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There are 10 comments
Your Comments
sentiment said...
ahhhhhh LOVE IT! beautiful
james said...
Sure, that’s nice. Trusting of the handles, too. But suitcases and shopping bags we carry like this; what, aside from our young children, do we carry and lift high onto our shoulders? Our dear dead – that’s who.
So I’d counter this safe picture with my experience of the four sisters shouldering their youngest sibling’s coffin round the corner of Leckhampton church, staggering into the teeth of the January gale, high heels sinking into the turf, with half a dozen other family – old and young – each keeping a safe hand on the coffin, doubling up on the webbing until it was safely down in the ground. Even the minister’s voice was stifling sobs.
charles said...
Point taken, James. Very much.
Norfolk Nemesis said...
From a purely practical point of view I can think of several Churches where the nave isn’t wide enough to do this.
charles said...
I’m coming round — to a position of ambivalence. Thanks for that, NN. Great moniker.
Rupert Callender said...
There’s always a way, no matter how narrow the nave. Bit of fumbling, sure, but where’s there’s a will..
boom boom.
Kathryn Edwards said...
I’m with James on this. For some, the ordinary, shopping-bag-ness of the low-level carrying will feel exactly right, while for others, hoisting on high, for all the precariousness, is the only way. I recall being struck how strongly my brother felt that our father’s coffin should be shouldered.
It’s all part of the exploratory enquiry that must be our work: helping the bereaved to manifest, through gestures, the psychic environment that is right for them.
charles said...
I’m worried, Kathryn, that carrying a coffin should be seen by men to be a man thing – like driving the car and mowing the lawn and all those other bloke things. So of course I am correspondingly worried that women might feel it is their place to accede. I am speaking as a feminist here. I want to see women, children and the old doing their bit, and I want it to be possible for them — to feel the weight, not just to reach up and touch. Inclusiveness is the thing — and James seems to demonstrate that that may be barmily, precariously possible. Too perilous? I just don’t know…
Maggie said...
Everyone has a different opinion on this (I personally prefer shoulder-high carrying) – but surely, the only opinion that really matters is that of the bereaved.
Charles Cowling said...
Of course, Maggie. Absolutely. And they must listen to each other and be sensitive to each other’s needs. There is a role for FDs here in exploring this with them.
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