We need each other

The truth is that we shall only understand the balance of severity and confidence, of the strenuous and the relaxed, in the context of the common life.

Every believer must have an urgent concern for the relation of the neighbour to Christ, a desire and willingness to be the means by which Christ’s relation with the neighbour becomes actual and transforming. But that urgent concern arises from the sense in myself of the cost and grief involved in separation from life in God, the self- awareness of frailties and failures that I cannot overcome for and by myself. I have, by God’s grace, learned as a member of the Christian community what is the nature of God’s mercy, which does not leave me to overcome my sin by my own effort; so I have something to say to the fellow-sufferer who does not know where to look for hope.

And what I have to say depends utterly on my willingness not to let go of that awareness of myself that reminds me where I start each day – not as a finished saint but as a needy person still struggling to grow.

 

A prayer of Lancelot Andrewes

 

A prayer of Lancelot Andrewes

 

 

Guard Thou my soul,

Strengthen my body,

elevate my senses,

direct my course,

order my habits,

shape my character,

bless my actions,

fulfil my prayers,

inspire holy thoughts,

pardon the past,

correct the present,

prevent the future ……

 

AMEN

 

The Windows

 

The Windows

 

 

 

Lord, how can man preach thy eternall word?

He is a brittle crazie glasse:

Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford

This glorious and transcendent place,

To be a window, through thy grace.

 

 

But when thou dost anneal in glasse thy storie,

Making thy life to shine within

The holy Preachers; then the light and glorie

More rev’rend grows, and more doth win:

Which else shows watrish, bleak, and thin.

 

 

Doctrine and life, colours and light, in one

When they combine and mingle, bring

A strong regard and aw: but speech alone

Doth vanish like a flaring thing,

And in the eare, not conscience ring.

 

 

 

 

Herbert

 

Easter eve

Glorious Collect for Easter Eve

 

Grant, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of thy blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,

so by continual mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with him;

and that through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection ;

for his merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us,

thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

 

Holy Saturday

When Death Comes

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

 

to buy me, and snap the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;

 

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

 

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

 

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

 

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

 

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

 

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

 

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom taking the world into my arms.

 

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

 

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

 

Mary Oliver

 

 

Silence

‘Silence’, said Seraphim, ‘is the cross on which man must crucify his ego’;

‘Silence transfigures a man into an angel; it is the spiritual practice which most surely preserves inner peace.’

He was constantly repeating the words of St Ambrose, ‘I have seen many who were saved by silence but none who were saved by chatter.

 

 

Vacation Suprises (3) Richard Herbert

A bright day took the car South and West towards Montgomery and the glad open door of St Nicholas Parish Church built in the early 13th century.

 You can see the effect of the blazing sun on this Welsh Shropshire border town!

The most conspicuous object in the south transept is the splendid Elizabethan canopied tomb  of Richard Herbert of Montgomery Castle who died in 1596. He was father of a family which included two very famous sons, Edward I Lord Herbert of Cherbury  and George Herbert the Anglican poet and divine.

Well preserved and under the canopy lively effigies of Richard  and Magdalena.  He is in his armour and she in a richly embroidered dress. Behind them other kneeling figures of eight of the children and underneath is shrouded corpse  – a reminder of our destiny.

It was good to be connected for a short moment with George Herbert and to give thanks for  his glorious , insightful and beautiful poetry .

 

Vacation Surprises : (1) Craigie Aitchison in Glass

 

I travelled up to London during my summer holiday to attend a wonderful celebration of marriage of Robin and Sezgi Amos at St Mary the Bolton’s in Chelsea. It was a sunny day and I managed to arrive at the church early to catch up with friends. As I wandered around the church building I looked through one of the windows on the north side of the church to discover this shot of colour  which really intrigued me  !

  I thought that I recognised the distinctive images of a Craigie Aitchison and indeed I was not disappointed. I am familiar with his work and a great admirer of the simplicity and depth of colour in his paintings and wondered to myself as I moved inside of the church how successful his work might be executed in the glass. Here are some of my pictures:

St Marys shares this information about the window:

‘The window, Crucifixion 2008: A Memorial Window, was created by the stained glass artist, Neil Phillips,  following a design Craigie set out for stained glass. Craigie had been planning a collaboration to produce a window for the church at the time of his death in 2009 and the finished piece is a fitting testament to his huge achievements as an artist.  Among those who gathered for the dedication were the Deputy Mayor of Kensington and Chelsea, Councillor Elizabeth Rutherford, and the President of the Royal Academy, Christopher Le Brun.The window was to have been Craigie’s first stained glass window in a London church, the city where he had lived and worked for almost the whole of his adult life.  The project was initiated through Craigie’s friend and champion, Edwina Sassoon, who is a parishioner at St Mary The Boltons. Though Craigie sadly died during the discussions, the executor of his estate gave permission for the design to be adapted by Neil Philips after Craigie’s death, in recognition of his enthusiasm about creating an artwork for St. Mary’s. The window now stands in his memory for visitors to enjoy.’

This work, and incorporates familiar motifs such as his customary star, the Italian Cypress tree inspired by his second home in Montecastelli, and his beloved Bedlington Terrier.

The tree and dog act as Christ’s comforters in his final agony on the Cross.

A wonderful discovery –

 

 

 

 

Love …………..

in a glass darkly

Though I spake with the tongues of men and angels and yet had no love, I were even as sounding brass: or as tinkling cymbal.

And though I could prophesy and understood all secrets and all knowledge: yea if I had all faith so that I could move mountains out of their places and yet had no love, I were nothing.

And though I bestowed all my goods to feed the poor, and though I gave my body, even that I burned, and yet had no love, it profiteth me nothing.

Love suffereth long, and is courteous. Love envieth not. Love doth not frowardly, swelleth not, dealeth not dishonestly, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh not evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity; but rejoiceth in the truth, suffereth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things.

Though that prophesying fail, other tongues shall cease, or knowledge vanish away, yet love falleth never away. For our knowledge is unperfect and our prophesying is unperfect; but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is unperfect shall be done away.

When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I imagined as a child. But as soon as I was a man I put away childishness. Now we see in a glass, even in a dark speaking: but then shall we see face to face. Now I know unperfectly: but then shall I know even as I am known.

Now abideth faith, hope, and love, even these three: but the chief of these is love.

St Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, ch. 13, in the translation of Thomas Tyndale, with spelling and punctuation lightly modernised.

 

thy fearful symmetry

 

angel tiger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry  ?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

from William Blake, The tiger