LE PETIT DÉJEUNER

FROM TIME TO TIME we chastise ourselves about our devotion to summer holidays in Brittany. Until we sit down to breakfast, when, with absolutely nothing “petit” about it, we feast like kings and remember one of the many reasons we keep on coming back!

LONG TIME COMIN’

WAITING FOR HOLIDAYS this year seemed to take forever. Steve and Katie’s wedding today at 1pm. Car packed and ready for our departure whilst the happy couple were being photographed. Touchingly their guests waved and cheered us on our way down to Folkestone at just after 2pm. I’m 50 years old and still as excited about setting out for summer holidays as I was at 5! Eurotunnel this evening followed by a leisured dinner at Coquelles … and the weather forecast is great for tomorrow’s 500 mile amble down to southern Brittany. Happy as a sandboy, alongside a smiling sandgirl! À Bientôt …

GRACE AND JERUSALEM

They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. Jesus took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’ Mark 7.32ff

ANOTHER WEEK FLEW BY. The new week begins with another Sunday full of grace, full of charism, full of gifts and giftedness, full of the hope of “Jerusalem”, the city, the kingdom of peace.  Full house. Full heart. Two grandparents at 8am with the very poorly child we prayed for a month or two ago; smiley and happy … “I’ve come to say thanks” said the little fellow. And by 10 o’clock a fifteen year old girl, with no church background but now seeking baptism, is ministering already to the “old guard” around her. Others give thanks for the children’s holiday extravanganza that gladly made room for a little girl temporarily imprisoned in a plaster cast. A proud son stands beside the equally proud Dad who’s thinking of taking a pay cut so that he can find time to train for the priesthood. Last month’s newlyweds are singing their hearts out. Next Saturday’s to-be-weds are shining in the back row. Willing souls learn a new hymn tune with good grace. “Gather us in” is the prayer of the assembly. Gather us all in. And may there be enough scones for the Holiday at Home Brass Band Concert this afternoon.

Another 150 souls are arriving in the car park as the first droves are heading home. Three more young lives are welcomed into the fold by Baptism. I leave them to their photos to bolt back for a sandwich before a gathering of old soldiers, families and friends in Bramall Park. There’s a 90+ year old kilted Highlander amidst the throng. They’ve come to honour a local man, 42 years after he died. Jock Christie had been awarded the Victoria Cross “for most conspicuous bravery” in Palestine in 1917. His son told me that his father had never talked to him about it. They don’t, do they, the bravest of the brave? They don’t talk about it. They just do it. Two young riflemen of the Band and Bugles of the Rifles sounded Last Post and Reveille with a haunting clarity that brought a busy Sunday afternoon park to a standstill. And Jock’s son asked for grace to prevail amidst the “heat and toil” of Afghanistan.

Back to Church for the Elmfield Brass Band Concert at 4. Another hundred or so folk, many of them involved in this summer’s Holiday at Home. There were enough scones and the loudest applause was raised for Jack Bennett’s service as conductor for the past 57 years! He was given a medal and said that he’d enjoyed meddling for as long as he could remember! And, just before we sang – and longed for – Jerusalem, Jack called up a six year old girl in a lovely pink dress to take up his baton for a couple of songs. She was brilliant. And radiant. She told me afterwards that one of the great moments of her life was a recent meeting with Archbishop Sentamu of York (she’s on her school’s council). The second biggest moment was conducting Jack’s band. Her mum and dad and dozens of grannies and grandpas were proud and pleased as punch. We’ve been building up Jerusalem again today. The kingdom of peace. Men and women of the gospel, sometimes hard of hearing and occasionally inclined to “speech impediment” have been busy building Jerusalem. And the name of the little girl conductor was Grace!

… the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water. Isaiah 35.5ff

Thanks be to God for every one of today’s builders, and for Jock, for Jack, for Grace, and Jerusalem!

GLORY BE!

MANY AND GREAT are the reasons I find Bramhall a good place to be; the wonderful gatherings for our family Eucharist, and this morning’s uplifting hymn-singing being not the least among these. But there was a particular murmur of recognition when I mentioned some of the recent sunsets I’ve captured from the Vicarage windows here. Time and again we’re given cause to whisper: “Glory be …”

THE ONLY THING I DON’T RUN

JUSTIN LEWIS-ANTHONY’S “If you see George Herbert …” has been a great read. A breath of fresh air. A challenge to rethink the living out of priestly ministry: everyone’s priestly ministry. The book tackles some of the dangers inherent in “mythos” – the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves – head on. A parish priest goes every evening to watch the passing-by of a regular train just for the joy of it – “because it’s the only thing I don’t run” … (now, if it’s true, whose fault is that!). This is a challenge to the notion of salvation by incessant striving and I’m recommending it to any and all, clergy and laity alike. 3 Minute Theologian contributes a great deal to clarity of thought and purpose. What’s salvation about, for anyone, anyway?

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori hit the news headlines at this year’s General Convention as it was understood that she denounced the idea of personal salvation as heresy. “Apparently I wasn’t clear”, writes the bishop in an OPINION column yesterday, the last three paragraphs of which are in my view most helpfully clear … and written at the end of August after several week’s further pondering. Neither knee-jerk reaction nor “incessant striving.”

