This morning we had the joy of a cellist and a trumpeter to augment our music.  The choir sang beautifully.  A number of visitors joined us.

The picture shows the response to remembering our own loved ones - poppies and tealights symbolising those we have loved and lost, or those whose stories have inspired us.

A teenage girl was inspired by a school history trip to Europe to come to the service and remembered a WWI soldier she had researched; others recalled parents, siblings, friends, partners, children.

We reflected on characteristics of authentically Christian grief and prayed for the world of which we are a small part.

Some wept their way through the service, finding the release cathartic.  Others simply valued a different form of worship to their usual.  Overall, I think it went well, and we benefited from sharing together.

The Sunday school made a gorgeous poppy collage - which I must get a photo of - and the little poppies the adults used were stuck onto the wreath to sit alongside it.

We remembered; may we never forget.