The Last Word

Merciful Friend, let us live long or die tomorrow, but please keep us in the upsurge of the eternal life which has broken into time and embraces us today. This is life- the real thing! It is joy, peace, abundance. It is immortality! Praises be your name forever! Amen.

(Bruce Prewer, Jesus our Future)

No doubt those of you with young children or grandchildren will be all too familiar with the song from Frozen. The lead character Elsa has left civilisation behind and is rejoicing in her freedom and isolation. She is above everything, nothing can touch her now, she has let it all go.

For some, the first term has been characterised by grief. Grief is a strange emotion, and one that most of us are not very comfortable with. We all face grief and loss in our lives, but often it is easier to just move on and suppress the emotions. Like Elsa, we long to be above it all while the storm rages around us.

Then something happens, like the death of someone in the wider community, and we are stunned to find how much it affects us too.

Far from being something to avoid, grief is an emotion worth paying attention to. Grief tells us what matters. Grief tells us that we have lost something of value. It is important that we don’t try to just move on, or be Frozen, but to allow ourselves to feel all the pain that it entails.

It also reminds us how important it is to have a world view that helps us to make sense of our loss. This is why humans have always wondered what happens to us after death. And while images of reincarnation or heaven and hell may leave you cold (as they do me), we do have in the gospel of Jesus a promise that life, whatever it looks like after death, still has meaning and value, and is held by God. Paradoxically, it is in the holding on and valuing of life that we can find it is possible, after all, to Let it Go and fall into the Creator’s embrace.

Blessings, The Reverend Gillian Moses Chaplain