Heart Beat

This week sees the inauspicious anniversary of the death of William Harvey in 1578. He was a London doctor, credited with being the first to discover that blood circulates around the body, pumped by the beat of the heart. The heart as our life-source, sends oxygen and nutrients through veins and arteries, so that, physically, we as humans can operate as we do. The pump of the heart has, however, become the symbol of what we are emotionally and psychologically. We talk of the ‘heart racing’ when there is physical attraction towards someone; we speak of the ‘heart being full’, may be of praise and admiration of others’ accomplishments; and we articulate the words ‘our hearts are heavy’ when referring to tragedy or crisis in our lives.

Heavy hearts

It is certainly the case that the lattermost ‘heart expression’ is all too true for large swathes of the globe at this moment, as we are facing what is a second world crisis – first pandemic and now the fall-out of the war in Ukraine. As we sit in front of our screens and are confronted daily with heinous atrocities perpetrated against the most innocent and defenceless, such as in Mariupole, our hearts are, indeed, heavy as we stand and watch what was a normal, thriving, Western city suffer such decimation, and its inhabitants reduced to starvation, homelessness and loss of all semblance of life as they knew it.

Broken hearts

In the Psalms, King David writes: ‘the Lord is near to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.’ Jesus echoes this sentiment in Matthew’s gospel: ‘Come to me all you who are heavy laden and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.’ The incarnation of God in Christ is a message from the heart of the Creator and Sustainer that he forever identifies with pain and trauma – with those who are suffering and with those who feel for the pain of others, and it is the responsibility of all those who claim to follow him, to be those who carry burdens and share in the heaviness of heart that others experience. But emphasis should be on the ‘sharing,’ for none of us is expected to bear the weight of the world upon one’s shoulders and heart. On reflecting upon the import of Lent, it is that we who may be ‘heavy in heart’ are driven to prayer and to share with, and inquire of, God what he may be asking any of us to do in response. It is then to understand that it is His task for us, and not the task of the lone stoic with the sense of ‘ought’ around his or her neck. It comes back to the Christian’s understanding of service, which we can do with purpose, but also with joy, even in the midst of pain: holding both these things in tension is to reflect the very nature of the passion and triumph of the cross and resurrection.

Heart restored

So let us go where the heart says but be directed by the one whose heart beats for each one of us, whatever state we find ourselves in.

(With thanks to Revd Alex Aldous, Chaplain of Prestfelde Prep School)

A journey justified

As the Omicron virus variant begins to bite, again the question lurks in our minds in this merry month of December: ‘Will journeys be curtailed to keep Christmas alive?’ As travel cancellations escalate and holidays are again delayed, there’s a growing fear that visiting relations and friends may be reduced to avoid the ‘Déjà voodoo’ of a hapless lockdown.

Journeys, however, feature strongly in that first Christmas story, and risks were taken – well beyond the realm of the sensible, sanitised, modern mind-set of the West. Firstly, through the demands of a Roman census, a heavily pregnant mother was forced to travel seventy miles by donkey through the dangerous Samarian countryside which would have taken four days at its smoothest – not quite the 1 hour 50 minutes that it takes today by car from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Joseph, who would naturally have wanted to protect his wife, might therefore have opted for a safer route, but this could have extended the journey to a week, despite knowing that she was ‘great with child.’

Then there was the epic journey of the Parthian magi from the borders of Afghanistan and Syria guided not by sat-nav but by the stars, or rather, one in particular. It had been their conviction after much soul and sky searching that a regal birth had been ushered in, and a sense of mystery and divine curiosity goaded them on to cover the 500 miles, taking them eighteen months or more.

For the shepherds out on the Judean hills, the journey was not nearly so long – but they were ‘under the influence’ of angels and bright lights, and this caused them irrationally to abandon their flocks, potentially to the ravages of wild animals.

For all the central figures that first Christmas journey was fraught with risk and danger, but they were put aside for greater purposes: the celebration of a new-born king who would ‘reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and for ever,’ as the prophet, Isaiah puts it.

