Dear allI write just after Prince Harry has published his book “Spare”. Like many of you, I remember the day of Princess Diana’s funeral, and watched her two young sons follow behind the coffin in that long and very public walk to the church. Grieving is a sometimes long and complex process. As some of you will know, I often encourage families to bring their children to the funerals that I take — this is ultimately a decision for the parents. I share my own story: my father died when I was 12 after a three months struggle with cancer, and my mother thought it best for me to remain at home whilst the service took place at the crematorium. I had a very difficult year, and looking back, it would have been much better to have had that moment of grieving with the family together, rather than for the grief to work its way out in other, more complex ways. That being said, of course, we do need to protect and care for our children through the grieving process, and especially during sensitive moments like a funeral — there needs to be a caring balance, both for the now and for the future. At a family funeral, our then 3 year old toddler said “Is Grandad in that box?”, to which we replied “His body is, yes — but Grandad himself is safe with God in heaven.”. Without the lens of faith we would probably say something similar, that the coffin contains only the remains — the spark that made them them is gone, remembered in our stories and our refections.I’m aware that Prince Harry’s grief will awaken for many of us older and perhaps more present grief of our own. Do talk about it with others, offer it to God in your prayers or thoughts — grieving is complex for us all: those we lose are never perfect, not all relationships have been happy, and death through tragedy is partculary hard to carry. We are about to start that period in the church’s year where we prepare for Easter — the message is that there is always hope, even when perhaps in the present is is hard to catch sight of the light. One of the sung prayers that I remember well from the Taizé community begins:Dans nos obscurités: Allume le feu qui ne s'éteint jamaisorWithin our darkest night, You kindle a fire that never dies away, that never dies away.My prayer is that we all discover that fire or flame.Yours as everCanon Stephen
Dear allThe darker evenings are now upon us and the longest night approaches fast.In the season of Advent, which covers the four weeks before Christmas, will have begun by the time that you read this letter.Advent is primarily about looking for hope in the midst of darkness. Advent begins with the church’s historical longing for ’the end of all things’ when everything is complete in God’s story of our beginning, our making and our end, a once-for-ever righting of all wrongs in the completion of all things in heaven. Advent ends with God’s practical outworking of how this will be done, looking forward, alongside the pregnant Mary, to the birth of Jesus. The church would come to recognise Jesus as fully human and fully divine, and find in him the way, the truth and the life, who brings us back to God in our present now.As we face not just hte physical darkness of approaching winter, may we too know something of the light of Christ that comes into our world. May we have a fruitful Advent, and come, at Christmas Day, to echo the words of this familiar carol in our heartsO holy Child of Bethlehem,descend to us, we pray,cast out our sin and enter in,be born in us today.We hear the Christmas angelsthe great glad tidings tell;O come to us, abide with us,our Lord Immanuel!Yours, as everStephen
Several folk have asked me about the extract of the poem that I used as part of my sermon on Remembrance Sunday. The poem is about civilian experience of the Blitz in London during the Second World War, and the extract was from the third section of the poem 'The Burning of the Leaves' by Laurence Binyon.Stooping and feeble, leaning on a stick,An old man with his vague feet stirs the dust,Searching a strange world for he knows not whatAmong haphazard stone and crumbled brick.He cannot adjustWhat his eyes see to memory's golden land,Shut off by the iron curtain of today:The past is all the present he has got.Now, as he bends to peerInto the rubble, he picks up in his hand(Death has been here!)Something defaced, naked and bruised: a doll,A child's doll, blankly smiling with wide eyesAnd oh, how human in its helplessness!Pondered in weak fingersHe holds it puzzled: wondering, where is sheThe small motherWhose pleasure was to clothe it and caress,Who hugged it with a motherhood foreknown,Who ran to comfort its imagined criesAnd gave it pretty sorrows for its own?No one replies.
Dear allA hymn we often sing in church has, as its opening line, “All my hope on God is founded...”. The hymn is about the constancy of God in a time of change, when our certainties (even those we have in God) seem less certain, and we are unsure of what the future will bring.I write this in the middle of the 10 day period of mourning we kept for Her Late Majesty The Queen. This is both a massive change — HM the Queen has been one of those constants there, always, at the heart of the life of our country, and yet, for many of us, her death will not make a great deal of difference to how we lead our everyday life. There are many ways her death affects us. Its very public nature, and the grieving of her family, call to mind the loss of our own parents and friends. It also reminds us of our own mortality, our own journey, one day, to the end of our life. There is also that sense of ‘other’ around the Royal Family — in some way they are a representative family for us, a living example, perhaps ‘warts and all’, and her death affects all this for us too — stories of kings and queens, princes and princesses, our sense of nationhood itself (and our role in it), will all adapt too as we grow into King Charles’s reign.Of course, Her Majesty’s death is not the only change that we face this autumn. The war in Ukraine affects our energy security, with gas and electricity prices almost out of control; we have a change in government, with a new prime minister; and we have the uncertainties of climate change made more present by such an unusual summer.The hymn goes onto say “Me through change and chance he guideth…”. My prayer for us all is that we each discover in our own way God’s deep presence, constancy and guidance.Yours, as ever Stephen
