‘Church of England’. It’s still the religion most of us put as our faith, if asked. But not everyone, and as well as Anglican and Catholic funerals, we’ve organised Buddhist, pagan, humanist, civil celebrant, even a white witch funeral, and pretty much everything in between. Funeral director won’t judge, they’ll just make sure that the final celebration of a life is whatever you, your family and friends, want it to be.
Humanist funerals are totally non-religious. No hymns, bible readings or prayers. What the humanist funeral aims to do is capture the essence of the person as people remember them. Sometimes it can be difficult to pull off successfully though, because it’s surprising how much of a life is celebrated in terms of a faith – even if it’s not religious. An alternative is the civil celebration. Civil celebrants spend more time talking to the family. They can take a bit of religion and a bit of humanism and adapt it to suit the family.
More exotic was the white witch funeral we organised. The family was pagan and they were at first reticent as they weren’t sure how we would react. I can understand how they felt: Here I am, a Cotswold Funeral Director in a sensible suit. However we gradually won them over so they felt secure and comfortable and started to explain what it meant.
The ceremony was quite unusual. Everyone dressed up in costume (apart from me – you can take the funeral director out of his comfort zone, but seldom out of his suit), wore crowns, danced and chanted, and I was asked to lead in and carry a huge ceremonial sword, which I haven’t done before or since. The family was very nervous because many attending the funeral didn’t know the deceased had those beliefs. However, all was well and the family wrote me a lovely card to say if I ever needed any help I knew where they were.
It’s not my place to dissuade people from doing what they feel comfortable with. What we all want is a successful celebration because it’s the survivors that need to be looked after as much as the deceased.
Whatever they want we can work to achieve it. What we are doing is not for us, or a church, or any other organisation, it’s for the family, friends and relatives and you always have to keep that in mind.
