I've been thinking about what we win and what we lose when we allow AI into our writing space. It's a thorny topic. When I was doing my celebrant training, we may as well have been asked to sign an oath in blood: thou shalt not use AI to write ceremonies. The underlying message was clear enough: this work is meant to be authored, not assembled. I took that steer seriously. It wasn't hard: I love writing, and I'm certainly not ready to hand over all the fun to an algorithm. A

There was a time when humans believed that everything revolved around the Earth. The sun, the moon, the stars, all orbiting dutifully around us like very obedient wedding guests. Then along came Nicolaus Copernicus, and he really upset the apple cart by pointing out that, actually, we’re not the centre of the universe at all. Which, if you think about it, is both humbling and slightly inconvenient. Ever since the Copernican Revolution, we’ve had to accept that we are just one

Journalist and broadcaster Bibi Lynch recently published an article taking stock of her life after she turned 60 - a bit of midlife reflection, if you like. She had no partner. No children. No home of her own. “On paper,” she wrote, “it might look like a failure.” And I felt a flutter of something like anxiety ripple across my stomach. Not because her life is a failure, but because so many of us carry around an invisible piece of paper like that. A quiet ledger of how we th

Every so often I come across a piece of writing that resonates so strongly with me I can’t keep it to myself. This morning it was a post by writer and humanist chaplain Jim Palmer . If you haven’t come across him before, Jim spent many years inside evangelical Christianity before eventually stepping away from organised religion altogether. Much of his writing explores what it means to live ethically, courageously, and compassionately without relying on religious frameworks -

If you’ve just started planning a wedding and you’re feeling overwhelmed by the list of Things You Apparently Should Already Know, let me take one off your plate. The difference between a registrar and a Humanist Society Scotland celebrant? It’s a biggie - and it’s not just about who gets to sign the paperwork. Let’s break it down. The Legal Bit Registrars are employed by the local council. They’re the official record-keepers, the government representatives: they manage the a

A reflection inspired by Andrea Gibson’s “Love Letter from the Afterlife” I recently came across a poem that stopped me in my tracks: Love Letter from the Afterlife by Andrea Gibson. If you’ve never read it, go gently. It’s the kind of poem that rearranges your insides in the best possible way. At its heart, it turns our usual thinking on its head. We so often speak about people "leaving us” when they die, as if they’ve vanished to some unreachable place. But this poem sugge

This is what depth looks like: real joy, real people, right at the heart of it all. I’ve heard it more than once—mostly (but not always) politely, often with a slightly furrowed brow and a concerned tone: “Don’t you think a non-religious ceremony can feel a bit… you know… shallow?” And I get it. Especially if you’ve only ever experienced ceremonies that follow a set religious structure, with age-old words and a firm sense of who’s in charge (usually someone in robes with a mi

One of the most rewarding things about conducting a funeral ceremony is finding the words that make people say, “Yes! That’s her. That’s exactly her.” Now, I won’t pretend that’s always easy. There are all sorts of challenges that can get in the way of At a crematorium, time can be tight. And even when there’s no clock glaring at you, it’s hard for families to pin down the right words. You’re exhausted, blindsided by grief, and the doorbell keeps going with well-meaning visi

When I first started working as a funeral celebrant, I honestly thought my role would be pretty straightforward. I imagined delivering...

Someone shared this quote with me recently, and it’s been quietly sitting with me ever since: "I don't think people understand how much...

This morning I woke up with a sharp, breath-catching pain under my ribcage. The kind that makes you pause mid-inhalation and wonder what...