As Barack Obama said the other day, “despair is not an option”. We need to keep trying.

As Barack Obama said the other day, “despair is not an option”. We need to keep trying.
The ceremony truly was ‘a multi-faith & belief event’.
Comedy gives licence to say the unsayable, and great comedians are also great truth tellers.
I campaigned for an Assisted Dying bill on the two previous occasions that it’s been offered to the Scottish Parliament, so I’m glad that it’s coming up for debate again soon.
Wullie’s story was a time capsule from an era that’s almost gone from our memories.
Grief is not something we give much thought to until we find ourselves catapulted into it.
People love humanist funerals for their compassion, their honesty and their humour: they choose them for what they include, not what they exclude.
Here in the UK, cremation accounts for about 75% of all funerals, but there is a growing desire for a more natural and ecological approach to death and dying. Not far from me in East Lothian there is a natural woodland burial site called Binning Memorial Wood, and I’ve been privileged to conduct a number … Continue Reading
Humanists believe we should celebrate the one life we have, but we also believe that grieving and mourning are fundamental to the healing process. Celebration isn’t obligatory, and it would be wrong to think that’s what a humanist funeral has to be.
My role is to speak for the bereaved, and the more accurately I do that, the better the ceremony. Having multiple contributions from family and friends writing from wherever in the world they happen to be allows me to create a richly textured, multi-faceted portrait.