Equal Blessings, Differently Distributed

This post is, for me, some of my own medicine - and one that I have wanted to write for some time. I have written some grumpy posts recently, mostly compelling people to stop being grumpy. 

From time to time, in among so many people with whom I have a fairly close contact, I become party to the lives of those who may be regarded as having specific difficulties; those people we who regard ourselves as able-bodied and 'normal' feel inclined to feel sympathy for. I am often touching a life lived as I collate memories and meanings so that a meagre token of esteem at a funeral can be compiled. 

It seems to me, having made this small collation so often that we are all equally blessed in this life. The simple fact is that for some, that blessing is differently distributed. 

I have two examples that emerge first in my mind - two people who suffered with Down's Syndrome. In each case they lived beyond their expected years, although they left this world far too soon. I compare them with some who lives I reflected upon who were otherwise unfettered by such a condition and wound on well beyond the four-score years and ten. Both the people to whom I refer, each with a condition that today would be cause to question the progression of a pregnancy, lived a life that I can only dream of and envy. 

Both these wonderful people were loved, and gave more love in return. Both visited the four corners of the world and enjoyed experiences which I can only aspire to. Both knew joy, felt happiness more often than not, and knew the real meaning of living well. No, their blessing was not raise families of their own. In one case, their blessing was not to be able to do some of the mundane things I take for granted like using a tin-opener or drive a car. Their blessing wasn't in high grade qualification or a career offering such status and wealth as would be the joy of many. None of those things was their blessing. Their blessing was in living a life so richly, joyfully, open-mindedly and unreservedly, that the Testimony to their years would need to be as long as the years lived to cover all the experiences. 

I saw the picture I have used here somewhere else. Her face and her smile lights me up. I am guessing she is about 18 months old, possibly 2 years. Yes, she will need help with many things and many others will be beyond her. But I am sure that when the chips are down, the world that mourns her eventual passing will feel more pain than any who will mourn mine or the Chief Executives of some of our greatest corporations because this face seems to me a brighter light. The smile you see at the top of this page is her blessing. It will mirror her heart and she will (and already will be) radiating such light and warmth that we have to question whether some people are sent directly from Heaven. 

My experience of Death

What is manifestly the case is that I am not dead (though readers of this blog may have the right to question that assertion). Through my work as a priest I am granted an almost unique place in the moment of the bereaved relatives' lives who have only just lost loved ones, or in the last moments of life for those who have gone before us. It is part of my job to listen as they describe the last moments, and part of my duty, as I see it, is to know how the 'end' was for the one now gone.

These encounters now number many dozen (and in many circumstances and under the auspices of many 'causes'), so I feel qualified to write this, and also in a position to make some observations about some of the frequent consistencies in the accounts that I hear. I place them here because these accounts, in their overwhelming similarity, are interesting - and I think that these words may even give comfort in future times.

1. Seeing the dead - now this may seem like an account taken from a film, but I am struck how often those who  are within hours of their own death seem to see, hear and communicate with long-dead relatives (at times, the 'other' is presumed, and in other cases, conversations between the person dying with "mother" etc are overheard). Very often, this is 'end of the bed' encounters where the dying person engages with those in proximity when the room seems otherwise empty. I am convinced that people do not pass into death alone, and it is through this particular phenomenon that I find my 'evidence'.

2. Choosing - I have listened to the stories of many deaths and a common thread seems to me that we choose when we go, even when we seem beyond consciousness. Accounts of people dying in the scarce moments when loved-ones leave the bedside; accounts of people finishing unfinished business with relatives - these and so many more tell me that whilst we may not choose the year or the month, we can choose the hour and the day. An aspect of this that surprised me was the need that some have had for specific permission to die. I have known people live out of duty when their bodies are struggling on, and in cases where death is the best outcome, not more life. I have had to 'grant permission' on a number of occasions, enabling that person to go with a sense that they are not being a nuisance or failing even. 

3. Being alone - in addition to the above, the overwhelming majority of those who have died have done so when they were alone (and in some cases when vigils of many days length is suspended for a quick visit for the loo or to get food). This often causes great anxiety for relatives who chastise themselves for abandoning someone at precisely the wrong moment. 

4. Peace - I have sat and listened to many people who are confronting their own imminent death. In most cases, a fear of the transition from life to death has been a source of fear and anxiety, with the inevitable questions about what may follow life. Even in cases where this has been most acute and the fears most pronounced, I have noticed that a sense of calm and peace descend upon those who are drawing to their end, before they lose consciousness. In short, the vast majority of the recently departed found a sense that 'everything will be alright' before their end.

