...To end the year with thanks...

The end of the year sees me bringing together a medley of mortality, some more famous in their deaths than in their lives, some deaths sudden, shocking and early, others coming as a 'natural' end. These struck me for a variety of reasons.

Two First World War veterans, whose lives had been, at the Whitehall Remembrance Day parade, an annual reminder of the lunacy let upon the world by WWI, and the ghoulish visions of the battlefields of France:

Henry Allingham, who died on July 18, aged 113, the last known survivor of the RNAS to serve at sea and abroad during WWI; and Henry J ('Harry') Patch, who died onJuly 25, aged 111, the last "Tommy" of WWI.

One single symbolic death, utterly different in kind and context, the news - or rather, the video - of whose death spread round the world like a bushfire via the internet, despite the 'best' efforts of the Iranian censors to block it:
'Neda' (Neda Salehi Agha Soltan), who died on 22 June, aged 27, shot in the heart during the demonstrations in Tehran against the the recent elections. She would have been a year or so older than our own youngest daughter.

http://nedasvoice.com/
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/.../article6557858.ece - 6 hours ago
http://www.france24.com/en/20090622-death-neda-becomes-face-protest-iran-opposition-tehran-video-footage

Googling 'Neda' and 'crucifix' will take you to at least a couple of web-sites - cornerstone-forum.blogspot.com/2009/07 (Reflections on Faith and Culture) for 6 July, and newcitizenship.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archiv... (Politeia) - which take seriously the suggestion, on the basis of photos of her apparently wearing a crucifix, that Neda was a Christian. Others argue that her name does not allow that conclusion to be drawn, since it is not one of those regularly known as denoting Christian religious affiliation.

Three New Testament scholars:

Martin Hengel, who died on 2 July, 2009, (sic: not, of course, 2010, as incorrectly and regrettably entered on my earlier blog!), was one of - if not the - most oustanding New Testament scholar and theologian of early Christianity, indeed of the whole of the ancient Graeco-Roman Hellenistic world;

Graham Stanton, Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University from 1998 to 2007, and for over twenty years before that, Professor of New Testament and King's Colege, London, who died on 18 July, aged 69. Though much of his professional work was done on St Matthew's Gospel, his major contribution was to re-engage with the topic and language of 'Gospel' in a scholarly way, it having been ignored as a serious topic of Historical-Jesus study for decades. His The Gospels and Jesus (2002, 2nd ed.), but much more his Jesus and Gospel (2004) and the Festschrift The Written Gospel, edited (2005) by Markus Bockmuehl and Donald Hagner in his honour, all bear testimony to years of study, hard work and positive contributions in this area;

www.telegraph.co.uk/.../obituaries/...obituaries/.../Graham-Stanton.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/13/graham-stanton-obituary
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6800946.ece -

John Sweet, Fellow and Chaplain of Selwyn College, Cambridge, from 1958, and a well-known figure in the Divinity Faculty of Cambridge University, and well beyond, who died on July 2, aged 82. A delightful, unassuming man, the encouragement of his life is to know that you do not have to write many books to be a scholar. His 1979 Pelican Commentary on Revelation is a gem of precision, simplicity and lack of pretention.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6795017.ece
www.telegraph.co.uk/.../obituaries/...obituaries/.../Canon-John-Sweet.html -

Two outstanding modern contemporary dance choreographers:

Merce Cunningham, 'the outstanding figure of contemporary dance,' who died on July 26, aged 90; and Pina Bausch, another outstanding creative interpreter and choreogapher, who died on 30 June, at 68, a mere five days after being diagnosed with cancer. Having been for many years inolved with the Tanztheater Wuppertal, she explored virtually the whole range of artistic expression, from the extreme brutality and violence of Bluebeard through the provocative but less offensive mid-ground Rite of Spring to the recent quasi-innocent Nelken(Carnations). These two were acknowledged giants in their field.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/jul/01/pina-bausch-obituary-dance
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture.../Pina-Bausch.html

In the world of music, the sadness of the death of Richard Hickox, aged only 60, last November (24 November, 2008), still resounds. He was a doyen among conductors of an extraordinary range of music, and in particular left a 'progidious recorded legacy of British music,' having been widely loved and appreciated throughout the musical world.

www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/.../obituary-richard-hickox
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article5225000.ece
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/richard-hickox-conductor-who-left-a-prodigious-recorded-legacy-of-british-music-1033825.html

Then,this year, two female sopranos:

Hildegard Behrens, the German lyric-dramatic operatic soprano and magnificent exponent of the Wagner-Strauss repertoire, who died on 18 August, aged 72;

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6802369.ece
www.guardian.co.uk/music/.../obituary-hildegard-behrens
www.independent.co.uk › News ›

and Elisabeth Soderstrom, who died on 20 November, aged 82, leaving behind a legacy of a fabulous lyric soprano voice across a whole range of music.

www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/.../elisabeth-soderstrom-obituary
www.telegraph.co.uk/.../obituaries/...obituaries/...obituaries/.../Elisabeth-Soderstrom.html
www.independent.co.uk/.../obituaries/elisabeth-sderstrm-soprano-admired-in-britain-for-her-interpretations-of-richard-strauss-1826471.html
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6927434.ece

Sic transit gloria mundi. And/ but: deo gratias. 'So...whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God' (1 Corinthians 10:31).