My Aunt, her funeral, and her well chosen prayer.

Today I
will be conducting the funeral service for my aunt, the last member of my
mothers family of four sisters and three brothers. Included in the service will
be a prayer written into a book of prayers that she used, well thumbed
and occasionally marked. It is a precis of a life well
lived.

The prayer is by
Yehudi Menuhin, one of the greatest musicians, and I think one of the great
human beings of the 20th Century. I remember reading his autobiography Unfinished Journey, years ago, while lying in a caravan, near St
Abb's Head, in a week of gales with horizontal rain, a fractious toddler (not
telling you what one), and a cupboard full of "spoil me I'm on
holiday" food. Yehudi Menuhin's story of how he grew from child prodigy to
one of the most accomplished and respected musicians of at least two generations,
is told in a way that was neither self-promoting nor self-centred. Instead he
wrote movingly of the musician's demeanour of humility before the music, the
importance of those teachers and companions who encouraged and drew out the
best, a sense not so much of his own greatness as a talent, but of his
obligation to fulfil his gifts in the service of human compassion and joy. And
through it all a deep and growing sense of gratitude, of indebtedness to life for its
opportunities, its blessings and late in life its still unexhausted possibilities.

 
So the prayer we will
say today, as the last will and testament of my aunt, is as much a blessing
offered at the end of life, from one human being to the wider human family, as
a religious devotion offered to God. But the truth is, gratitude is its own
prayer, its own form of address to Whoever is believed to be the author of such
blessing. In fact my aunt was the author of considerable blessing herself. From
as early as I can remember, until the year I was married, at birthday and
Christmas I received a card with money that was to be used for whatever I
wanted. So in the late fifties it was a ten bob note (10/-) that was inserted. Just to explain
relative values; the purchasing power of 10 shillings in 1958 was equivalent to
£22.50 today; put another way, it would have taken my dad 3 hours work to earn
10 shillings. Such long term and uninterrupted generosity comes from
the kind of person for whom this prayer was significant as her final word on
her own life, a word of contentment tinged with regret, but suffused with a
luminous gratitude. 

May those who survive me not mourn but continue to be as
helpful, kind and wise to others as they were to me. Although I would love to
enjoy for many years the fruits of my lucky and rich life, with my family and
friends, my many projects, and this whole world of diverse cultures and peoples
– I have already received such blessings as would satisfy a thousand lives.

Amen, and Amen