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“I cannot stress this enough. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being interested in mortality and death. Don’t let anyone ever tell you you are “sick” or “morbid” or “deviant.” It is patently untrue. Death is where every single one of us will end up. To feign disinterest in such a fundamental thing is denial, plain and simple. Read everything you can about buy cialis pharmacy death. Read the philosophers, read the scientists. Figure out what you (not your culture or your religion) believe happens to a body after death and what rituals make sense to you. In this case, ignorance is not bliss. With death, ignorance is fear.”

From ‘On the Fear of Death’ by  Caitlin Doughty. Read it all; it’s brilliant — here.

Proof positive that most Twitter users need to get a life is evidenced by the present fad for tweeting rumours of celeb deaths.

When, last December, Jon Bon Jovi became aware that the twittersphere was chirruping news of his death he posted a link on @BonJovi to a TwitPic. The photo showed him smiling and holding up a sheet of paper on which he had written: “Heaven looks a lot like New Jersey.”

WHITNEY HOUSTON Funeral Home

Denies Leaking Casket Photo

Headline in numerous newspapers following the publication by the National Enquirer of an unauthorised photo of Whitney Houston in her casket. 

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

Two topics that have inspired lively debate here recently are ritual and business. Comments about the latter reveal many civil funeral celebrants feel their service is undervalued in monetary terms. The going rate, between £120 and £180 a funeral, is deemed inadequate as a business model. This fee, which is unregulated but loosely set to be competitive when compared with clergy fees, makes professional life challenging. It’s a case of market forces squeezing profit margins.

Many in other sectors will sympathise with this scenario. Farmers are often forced to sell their produce to supermarkets at a price that scarcely covers their costs just so the supermarkets can undercut their retail rivals when selling it on to us, the bargain-hungry consumer. Farmers in turn have appealed to the state for subsidies, and diversified in order to make ends meet. Some have cut out the middle man by opening farm shops, charging a premium because their produce is local, fresh, exclusive and any other added value benefits they can attribute to it.

The state of the civil funeral celebrant’s bank balance might also be usefully compared to that of self-employed people in creative fields: the young actor whose sporadic castings don’t equate to a salary and so works in a restaurant as well; the painter who reluctantly sheds his principles to take on more lucrative, commercial work. In the media, I also come across distinct types of freelance journalist: those who churn out copy conveyor belt-style in order to make a living; those who carefully craft just a couple of features a month for personal satisfaction but who are supported financially by partner or private income; those who are so in demand they can command a substantial sum for a weekly column that takes up little of their time.

If regulation or state subsidy are not on the cards, and laissez faire economic forces have perceived injustices, what can celebrants do to improve their lot? If they want to commit themselves full-time to their career vocation, they need to charge more. One commentator in a recent thread estimated it would ‘have to be at least £250, which would mean £25k a year before tax at two funerals a week’.

This might be unfeasible without ongoing marketing drives that convince both public and funeral directors, who are positioned to influence the public in their broader funeral arrangements, of the value of good celebrants: how they spend time with families collaborating on a bespoke service, the enduring, positive results of which justify the premium cost.

The caveat to such marketing is the service can be detailed or simple depending on individual taste. Personalisation is itself a luxury but it can be ether embellished or plain, just as a party planner can organise a champagne reception or barbecue; an interior designer, a bling or rustic home.

Opinion-forming marketing campaigns, like party political campaigns before general elections, either win favour on merit or by digs at the competition or establishment status quo. ‘The clergy are usually phone-only merchants,’ said one commentator. ‘Funeral directors don’t think out of the box and we don’t get a fraction of their fee, or even the cash paid to florists and memorial masons’, said another. These gripes are natural and fine in private, but are perhaps best avoided in broader debate. While civil servants such as nurses win public sympathy when they demand recognition, it’s harder for many other worthy professions to do likewise. Resting actor? On your bike. Overworked priest on subsistence pay who serves the communities of three parish churches instead just one? Little sympathy here, I suspect.

Finally, perhaps ritual, or at least a more formulaic structure, can make funeral planning less time-consuming, and without necessarily taking away valued personalisation. But is there demand for a doubling of funerals even if time on each was saved? Ritualised structure might be a step too far for some, akin to the aforementioned conveyor belt journalist, the sell-out artist, or indeed the clergy with their liturgy. As one commentator said: ‘There’s rather more to a non-religious celebrant’s job than reading a set text from a book and inserting a name here and there’.

“I’ve always thought death would be like dreaming, but without the possibility of waking up. And in those dreams, as in our dreams in life, everyone will get what they want to some degree. For the atheists convinced everything will go blank, maybe it will.”

Rogue scientist Rupert Sheldrake, author of The Science Delusion. 

As of tomorrow, Tuesday, the good ship GFG is going to acquire a Marie Celeste ambience. Its bloggertariat, the opinionated and infuriating Charles, and his fellow scribbler, the judicious and even-handed Vale, are escaping for a few days.

There will be a deathly hush in the blog — maybe the occasional curt utterance, nothing more. 

As you may imagine, it takes a good deal of energy to keep things going day after day. What’s more, Vale and I seek no monopoly on opinionation. If you would like to have your say on this blog, please feel that it’s your space, too. We are always delighted to play host and hand the stage to others. Write down your thoughts and send them to us. If you wish to adopt a cyber-moniker, that’s fine. If you want to keep your personal views separate from your professional practice, that’s sensible. 

Normal service will be resumed DV.

It was interesting to follow the unfolding debate amongst funeral directors and celebrants in response the blog post ‘C of E raises funeral fee to £160’ here.