These observations are from my own perspective, based on accounts of many families. I accept, freely, that there are many painful, difficult and tortuous deaths, and that I have been fortunate not to have witnessed or ministered to such situations. However, I also believe that the moment of death is, on the whole, gentle. I offer this for those who may be confronting their own death or that of someone close. 

An Eye for An Eye?

I was walking with my wife this morning, visiting a couple of shops when we happened past a news stand. One newspaper was emblazoned with the blood-covered face of a man whose eyes told the reader exactly what was to befall him. Another paper was emblazoned with his lifeless corpse. Those papers were two feet from the ground, being pondered by a passing child who was trying to fathom what the pictures meant.

Needless to say, the man in the pictures was one Mr. Gadaffi, the now dead former dictator of  Libya.

I am not a man given to fits of naivety or idealism, so I recognise that the man in those pictures was murderer, a slayer of children, a destroyer of families and a tyrant. He deserved justice in the face of the world and was answerable for the deaths of so many people around our world, including those who perished on our own shores.

Except that he didn't face justice.

The events of the last few months seem to me to have made killers of ordinary men (and women?). Plumbers and accountants have taken up arms (supplied by the enlightened West) and killed other people. It seems (even if the truth is not this simplistic) that we in the enlightened West let ordinary people do our dirty work for us while we stood on the sidelines and taunted (and threw a few jet fighters in for good measure). That is how it seems.

The newspapers that I saw this morning, and that were seen by a small child, tell us much about our own deepest instincts. We see injustice and we seek blood. We are delighting in a murder, an execution without hearing. That the man who was killed yesterday didn't' afford his victims that right does not mean that we are free of the responsibility to ensure that justice is done in a civilised way, that even Saddam Hussein received. Actually, it could easily be argued that Gaddafi got off lightly in his drain pipe. 

But I wonder what that child learned this morning? Why was that man covered in blood? Why is he dead? What happened? The man did wrong, very wrong and very often, so we let him get killed. We in the West, with our law and our justice systems, we stood back and let one more man die - we became bystanders in an act of murder.

And then we sold our newspapers with the money shot of his corpse.

I don't feel very civilised at all this morning. 

Blind Faith Can Kill You

As I half-watched the news the other evening, a piece caught my attention that woke me up and gave me cause to become angry. That news story can be found here. 

I am a priest, and as a priest I believe in a God who is made known in the created order, the miraculous and the unexpected. My eyes are open and so is my mind, but neither am I foolish about it. As part of this I believe in a God who pours his healing spirit into those in great need, and I am willing to believe that there are cases of cure from disease that are directly from God. The definition if miracles, however, is that they are not daily occurrences.

Someone very close to me has an expression: God will provide, but you have to do your own hustling. Put another way, God's healing spirit is poured into us by the gifts and skills of other humans more often than not - the talents of the pharmacologists, the vocation and gifts of those in the caring and medical professions, and sometimes simple time and faith by all concerned. I do not, in any way shape or form, believe in a God who, when some barmy cleric directs him, kills all known germs dead.  Were this the God we were talking about, we would surely be living in a utopia where babies do not die of cancer at two years old and wars never happen. 

Faith is the heart of all that Christians do. We proceed in faith through our every journey of life - be they good or the worst of journeys. What angers me is when a barmy cleric tells those whose faith is at breaking point in the context of a life limiting disease that God will reach down from a cloud and cure them. What that barmy cleric is saying is, with breathtaking arrogance, that he can cure people (perhaps he is his messiah). Then those poor people have died of the disease, and one barmy cleric has caused them to regard God as failed. 

To me this is the worst of spiritual abuse. Strong words yes, but when you tell a dying person to say a prayer, or to cavort with the signs of the Spirit, that they will not be dying - that actually, so much will they be healed that they can stop taking their tablets - that is the worst of abuses. People look to clerics for support and whether we like it or not, and whether we ourselves believe what we say or not - many people take our words as absolute. 

I pray for those who have succumbed to their symptoms because a cleric told them to stop taking medication. I pray for their families who are left to wonder where the lie or failure lay. I pray for the barmy cleric who is so devastatingly wrong that he is killing people with their love and with their faith. 

Children and Theological Whittling

The difficult events of the last twenty-four hours (and no, I am not referring to last night's PCC meeting, which was good) have left a pall of awkwardness over la Famille d'Aculaire. Me and the missus are feeling sad, and the very visible grief response from the girls is now turning into something altogether more tricky. 

