The Fun and the Non-Fun of Funeral Readings
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One of the real problems of doing funerals is finding readings that reflect life in 21st Century, and that sound appropriate for this day and age. I am constantly using Ecclesiastes 3v1-8, the one that goes like this:
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the sky.”It’s a great piece, like the Beatitudes, but it seems to have been (excuse the pun) done to death, it’s just used for funerals too much for my liking, however amazing it is.
Today I had this horrendous job of filing, with papers seemingly 20 foot high and boxes and bundles and files and flimflam to the power of 10, and in my desperation I waded through a zillion papers, filing as I went, and after gathering speed, the speed of a snail that is, as well as umpteen copies of readings for weddings and funerals and babyoid blessings, I suddenly realised I didn’t need to keep on using the Ecclesiastes piece, so I wrote something that says something similar, and maybe just developing the thought in another direction, that felt right. I don’t know whether it was an excuse to get out of filing, but I think it sounds like something ‘of the moment’ and though it may not be so beautiful, it is an alternative to that elegantly scripted text of around 2,000 years ago. Please excuse the spacing, try as I might… I can’t get the text to do single spacing after a carriage return:
And when we remember
Those moments in life
When we saw joy –
An accidental meeting of minds
Perfect laughter
Sunset on the hills
A great bird in flight
Then we knew
That everything has its moment
And when we recall
Those days of happiness
When we danced by the sea
Hugged our beloved
Sang with friends
Walked in peace
Then we knew
That everything has its place
Its most perfect moment
And when we looked back
And recalled the days
When sorrow visited us
Dressed in black
And the one we loved
Was not as we knew them
Then we understood
That everything happens
And all things have their chosen time
And now we might say:
We understand
That kindness, patience and compassion
Beauty and the unspoken
All have their moment –
In light
In darkness
In laughter
In sorrow
In the heart
And in the mind
But it is love, above all things
That stays with us
Transcending time
Surpassing space
Endless and eternal
That always has its moment
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