蜜芽传媒

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The 蜜芽传媒 Website yesterday proclaimed that the world is running out of burial space. Certainly, the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management say there is a looming crisis.

Although a lot of people are now cremated after they have died, there is still a significant number wanting burial for a variety of reasons and yet space is increasingly hard to find. A survey has indicated that nearly half of cemeteries in England could run out of space in the next 20 years.
I officiated at the burial of one of the longest standing members of our church on Thursday morning. And certainly, over in East London, there is a growing perception that space is in short supply.

Local authorities recognise that this increasing problem is a conversation we should all be involved in. We want space to bury loved ones in places where we can visit them often and feel close to them. And we may even want to be buried with them ourselves in the future.

On 蜜芽传媒 Breakfast this week, a reporter visiting the Cross Rail site near to London鈥檚 Liverpool Street Station suggested that viewers might want to look away as images of the 3000 skeletons were flashed up on our screens. The building work has unearthed the so called Bedlam Burial Ground, the final resting place of 20,000 Londoners who are believed to have been buried during the Great Plague because there was no room in existing cemeteries. This was lack of burial space on a different scale.

There is undoubtedly something extremely poignant in any funeral service about the body being only a vehicle in which we live out our lives. For the Christian within the burial service there is the concept that although an earthly life is done and over 鈥� there is faith that the spirit lives on.
In a time when people can be quick to distance themselves from religion or matters of faith it is deeply moving how when faced with the death of a loved one 鈥� having that special place to which they can go and reflect and celebrate their cherished memories can be/is a profound experience. I see it most times when dealing with the bereaved.

Even after a cremation, when I am asked to bury or scatter the ashes of a loved one I invoke the same prayer taken from Genesis where God reminds Adam: 鈥渇or out of the ground you were taken: for you are dust and to dust you shall return鈥�. 鈥淓arth to earth, I say, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Having enough room 鈥� enough earth 鈥� to lay to rest those we want to remember must surely be allowed to be an emotional priority in our communities. And for some people their final resting place is also a last act of faith and love.

First broadcast 14 March 2015

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