Funeral
AAAGGGGHHH!!! In a few days I will be officiating at my first funeral. I met the family at the hospice and spent a little time with them, and they asked if I would do the service. It's a very scary thing, since it's the first one I'm ever going to do, and it's just so official--with my name in the funeral announcement in the newspaper as the Reverend presiding (though I'm not a Reverend officially, so I had them list me as Chaplain). The family does not really have a church background, so it's going to be kind of a generic "God" service just meant to remember the woman and give thanks for her life.
So please be praying. I would also be interested in any ideas you guys have for small prayers, poems, or rituals you have been a part of at a funeral that seemed meaningful to you. Or just what you think the value of a funeral service is in general. I need help!!
So please be praying. I would also be interested in any ideas you guys have for small prayers, poems, or rituals you have been a part of at a funeral that seemed meaningful to you. Or just what you think the value of a funeral service is in general. I need help!!
posted by bethany at 3:57 PM
3 Comments:
My Dad is a preacher and has done many funerals. He usually knows the person for whom he is preaching the funeral, personally. However, he frequently uses anecdotes he gleans from family members. He spends time with them before the funeral, counseling, comforting, and listening. From this time, he builds his funeral message. But, if you can't do this, I'd say to build something around passages concerning Heaven and the Christian life. Hope is good, too.
I'd go celebratory. Personally, I'd like my funeral (you know, in a few thousand years or so - no really, check out what Ray Kurzweil has to say on the subject) to be a big party celebrating that I'm in heaven (even though I doubt I will be!) The New Orleans-style funerals that include raucous horn-blowing seems to me like the right way to celebrate a completed life, far better than the moping about that people almost everywhere else do.
All of which is singularly unhelpful, I know. If you're half as lucid at the funeral as you are in your blog, though, you'll do fine.
Celebratory funerals are great. I think it's always a cool thing to be able to honestly celebrate the passing of a soul from this life to the next. It sort of depends on the family, too. They might be more reflective/celebratory than dancin' and gettin' down celebratory. But, you can celebrate either way. I agree with dark...
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