Passing Music

Following on from my discussion of weddings last time, most clergy are finding that they do far fewer funerals these days, too. It's now quite a rare occurrence for me whereas when I arrived in Swanvale Halt I was conducting probably two services every three weeks, and I get a little bit edgy each time now, like I did when I was first ordained. It was like that at the service I led last week, though in fact there was little that could go wrong. The deceased lady had chosen her own hymns and one of her daughters had written a eulogy which I read out. We had a poem by John Masefield, and the Bible reading was Psalm 121, so I was able to bind both those together with the lady's clear and expressed love of nature with how the natural world mediates the presence of God. Several people said afterwards how good they thought it was, whereas for me it was a bit of an open goal: it's not always as easy to come up with something convincing to say.

The last piece of music, played as the chapel emptied, was 'The Heart Asks Pleasure First' from Michael Nyman's soundtrack for The Piano. The last time I heard this haunting song played in a public space was when I lived in Chatham more than twenty years ago; it was regularly played over the sound system in the shopping centre I used to cross through on my way home from work at the Royal Engineers Museum up the top of the hill. It often made me feel like waltzing (in a naturally melancholy way) across the polished floor. I didn't do that last week, nor did I remind anyone that the title comes from one of Emily Dickinson's bleakest poems -  which, equally naturally, I know off by heart.