A Funeral

Well, that's the first funeral actually attended in a Church wearing a suit, for quite a while. The local charity shop found a smart dark suit with a perfect fit and in good condition, which means it may be useful for a few more funerals, before it's time for this old blogger to hang it up or wear it at his own funeral. That's still unplanned, though Frank had left instructions and made arrangements for his, including a last will and testament, whatever that is ... this may sound typically feckless, but at least there's not much clutter to clear in the Retreat House, a problem for Frank's wife, which is just as well, since it's not clear who would have the task of sorting out all those details here, though it won't be me!

Since Frank's children were scattered round the world, and unable or unwilling to travel from Hong Kong, South Africa or the USA, to see his coffin go in the plot he'd reserved in a beautiful spot, surrounded by trees, right next to Diana ... though he may be waiting for her to join him for a while. Since she was born into the Silvertop family, owners of Minsteracres given to a branch of Catholics called Passionists, who worshipped the story of Mary the Mother of Christ, who was a virgin thanks to divine intervention by God, the Father, his Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit making up the Trinity much spoken about and written about in the book or Bible, where the word of God was revealed to the world in two main versions. The Old Testament was for the Jews and their God was very cross and spent a lot of time smiting people he didn't like. Moses seems to take the lead here, and the Ten Commandments arrived on tablets of stone. They were basically things we must not do, for fear of going to hell. You know the sort of thing: Killing people, seducing the wives of your neighbours and so on.

Anyway, moving swiftly on without commenting on how well these orders were obeyed by the Jews, or the Christians come to that, except to say religious wars have been a blight on the Earth for far too long, and that includes Hindus and Chinese of different religions, not to mention the Muslims based in Arabia who exported their form of peace in a never ending struggle using violence to convert heathens to the Love taught by Jehova, God, Allah and other names for the unnamable, best expressed where East meets West - Jerusalem! William Blake wrote a few words about these issues, including the Hymn of that name with lyrics proclaiming Jerusalem might be built in England's green and pleasant land. We're still waiting for that, and Blake was lucky not to have been burnt alive by the Catholics for suggesting that essentially all religions were one. Or was it the Church of England by then? Let's face it these religious wars between The Once True Faith with a Pope in charge, and the split led by Henry the Adulterer, are still going on. Northern Ireland, split from the island of Ireland and likely stitched together soon, still has British soldiers suffering PTSD from their service to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the second. The first was the daughter of Henry, who never managed to knock out a bloke to succeed him, despite arranging for several Queens to have their heads chopped off. Seems like a nice bloke!

Frankly, this post has spent far too much time exploring these questions, but that's what Frank and I spent most of our time exploring, which was after all the reason for a sceptical old blogger to be present at the funeral of a good friend, who went to his end finding comfort in his faith that he was going to Heaven, which seems like a good option to me. Of course, Heaven and Hell are the products of the life we are living now, as explained by mystics of every religion. Frank found salvation in Jesus through conversion, as did Diana by returning to the religion of her childhood. If that meant and means they were and are content to pass on to other places when the body dies, that feels like a good idea to me.

What do you think, dear reader?