Saint's Day
We celebrated Mary Magdalene today in All Saints Church in the centre of Hereford, not in the birdsong quiet of Holy T but among the lunchtime bustle of the busy cafe in the back of the nave. As I listened to the firm, light voice of the celebrant - it must have been arduous for her - I thought of the people straining to hear the precious words of Christ. And somehow it seemed fitting - though I would never have thought it would. A good day, under a baking sun.
Ancient things
Wales - the bit near us anyway - is full of tiny, ancient churches. This one is St Bilo's Church, Llanfilo, and is obviously very much loved and cared for. The mediaeval rood screen inside sags to the right; we learned that recent subsidence meant that the north-east wall had to be pinned, but didn't know if the two were related. Prince Charles seems to have paid a flying visit last month, presumably in his Prince of Wales mode.
Earlier in the day, when the sun had still to reappear and the wind was discouraging, we ate our picnic in the porch of another tiny, mediaeval church : the Church of St Ellwye, Llandieu, Telgarth, at the foot of the Black Mountains in the Brecon Beacons national park. This church was a sad contrast to St Bilo's, looked after only by the Friends of Friendless Churches and used only once a year. Sheep wandered among the toppled gravestones, and bat droppings littered the porch floor. There were remarkable traces of mediaeval painting on the walls, including one of Adam and Eve and The Tree of Life of which only their feet and legs remained; I'll post more photos when I'm back at my own computer. I even forgot my camera on this trip - the pics are from my phone.
Having bodyswerved Matins as our Sunday worship, we said some prayers and sang "Come Holy Ghost" in St Ellwye's - so perhaps we doubled the worship in this place for this year. It was another of these Celtic thin places - a special place on a grey, quiet morning.
And then the sun came out.
Labels: Anglican, Brecon Beacons, churches, mediaeval, Wales
Blogging off
I'm blogging off for a few days - though if my hosts in deepest Herefordshire have indeed acquired internet access and will allow me, I may succumb to temptation. But in a way, it's refreshing not to be tied to the computer - I shan't be taking it with me. Besides, my laptop is now quite elderly (four in August) and throws little cardiac episodes if taken away from home. I know I really want a new one, but not so brutally.
I go with a strange commission: to photograph the Tardis loo in All Saints' Church in the centre of Hereford - the one with the cafe at the back - and if possible to find out about it. Should make for an interesting conversation-piece.
A bientot, mes amis ...
Labels: blogs, church loos, Hereford
English as she is spoke
My pal Kenny blogged the other day about his use of the word "amn't". You can catch the drift (and the ten comments so far)
here, where you'll see that in addition to the "speaking properly" question there is a confusion about what constitutes dialect. I've probably visited this subject before, but feel moved, as I used to when teaching, to revisit.
It is the scourge of this part of the world to aspire to posh talk. Often this will have a southern English accent and a tendency to use the nominative form of the personal pronoun whatever the grammatical requirements of a sentence. I've had to deal with pupils quite adamant that "Mrs X told Jimmy and I not to do that" was correct because their mother insisted they didn't say "me" in that context - it took about twenty exemplar sentences and the removal of all other nouns to show them the principle behind it. Of course, they hadn't been parsing sentences from age seven or wrestling with Latin, poor ignorant little mites ...
But it's this business of confusing grammatical inaccuracy with dialect that is currently getting my goat. "Amn't" is a perfectly legitimate contraction of "am I not" - and the absurd "Aren't I" is simply wrong, no matter how many marbles fill the mouth of the speaker. Dialect involves words like "scunner" and "glaikit" - regional words used in sentences which may be syntactically perfect.
Am I alone in caring about stuff like this? I know that some of my colleagues complained that with my departure from the school there would be no-one to ask about the grammar bits in Interpretation passages - for my generation was almost the last to be routinely educated in this fashion. And does it really matter in the greater scheme of things? I'd say yes. For I'm convinced that a grasp on the finer points of sentence construction is what still makes people accuse me of being nippy (moi? nippy? I ask you!) because I can say what I mean with relative brevity and clarity, and that much never can be obsolete ...
And besides, I can always feel smug when I see others getting it wrong. Or enraged.
Note: There's a wee quotation hidden in that lot. Usual plaudits apply.Labels: dialect, Grammar, snobbishness, syntax
A dog's life?
I had a new experience yesterday. I went to the vet. No, I wasn't ailing and no, I haven't acquired an animal. I was meeting
Mrs Heathbank who had been held up by a scarcity of vets and was lurking in the car park with her canine companions awaiting their turn. Because it was a mild, pleasant afternoon, other animals and their people were doing the same thing, and the car park was quite busy. Apparently an ailment called kennel cough is rampant in Dunoon and vaccinations were the order of the day for the Heathbank Kennel Club, whose members include one Hamish, yet another small spaniel.
