A good life's end

This morning, as we were finishing a breakfast of vegan pancakes, the phone rang. It was a friend of Clare's telling us about the death yesterday of our friend Russell aged 94. He was taken ill while out in his vegetable patch. He went indoors and slipped away peacefully. He'd been planting seeds and transplanting seedlings with a friend who helps him maintain the beautiful hillside garden around his house. It's a feast of rich colour at this time of year, as well as producing food for them. He often spoke to me about the divine mystery embedded in nature, what I'd call 'The world as sacrament'. There could be no better place or occasion to take his leave of this life.

It's just three weeks since he and Jacquie came and had lunch with us. He's been frail for some time, yet his mind was active and alert, conscious that his days were numbered, but still looking forward, questioning all that's seems to be going wrong with our world.  That day he gave me a book. He'd bought a dozen copies to share, regarding it as an important contribution to addressing impending global crisis. 'Team Human' by Douglas Rushkoff is about  the malaise of technologically induced social fragmentation and the need to re-fashion society around ideals of teamwork and collaborative partnership in which all are truly equal and power is shared. I look forward to reading it.

Most of Russell's life was spent working on team and community building, as an adult educator and engineer working in management. This was driven by his radical inquisitive faith in God, and a deep sense of the spiritual reality which pervades all things in this world as well as above and beyond it. Early in adult life, his questioning faith led to him being pushed away from a rather traditional conservative protestant church, towards the investigation of Rudolf Steiner's teaching. Wherever he found himself, he started an Anthroposophical Study group. He was keen to share his journey, but even keener to encourage others to pursue their own.

Our friendship has endured over the seventeen years since we returned to Wales and Clare became involved in the development of Cardiff Steiner Initiative. Jacquie is a Eurythmist like Clare and they work together in the Fountain School, so it was natural that their spouses should have conversations of their own. He was as practical as he was a thinking man, and gifted artistically also. He will be mourned by a great number of people in the UK, America and Europe whose lives he touched.

At the end of the afternoon we drove over to Dinas Powis to visit Jacquie. I had this idea of planting a lit candle in Russell's vegetable plot to honour the time and place where his passover began. Clare found a small glass lantern jar for a protective container which was suitable. Jacquie was pleased at this suggestion so we went into the garden and installed the light among the emerging seedlings. The words 'Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies ....' from John's Gospel came to mind, and we pondered on them for a while as we stood there.

We stayed for a while and ate supper with Jacquie and a friend who'd come to stay with her. The fact that his end came swift and peacefully was a surprise if not a disappointment, as if he was in a hurry as Jacquie said. Russell lived, however, ready and well prepared to go. He was used to living with daily pain and suffering, and conscious that any day could be his last. Not really in a hurry to go, he said to me once, but looking forward to the spiritual adventure that lies beyond. That's what I call a good life's end.
  

Looking to the future

Just after breakfast, my phone pinged notifying me of an email from my home surgery in Pontcanna confirming an appointment with Dr Jordan a week after my return. If needs be I can change it with a 'book on the day' alternative. Clare had been there already, to hand in the surgical report and my accompanying letter. The new booking system is working amazingly well.

Although the weather has been sunny and a little warmer, I didn't venture out today, except for the Tuesday afternoon bible study in church with the same handful of faithful people, always keen to explore and ask questions. Following from Sunday's gospel about defilement coming from within, I found myself fielding questions about spiritual ailments and the nature of the demonic, and the need to resist the impulse to take revenge and seek retribution. We also explored the difference between a decision based on Judgement and on Discernment. 

As always with this particular group, we returned to the question of what should we do to make St John's more alive and attractive to newcomers? It's not just a matter of concern because of a period of decline. The life of the church is valued and seen as worth sharing. But how can opportunities be recognised and acted upon? How to discern God's moment? I pointed out that asking the right kind of questions and exploring together through study and prayer was essential. Praying together outside the liturgy, it was admitted, didn't come easily for many. It has to be shown and taught, after all. 

Much emphasis is placed in ministerial leadership today, on good management and communication skills, and helping congregations develop SMART mission plans with a clear sense of purpose, and even vision statements! I've done all this kind of stuff in the past, and am not sure really what it was worth in the development of congregations I cared for. In fact, I'm not sure how faithful this is to apostolic teaching as expressed in the Acts of the Apostles. Prayer, proclamation of the Gospel, openness too and responsiveness to the promptings of the Spirit, and discernment in an ever changing situation are, to my mind, the key themes. Talking about Vision - i.e. what you see, isn't nearly as good as seeing then acting. 

In Acts, there's plenty of spontaneity, and unplanned action. It all seems haphazard and messy, yet it turns out to be fruitful, even the setbacks encountered in mission. If any of the apostles were potential managers, it must have given them a crisis of confidence to have to respond to the promptings of the Spirit. Administration is certainly one of the gifts of the Spirit, but one among a variety of ministries of the spirit, and not the most dominant.  Discernment of the gifts of the Spirit which are there in a church community must be done together, through reflection and prayer. It takes time, this kind of 'seeing'.

I hope that the appointment of a permanent chaplain, to start in January, but whose name is not yet made public, will help. They will need to ask, maybe even pester their new priest about learning to pray together in different ways. It's not easy to admit, even though St Paul himself admitted "We don't know how to pray as we ought." All I can do is encourage them to be bold in asking.

Sobering thoughts

Thinking about Rhiannon flying to Holland this morning, and Rachel travelling to Penslyvania from Arizona to visit an internet friend. She'll be in a time zone two hours nearer us during her week of holiday, which means having to figure out different possible phone calling times. The environment in Pensylvania will be more like Wales, which will suit her better than the climate in Phoenix.

I had a bereavement visit to make in Rhiwbina this morning, to complete preparations mostly made by email for a funeral tomorrow. Fr Mark has asked me to do another funeral next week, this time of someone who committed suicide under the influence of alcohol, not due to mental health issues. This isn't going to be easy. I'm racking my brains to remember if I've done the funeral of a young suicide before. In my twenties, I worked regularly with Samaritans on suicide prevention watch, but never had to deal with families of those we were unable to help.

It's hard to understand how survival instinct fails to override that fatal impulse, even though alcohol can reduce self control and inhibition. London and other big UK cities have seen a worrying increase in knife and gun crime in relation to street gangs in recent years, also deadly domestic violence, murderous revenge attacks with child victims. It's as if a sense of the value of human life as well as self control is withering away in some parts of society.

The injustice of growing social inequality with the detachment of wealthy elites from the need and suffering of the poor creates a moral climate that starves them of self esteem and hope for change in the future. Without a spiritual basis in life, despair is hard to resist, and vulnerability to destructive impulses increases. It happens when people think they can dispense with institutional religion and relegate ethics and spirituality to the privacy of each individual. This is the dark side of modernity and secularity with which we now have live. Finding the way to a new place is going to be painfully tough.