A Ship has Come to Carry You Home
John Wilfred James Hewitt (1934-2022)
Today my beloved father has died. It was a privilege to spend the final days with him, though it was not an easy death. But he had his final wish and that was to die at home with his family around him. That made something good and beautiful out of the horrible realities of suffering in this life.
I’ve shared his long and painful struggle with you all previously, most recently in the photo essay, “In My Father’s House”. www.flickr.com/photos/luminosity7/albums/72177720302313506
The ship has been an archetypal symbol of our final journey across the seas of time into Eternity. It was one used by J.R.R. Tolkien in the final chapter of “The Lord of the Rings”. You might remember that Gandalf and Frodo were gathered with their Hobbit friends at the Grey Havens to say goodbye. The ship had come and they were about to sail into the West, and by implication pass from this world into Eternity. Tolkien writes such beautiful and comforting words here:
Gandalf speaks. “Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.
Then Frodo kissed Merry and Pippin, and last of all Sam, and went aboard; and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew, and slowly the ship slipped away down the long grey firth; and the light of the glass of Galadriel that Frodo bore glimmered and was lost. And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed on into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld the white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise."
In the film version Annie Lennox sings this most beautiful song that has that magical line, “What can you see on the horizon?” I encourage you to have a listen to “Into the West”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoVaK2NXmJA
Friends, for all of us, death is ultimately a singularity – a unique experience that each individual has to experience for themselves. This moment in time is our true Event Horizon - the moment where cosmologists say all events in this universe disappear into a Black Hole and on into the next. Except that for those with faith, this is not an end, but a New Beginning.
Naturally, I will be taking a little while off from Flickr to spend it with my family. I would appreciate your prayers for my dear Mother who is feeling the loss so deeply right now. They were married for 67 wonderful years and gave their lives in service together for God.
www.flickr.com/photos/luminosity7/52387852760/in/album-72...
A Ship has Come to Carry You Home
John Wilfred James Hewitt (1934-2022)
Today my beloved father has died. It was a privilege to spend the final days with him, though it was not an easy death. But he had his final wish and that was to die at home with his family around him. That made something good and beautiful out of the horrible realities of suffering in this life.
I’ve shared his long and painful struggle with you all previously, most recently in the photo essay, “In My Father’s House”. www.flickr.com/photos/luminosity7/albums/72177720302313506
The ship has been an archetypal symbol of our final journey across the seas of time into Eternity. It was one used by J.R.R. Tolkien in the final chapter of “The Lord of the Rings”. You might remember that Gandalf and Frodo were gathered with their Hobbit friends at the Grey Havens to say goodbye. The ship had come and they were about to sail into the West, and by implication pass from this world into Eternity. Tolkien writes such beautiful and comforting words here:
Gandalf speaks. “Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.
Then Frodo kissed Merry and Pippin, and last of all Sam, and went aboard; and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew, and slowly the ship slipped away down the long grey firth; and the light of the glass of Galadriel that Frodo bore glimmered and was lost. And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed on into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld the white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise."
In the film version Annie Lennox sings this most beautiful song that has that magical line, “What can you see on the horizon?” I encourage you to have a listen to “Into the West”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoVaK2NXmJA
Friends, for all of us, death is ultimately a singularity – a unique experience that each individual has to experience for themselves. This moment in time is our true Event Horizon - the moment where cosmologists say all events in this universe disappear into a Black Hole and on into the next. Except that for those with faith, this is not an end, but a New Beginning.
Naturally, I will be taking a little while off from Flickr to spend it with my family. I would appreciate your prayers for my dear Mother who is feeling the loss so deeply right now. They were married for 67 wonderful years and gave their lives in service together for God.
www.flickr.com/photos/luminosity7/52387852760/in/album-72...