Birth, marriage, death. Celebrants are asked to assist at life’s big transitions. Celebrating a child or a marriage tend to be light, happy occasions, despite the anxieties and stresses of planning. The death of a loved one, however, generates anxiety and stress without the compensatory lightness. Ideally, the celebrant brings calm to the storm. All it takes is a little planning and a lot of empathy.
This course introduces Humanist Celebrants to the process of working with families in order to plan memorial services from a Humanist perspective.
by Rev. Dr. David Breeden
Rev. Dr. David Breeden began his service as Senior Minister of the First Unitarian Society in August 2013. He holds an MFA degree from The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, a Ph.D. from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi, and a Master of Divinity from Meadville Lombard Theological School. Prior to joining at First Unitarian, Breeden was the first settled minister at the Minnesota Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Bloomington, MN.
