What is in Kelvin's Head?

Revised Commenting Policy

04/08/2012
I’ve posted something like this before but have had to add the final bullet point today. (And have today decided not to allow any further comments from the offender who caused me to add this last point. It seems to me that he has been warned enough).

The following types of comments will be deleted without question.
- Comments which appear to be legitimate but whose posters’ details point to porn sites.
- Comments which contain homophobic epithets. I’m open to intelligent discussion but I’m not running a site which allows people to get away with silly name calling.
- Comments which claim to prove something by quoting a single verse taken out of context from the Bible. Scripture is too precious to me to allow that. This is a place where the Bible is loved and honoured and treasured. Comments which use it as a weapon are unwelcome.
- Comments promoting one Bible translation because all the rest are flawed. Like quite a few people who comment here, my Greek and Hebrew are a bit rusty. However, it was worth learning them as I can now make up my own mind about such matters. Go thou and study likewise.
- Comments promoting or trying to raise money for particular missionary societies.
- Comments disparaging women and in particular comments which undermine my female colleagues. I learn about God from them.
- Comments trying to explain Penal Substution as a theory of Atonement. I know what it means. I know how it works. We’ve already established that like most Christian people I don’t believe in it. It gets boring if you try to explain it to me again.
- Comments in which those of us who are gay are likened to murderers either in the eyes of the commenter or in the eyes of God. To be honest, when it becomes that offensive, I don’t think we are talking enough of the same language for me to want to bother carrying on listening. I’m also not in the business of providing space for that kind of rhetoric. Those who want to make such comments can do so on their own blogs but not on mine.
As I’ve repeatedly said before, I like an intelligent argument and tend to adopt this policy as much for the sake of those others who like a sane corner of the web as for myself.

[Most] Comments welcome.

9 responses to “The Episcopal Way of Death”

Rosemary Hannah

02/11/2017

The greatest privilege I have ever had in the service of the people of the church was to be the person who received the coffin the night before the funeral and led Compline then. The church was on an island, and the coffins those of people I loved and honoured. It was deeply moving for everybody there. I hope one day that will be done for me and mine.

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Sr Alison Joy

02/11/2017

I have prayed washed and dressed Sisters who have died and it helped me to see that death is not scary. I have lined a number of Sisters graves with flowers around the inner edge from the inside, also helpful. The body was received at Vespers in Chapel the day before, Solemn Requiem was the next day complete with asperges and incense. We returned from the graveside and when in Chapel sung a very joyful favorite hymn for the Sister we had just buried. It was always a sad, happy, remembering occasion I hope that I will be able to have most of this too.

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Sarah Lawton

02/11/2017

This is beautifully said.

When my parents died in a car crash, we knew our Episcopal church would be too small to accommodate all the mourners; but the local Roman Catholic congregation saw our need and graciously offered the use of their space for our Episcopal funeral (including Eucharist led by two Episcopal bishops). They also offered their pall for the second coffin as we had only one. All the churches and the synagogue in town offered choir members and/or food for the feast after the service. An ecumenical, indeed, interfaith foretaste of heaven!

We placed the two bodies in closed coffins in our Episcopal church the night before; we prayed Evensong and Compline, and received a long line of visitors; and then parishioners kept vigil with the bodies all night. In the morning we prayed over the bodies before beginning the procession to the larger RC church where the (Episcopal) funeral was to be held. In this sad, glorious service sang many, many Easter hymns, and I learned that it’s possible to sing and sing even through tears. I’m told that people reconciled that day who had not spoken in years – I’ve heard it from both parties (one now a bishop).

All of which is to say: our Episcopal Way of Death can be a profound grace if we let it. It can be profound too when it’s a simple, small, quiet service for a person who has lived a long life and died of old age (unlike my parents). It’s the same words, the same truth of loss – all of us pass through this life but for a moment – the same mystery, the same words of affirmation and hope at the grave: alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

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1. Kelvin
  
  02/11/2017
  
  Thank you for posting that – bearing witness to exactly what I was trying to say.
  
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2. Michael Povey
  
  04/11/2017
  
  Thanks Sarah. (Other readers, Sarah is a friend. I was at the Funeral and heard her offer the most profound Gospel Centred and Honest Grief eulogy I have ever heard)
  
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  1. Sarah Lawton
    
    29/11/2017
    
    Dear Michael, thank you for saying that. Your presence that day was a blessing to our family. That gathering, for all the shock and sadness, really did feel like a foretaste of heaven, didn’t it? A great cloud of witnesses singing with us.
    
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Ronnie Smith

02/11/2017

Having attended a few funerals in our parish recently – one of them for our Vicar, who died on Easter Eve – and being nearer to the grave myself (at 85 and still active as a priest) I appreciate, Father Kelvin, the care you take over this special subject. The Church can be so close to families at this special time – giving them a taste of ‘The great love of God as revealed in the Son’ – precious at this time.

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Tony Whatmough

04/11/2017

There are sometimes good reasons for having the cremation first, as there was for my brother yesterday especially with people traveling and wanting to be able to bury the ashes on the same day. They key is to talk with the family about what they are looking for and how it can be done.

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1. Kelvin
  
  04/11/2017
  
  Dear Tony, I’m sorry to hear that you’ve lost your brother. May be rest in peace and rise in glory.
  
  There are always reasons why people want to have a cremation first and people always believe that they are good reasons. Every single time there are reasons. My contention is that I’m unpersuaded that any of them justify changing what we believe. (What we do and what we believe being utterly bound up with one another in such circumstances).
  
  My point about funerals is very precisely that the wishes of the family are important but that no tradition will survive if we simply abandon what we believe for reasons of convenience.
  
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