Sunday reflection: on Mortality.
Either of the routes I can take when walking back to my pew at St James' church, Whitehaven after communion takes me past the memorial tablets which line respectively the North and South walls of the church. The first ones you pass on the either route are particularly moving.
If you do down the north aisle, the first tablet you pass is to Alexander Hamilton.
He is presumed to have perished aboard a sailing barque called "Swallow," which sailed for Cadiz on 15th July 1840 but never arrived or was heard from again. She is presumed to have been lost with all aboard in some unknown calamity at sea. Alexander Hamilton was aged 20 when the Swallow set sail: the tablet was put up at the request of his grieving parents who never knew for certain what had become of their only son.
This morning I walked down the south aisle on the way back to my seat, so the first tablet I passed was to Lieutenant Leslie Gunson, who was KIA at the battle of the Somme on 18th July 1916 while serving in the artillery. The inscription on the tablet says that he died while searching for some of the men under his command who had become lost and concludes with the quotation "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
The world we inhabit in 2019 seems much safer than it was in 1840 or 2019, yet none of us are immortal.
It was tragically common in former centuries for a ship to simply disappear and for the friends and family of those aboard never to know what had happened to their loved ones. It is much more rare for anything like that to happen today: but the famiilies and friends of the passengers and crew of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 can tell you that such events are still not entirely unheard of.
I hope there will never be another war as destructive of human life as that which those who lived through it called the Great War and modern historians usually refer to as World War One - but the even worse cataclysm which began twenty-one years later is sufficient to demonstrate that the description of the 1914 to 1918 conflict as "The war to end wars" was sadly optimistic.
None of us can be certain when we will depart this life. For most of us death could come in many years' time or it could come today.
It is not the most pleasant of subjects but we should all reflect on it at least occasionally. Because the knowledge that our time is limited should inspire us to make the best possible use of the time which is granted to us: both for ourselves and for others.
If you do down the north aisle, the first tablet you pass is to Alexander Hamilton.
He is presumed to have perished aboard a sailing barque called "Swallow," which sailed for Cadiz on 15th July 1840 but never arrived or was heard from again. She is presumed to have been lost with all aboard in some unknown calamity at sea. Alexander Hamilton was aged 20 when the Swallow set sail: the tablet was put up at the request of his grieving parents who never knew for certain what had become of their only son.
This morning I walked down the south aisle on the way back to my seat, so the first tablet I passed was to Lieutenant Leslie Gunson, who was KIA at the battle of the Somme on 18th July 1916 while serving in the artillery. The inscription on the tablet says that he died while searching for some of the men under his command who had become lost and concludes with the quotation "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
The world we inhabit in 2019 seems much safer than it was in 1840 or 2019, yet none of us are immortal.
It was tragically common in former centuries for a ship to simply disappear and for the friends and family of those aboard never to know what had happened to their loved ones. It is much more rare for anything like that to happen today: but the famiilies and friends of the passengers and crew of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 can tell you that such events are still not entirely unheard of.
I hope there will never be another war as destructive of human life as that which those who lived through it called the Great War and modern historians usually refer to as World War One - but the even worse cataclysm which began twenty-one years later is sufficient to demonstrate that the description of the 1914 to 1918 conflict as "The war to end wars" was sadly optimistic.
None of us can be certain when we will depart this life. For most of us death could come in many years' time or it could come today.
It is not the most pleasant of subjects but we should all reflect on it at least occasionally. Because the knowledge that our time is limited should inspire us to make the best possible use of the time which is granted to us: both for ourselves and for others.
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