Since William started training in 2013 he has notched up an impressive 201 preaching engagements!
Great to see a Reader so well used!
How about news from other Readers….. and perhaps some pictures and comments. 🙂
More on Funeral Ministry
Yesterday I took my second ever funeral and the first in a church and the first at Penmount Crematorium.
Because it was a celebration for a local legend who was president, chairman, Lodge Master and choir member there were an awful lot of people who wanted to say farewell and I found it an enormous privilege to be able to to take the service and provide pastoral support for the family.
I never intended to get involved in funeral ministry and it does not even appear on last September’s Work Agreement but I have done so with the encouragement of my Rector, Caspar Bush, who backed up his encouragement with a good deal of conversation and email because I like to get things right and pay attention to detail!
The funeral yesterday was a marathon affair and I suspect only really fell my way because the Eight Saints Cluster is somewhat short staffed for one reason or another at the moment. The family were really helpful and even gave me a lift to the church arriving at the same time as the church warden (Terry Lister) who could not have been more helpful in providing local knowledge to help with the choreography of the service- there were no spare seats and we even had Truro male voice Choir singing in the choir stalls! The first mourners were there over an hour before the start to get a parking spot and the seat of their choice but I was able to greet most of them at the door.
“Oh are you the vicar?”
“No not me….. not a vicar just a licensed Minister taking the service”
or
“Thank you reverend..”
“No I’m not a reverend”
“what are you then…?”
“Oh I’m a Reader, a licensed Lay Minister”
“Oh are you Methodist then?”
“Well no, I’m an Anglican minister but I am on the Redruth Methodist preaching plan”
(There is a question about Reader identity here I suspect!)
I had been wrestling with the cough that has lingered on since mid December and continued to do so as I wandered sedately down to the lych gate to await the hearse and the family. There I offered up my usual pre service plea for some spirit filed assistance and another one specifically about coughing. Interestingly, and rather wonderfully I did not cough again until three hours later when we left Penmount. Thank you Lord!
The wake had been planned for immediately after the service – so having shaken a couple of hundred hands and had several lengthy conversations I headed down to the bowls club to join the party- without my Readers robes, without them I could easily have been invisible- it was fascinating! I had to explain I had just taken the service so I could jump the long food queue and get a mug of tea.
The undertaker mustered the family at just after four and I threw on my robes once more and headed for the short committal at Penmount and then I was taken home! Everyone was incredibly grateful but I just felt that I had been in the right place at the right time and hopefully said the right things.
So I am glad that when God opened that door a fraction I stepped inside to give it a go and to learn new things. Even at 67 and three quarters you can teach an old dog new tricks.
Rest in peace Denzil.
The New Year was ushered in relatively quietly: the grandchildren were taken home by 10 pm after an evening of Mahjong and other board games and I nursed my cough through till midnight and the usual well wishing by text. There was a certain relief at being in bed within the first hour of 2020 and a certain smugness in reminding myself that I had never broken the resolution I made back in 1967 – that I would never again make a new year resolution. This year I kept it again.
If there is something one needs to resolve to do its not worth waiting till New Year- begin today….. if you fail then have another crack tomorrow but don’t wait a whole year.
I have posted a couple of eulogies from the Redruth Parish Magazine from 2010 remembering a couple of Readers, Arthur Skewes and John Brown both of whom had an impact in one way or another on my ministry. I wondered if we should have a section of the website for Readers Remembered and include contributions from around the diocese. Let me know what you think….. better still – send some articles.
Epiphany Sunday with granddaughter Ellie and the chess board.
“Farewell” to some good friends (2010)
In the last month we have lost two faithful former Readers in the Team, Arthur Skewes and John Brown. They were both in their very different ways well known and loved members of our town and churches. We include here very personal reflections on two characters who will be missed and long remembered.
Arthur Skewes RIP
I fist met Arthur when he was part of the Lay Readers team which included Frank Michell, Fred Martin, Bill Combellack and John Brown. He always had a smile, a pithy comment and a kind word. Arthur seemed to find joy in all situations and had the wonderful ability to see the funny side of people’s quirks and idiosyncrasies. In later years Arthur took over as organist at Pencoys and “emergency” organist for other churches in the benefice. He never said, “no” when I rang him in a panic on a Saturday night asking him if he could play the next morning. He would turn up as cheerful and good humoured as usual as if he had been given several weeks rather than several hours of notice.
I met Arthur again , more personally, this time when I visited him at home after he had a stroke. Although he was reasonably well (physically) the stroke affected his speech, which for someone who had always been good with words must have been very frustrating.
In spite of this Arthur was always warm, welcoming and friendly and took part fully in the home communion service. Eventually, however, the effort and energy that this took became too much for Arthur and we put these visits on hold. They were due to resume in the new year but before they could happen came the sad new of Arthur’s death from a second stroke.
It was a privilege to spend those few months with Arthur, to share communion and fellowship with him and to sit in his company for a while. I shall remember him for his quiet humour, his unassuming nature and his love of serving God in so many ways.
May he rest in peace.
Lez
John Brown RIP
At John’s funeral his great nephew Rowan read a “rap” composed for John. It was a moving, memorable, affectionate rich tribute to John and we can offer no more fitting tribute here than to print it in full.
Rowan makes his living from “rap” and music, he is known as Dizraeli.
UNCLE JOHN
Solid in solitude with his dreams and his memories
A resolute raft, ploughing the seas of the century
Chin set, he settled and barely admitted tenderness
for friends, Romans, and country walks with his weathered stick.
I remember John among the gorse of the Cornish cliffs,
Calling to his boys, with his voice free from ornament;
“Val! Asti!”
A smile broad as a house hides
In his cheeks, and only shows itself as an outline.
I remember John sat in the chair that he sat in,
Reading a hardback, as squared as his passion
As Greek ghosts gather at the back of his mind
And the wallpaper yellows with tobacco and time…
I sit with him. I like the way the quiet makes my head buzz
Silence my twelve-year-old self doesn’t get much.
It tingles my blood and it settles my bones;
Uncle John Time, slow as Old Testament stone.
Coal goes in the scuttle
Tobacco in the pipe
It isn’t any trouble if you stay for the night
But the forks live there.
Realign your chair when you stand!
And God help you if your manners aren’t right.
To me, at sixteen, he breathes fire, dust and history
He lives Redruth and Pompeii just as vividly.
Lord Governor of his interior economy
In a cold bath, with the Roman Empire for company
John keeps time on a chain in the pocket of his waistcoat;
It falls and it rises at his say-so
So innovation is as unnecessary as a wrist watch
… and here am I, trying to explain hiphop
It doesn’t matter: family is family.
John keeps photographs of us on his mantelpiece
And now, at twenty-seven, I’m proud to have been
a face among the many in that gallery
where Coal goes in the scuttle
Tobacco in the pipe
It isn’t any trouble if you stay for the night
But the forks live there.
Realign your chair when you stand!
And God help you if your manners aren’t right.
Coal in the scuttle
Tobacco in the pipe
It isn’t any trouble if you stay for the night
The forks live there.
Realign your chair when you stand!
And God bless you.
John Brown was a Reader and retired History & Classics Teacher who was quite an influence on me as a young readers…
