This Sunday in bright sunshine and blue sky and birdsong, we met at the bandstand reeling from losing on Friday our beloved Grayden, husband to Barbara, father, grandfather, friend, companion, co-founder of ThirdSpace and inspiration to us all… Jeremy led us in a gentle time together and I adapted the following words from some found and adapted 10 years ago for our dear friend Tony. Here first, are words about our grief and hope:

A prayer of protest and hope February 2022

Today we stand in the tension of sadness and hope

We come to you Lord Jesus

We come to protest against the horror of death

We set our hope in you

We protest against the suffering that Grayden had to bear

Thank you that he is, at last, made new

We protest against the distress that Barbara and Matthew and Emma, Liz and Georgia and all the family have been going through in these last few months and weeks

We ask for your comfort, healing and hope

We affirm that we cannot pretend, and will not pretend, that death is anything less than an affront to you, Bringer of Life

We stand defiant in the hope that you promise to make all things new

We give you thanks for the life and witness of Grayden, for his unshakable commitment to the poor and the marginalised and to Kingdom Justice

May his example spur us on to live authentically like him

We thank you for the privilege of knowing our companion Grayden, for his part in the founding of ThirdSpace and its direction and essence, for all we have learnt from him, for the times spent together, for the overlap of our lives

We look to our reunion with him in the renewed earth, to drinking wine exceeding the finest Barossa and to feasting at the table prepared for us all

Let us hold firmly to the hope we claim to have

The One who promised is faithful.

Here are Jeremy’s words that brought soothing and consolation:

In the vastness of the universe, or even the vastness of our own planet and of our species, we are made significant and of value in him and by him.

In him we live and move and have our being

Listen to the birdsong

Matt 10, 29

²⁹ Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.^[b] 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹ So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

In him we live and move and have our being

Survey the surroundings

Psalm 8

¹ Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory
    in the heavens.
² Through the praise of children and infants
    you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
    to silence the foe and the avenger.
³ When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?

⁵ You have made them a little lower than the angels
    and crowned them with glory and honor.
⁶ You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
    you put everything under their feet:
⁷ all flocks and herds,
    and the animals of the wild,
⁸ the birds in the sky,
    and the fish in the sea,
    all that swim the paths of the seas.

⁹ Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

In him we live and move and have our being

Close eyes and be mindful of ourself

1 Peter 1:23-25

²³ For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. ²⁴ For,

“All people are like grass,
    and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
²⁵     but the word of the Lord endures forever.”

And this is the word that was preached to you.

In him we live and move and have our being

God is here – be still

2 Cor 4. 7

⁷ But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 

In him we live and move and have our being

We are made significant and of value in him and by him.

We shared bread adn wine and blessed one another…