Golly Gosh

St Etheldreda of Ely pray for us as young britischer couples contemplate the beauties of the lush green countryside in this wonderful sunshine, and pity those poor dregs of impoverished and deeply entrenched humanity who must labour for their bread in the industrial brown cities of all the satanic mills that Blake can recall. A terrible fate to work in some smog-lined city, breathing in the fumes of motor cars, and the belching smoke of huge trucks that should not be there, and finding the smog and dust and dirt build up under one's own finger nails at end of day - yes the poor suffering souls of purgatory have an easier time of it than the poor souls that work in cities. But consider this - kind devotees of St Alphonsus, that never was it said that those who worked in cities offered a poorer lot to contemplate than those poor wretches that actually have to live in them to boot. Terrible business. Let us bow our heads and pray for God's blessing as we contemplate the words of some metaphysical poet -
How blessed is he who leads a country life; devoid of trouble, devoid of strife.

Yes it is all a long way from Malta that dreaded brown smog cloud that overhangs the cities of London and Brumland and Manchester and Bradford and Leeds - all a very long way indeed from the bliss of the green hills of Albion too. But there we are - someone invented cities but do we have to accept them?

Like two blushings

Is there anything so fine as the witness of Shakespeare on the subject of two blushing pilgrims, and anything so nice as popping in to see church of england clergy in their country retreats in little churches in the middle of nowhere such as Blockley by Moreton in the Marsh where the old A429 takes off into the countryside and the hills above the Avon. Lovely location and funnily enough this is where the new runaway hit TV series on the amateur detective Fr Brown is filmed.

All quiet

Oh all quiet in the Church of England this morning - everybody has been watching Fleming one supposes on the TV. Very quiet - calm before a storm maybe. Can't think what. Pip pip.

Adolescent Progressivism

We all love the cut and thrust of the Sixth Form common room and the way that young boys will splay themselves around and expostulate al fresco on the latest revolutionary theories emanating from Moscow and Paris, but there are some ecclesiastical seniors in the odd common room in the odd posh school who seem to have continued all such delayed childhood development into their careers, by insisting as they do, that conservative vicars are not really acceptable in the promotion positions of the future; as if religion in our society was not inherently conservative for prudence and wisdom sake; a healthy brake to revolutionary change for change sake? Some leading lights of the various benches seem to forget that we are here to curb the enthusiasms of young boys like William Roper in the Robert Bolt play A Man for all Seasons - such would chop down every tree in the island just to get at some devilish opposite number, and then what when the devil concerned turns on the young man; behind which tree will he hide when he feels the full power of the great forces of Hades?? Such are the adolescence fixated young bishops of the red canon pot of promotees and they are tedious to listen to.  Change maybe, but religion is a brake of prudence - it is good to be conservative.

Aha - Stephen

Christmastide and the festival of the Theotokos reminds us all in the dear Old Church of England that Stephen is our proto-martyr and deacon, if he is one of the hoi eptoi of Acts 6 which few deny nowadays in up to date scholarship. More importantly Stephen Hawking is discovering what martyrdom is presently, now that he has denied that absolute event horizons really do exist around black holes as was thought to be the case in some of the more fanta-scienza moments of modern astronomy, with all the geeks and nerds cheering it all on back at base at Nasa. Something like our own church too where black holes have existed from time to time, like expensive back room clergy, swallowing up huge reserves, or like the building maintenance funds of various dioceses, where really the state should be funding all the repairs to these national monuments such as cathedrals if not parish churches. After all if it is a state church and they wish to keep it that way, the state should cough up the funding. Why should vicars spend their days and nights worrying about funds? A german tax relief system might be a good way forward in Britain - 10% of one's 20% of income tax to go to a charity of one's choice and so on. That way everybody is happy - After all in a new age now that the War on Terror is over and the Cold War gone, the peace dividend should mean no more higher tax rates. V - coe.

Letters

Dear Reverend Pastor -

I have thought long and hard since I attended the great Canon Hawking's sessions on clergy procedures, and have oft since opined that a new category of penalty of "bringing the churches into disrepute through excessive controversy" - this could be devised to stop any of the literalist evangelical clergy preaching downright outrageous gibberish not only about the Book of Genesis which is excruciating to watch and read, but helas also chiefly about their own interpretations of the Book of Revelation and then from a position of total humiliating un-reason, throwing up all over the Auntie Overseas in Rome - she is not by the way the whore of babylon that these pastors keep indicating, in their appalling inability to read the book in the original Greek, but rather, she is an imperial administration of the Eternal Christian Empire whose rep of the king of kings keeps all local and national monarchies of a smaller hue in good shape. Besides she only intervenes in smaller empires and monarchies as she says ratio peccati when some local monarch's family have caused so much scandal as to be a desecration of the original anointing of the coronation. We no longer need gibberish from evangelicals who have neither the Greek or even the German to read modern biblical exegesis. The whole situation is so embarrassing for its high decibels of utter and total ignorance as to make of my task as a high-church ecumenical officer an insurmountable mountain. Fountains away.

Wells next the sea

It sometimes comes to pass that learned canons and doctors of the law in the Grand old Church of England get into a tizzy or a lather about some matter or other which is alleged to be this or that contravention of the anglican communion's codex of canon law. What! everyone screeches? What codex of canon law? If one were to pop into any church of note on the anglican circuit one would find a copy of the canons of the Church of England, B1, B4, B12 and so on which amount to an extension into practice of the Articles of Religion. There all is revealed. Controversy then is sometimes calmed by such canons which soon settle disputes about say what is or is not a contravention. Sometimes this is about the grounds of transfer of a vicar, say for christological doctrine violations or aberrations in ritual or even for lithe and lissom irregularity in conduct unbecoming, and sometimes this is about the law on blasphemy, as per Bath and Wells diocese, though in the latter case the state might conceivably get involved, as my learned colleague Lord Somerset has it on his site, The Rights of the State, at www.blogger.com. Generally though we in the Real Church of England do like to do our laundry in secret, to iron out our squabbles in camera, in private, according to our own juristical rules and regulas. It beats going to the PM's office or his policy unit. God forbid that the Queen, the supreme governor, should get involved too! Constitutionally speaking the country is a christian democratic state, so the blasphemy laws and statutes do obtain for serious infractions of respect to the divine names. But we shall leave that to the Queen to resolve - she has some gravitas in an age lacking thereof.