United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child - Baby Naming

Naming - so many things to say.

I like to include the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in Baby-welcoming ceremonies. Here is Article 7:

1. The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and. as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.

The right to a NAME and an identity should be inviolate. We often use the UN Convention, and add this poem in Baby-welcoming ceremonies:

There are three names by which a person is called:
One which her father and mother call her,
And one which people call her,
And one which she earns for herself.
The best one of these is the one that she earns for herself.

Eco-coffin

I was asked for a source of eco-coffins, and this is just a placeholder, from a Colorado company, until I do more research. I have friends who used a bamboo coffin - and a woodworker friend who built a light wood plank coffin, but you can certainly shop around. Be sure to check the eco-burial legislation in your state - things are moving fast to allow such burials.

Thanatological music: music for the end of life

A music-thanatologist.., uses music to bring comfort to the dying.

"Doctors can write lots of medical prescriptions and not get the right response,” said Dr. Stewart Mones, medical director at Sacred Heart (hospital). “There are times when no medicines are as effective as music therapy."

Music-thanatology — from Thantos, the Greek word for death — has been around in various forms for centuries. Its roots extend at least back to the monastic medicine of Benedictine monks in 11th-century Cluny, France.

As practiced today, it was developed over more than 30 years by Therese Schroeder-Sheker. Her Chalice of Repose program was located in Colorado and Montana before 2002, when it moved to Mt. Angel in the quiet farm country of the Willamette Valley south of Portland... It stresses carefully individualized “prescriptive music,” a concept Schroeder-Sheker developed in which a harpist observes the body processes and mental state of a patient and adjusts tone and tempo to match.

Music thanatologists say they use the harp for the many sounds it can make and for its warm, low, resonant tones. And it’s portable. Their vigils...are held at no cost to the patient at a growing number of hospitals and hospices across the United States and elsewhere.
(personal note: as a former harpist, I think this is an excellent program. I have met some harpists who play in nursing homes, but not at hospices).

Episcopal Church may bless equal marriage

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) The U.S. Episcopal Church gave its clergy the go-ahead on Friday to bless some same-sex unions, such as civil partnerships in states that legally recognize them, setting the stage for further conflict with the wider Anglican world.

The resolution, passed on the final day of the church's triennial national convention, also directs church leaders to develop official rites, or liturgies, for the blessing of same-sex unions -- a move that could see the church eventually change its definition of marriage.

For now, the church's official definition of marriage is a union between a man and a woman. The same-sex rites called for on Friday will be discussed and voted on at the next general church conference in three years.

Visa Weddings and international weddings

Here's a crosspost from Wedding2point0 because it's important.
If you are marrying someone from another country, do a little documenting of your relationship. Take pictures of yourselves together at home. Get a bank account together, and lots of IDs. Don't do ALL of your banking and life online, but have some paper and bricks and mortar accounts. Some people DO get married for visa reasons, and the Immigration Department would like to go after them. It's very interesting that the original link to the wire.com story is now 404, and I can't find it... hmmm