o
The theme of this service is about age, not
necessarily old age so I shall start with a poem from As you Like it.
In As You Like It, Act 2 Scene 7,
Shakespeare has Jaques talk through the ‘seven ages of man’. According to
Jaques’ monologue the seven ages of man are this
All the world’s a stage
‘All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the
infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then, the whining school-boy with his
satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like a
snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then, a
soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the
pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in
quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then, the
justice,
In fair round belly, with a good capon
lin’d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age
shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too
wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly
voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of
all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans
everything.’
Hymn
Perhaps our initial monologue was male
orientated but now I would like to invite you all to contribute by lighting a
candle
Lighting a candle
I would now like to invite you to light a candle and say
one thing that you like about being the age that you are and one thing that you
don’t like about being the age that you are.
Thank you for sharing
I suspect many of you will know this poem
‘ Warning’ by Jenny Joseph
When I am old I shall wear purple
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and
doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and
summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money
for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m
tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press
alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more
fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and
things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us
dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the
street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the
papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked
and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear
purple.
However you may not know this poemand it has been a favourite of mine for ten years, I prefer it to Warning
Autumn Tree Ann Rubin
I want to grow old like an Autumn Tree
Blazing with Radiance, a flame-like finale.
Deep chestnut hair dye will crown my grey
head
I’ll paint my nails russet and my lips
cherry red.
I’ll have gowns in orange, my skin ancient
bronze
My shawls will have fringes, like gold
bracken fronds.
I won’t wear purple, or age gracefully
I want to greet Winter, like an Autumn
tree.
Pride comes before a fall, or so the
proverb says;
And there’ll be lots to be proud of in my
autumn days.
Of facing each spring with bright promise
and cheer
Of the fruit that I bore, in my summer
years.
Of sheltering my loved ones, in strong arms
and heart
Of braving the bitter times when we had to
part.
And when I know it’s the right time, for my
soul to fly free
I’ll be reaching to heaven like an autumn
tree.
See on this trunk, like veins of rich sap
The lines of my living, like paths on a
map.
On the day of my passing, when I sail to
the West
Paint me with bright colours, make me look
my best.
Carry me, log like, to my funeral pyre
Remember with joy that I lived with great fire.
I learned how to grow old – gloriously
Every bit as resplendent as an Autumn Tree.
Anne Rubin October 2003
Hymn
Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961)
is often referenced as the originator of the concept of the inner child
It is the child that learns to cope with
the world up until the age of puberty and adolescence. All of us have traumatic
experiences during childhood of varying degrees of severity and it is how we
cope with them that makes us the individual that we are. We feel those traumas
again when in adult life we encounter
something that touches on those old scars of childhood , patience and kindness
overcomes the anger and frustration people feel when this happens. Many of us
are able to rationalize them and acknowledge where our emotional pain comes
from.
Charles
Whitfield dubbed the inner child the "child within" in his
book Healing the Child Within: Discovery and Recovery for Adult
Children of Dysfunctional Families (1987). Penny Park's book Rescuing
the Inner Child (1990) provided a program for contacting and
recovering the inner child.
However, some of us have such painful
experiences in childhood that we are unable to rationalize the experience and
need therapeutic help to uncover our ingrained emotional pain
When we have middle age our relationships
and our work patterns take precedence but there comes a time when we approach
old age. What do we expect what do we fear. Take a few moment s to write down
those things that trouble us about the age that we are and the age we are going
to be and also the age that we live in.
This is a private reminiscence . Please put what you have written in a
pocket or somewhere on your person.
Hymn and collection
I would like you to keep those words with you as we go into a short meditation. At
the end of the meditation I would like you to join me in chanting the OM, I
will ring the gong and then we will chant OM until it finishes. You may not be familiar with the Om so I will
demonstrate:
OM
The Cultural and Historical Roots of OM
The syllable OM is
an ancient Sanskrit letter first found in the Vedas, originating between 1500 –
1200 BC. A collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns, they were sung in praise of the
Divine. They were not written out at first, but were vibrated into existence
using human speech. Teachings on the metaphysics of OM were later elaborated on
in the Upanishads, ancient Indian mystical texts
They carry the great
forces of Nature such as the energies of the Sun and Moon, Fire and Water,
electricity and magnetism, not simply as outer factors but as inner potentials
of Divine Light. They project various aspects of force and radiance for body,
mind and consciousness.
OM, carries immense
pranic life force energy,
is a mystic syllable, considered the most sacred mantra in Hinduism and Tibetan
Buddhism. It appears at the beginning and end of most Sanskrit recitations,
prayers, and texts
What is the Meaning of OM?
Seed mantras like OM
are no ordinary words with dictionary definitions. These mantras are more about
the vibrational content than the meaning. Frawley again: “Om is the Word of
God.” The sound OM is a vibration from which all the manifest universe
emanates. Form and creation comes from vibration. OM is the most elemental of
vibrations. It is the sound of the void. Frawley says: “Om is the prime mantra
of the Higher self, or Atman. It attunes us with our true nature. It is the
sound of the creator, preserver and destroyer of the universe.