Salvation depends on love of God and our relationship with Jesus, and we give evidence of our relationship with God in how we treat our neighbors, nearby and far away. Salvation is a gift from God, not something we can earn by our works, but neither is salvation assured by words alone.

Salvation cannot be complete, in an eternal and eschatological sense, until the whole of creation is restored to right relationship. That is what we mean when we proclaim in the catechism that “the mission of the church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” and that Christian hope is to “live with confidence in newness and fullness of life and to await the coming of Christ in glory and the completion of God’s purpose for the world.” We anticipate the restoration of all creation to right relationship, and we proclaim that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection made that possible in a new way.

At the same time, salvation in the sense of cosmic reconciliation is a mystery. It’s hard to pin down or talk about. It is ultimately the gift of a good and gracious God, not the product of our incessant striving. It is about healing and wholeness and holiness, the fruit of being more than doing. Just like another image we use to speak about restored relationship, the reign of God, salvation is happening all the time, all around us. Where do you see evidence?

via Episcopal Life Online – OPINION.

The train spotting priest is uncomfortable with the notion that he runs everything. Others are uncomfortable because they feel they don’t run enough. This morning I thank God that there’s one thing I know that we humans absolutely DON’T run. And that’s salvation. Thanks for the reminder Bishop Katharine.

PETER RICHARD DONOVAN

Image by DanielaNob via Flickr

ANOTHER RICH FAREWELL TODAY … a returning for me to a former parish; a returning for Peter to the Father heart in whom, especially in recent years, he was graced with absolute confidence. His parish priest and a work colleague spoke beautifully of the irrepressible joy we all witnessed in a man, latterly a very fragile, frail man, who delighted most of all in bringing others delight. Peter spoke of the devoted wife who cared for him tenderly as “my angel”. He was the crucifer at All Saints’. And there was “something in the way he moved” that she and we recognised as of the stuff of the angelic, too. Truly one of God’s messengers has gone home.

They stand, those halls of Sion,
All jubilant with song,
And bright with many an angel,
And all the martyr throng;
The Prince is ever in them,
The daylight is serene,
The pastures of the blessèd
Are decked in glorious sheen.

THERAPY FOR THE OT

MY OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST DAUGHTER is twenty-three today. She’ll use my birthday gift for another pair of therapy for the therapist, though her wardrobe is already overflowing. So my name will be mud today, with her beloved! : (

Still: happy birthday Rachel. I hope they’re really comfortable!

FATHER BASIL

ANYONE STILL LOOKING FOR HOLIDAY READING, or for consolation upon having just returned, will find in “Basil Hume Ten Years On” a perfectly delightful series of affectionate remembrances of one of the holiest exemplars of Christianity many of us can recall. And since I was first aware of Basil Hume’s existence I have loved the fact that his holiness flowed out of a deep and generous humanity. Page 102 has this from Teresa de Bertodano:

One of my ‘collapsed’ Catholic friends agreed to come to a meeting ‘as long as the Cardinal doesn’t wear all that scarlet and stuff’. I assured her that we had never seen him in ’scarlet and stuff’. The next meeting took place on a very hot summer’s day. The Cardinal arrived slightly late. For the first time he was wearing his scarlet cassock! His smile disarmed my friend and he began with an apology: ‘I’m very sorry to be dressed like this, but I can’t take it off because I’m not wearing much underneath!’

Could it be that some glad and laughter-filled day we might know an Ampleforth on high? How I hope so.

A CHORUS OF DISAPPROVAL

NO, NOT ANOTHER SYNODICAL PRONOUNCEMENT, but an hilarious – birthday treat – evening at Keswick’s Theatre by the Lake, and one of Alan Ayckbourn’s best. 

[an] evening of mishap, misunderstanding and music from the ever-popular master of modern comedy – bound to strike a chord with anyone who’s ever taken part in an amateur stage production!

Priceless! The setting beside the lake, the stunningly executed ideal of performing arts surrounded by some of the most spectacular scenery in the UK, the full-hearted and delighted laughter of another packed house. Truly one of this damp summer’s delights. 

PHOS HILARON

O gladsome light, O grace
of God the Father’s face,
the eternal splendour wearing:
celestial, holy, blessed,
our Saviour Jesus Christ,
joyful in thine appearing.

Now, ere day fadeth quite,
we see the evening light,
our wonted hymn outpouring;
Father of might unknown,
thee, his incarnate Son,
and Holy Spirit adoring.

To thee of right belongs
all praise of holy songs,
O Son of God, life-giver;
thee, therefore, O Most High,
the world doth glorify,
and shall exalt for ever.

HERE’S THE CANTICLE that was always on the tip of my tongue when I first encountered evening light in the Lake District, and in my training years in the sublime Cathedral Close in Salisbury. The gradation of light can move me to tears as to prayer and praise. This light speaks of a carefulness and a graciousness in Creation that is infinitely generous. Black and white might get the job done but the spectrum from morning to evening brings forth the “hymn outpouring”. Silent evening light in Greystoke, or across the water meadows in Salisbury, or over the waters of the Golfe du Morbihan, equals an evensong. The Divine photographer moves me. Writing with light.