Storyteller’s World

What, you’re not a regular reader of Daydreams?

Well, make sure you do read this moving Faith Story.

j asks, “What kind of a person gets rejected by a church?”

Wouldn’t it be better to ask, “What kind of church rejects a child of God?”

This is the kind of testimony I wish all of the ‘Traditionalists’ in the Anglican-schism-debacle would read and read and read until it brings them to their senses.

Helen asks what’s the difference between evangelist and evangelical, which some of us think Will Hutton confused in his piece in the Observer that I commented on yesterday.

First, dictionary definitions from COED (always a place I like to start):

evangelist n. a person who seeks to convert others to the Christian faith, especially by public preaching

evangelical adj. of or according to the teaching of the gospel or the Christian religion; (and hence) of or denoting a tradition within Protestant Christianity emphasizing the authority of the Bible, personal conversion, and the doctrine of salvation by faith in the Atonement.

It’s this last one which leads to the confusion, because it’s another case of a part of the church having hijacked something which properly belongs to the whole, and claiming it as its own sole possession. Every Christian, and every church tradition, is evangelistic, because they want to help people to find faith in Christ. And every Christian, and every church tradition, is evangelical; but the ones who call themselves Evangelical (best to use the big E, to distinguish them) emphasize them to the extent of downplaying the importance of other aspects, or sometimes even denying that they have any importance.

For example, Evangelicals often attach less importance to church structures, forms of worship, ritual, Sacraments, tradition (meaning, what theologians and others have taught, and what has been the lived experience of Christian people, during the centuries of Christian history).

I formerly felt more at home in the Evangelical wing of the Church of England, because I became sure of my faith as a result of reading the New Testament, and made a personal decision to commit my life to Jesus. The church I then began to attend was of an Evangelical hue, where I resonated with the kind of preaching I heard, and they recognised the kind of experience I had had.

But over the years I came to feel that I needed to go further. Evangelicalism is not a good final destination; it is, as my excellent Patristics teacher used to say, ‘A good place to start’. You have to build on to the personal commitment to Christ, and to taking the Bible seriously, such things as: being a part of a community of believers and taking them seriously; taking the Bible more seriously by studying it critically, and wrestling with the questions that Evangelicals often ignore, or just shout louder to drown them out; taking the real world and its discoveries seriously.

Evangelical has become in far too many ways a synonym for traditionalist (not the same as respecting Tradition! - see above), blinkered, bigoted, biblically simplistic and selective, choosing the texts you want and ignoring the uncomfortable ones which seem to suggest a different truth. As someone who still believes in what I held to be the true heart of the Evangelical tradition, I resent this bitterly. It so much contradicts what I loved and signed up for.

The great strength of the Church of England, and of the whole Anglican way, is its acceptance of three sources of authority, representing the three ‘wings’ of church tradition: Scripture (the evangelical wing), Tradition (the catholic wing) and Reason or human experience (the liberal wing). As long as these are in some sort of balance, the whole body continues in good health. But whenever one of them becomes overgrown, at the expense of one or both of the others, the whole body of the Church falls sick. This is clearly the present state of affairs, with the huge - one might almost say cancerous - growth in importance and power of the Evangelicals. It’s the main reason why I have stopped thinking of myself as a card-carrying Evangelical, and have wanted to try to build up the Catholic and Liberal sides of the Church. They are the ones that are endangered, or wasting away, and the spiritual health of all of us depends on them being exercised and reinvigorated.

And see also Will Hutton’s opinion piece in today’s Observer.

Generally I find that Lent leads me in a different direction from what I’d planned at the beginning. Which is how it should be, no doubt. So along with taking up the Jesus Prayer again, I’ve also been reading Praying the Jesus Prayer Together by Brother Ramon and Bishop Simon Barrington-Ward.

From this comes a little story about St Silouan the Athonite (1866-1938), whose life of prayer taught him immense compassion for all people. On one occasion one of the brothers said with some satisfaction, “God will punish all atheists.”

Silouan replied, “Would you be happy to see someone burning in hellfire?”

“It can’t be helped,” answered Brother Smug. “It would be their own fault.”