It is a similar sense of daring and abandonment that the Christian message calls us all to make: to go with haste and inquire into what this story could mean for us in our hearts. Of course, it might mean disposing some of the excess baggage that we’re so tempted to carry at this festive time – an over-emphasis on self-indulgence, a preoccupation with consumerism and ‘stuff,’ and a scant regard for how the poor and marginalised might be coping as they languish in Yuletide shadows. Our travelling to meet the Saviour face to face, like the crib figures, is down to will power and a heart-felt conviction. Do we want to make that journey? For those who are making it now and have done for centuries it needs no justification. As Ralph Washington Sockman once said: ‘The hinge of history is on the door of a Bethlehem stable.’ History was changed by that journey, and ‘his-story’ for each one of us can begin there too… and transform us.

May each of us consider making that personal journey this year and keep Christmas alive– a very happy and joy-filled season to you all!

(With thanks to Revd Alex Aldous, chaplain of Prestfelde Prep School, Shrewsbury)

Coping with the unexpected

Across the news this week we have seen terrific volcanic eruptions in Palma,
Canaries, an earthquake in Melbourne, Australia and the increased threat of
energy companies shutting down around the country. In each of these
situations, no-one could have anticipated any of these intrusions in our daily
lives; and the same could be said about so many life-events that cross our
bows – whether it be accidents, illness or, perhaps, the more positive news of
an unexpected rise in one’s salary!

Despite how many risk assessments that we might make in schools, industry,
government or in our own personal lives at home, life always has the
propensity to throw us a curved ball. Aside the need for each of us to take
responsibility for how we conduct ourselves in relation to our world, it is a
challenge to see how we can better cope with the unexpected. Even if we play
ostrich or genuinely hide ourselves away in our homes, we can never be sure
that a roof tile doesn’t strike us! To follow such a line can only lead to a prison
of neurosis, which binds, breaks down human relationship and prevents vision
and confidence in a world to explore and enjoy.

Whilst Jesus was on earth, in his Sermon on the Mount, he pointed his listeners
to nature: ‘Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store in
barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more
valuable than they? Who by worrying can add a single hour to their life?’
Worry is not only unhelpful but can itself be a source of harm, as any
psychologist or neuro physician will concur. But what Christ is underlining here,
positively, is that we have a heavenly Father who genuinely cares and loves us,
in the midst of the unexpected as much as in the humdrum, and as he reminds
us earlier in that Sermon, we are all called to be light and salt in the world, not
hiding away but shining, supporting, and demonstrating God’s love to our
hurting neighbour.

There is, conversely, within the Christian message, the need for us to be
vigilant and watchful and knowing that we need to be prepared for eternity.
Life, unlike what some may say, is a dress rehearsal – the three score years and
ten, or thereabouts, is never guaranteed but can be viewed as an opportunity
not for obsessive indulgence in good works, but rather permission for God to
have his way in our lives by his grace, seeking what the day given to us might
hold, according to his will. That, I believe, will give us a divine perspective on
the unexpected and a readiness to greet each day with joy and gratitude and
our life in the next world, whenever that might be.

(With thanks to Revd Alex Aldous, Chaplain at Prestfelde Prep School)

Smoke alarm moments!

I recently attended an excellent conference organised by CCE (Centre for Chaplains in Education) on the theme, ‘People of Hope in times of change‘. One of the workshops was led by Dr Kate Middleton (not a royal personage!) who spoke engagingly about mental health issues facing young people today. It was an upbeat message but she did relate, from her work with teenagers especially, how some no longer look forward to the future with keen anticipation but consider it may now be ‘rubbish’. Many adults perhaps also share this jaundiced view of the future. She then encouraged us to consider how we might help change this perception.

Wired brains

Our brains are wired to recognise three ‘systems’ in particular: threats, a drive for pleasure and a sense of clam and soothing. Unfortunately, perhaps, the only one ‘turned on’ all the time is ‘threat’: whilst a necessary response mechanism to perceived and real danger (a speeding car, an aggressive dog, a sharp drop…) it is also increasingly engaged by a negative and scaremongering Press which causes a ‘smoke alarm’ reaction in us. We rush to detect the danger which we then spend time analysing, dwelling over and imagining further. There may indeed be a ‘fire’ but more often than not it’s a false alarm – an insect walking across the sensor, a battery which has run down or a faint wisp of harmless moisture. We need to find ways to balance threat’s adrenalin with dopamine, stimulated by a drive to engage in pleasurable hobbies, sport and work routines. In addition, threat and desire are best aligned with the soothing effects of oxytocin which is released through positive social connections and love.

