Francis Spufford is unapolagetic

As a secular, or "humanist," celebrant, why am I recommending this book to you, when it is about the nature of Christian belief in the modern world - at least, as far as one believer is concerned?

Two answers to my own question (sorry, it's an irritating rhetorical tick, I know, but somehow one has to get started...)

Firstly, I'm not a secular, or humanist, or anything else, celebrant. I'm a funeral celebrant. The whole belief/non-belief thing is, I feel, a huge red herring. (Red basking shark?) My beliefs are usually entirely irrelevant. I will do what a family wants. If they asked for a priestly function such as a formal blessing, which would make me feel inauthentic, I would ask them to call for a priest. 

I'm not an ordained minister, I can't and shouldn't do "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.." etc. The issue hasn't arisen yet because I'm usually simply asked to organise a hymn or two, or lead The Lord's Prayer. People have the sense to ask for a priest if they want one, and someone like me if they don't. Last week an out-and-out atheist, next week a "possibilist," week after a non-Church-going sort of Christian, week after a mostly-ex Muslim who wants some religious music played. Fascinating work, no room for useless polarisations. What I believe in, as a celebrant, is good funerals.

Secondly, because this bloke:

has written a really useful book, which I also thought was a very good read.

He explores, in an entertainingly firm, conversational way, why he finds it makes emotional sense for him to be a Christian, and he comes at you with all guns blazing if you try to hide behind the usual liberal laziness. He's very cross about the way our increasingly secular society responds to Christian beliefs. He makes me feel that he is often right to be cross.

There's a bit where he is sitting in a church contemplating - well, infinity, I guess - looking for the presence of God - which is a terrific read, and relates, for me, to a mindful awareness of the universe in the present moment. 

There's another bit where he re-tells the story of the woman taken in adultery - the one they were all about to kill by chucking stones at her - which I found intensely moving.

His is not the voice of the apologetic fence-sitting cleric, nor the wearying clamour of the evangelical bore. He just goes straight for it in a way that certainly made me, a non-Christian in most senses of the word, sit up and think. 

One of the things that drove me away from Christianity when I was a lad was the teacher, allegedly a Christian, who looked for an easy rationalist excuse for miracles. Walking on water? Lots of sandbanks in the Sea of Galilee. Burning bush? Spontaneous combustion of subterranean methane. Oh, FFS, as we say these days, either they were miracles or they weren't. Francis Spufford is:

I salute him for it. Don't sneer at Christians unless you've read this book. (Well, don't sneer at them anyway, it's not nice - but you know what I mean!)

Is Big Ju-Ju Tabu for Unordained Celebrants?

Interesting discussion recently with some colleagues about"juju." No disrespect to people's beliefs intended - I first heard the word from an Anglican priest. He meant, of course, the power and authority wielded, for believers, by ordained ministers of faith.

Some of us unordained ones will happily lead a prayer and sing a hymn, but most of us without one of these:

will stop short of a full-blown blessing or prayer in the deity's name, i.e. "In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I..."etc. That's big ju-ju. That's for the Cloth. Isn't it?

And yet some of us, without getting too spooky, do report a feeling of authority, a special responsibility and resonance, which comes from speaking about the Big Things of Life and Death, whether or not we are in an area of discourse referring to religious belief (such as a hymn or a prayer). 

We have, perhaps, at some moments and if we are any good, a degree of hieratic function - that stops short, of course, of the power a priest has amongst those who believe in her faith. 

But if we can't summon up at least a degree of authority - which comes only from doing the job well - then are we any good? 

And how are we to work any ju-ju at all amongst people who have no religious belief, even if they will open their mouths just a little bit to sort of sing TLMS, if we can't find a semi- (?pseudo?) hieratic function?

This is nothing to do, BTW, with taking control away from the family and Doing Your Big-Shot Own Thing. (The sort of role assumption, happily less common than it was, that caused a lot of people to choose an Unordained Celebrant rather than a priest.)

Let me sum up: I think a funeral needs to be a transformative ceremony, even if it isn't, or is only in a small way, a religious ritual. To make it such, something special, apart, powerful, needs to happen, when possible. This may or may not involve words from a religious tradition, or indeed a new faith such as Paganism.

How far into religious form and usage should an unordained celebrant go? 
1) No ju-ju
2) Little ju-ju
3) Big ju-ju, provided the celebrant is authentic in her role at that moment

And: can any of us create juju without any religious form and usage?