Silouan said, “Love could not bear that. We must pray for all.”

I wish more of that Spirit had been with the Anglican primates meeting last week, instead of the spirit of the Accuser, that wants to judge and damn and cast out those who disagree with us.

Even if they were immoral sinners we should love them, pray for them, try to win them. But the people the ‘traditionalists’ are wanting to exclude, are Christian brothers and sisters who believe as they do out of love for the Lord, and compassionate concern for the lost in our world. I grieve for our Church. I grieve for Rowan and those who think as he does, not being able to resist the pressure (I nearly said blackmail) of those who got their way this week.

I’m not a great fan of Monarchy - I read Tom Paine’s Rights of Man about 15 years ago, and it converted me to republicanism. When he wrote, back at the time of the American War of Independence, monarchy was a tyrannous anachronism: now it’s just a very British, slightly quaint, but mostly absurd one.

No, I’m not a fan. But I think the Queen deserves better than this stuff. And Charles and Camilla deserve to be left alone to get married without all this prurient and intrusive media attention. I respect them more than I have for a long time, for doing the very honourable thing - and going beyond what I’d expected - by accepting Anglican discipline about remarriage, and seeking a service of prayer and blessing following their civil ceremony.

What I can’t understand is that it’s the very people who claim to love and admire and support monarchy - the likes of the Daily Mail and Express and their fellow gutter-creatures, who are stirring up all the flap and nonsense about the Queen being furious, snubbing Camilla, forcing the couple into it, and one contradictory thing after another with each passing day, and all the other absurd and speculative twaddle.

I got angry about old age, this morning.

Two faithful, dear, life-long Christians at our morning prayers were sharing about how their electricity wasn’t working; everything went off last night, and they haven’t been able to get it working, and were going to call in a man from Electric Aids to put things right.

We said, Let Alison and me come round and have a look first. We might be able to see what the problem is. We might be able to fix it. And if we can’t, then you can call Electric Aids. With some difficulty (!) we persuaded them that this was what was going to happen, no argument, whether they liked it or not.

I’m not a handyman, but I took my tool box, fuse wire even! and we went round there. And found that it wasn’t an old-style fuse box at all, but a new one with contact breaker switches, and one had just tripped. A simple reset, and everything worked again. We couldn’t actually see what had caused the trip, and this may need further attention, but for the time being, they had power again.

While we were there, we checked their TV and the reception was terrible. Our friend had been having a good clean in the week, and had unknowingly pulled out an aerial lead between VCR and TV. Plugged back in - reception perfect. But I noticed in passing that they never use the VCR for anything but playing pre-recorded tapes, because they can’t work out how to programme the thing. This is the stuff of many jokes, I know. But it isn’t a joke. Our elderly people are being marginalised, excluded from experience everyone takes for granted, because technology is running away from them. I looked at their two remote control thingies, and hell, I couldn’t see how they worked. Why are they so complicated and unintuitive? With all these brilliant designers and inventors, how come you can’t get a remote control it’s obvious how to use? They should be like the calculators on your PDA or computer: mostly in dead simple mode, with scientific and technical modes available only to the very few who want ridiculous features like being able to send photos via their mobile phones, or programme the VCR to put out the cat and make their early morning cup of tea.

People who design and use technology should ask themselves this question: Who’s going to change my light bulb for me, when I’m 84?

It’s back again today: the yellow monster that doesn’t suck, but blows. Fortunately it was working round the corner, so we weren’t flooded again. I can’t speak for the people in Oxford Road …

Here’s a thing that may not get into the national news. (Non-Oxford people need to understand that there is a historic rivalry between Lincoln College - my alma mater! - and neighbouring Brasenose College.)

A Lincoln student recently put Brasenose College up for sale on eBay, alleging it was being sold by the rector and fellows of Lincoln. It was only when the bidding had reached £10 million that anyone at Brasenose noticed, and got eBay to take the auction off their site.

Nice to know that undergraduate humour keeps up with technological advance.