Hormones

I am no scientist and won’t pretend to understand what these hormones are, but I do relate to the need for all of us, and not just young people, to engage each harmoniously. Dr Middleton recommended three measures whereby we can take control of our wellbeing and, in modelling them (particularly to family members and young people damaged emotionally by the lockdowns and the pandemic), help others to do the same. The first is doing something over which we can exercise personal control: this might be engaging in art, building a Lego model, tidying out a cupboard or completing a puzzle. The second suggestion involves ways to stimulate endorphins, chemicals released by the body to relieve stress and pain: exercise, social connections and engaging in ‘awe’ such as watching birds soar, clouds move and stars sparkle. Finally, we should pursue joy (safely and legitimately!) by making time for those hobbies and pursuits we so enjoy.

Listen

I believe there is every reason to expect that we shall emerge from the difficulties of these past two years stronger, resilient, more caring and complete but we need to be gentle on ourselves, take sensible advice and listen wisely (and not just to the ‘smoke alarms’). As it says in Proverbs 16:4, ‘Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones’.

Check-Mate?

Last week we had Budget Day – the day when we trust that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will lay out plans for us as individuals and as a nation to emerge from this pandemic with a hope and a future amidst the debt and the devastation wrought upon us by COVID-19. For the world, for us all, this past year has been a tribulation: a time when we have felt in exile from our normal state of being and how we relate one with the other.

The prefix ‘ex’ can often imply ‘deliverance’ or ‘fleeing from’ – coming out of where we have been. The Exodus in the Old Testament was a positive freedom from slavery in Egypt and a moving towards a Land of Promise in Canaan. The Exile, however, many generations later spelt a time for the Israelites of being banished from one’s own land, resulting from their repeated transgression against the plans and laws of God, given as a manual for successful living as Kingdom people.

We might wonder whether there are ‘tax exiles’ or promises of ‘getting out of a fix’ when we reflect upon the etymology for ‘Exchequer.’ But not so: the word comes from the Old French ‘eschequier’ meaning a ‘chessboard’ or ‘chequered board,’ and woven into this is also writ the meaning of ‘reckoning.’ We can in our own mind’s eye envisage the board that we have inherited this year where there are fewer players, many others having fallen by the wayside and others embattled and reckoning with ‘check mate’ mentally, emotionally, economically and physically.

It was whilst the Jews were in exile that the prophet Jeremiah proclaimed God’s words: ‘that when the seventy years are completed in Babylon, I will come to you and fulfil my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans that I have for you: plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’

After such a year, we might well be feeling that our own chessboard has been decimated, and there is nothing that any Chancellor can produce out of a hat to right the wrongs, heal the hurts and mend the chequered past that we may have endured. Yet the real hope for those of faith is that as we travel through the desert of Lent and towards the cross of Easter, that God always has the last word – that nothing is too great for him to overcome and redeem. But he first gently whispers the additional words after the above promise: ‘call upon me, pray…seek me and find me when you seek with all your heart.’

We do not know the move of our Great High Chancellor of the Exchequer Above – His moves, like some players on the chessboard, may not be predictable by us mortals – they may move sideways and backwards before moving forward, but our faith assures us that He is the one who holds the plans and it is we who are challenged to trust that He knows our futures – ‘plans for good and not for evil’: those plans, we can be assured, will be for us ‘ex-ce-Lent’ as we call, pray and seek Him.

(With thanks to Revd Alex Aldous, Chaplain at Prestfelde Prep School)

Heartbreak

It was on this day (27th January), 65 years ago, that the King of Rock, Elvis Presley, released his first million-selling single ‘Heartbreak Hotel,’ achieving the accolade of reaching the ‘top five’ of Country and Western, pop and Rhythm and Blues simultaneously. The lyrics were inspired by a recorded tragedy of a man jumping from a hotel window through jilted love.

‘At Heartbreak Hotel
Where I’ll be–where I get so lonely, baby
Well, I’m so lonely
I get so lonely, I could die.’

As we are all aware, loneliness, this lockdown, has reached epidemic proportions and the homes that people have been confined to through ongoing restrictions have indeed become their Heartbreak Hotels: hearts that have been broken, through not reuniting with friends and loved ones they crave to embrace and hold and have the simplest of conversations with. The ‘Hotels’ may quarantine the body but never the mind, heart and soul. The Psalmist stated that ‘the Lord planted the lonely in families’ but it has become the Hotel of Discomfort that has separated them again and as we daily imbibe our news updates, we share the anguish of all who are in isolation.

