Riding Mill Parish News #511
Curating the memories
The other day, I was sitting on one of the benches in the Community Quiet Space in the new graveyard beside the schoolyard. I was pondering the War Memorial, the approach of Remembrance Day, and the likely mortality of the amazing wooden silhouette of a First World War soldier.
It led me into the highways and byways of remembrance.
Sometimes, I think that the wider church is in love with memories. The Christian year is punctuated with festivals and commemorations, isnt it?
Remembrance, yes – and also Easter and Christmas. Our central service, the Holy Communion, is commanded by Jesus to be a memory of his death and resurrection. And not just the Church loves to dwell on memories… ‘Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November.‘
Memories are important, you see, and seldom more important than when we have lost a loved one or a close friend; seldom more important than when we have lost our soulfriend, if you like to think like that.
The memories we shared with them, well, we shared them as a couple. And when one part of that couple dies, those memories are held by the survivor. In a way – in a very real way – the remaining memories keep alive the resonance of the person we have lost. I think of it as curating what we have shared together.
So it will be on Remembrance Sunday, and I shall speak on that when the time comes in our 10am service, before the silence at 11am.
Before then, though, we made a time to curate those shared memories: a time which was for anyone who has lost a soul friend. The opportunity for that – for yes, the Church year has a place for memories of our soul friends – was on All Souls’ Day, the 30th October in St. James’s.
There was silence, reflective music, prayer, and the chance to light a candle or simply remember. People were able to drop in, and out, as they would like. If you missed this, and would have appreciated the time, might I suggest something?
Our church building is open now, for all, every day.
It serves as a place of Stillness, Calm and Quiet to reflect and remember.
To curate the memories you shared with a soul friend.
There is even the means to light a candle.
Looking further ahead, don’t forget that Advent and Christmas are just around the comer: All the traditional events for all ages will be happening this year, we trust; so think carols, communions, choirs, cribs and Christingles.
The cribs and Christingles are being rolled into one on Christmas Eve, when there will be an hour of joy as we teeter on the edge of constructive child-like chaos and get into the mood – so put it in your child’s Christmas plan now: “Cribs and Christingles at 4pm, in the Church.”
Rev’d Diana
Originally published in the Riding Mill Parish News #511 – November 2021