BBC NEWS | UK | Maxine Carr wins identity secrecy

We live in a sick society, all right. Here’s this woman who only lied to protect her lover. She wasn’t involved in the murders. She was a victim herself, probably abused by this man, or hypnotised or terrified by him. Yet she can’t ever live a normal life again, free from death threats from some sections of a mindless and unimaginative public. They’re as bad as the women in prison who assaulted that mother who was wrongly found guilty of murdering her children who had died of cot deaths.

I mean, what is it about some people, that they can’t feel good about themselves unless they’ve identified someone who is worse than they are, who they can blame and feel superior to?

Haven’t they heard: Let anyone among you who is without sin, be the first to throw a stone at her? I suppose not.

If people would only listen to Jesus, and actually let it sink in. It might even change the world. But I guess I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Here’s a meme from scribblingwoman: List authors by whom you have read ten or more books.

I discover something quite interesting. The only ones I can think of, whom I’ve enjoyed that much, are:

Robertson Davies (only if you count each of the trilogies as three)
P.D.James
Ursula K. Le Guin
C.S.Lewis
Patrick O’Brian
Dorothy Sayers

The interesting thing? I get fed up with most authors who are that productive. I admire Donna Tartt, and think waiting ten years for her second novel was almost not long enough. Jane Austen was probably pushing it, with six major novels. Give me the writer whose entire oeuvre is contained in one, or at the most three, small but perfectly formed works.

Such is my aspiration …

All morning an enormous, great yellow monstrosity of a vehicle was parked in front of the church. It’s a good job this didn’t happen yesterday, while we were having our big funeral. It was the sewer cleaning engine from Environmental Services, shaped like a tanker but as big as a juggernaut, with pipes and ladders, and things for getting stones out of very large horses’ hooves, all over it.

After lurking like this throughout the morning, waiting no doubt for the tide to be flowing in the right direction, it began its work. I thought Li had got up from her bed of sickness, and was hoovering her room with the Dyson - so tremendous was the noise. This seemed more than a little improbable, since yesterday she was barely able to stand. And sure enough, she told me it was ‘them outside’. I imagined they were responding to some report of a blocked drain, by sucking out the underground pipes along the road.

Until I went to the downstairs loo, to be met by a scene of lavatory carnage. There was a sewer-like smell, a centimetre of water on the floor, and water splashed over a metre up the walls. Without waiting for a full damage assessment, I rushed out of the house ready to do battle with workmen: “Is this something you’ve been doing?” It was - for apparently this engine doesn’t suck, it blows, in a big way - but they were very apologetic, and immediately came in to clean up the mess. It was, fortunately, not the contents of the sewer projected into the house, but just the water from the toilet bowl. Perhaps the men are used to this. Maybe it happens all the time. The trouble is, if the manhole is too ’shallow’ or something. And this when the thing was only ‘ticking over’, rather than on full power, according to the man.

I used to think it was just a bit of female chauvinism. But I’ve learned, guys, that the women are absolutely right. You should always not only put the seat down when you leave, but the lid too.

This just in from the Department of Counting Your Blessings: Think how much worse it could have been. You could have been sitting there at the time.

That talk about the Anglican Rosary also got me thinking about Jesus Prayer ropes, and where you can get them. This is because I’ve never seen them in stock at my local St Andrew’s bookshop. (Maybe they keep them strictly under the counter?)

These good people who make them, at the Community of the Servants of the Will of God, are too busy praying to advertise themselves on the WWW. So here’s where you can write to them:
Christ the Saviour Monastic Trust
The Monastery of the Holy Trinity
Cawley Down
Crawley
West Sussex
RH10 4LH

If you do, tell them I sent you!

Two funerals today take me from one extreme of grief to another. One is the burial of a ten-month old baby alongside her twin sister who died within hours of their birth, last April. There’s snow on the ground, which always represents to me the ‘ideal’ conditions for a burial, ever since one I did as a curate. Something about the way it shows that the starkness of death has also a cold beauty.

Cold was the word. When I got home afterwards, I felt like checking my fingers and toes for signs of frostbite.

The second was an octogenarian saint, pillar of this church and long-time member of the choir; one of those people everybody finds it easy to love, with a genuine and unforced love. The church was full. The service took nearly an hour, with music, hymns, memories, readings. Everything right and fitting, to celebrate a good life, that really has blessed many. ‘In a good old age, and full of years’, the Book says of Abraham; and such a life as this shows you what that can mean.

