One of the challenges all ministers face is writing addresses for funerals. Many factors affect this, but it always seems especially tricky when the service takes place at a crematorium and time is very limited. One consolation in dear old Dibley was that slots were 45 minutes apart which gave you the full 25 minutes you were permitted for the service itself even if there a lot of people to get in and out. Here slots are 30 minutes apart and there is a tradition known locally as the 'penguin parade' (family greet those who have come) that can easily occupy 5-10 minutes if the funeral is large. So, allowing for time in and time out, two hymns and a couple of prayers, the tribute and the promise of hope have to be very sparse. Hence today I have been trying to describe a life in 750 words.
Makes you pause for thought - how would you sum up your own life in 750 words? Achievements? People? Characteristics? Faith? Facts? Feelings?
Sadly funerals seem to get shorter and shorter, increasingly the deceased doesn't even get to 'attend', and families often worry more about food and flowers than the rite of passage itself. We need to rediscover the catharsis of real mourning, the strengthening of being reminded of our hope in Christ... that cannot be neatly packaged into 20 minutes and 750 words by anyone.
Comments
All your experience of cutting finely nuanced academic arguments into inadequate word counts has finally met its real life application. 750 words is about 3 paragraphs isn't it?
I feel people do get much better support on the day itself by coming to the church and taking more time over the ceremony. But I know that doesn't resolve the dilemma for those without religious affiliation.
I've heard that some churches encourage their members to have a brief commital first, followed by a longer service of remembrance at church with no queues forming or clocks being watched. Obviously that's a different occasion wih a different liturgical rhythm. Have you experienced that format before?
Two other issues re funerals while I'm on the subject.
1. Our local crem is dispensing with its organists unless specially requested (and presumably paid for). Probably this is because most of the music requested these days is secular not churchy. But this means the staff operating the CD player are technicians rather than musicians, with all that entails. I've not had experience of this so far, but am not optimistic, given the added communication issues of passing on instructions via the funeral director as well (or leaving that aspect of the service up to them).
2. The Guardian last Saturday reported that the cost of funerals is spiralling, not because of the £35 per hour paid to funeral directors (which was deemed to to be very reasonable.
I'm not complaining about professional fees; my own funeral director colleagues do a very sensitive, responsible and caring job), but because of the vast increase in disbursements (!); for instance, the one quoted, church fees have apparently risen by 13% since 2007. The fact that, when you calculate this increase in real terms, it comes to about £29 is not commented upon (apparently less than the cost of an hour's work for the average funeral director). Indeed when I asked whether my own fee was too high, one local funeral director advised me it was too low and to increase it by another £25 - £30 next time (I decided not to, though this keeps my own hourly rate at about £10 per hour or less. Ministers tend not to think about slippery concepts like hourly rates).
I know that some colleagues don't charge a fee, but again haven't succeeded in discovering which and whether this saving is usually passed on to the client.
This may all sound like a bit of a gripe, but I'm actually very concerned, as the Guardian reported, that the high cost of funerals must be seriously affecting families on low incomes. But I have no means of assessing how those costs are incurred or how to ameliorate my own effect upon them.
Sorry, that's more of a post than a comment (definitely more than 750 words), but it's a genuine concern to be of real help to vulnerable people in the midst of changing social and cultural patterns.
Hi Andy,
The small committal followed by a memorial service is certainly gaining popularity (and was offered), but some commentators (notably Kim Fabricius) feel that this is to be regretted because it distances the reality of the death from most people. I currently favour, if possible, a fairly leisurely church service followed by a committal, but a lot of FDs-I-have-known don't like this much because it ties up their fleet for longer, reducing the number of funerals per day... I got quite good at saying 'oh but it's a big funeral' to gain an extra 15 minutes at church!!
On fees/payments/disbursements the thing to be alert to is the increasing number of pre-paid funerals which include a fee for church (if requested) and minister. If the church/minister don't take them the FDs rub their paws in glee. Thus, in the case in point, I have told the FD to make the minister cheque payable to the church since we wouldn't charge, and this is one of our folk anyway. Obviously not appropriate to blog about details.
Minister fees cited by this FD are less than half those is Leics for some unknown reason (Cof S cheaper than Cof E maybe?).
Anyway, I think it's salutary to contemplate what my life might look like in 750 words.