As a priest, some would call me a theologian. Certainly, it was the excuse I used for being rubbish at practical things like decorating, but as for the truth of the matter, the jury is still out. 

Then the loss of the Blessed Stimpy (the Vatican beatified her this morning) precipitated the questions that children ask. They are the questions are that, without any doubt, are deeper than any I have seen or read or have been asked by any adult. They are the questions that expose me not as a theologian, but as something of a fraudulent, clumsy heretic. 

Daddy, how did Stimpy go to Heaven? Did she have to go in a plane?

No love, God took that special part of her that made her Stimpy and took it and is looking after it 

What does it look like?

You can't see it, but you know it is there. It's a bit like the wind, sweetheart. You can't see it but you know it there because the leaves move about. 

Will Stimpy see Dante (our old bunny) in Heaven?

I am not sure. What do you think? I think that they will be playing together with Charlie (Mavis's dog who died a year ago). I hope so too. 

But who will feed Stimpy in Heaven?

Stimpy won't need food like we need food, because she won't be hungry - just really happy all of the time. 

Why did Stimpy have to die?

We all have to die, baby. It is part of being alive, and in the end we go to Heaven.  

Will I see Stimpy when I go to Heaven?

Of course. I think she might be waiting for you like she does when you come home from school. 

...and so it goes. This happens in schools too (the 'what you mean that God calls you to be a Vicar?' type of questions). They are deep and insightful questions, whose answers are important and will be meaningful to those who ask them. It also tells me more about the quality of spirituality that children have - and to be honest, it is breathtakingly deep. It also presses in me the niggling suspicion that we as adults do not receive the spirituality and implicit theology of children half as much as we should. I would go so far as to say that in an ideal world, it should not be the priest or minister who preaches, but a young child who is given the chance to say what they think. How much more would we learn as disciples. 

It is not that adults are incapable of asking those sort of questions - more that they have lost the ability to express themselves so purely and wonderfully (and fearfully at times).

One Less Innovator

It is with considerable sadness that I learned of the death of Steve Jobs, the former head of Apple - and the mind behind iPods, iPhones, iPads and other things.

It is fair to say that the world didn't need any of them, but sometimes the work of a true inventor is a joy to behold. A company that didn't make phones stole an entire market from those that did. He invented a breed of computer that no-one thought they needed and now can't live without. How rarely do we see a person, a leader, a dreamer, such as this. 

For me, my own lifestyle owes much to this man. For over a decade I have held one of his products close to me. Yes, just gadgets, but gadgets that add to my personal experience of life - by adding music that I love so much, imagery, and so much else. 

Yes, people starve and people die at the hands of others - and so this man's products are essentially toys for people with money, but that doesn't diminish his impact on so many of us who use his ideas to form our world in some small part.  I am not mourning the Godfather of the Gadget, but I am mourning am innovator, and any true innovator is a wonderful example of the God given potential that humankind has at its fingertips. One need only think of the King James Bible ...

May he rest in peace. It is fair to say he probably has an App for that too. 

Passed Unnoticed

Anyone familiar with prayers that I lead will attest to the fact that I invariably pray for those "who have died alone and unnoticed, un-mourned or whose faith is known to [God] alone". They are not my words, and I can't remember how I came by them, but it is an important sentiment to me, at least.

Throughout our lives we ponder our demise and wonder not so much what will happen but what our dispatch might be like. What will people say at my funeral? Will there be many there? What music should I have? 

...those sorts of things. 

I doubt that anyone ever thinks that when they die that they will lay undiscovered for weeks, and that when finally sent off from this world will be accompanied solely by a well-meaning priest and the funeral director. Sadly, one such person will leave this life in that way this week, with my role being the well-meaning priest. 

The person concerned lived a long life, will have done many things - some good and some bad. They may have had children and therefore breathed life into a new family that might yet be growing and thriving. They may have given pleasure through kindness to many people, by simple acts of goodness perhaps. They may have given all that they had to charity. They will have made human mistakes, some lesser and some greater. They will have had loves, favoured things. They will have thought myriad thoughts about many things. 

And I do not know about a single bit of any of it. I know his name, that's it. 

It is not un uncommon thing either. There is a lady who works for this Council (and there is one who will work for all other Councils) whose job is to arrange for someone to give a fitting funeral to people who apparently have no-one. My former neighbour was one such recipient of that service. Her family came forward far too late (just in time for the Will, it seems), and all we 'had' was our memories as next-door-neighbours. She died and lay undiscovered for far too long and died in the worst of circumstances - in pain and alone. 

