On the death of our Queen
"I am the resurrection and the life, the one who believes in me will live even though they die" John 11:25
This week, is a time for us all to reflect on the fact that a very good person has been quietly working on behalf of the British people around the globe for the whole of her reign. We can all take pride in that fact and also mourn the passing of, not just an iconic figure, but someone who lived their life well, to the very end.
I think the positive thought we can hold onto, is that whilst we are all mortal we should and can make every moment count and it is never too late to do so. She made every hour, right up to the end, count. We can also take comfort in the fact that she brought up her children to believe in the endurance of the crown, not as a personality contest, as so many things have become, but as an institution - something to serve and to aspire to and to endure.
When words fail me, or even when they don’t, I have often turned to verse. The poem I penned below is simply a testimony to her long and fruitful reign.
May she rest in peace and rise in glory!
Helen
Her Majesty
She was both youth and age to life,
Unchanging pillar upholding the vast structure of our culture.
Embodied in that face,
The place of glamour, beauty and truth,
Elegant in both old age and youth.
Her image remains, the calm, kind, sometimes stern, statue.
The icon of our age that broke through, lit up the world changing and changeless.
Now no more.
The wisdom of those years, that went before,
Before us all, a life well lived, the price she paid, and played her part,
Leaves a collective hole in our collective heart.
The world mourns, moved by the sheer stretch of her reign.
The duty, the selfless symbol of something pure, in an age where few endure.
She prayed.
She gave.
She made the lives she reached shine.
The souls she touched, now just revealed,
Stretch far and wide.
In death as in life, our joy and pride.
So light shines through still old and ever new, captured and passed down,
A testimony to the endurance of the crown.
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