However, this jolly family outing was put into perspective by the presence of another friend of mine whose 15-year-old dog was at the vet for the last time. If you know me at all, you'll know that dogs are not my thing, but I found it difficult to be detached as I stood with this quiet, dignified collie waiting to be called. When he left, my friend couldn't bear to go and her partner took the dog away. There was no fuss, and we went on talking. I was aware of trying to keep it light and mildly distracting - and then the partner returned carrying the lead. And that was that.
I hope I was of some use. But I wonder if everyone who gets a puppy or a kitten thinks on that day of the other end of the animal's life - because any pet-owner stands a good chance of outliving their pet and having to deal with their end. And many will have to make the decision when that end will be. I suppose they think it's worth it.
This post, by the way, is dedicated to Charlie, who thinks I write too much about church. Tomorrow I feel a post coming on about grammar ...
Labels: death, dogs, vets
Out of Africa
Today, I'm glad I'm not a bishop. I can't help feeling that these jet-lagged men and women must feel rather as I used to on the school French Exchange, when our hosts had all sorts of socialising and sightseeing lined up for us and all I wanted to do was sit in the sun with a glass of kir. And tomorrow they all head south for Lambeth - in a bus. Apparently the Bishop of Karimnagar balked at this, but maybe he was thinking of a different type of bus. I hope theirs is a classy one.
However, the
Bishop of Central Tanganyika was with us at Holy T yesterday, and made a huge impression. This youthful-looking man has already been a bishop for 19 years and still manages to exude joy and strength. Among the many things I learned was that his stipend is only enough to live on for 15 days a month. For the rest, he farms. I don't mean he owns a farm which someone else works: he takes off for three days at a time to live in a small hut on the farmland while he plants, tends and reaps. So when he preached on the day's gospel - the parable of the Sower - he really knew what he was talking about. The metaphorical weeds which choke his people's flowering are those of worry and survival - though, as he pointed out with some force, we are choked by wealth. Over lunch, we heard that most of the priests ordained in his diocese are non-stipendiary - they are encouraged to live off the land as they minister to those around them - but there is no shortage of vocations, with young men - and women - coming forward in droves.
The picture I came away with was of a country where people - Christian and Moslem - talk about God in the same way as we talk about the weather, where life is hard and precarious, where the scourge of HIV/Aids is still growing and has left 50,000 orphans, where clergy live and work alongside the people to whom they minister, sharing their lives and their worries. No wonder the church in Africa is growing. It must seem a great deal more relevant if you've been sweating alongside your priest one day and listening to what he or she (there are 15 female priests in Central Tanganyika) has to say on a Sunday. And it was good to know in the run-up to this Lambeth that there are people like Bishop Mdimi, assuring us that Africa is a huge and diverse country and that not all African bishops are like
Bishop Akinola. So I shall be praying for someone I feel I know just a little in the weeks ahead - and feeling rather less ambivalent about the whole shebang.
Now, what jabs do you need to visit Tanzania?
Labels: Africa, Bishops, Central Tanganyika, Lambeth 08, Mdimi
A high old time
One of the joys of being a musician is that in the middle of ordinary life you can take off and spend a day working your socks off and having the greatest fun - and then being thanked for it at the end of the day. Yesterday was such an occasion. As the bishops of the Anglican Communion - or at least, such parts of it as don't think the rest of us are all bound for Hell in a handcart - began to arrive in the UK for the Lambeth Conference, they were whisked off to the various dioceses for the weekend, and three of them, with their wives, fetched up on the Isle of Cumbrae at the Cathedral of The Isles. Doubtless they were allowed to go to bed early after the rigours of their journeys, but first they had to attend a Festal Choral Evensong - and this, dear reader, is where yours truly came in.
This, it has to be said, was one of the best incarnations of Cumbrae Cathedral Choir that I've experienced. Eight voices, nae passengers, old friends from University Chapel Choir and early days in teaching, sopranos without a wobble, either mental or vocal. We were able to sing through everything and concentrate on unanimity, and no-one lost their cool for so much as a flicker. And in between we giggled like school kids - remember, only two of us were under 60 - and the years vanished.
The service was joyous - clouds of incense, some great music (from Boyce's
All the Ends of the Earth through to Britten's wonderful
Festival Te Deum), +Martin's address of welcome. At the end, we watched with interest as a small pipe band appeared over the lawn: would they strike up before Jonathan Cohen had finished his Vidor? But no; they were well-briefed and there were no hiccups other than a degree of mild hysteria.
Afterwards, of course, there was the photo-op (I handed my Leica to Frank, fresh from Texas via Aberdeen). This was another flash-back moment, as it was this kind of event which propelled me into the arms of the Piskie Church in the first place, and when I have more time I shall scan a similar but ancient photo for comparison. (If you click the pic, you can see who was who). And people thanked us, over and over again. What do you say? It seemed wrong, somehow, to be thanked for having such a good time.
But the last word belongs to Martin, Bishop of Argyll. Emerging from the cathedral to the choir waiting in the porch at the end of the service, he punched the air: "Yes!" he said. "Amen!". Amen indeed.
Labels: Anglican Communion, Bishops, Cathedral of The Isles, Cumbrae, Evensong, Lambeth 08
