A thank you from Liz

This is the first time that I have written anything for the Wykeham Benefice News, and my first opportunity to say thank you to everyone who has made us so welcome here in this first year that we have been here. It really feels like home now!

Some of you may have noticed that I haven’t been at many weekday services in our benefice churches recently. This is because I have been playing the organ (and putting on CDs) for funeral services at Banbury Crematorium for the last few months. You might think that regular attendance of funerals would be a depressing experience, but I haven’t found it so, partly because I have been able to make use of my training as an organist, but also because it is a great privilege to be able to hear about the wonderful lives that all sorts of people have led, and to listen to the wide range of music chosen to be played at their funeral ceremonies.

It has been quite a learning experience for me, as someone who has been the officiant at many funerals, to be at the other end of the chapel, participating in a different way. But more importantly the whole experience of being involved with funerals has reminded me just how important it is for all of us to think about what we would like to happen at our own funerals. It is not something that we like to think about, preferring to live our lives in the present moment; or perhaps we hold the opinion that when we eventually die it won’t matter to us what happens; we won’t be there to make the arrangements so somebody else will. But when somebody dies, their family members are not always in a robust-enough state to make decisions or to remember what music or hymns or readings their loved one would have liked, so it is really helpful if that person had written something down and given it to their next-of-kin or executor.

None of us knows for certain just how long we have left in this earthly life, and I believe that it is important that we do say the things we need to say to those we love, or make the apologies we need to make to those we may have hurt, whilst we are still around to do so. None of us knows what life will be like for us after death, but Jesus assured his disciples that he was going on ahead of them to prepare a place for them. We are also told in the Bible that God knows us as individuals, better than we know ourselves, and that he loves us, so we can be assured that we will be safe in his care. In the meantime we can enjoy every moment that we have here and now.