Today is the first anniversary of Paddy Morris’s death. She is well remembered in the Congregational Federation, as one of the team that provided refreshments at countless Council, Committee and Board Meetings and training weekends, for many years, and as a cheerful and tireless worker in church life.
In more recent years, she was part of the congregation that welcomed students and tutors to Sunday morning worship at our training weekends, and those who lived within reasonable reach of Nottingham learned to view with caution her approach, notebook and pen at the ready, with an invitation to lead worship at the Congregational Centre Church.
The Nottingham church came to the end of its life during (though not because of) the pandemic, and Paddy transferred her membership to London Road Church, Newark, where she attended and was received into membership online. Being virtual didn’t deter her, and she used to ring me, full of enthusiasm for various projects in the life of her new church!
My brother and his family came over last summer for the scattering of her ashes, for which we chose a quiet spot on the river in Bedford, by a little boardwalk set up for people to fish from. Last week, I went back to the riverside to spend a bit of time in reflection. It was a lovely calm autumn day, and the river was sparkling as it flowed. A gaggle of geese were grazing behind me, and there were some ducks doing that raucous laughing quack that sounds so comical.
As I turned to go, I saw – Oh dear – another board walk further along the bank – and a bit further along, another. One thing I inherited from mum was absolute zero sense of direction or memory of place. Which one did we scatter from? I hadn’t the faintest idea! But, like the gaggling geese and uproarious ducks, my confusion would have amused her heartily, and I felt that we shared a private smile, accompanied by a raised eyebrow!
I am immensely thankful for the close relationship Paddy and I shared. We worked together and had a lot of fun together; we were always planning the next adventure, and the next one . . .
One of her mother’s (my grandmother) favourite hymns carries that sense of adventure, onward travel under God’s guidance. It was: Philip Doddridge’s ‘O God of Bethel, by whose hand thy people still are fed’. Each line of the short text means something special. In her childhood, my grandmother thought the last line of the first verse was ‘has stole our father’s leg’, and that childish mishearing has come down through the family. Mum and I have a particular view of ‘each perplexing path’ and ‘wandering footsteps’ as you can imagine.
O God of Bethel, by whose hand
thy people still are fed,
who through this weary pilgrimage
hast all our fathers led;
But the hymn ends where all our pathways lead, and where Paddy has surely found her home now:
‘And at our Father’s loved abode,
Our souls arrive in peace.’
Amen to that, and thanks be to God.
Janet Wootton
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