And now the
meditation of the labyrinth
You all have a
picture of a labyrinth to help you to concentrate.
Walking a pathway
can help to get rid of distractions such as shopping lists, arguments family
chores, global concerns or sadness when we are trying to pray.
Think of this
journey as four movements
1. You are on the threshold prepare yourself for the walk
2 the journey in
As you wind your way
round, approaching the centre, gradually offload the pressures of the day,
acknowledge them and put them aside.
Concentrate your
mind, try to block out all physical and natural sights and sounds. You can view it as an allorgary of your life,
sometimes close to god, sometimes on the edge.
Or perhaps you sometimes feel in sympathy with others, and at other
times distant from them.
3 the resting place
At the centre you
can rest in God’s presence for as long as you like
Breathe gently and
be still
Listen to God and feel the healing presence
When you are ready
to leave, give thanks for what you have received here and prepare to go
4.The Journey out of
the labyrinth
Walking outwards,
release your worries, feel revitalized and strengthened by your time in the
resting place and feel with the help of the Holy Spirit that you can carry the
light and love of Christ within you.
And now to give
thanks we will chant the OM together. And afterwards we will have our next hymn
Hymn
Prayers
This morning may we
remember the atrocities committed in the name of religion. The Dean of Southark today said that People
of Faith have more in common with each other than people realize. May we strengthen and celebrate that and also
remember that violent acts committed in the name of religion are false beliefs.
May we remember a young man cut down in his prime who only worked for peace and
the dignity of other human beings.
We will now take the
offatory.
A New Prayer in the Old Church
O God, we speak the same name when we lift our hearts to you,
but you know that we each mean something a little different, and some of us
scarcely know what we mean. We come again that we may repose and reinforce our
souls in you; for we feel that our lives have meanings beyond all that we have
been able to discern of good and evil; meanings higher and deeper than our
worst fears or loveliest dreams. So teach us to pray by somewhat yielding to
the Greater Spirit which is beyond any name; and answer our prayers by the up
springing of some fresh courage and wisdom. Forbid that we make our God in our
own image and that alone; yet help us to know you in the depths of our own
being, in all that concerns our truest selves and our love for others. Help us
to hear in the worst the cry for the best, and to realize that all the patient,
undaunted struggles are shared by you. Help us that we may help one another
along the winding road of life, not merely by getting through but by getting
up, by a gathering together nearer to a Light and Love including us all.
Whatever else we receive in this time of worship, may we be touched by some
assurance that the best is yet to be, because it is already in thy holy will
for us and for all people; and we are yours now and forever.
New Prayers in Old
Places Vivian Pomeroy
When the Old Year comes to a close
O God of Life, we thank you for beautiful little things which we
never dreamed could make us so happy, and for the way the stars shone on long
hard stretches of the road we had to tread. We thank you for the small
expectations which ended in great delight; for the visitations of friendships
which took us by surprise in this quarrelling world of ours, and for the
success which startled a heart schooled to face frequent defeat. We thank you
that when we prayed for courage to face the worst, there was often the in-
finite mercy of so much less than the worst; and we thank you that some of our
desires were not satisfied because a wisdom deeper than our own withheld what
we wanted for the moment and gave us what we needed forever. We bless you that,
bereft of some things we felt we could not live without, we have had bestowed
upon us other things to enable us to live on—a vision in the restless night, a
quiet heart in the dreaded tumult, an inspiring thought when we were at our
wits’ end, a sufficient grace in spite of our weakness. Bless our future days
to courage in our own troubles and kindness in the troubles of others. Bless
our work to a little splendor and our homes to great loving. Bless our country
to responsible freedom and our world to new hope. Forgive our sins against thee
and against one another; and lead us gently down the years, out of the good
that is into the better that is yet to be.
God’s promises are flowers tha bloom along our way, God’s
promises are sunshine that brighten up our day. God’s promises are rainbows
that light the sky above God’s promises are tokens of His abiding love.
May children everywhere feel God’s love and orphans brought
safely home.
Join me if you can
in the Lord’s Prayer
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father…..
Our concluding hymn
is a traditional one
Hymn – Love Devine
all loves excelling
Benediction
Singer of twilight,
we are drawn once more into your melody.
At the heart of the chorus is the stillness of your greeting. As autumn turns to winter may we never lose
the pathway to the divine heart. The
sealing of the dark heralds the preparation for a new day as tonight the stars
shine , reveal again to us your mystery. Burn unflickering within us our holy
light
pening music Dvorak cello concerto
24 -come sing a song with me
198 - well build a land
70 - i wish i knew how
125 one more step along the world i go
benediction Celtic Devotional
Closing music Bruch Violin concerto no 1
