Love and Death
This weekend, I went to two weddings and one funeral. A real mix of emotions and a chance to contemplate significant moments in the lives of several different people. The funeral came first, a farewell to Gerald Hegarty, a former fellow-staff member at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford, and a wonderfully gentle, humble, wise, incisive and warm man. Two weddings came next, of Lincoln Harvey, one of my colleagues at St Mellitus, marrying Tereza, and my godson Barney Morgan, marrying Josie Cooley. Both of them full of genuine fun, solemnity and happiness. It got me thinking about the extremes of joy and grief, happiness and sadness right next to each other. What struck me was the setting of all three events - in Christian worship. In all three we said the Lord's Prayer, offered thanksgiving, sung to God and each other, remembered the gospel promises. The big moments of our lives - birth, love, death, need a kind of 'frame' to give them shape and structure. Christian faith was ...