Image: In loving memory of Daphne Spry. Flowers by Cathie Harrison.
‘Storerooms’
Andrew Collis
Funeral for Daphne Yvonne Spry
(September 2, 1930 – June 23, 2023)
South Sydney Uniting Church
Matthew 13:52
Jesus said: “Every religious scholar who has become a student of the kindom of heaven is like the head of a household who can bring from the storeroom both the new and the old” (Matthew 13:52).
Every religious scholar …
Religion means entanglement, binding/bonding as in ligament/obligation … A religious scholar studies all manner of obligation, all manner of entanglement … of body and spirit …
Becomes a student of the kindom of heaven …
A student of the kindom of heaven attends to family ties … S/he comes to understand kinship, connection, disconnection, reconnection … with others … human and non-human … on earth as it is in heaven …
It’s a short reading but there’s a lot to it.
Kindom, kinship, family … connotes familiarity with both joy and pain. Source of life and hope as well as danger and disappointment.
Family means reflection, revision, reconciliation … with the past, with one another … re-imagining life together – roles, identities, modes of communication, modes of presence … Family is an ongoing project … it precedes us … our ancestors accompany and commission us to love our children … to imagine (to co-create) a safe and inspiring house/place/world for them.
The head of a household who can bring from the storeroom both the new and the old …
Daphne’s work as a collector, antique dealer and stall holder meant having an eye for treasures … restoring, recycling, repurposing, renewal … Helping coworkers and customers to appreciate certain qualities, little details, new possibilities …
There’s something in this for us.
We, too, bring from the storeroom of memory (individual, collective and cultural memory) those things for which we are thankful – whatever has shaped us as people of faith, hope and love … whatever has made us a little wiser, more self-aware …
And we bring from the storeroom of grief those things (including tears, fears, confusion) without which we cannot honestly deal in this moment.
We bring gratitude and honesty … our prayers for survival and transformation.
Prayers, especially now, for Daphne and all she experienced of joy and pain … the danger she faced (as a woman, as a nurse in the army …) and the disappointment she endured.
We remember her as one of us. Amen.
