“It is costly to our society in general, quite beyond the church, not to observe the death of a person in a way that witnesses to the dignity of the person and the meaning of life and death.”    Thomas G Long   Source      

    Space burial is about sending a portion of cremation ashes into space, then releasing them so that they can orbit the Earth.  Up in Glasgow, Tom Walkinshaw is developing his own space burial programme. It’s ambitious stuff. He’s won an award from Glasgow Caledonian University and he has

  Very interesting photo-essay here about the ghats at Varanasi. Good text, too.  Sometimes poorer people cannot afford enough wood to completely burn a body. In this case charred body parts are simply flung into the river with the ashes. Certain people, such as small children, pregnant women and holy men,

    There’s an interesting piece in the New York Times here about the emotional difficulties doctors experience when working with people who are going to die. People often characterise doctors as cold and uncaring when, in fact, they may simply not be coping: We found that oncologists struggled to manage their