To Hull to the advisory group for the spirituality in funerals project, where the most interesting experience was the way the humanist officiant (the person who conducts a funeral) distinguished herself very strongly from sceualr funerals because humanists have beliefs and values. I’m not sure this is an accurate distinction; presumably secularists have values, but not such a consistent set as humanists. This interests me because I am trying to write at the moment about what social work would be like if it were clearly humanist. Some writers tend to say this, meaning humanitarian, while others think that humanist means like humanistic psychology, with a focus on the whole human being. Humanism as I understand it includes this, but I think some writers do not see humanism as being, as secular humanists would say, opposed to religion. Although there are Christian and Jewish humanists, too.

This interesting funerals project, which has been going for a few months now, has reached the stage of the researchers attending funerals. The process is that the funeral director inviyes the researcher to the meeting with the bereaved people, then attends the family’s meeting with minister of religion or secular officiant , attends the funeral and then interviews the family afterwards. The idea is to identify spiritual ideas that emerge in the planning and conduct of funerals. One foreign researcher surprise at the sombre clothing British people wear to funerals; not so in his country. I had taken this for granted; it’s always the unexpected things that stop you in your tracks about other cultures.

Website for the project: http://www.hull.ac.uk/socsci/research/projects/spirituality/index.html