VANITY OF VANITIES, ALL IS VANITY

Ecclesiastes 1:2

I'm not usually given to quoting from the Bible, but this came to mind when I walked back through the old cemetery and when I looked it up it's an apt few verses. There are two or three of these obelisks vying for the most eye-catching and dominant position on the high part of the ridge that runs along the edge of the cemetery, and yet just over a century after they were raised, probably with much ceremony and lots of black silk and plumed horses, they're abandoned and unvisited and half-hidden by trees.

I was thinking about this because I went to the amazing funeral of one of our choir members this morning, a lovely lady who died unexpectedly and far too soon. There must have been a couple of hundred people squeezed into the chapel and her busy and generous life was celebrated with music, singing and much evangelical fervour, which I couldn't share, but I gather she would have approved wholeheartedly. And it was lovely to hear a congregation raising the roof with their singing instead of the usual thing of people mumbling, miming and looking embarrassed. I'm sure Marjorie won't have a headstone like this, but she won't need one for her to be remembered.

I'm off for a long weekend now in one of my favourite parts of England. Back in a few days. xxx