So, this man who I never knew will have a simple funeral without music, without the lyrics of my normal eulogising.  In the end, it will be as if he was never there, and it seems to me such a tragedy. For this if nothing else I give thanks for my belief that God knows him and welcomes him home. For my part, he will get the best that I can possibly offer. 

Alternatives to Cremation

A little while ago, an issue emerged on a radio programme that I was listening to which caught me by surprise. Given that I play a fairly significant role in the very last moments of many peoples' mortal existence, I was astounded to discover that after burial and cremation, other alternatives for the disposal of mortal remains exist. I intend to examine this in more detail through this blog, perhaps even gaining some guest posts from some people who will know far more than me about the industries concerned, or about the implicit theologies. For now, I am writing from the perspective of instinctive response alone. 

In brief, the means of disposal for for human mortal remains (that I know about, so far) are:

1. Burial - the placing of mortal remains into the ground to be buried. Often in a container, this is the the means employed over the longest period of our history. For Christians, this action is surrounded by a ritual act, and is connected to the burial of Christ after his crucifixion, and provides a place for the family to visit and pay their respects to the deceased. Historically regarded as a sanitised way of disposing of a decomposing corpse, it removed the possibility in most cases of appropriation of the remains by animals and others. 

2. Cremation - the disposal of mortal remains by means of burning them in an oven (or on pyres in other traditions). The process of reducing the remains at high temperature to their component chemical compounds is regarded as the means of accelerating the process that takes far longer with burial. Again, Christians (and others) precede this action with ritual. The residue after cremation is a granular substance, often comprising the cremulated [crushed]  remains of significant bones and joints that were not fully broken down in the process of cremation. These remains are often strewn [sprinkled over ground] or interred [buried under ground].

3. Resomation - A very new process where the mortal remains are 'dissolved' in a water-alkali solution, leaving the whitened remains of the bone structure behind. A green-brown fluid is left behind which can be disposed of in similar ways to the 'ashes' of cremation. The bone residue can also become a focal part of a rite of dispersal. Also referred to as 'corpse composting'. 

4. Promession - This is a very new process (1999 patent) that sees the body frozen in liquid nitrogen to such a brittle state that it can be shattered into a damp powder. After certain materials are recycled (metals etc) the resulting power (30% of the pre-mortem volume) is then freeze dried and buried in a container. 

5. Compacting - This is a process where the body is compacted in a press (400 ton pressure), thus removing the water, and leaving behind a 'mantle-sized' residue for loved-ones to retain at home. There is no chemical alteration involved.

6. Memorial Diamonds - this involved taking carbon remains (post cremation) or a lock of hair and turning them into a certified diamond for jewellery use. 

These are what I have discovered so far. I have tried (and hopefully succeeded) in making this list free of my own opinions at this stage. It ought to be pointed out that only 1 and 2 are legal in Britain, though it is because the other processes are seeking legislation in their favour that I am examining this matter here. The means listed as alternatives claim their rationale in the sphere of environmental impact and its reduction, or otherwise the avoidance of putrefaction and the notion of 'rotting'. They seek to be cleaner in the various ways that the term 'clean' can be applied. 

It is possible that I will be asked to preside over a promession or resomation funeral, or asked my opinion. Yes, I have feelings on these, some strong - but I need to be informed of all the facts and indeed the theology implicit in these matters. This is not just about disposal, as Christians have a fairly complex arrangement of beliefs caught up in the transition from life to death. Indeed, there are theologians who will not consider cremation as a viable Christian alternative to burial, and for many Catholics, it is not an option. This is just an example of how the choices are  regarded. I would welcome opinion, education, and instinctive responses as well as informed responses to this, as I believe that it is a matter that faces us all, either as people who will want to be 'disposed of' at some point, or as ministers called upon to lead the process spiritually and theologically. 

Come Back!

I have just returned from officiating at the funeral of one of those rare diamonds - a man who caused no-one to utter an untruth at the service, someone who will be missed because he represented goodness, warmth and light for so many people.

Officiating at funerals, as a Christian, is an odd thing. In our own humanity, we feel the pain of the mourning friends and relatives. We have probably all lost a close family member too, but rightly, we have a job to do and we must do it.

