Frail humanity’s solitary boast

Oxford Cathedral this morning, to celebrate Lady Day with trustees, office holders and members of the Mothers Union from around the diocese. MU works in 78 countries around the world, has 3·6 million members, and a representative to the United Nations Commission on the status of women. People seemed refreshingly focused on others and open to accepting them as they are, strengthening marriages by networking women all over the world, and a few men. The emphasis is on bringing about a world where God’s love is shown in loving, stable, respectful relationships.

The view from the pulpit in Christ Church is interesting (above). I took as our text for the annunciation a notion first planted in my mind at a Berkshire nativity play a few years ago by the seven year old who had landed the part of Mary — “everybody knows it’s much easier to be an angel than a virgin.”

And, as daffodils begin to bloom in these parts, a slightly off the wall but powerful poem by Carol Ann Duffy, based on Max Ernst’s painting of 1926, The Blessed Virgin Chastises the Infant Jesus before Three Witnesses:

The Virgin Punishing the Infant

He spoke early. Not the goo goo goo of infancy,
but I am God. Joseph kept away, carving himself
a silent Pinocchio out in the workshed. He said
he was a simple man and hadn't dreamed of this.

She grew anxious in that second year, would stare
at stars saying Gabriel, Gabriel. Your guess.
The village gossiped in the sun. The child was solitary,
his wide and solemn eyes could fill your head.

After he walked, our normal children crawled. Our wives
were first resentful, then superior. Mary's child
would bring her sorrow ... better far to have a son
who gurgled nonsense at your breast. Googoo. Googoo.

But I am God. We heard him through the window,
heard the smacks which made us peep. What we saw
was commonplace enough. But afterwards, we wondered
why the infant did not cry, why the Mother did.

Milton, Marriage and Motherhood

Many people flying into Heathrow Airport notice Horton Parish Church on their way in, close to the end of the runway. Fr Simon Douglas Lane is energetically building the kingdom in Wraysbury & Horton, and it was a great joy to confirm there yesterday — a great step into discipleship for 11 newly committed Christians from the villages.

Anyway, it’s narrow chancel and I couldn't help noticing that I was actually standing on the grave of the poet John Milton’s mother Sara!

we see Milton’s high ideals of conduct between the sexes as deriving from his mother and his relationship with her... Milton’s mother was a typical housewife and mother of the seventeenth century: one who bore children (at least six), who took care of the home for the father and the children as needed, who was guided by her husband, who was the focus around which domestic and extended family life existed...

John Shawcross, John Milton: the self & the world

...and there was Sara 371 years later, er, under my feet. This job does yield weird experiences for the historically minded. William Kerrigan says “the death of Sara Milton was the first step in lifting the spell that bound him to his home.” Another example of real parental love — “Selfhood begins with walking away, and love is proved in the letting go.” (C. Day Lewis).

Then, back to earth with a bump, I turned on the computer and hit Tim Chesterton’s percepive, thoughtprovoking and updated ideas about having a happy marriage. These include two thoughts that have often occurred to Lucy and me, albeit in less distilled form — “Love is a choice, not a feeling,” and “a marriage needs a mission.”

At a time of uncertainty about relationsips and the future of the family, we witness to Christian marriage not through politicians, but by doing it ourselves: “Tell the truth to each other... live a simple life focussed on God and your neighbour... being a better folower of Jesus will make you a better marriage partner.” You can’t scold people into sacramental union with each other and God, far less politick them into it by harsh, sour posturing. You just have to live it, hoping and praying they’ll discover it.

Tim’s piece comes back down to earth with a bump at the end:

a word for the guys from the character played by Dennis Quaid in the movie In Good Company. When asked by a younger man what his secret of a lasting marriage is, Quaid's character replies, “You find the right person to get into the foxhole with, and when you're out of the foxhole, you keep your dick in your pants”. Every time I've shared that story in mixed company, the women have shaken their heads about how offensive it is, and the men have nodded their heads, knowing that 'lowest common denominator' wisdom is often a good place to start...!!!

Not quite John Milton, but sound advice for starters, perhaps. I am sure far more hurt and damage is done to people by good ol’ fashioned infidelity than by emergent moral issues since the sixties...

Mothering Sunday in Stewkley

Mothering Sunday morning began for me in Stewkley. It’s a busy hub vilage, with a thriving congregation, including children of all sizes, and a good smattering of real mothers of all ages.

St Michael’s Church is an amazing building — basically a Norman Minster Church that time forgot, apart from a few Victorian decorations. The footprint, and the feel as you walk through the door is almost exactly as it would have been in 1150! It’s simply never been nobbled or expanded since, with no side aisles, or even large windows. The West Door is pure Lord of the Rings, with twisted tail dragons chasing each other through a chevron pattern you find all around the Church.




Best of all, however, St Michael’s is no museum, but a vibrant heart to its community. Michelle Morton, the Vicar, has been hard at work in the Church school and with young families, and the parish has very able and caring lay leadership. It was great fun to celebrate God’s goodness in a place heaving with history, but also full of life. Revolution by Tradition! Avanti!

Maternal Worth in Soulbury

From a warm and wondrous Mothering Sunday at home to a warm, lively Parish Communion at Soulbury. Michelle Morton, Vicar, and Peter Lymbery have obviously been working hard to get people together and build up a vibrant worshipping community. This is the historic heart of the county, as witness the rather bloodthirsty motto of the (former) Royal Bucks Hussars, seen in a memorial to a soldier of the Burma Campaign (1944) — “Yeomen of Bucks, strike home!” “Soulbury” means “Stronghold by a gully”and on top of the stronghold sits All Saints Church. You can see it from miles around. Right on the button, I found there the ultimate “randy for antique” Mothering Sunday object — “a Filial Offering to Maternal Worth” from December 1786, commemorating Eleanor Lovett of Liscomb Park. Two of her three children died in infancy.
In a way, of course, all these grand eighteenth century memorials seem ludicrous, but they capture in stone the quirky, personal side of life which is so central to a parish church, and has been in Soulbury for over 900 years. Each offering tells its own story. On the North side of the Chancel another Filial Offering to Maternal Worth from almost a hundred years before caught my eye — “erected at the sole charges of Lettice Piggott... in memory of her own dear father and mother, 1701.” It’s a superb Grinling Gibbons, complete with putto flappin’ his little wings and brandishin’ his own little hanky. Bless!
Random Thought:
It don’t pay to stare at these things for too long. The longer I stared at them, the more these little chaps began to resemble that Crusader for Peace in the Thames Valley, Inspector Mor(o)se.

All this, and apple pie too

Half way through half term, Christian singer Anita Renfroe tells it like it is. Thanks, Lynne for sharing this with Lucy, who somehow manages to combine all this with being soul friend, lover, gardener and, in every sense, home maker round here.