I was sitting on a bench in Battersea Park yesterday, opposite the lake. Two benches down, a woman took out a bottle of Brasso and a rag, and started polishing the brass plaque on the top of the back rest.
There must be thousands of these in the parks of London, but I hardly ever stop to notice them.
I got chatting to her. (The English ‘rule’ of not talking to strangers didn’t apply in this case because (i) we were in a park, (ii) she had a dog and (iii) she was doing something out of the ordinary!) She doesn’t polish every memorial plaque in the park. This one – the image above – is dedicated to a neighbour she knew very well. The neighbour’s relatives don’t live nearby, so she takes it upon herself to polish the plaque.
What a beautiful image of devotion to the memory of someone, like leaving flowers at a grave. I know that as Christians part of our remembering is praying for the repose of their souls. But in the wider secular context, these simple memorials and gestures are a simple way of connecting with the past and remembering those who have gone before us.
Thats a lovely story!
For Lent of 2013 I did a sponsored walk for Cafod, this involved walking the same old route of 6 miles for each day of the 40 days of Lent. The weather was awful on days, snow, sleet, freezing ice, gales, blizzard, and whip lashing rain, but each and every time I got 2.5 miles in to my walk I would pass the antique graveyard, of what in days of old, would have once been the All Saints Catholic Church. Shadrick Martin, Ronald Davis, Timothy Foster and a few others besides who died around 1875 became some of my closest supporters whilst I was experiencing a very difficult personal time. I prayed for them every day that I passed by, and I know that they held me and prayed for me too, each and every day to the end. I still do the same route today on days and now they have become more like friends †
Funny ole world!
What a lovely story! I think it is so important to remember those who have ‘walked this path before we did’. We all have different ways of doing this. I like your comment about connecting with the past. Every now and again, my Wife and I go to an old monastic graveyard in what used to be a stately home but is now local council offices and a park. There are the graves of over 30 of the members of the (Anglican) Society of the Sacred Mission including the Priest who married my parents. I find a sense of peace there which is hard to put into words.
My mum lives in Wimereux France and my dad’s ashes were buried at the local cemetery. On a Sunday the cemetery is busy with families tending graves and bringing plants and flowers. It creates quite a community. Often she arrives and finds a new plant near my dad’s little plot that a friend has left.
In her parish on the Sunday after a funeral the surviving spouse or family member joins the entrance procession at Mass and places a candle in front of the altar. Often there are 3 or 4 people. It might not be liturgically correct but it lets everyone know why that person is now coming to Mass on their own and introduces the recently bereaved to each other.
It’s easy to see the plaque, the bench, the park and George, strolling across the park when he was alive, as grey – boring.
But imagine if you look through the eyes of God or, rather, look with divine eyes (which we can, because we’re partly divine). Then the plaque, the bench, the park and, especially, George (and the woman polishing the plaque) becomes something MAGIC. Everything turns from grey / dull / boring to colour / light / fire. MAGIC!
Sorry but I was overcome with a mystical insight .. (how boring / grey / predictable our world is without the Divine, or rather, if we leave the Divine – God – out of it. How exciting / colourful / lively it becomes with God in it, looking at the world with divine eyes.
I love to read the plaques on the bench’s some sad some just fascinating but every one important .