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.