You Can't Make This Stuff Up: Anglican Humour Division

Apart from the old news about Anglican priests swimming the Tiber (it's been happening for 25 years and I don't really give a damn), there's this from Ruth Gledhill in Times Online:

A Church of England vicar has said that he is fed up with officiating at cremations where Tina Turner is played as the bodies of people with no hope of resurrection are “popped in the oven”.

The Rev Ed Tomlinson, 35, said he wondered why he bothered as mourners listen to ear-splitting songs and bad poetry during cremations. He feared that his presence at funerals was “pointless” and said he had a hundred better things to do with his time.

Father Tomlinson is vicar of St Barnabas’s Church in Tunbridge Wells, a “Forward in Faith” parish that rejects the ministry of women priests.

Writing on his blog in a post titled “death of death” he said: “In the last few years it has become painfully obvious that many families I have conducted funerals for have absolutely no desire for any Christian content whatsoever.

I don't really give a damn about this, either. But I do think it's funny. We had a nice memorial service in Holland for my parents back in 1995. I used a modified BCP service, readings were in Dutch and English, and I added poems by Sara Teasdale (favourites of me mum's) and John Masefield's poem about "going down to the sea in ships." My father was in the Dutch Merchant Marine, and I thought it was apt. We ended by placing their co-mingled ashes by a cherry tree. My cousin and I planted the tree and his little boys watered it. Afterwards we had tea and Zeeuwse Bolussen bought by my aunt at the local bakery! Geweldig!