大象传媒

From the Reverend Richard Coles:聽
My niece Ella got married a couple of weeks ago, on a lovely Saturday afternoon in Huntingdonshire. I was working in London in the morning so had to make a dash to get there, and arrived just after it had begun. As I fastened my dog collar and grabbed the present, the bells of the parish church were ringing, the bridal car was at the gate, and I saw Ella鈥檚 back going up the aisle to where Sam her fianc茅 waited. Just in time, so I slipped in - hello, hello, hello - I muttered to the people around me, none of whom I knew, and they looked back, surprised. A whisper went round, and a couple of old ladies turned round and waved.聽
And then the bride and groom turned round, and it wasn鈥檛 Ella and Sam after all. Wrong wedding. I made my excuses and as I got up, another lady stood and asked, 鈥渋s this the flash mob?鈥� 鈥淣o,鈥� I said, 鈥渢hat鈥檚 the vicar off Gogglebox,鈥� and she sat down again, looking disappointed. Ella鈥檚 and Sam鈥檚 was next door. I got there just as they were pronounced husband and wife, and a great knees-up followed. Weddings, graduations, ordinations, it鈥檚 a busy summer with people getting together to celebrate the milestones of life. For clergy it鈥檚 particularly busy, because we are functionaries at them, and spread thin, dashing from one to another, to swelter in heavy embroidered robes on the hottest day since records began, like Queen Alexandra at the Delhi Durba.聽
Why not just cast it off, jump into a t shirt and shorts, and take to the garden with a Mojito? Because we all need ceremony. Not just to give dignity to our achievements; not just to celebrate with family and friends the great days of our lives; but because we want to connect, sometimes, to stories that were there before we were, and will be there when we鈥檝e gone. Stories that tell us who we are, express the values by which we want to live, and in turbulent times give us confidence that those values endure. I asked an old lady in our nursing home what she wanted at her funeral. She was a person of great resilience and wisdom and nouse. She chose the hymn, 鈥淲ill Your Anchor Hold In The Storms of Life?鈥� And to finish, YMCA.