From Beyond the Grave – a great film

Two funerals the week after Easter. I’m not available for either.

The first is for a woman who back in the mists of time was christened in St Semperviridis, married there, and so must be buried from there. She has not attended said church for decades, and I know none of the family—indeed they live in a different county and different diocese.

The second is for a woman who has been a member of St Semperviridis for many years past, but whose family have opted to avoid the church for this final ritual and go instead for a crematorium. This causes some distress to members of the congregation who would like to be present in church for the obsequies, but since none of the family is a churchgoer, I guess that won’t weigh heavily on them. Despite not wanting the church building—here’s the interesting thing—the family wants the Vicar of St Semperviridis to do the honours at the crematorium. Since I’m on leave, I arrange for a retired colleague to take the service, but before giving the go-ahead, the family wishes to approve (or not) my choice.

Let me be clear about this: the first family wants the church building but isn’t bothered about the priest; the second wants a priest known to the dead woman but isn’t bothered about the location, or about acknowledging her church allegiance.

Underlying all this is the attitude of the undertakers (two different firms). Would it be unreasonable, if a family wants a particular church or a particular priest, to expect undertakers to establish availability before going ahead with diary bookings? Apparently it would.

What’s going on?

In one case the church building is a tribal temple, like a Masonic Hall. It doesn’t matter who does the incantations so long as they are done in the right place—or in this case the place that was “right” for the woman’s early life. This is the sociological church, the pagan church, the geographical parish church, the established church, the Church of England as it used to be before clergy bothered too much about being friends with Jesus. My three years in the Church of Ireland taught me more than I ever wanted to know about the church as tribal temple, in that case the temple of protestant landowners on whose lives Christian teaching impinges hardly at all.

In the other case it’s not the temple that matters, but the person of the witch doctor: the place where the shaman utters the magic words is of no import.

Of course one doesn’t know what’s going on under the surface. One doesn’t know about the difficulties of fitting a funeral into busy diaries, even though ministers may be expected to change theirs. One doesn’t know how much “getting things right for the funeral” signifies guilt at ante mortem neglect. This is something to which I allude at every funeral when I say that one day everyone will go in a box “like that”, and you never know when, so get your lives in order now so that when that day comes there are as few regrets as possible.

Just for the record, here’s what I’d like to happen to me.

• cut into bits and fed into a septic tank—environmentally useful; or:
• burnt, with ashes chucked onto the West Coast Main Line from a bridge just off the road between Orton and Tebay;
• I’m not bothered about any religious rituals at all;
• most important of all—a good party.

But really, I don’t care two hoots. They, whoever they are when the time comes, will do just what they want and that’s exactly right. No shoulds, no oughts, no expectations from beyond the grave. I don’t want any physical memorial whatsoever: I don’t want there to be any sign of my having existed.