On September 28 I'm delivering a sermon at our evening service on Death. Death is, of course, a huge subject and I've had a lot of time to think about it. As a result I have a mental list of short meditations which eventually may come together, if the congregation is lucky, into a coherent message. I thought that instead of asking everyone to get their heads around it all at once, I would put it out in bite sized chunks for people to chew over as the month progresses. Death is one of the few universal experiences of humanity. If you live long enough (and it doesn't have to be that long) sooner or later someone close to you will die - a grandparent, a parent, a sibling, a child, a close friend. It happens to us all. About a decade ago I lost both my parents within a year of each other. My Dad died of heart failure in 2004 after a slow decline. Less than a year later, in early 2005, my Mum died of a brain tumour. Mum's death was a shock - in January she was a
'Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp.' - Rachel Carson