{"id":743,"date":"2020-07-02T12:26:56","date_gmt":"2020-07-02T12:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thegodwhospeaks2020.org.uk\/?p=743"},"modified":"2020-07-02T14:24:54","modified_gmt":"2020-07-02T14:24:54","slug":"funerals-and-bereavement-on-zoom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thegodwhospeaks2020.org.uk\/index.php\/2020\/07\/02\/funerals-and-bereavement-on-zoom\/","title":{"rendered":"Funerals and Bereavement on Zoom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My family recently lost a great man. He was an uncle to me and my sisters. My last living memory of him was when he and my aunt were visiting my parents and me and my (then 4 year old) daughter happened to drop by. This was the first time she had met him properly as they had been living in Spain for a number of years. He instantly had her laughing, clowning around, being silly and pretending she kept giving him a fright. “Again!” she shouted to him for about half an hour. We were all laughing so much at the joy and silliness of the both of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I obviously didn’t know that would be the last time I would see him. But I’m so thankful that we all have that wonderful memory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this global pandemic and time of lockdown, many, many people will be grieving their lost loved ones who have passed away recently. But on top of their sense of great loss and grief, they have had to deal with being isolated away from their support networks and caring open-armed families and friends. Bereavement ministry has been stripped back and clergy have had to go through many short services alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.<\/em> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Psalm 34:18<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when my dad told me that his funeral was being streamed live on Zoom from Spain, it gave me hope<\/strong>. Hope that my aunt wouldn’t feel so extremely isolated at the service. Hope that my larger extended family could feel a bit closer to her. Hope that our broken hearts were together with the Holy Spirit, in a new and unusual way. But was I convinced that it would be a heart warming and welcoming experience?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was a new experience for me and most of the people who had joined the service online. The service was lovely. A lot of work had gone into making it as “normal” as possible. But there was one beautiful moment that will stay with me for the rest of my life. My aunt got to see us all at the end and we were all waving to her. At that moment, it was clear, we were together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We struggle through these times trying to make sense of a new normal. We are still on that road. But as we journey along it together, it’s becoming more clearer to me that The Lord is guiding us to new opportunities to come together. He is close to us saving our crushed spirits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I was hopeful, I felt unsure, confused and not really enthusiastic about this method of bereavement ministry before it took place. Following it, there was only a sense of love, togetherness and natural emotion..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe take some time to think about how we can really come together in new ways in an online world without discounting the old ways? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of our Pastoral Associates shares thier reflection on Bereavement and Funerals on Zoom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,16],"tags":[82,83,80],"class_list":["post-743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-god-in-our-time","category-reflection","tag-bereavement","tag-funerals","tag-zoom"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thegodwhospeaks2020.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/bereavement-pic.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegodwhospeaks2020.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegodwhospeaks2020.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegodwhospeaks2020.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegodwhospeaks2020.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegodwhospeaks2020.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thegodwhospeaks2020.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":747,"href":"https:\/\/thegodwhospeaks2020.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743\/revisions\/747"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegodwhospeaks2020.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegodwhospeaks2020.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegodwhospeaks2020.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegodwhospeaks2020.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}