Chocolate, Pens & Coffins

Birmingham seems to be awash with curious little museums. Yestermorning, I called at Bournville to see Cadbury World, the chocolate Christmas Tree of which I picture, above. Back in Birmingham proper, I darkened the door of the Pen Museum in the city's Jewellery Quarter, below, where pens and writing implements of various designs and types are displayed for inspection.

To cap it all off, and maintaining a nice order which reflects reality, I made my way to Newman Brothers on Fleet Street, overlooking one of Birmingham’s canals, otherwise known as The Coffin Works. Yes, that is correct, a museum about the manufacture of coffins, a profitable enterprise at this location from 1894 till 1998. There, boxes for the housing of cadavers were made to the highest standard, readying them for their committal to the ground.

Some might think this a degrading or deplorable theme for a museum, but why? The dead hand cannot direct a pen, for there is no movement or expression in the grave; the world of Cadbury with its sweet, brown nectar will at the very least increase the size of the coffin, if not the timing with which it is commissioned. Death is the great ‘inevitable’, ‘inescapable’ and ‘irresistible’; if we prepared for it as cheerfully as we express our thoughts on life’s banalities and with the same enthusiasm with which we fill our mouths and bellies with brown gloop, we should not be so embarrassed by it. If I had a farthing for each coffin-dweller who arrived at the other side regretting his rejection or neglect of Jesus Christ and His gracious offer of sin’s forgiveness, I would need no Funeral Plan of my own, and could afford a casket of silver and gold, with enough loose change for a world-wide wake.

But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” Matthew 8:22