please empty your brain below
I have also noticed that participation in public singing is very poor nowadays, I put it down to lack of practice. At one time community singing was much more common. Public houses had a piano and a singalong, more people went to church and sung hymns and even cinemas had community singing accompanied by the theatre organ many years ago. Nowadays people listen privately through headphones to others singing for them on their MP3 players.
As for me I still try and join in at full voice, which can sometimes be embarrassing if everyone else stays silent.
If you have a Minister conducting the funeral service, he would surely be neglecting his duty if he did not put in, as you put it, "an advert for his religion".
A year ago today was my brother's funeral. I remember, even amongst the immediate and raw emotion of it all, one little part of me stayed quite detached, observing the absolute precision in the way that each group had their moments to mourn...and then were kindly, discreetly, but ever so firmly shepherded along to make way for the next group. It felt almost like being on a merry-go-round, only the tune is in a very minor key.
Speaking of which, we chose the music, no singing at all. Bob Dylan predominated. (Definitely no singing...)
Best Christmas wishes to you and your family, DG, and especially to your Dad.
I went to a funeral recently, of someone who was a committed Christian with many Christian friends and family (I hadn't been aware of that previously). I was struck by the matter-of-fact reference to it in the eulogies by friends and family, and by the evident support that his widow will receive from people trained to give it, and who aren't 'just paid' for that but will genuinely mean what they say. Also by the hearty singing.
Crematoria are a bit soulless though, aren't they? The most meaningful funerals I've been to there were a Humanist one and a Hindu one.
I had to organise my mother's funeral, earlier this year, and had suggested that mourners could come to the house and follow the hearse to the church. Come the day, I didn't know what to think when only a handful of relatives had turned up at the house, by the time the cortege was due to set off. I truly can't describe the utter relief at arriving at the church, to find it full, and that most people had gone straight there. From then on I just had a feeling the day would be OK, and we couldn't have given her a better send off.
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