It seems almost trite to provide easy religious messages to massage the pain that so many are enduring, but as humans created for intimate relationship, it would be wrong also not to point people back to our Lord. He it was who Himself endured loneliness, not just in coming to this earth, or in the misunderstanding of those who claimed to follow Him, but on the cross when He experienced the desolation of the Father abandoning him – why? so that we could be reunited with Him. It is the cry from numerous psalms that it is in our human desolation and out of our depths – brought on by any number of circumstances – that we call out and look up. It is as we are still before God that we are reminded that He, who knew anguish of soul, is the One who stands by us at the very worst of times. How do we know this? Because it was not only in His becoming like one of us and sharing our experience of humanity in all its glory and its degradation, but through the work of reconciliation on the cross that He restores, comforts and reminds us that we are not alone. Nothing about us, nor how we feel about ourselves or our condition can separate us from the love of God, and it is the promise of His holy and indwelling Spirit that He gives to us – the pre-eminent Comforter – that reminds us that we are not alone.

The monument to Presley’s hit, ‘Heartbreak Hotel,’ stood for thirty years in Memphis, but it was torn down to make room for the new Guest House at Graceland – now there’s a parable! We are all, as humans, welcomed into His house and habitation of Grace, but he does not call us His guests, but as friends for ever: the ‘Heartbreak’ for Him is that not more of us welcome the move.

(Reproduced by kind permission of Revd Alex Aldous, Prestfelde School chaplain)

Drops of grace as life stutters

As we approach the inauguration of the 46th President of the USA, we are being reminded that Joe Bidden is one among 3% of the world’s population who stutters – or stammers. Ed Balls, former MP, ‘Strictly star’ and Shadow Secretary of State for Education was once mocked in the House of Commons for stumbling over his words – someone else who stutters through life. I, too, count myself as part of this select 3%!

Not long ago I read in the Press about author Chris Young, who was trying to get in touch with his English teacher, a Miss Ward, from the late 1970s. Mr Young, who commended his teacher for supporting him after his mother died and his alcoholic father could not cope, tweeted: ‘I’d dropped into the bottom quarter for English at school. My English Teacher, Miss Ward, pulled me out of that ditch’. At the age of 13 years, Miss Ward ‘treated me like a rock star, loved what I wrote and got me to talk in front of the class’. He has now launched his first book!

I imagine (and I hope) that we all have memories of someone who has stood by us, encouraged us and ‘been there for us’ when the going got tough. Whilst my early life was very different from that of the gentleman above, I can also remember a teacher who impacted me positively and immeasurably – and who also gave me confidence to speak in front of others. Her name was Miss Margaret Maclaurin and she was my elocution teacher at Prep School in Scotland in the 1960s.

My parents lived and worked in West Africa and were in a remote area of Ghana when the time came for me to go to school aged five. There was nowhere suitable for me locally and so I came to board, aged five, at Drumley House Prep School near Ayr. Whilst I have only fond memories of my eight years at Drumley, at some point in my early years there I developed a stammer. This was possibly a result of the separation from my parents (although I usually spent my holidays with them in Ghana or, when home on leave, in Paisley). Miss Maclaurin came to my rescue! She saw me once a week for elocution lessons and during this time not only did I learn a few ‘tricks’ (such as how to avoid using words beginning in ‘p’ when feeling tired and stressed), I also learnt about speaking in public. Where this was once the most disarming place for me as a stutterer, it came to be a challenge which I relished. Miss M taught me to learn poetry off by heart so that when I declaimed I could concentrate on expression, modulation and emphasis and not have to worry about the words themselves.

As a Head I had to speak in public almost daily and owe a huge debt of gratitude towards Miss Maclaurin. It was a delight to visit her in her home when she had retired and I was newly married and to introduce her to my wife, Rosalyn. So engrossed were we in conversation that we quite forgot that Rosalyn had gone off to the bathroom (and somehow locked herself in) – but that’s another story!

So, a challenge for us all during a time when life is stuttering in another way: think of someone who has had a positive impact on our lives in years gone by and why not surprise them with a letter, a card, a call or even a visit – just to show appreciation. It might prove to be a ‘drop of grace’ in their life at this very moment. You’ll never know if you don’t try it – and who knows, someone may do it for you, too!

