Spectres of Rectors

Yesterday we had a bumper of a service when we met to give thanks for the life of Bill Bennetts who was the Rector of this parish more than twenty years ago (the last incumbent but one). He served also as parish priest of Kilburn where I had my first sole charge. (Here is a link to what I said in my sermon at the service).
As I said in that service, Rectors lurk in their parishes after they have gone, and Bill did. His predecessor but one (GFH) does also. I wonder if I will.
There was a curious array of feelings. He died some months ago, so in a way it was all over bar the shouting but all sorts of people gathered together to say goodbye. The principal mourner was his second-wife, who was not his wife when he was Rector of this parish and so was curiously not known to most of us. His two adult children were there and they had the confrontation of having to revisit the home of their childhood as well as everything else.
We sang the Office of Evening Prayer from the book of 1662, and his daughter found some of it rather alienating. Ah well we have all strayed like lost sheep from the devices and desires of our own hearts. But she wondered how I had chosen all his favourite hymns. The answer is I don't know! When I looked the other day at what exactly I had chosen I was surprised at the choice myself. I suppose part of it was that for one of his generation most of the hymns were favourites, but it also speaks volumes about the power and sustainability of 18th and 19th Century verse.

Blest are the pure in heart
for they shall see our God
the secret of the Lord is theirs
their soul is Christ's abode

But not forgotten

Enough is enough, no more people I know are allowed to die for at least 6 weeks (or until I come back from my holidays on 27th January!)
Having bemoaned that I sat around waiting for the third person to die, the 4th, 5th and then 6th died before Chrismas.
This latter my first priestly boss (or "Rector" as we used to call him!) was a curious mix of the person who longed to be different but couldn't bring himself to be free of his conservative shackles. He was enormously gifted and perceptive, when he preached well he was remarkably good and helpful. But he was also deeply threatened, not I think by other people's competence, but by any sense of loss of power. He thus threw away countless opportunities to soar because he was frightened that if he flew tooo high he would not be able to crap on people below.
Perhaps a little harsh! But as one who was his subordinate I (and others) could have done without it.
I found myself asking my wife a couple of weeks ago what I would have been like if instead of being discouraged I had been enouraged by him. Then a few days later he died.
I have only myself to blame for allowing him to affect me the way he did, and there were other issues going on at the time.
As death unremittingly reminds us of what we ought to do and what we ought not to have done, I tried when I was a training Rector to treat my curates better than I had been treated.
With one I was too liberal, but he was moderately competent any way. The next was good, because he would have been good where ever he was, but I think I helped him a little. The next just totally exploited my desire to not be like my first Rector and did what he liked....he is now in a position of prominence and doing that to lots of others too....and by the time I had the last one I became bored with the whole exercise and he just did nothing other than play golf, and I just couldn't raise the energy to smack him over the ear.
So? My reflection? Don't go criticising the now defunct AJD, I did no better myself. I hope that he has the rest and stability in eternity that he could not bear to have on earth, and yet so desperately longed for