Death hides -
But it cannot divide,
Thou art but on
Christ's other side.
Thou with Christ
And Christ with me
And so together
Still are we.
 

If I should die and leave you here a while,
Be not like others, sore undone, who keep
Long vigils by the silent dust and weep.
For my sake, turn again to life and smile
Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do
Something to comfort weaker hearts than thine.
Complete those dear unfinished tasks of mine,
And I perchance may therein comfort you.

A Price Hughes

Death is sometimes our enemy, sometimes our friend.

As an enemy, it may shatter our lives, cut short our time, diminish our families and circle of friends We do not often invite it to come, notrchoose the time of its arrival. In this world we do have enemies, the Scriptures says death is the last.

Yet for the Christian, even death has lost its sting; Christ has made it a friend in spite of itself. Its victory is empty; its triumph will soon pass; it cannot have the last word. But it may still become our helper; not only a milestone but a signpost. It may lead us back to God if we have wandered away, or towards him if we have often been distant.

Death is a time for listening. Listening to friends, reading their words, listening to memories, hearing their music, listening to God in the quiet of my heart.

Death is a time for speaking. Telling the joys, memories past, telling of hopes, partly fulfilled; telling of growing and travelling, learning and finding, laughter and tears, a time for talk and a time for stories.

Death is a time for silence. When the words fail, sitting alone or quiet with my friends, watching or waiting, thinking and looking, the silence of prayer.

Death is a time for loving. Love never fails, love to the end; love all who love me and those who do not; love to heal wounds, love to accept, love to build bridges, love to forgive and know I’m forgiven. Love that is from God; God who is love; God who has first loved me.

Christopher Idle

 

O think! To step on a shore
And that shore Heaven:
To take hold of a hand
And that God's hand.
To breathe new air
And find it celestial air.
To feel invigorated,
And to know it immortality.
Think! To pass from the storm and tempest to one unbroken calm.
To wake up and find it glory.

Anon

 

You can shed tears that she is gone
or you can smile because she has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back
or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.
Your heart can be empty because you can't see her
or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her and only that she's gone
or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back
or you can do what she'd want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

Anonymous poem used at start
of the funeral of the Queen Mother

 

All shall be Amen and Alleluia.
We shall rest and we shall see,
We shall see and we shall know,
We shall know, and we shall love,
We shall love and we shall praise.
Behold our end which is no end.

St Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

 

Death is not extinguishing the Light,
but putting out the Lamp because the dawn has come.

Rabindranath Tagore (1961-1941)

 
Come, our Light, and illumine our darkness.
Come, our Life, and raise us from death.
Come, our Physician, and heal our wounds.
Come, Flame of divine Love, and burn up our sins.
Come, our King, sit upon the throne of our hearts and reign there.

St Dimitrii of Rostov 17th Century

 

We give them back to Thee, dear Lord, who gavest them to us;
yet as Thou dost not lose them in giving, so we have not lost them by their return.
Not as the world giveth, givest Thou, O Lover of Souls.
What Thou gavest, Thou takest not away,
for what is Thine is ours always if we are Thine.
And Life is eternal and Love is immortal, and death is only an horizon,
and an horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.

A Quaker prayer

 

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.
And he replied:
Go out into the darkness and out your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.

Minnie Louise Haskins,
quoted by King George VI
in his Christmas broadcast of 1939

 
God of all grace, who didst send thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ to bring life and immortality to light: Most humbly and heartily we give thee thanks that by his death he destroyed the power of death, and by his glorious resurrection opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. Grant us assuredly to know that because he lives we shall live also, and that neither death nor life, nor things present nor things to come, shall be able to separate us from thy love, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen.

Book of Common Order
of the Church of Scotland

 

When the day returns,
call us with morning faces,
and with morning hearts,
eager to labour,
happy if happiness be our portion,
and if the day is marked for sorrow,
strong to endure.
written and read to his family

By Robert Louis Stevenson
on the eve of his unanticipated death in 1894

 

Love is not changed by death
and nothing is lost,
and all in the end is harvest.

Edith Sitwell

 
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
After afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that I once had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

Christina Rossetti (1830-1895)

 
Almighty God, Father of all mercies and giver of all comfort: deal graciously, we pray, with those who mourn, that casting all their care on thee, they may know the consolation of thy love; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.