If your Bloglines subscription to Storyteller’s World isn’t working, then this may help. (Thanks Caleb and Dave.) Remove it from your list of subscriptions, and then resubscribe. When I did this, it tried to resubscribe to the same faulty URL. If it does this for you, then get round it by entering the full URL, as follows:
http://www.godspell.org.uk/wordpress/feed/
This should do the trick. If not, let me know and I’ll tell you if I’ve come across any other solutions.

Personally, I don’t really understand what’s happened with the WordPress upgrade to mess up Bloglines. No doubt it’s one of those situations where each party will say it’s the other one’s fault, and your ordinary Bear of Little Brain like me thinks it’s probably both of them. If I didn’t love technology like an addict, I dare say I’d find it quite annoying.

Postscript: The latest on the WordPress support forum says:

Blogines usually takes 24 hours before it realizes that it can access a feed again.

So maybe it will cure itself in time. Hmmm. If you believe that …

Still not sure about the RSS feeds. According to macmanx at the WordPress support forums, my feeds are working properly; but Bloglines still has that horrible little red exclamation mark next to my blog name.

And the present graphic in the header? It’s Wayland’s Smithy, which seemed like a suitable storytelling image.

I’ve been re-reading Apuleius’ The Golden Ass, AKA Metamorphoses. This is part of the ‘Brush up my Latin’ project; though on account of not having got very far with that, I am reading it in English. The Golden Ass is often described as the most entertaining, still readable novel that has come down to us from the Classical World.

Mostly, it has made me reflect on the strange ways we remember books we read many years ago. When I was a child in Edmonton, there weren’t many books in the house. One of the books there were, however, was Robert Graves’ earlier translation of Apuleius, in the purple cover of Penguin Classics. I must have read it when I was in my early teens. I thought it was the sexiest book I had ever read, and it fuelled my lustful juvenile fantasies for many a month or year.

When I became a priest, and put away childish things, I spent years thinking of Apuleius as part of a pagan, godless former life, long left behind. Which is a shame, really. It turns out to be slightly bawdy, for sure, but generally much tamer and more suitable for a vicarage tea party than a good deal of what has been read in the vicarage (or seen on TV) since then. And actually quite religious.

Lucius, the narrator, tells how as a young man leaving home for the first time, he travels to Thessaly in search of sex, fun, adventure, sex, fame, fortune, and sex. He is also fascinated by magic and the occult, and hopes to witness some of these secret rites and spells for which the Thessaly of his day was notorious. His first sexual conquest - or conqueror - is the serving maid Photis. She lets him secretly witness her mistress transform herself into an owl; but when Lucius tries the spell on himself, by some calamitous mischance he is changed into an ass. Before they can reverse the spell, robbers attack the place and the ass-Lucius is stolen along with all the valuables of the house and taken away. There follows a succession of adventures, dangers, narrow escapes from death, and general blows of malign Fate. Lucius is starved, beaten, humiliated, threatened, abused, brought to the lowest ebb of fortune that a man could imagine.

At last, he turns in extremis to the Great Goddess Isis, who takes pity on him and shows him how he can be restored to human form. As a result of her saving intervention, Lucius is ‘born again’, and pledges his faith and allegiance, for the rest of his life, to the service of Isis.

Apart from this surprisingly religious version of the Hero Journey, there are plenty of delights along the way for the general reader, but even more for the storyteller. Because Lucius’ many encounters in the course of his adventures, give the opportunity for the telling of many stories: of love, lust, deception, good and bad fortune, trickery, bravery and cunning. There is also the classic telling of the story of Cupid and Psyche, an ancestral cousin of the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ family of tales.

When the Latin text of Apuleius’ novel was first printed in 1469, it rapidly spread and became known throughout Europe. As a result it was enormously influential on later European literature, inspiring Boccaccio, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Keats among others. In France alone it was published four times between 1600 and 1648.

I heard on the radio about some of the restrictions that UK terrorist suspects may face. It explained that ‘house arrest’ might not actually mean never being able to leave the house. It could mean, not being allowed to meet with more than one or two other people; and not being allowed to use the Internet. Is that cruel and unnatural punishment, or what?

