Thread: Religion

Originally Posted by UnWritten

All books have some kind of fluff/filler. It's just to what degree. I hate books that are all filled with nonsense. I read a book called Murder Takes the Cake about a year ago...I couldn't understand where the cake came into any of the storyline...the author used her main characters baking ability as a complete cop-out for not having any good material. If you took all the pastry talk out of the book it would have been about...ten pages..haha!

That's a really narrow perspective. Clearly the story was all about baking cakes and the murder was just a throw-away line.

Oh, and cakes aren't made with pastry, in case you're interested (you're prolly not)

Originally Posted by garza

If you like I can go through the BCP and put together a practical service.

Originally Posted by UnWritten

garza, I'm really just looking for something common. So possibly something along the lines of Baptist or Methodist. If you could help me out I would appreciate it.

I'll be really interested to hear if this offer of help ever transpires, ever comes to anything. If it doesn't, don't be overly surprised. If it does, I will be surprised.

Must the novel include a funeral? Is it the funeral of a character in the story? Could these events you talk of, that take place during the funeral, still take place if the character was being farewelled in some other way?* Why not think about other ways of disposing of the character’s remains? Then you wouldn’t have all this worry about different types of services. *There’s a chance I might die next week, under the surgeon’s knife, and I’ve left instructions for disposal of my body which don’t include a funeral. But it’s still going to be notable. And in the case of your story, this is what writing’s all about – creativity.

An unofficial funeral prayer:

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, now hurry the f*&^ up and get on the bus.

Now, with levity aside. Funeral services vary as noted by the previous posters. The last funeral I attended was in 2002 and it was a small military funeral. There was a honor guard (seven soldiers) that also acted as pall bears and did the 21 gun salute. I don't recall if there was priest, but there was a minister (I believe) who led prayer and there were some of us who did an eulogy, talking about the deceased in a positive way. This was done prior to the burial, usually at a church or performed at the graveside or sometimes in the cemetery's chapel. It depends on the arrangements.

I recommend looking through the yellow pages under "Funeral Services" and talk to someone. Check out a local church, synagogue, mosque, cathedral, temple, chapel, kirk or tabernacle, and ask the priest, priestess, monsignor, rabbi, imam, preacher, minister, evangelist, legate *takes deep breath* emissary, envoy, monk, deacon, bishop, cardinal, elder, chaplain *takes another deep breath* clergyman (or woman), prelate, layperson, purohit, kannushi (not be confused w/sushi or sashemi) or the top Catholic in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI