Today’s featured photo is an AI representation of a funeral speaker.

Sorry I missed blogging over the weekend. I have been laid up with a pretty nasty respiratory illness. Needless to say, Bill and I didn’t go out and do anything this past weekend, as he was the one who gave the virus to me. We are both still coughing a lot. Yesterday, I felt a lot worse than I do today, but I’m still not 100 percent well.

I found out this morning that my Uncle Bill died. I wrote a bit about him in my main blog, so I won’t rehash it here, except to say that his death brings up a topic I meant to write about a couple of weeks ago.

I went to our mailbox and found the card pictured below:

I was intrigued by this card, as I quickly realized that this woman is offering public speaking services at funerals. I had no idea this was a thing here in Germany. I asked my local friend about it, and she said that nowadays, it’s not uncommon for Germans to hire people to speak at funerals. It used to be that people went to church and when they died, a member of the clergy would speak at their funerals. Today, since people are no longer religious, there is no one official to speak at funerals. If no one close to the deceased wants to do it, they hire someone like Olivia Merz to speak for them.

I wouldn’t be surprised if some Americans are doing this, too, although people in the United States definitely seem more “religious” than most Europeans are these days. Here in Germany, if you are a church member, you have to pay a church tax, which may be reason enough for people not to bother with it. According to the Wikipedia link I posted, the tax can be pretty substantial, depending on how much money you make and where you live. However, the tax is deductible from the taxable income, which takes a little of the sting out of it. I guess they need the money to keep the churches so beautiful.

Anyway… I just thought the idea of professional funeral speakers was an interesting topic for this blog, especially since I’m not quite up to traveling or going out to eat right now. I don’t think we’ll be conducting any funerals in Germany, even if I did feel like dying yesterday.

Hopefully, Bill and I will both be on the mend enough to do something this weekend…