NOW THANK WE ALL OUR GOD
This is the hymn which should be sung at my funeral. Not that I am planning
to go just yet, but I am nevertheless thinking about arrangements. In the
Spring issue of Inspires 2011, Rev Ruth Innes wrote an article ‘Planning
your own Funeral’ and that it would be important to let your loved ones know
such details like hymns or readings which you had in mind for this occasion.
Many a priest can tell you that they often met families who are so upset and
unable to think straight in their grief, that they can’t tell a single thing about
their mum’s life. And my life is even more difficult to explain even for my own
family, since I was born in far-away places. So I am at present engaged in
writing down some of the things I have in mind and I have sent for the work
sheet offered by Ruth Innes for Funeral Planning. If you were interested to
see it, please ask me, I will gladly share it with you. Ruth Innes encouraged
people to write their own story. This somehow ties in with the request by
Lesley-ann to give us ‘testimonies’. These are, unlike obituaries which are
not publicised before the event, meant to be given to a church or religious
meeting and would tell them about your faith or what brought you to it, like a
kind of pilgrimage.
So I thought I would do as she was asking and tell you a bit about myself
and my journey to St Oswald’s, and I can count and give account of my
blessings.
As you know, I was born ‘on the other side’, one of my contemporaries
spoke of ‘the Grace and Blessing of having been born late’, by which he
meant too young as not to be responsible for the sins of our fathers in Nazi
Germany. I had much loved parents who managed to keep the horrors of
war and its aftermath away from us children and to give me a happy
childhood- what a blessing! The family was not church going, but I was
confirmed in the Lutheran Church, together with my year-group at school at
the age of 14. We had a two year preparation during which we learned many
hymns and Bible words by heart which I can still recite, and at my
confirmation I was given, and so were all candidates, a Bible word as a kind
of motto for life; mine was Genesis 32, 26 “I will not let you go unless you
bless me”. It truly went with me all my life, and I also can say that God has
not let me go and blessed me. So there is another hymn which means much
for me: ‘Abba Father…Never let my heart go cold, never let me go’.
The person who influenced me most at that time and later was my GodMother ‘Idi’, I was named Ida after her. She was a headmistress in a
Primary School and at one time suspended from duty because she refused
to teach RE without Jesus (Jews were undesirables during the 3 rd Reich.)
She gave me Bibles and readings and prayed for me.
I had the blessing and privilege to be educated for 20 years, indeed- from
entering Primary School in 1943 to getting my PHD in 1963! My most loved
StOM Page 8