The afterglow of the Good Funeral Awards
The verdict? It was a good day out! The partying vicars above certainly looked like they were enjoying themselves. There are likely to be a lot of local news stories appearing round the country as the winners of a Good Funeral Award 2016 celebrate their recognition by their peers, and Christopher Hooton from The Independent […]
What the hell?
“Belief in life after death is as common in Britain as it was 30 years ago in spite of a sharp decline in church attendance” according to researchers at the University of Leicester. The story is in today’s Times. The stats in the Leicester report don’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, probably; not if […]
The stalemate of funeral choice
Posted by Richard Rawlinson Cherishing freedom of speech we often quote the line, ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’. So democrats proselytise in order to influence others, and sometimes those influenced leave one tribe and join another. A far cry from relativism, the message […]
Funerals, who needs em?
When England first played Scotland, on 30 November 1872, both teams employed formations that would raise eyebrows today. Scotland went for a cautious 2-2-6 while England employed a more swashbuckling 1-1-8. The game was all kick-and-rush in those days. Kick-and-rush. It’s how businesses, anxious to futureproof themselves, respond to prophecy. Some bright spark peers into […]
Who is mimicking who?
Posted by Richard Rawlinson Two seasonal events coming up: the Nine Lessons and Carols is a traditional Christmas Eve ceremony, the most famous and widely broadcast being the service from King’s College, Cambridge; and Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, is showing for 10 nights in December at London’s Bloomsbury Theatre. A rationalist celebration of […]
What would you like to see on your TV?
When media people phone the press office here at the GFG-Batesville Shard, their requests for information often conform to whatever they suppose to be trending. “We’re doing something on living funerals. Are these catching on?” “No.” “We’re doing a documentary about the dying process and we want to film someone actually dying. Can you help […]
Modern grief 2 — To shirk suffering is also to shirk those who suffer
Posted by Charles Over at the Heart of Mopsus blog, here, the Rector of Swanvale Halt took part in an Easter Friday Walk of Witness and reflected as follows: Christians insist on publicly remembering a single, immensely violent event on a sunny Bank Holiday when everyone else is enjoying themselves; certainly most of my friends, […]
Publishing event of the year!
The Natural Death Handbook, Fifth Edition A thoroughly updated and revised edition of the Natural Death Centre‘s celebrated handbook. Now presented alongside a new collection of essays on death, dying and funeral practices by doctors, historians, authors, poets, theologians and artists including Richard Barnett, David Jay Brown, Dr Sheila Cassidy, Charles Cowling, Bill Drummond, Stephen Grasso, […]
Unrecognised rituals
Posted by Gloria Mundi There’s been some very interesting stuff recently about the importance of ritual, and how we need to develop more ritual forms for secular funerals. Vide, for example, The extra-rational power of ritual I find it difficult to draw a line between “ritual” and “ceremony,” and maybe there is no satisfyingly sharp […]
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 […]
