R Vaughan Williams’ preface to the 1906 English Hymnal.
Fascinating stuff.
Author Archives: Elizaphanian
The original plan was…
Had to dig out the original ‘parish profile’ for the Mersea benefice – all sorts of fascinating stuff in it – but included was my original application to the clergy appointments adviser when I was looking for a job somewhere.
Question on form: “What is the meaning of your ministry and where do you think God is calling you in the future? In other words, ‘What are you realistically looking for?'”
My answer:
“I would say that the centre of my vocation is ‘the ministry of word and sacrament’ – hackneyed, but true nonetheless. I believe that I have particular gifts in the sphere of teaching and writing, structured by a strong academic training but rooted deeply in orthodox Anglican Christianity, seeking to express itself through following the teaching and example of the Christian mystics. My orientation is towards the church and cloister, not the academy.
“I seek for these gifts to bear fruit in a Eucharistic community: where I can talk the talk, walk the walk, and, by God’s grace, kneel the kneel also. My most fundamental motivations are pastoral, and I view Eucharistic ministry as the opposite side of that pastoral coin – they are one thing, viewed from different sides. I am competent at public liturgy and practical administration, and I would wish to develop my potential in these spheres. I am less good at ‘Youth Ministry’ – partly from my deafness, partly from temperament, partly from doubt as to its validity. I am also not the best at polishing practical details or at tying up loose ends and finishing jobs.
“I conclude that I need the following: a Eucharistic community, in which I can exercise my priestly ministry. A balance of life between different elements of public engagement, pastoral ministry and private prayer. The ability to develop as a contemplative and teacher of the faith. A chance to put down roots and cultivate ‘stabilitas’. The possibility of training as a spiritual director in due course. Such a combination might be found in various different guises and I have no determined sense about what shape it will take. My ideal would be a small parish of my own on the East coast. I am sure that God will make his intentions clear to me at the appropriate moment.”
Not sure I’d say much different today.
TBTE20101215
Some links:
Matthew Burrows (Jon Evens – are you familiar with him?)
How much coal is left? Not a lot. More than we think. Both stories from The Oil Drum, probably the best energy blog on the planet.
Why free online lectures will destroy universities.
A throwback look to my favourite film (Magnolia).
Bishops urged to take up social media. Perhaps one will become as good as Sarah Palin.
The crisis of the American intellectual.
And finally, here is something (“Disinviting Islam”) which I need to emphasise that I don’t fully agree with, but the response will take some time to flesh out – and will be on my other blog.
Film notes
Cemetery Junction 3/5 Sweet
Where the Truth Lies 4/5 Oddly fascinating (not as good as Sweet Hereafter)
Enter the Dragon 3/5 reliving my adolescent Bruce Lee fandom
Fantastic Mr Fox 4/5 cleverly done
Diary of the Dead 5/5 owned this for about 18 months but put off watching it as I had very low expectations after the reviews, but thought it was great – can now see where Walking Dead got some of their ideas from (unless both were from the original graphic novel). Romero on form – but, obviously, for fans only.
Nine 2.5/5 Turned this off after half an hour. All the tinsel and none of the tree.
A Perfect Getaway 3.5/5 Surprisingly watchable. Also surprised to see some genuine acting skill from Milla Jovovich – I’m used to her Resident Evil persona, so nice to see her being human.
One Artist meme
Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, answer these questions. Be as clever as you can. You can’t use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It’s a lot harder than you think…
Pick your Artist: Martyn Joseph
Describe yourself: Liberal Backslider
How do you feel: I have come to sing
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Vegas
Your favourite form of transportation: Walk down the mountain
Your best friend is a: Gift to me
You and your best friends are: Contradictions
If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Whoever it was that brought me here will have to take me home
What is life to you: This fragile world
Your current relationship: My love, my life
Your fear: Nobody loves you anymore
What is the best advice you have to give: Kiss the world beautiful
I would like to die: Carried in sunlight
Time of day: Let’s talk about it in the morning
My motto: Yet still this will not be
Cruel leniency
“Words of admonition and reproach must be risked when a lapse from God’s Word in doctrine of life endangers a community that lives together, and with it the whole community of faith. Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than that severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one’s community back from the path of sin.”
(Bonhoeffer, Life Together)
Something I’m pondering.
What I really think about the student fees controversy
“In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, the assemblage would be seriously depleted, but there would still be some men, of both present and past times, left inside…
I am quite aware that we have just now lightheartedly expelled in imagination many excellent men who are largely, perhaps chiefly, responsible for the buildings of the temple of science; and in many cases our angel would find it a pretty ticklish job to decide. But of one thing I feel sure: if the types we have just expelled were the only types there were, the temple would never have come to be, any more than a forest can grow which consists of nothing but creepers. For these people any sphere of human activity will do, if it comes to a point; whether they become engineers, officers, tradesmen, or scientists depends on circumstances. Now let us have another look at those who have found favor with the angel. Most of them are somewhat odd, uncommunicative, solitary fellows, really less like each other, in spite of these common characteristics, than the hosts of the rejected. What has brought them to the temple? That is a difficult question and no single answer will cover it. To begin with, I believe with Schopenhauer that one of the strongest motives that leads men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from personal life into the world of objective perception and thought; this desire may be compared with the townsman’s irresistible longing to escape from his noisy, cramped surroundings into the silence of high mountains, where the eye ranges freely through the still, pure air and fondly traces out the restful contours apparently built for eternity…
The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind is akin to that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart….”
(Albert Einstein, here)
Sacralized spectating
My new subtitle for the blog, the explanation for which can be found in this old post, and, a bit more technically, here.
I think I am finally starting to move. That is, I know where I need to plod to…
This ancient holy island
I’ve been thinking about an article I read in the local paper recently, which discussed the creation of ‘The Strood’ – which is the causeway that links Mersea Island with the island of Great Britain. I now discover that the article can be found on the Mersea Museum website here, and it references an academic article that can be found here (pdf).
Key points:
– the Strood was not built by the Romans, but by the Anglo-Saxons;
– it can be fairly firmly dated, to between 684 and 702 AD;
– the creation of the Strood would have been a major engineering project which “suggests the presence on the island of a sufficiently important feature to merit such a structure and also a substantial financial expenditure on the part of somebody or some organisation able to afford it”;
– Essex at this time was an independent Kingdom (and so it should be again!);
– the King of Essex at the relevant time was Saint Sebbi;
– we know that the Anglo-Saxons founded a Minster church, of Benedictine character (linked with Rouen if memory serves) on the Island, probably in the ‘early 8th century’;
all leading to the slightly speculative conclusion “What can be more likely than that the saintly King Sebbi took a personal interest in the construction of the minster church at Mersea?”
A Minster church, of Benedictine character, founded by one who was “much addicted to religious actions, almsgiving, and frequent prayer”.
I find it remarkable how a place can have a particular spirit – and, unknowing of all this, it’s uncanny how it ties in to what I’ve been pursuing in the benefice over the last couple of years, especially my sense that the Rule of St Benedict provides all that the parish needs.
So. Society of Saint Sebbi anyone? (Feast day is August 29 – clashes with Greenbelt!!)
Gandalf’s Hope
I’m setting up another new blog, called ‘Gandalf’s Hope’; I want a place to park my more political rantings, and I think there is an argument for specialising. As with my other blogs, there will normally be a link here to what is posted there (it’ll begin simply with transferring some old political posts to that venue).