A ‘new normal’?

I’m an urban spaceman

One of the more intriguing group of musicians of the 1960s went by the wonderfully tongue-in-cheek name of: ‘Bonzo Dog Doo-bah Band’ with its particularly successful single: ‘I’m an urban Spaceman.’ Another of their psychedelic pop/comedy rock singles in the ’80s was entitled ‘Normals.’ Being sucked along what sounds like an hermetically-sealed conveyor belt, ‘normals’ are processed and gawped at by a spoof inspectorate. ‘You think you’re normal?’ Here comes one…he’s got a head on him like a rabbit.’ Chorus: ‘We are normal and we want our freedom.’

Trauma

But what is ‘normal?’ Last week I attended an online course for Trauma and Bereavement where we were informed that trauma occurs when core human beliefs are threatened: 1) That nothing bad is going to happen to us 2) That the world’s generally predictable and 3) That people are essentially decent. The last few months have shaken these first two beliefs and things we counted as dependable – employment, financial security, and uninhibited socialising have seemed certain no longer, and normality itself seems like an endangered species.

In the West, we are largely screened from the unpredictability of much of the world’s experience where people are victims of volatile weather conditions, despotic governments and relentless poverty, but the Corona pandemic has united the world in a shared experience which has left humanity reeling, and, of course, it is the poorer nations and the poorer within our own communities who are left to suffer its after-effects most.

Creatures of habit

We are essentially creatures of habit and we crave for a return to that which we know, a safe retreat to patterns of living with which we are familiar. We in our own community hope that in this vaccine-lacking limbo-land, still we seek to emulate that which we have known and yet mindful of the need to change and adapt as the virus follows its course. Aside the need to adjust technologically and respect social distancing, what are we bringing to our shared existence that can enhance our common experience and raise standards within normality? It would be my hope and prayer that a deeper understanding of what it is to value each individual made in the image of God would emerge and a real comprehension that there is more to life than riches, success and fame.

A new normality might require us to look again at Jesus’ model of real servanthood, ‘washing the feet’ of the unlovely, the rejected and the outcast and tending the wounds of those who are being mentally scarred by lockdown and the effects of the virus.

A new normal of compassion and sensitivity

Being normal and wanting our freedom is perfectly understandable but not desirable if it’s an inappropriate return to mass raves in gathered spaces or unthinking frequenting to known beauty spots – that is the old selfish gene rearing its ugly head. But if it means freedom from: mental anguish, loss of direction and being without purpose in life and we are the agents of this to one another, in the name of an outpouring of sensitivity and compassion then let it be, dear Lord, let it be. But is it new? Only if we’ve never tried it.

(A guest blog, with kind permission, by one of our TISCA chaplains, Revd Alex Aldous)

Hope in anxious times

Deadly diseases

In the 1970s, a student who would one day go on to become one of the foremost clinical microbiologists was advised against doing research into infectious diseases. There was no point, his professor told him. Thanks to vaccines and antibiotics, deadly epidemic diseases, such as smallpox, plague, typhus and malaria, were finally in retreat. All too sadly today – as we remember SARS in 2002, Ebola in 2014 and recognise that by 2016 HIV and AIDS (which came to worldwide notice in the 1980s) had been responsible for 35 million deaths – we are now faced with a new pandemic, COVID-19.

God’s to blame?

Epidemics breed fear and suspicion that multiply (along with modern scams, hoaxes and false news) more rapidly than any virus. Often when a mysterious illness erupts the first unhelpful reaction is to panic and the second is to identify a culprit. The White House recently called COVID-19 ‘the Chinese virus’ and in the 1980s, when the cause of AIDS was still unknown, the American Press accused Africans of having sex with chimpanzees, whilst Soviet agents located its origins in US research laboratories. Interestingly, in 1665 at the height of the plaque in London, the prime suspect was God! Lacking any other explanation, crowds flocked to churches, praying for deliverance from what they interpreted as divine retribution for their sins.

