Priests and secular celebrants
By Richard Rawlinson Today’s elderly, even when not religious, are more likely to choose a funeral conducted by a priest (pastor/vicar depending on denomination) than a secular celebrant. Given the choice between a person in a robe or business suit, they opt for the former. Their decision seems as natural to them as taking the […]
Funerals are for…
Four comments here from this article in yesterday’s Guardian. Organising the funeral for my 17 year old son, who died in an accident overseas in Sept 2008, was made vastly easier by the wonderfully kind funeral director and an equally wonderful C of E Canon – a Canon whose first words on meeting us were […]
Are you a lightning rod?
The last time I directed you to the Hearth of Mopsus blog you were mostly pretty beastly about the writer, a clerk in holy orders who has the cure of souls in Swanvale Halt. Here’s what you said. He’s actually a bit of a sweetie, and if you like reading clerics’ diaries (I do), then […]
The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away
Here’s an extract from the blog of a religious minister (clerk in holy orders, he terms himself). I like his rigour. Very bracing. You wouldn’t expect me to enjoy humanist funeral services very much. Perhaps ‘enjoyment’ isn’t the right word for funerals anyway, but you know what I mean. I’ve been to a couple and […]
Farewell, Tana
I have just learned from Tony Piper, a man of much heart and inellect, the news that Tana Wollen is stepping down from head of ceremonies at the British Humanist Association. Tana, too, is a person of much heart and intellect and she’s been a good friend of the GFG. We’re going to miss her. […]
Claire’s last word
Everyone looks at other people differently according to what they do. Hairdressers scan your hair, dentists your teeth, snobs your shoes… Undertakers? Why, they measure you for your coffin of course. Surveying a funeral, the preoccupations of an undertaker are quite different from those of anybody else. Ordinary folk take in the procession, the flowers, […]
Helpers fail, comforts flee
I enjoyed this piece by David Nobbs, creator of Reginald Perrin, in yesterday’s Observer. Here are some extracts. My mother died on 7 August 1995. I didn’t realise, that day, my life had changed … My mother died, as she had lived, unselfishly. After she’d died, my wife Susan and I were just in time […]
Practicalities and suicide pacts
Here’s a highly recommended post over at the Exit blog: Heartache of a death not shared — a helium suicide fails. It discusses this story as reported by the Times: Early one morning in September, William Stanton heard footsteps coming up the stairs of his cottage in Somerset. He knew who it was and panicked. […]
One man’s date with death
You saw the news that Christopher Hitchens has cancer? I suppose we all wonder how we would feel and conduct ourselves were the news to be broken to us, so there is something compelling about listening to and observing someone else for whom the dread summons has come. Here are some extracts from what Hitchens […]
Guest post by Rupert Callender, undertaker
Looking after someone who is dying can be a disempowering experience. You can find yourself always being sidelined and denied participation by people who know better. Disconnected. When someone dies, however, you assume complete control. In spite of this, most funerals are conspicuously unjoined-up. Because people outsource the lot – the paperwork, care of the […]