If you are one or the other, have you paused to wonder what on Earth any consumer would have made of it? 

Yes, look at it from that point of view. 

What is the impact of this description of a celebrant’s fee: “Just a quick slab of cash into the back pocket”? 

What is the impact of: “Sadly I do not believe anyone I see taking funeral services is providing a good or fair service to the bereaved families I serve“?

What about the woman celebrant doing up to ten funerals a week when other celebrants say they wouldn’t dream of doing more than two? Is she a greedy guts just in it for the money? How many funerals is too many? How can those doing just two a week, and spending all that time, possibly make it financially worth their while? Why can’t they be paid what they’re worth? 

The debate revealed that, far from adopting a collaborative, joined-up approach to the creation of what is, for the consumer, the most important part of the process, the funeral itself, funeral directors and celebrants (religious and secular) seem to come from different worlds, a proportion of each from Hell. 

What does this say about the value of the funeral as an event?

Why do funeral directors not embed celebrants and pay them properly? This was one of the best, most constructive contributions to the debate.

What emerged from the exchanges was a deeply depressing spectacle of dysfunction and unpleasantness. 

Go figure. 

From time to time the cry goes up, sometimes from the public, sometimes from funeral directors themselves, that it’s time to regulate the funeral industry.

Here at the GFG we’re against it. We defend the principle that the dead belong to their own, not to a bunch of professionalised specialists. We’re open minded about most things, but on this one our minds are made up.

The perils of professionalisation are best exemplified in the United States, where ‘morticians’ must attend college and learn the mysteries of embalming by practising on indigents. In addition to acquiring a sense of themselves quite out of proportion to the work they do, they also work hard together to stifle consumer rights and keep prices high. Every state has its own funeral board. The example of Oklahoma is typically instructive:

The mission of the Oklahoma Funeral Board  is to act in the public interest, for the public protection and advancement of the profession within the police powers vested in the Board by the Legislature of the State of Oklahoma, entirely without appropriated funds. The Board shall serve an informational resource on funeral service to the general public and members of the funeral profession.

Lovely, you think, til you read the next sentence:

The Board consists of seven members appointed by the Governor. Five of the members must be actively engaged in funeral directing and embalming in this state for not less than seven consecutive years immediately prior to appointment. Two members of the Board are chosen from the general public, one of which shall be a person licensed and actively engaged in the health care field.

Yup, five out of the seven people guarding the flock are wolves.

Here in the UK the only similar example of disproportionate industry representation is the All Party Parliamentary Group for funerals and bereavement. This is essentially a group funded by the NAFD which lobbies parliament on behalf of the industry. We have made two requests to Lorely Burt MP, the chair, for consumer representation on the APPG. On the last occasion (30.11.2011)   she replied: That is very remiss of me: will chase and come back asap. Thank you for reminding me.  We’re still waiting. We note that, in tackling the Social Fund Funeral Payment mess, the APPG’s work is likely to benefit consumers.

In Minnesota an enterprising funeral director, Verlin Stoll, wants to roll out funerals costing around one third of what most Minnesotans pay an old school funeral home. Cut-price funerals is also a live issue just now in the UK, of course, where recessionary pressures, an oversupply of undertakers, a falling death rate and a growing disillusionment with the emotional and spiritual value of a funeral have sparked a ‘race to the bottom’ — not an open and raging price war, but a price war all the same. Trad funeral directors deplore this. They even write to some funeral homes who publish price comparisons warning them darkly in a form of legalese not to do so. Consumers and fair-priced funeral homes are the beneficiaries. 

Back to the good Mr Stoll. He wants to open a second funeral home but, to do so, he must meet the state’s legal requirement to fit it out with an embalming facility at a cost of around $30,000. He has no intention of using it — he’s already got one. So the Institute for Justice is going to fight his case and seek to get the regulation overturned. The exec director of the Minnesota Funeral Directors Association thinks that this  “tears away the regulatory structure we’ve put in place to protect consumers.”

Did he say that with a straight face?

On its website, the MFDA commits itself to:

♦ Advancing the value of funeral service consistent with the changing needs of society
♦ Advocacy on behalf of consumers and members
♦ Visionary leadership – trust and confidence in staff and volunteer leadership
♦ Promotion of integrity; honest and ethical behavior within the funeral industry
♦ Collaboration with others in the interest of consumers and members
♦ Recognize the importance of education as a vehicle to enhance both public service and public image

To those who campaign for regulation in the UK we say: better the mess we’re in.

Last year the Institute for Justice defended the right of Benedictine monks in Louisiana to sell caskets direct to the public. The YouTube clip below may amuse and infuriate you.

More on the Minnesota nonsense here. More of the Oklahoma Funeral Board here. More about the APPG here. 

There will be exactly two schools of thought about this poem:

The Funeral Director

by Jerry J. Brown

Listens, hears and understands…
Communicates softly, a tear, a touch, a smile…
Senses the shock and knows the numbness of disbelief and denial…

Understands the intimacy of death, and quietly
responds to each mood and moment…

Knows the many faces of grief and helps
family members understand them…

Walks with families through the corridors of
confusion and despair onto the pathway of
acceptance and serenity…

And through education, experience and
personal compassion, is the most
dedicated to helping people during
this time of pain and sorrow.

Thus, with gentle strength and deep sensitivity
the Funeral Director serves our society.

“Never leave one of the deceased in a room without a light on – it’s undignified.”

 Rachel Edwards, funeral arranger, here.