I've just come to the end of another TSW (what do you mean you don't know what that stands for? Were you not concentrating when I described the last one back in January? It's Themed Study Week, and this is the last time I'm telling you!) On TSWs, the college splits into lots of different groups to learn about different things in an intensive way for a week. There was one on art, one on children and young people, one on rural ministry... I, however, did one on DEATH!!!
Fret ye not, I have not become worryingly morbid, choosing a week of intensive death over a week of looking at art. Everyone has to do the death, dying and bereavement course at some point during their time in training, and I thought I'd get death over with in my first year.
On Monday and Tuesday we had one of the Chaplains from the John Radcliffe hospital who talked to us about the process of grief, particularly around sudden deaths and neonatal deaths (amazingly I survived the stillbirth and miscarriage morning emotionally intact!) On Tuesday afternoon we worked with a psychotherapist to explore grief through psycho-drama. On Wednesday we talked about the theology of death and resurrection, on Thursday about bereavement visiting and funeral liturgy, and on Friday we essentially mopped up (our questions, not our tears!)
It's a week that has given me a lot to think about, probably more so than any single course I've done at Cuddesdon so far. I covered quite a lot of the theology of the resurrection stuff during my last essay, and that's something I continue to grapple with. If a grieving person asks me "where is my wife now?" I want to be able to answer them with integrity and not just 'fob them off', but if scripture and tradition teach us anything it's that we know very little. I can't say where heaven is, whether we go to it immediately or what sort of things we will do when we get there. All I can say is that we have hope in an all-loving God. It's all we have and all we really need.
And then, of course, there's the practical stuff. It strikes me that if there's one thing you really, really don't want to muck up as a priest, it's a funeral. It's not uncommon for a vicar to be doing lots of funerals a week. I can imagine a scenario where my diary is packed with stuff, rushing from one thing to another - PCC, toddler group, confirmation classes, writing sermons, meetings about meetings... And then off I rush to do Old Ethel's funeral. And even if I'm tired and worrying about the next thing in my diary, Old Ethel's funeral will only happen once. This is the memory that Ethel's husband of 60 years and her kids and grandkids will be left with. Being tired is not an excuse for hitting the crematorium button at the wrong time or accidentally calling her Edith.
Phew... who'd be a Vicar? I refer back to my previous post about not being ready for ordination yet. The thing is though, while it's daunting, it's also a huge privilege. Who else gets to be with people at these most intimate and monumental times in their lives? - Birth, marriage, death and everything in between, proclaiming hope where there is sadness, resurrection where there is death.
Aren't all the important things in life just a little bit scary?
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