I’m having a few problems moving in to WordPress 1.5. Or is it having the problems? The RSS feed - whatever that is - doesn’t seem to be working right, so people can’t get updates from Bloglines and the like.

And the new way of doing ‘themes’, rather than templates, may all be very straightforward once you’ve got them set up and running, but it hasn’t taken kindly to my old design, and Kubrick, which I’m using at present, looks a bit spartan. What I want is a nice graphic to replace the blue blob at the top. If anyone’s got anything suitable (I know this is taking a risk!), 760 by 200 pixels, I’d be glad to hear from you.

In the mean time, if you happen by while I’m moving the furniture, and hanging pictures in various places to see what they look like - don’t be alarmed.

I’m exercised once again, as I have been before, about the propaganda being put about by some of our internationally-connected, well-meaning brothers and sisters here, about the US Christian scene.

In a recent paper with points for prayer, I read this:

The Episcopal Church in USA is in poor health. The consecration in 2003 of an openly gay bishop has been for many orthodox-believing Christians the last straw in a church that has largely defied traditional beliefs (e.g. one diocesan synod recently voted down Jesus as Son of God and the Bible as having any relevance today.)

Now naturally, the jury’s still out on the Gene Robinson affair. That’s why we have the Windsor Report. It may well be that ECUSA got it wrong and were over provocative, and should have thought more about the reaction of others. (But what? no one else has ever got it wrong?) But who are we, to blame fellow-Christians for doing what they believe is right? It would be a sorry situation if parts of the Church were afraid to do the right thing, as they saw it, for fear of what other churches would say and do about it.

As far as that rumoured diocesan synod is concerned (Jesus no longer Son of God: Official. Diocesan Synod has ruled.) (I’ve never been on a diocesan synod with that much clout!) - I’d love to know if any American readers can shed any light on this. What’s the real story? - since I suspect this version of it is likely to be somewhat distorted in the reporting.

What really worries me, is if there’s a trend towards describing other parts of the Church, with which we disagree, as ’spiritually sick’. And what if they were? If someone is ill, the right thing to do is help them, care for them, make them better. Not blame them, and accuse them of bringing it upon themselves. Not harangue them to repent before you’ll have anything more to do with them. Not threaten to cut off bits off their body if they refuse to get better. Yet some Christians seem to be quite happy to do just this, when it’s ’spiritual’ sickness we’re talking about.

But what, after all, would be signs of spiritual health? Maybe: not judging, lest you be judged. Taking the log out of your own eye, before offering to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye. (Matthew 7.1-5) Making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4.3), instead of threatening to tear Christ’s body apart because we don’t like what other parts of it are doing.

All bloggers who are also Jean-Luc Picard fans, lookalikes, or otherwise TNG trekkies, will love this from The Joy of Tech!

Upgrading to WordPress 1.5. Please let me know if anything doesn’t seem to be working the way it oughter. It’s taken me a while (half an hour or so) to work out how templates and stylesheets work in this new version. So I hope it’s OK now.

OK … (Later) … There’s something wrong with the theme as was, when you go into Archives, so I’m sticking with this theme ‘Kubrick’ for the time being, till I get the hang of the new way of doing themes.

Sun brings home her intended for church and lunch. What do you call your prospective son-in-law in your blog? Think I’ll call him Rufus for the time being, unless or until he or anyone else comes up with another suggestion. (It’s a ‘Find a Name for the Son-in-Law’ competition.) Here they are then: Sun and Rufus.

A seriously weird experience: writing in the weddings bookings book, under Bride’s Name, the name of your own oldest daughter.

A troubled night, full of a long, complex and disturbing dream. I dreamed that a rich and powerful group were trying to take over the church and turn it into a cult. They had all the resources of wealth, hi-tech, attractive gimmickry and musical and creative talent, and were trying to win over all the local churches, starting with the clergy, and lead them astray into this set of false beliefs and practices, which were all about trendy razzamatazz and easy, comfortable lifestyle options, rather than the challenging demands of the Gospel. They were already being successful and winning the hearts and minds of clergy and laity alike. And I was the only one who could see what was going on, and thought it was wrong!