Or is it futile to try - is Ju-ju Tabu, unless you are

Or:

Or:

Dammit, I can't work my pictorial way round all the world's faith systems, I'm sure you get my point, so this is the last one:

 

There may be no simple answer, but despite my flippant manner, ha ha, I think it's a pretty important area, because it raises yet again the question: what is a funeral for, and how does it do its work? If we haven't thought about juju, I submit the idea to you, in all arrogance, that we don't really know how "do" a funeral, or what it is for.

Dead Shorts part 2

I like these short prompts, because I find they've prompted me - or even amused me. Hope they work for you.


"It was never a great bird-puller at school." (Undertaking was the family business.)

"(At a funeral) we had to release two doves. So as they've gone up, out of nowhere this sparrowhawk slams into one of them and kills it. You shouldn't laugh, but I think even the family found that funny."
John T Harris, T Cribb and son, Undertakers in the East End of London


"People today are frightened by silence. There's a kind of inner loneliness. I think it's an agitated age. That's a comment, not a criticism."
Joyce and Ivan Fox, Crazy Coffins.


"The absence of a body is always a lot more difficult to deal with. If a place crashes, for example, it can be a help to visit the site. Seeing a body can be very helpful to the grieving process."

"For older people, the death of a parent can often seem unbelievable. They think their parents are immortal."
Joy Caplin, Cruse bereavement counsellor

"Funeral directors have a lot of dedication. I did it once. It's a difficult job; a messy one"

"You get advice about sex and drugs at school, but never death. People aren't taught and they haven't a clue."

"People shouldn't think they're being cheapskates when it comes to a funeral. I used to say to people, 'you can have that expensive coffin if you want, but we're only going to burn it."
Howard Greenoff runs Kingston Cemetery

"People try to find magical solutions when they are bereaved. A bereaved woman I knew married the best friend of her former husband just three months after her husband died."

"In my teens I was an ardent atheist. But after working in hospices I came into contact with strong religious beliefs and I am less judgemental. I don't have an easy answer but I respect that there are different ways of thinking."
Colin Murray Parkes, consultant psychiatrist at two hospices

All the above from "Get Dead," by Jamie Oliver, which as well as having fascinating mini-interviews with these and other people, is also full of remarkable facts.

Mortality, humanism, belief - so nothing too heavy today. Oh, and Natural Voice singing, too.

This post owes much to Xpiry, Vale, Mopsus, Jonathan and the source of all, Charles. It will be quite a long post, so I'll understand if you want to chuck it and wander off for a beer.


Still here? OK, I'll give it a shot.

Isn't it great when different areas of your life suddenly link up and light up? When different viewpoints contribute to one illumination.

In a characterisitcally honest and direct post, Xpiry explores with us her puzzles and doubts over how far she should go, in an apparently non-religious funeral, when families ask her for "just a hymn or two and maybe a short sort of prayer..." see http://dontgettooclosetothefurnace.blogspot.com/2011/01/religion-by-back-door.html for her thoughts. and valuable comments from Charles.

It's a recurrent issue amongst humanist minibrants, as it needs to be. Honesty is all, in this crucible of emotions and beliefs we call a funeral. How far to go, in what has been categorised as a non-religious ceremony, in including material that relates to an afterlife, divine authority, etc. You can't - I was going to say "please" - all the people all the time, but "please" doesn't come near it. We need to draw a line, is the worry. We can't approach our hieratic potential (thanks to Vale and Mopsus) for everyone in the congregation, because they all believe very different things. Or can we?

I guess it can be an issue for ministers of religion, too, coming from the other direction. It seems pretty reasonable to me for a minister to mention God a bit, maybe offer a prayer. If not, why the unusual garb, etc? And perhaps a bit silly of families to book the vicar, because s/he's such a dear, and then ask for a Godless ceremony.

Charles (what do you mean, "Who?" Please take yourself over to http://www.goodfuneralguide.co.uk/2011/02/are-you-a-lightning-rod/
without further ado, where you will find the rest of the commentators mentioned above.)

Charles coined the excellent phrase "Great Perhapsism" to describe the sort of hopeful belief in some kind of after-life, a post-mortem meeting place, saloon bar in the sky, etc. I bet millions of Brits are neither full atheists, nor informed agnostics, neither Christians et al nor Pagans. They are Perhapsists. That's why, in the ceremony, they want a whiff of the supernatural - and I use the term in its full sense, not as a sneer.

