Thought for the Week - 18th September 2022

 Dear Friends, 

‘It has felt like we’ve been on a pilgrimage together’ was the comment made from the group of friends who I had made during the ten hours of waiting to file past the coffin of the late Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Hall last week. And indeed on reflection that is exactly what it felt like. One definition of ‘pilgrimage’ is ‘a devotional practice consisting of a prolonged journey, often undertaken on foot or horseback, toward a specific destination of significance’. We had come to this sacred place where the body of the late Queen lay in this grand and imposing hall that has seen many historical events. In the group I travelled with there were a collection of people of differing nationalities, including a retired Anglican vicar. She and I wondered what had made people come out and queue for hours to walk past the coffin of a deceased monarch. Curiosity, fascination, gratitude, a feeling of being swept along by the emotion were all suggested, and I guess there were many more reasons why people had come to line up through the night and into the early hours of the morning to pay their respects to the Queen and her life and reign. Another definition of pilgrimage is ‘the course of life on earth’, and when our lives come to an end it is usual for there to be a review of our life given in a eulogy at a funeral service. Over the years I have crafted many such pieces as mourners come to say a fond farewell to a loved one. Some contain within them humorous stories and anecdotes of the deceased, things that will make people smile as they remember the one who has died. But it is very rare to find that there is nothing at all to say about someone who has died. I’ve only once ever had to write a eulogy for someone who had no family and for whom there was sketchy information available. But the expectation was that I needed to say something. I needed to encapsulate this person’s journey of life without knowing anything about them, and I will confess that I initially struggled to think of what to say and how to say it. But then I was inspired to use as a basis those lovely words from the pen of the Teacher in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes which begins, ‘There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens…’ (Ecclesiastes 3:1). If pilgrimage is about how we live out our lives and highlights all the things that we encounter, then this reading sums up the life of a pilgrim perfectly – whether we know all about their life or not. Times to be born and to die, to weep and to laugh, to mourn and to dance, to search and give up searching, to be silent and to speak, to love and to hate, are just some of the activities we all experience during our lifetime, things we all encounter in some way or another. And yet the Teacher suggests that we are continually searching and trying to find out more and more about who God is and who we are – in essence the life of pilgrimage. The Teacher continues, ‘I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live’ (Ecclesiastes 3:12). For the Christian, true happiness is found in a relationship with God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit living within us, and it is this relationship which is the source of the good that we seek to do whilst we are alive. 

Grace and peace,

Neil