There is hope

Whilst God is not being labelled the culprit for coronavirus, in some places it is indeed causing people to return to Him, if not in a church building setting then certainly via online services, discussions, prayer times and seminars. A school chaplain I know reported that in normal times the voluntary Sunday chapel services attracted 50-60 pupils, the online version was now attracting over 200 participants. In society today, as was seen in 1918-20 (during the Great Influenza or Spanish ‘flu outbreak which claimed more lives than those killed in the Great War), this crisis has spawned an outpouring of mass volunteerism and self-sacrifice across the globe. There is hope!

I know Who holds the future

The world is indeed a very anxious place but as we consider the plagues and epidemics of the past, we can also acknowledge that much good has emerged from such times. Whether it’s wonderful literature (some of Shakespeare’s plays were written whilst self-isolating from the plague) or ground breaking science (Isaac Newton ‘discovered’ the laws of gravity when temporarily confined to his Lincolnshire cottage from disease-ridden Cambridge), we can still point to the One who holds our future and brings Hope to the world at all times, and especially in those when tragedy, fear and death are rife. As a well-known Christian chorus puts it, ‘I know who holds the future, and He’ll guide me with His hand. With God things don’t just happen, everything by Him is planned. So as I face tomorrow, with its problems large and small, I’ll trust the God of miracles, give to Him my all.’ (Eugene Clark)

(With thanks to History Today magazine, April 2020, for historical examples.)

Do not stand at my grave and weep

Don’t panic, precious readers of my occasional blog. The title is not chosen as a personal reflection and is not the reason, either, of my silence for some weeks. I have just returned from a school inspection visit in India and the words above leapt out at me from a tombstone. Let me explain…

A passage to India

My visit to India took in the former colonial sanatorium hill station of Ootacamund (Udhagamandulam today – but everyone still calls it Ooty). ‘Snooty Ooty’ of imperial fame, sits at the top of the Nilgiri Hills at 7,500 feet altitude (twice as high as Ben Nevis https://bennevis.co.uk) in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Here in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the British would retreat from the heat and disease of the plains, to rule the southern subcontinent from a mini-Surrey complete with bungalows, libraries, clubs, churches, guest houses and European schools. Many of these buildings still survive and so on a break from the rigours of school inspection I ventured up to St Stephen’s, part of the Church of South India (and pictured above).

In memoriam

The memorial plaques and graves of St Stephen’s are testimony to ‘the white man’s graveyard’, albeit on a different continent from whence that epitaph originates. There’s one to the Captain in the Bombay Grenadiers who died aged 36, ‘drowned in the Kromund river while out hunting with the Ootacamund Hounds‘. Another is to the young soldier who ‘died on this very spot – killed by a tiger‘. (I did see a tiger, my first ever in the wild, on this visit: I was ‘on a course’ for the morning – a golf course I have to admit – and there it was, bold as brass, sauntering from one hole to another: not so much playing with Tiger Woods, but playing with a tiger from the woods!) But, I digress.

Mourning great loss

The saddest memorial plaques are to the wives of colonial administrators and soldiers. There’s one to Georgiana Grace, wife of JC Wroughton, Esq., who was the Collector (of taxes) for the province. She passed away in 1847 aged 30 years ‘leaving her husband and seven children to deplore their irreparable loss‘. Alongside this stone is that of Henrietta Cecilia, wife of the founder of Ootacamund, John Sullivan. Henrietta died in 1838 aged 36 and her stone also bears testimony to Harriet, their daughter, who also passed away prematurely, aged 17 years. The plaque goes on to mention the Sullivans’ eight children who, together with their father, ‘mourn the loss of these the objects of their tenderest love’.

Great joy and hope are there, too

On the face of it these, and other tombs, are illustrative of much sadness and anguish. However, it doesn’t take long to note, too, the hope they also had. Henrietta Sullivan’s plaque concludes with this sentiment: ‘Not however as those without hope but believing that as “Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with Him”‘. Out in the graveyard, positioned between two ancient tombs, there is a new-looking sign which says: ‘reserved’. Poignantly alongside this, is a large headstone which bears the words at the top of this blog, ‘Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep‘. There then follows a verse of a poem by Steven Cummins which concludes: ‘Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there, I did not die‘.

There’s a challenge here to live our lives so filled with faith and love that when we eventually die in an earthly sense, we do so knowing without any doubt that we then enter an eternal life in the presence of Jesus. Weeping at funerals and at a loved one’s death is perfectly natural – but let there be joy, too, when believers are remembered.