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Notes toward planning my funeral

Notes toward planning my funeral

Last updated on: October 26, 2026 at 4:49 pm by Dan Peterson

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Notes toward planning my funeral 2026-10-26T16:49:15-06:00 Dan Peterson

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An 1855 engraving of Nauvoo, Illinois, from the western shore of the Mississippi. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image) The original Nauvoo Temple is still partially standing; the Latter-day Saints had been driven out approximately a decade before.

I’m pleased to report that the fortieth installment of our Becoming Brigham documentary series went up early this morning, and that it’s available for viewing at no charge: “The Price of Faith? The Fire of Covenant! — Becoming Brigham Episode 40”

Please watch it. And please watch the earlier installments in the Becoming Brigham series. And please don’t fail to call it to the attention of others who might be interested or who might benefit from it. Thank you! We’ve made the episodes that are up. Their costs are sunk; their expenses have been expended. We’ll earn not so much as a penny whether anybody watches them or not — but we made them to be watched. And more are coming. (Subscribe here!)

Sunset in Luxor, Egypt (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

My fans on the Peterson Obsession Board shouldn’t get their hopes up: It’s certainly possible that I might depart this vale of tears sometime today but, thus far, there’s no specific medical reason to expect my passing anytime soon. I feel fine. Still, I heard The King’s Singer’s perform an a cappella rendition of “Be Still, My Soul” earlier today, and it got me thinking once more about music that I would love to have performed at my funeral, which is surely closer today than it was yesterday. The words to “Be Still, My Soul” were written by Katharina von Schlegel in 1752, translated into English by Jane Borthwick in 1855, and then, in 1899, set to the melody of Finlandia, by Jean Sibelius:

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side;
With patience bear thy cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: Thy best, thy heav’nly Friend
Thru thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: Thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as he has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hast’ning on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

If, for some reason, you’re unable to access the performance of “Be Still, My Soul” by The King’s Singers, you might try There is, by the way, a fourth verse with which I was not familiar until this morning. I like it, too:

Be still, my soul! when dearest friends depart
And all is darkened in the vale of tears,
Then shalt thou better know his love, his heart,
Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.
Be still, my soul! thy Jesus can repay
From his own fullness all he takes away.

The Oakland California Temple near sunset (LDS Media Library)

I very much like both the tune and the words. And here, while I’m still on a funereal theme, is another piece that I would like.

Going home, going home.
I am going home.
Quiet like, some still day
I am going home.
It’s not far, just close by
Through an open door.
Work all done, care laid by.
Never fear no more.

Mother’s there expecting me.
Father’s waiting too.
Lots of faces gathered there,
All the friends I knew.
I’m just going home.

No more fear, no more pain,
No more stumbling by the way,
No more longing for the day.
Going to run no more.
Morning star light the way,
Restless dreams all gone.
Shadows gone, break of day,
Real life has begun.

There’s no break, there’s no end.
Just living on.
Wide awake, with a smile.
Going on and on, going on and on.
Going home, going home.
I am going home.
Shadows gone, break of day,
Real life has begun.
I’m just going home.

The music to “Going Home” comes from the English horn melody in the Largo (second) movement of Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, which is also known as The New World Symphony or From the New World. Antonín Dvořák wrote his Symphony No. 9 in 1893 while he was living in New York City as the director of the National Conservatory of Music. The famous Largo theme was inspired by African-American spirituals — which probably helps to account for the fact that “Going Home” is often incorrectly thought to be an authentic Black spiritual itself — but also by his own homesickness for his native Bohemia.

In 1922, a former student of Dvořák’s, an American composer and musicologist by the name of William Arms Fisher, wrote the familiar words of “Going Home” — he accurately perceived the theme of yearning homesickness but changed the focus of that yearning from Bohemia to Heaven (the two aren’t quite the same) — and turned the melody into a standalone song.

Although I would like the two songs above to be performed or sung at my obsequies, I won’t be in any position at that point to make any demands. And, anyway, the three people who will show up at the services — at least two of whom will probably be jubilant representatives of the Peterson Obsession Board — won’t be enough to carry either of them.

A photograph, by my wife, of a sunset at Corona del Mar during a visit there some time back..

I do, however, have one firm demand as relates to celebrations of my passing: My recent stint in various European cities has confirmed, yet again, my lack of interest in having any stone or bronze equestrian statues erected in my memory: In my opinion, it’s really undignified to perpetually have a pigeon perched on one’s head. And there’s always a pigeon. No thanks. I decline the honor.

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