The only path, when I meet a family, that I can find through this variety of semi-beliefs is to:

1. listen very carefully with all my seven senses (five plus the two super-powers I'm not supposed to tell you about) to people at the family meeting;
2. empathise, all the time;
3. think hard about what I've learned from the facts and anecdotes I've heard about the one who's died, and the ones I can still talk to - I mean the sub-texts, implications, echoes and resonances;
   
4. keep sitting on my own aesthetic and philosophical preferences;
   
5. try to help them develop the ceremony as they really want it, to push it if possible, and not give in to an impoverished idea of what a funeral is for - and so on.
   
6. Then try to make sure the ceremony does something for them, something more than get It (body and event) out of the way.

It's a particular way of going out to people, and taking in who they are and what they want. Jonathan comments on this area with an eloquence that earns nothing but grattitude from me, over on the GFG post with the link above. He says:

"For me it’s about being able to love the people we represent, more than simply serving them. There is a love between human beings that can show itself for just a moment and then move from our sight. But it does not die; it simply reflects the process of living in a human body, which only happens for a little while but stirs the ethers with passion and so leaves its lasting influence. Then, actively loving those who are trusting you to take control so they can lose it if they have to, you can talk to the place inside them that is hurting. That is the joy of this work with complete strangers, the connection between souls who would have passed in the street without noticing each other at any other time."

So that's why this is a vocation, not just a service, a profound privilege and not just a duty. As he says - a joy.

In the light of all I've learned from such people, I'm coming to feel that my previous metaphysical squeamishness matters not at all. There is only one reason not to compromise, and that is my hieratic authenticity. (Yes, I know, I shouldn't read so many very clever posts.) It's not so much about if I don't believe, literally, in what I'm saying; it's more that there'll be a problem if I've been asked to say and do things I can't establish some relationship with, things I can't internalise, things I can't feel, as well as think about more rationally. Because obviously enough, if I'm uneasy with it, the audience won't buy it either. In Jonathan's terms, the love wouldn't be behind it, it would be outward form stuff. And that's why I couldn't lead the Lord's Prayer, but I can sing songs from religious traditions. E.g:

I went to a seasonal celebration recently, a spin-off from our community choir. It was for Candlemass/Santa Lucia/Imbolc/St Brigid, add whatever belief system ackowledges that the days are growing longer, that winter won't last for ever (though it's having a bloody good try round here) that ewes will be getting their milk in and we should urge on the spring in our hearts by lighting some lamps and doing Stuff.

The Stuff we did was sing a few very simple songs, grouped round candles and the earliest of flowers (snowdrops etc). The songs came from belief systems - a Christian one in English, a Christian one in an African language, a Muslim one, a Buddhist one. (They weren't actually about the festival, which mattered not at all.) Our choir leader, very much part of the Natural Voice movement, is just wonderful at this stuff.

So here's this alleged humanist, singing away about God/s and staring into the candle flame. No worries. It's only words. There won't be a thunderbolt from above: "get ye gone, infidel," nor one from 1 Gower Street "superstitious nonsense..." No abrupt conversions, either. Just a developing sense of pervasive calm as the time went by. The last one was a sort of tuneful Buddhist chant. The final effect on me was like a really good mindfulness meditation session. I was entirely present in the moment, and felt as calm, open and easeful as I can remember feeling. A wonderful preparatory session for resuming this vocation of ours the next day. (Which is why I bang on about mindfulness meditation, in singing or other form - it really helps with the work.)

I can't imagine why any of us who don't believe in a religious system would worry about the origin of the songs. I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't have benefitted from the session, provided they could be open-minded about it. If religion is a human construct, then its fruits yesterday evening were for all. If religion is what it thinks it is, then ditto.

Singing has been demonstrated, by a rational, scientific experiment, to lower stress hormones very effectively. It is, undoubtedly, good for you. Or, if you want a non-scientific explanation, it's a lightning-conductor to the divine.

So in one sense, who cares what anyone believes? Yes, I think we can have that priestly function for a great variety of people and beliefs, provided we can own what we say and do, even if we go into areas that wouldn't mirror our own beliefs. And - if we can feel that short-term, unconditional love for the people we are trying to help.

Let's say it again, Mr Larkin: "What will survive of us, is love."