Letting Go of Ian , livre ebook

Lion Hudson - Jo Cundy

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79 pages

English

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Jo Cundy, a solicitor, journeyed with her beloved husband, a senior bishop, through his death from cancer, travelling on through bereavement and beyond, including an earthquake in New Zealand. As Jo tells her story, she articulates deep truths about God who is Lord of the unexpected. This is an adventure of life and love, of private grief and public pilgrimage.

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Philosophie et théologie

Memoir

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Publié par	Lion Hudson
Date de parution	15 mai 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780857215390
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0400€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Text copyright © 2014 Jo Cundy
This edition copyright © 2014 Lion Hudson
The right of Jo Cundy to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Monarch Books an imprint of
Lion Hudson plc
Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England
Email: monarch@lionhudson.com www.lionhudson.com/monarch
ISBN 978 0 85721 538 3 e-ISBN 978 0 85721 539 0
First edition 2014
Acknowledgments (Additional text acknowledgments on p. 191)
Unless otherwise marked, Scripture quotations are from The Revised Standard Version of the Bible copyright © 1946, 1952 and 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches in the USA. Used by permission. All Rights Reserved. Scripture quotations marked NRSV are from The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches in the USA. Used by permission. All Rights Reserved. Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton, a member of the Hodder Headline Group. All rights reserved. ‘NIV’ is a trademark of International Bible Society. UK trademark number 1448790. Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version, copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All right reserved. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press. Extracts from The Book of Common Prayer, the rights in which are vested in the Crown, are reproduced by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press. Extracts from Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England (Church House Publishing, 2000) is copyright © The English Language Liturgical Consultation and is reproduced by permission of the publisher.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover image: Peter Moyse
In memory of Ian, and the rich years of marriage and ministry that we shared

