The poignancy of preparing a service after the Queen’s death

Thursday was a curious day for us all. Anyone watching the news was treated to the complexity of commentators trying desperately hard not to say the thing that everyone watching knew was happening: that the Queen was dying, and was possibly already dead. The black ties around the presenters’ necks, the emergency flights from London to Scotland, Parliament breaking up in a state of near disarray told everyone with eyes to see what was happening. That didn’t mean I accepted it; I can’t speak for anyone else but my brain went straight into bargaining mode, desperately hoping this was a false alarm, glued to the rolling coverage on the news.

I was jumpstarted out of my reveries by a text message from a parishioner asking if we were putting on a service for the Queen. We hadn’t been, but within about five minutes we were. There isn’t much any of us can do while our sovereign lies ill, close to death, maybe having died – but we can pray.