How does this story end? “And I woke up, and found that it was all a dream”?

Or, (God forbid) “And I woke up, and found that it was all true”?

Oxford.

Where the streets are paved with gold. Or might as well be. It has cost £4.7 million of taxpayers’ money to repave Cornmarket, and the work is still an unfinished shambles. Yet a public enquiry found that although there were failings, there was no negligence; the scheme did not represent good value for money; the project encountered a large degree of bad luck; risk management was poor … nevertheless, no one was to blame.

In the same week we learn that St Mary’s church, Headington, was vandalised with graffiti:

A youth who scrawled graffiti on a church building was easily caught by police because he had written his own name. … Swatton scratched the words “Anthony Swatton woz ere”, in large letters on the building - along with the date. As a result, police arrested and charged him.

Most exciting of all is the story that a medieval Oxfordshire psalter could get a new name.

One of Britain’s most famous medieval books could be given a new name after it has been analysed by academics.

The Macclesfield Psalter, which was found in the Earl of Macclesfield’s estate at Shirburn Castle, near Watlington, might be renamed after the person it was created for - if scholars can find out who that was.

(Italics mine.)

I don’t read the local paper every week, so I forget what fun it can be.

Surely not to safeguard the oil companies’ profits? But it’s pretty clear that while Joe Motorist pays the price of insecurity and threat in the Middle East, the money keeps rolling in for Shell, BP and the rest: BBC NEWS | Business | Bumper oil prices lift BP profits.

This is, actually, wrong. Oy, politicians! Are we plebs the only ones who think it’s wrong? When are you going to do something about it? Oh, silly me. Huge obscene profits for BP mean huge tax income for the Treasury, which looks good for the Government’s record.

Meanwhile the deposing of a monstrous dictator looks suspiciously like ‘collateral advantage’ to what many in the Arab world suspected was the whole point all along; and evidence like this doesn’t help us to deny it. I just hope it doesn’t all backfire, as it still so easily might.

Talking of the Strettons reminds me of the story that is told of how they came by their names.

King Charles II was riding north from Ludlow towards Shrewsbury, when he and his entourage stopped in a tiny hamlet. The King asked the name of the place.

- Stretton, your Majesty, was the reply.

- Little Stretton would be a more fitting name for such a small place, opined the Monarch. And so it was.

Riding a mile and a half further, they came to a more substantial place, and the king asked what it was called.

- Stretton, your Majesty.

Seeing the imposing parish church of St Laurence, and hearing the bells ringing, His Majesty gave it as his opinion that Church Stretton would be a suitable name for it.

Another mile and a half brought him to the next settlement, and being short of conversational gambits, he again asked what this was called.

- Stretton, your Majesty.

- Good G*d! exclaimed the King. It’s all Stretton around here!

And All Stretton it is, to this very day.

Thus we learn the god-like character of kings, who, like Adam, created in the image of God and not yet having forfeited it, exercised the divine prerogative of naming animals and things. And even today, a later Charles has only to express an opinion of a building - that it is a Great Carbuncle, for example - and that is how commoner mortals think of it for ever afterwards.

Waking this morning to a dusting of snow on the hilltops all around. It’s cold outside, and I won’t be climbing those valleys today, in the teeth of that wind which always seems to be funnelling down from the colder heights.

Church Stretton is full of strange traffic flows these couple of days, while Sandford Avenue, the main shopping street, is being resurfaced. While this happens, all parking is suspended and traffic is only allowed one way, from the A49 at the east end - you have to find some other way back out through All Stretton or Little Stretton.

When I went in to the wine shop on Thursday, and the ‘heavy plant’ was all thundering outside, I said to the shopkeeper, “I bet this is good for trade.” “Oh, it’s cracking”, he said.

Apparently this is all happening during half term week, so as to avoid the main commuter traffic times. (This can only mean school traffic, because no one else drives through Church Stretton.) But because it’s so very much a holiday town, a destination for walkers and others, there are actually more visitors during half term, and better reasons to avoid upheaval during this week of all weeks.

