schloshim, a less intense mourning period, followed by further regulated re-entry into the world. 

Like all rituals rooted in belief systems that have developed over hundreds of years, Jewish mourning is characterised by a thicket of impedimental ordinances, many of which strike outsiders as completely bonkers or, where gender equality is concerned, utterly unacceptable. For all that, the degree of difficulty they present is at the heart of the solace they offer. My friend Graham is presently saying the mourning kaddish daily for his father. It’s a short enough prayer. Translated, it reads:

Magnified and sanctified be God’s great name in the world which He created according to His will. May he establish His kingdom during our lifetime and during the lifetime of Israel. Let us say, Amen.

May God’s great name be blessed forever and ever.

Blessed, glorified, honored and extolled, adored and acclaimed be the name of the Holy One, though God is beyond all praises and songs of adoration which can be uttered. Let us say, Amen.

May there be peace and life for all of us and for all Israel. Let us say, Amen.

Let He who makes peace in the heavens, grant peace to all of us and to all Israel. Let us say, Amen.

Graham could mutter this while he waits for his kettle to boil or just think it as he brushes his teeth. But he’s not allowed to do that. No, he’s got to leg it down to the synagogue and recite it every day without fail at teatime in the presence of a minyan, a quorum of ten adult males. As a result, it rules his day. Everything is built around it. If he’s away on business he has to contact a synagogue before he’s even booked his flight in order to assure himself that there’ll be a minyan ready and waiting for him. Graham’s a man who has not been as observant as he might have been, in the past, but he’s doing his bit for his Dad, whom he loved. It’s hard work, he says, and it’s doing him a surprising amount of good.

Unglamorous work, isn’t it? Saying kaddish doesn’t fit with all those culturally untranslatable fun customs Brits get so bedazzled by, like the Dia de los Muertos (nobbut a lot of facepainting and larking about over here). Kaddish reminds us that mourning is a matter of hard yards.

The eulogy sandwich served up by celebrants is all very well in its way, but it’s not enough to nourish grief.

POSTSCRIPT: Jews are pro-eulogy. Here’s the halakhic ordinance:
Delivering a proper eulogy (hesped) is a major mitzvah. The mitzvah is to raise one’s voice and to speak heartrending words about the deceased in order to arouse the weeping of the audience, and to mention his praises … If one is negligent about the eulogy of an upright Jew one does not live long and is worthy of being buried alive.

It is forbidden to exaggerate excessively in praising the deceased. However, one is permitted to exaggerate slightly, as long as one does not go too far. If the deceased had no good qualities, one should not mention his character … If one attributes good qualities to someone who did not possess them at all, or excessively exaggerates the good qualities he had, this causes evil to the speaker and to the deceased.
Source

Can we agree to differentiate?

22 July 2013
Charles
30 Comments
Categories: celebrants, Humanists

Ed’s note: Here’s your chance to interrogate the BHA on humanist funerals. If you’ve something to say, say it. Hannah or another BHA representative will respond. 

Guest post by Hannah Hart from the British Humanist Association explains the basics about humanist funerals, what happens at them and how they are organised.

The 2011 census showed that at least a quarter of us are not religious, and certainly many of us know we wouldn’t want a religious funeral for ourselves. 

So it’s no surprise that has been an enormous increase in number of non-religious funerals over recent years. Mostly this is to be welcomed; it signifies there is a real alternative for those for whom a religious service would feel inappropriate or hypocritical. 

But it also means that choosing the right person to lead a funeral can seem overwhelming, especially at an already difficult time. So how do you work out who would be the best choice in your situation?

 First things first: what is Humanism?

Humanism is a positive approach to life based on reason and a concern for humanity and the natural world. It is neither religious nor superstitious. 

We think that people are able to make ethical decisions based on experience and compassion rather than, for example, religious teachings. 

And what does Humanism have to do with funerals?

Humanists think that we each have one life, and one life only. We think funeral services should reflect this. And since there’s no issue of what happens after death to address, our funerals can concentrate on the life lived. 

So humanist funerals are about the profound sadness of saying goodbye whilst also celebrating the life and legacy of a loved one. They provide a very dignified and very personal farewell. 

And what is a ‘humanist celebrant’?

Celebrants are people who create, write and conduct ceremonies. 

Humanist celebrants are those who conduct and create non-religious ceremonies. They are sometimes called officiants or even humanist ‘ministers’. 

And Humanist Ceremonies™ celebrants have been trained and accredited by the British Humanist Association (BHA), a registered national charity representing the needs of non-religious people. Providing high-quality ceremonies is big part of the BHA’s work. 

Why do people choose humanist funerals?

Often because they feel it will most accurately reflect the personality or outlook of the person who has died. And many people come to us having been to another humanist funeral and actually enjoyed it; they’ve perhaps found it more honest and moving than other services they’ve attended. 

I’m not sure if the person who has died could be called a ‘humanist’. Does this matter?

Not at all. Our funerals are available to anyone who wants to mark their loved one’s life in a non-religious, personal, meaningful way. 

But I don’t want to offend anyone. Will it be ‘preachy’?!

