Death Matters
I don’t know if you ever wander over to Death Matters. It’s a descriptive title for a website and blog which is trying to awaken in a death-denying people a full and informative awareness of their mortality – in order that they may live better and remember better. It’s a one-person enterprise. We don’t know […]
Carla: last post
If you haven’t got to know Carla yet, go to her blog. It is one of the most extraordinary documents you will ever read. The last post has just been published. It is the eulogy Carla’s son Maclen delivered at her memorial. Find it here.
The difference between you and it
I think we’ve all done some good hard thinking, over the last few months, about the value and role of the dead body at a funeral. The discussion of this, and other matters, has elicited some extremely interesting ideas and some statements which, to my eyes, look likely to become axioms. I’m thinking of Gloria […]
Maggie Brinklow on what makes a good funeral
Everyone agrees that choice in funeral arrangements is a good thing. Even the UK’s most Jurassic undertakers are nodding their heads fervently on this one. They’ve come round at last (sort of). It’s the mantra in Funeralland: Personalisation x 3 (I can’t be bothered to type it). There’s money in it, of course. Because personalisation […]
Coherence vs incoherence
More resonances with Rupert Callender’s post in the latest Chester diocesan newsletter. In it, Bishop Peter Forster talks about funerals: I have been thinking recently about funerals – not my own, particularly, although having just obtained my bus pass (and other welcome perks) in idle moments that has crossed my thoughts. My mind has been […]
Formality vs informality
Here’s an interesting blog post from a US preacher called Dave. Well, judge for yourself from these extracts. There is much in what he says which resonates with what Rupert Callender wrote yesterday. This past Saturday I had the privilege of conducting a funeral service for a 21-year-old who died the week before in a motorcycle accident. […]
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 […]
Country Goth funeral songs
Over at My Last Song Paul Hensby is looking for Goth and Country songs fit for a funeral. I’m in no position to help him out. I like my wireless to utter spoken, not sung, words. I had to confess to Paul that I can’t actually think of a single song I want played at my […]
That’s the spirit!
Moses A. Dow (1810-1886) founded Waverley Magazine in Boston in 1850. The magazine catered to amateur authors and reached a circulation of 50,000 copies before the Civil War. It continued to appear until 1908. Dow published the works of schoolgirls and other young writers; by one account he would print nearly anything that was offered […]
Who are they, what do they want?
My website has been, I don’t know, hosted, is it? by WordPress for the last month. Instead of Google Analytics to tell me who comes and what they come for, I now have WordPress stats. In some ways they aren’t so good. I can no longer see where in the world my visitors come from. […]