“With a steady and honest purposefulness, this book takes us through a succession of earthquakes, literal as well as metaphorical – the shattering impact of a cancer diagnosis, the up and down moments of living under this shadow, and then an unexpected death – then the aftershocks of grief and loss, and the trauma of a real earthquake in New Zealand. But what comes through is a clear-eyed faith, a sense of what cannot be shaken, a stability that is credible because it is hard-won and a faith-filled embrace of the risk and limitation that is inseparably part of our human identity before God. Jo Cundy is a sure-footed guide through some very dark places; I’m grateful that she has been brave enough to map her journey in this way.”
Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury
“This is a memorable book about a memorable journey. It’s wonderfully honest and beautifully written, without sentimentality but with tenderness and grace. Jo Cundy’s strong faith is evident as we are drawn in to experiences which are both deeply personal and yet universal. There are lessons about life, death and new life from which we can all richly benefit.”
Bishop John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford
“Letting go of someone who becomes terminally ill stretches our humanity to its extreme. Even more so when that person is a life partner, a leading public figure and someone with a deep trust in the goodness of God. Yet Jo Cundy recounts an extraordinary story of faith with deep humanity and engaging hope.”
David Wilkinson, Principal, St John’s College, Durham
“Jo Cundy has written a deeply moving and inspiring account of the journey she made with her husband Ian from the time he was diagnosed… until two years after his death. Jo traces the eighteen months between Ian’s diagnosis and his death with extraordinary honesty, but also with humour, wit and finely drawn observations.
“It is a story that anyone who has ever lost a close loved one can immediately identify with, but it is also an adventure story about life, love and God.
“As Jo experiences intense grief, she also faces her own mortality and eventually finds herself able to accept the gift, as well as the fragility, of life.
“Jo Cundy is a person of immense spiritual, emotional and physical courage, and her story will inspire and encourage anyone who has ever lost a close loved one, as well as anyone who has ever questioned the relevance of faith to the meaning of life.
“ Letting Go of Ian is an intensely moving personal account of the death of a beloved husband, but it is also an inspiring story of how one woman makes new and hopeful discoveries about life, God and herself.”
Christina Rees, author and commentator
“This very helpful book is about living deeply. The honesty with which it is written is both refreshing and challenging. Letting Go of Ian invites the reader to ask searching questions about their own journey and relationship with mortality.”
Bishop Victoria Matthews, Bishop of Christchurch, New Zealand
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Foreword
Setting Out
I’m a Questioning Pilgrim
Context for a Journey
Part One
God of the Unexpected
Being Honest with God
Counting Blessings
Travelling Companions
Food for the Journey
Pushing Boundaries
Part Two
Grieving in Public
Alone with God
Moving On
Settling Down?
Part Three
Facing My Own Mortality
Alone with God, Again
What’s It All About?
Epilogue
Ian – Befriending Mortality
Postscript
Acknowledgments
Notes
Photo Section
Foreword
C aroline and I first met Ian in 1988, when he was Warden of Cranmer Hall at St John’s College, Durham, and I was about to start training for ordination. We left Cranmer at the same time; he went off to be Bishop of Lewes, and I started as a curate in Nuneaton. We had a couple of holidays together, and Ian was invariably supportive and wise in numerous conversations about everything from leading a parish to what to do next. His friendship was a crucial part of my own development in ministry, something that was true for a huge number of ordinands and clergy in the Church of England. As the years went by we managed to find ourselves in more or less similar parts of the country, and kept in touch.
Ian and Jo went together in all that he did. Their ministry was joint: they worked very hard, and it was impossible to imagine one without the other. For those of us who knew them both, the loss of Ian was a tragedy. For Jo, it was of an entirely different order of magnitude and this wonderful book is the outcome. It is very much an Ian-and-Jo book, even to the last words being Ian’s. Yet as always with Jo there is not a trace of the sentimental or maudlin. It is crisp and matter-of-fact, transparent and carefully shaped in its account of what being widowed meant, and in its careful yet penetrating narrative.
The penetration is all the more powerful because it comes not from purple prose or emotional passages, but from the narrowly and intensely observed experience of a journey. For me, two events shape the book. The first is, of course, Ian’s death. The second is the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, which found Jo in the cathedral escaping by the narrowest of margins as the tower crashed through the roof under which she and her cousin had been standing moments earlier. Through these two events, and in Ian’s words in the last chapter, Jo reflects on what it means to come to terms with our own mortality.
All of us are touched by death, inevitably our own at the end. Most people avoid facing its reality until it bursts in on us. Ian and Jo lived with the reality of his mortality, and after his death Jo has reflected profoundly and practically on the impact and consequences. She has done so without the slightest element of cringe, and certainly without self-pity, and the degree to which the book moved me is a reflection of her skill in drawing us into the journey she is travelling and the way in which the reality of God’s presence is demonstrated. Again there is no sentimentality, let alone a sense of diminishing the sense of loss.
Loss catches us by surprise in so many ways, and so does comfort. When I became Bishop of Durham, Jo and the family gave me the indefinite loan of Ian’s cope, mitre, chasuble and stole, given to him at St John’s College by the students, when he became a bishop. They are a stunning and unusual design by Juliet Hemingray. Every time I wear them (and by the grace of the cartoonists they have become somewhat iconic) I am surprised by the sense of missing Ian, but also by the sense of the providence and continuity of God. One wants to hear his voice and his wisdom, but also one knows that the God who called him is faithful. Loss and comfort are fellow travellers.
Through the book I was constantly surprised with Jo at the ways in which she found the presence of God catching her by surprise, whether in a trip to Taizé, or recovering from the earthquake on the west coast of New Zealand. The story of the journey reminded me of the reality that we plan our lives in straight lines across level country, yet we live them in blind corners, steep hills, dark forests and crooked paths. Strangers meet us, even strangers we have known well but whom we rediscover in fresh ways. Most of all, when we least expect it Christ is there, as comforter, guide, deliverer and saviour.
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