If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?
Steve Jobs Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is […]
Gail Rubin’s 30 funerals in 30 days challenge 2011
Over in the United States the indefatigable and brilliant blogger Gail Rubin has already embarked on her 30 funerals in 30 day challenge. Yes, she is going to cover one day for a month, and today is actually Day Six, so you’ve got some catching up to do. Don’t miss Day Five, when she visited […]
Dying Large
Very nice piece here by Wendy Dennis in the Huffington Post. I must have crossed some kind of age threshold, because when I go to funerals lately, I start thinking about my own. It’s not the dying part that scares me. It’s the numbers I’ll draw for the service. I’m in the sanctuary and the […]
Archbishop Hannan’s funeral
Nearly 200 priests of the Archdiocese of New Orleans squeezed into a seminary chapel Monday and chanted ancient Christian prayers of penance and confidence in the afterlife around the body of Archbishop Philip Hannan. The prayer service at Notre Dame Seminary marked the formal beginning of four days of funeral rites for Hannan, 98, who died last week, […]
Square Pegs in Round Holes
Posted by Charles Love him or hate him, Barry Albin-Dyer is Britain’s only celebrity undertaker. Love it or hate it, he’s written another book. It’s called Square Pegs in Round Holes. It’ll appeal to fellow undertakers up and down the country because it promises to reveal the secrets of his enviable business success. But […]
The Surprising Satisfactions of a Home Funeral
Posted by Vale “So a few weeks before Bob died, my 15-year-old son, Harper, and I made a coffin out of plywood and deck screws from Home Depot…We routed rabbet joints for a tight construction. “I guess we wouldn’t want him falling out the bottom,” Harper said. “That would reflect poorly on our carpentry skills,” […]
Funeral potatoes
Posted by Charles A great recipe here for all bereaved people wondering what to serve at the do afterwards. Undertakers, celebrants and other funeral industry professionals might like to serve this (with a dark chuckle) at supper parties. Funeral potatoes Serves 8 to 10 You’ll need one 30-ounce bag of frozen shredded (not cubed) hash […]
Where the tree falls, the forest rises
From The Rising, by Wendell Berry There is a grave, too, in each survivor. By it, the dead one lives. He enters us, a broken blade, sharp, clear as a lens or mirror. Like a wound, grief receives him. Like graves, we heal over, and yet keep as part of ourselves the severe gift. By […]
My way or the highway
Posted by Richard Rawlinson, religious correspondent The was once a funeral sermon by a US Catholic priest in which he berates those members of the congregation who are only in church because it’s a loved one’s funeral, but whose own souls are in mortal danger after skipping Mass on a regular basis. Some might be […]
An Alaskan funeral
Writing in the Anchorage Daily News, writer Michael Carey gives this account of an Alaskan funeral. The mourners included half a dozen men scattered throughout the church who looked as if they were on work release: leathers, tattoos, unkempt hair and beards, the aura of hard living, men never domesticated by women. They were in […]