There is a danger however in how we do our work. We can either underplay our part or overplay it - and either is wrong. As a Christian, I have a belief in the defeat of death by the life of Christ. I belief that death is not an ending, just a changing, a movement from one place to another. To many others, death is the end - irretrievably. Then there are the large numbers, the considerable majority, who exist in the middle of that continuum who just want their loved-one to simply come back!

If we underplay our hand, we commemorate the death, the one moment at the end of many countless moments. If we overplay our hand we forget it almost altogether. Somehow, we must celebrate the life, acknowledge its end, and give comfort in the hope of heaven. It's hard. It's hard because the people sat before me don't really want to be told that the person who has passed from their sight is at peace on a distant shore. It's hard because no-one wants to be there doing that thing at that time (except in some notable and tragic cases). It's hard because I bring hope, and wonderful as that is for me, it is not welcome, not today, not really - because none of it should have happened. It's hard because when I stand up before a gathering of bereaved people, I am the confirmation that the most terrible thing really did happen. Hope is a funny thing. It is great to think we all have hope, but hope seems such a hard thing to accept when your loved-one is gone and isn't coming back. Hope is hard when this is not a dream from which they will emerge. Hope is hard when the screaming agonised voice inside the widow stood before me is 'Come back!'

Soft Squidgy Bits

Some time has elapsed between the events that I am about to describe and this moment in time, so I can talk about them more comfortably. 

I might be a gob-on-a-stick here, but in truth I am a very private man who is incredibly private about private things, so this post will pain me. I have a clear purpose in writing it, however. 

Last new year, I did the whole 'resolution' thing. Eat less, drink less, pray more, take more time, enable more free time for Mrs Acular, devote more time to the Twins Aculae, and so on .... My other resolution was self-examination of an intimate nature, for health reasons.

Like a responsible adult male, I examined my testicles, but in a rather half-hearted sort of way - the way you look behind the sofa cushions hoping to find a tenner when you know you won't. Well, on my first flight, I discovered a lump on on my crown-jewels.

A funny set of things then happened, all automatically, all in quick succession. I didn't panic but I consigned the moment to my permanent memory. I recognised that this lump had the potential to be serious and maybe even life threatening. I felt a grief that there was the faintest chance that I might not see my babies grow into the beautiful women I expect them to. In that moment, I was again reassured I had married the right woman, was doing the work I was born to do, but that I really did need to sort out my will. I felt sad for me. I like being me, and I didn't want to stop being me. Being me has its ups and downs but it is fairly jolly in the end. I wondered how dying would feel and whether I would be any good at it. I knew in a moment that I must spare my wife the duty of compiling my funeral and that I must write my own. I was clear that the family would cope and that we have planned properly for such an eventuality, so that was ok! I was scared though. I was a little boy in those split seconds and I wanted my mum.  I was mortal and one way or the other, I would die.

Later tests revealed that it was a cyst, thank God. Oddly, I discovered at the same time that one of my kidneys is rather mashed up, but I didn't care really - not when I had my trews about my ankles and a kid of a sonographer playing with my knackers, things were already odd enough thanks. Anyway, the cyst remains and here I am a few months later aching with embarrassment that I am talking about my balls. 

The reason I have written this is that I must demand that all men reading this examine themselves next opportunity. Part of my own emotion at the time was that I feared that I had maybe missed the lump for months and that it might become terribly bad by then - the what-ifs. Gentlemen, you have my permission to go and fiddle with your rocks - go do it, and do it quickly - then again in a month and then again.

On Being Self-Centred

This post isn't going to take the direction you might think - and I know what you think because like all men, I can read minds (we have to, you know).

I had a pastoral encounter yesterday where a statement was made that all priests will have heard aplenty from good people who themselves are having a bad time of it:

"Anyway, I am being selfish; this is nothing compared to what some people have to deal with..."

I won't cite yesterday's example as the person concerned may well read this, but another recent example was as I sat beside a man as he lay dying. He had just been informed that his aggressive form cancer was in-operable, and all this a mere two weeks after he lost his life's love and wife of 50-odd years. He was afraid of what lay ahead of him, how the 'end' would be, whether in fact all this religious stuff could be trusted when the chips were down, how his heart broke anew every day for his best girl ... and so on. Then he paused and said that which I mentioned above - "...but anyway, I am just being selfish. There are people who have far more to deal with than I do".

I laughed gently and told him that a little self-centred thought was perfectly acceptable and normal, and that what he was facing and had faced was significant. I pointed out that we all have cross to bear, and for each of us it is heavy. This was his cross, and that it was ok to attend to it and not worry about the crosses that others bear, not that day anyway.

