A church decorated with the bones of 40,000 dead bodies can be a source of meditative contemplation - or a macabre monument to commercial tourism. The ossuary of Sedlec in the Czech Republic leans heavily towards toward the latter, though its pride in its role as World Cultural Heritage prevents it from becoming ugly.
We all carry an image of our friends in our minds. When we have regular contact with those friends, the image constantly grows and changes over time as a result of our interactions with them. When the friend is no more, what happens to this image?
Meditation may be technical and topical. The latter form sometimes focuses on the topic of death. As in the church of the Cappucino monks of Rome, where the basement contains 4000 skeletons taken apart and used for decoration.
A poem on death by the Norwegian poet Stein Mehren reminds us of the challenges of life.
