Celebrating Diana

This past Saturday, March 28 - family and friends gathered at St. Alban's Episcopal Parish to remember, mourn, pray for and celebrate our wonderful friend Diana.

It was a perfect day for a funeral - very British weather - a good day for hats, raincoats, brollies and the like. My partner George and I found parking and entered the church. So many friends - Nancy Williams, Pat Petrash, Liz Callison, Harry Stubbs, Vivian Comer and her sons Ellis and Owen. Many more FDIC folks - Len, Dee, Alicia, Ellin, Reg and Daphne, Kathleen, Carole and George Cleland, Erika Teal and husband Jim, Roberta and Bill, Jim Marino and Pam McDonough, Dr. Ed Barrese Noreen Lewis, Caryl Austrian and I know I didn't see everyone.

There were other friends from different parts of Diana's life - Pete and Astrid, Philip Wong-Cross, Rick and Elmer. Diana's cousins - Jim Smith (on her father's side) and Chris (on their mothers' side).

We all gathered beneath the crossbeams of St. Albans as the organ rolled and the choir and clergy arrived. It was all very proper and Anglican - and a real celebration of the promise of the Gospel.

Diana had asked the choir to sing several George Herbert poems set to music by Ralph Vaughn Williams. These songs were interspersed throughout the service along with the rituals from the Book of Common Prayer and audience participation, i.e. hymn-singing.

The George Herbert poem that best sums things up is The Call

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life :
Such a Way, as gives us breath :
Such a Truth, as ends all strife :
And such a Life, as killeth death.

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength :
Such a Light, as shows a feast :
Such a Feast, as mends in length :
Such a Strength, as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart :
Such a Joy, as none can move :
Such a Love, as none can part :
Such a Heart, as joyes in love.

The works of George Herbert can be found online.

Following the funeral there was procession to the columbarium on the north side of St. Albans where Diana's ashes and those of her mother Dorothy were columburied. Outdoors, Diana's cousin Chris found me and we said hello and met her daughter Liz. I didn't think to mention just how much she looks like her cousin Diana. Anyway Chris whispered - What happened to Iona and the Isle of Wight? I responded, I don't know. I'll have to ask.

So then into the Guild Hall for perhaps the grandest post-funeral reception I have been to. We were greeted with the happy sound of champagne corks popping. Appropriately, tea was being served in one location along with myriad little sandwiches and desserts. Elsewhere a table was spread with bowls of delicious strawberries, platters of cheeses and a seemingly bottomless bowl of shrimp. This was certainly Diana's kind of party!

Eventually people began to share their remembrances of Diana. I will post mine eventually, even though there is some repetition of what I have mentioned below.

It sort of all came back to a comment in the homily by Brother Robert Sevinsky, OHC. I paraphrase,

Diana had integrity, that is, she was an integer. She mattered. And while I realised that I didn't know everything about Diana's history, I knew Diana. And I know that perhaps none of us knew everything about her, still we all knew the same person. It was the same person of Diana whom we met at church, at work or on pilgrimage.

I will attempt to get a copy of his full homily.

One last thing - for now - when we entered Guild Hall, we were presented with copies of A Spiritual Miscellany - Tuesday Morning Homilies at St. Alban's Church by Diana Smith. These were produced by the help of members of St. Alban's Tuesday morning Eucharist community and members of the Friends of St. Benedict. I haven't read them all, but I was drawn to one - titled Valedictory written May 6, 2008, after visiting England for the last time.

Ascension Day has come and gone; I am not, as the disciples were, distraught, nor do I much care about the theology behind this major feast day. For once in my life I know I can't think my way out of this one. I'm sticking with abiding, with tending the flame.