Absolutely not! Our celebrants are there to provide an appropriate, personal, non-religious funeral – not to promote a cause. And every funeral is carefully designed to be inclusive of all present. 

What actually happens at a humanist funeral?

Each ceremony is unique, written specifically for the person who has died. In terms of structure, it may contain music, a welcome and then a tribute section of up to fifteen minutes. Time for reflection often follows, then the committal, and then closing comments.

Sounds great… but a lot of work.

This is where the celebrant comes in. Their job is to makes things as easy as possible. They meet key members of the family or close friends and talk about what is wanted from the funeral and about the person who has died. They then co-ordinate contributions and write a bespoke ceremony, making sure everyone is happy with this before the day itself. 

Where are humanist funerals held?

Most are held in crematoria and some at burial grounds, but since funeral services have no legal status they can be held wherever a family wishes.

 We also conduct a growing number of memorial services (when there is no body to inter). These are held at all sorts of venues.

Do you allow any religious content in your ceremonies?

Our ceremonies are non-religious but we recognise that there are aspects of religious reference embedded in our culture and day-to-day experiences. For example, certain hymns can remind people of their youth or even of their favourite rugby team. We are happy to include this sort of content where it helps to reflect the person, but not as an act of worship. 

How are your celebrants different from other non-religious celebrants?

There is a wide array of people working as celebrants and so it’s impossible to generalise about what they do and how well they do it. 

What we can do is assure you of the British Humanist Association’s approach and our commitment to quality. And we’ve certainly got experience on our side; our members were conducting humanist funerals as far back as the 1890s! 

Our celebrants are carefully recruited and trained to the highest standards. They are quality assured and regularly observed, follow a strict code of conduct and undergo continued professional development. 

How do I find a humanist celebrant?

Many funeral directors can recommend a Humanist Ceremonies celebrant or you can look for someone yourself on our website. 

Our network is as diverse as the clients we serve, enabling you to find a celebrant that is just right for your particular situation. 

And our celebrants are always happy to be contacted with any questions or simply for a quick chat so that you can decide with confidence if they are the right person to conduct your loved one’s funeral.

Come on, it’s not rocket science

9 July 2013
Charles
46 Comments
Categories: celebrants

Churchill was mulling over a cabinet appointment, weighing up the merits of a candidate. Glancing towards his principal private secretary he enquired: “What about So-and-so?” The PPS murmured: “Simply won’t do, Prime Minister.”

They talked like that, then. They understood the thermonuclear power of understatement.

That same PPS might have pronounced the same judgement on a number of today’s funeral celebrants.

In the beginning were the humanists. Then came the civils. Then the Green Fusers. Then the AOIC. Then, in what order I knoweth not, the Fellowship of Independent Celebrants, the Fellowship of Professional Celebrants, Perfect Ceremonies, County Celebrants, the Scottish Independent Celebrants Association… That’s as many as I can be bothered to track down in 5 mins of googling. These are all training organisations. There’s a bunch of self-taught freelancers out there, too. Together they’re breeding like rabbits. Demand for secular funerals is rising, but is it really rising this fast? 

So who’s good and who’s not? If there needs to be a cull, who needs to go? 

If you were to say that some celebrants are better than others, how would you make that value judgement? Where’re your criteria? 

If it’s about brains, what level of intellectual attainment does a celebrant require? Some would say you need to be really quite bright to be any good at this work. It helps with the thinking and the listening and the writing. You need grammar, you need spelling, you need vocab, you need apostrophes. It does no harm to be well read. You need a formidable armoury of brain cells to create something appropriate and thoughtful and meaningful that articulates the feelings and values of the mourners and makes a funeral intellectually, emotionally and spiritually useful.

How are we to rate performance skills? Just as a beautifully crafted script can be devalued by mumbling, so can an indifferent script can be made much of by excellent delivery, a compelling presence and a mobile face. As to the quality of the thoughts and ideas expressed, one person’s banality is another person’s enduring wisdom. A lot of clever stuff uttered by brainboxes possibly passes over everyone’s heads. Style may count for more than substance, emotional rapport for more than cerebral rigour, with an audience whose minds are suffused with sadness. 

What about motivation, then? Celebrancy has got to be vocational, hasn’t it? You’ve got to have a sense of mission, surely? You care about your work so much that you spend hours agonising over every script. You wouldn’t dream of taking on more than five ceremonies, max, a week. Three, even. 

There is no doubting that bright, vocation-driven celebrants work incredibly hard at what they do. They reflect on their work self-critically, hanker to do better, are never satisfied with themselves. They are, in their way, admirable human beings. It’s not the money they do it for, not principally, it’s the getting it right that gets them out of bed in the morning. But are they in the wrong line of work? Is it really this hard?

When I posted a video of David Abel, of the Fellowship of Independent Celebrants, on the GFG’s Facebook page,  comments were universally disparaging. Mr Abel, addressing would-be celebrants on his website, doesn’t address the matter of vocation at all. He doesn’t talk about supporting bereaved people and creating meaningful funerals in a secular age. He bypasses philosophical and vocational values and confines himself entirely to money matters: “It’s a market that’s very quick to get into … Some of my colleagues are conducting eight to ten funerals a week at a minimum fee of £150.” Watch him here.

