Letting go

I travelled with my friend Martin and his son Andrew up to the village of Ton Pentre this afternoon, to attend the funeral Mass for our mutual friend Fr Elfed Hughes, who died suddenly at his home in Tonyrefail nearly two weeks ago. There were 200 mourners at St Peter's Pentre, the church where Elfed was Vicar in his early years of ministry, where he had requested in his will that the service be held. Over a quarter of those present were clergy, colleagues from the various places where he had exercised ministry. Bishop David Yeoman presided over the Mass and Bishop Michael Doe, head of USPG, whose employ Elfed had only recently left, gave an address.

The order of service had been prepared by Elfed in advance, containing favourite hymns and prayers for such an occasion. Particularly striking was the use of Wesley's classic 'O thou who camest from above', with its final verse sung three times. At first glance I though it was a typo, but then I recalled Michael Doe's words about "a service carefully prepared" and thought, this is no accident, this is Elfed's Gospel message to us all.

Ready for all Thy perfect will

my acts of faith and love repeat

till death Thine endless mercies seal,

and make the sacrifice complete.

Elfed once told me that he had learned to live with two potentially life threatening conditions, one related to the kidneys and another to the heart, either of which could kill him quickly. Throughout the thirty odd years of his ministry, he considered he was living on borrowed time, and lived it to the full, right up to the day when he returned to his Tonyrefail home from London where he'd been working, preparing to move on, and died in a place where he always felt he belonged. The service reflected faithfully his spirit as a missionary pastor. I love his own words, quoted on the back of the service sheet.

"The whole emphasis should be on celebrating life

of which my death is yet another God-given experience.

If there is grief, I hope that it will not centre on pain and hurt

but merely the difficulty of letting go."

After the service we stood and chatted for a good while outside, meeting briefly with colleagues not seen for years. I don't envy Bishop David his role in retirement. He is often called in to officiate at funerals for former colleagues, some of whom he'd have been very close to, over decades of ministry together. This gives an extra layer of sadness and remembrance to the grief awakened by as Elfed stated, 'the difficulty of letting go'.

We didn't go to the service at the Crem - another hour's journey away in Bridgend, but returned to Cardiff straight away. Martin returned home, to a house full of guests, and I went in to the office to put things in order before taking a break from work.

When I arrived, I was greeted with news that City Centre Manager Paul Williams, who'd been interviewed for his own job, as part of Council re-structuring has been passed over in favour of someone more senior  in the Council's job pecking order, who doesn't have the same experience of ten year's day to day city centre management in the face of total upheaval. By the time the appointee has learned to job, it'll be time to retire. I think many people working in the city centre will be questioning the wisdom of such judgements in the next few days.