This is the kind of thing planners seem to be unable to think of. There is no doubt a ‘planning orthodoxy’ which creates idées fixes, which they simply cannot depart from. Why should they be any different from all other believers?

After Morning Prayer on Friday, I realised there was nothing more important for God and me to do together this morning than go walking on the Long Mynd. So I put on my boots, got out my Leki poles, and set off up through Rectory Wood, still full of snowdrops, and started climbing Townbrook Valley. It wasn’t long before I began to wonder if the Lord had got it wrong. There was a strong cold wind coming down from the hilltops, and I wasn’t sure I fancied trudging against it all the way to the top, and finding that up there, there was nothing to stop it sweeping me away like some unwanted nanny, even without an umbrella.

I reflected on the words of that Celtic blessing:
May the road rise to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

To a sedentary town-dweller, like I am most of the year, these can seem just pious pretty words. Struggling up Townbrook Valley, I appreciated what a blessing walking downhill, with the wind behind you, would be, compared with the alternative that I was experiencing. And the sun? Well, it had disappeared and been replaced by the beginnings of a stinging drizzle that seemed - I wasn’t imagining it - to be making a kind of pinging noise as it struck my jacket.

But by the time I got to the top, the drizzle had failed to come to anything, and it looked as if the Lord was right after all. Up there it’s so quiet, and somehow even the wind was gentler now that it wasn’t being funnelled down a narrow valley. Somewhere a long way off the sun must be shining, because there was clearly a distant bit of blue. And all around are miles of sky and the Shropshire hills: the Mynd itself, and over to the north and east the Wrekin, Wenlock Edge, Caer Caradoc and sweet steep Ragleth.

Townbrook is a steep climb, but the walk levels out once you join the Burway Road, forking right towards Ratlinghope, then following the Port Way for a stretch before turning onto Mott’s Road and down into Carding Mill Valley and so home. And along beside Mott’s Road the stream is gurgling, babbling, chattering, bubbling, giggling, chortling, burbling - so many words to express the natural joy, the hilarity of nature doing what it does best: glorifying God in its self.

Two hours of brisk exercise, and definitely the blowing away of the cobwebs of the mind, was much better for me than sitting in the flat reading godly books. It may even help get the sermon written, later.

After the last few days’ exertions - which also included a major bereavement in the parish I haven’t blogged about - I’m off to Shropshire to the Flat for a couple of nights. To check up on our property, have some quiet space for reading, and write Sunday’s sermon without the telephone ringing.

Talk at the weekend!

I survived the talk about the Anglican Rosary at the first meeting of the Rickmansworth Deanery Lent course - which they had rashly invited me to give. Talking about prayer is pretty hard: I’m not one of those spiritual storm troopers like - oh, I don’t know who, John Cassian and the guys he interviewed. So I just told them my story about struggles with prayer and how some version of a rosary, in whatever form, helps keep me grounded, and stops my thoughts from buzzing all over as they otherwise would do.

Glad I’ve done it and got it over with, anyway.

(Unregenerate inner me whispers: Won’t have to carry on praying quite so hard any more, now.)

This morning I took the iBook into town ’cause I wanted to try out the wifi hotspots. I only noticed last week, really, that Caffe Nero in Blackwells were advertising themselves as one, and then started seeing them everywhere, in all sorts of pubs and coffee houses.

I suppose it was extremely naive of me really, and I should have known better. But I did think that using the wifi connection might be ‘free’, as part of the service to customers. An incentive to people to buy and drink their coffee or whatever in those locations. But this was not at all the case. When I got into Starbucks in the High (an old haunt of Daniel’s) and took my coffee upstairs and turned on Airport, I immediately got a page from T-Mobile inviting me to pay them some money to use the service. A lot of money.

The costs were like this:

1 hour 5.00 GBP
3 hours 7.50 GBP
24 hours 13.00 GBP
7 days 30.00 GBP
30 days 45.00 GBP

which is pretty steep! If you bought two 24 hour passes, you would already have spent more than a whole month’s worth of broadband access at home costs. And I’m sure that a month provides more than 48 hours of broadband use. Someone’s making a lot of money out of this, I guess.