Magic at St JUst.

I have never done a funeral before at St Just dressed still for Christmas with its tree decorations and the iron sconces in place   for the Candlelit carol service. Walking to the church was magical. The tide was in and the graveyard full of greenery with great fat buds on the camelias,  just waiting for the sun before bursting into life again.
It is much the same as when I first saw it 4o years ago, indeed much the same as when the first church was planted there in medieval times. The peace and sense of awe remains.
Today we said our good byes to a quite remarkable woman who at 97 was still running the Women's Institute as she had for the last 30 years. There was a good turn out, much amused by her instructions to her children that they were not under any circumstances to sing Jerusalem!
She now rests in the grave with her husband. They are next to a small pond where the mallards rear their young  and the king cups glow. This poem by Minnie Haskins seemed particularly appropriate for a New Years Eve  funeral.

I said the man who stood at the gate of the year
Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown
And he replied, Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.

So I went forth and finding the Hand of God
Trod gladly into the night
He led me towards the hills
And the breaking of day in the lone east

So heart be still
What need our human life to know
If God hath comprehension?

In all the dizzy strife of human things
Both high and low
God hideth  his intention.