Saturday 9th October
Every time I look at Tim’s picture on the front of today’s order, I find myself shaking my head. Though 18 long months have gone by since we lost him, Tim’s sudden death from Covid is still un-believable. How can someone so vital – not only so full of life but also so pivotal to the life of the local community – be no longer with us?
As has been said, if his life was the note, now we sense only the silence.
But maybe, as we come together to seek comfort and insight from Tim’s life, we can sense more. If we cannot still hear his footsteps, can we not still ‘taste and see’ his legacy?
Salt and light are the subject of our second lesson. They’re commonplace, easily taken-for-granted essentials of our existence – I suppose Jesus chose them just because they were so basic, as he holds out the shocking prospect that these goods might be lost – salt without its saltiness, light hidden under a basket.
What I’d like to do now is to return to the tributes sent in at the time of Tim’s death to remind us of the taste of his character and kindly radiance. His was a presence which will never lose its defining qualities.
The leitmotif running through the tributes sent to KPO – kindness – shows that there’s no danger of this being lost when it comes to Tim. Choristers said:
Thank you for looking after us all so well and being nice to us all the time – Buzz
He was kind, calm and caring. We will all miss Mr Pride – Peter
His salt and light were noticed outside the choir. Camilla and her large family wrote:
I’m sure you knew that everyone loved you, because how could they not? Your endless smile, kindest heart and most gentle nature were such a gift… The children adored you, you always treated them as equals.
Kind, caring, gentle. A gift to us all – dependable and constant – like, the darkness-dispelling light set high on a lamp stand.
And of course Tim gave us glorious music and musicianship:
His musical knowledge never failed him, but he never paraded it; he was a sensitive and modest man to the core – Carol and Keith
I miss your voice swooping above tenors and basses and I will always remember the time you sang the ‘cat’ solo in Rejoice in the Lamb – Ben
We remember the music, but we always return to the basics of what Tim meant to our community. He was the pivot, the bedrock, the epitome of Kingsgate Post Office, a true gentleman (all other people’s words) who we looked forward to chatting to, to brighten our day.
My last sight of Tim was of him crouching down replenishing the stock, long after hours, while others last memory is of him delivering groceries to their door during this crisis.
Charlotte and Des said: Tim had the best surname for himself – pride was taken in everything that he did.
And for his humble service to our community, we take the fondest, strongest pride in him.
We miss you, Tim! You were indeed salt and the light to us; and you prove the truth of Jesus’ words, as the ‘you’ Jesus was referring to as the people of this quality were not the great and mighty, but the ordinary and overlooked, the hassled and restricted, the little and bewildered people of his day – his far-from-grand followers.
And, as we mourn, we feel deeply and abidingly grateful for the salt and light that Tim has cast, gently, kindly and modestly, into our lives.
There’s no doubt that Tim has left us this legacy, but what about this un-believable silence which we’ve been suffering after the note of his lovely and not long-enough life?
Choral Evensong itself may have comfort to offer us here, as you could say that the whole point of Evensong is the silence. Unlike our busy modern liturgies, most participate in it by not speaking. Even amens are removed from their lips as the choir voices them for them.
But at a deeper level Evensong works by a continual dialogue of call and response – an antiphonal structure, which in Winchester’s tradition begins even before the set order, as it did today, with an extra antiphon.
It’s obviously there in the psalms, but also in much larger, underlying antiphonal structures, such as the first part of the service being about listening to God’s call in the scriptures and the second part being our response in praise and prayer.
All these elements are threaded with silence – the threshold between call and response, the still point of listening, equipoise and peace. And the most profound silence in the whole service, in my view, grows as the anthem unfolds, when we’re led through music beyond words, so that that the following prayers arise from a trusting and abiding silence.
The silences of this service are not simply the absence of sound, but laden with God-given promise and potential; because, as Evensong teaches us, after a call there is always a response to be made.
Tim’s life calls us to be grateful, calls us to imitate his virtue and to continue his legacy; but Tim’s death leaves a silence in which we’re waiting for God to respond and act.
Into this silence we commend Tim to God, as we hear words sung which pledge his future in God’s kingdom:
Faire is the heaven, where happy soules have place
In full enjoyment of felicitie,
Whence they doe still behold the glorious face
Of the Divine Eternall Majestie;
The ‘full enjoyment of felicity’, the abundant life of faire heaven, will surely involve both acrobatic altos and a feast of the most tastefully presented and (really most reasonably priced) wine and provisions.
And heaven will involve enjoying the company of everyone who’s there to share it, including those who, like Tim, have brought to the party the salt of gentleness and humility and the steady, shining light of kindness and cheerfulness. As the Dean so succinctly put it, ‘If Tim’s not singing there in heaven, I’m not going’.
Here is the anthem now, to take us into this promising silence – a calm and trusting place, laden with anticipation.