The verdict of the market would seem to be that Mr Abel and the celebrants he trains are doing a perfectly good job at 8 to 10 a week. If he neglects to talk about vocational values in his video, his organisation requires high ethical standards of its members. Furthermore, Mr Abel has been instrumental in working to establish an umbrella organisation for all celebrants in order to drive up standards. 

Just as funeral directors conduct their own backstabberly feuds in the best traditions of any caring profession, celebrants, too, are prone to really quite beastly factionalism. This is not just a matter of turf wars and power plays, though, goodness knows, these abound. Nor is it as simple as mutual animosity between visionary pioneers and cut’n’paste journeymen. 

It may be the case that some celebrants take themselves more seriously than the job demands.

Wherein lies the value of a funeral? 

You tried

28 June 2013
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: celebrants, eulogy

One for you celebrants.

In a deceptively ‘unclever’ eulogy for James Gandolfini, David Chase, creator and head writer of the Sopranos, offered this thought about the subordinate value of coherence  in speechmaking:

I remember how you [Gandolfini] did speeches. I saw you do a lot of them at awards shows and stuff, and invariably you would scratch two or three thoughts on a sheet of paper and put it in your pocket, and then not really refer to it. And consequently, a lot of your speeches didn’t make sense. I think that could happen in here, except in your case, it didn’t matter that it didn’t make sense, because the feeling was real. The feeling was real. The feeling was real. I can’t say that enough.

He addressed, tacitly, the darker side of Gandolfini:

The paradox about you as a man is that I always felt personally, that with you, I was seeing a young boy. A boy about Michael’s age right now.  Because you were very boyish. And about the age when humankind, and life on the planet are really opening up and putting on a show, really revealing themselves in all their beautiful and horrible glory. And I saw you as a boy – as a sad boy, amazed and confused and loving and amazed by all that.

In pursuit of this idea, Chase understands the illustrative value of an anecdote.

We were on the set shooting a scene with Stevie Van Zandt, and I think the set-up was that Tony had received news of the death of someone, and it was inconvenient for him. And it said, ‘Tony opens the refrigerator door, closes it and he starts to speak.’ And the cameras rolled, and you opened the refrigerator door, and you slammed it really hard — you slammed it hard enough that it came open again. And so then you slammed it again, then it came open again. You kept slamming it and slamming it and slamming it and slamming it and went apes*** on that refrigerator … And I remember telling you, ‘Did I tell you to destroy the refrigerator? Did it say anywhere in the script, “Tony destroys a refrigerator?” It says “Tony angrily shuts the refrigerator door.”That’s what it says. You destroyed the fridge.’
… … …

You tried and you tried, more than most of us, and harder than most of us, and sometimes you tried too hard. That refrigerator is one example. Sometimes, your efforts were at cost to you and others, but you tried.

Abridged version of the whole eulogy here. 

Undertakers feast on misery, situation normal

12 June 2013
Charles
8 Comments
Categories: celebrants, funeral cost, funeral directors

There’s a story in the Scottish Daily Mail, 7 June, that exemplifies very well the misinformation and scaremongering that are characteristic of media treatment of funerals in the UK. Here it is: 

LOCAL authorities and funeral directors are making money out of family misery, with ‘the cost of dying’ reaching thousands of pounds in Scotland, according to a trade union.

The GMB union said funeral charges would come as ‘a real shock to many in Scotland’.

Both Edinburgh and Glasgow councils charge about £2,000 for burials. Other councils are not far behind, with South Lanarkshire, East Dunbartonshire and Perth and Kinross all charging more than £1,500.

Even the cheaper option of cremation is almost £1,500 in Edinburgh and more than £1,000 in Glasgow, South Lanarkshire, Perth and Kinross, Aberdeen and Fife.

Total UK funeral costs average more than £7,000.

GMB Scotland secretary Harry Donaldson said: ‘ Someone is making a lot of money out of people’s bereavement. At a time when the cost of living occupies most peoples concerns, it will be a real shock to many in Scotland that the cost of dying is so high.

‘Few people have any idea of how much even a simple burial or cremation actually costs.’

Here come the facts:

The average established funeral home owner earns between £30,000–50,000 a year. Have I got that about right? 

The cost of cremation in Edinburgh is, actually, £594–675.

The £7,000 cost is the one put about by Sun Life to frighten people into buying financial products.  It bundles all sorts of extraneous stuff like probate. The cost of a cremation funeral is way under half of that (with the odd dishonourable exception). 

Burial charges are the bargain of all time. What’s the real cost of a grave once you’ve factored in maintenance and mowing for ever? £14 million, anyone? 

The funeral industry isn’t great at news management, too often finding itself in reactive mode. Some players let the side down badly, too. Co-operative Funeralcare is in the news again today for burying the wrong body — again. Some funeral celebrants let the side down  too. If you’ve a few mins to spare, watch this promo film by an outfit called the Fellowship of Independent Celebrants. It may have a regrettable whiff of ‘making money out of family misery’.