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A few months ago a woman whose minister I used to be, died at the age of 90. She was a deeply devout Christian and a loyal and committed Methodist. She had no relatives apart from a cousin, and she had always made it plain that she did not want either a funeral or a thanksgiving service. Instead, she said, her body would be offered to medical science. So that was what happened, and the offer was accepted.
I had, of course, heard about people choosing to do this, but she was the first person I had know to actually do so. In the weeks following her death it seemed strange to those of us who knew her that we had no collective opportunity to remember her, to give thanks for her life, or to mourn her passing. We had to content ourselves with talking to each other on the telephone about both her kindnesses and her funny little ways!
As I reflected further on this experience, I have come to realise that her decision says something quite important to the rest of us. She has no doubt that her destiny was to share in the life of heaven through the mercy of Christ. For that purpose her body was simply an irrelevance. All her life she wanted to be useful to other people, and I think she wanted to be useful in death as well. Why should her body be consumed by fire or moulder in the ground when it might be useful in helping someone be a better doctor?
So Lena, rest in peace, and go on being of use to others as you always thought Christians should be.
I am writing this two days after the appalling massacre in Beslan. Even in a world where horrors are commonplace, I suspect that these appalling murders will still be in all our minds when people come to read it.
We can scarcely begin to imagine the grief of the families involved and we know that many will be scarred by this event for a generation or more to come. All we can do is to pray for them, and that we must do. And our imagination fails completely when we try to understand how people could commit such a vile deed. That children should be the target beggars belief. No cause, however passionately it is believed in, could possibly justify such an action. Indeed, the perpetrators have soiled and besmirched their cause.
When the Archbishop of Canterbury was asked in a radio interview where God was in these events, his reply was preceded by a silence, and rightly. There can
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