I think that it is a Christian disposition to fear and abhor being self-centred. Even in the gravely acute circumstances that my friend found himself in, he thought himself selfish to worry about it. It is a tendency that, when genuine (and not stated to affect a collusory response) is a sad thing and as a priest, I will make sure that people attend to their own crosses. I believe that God would support me in this. It is ok to bewail one's sad circumstances, to talk about it - and in fact, I think to avoid that is probably more damaging. After all, priests themselves are counselled to be self-centred as a professional 'best practice' when seeking spiritual-direction.

My friend died this weekend. May he rest in the peace of Christ.

What Can I Say II?

Parenthood brings many joys and many challenges. The former outweighs the latter in such measure that the challenges themselves become a privilege. 

One such challenge is questioning - the persistent type you would expect from a reasonably bright 3-yr old. I am not referring to the litany of 'whys' that pour down like so many raindrops during the course of day - no, this is serious stuff, life changing stuff - and I am not referring only to them and their lives!

Some time ago, in a period that now numbers in months, a much loved parishioner lost her much adored dog. The kids were scared of the dog, as seems to be their wont. It was a big labrador, old and doddery - though nonetheless a wonderful hound to have around. Sadly, the dog died but at the end of a long and apparently happy life. 

Without prompt some weeks after that event, one of my daughters asked me if Charlie was 'coming back alive'. I wasn't even aware that she knew that Charlie had died. I told her no, that when we die, we go somewhere else very special. 'Where has Charlie gone, daddy?'; 'doggy heaven darling'. Then the 'why' and the 'how'. Then the matter went quiet.

A month later, completely out of the blue: 'Is Charlie in heaven daddy?' 'Yes, baby, why?', I replied? 'Will he be on his own?' 'No, love, his friends will be there and he will probably be playing there now'. I explained that old and poorly dogs are more like young bouncy puppies when they go to heaven. 'Why did Charlie die?', she asked as she coloured in a penguin on her book. 'Charlie died because he was old and very tired, and so he needed to have a long rest'. 

The subject dropped again, as quickly as it arose - until this weekend. The same questions, without any sense of upset, though large measures of genuine concern, poured forth as I drove us around Yorkshire. 'Is Charlie sad, daddy?' she asked completely out of the blue. 'Why do ask that, love?' I followed. 'He will miss Mavis, won't he?' 'Yes, I think so, but he was very tired and old and his legs were poorly and he needed his rest, so he is feeling much better now'. 

This round ended simply: 'Charlie has a big juicy bone in heaven doesn't he?' 'The biggest bone he has ever seen', I replied.

Once again, a three-year-old hit my theology 'reset button'.

Now That's a Send-Off

I have just returned home from a most remarkable experience. I don't normally like to talk of the specific cases of my ministry, but this was something very special.

It was my honour to officiate over a West-Indian funeral, that the family arranged to the smallest detail. For a start, it has been a six-hour affair for me which already makes it unique in my modest experience.

Caribbean funerals are very different to 'standard' white English ceremony, partly because of what goes into the service but also the way that community recieves death.

The body was recieved tby the family this morning at their home, where they paid their final respects. The coffin was without its lid as that community seem at pains not to contain and shroud death. They seek to focus on the deceased, not their coffin. We processed the near mile to the church with a jazz band leading us and accompanying us along the way (similar to the image above); we will have crippled the traffic flow of Aylesbury for nearly 25 minutes, but no-one seemed to mind. The service itself was long by my own standards, lasting well over an hour and a half. The main difference is that the coffin is opened once again and that all the mourners (over three-hundred in this case) undertake the Viewing where they file past the deceased and pay respects to him and to his family who are close at hand. At the graveside, the usual words gave way to the family  filling the grave in themselves while the gathered throng sing Negro spirituals without pausing for breath. In short, the family do just about everything that can be done beyond the minister. Sons carried the coffin, daughters led the tributes, and so on.

This all took approaching six hours. It was six hours of time with a remarkable family who, within the context of their grief, celebrated a life lived well. Such was the outpouring of love for a self-styled simple man that for me it was overwhelming. We white English people tend to be so reserved at our funerals, wanting to be on our best behaviour for who knows who. I learned how to grieve today. I learned how readily hope can be snatched from the jaws of death. 

...Death, where is you sting? Death, where is your victory?

Not in Aylesbury, not this day! Rest in peace, Ken.