Early evening, April 30

April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday.

Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. 

The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their structures ever higher, ever nearer to God. How very high they went. What magnificent, beautiful, and inspiring structures they made.

Let’s leave for another time the unforgivable wrongs done by unforgivably wrong people, in the name of faith. I want to share a simple story about the fellowship of good, kind people.

In the early evening of April 30, we filed into beautiful, breathtaking St Paul’s.

Perhaps in such a space you may feel yourself nearer to God. Perhaps even in such a place, that sort of thing’s not for you. But in such a place it is the easiest thing in the world to feel wholly removed from the day-to-day life just beyond those walls: the pizza places, the Starbucks, the people on their phones.

In the early evening of April 30, we took our seats in the hush, waited, lost ourselves in grandeur as the sound of the cathedral organ filled the space. Beautiful, ethereal. As grand as the cathedral is, that sound makes it grander yet.

And then in filed the choir, just high-schoolers in uniforms, but once they had taken their places and lifted their sheets, their voices had become otherworldly, as one with something that reaches back to ancient times. This ritual of prayer and hymn and words as much sung as spoken is a kind of meditation, a connection to the eternal. Outside is a lifetime away.

Earlier, we had given Mary-Margaret the card her Gran had written for her last Christmas. She had felt so keenly those last words. In this place, we felt that same keenness of a sense of her. She would have loved this so much, we said.

Friends said to me after the funeral they hadn't realised the church was such a large part of her life. I told them for a long time I hadn't known it either. For the years we were growing up, it was only ever christenings, weddings, funerals.

I didn’t know then that it had been a much larger part of her growing up, all those Sundays. But once we were gone and Sundays were her own again, it became a part of her life once more: in Napier, in Devonport, in Albany, in Takapuna, in Masterton. Fellowship with other churchgoers, a common faith. Warmth and support for one another. She wished that for everyone.

She took great comfort she told me, from the promise of the resurrection, of a life hereafter. She would sometimes gently reprove me if I got too blunt in my expressions of doubt. I stopped saying such things. Why would you gainsay it, deny her that comfort?

Beautiful, ethereal, transporting. For an hour or so, outside was a lifetime away. After it ended, we stayed where we were for quite a time, entranced by what we had seen and heard and experienced.

Then we joined the crowds filing out and came to the minister offering the dismissal.

That had been a truly transporting experience, I told her, thank you so much.

And those young people, I said, how marvellous they were.

Weren't they wonderful? She agreed, beaming.

I explained the reason for our visit, about Mum, that today would have been a 90th birthday, that as a person of faith she would have just loved this, all of this.

What was her name? She asked me, taking out pen and paper, they would add her name to those being mentioned in services this week to ask that they be remembered in prayers.

Maybe that doesn't sound like all that much.

But at that moment, in the midst of that transporting spirit, the idea that they would do this in her memory just filled our hearts. Warmth and support for one another.

We said, again, as we walked back out into the world: She would have loved it so much.