Coming in threes

I had a call from Caroline over the Cathays Parish after breakfast to tell me that Christine Griffiths one of the long standing members of St Teilo's congregation had died unexpectedly aged eighty eight. She was active right to the end, and only a short while before she died in hospital she was asking her daughter to arrange for someone to cover for her on this coming Sunday morning's tea rota at church, just in case she didn't make it home for the weekend. She walked everywhere and was still studying and doing recreational line-dancing into her eighties. A full life, well lived, but she was expecting to live to a hundred and five, like her mother, so it's come as a bit of a shock to everyone who knew her.

Today's funeral at the 'Res' gathered over three hundred people to say their goodbyes to a man who was evidently well known and appreciated in the community. Glanely Parish Church is still a much valued local community venue for funeral services despite the alternatives of funeral home or crematorium chapel, so they get a higher number than most Parish Churches during the year. This has inspired the congreegation to develop a lay team dedicated to supporting people in bereavement. There's nothing better than doing well whatever you are given the opportunity to do.

During the service, I looked out at the sea of faces, more male than female. I noticed a fairly equal division between those who were singing the hymns and those who were not. Well, here, people are to some extent free to be themselves whatever they believe. The respect written on faces was universal - respect for the deceased, but also respect for the community tradition of valuing the lives of those who die and sending them off with ritual performed in this place, binding them all together at the heart of their locality. 

It stands, no matter how much or how little people believe what the church thinks they should believe. Religious goings on still have a place and a value in a contemporary social setting. It's part of what ministry means in this secularised world, and should never be regarded lightly. Thankfully church members and leaders here understand this, and act upon it.

I arrived home to an answering machine message from a company in Whitchurch asking if I'd officiate at the funeral of a 'St John's lady', whose name I didn't immediately recognise, who'd requested in her will that I be asked to do this. So many people around the city identify with St John's for a host of different reasons, be they carol services, civic events, family history in another era, attendance at occasional offices or just coming in to the tea room - so many people who feel they know me even though they may never tell me their name or have it recorded in the church for any purpose. They identify with the church as a place with people who take an interest and care about others in some way that matters to them. It doesn't have to be intense. For some who are shy, a degree of anonymity is precious. It's enough for them to know they've been noticed and, in some way, blessed there.