Funerals

I have collected a selection of poems and readings you may like to use during a ceremony, I hope you will find something suitable. I intend to add more regularly.

A time for everything

There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (NIV)

A reflection on an autumn day

I took up a handful of grain and letting it slip flowing through my fingers,

and I said to myself,  ‘This is what it is all about’.

 

There is no longer any room for pretence.

 

At harvest time the essence is revealed

The straw and chaff are set aside, they have done their job.

The grain alone matters – sacks of pure gold.

 

So it is when a person dies the essence of their life is revealed.

At the moment of death a person’s character stands out;

Happy for the person who has forged it well over the years.

 

Then it will not be the great achievement that will count, nor how

Much money or possessions a person has amassed.

 

These, like the straw and the chaff, will be left behind.

It is what they have made of themselves that will matter.

 

Death can take away from us what we have,

But it cannot rob us of who we are.

 

Anon

For Katrina’s sun dial

Time is too slow for those who wait,

Too swift for those who fear,

Too long for those who grieve,

Too short for those who rejoice,

But for those who love, time is

Eternity.

 

Henry Van Dyke  (1852 – 1933)

Extracts from the writings of Michel de Montaigne

One should always have one’s boots on

and be ready to leave.

I want death to find me planting my

cabbages, but caring little for it, and much

more for my imperfect garden.

Wheresoever your life endeth, there is it all. 

The profit of life consists not in the

space, but rather in the use.  Some have

lived long who have lived but a short while.

Whether you have lived enough

depends upon yourself, not on the number

of your years.  There is no road that doth

not have an end, and, if company is solace,

doth not the whole world go the same way?

 

Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592)

Clouds

Down the blue night the unending columns press

In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow,

Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow

Up to the white moon’s hidden loveliness.

 

Some pause in their grave wandering comradeless,

And turn with profound gesture vague and slow,

As who would pray good for the world, but know

Their benediction empty as they bless.

 

They say that the Dead die not, but remain

Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth.

I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these,

In wise majestic melancholy train,

And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas,

And men, coming and going on the earth.

 

Rupert Brooke (1887 – 1915)

Andrea Jackson The Holistic Celebrant

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