Living through history

It isn’t often we live through events which will be remembered in history which will be spoken of long after we have left this earth.

Prior to the passing of Queen Elizabeth II I guess I had lived through two such events. The first was the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997, and the second was 9/11 in 2001. Both events made us stop and think deeply about what had happened and now we might react to shattering news that would change life forever. 

The passing of Queen Elizabeth II has seen us share in a sense of communal loss. We’ve worshipped together, cried together, shared stories together, watched pageantry together and we’ve had to stop and take in that someone who has always been there in our lives has now slipped into history. 

I think I will remember several things observing the transition of constitutional monarchy and how we’ve reacted to a Queen dying we never wanted to go. 

First, the importance of worship, prayer and silence at a time of grief.

 After the Queen passed away I went into the cathedral and lit a candle and said a prayer with someone who was in tears. We just stood together, stunned we were in unchartered waters. I remember e mailing my Anglican colleague in Boroughbridge saying “help, have you got any prayers?”

 It was really good to return to the cathedral later that evening for a hastily arranged compline. I gathered the Circuit together on the Sunday after the Queen’s passing and over seventy of us shared a quiet service of reflection, then a week after her passing I shared in a service in the Anglican Church in Boroughbridge which was extremely powerful in its simplicity. We lit candles as a violinist played. It was good a lot of younger people were there. Then on the night before her funeral, after another Circuit Service we shared a minutes silence together and then left the church in silence. That was extremely powerful.

Then the funeral itself, remember, was a Christian act of worship. I hadn’t realised we would share in two parts of it, one in Westminster Abbey and one in Windsor. The liturgy was comfortably ancient. I was reminded as I watched the two services the promises of God are timeless and eternal. As we’ve worshipped and prayed in these days, we’ve remembered a sovereign who put worship and prayer first. As the Archbishop of Canterbury reminded us she first prayed silently at the high altar in the Abbey prior to her coronation putting service to God before service to others.

Then secondly I think the events around the passing of the Queen have brought death into the public arena. Maybe we have domesticated death in the modern age. The Victorians took it more seriously with black clothes and periods of mourning maybe. I’ve not lived through a time of national mourning before. It’s been really interesting having people stop and want to talk about what they have been feeling. It’s happened to me in coffee shops and even in men’s loos! A man said to me “I’m not religious but this has really got to me.” We’ve learnt again that death is part of life. Yes, we believe in resurrection and eternal life, but first we have to go through death. 

The funeral marches played as the late Queen was processed through the streets were sombre but we needed them to be. Death is real. We have to face it. The good news comes but first we have to remember we are dust and to dust we shall return — and that’s hard. And it’s okay and good to admit that. As the late Queen write to President George W Bush after 9/11 “grief is the price we pay for love.” 

Then finally living through these days we’ve been part of history. We will never see a long reign like Queen Elizabeth’s again.

I found the process of accession really interesting. The new King permitted previously private things to be opened up for us to share them. It was good on the Sunday after the Queen’s passing to stand on the market square and listen to words proclaiming the new King from the balcony of the town hall. It was hard to sing “God save our gracious King” for the first time. 

Then on the day before the Queen’s funeral, I was glad to represent the Methodist Church at a service in the cathedral. I was really conscious we were mourning and marking change. And I guess it hit me most when we saw her coffin being lowered into the vault at Windsor and the wand of office broken in two, signifying the second Elizabethan Age was at an end.

One of the news reporters on the night of the funeral suggested we are mourning not just a person but an ideal. Queen Elizabeth taught us the joy of service, duty and dignity. She brought this country together - think about the Platinum Jubilee a few months ago and strangers becoming friends waiting for hours to see her lying in state. 

I pray in changing times, we might hold on to the faith our late Queen lived by, we might keep supporting each other and we might pray for King Charles III as he adapts to a new life. On the day after her death, he said hers was a life well lived. If we show in our lives just a little of what she lived her life by, her reign will have not been in vain.