Thanksgiving for the life of Ann Fell
Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: John 1
Anne is at home. She’s at home here in St Margaret’s, surrounded by friends, by happy memories. She’s at home in this service, surrounded by beauty, and readings and music. She’s at home, and at peace with her Lord.
It’s funny how services come together, but there’s often a strange pull, where themes come together, and a certain song suggests a certain reading. Quite late on Rachel suggested the reading from John 1. But this Christian account of creation, resonates immediately with the hymn Immortal, Invisible, speaking to the transcendence of God, and of the light that shines in the darkness and is not overcome. Equally, Blake’s little lamb is being taught of her creator, and just as John 1 is traditionally read at Midnight Mass, we hear from Blake how ‘he is meek, and he is mild/ he became a little child.’ How many Christmases has Ann heard that reading, from these choir stalls and congregation?
Our Gospel reading also hearkens back to Genesis, starting with those same words ‘In the beginning’. Ann loved nature and her walks with Alan. You can see her collage of a bird next to Rachel’s mosaic in the library, entries for this year’s St Margaret’s Day Art competition, birds: ‘filled with such delight as prisoned birds must find in freedom winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark green fields; on – on - and out of sight.’
Her last service here, the day before she was taken into hospital, was Creation Sunday, held in the garden. The service finished with Ann dancing along to the piece this service will finish with. ‘Walk the dog’.
Ann knew herself to be a child of God. She was mild, a gentle lovely soul. And she knew the beauty of the creative arts and how they reflect their creator. Many here today have sung with her. And she had in her such life; life she passed on to her children David and Rachel, but also to all who met her.
Today is her birthday. If you’ll excuse the indiscretion of revealing a lady’s age, She is 87 today. It’s also All Souls’. The day the Church throughout the world remembers all those we love and see no more. I know she would have loved the requiem last night and she was remembered by a great many of us there, Just as while we have our small service here, and others watching online, still more are thinking of her today.
Part of what it means to be a Christian is to have one foot in this world and one in the next. One ancient Christian prayer talks of this life as ‘our exile’; Our final hymn calls not for something new, But that we would be finished, restored, in order to take our place.
No life is free from pain, free from difficulty. With the loss of Alan earlier this year there has been a great deal of sorrow for this family. But Ann did receive grace upon grace. She was a person of peace, of love, of faith, of hope, of light and joy. These are now finished in her, and we can trust in heaven, where she is restored to those waiting for her, there will be singing, there will be delight, there will be perfect peace.
On a further shore.
In a greater light.