It's a Celebrant Thing...

  I hate funerals. Actually, let me refine that a little. As a funeral celebrant, I certainly love the funeral ceremonies that I write and deliver. I ensure that each is unique to the deceased, highly personal, and exactly the kind of sendoff that they and their family wanted. But I hate the fact that we feel constrained by the long-held traditions that surround typical funerals.  Far better to consider a final farewell as a joyous and uplifting event. A real opportunity to compose a celebration of a life well lived. The chance to share the stories not yet told...and those that have been repeated ad nauseam to nearest and dearest... Did you know that you are not limited to holding a funeral ceremony in the traditional places...a church...a graveyard...a crematorium? Of course, just as every one of us is different, so will be the choices that we make about our last celebration. Those with committed faith will, of course, wish to be commemorated in a traditional church or other ...

 Secular Baby Naming Ceremonies- a very real and extremely welcome alternative. So, I'm going to drag my soapbox out on this one. On this topic, I speak from a wealth of personal experience...I've played along with the rollercoaster parenting game for over 22 years.  My family has strong Christian faith. We are all believers and as regular Churchgoers as we can be. We have been blessed with 4 fabulous children and were keen to arrange for them each to be baptised soon after their births. I felt completely comfortable with their Christening ceremonies since that marries up personally with my beliefs. Godparents were approached after careful consideration. We took care to ensure that each had clear underlying faith and considered respect for Christianity at least. They were asked to make some fairly heavy-duty promises on behalf of our tiny treasures and we didn't want them to feel in any way uncomfortable with this. So for us, a Christian Baptism was the most appropriate way...