Friends

We had a lovely day yesterday, visiting the beautiful and amazing Valley of the Saints for a sunny, if chilly, walk with Shadow, and then afternoon tea with some friends from church, before a cosy evening in front of the fire in the snug.

Speaking of friends, do you remember 'Friends', that very popular American TV sitcom of the 1990s? Of the six main characters, my favourite was Phoebe, a quirky massage therapist - like me! - and singer - again like me! - but the likeness ends there: Phoebe is younger and thinner and prettier than I am, and maybe just a bit more ditsy?!

Now, I don't know if saints are often thought of as friends exactly, but I don't see why not, and round about now there are at least three whose days we can celebrate. They were all friends of the apostle Paul: Timothy, Titus, and yes, Phoebe. Phoebe was a leader at the church in Cenchraea, near to Corinth in Greece. Paul mentions her in his letter to the church in Rome, and it seems likely that it was she who took his letter there – no snail or e- mail in those days! Paul wrote:

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a minister of the church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well. (Romans 16.1-2)

I hope she was welcomed with open arms!

The followers of Jesus included several women that we know by name (Mary Magdalene, Mary and Martha of Bethany, Mary the wife of Clopas, Joanna, Susanna, and Salome) and I'm sure there must have been others whose names we don't know. So it's also no surprise that women were active in the early church, some serving as leaders. They included Priscilla, Chloe, Lydia, Dorcas, Apphia, Nynpha, Ammia, Junia, and, of course, Phoebe. In the second and third centuries we know of Alce, Tavia, Mercuria, Apollonia, Maris, Eulogius, Sobelus, and Thecla – great names! And there were others whose names have been lost, including the four 'prophetess' daughter of Philip, and the sister of Crescens.

How times change... and then change again! In 1880 the Glasgow Universalist church ordained Caroline Soule – the first woman to be ordained in the UK; in 1917 Constance Coltman was ordained in the Congregational Church, and in 1927 Gertrude von Petzold became a Unitarian minister. Pioneers! Today, women bishops within the Church of England can still be seen as pioneers: amazingly it was only three years ago, on 26th January 2015, that Libby Lane was consecrated as (suffragan) Bishop of Stockport. At the last count (and forgive me if I'm wrong) there are 13 women Church of England bishops in the UK: Sarah, Rachel, Christine, Alison, Ruth, Anne, Karen, Jan, Jo, Guli, Helen-Ann, June, and Libby.

Thirteen has always been my favourite number. It's the date of my birth, and the first letter of my first name... but, as regards the women bishops, that's only 13%, and it's not enough. While I'd always rather support someone because of their qualities rather than their gender, sometimes a bit of positive discrimination may (reluctantly) be needed!

So let's give thanks for the women pioneers, all the women leaders who, I pray, are beginning to redress the vast imbalances in our society – and let's give thanks too for all our women friends – especially the ditsy ones! :-)

A red red rose

Happy birthday, Robert Burns, born 1759, and celebrated with haggis and whisky tonight (The William will be in the kitchen later; his haggis is The Best!)

But while I like the veggie haggis and the whisky, I'm not all that keen on the poetry...

Give me instead a contemporary poet, such as Robin Robertson, born in the best of years, 1955. Here, only two months early, is his 'Annunciation':

Annunciation

after Fra Angelico

He has come from the garden, leaving

no shadow, no footprint in the dew.

They hold each other's gaze at the point

of balance: everything streaming

towards this moment, streaming away.

A word will set the seed

of life and death,

the over-shadowing of this girl

by a feathered dark.

But not yet: not quite yet.

How will she remember the silence

of that endless moment?

Or the end, when it all began - 

the first of seven joys

before the seven sorrows?

She will remember the aftersong

because she is only human.

One day

she'll wake with wings, or wake

and find them gone.

The road goes ever on...

Last evening I finished re-reading Rachel Joyce's novel 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry'. It's a great story, dark at times, but the resolution brings solace. I recommend it.

A long time ago, (and yes, in a land far away) I walked the Via Dolorosa. More recently, I've walked parts of the Pilgrim Way in Kent, the Street of the Dead and the circular Island Pilgrimage on Iona, and the Sentier Cathar in southern France. The William and I regret that we never got over the border to walk the Camino de Santiago, but we do intend to walk at least some of the Tro Breizh.

I've just come in from a very wild - and rather short! - walk with Shadow. Winter in Brittany has not so far produced any crisp white stuff, just lots of rain and even more wind! Not entirely surprisingly, there are only rarely other people out and about. Which reminded me of the first time I visited the States: Austin, Texas, to be precise. When I announced my intention one day of walking into the centre of town for a browse around the shops, my hosts looked at me as if I'd gone mad. 'Nobody walks!' they said. And they were right; nobody, except me, did. But hey, I survived, and I've done lots of walking since then.

But I do sometimes wonder if we walkers are the exception rather than the rule. I don't mean hikers, with all the right gear, striding off into the distance; just ordinary people who like a bit of fresh air and daylight on their skin. What do you think?

Speaking of Iona - another wild and windy place, but full of beauty, and the sense of being at the edge of the world: here's a song I wrote after spending a week there.

The Back of the Ocean

Hear the sound of the wind as it flies across the water,

taste the salt from the spray as it blows into your mouth;

leave the ship at the jetty as you turn toward the village:

Don't look back, don't look back; 

walk the Street of the Dead that led them home.

And the sand is white on the shoreline,

and the stones lie smooth in your hand;

but the shadow falls on ancient walls,

and your soul is lost in this land.

Kneel at the table of the Lords of the island,

lay your tired head on the pillow made of clay;

feel the flutter of a bird as it rises from the shadow:

Don't look back, don't look back;

sing your song and fly out through the door.

And the sand is white on the shoreline,

and the stones lie smooth in your hand;

but the shadow falls on ancient walls

and your heart can't understand.

Hear the tread of the dead as they fly from the chapel,

taste the sand of despair as it rises from your mouth;

see the shell of your heart as it shatters on the altar:

Don't look back, don't look back;

cast your past into the foam...

So the dawn now is rising, a new path lies before you,

and the ferryman is waiting to take you far away;

the Lords of the island will wave you from the jetty:

Don't look back, don't look back;

Travel on, the road will lead you;

Don't look back, don't look back;

Travel on, the road will bring you home.

Winds of change!

Although the weather can't make up its mind today - sunny/cloudy/rainy/windy/rainy & windy/ cloudy & windy/sunny & windy/windy & windy... - I've made up my mind to make some changes to my blogging!

As you'll see, on the right hand side of this page there are now links to my other blogs: separate blogs for the Calendar of Breton Saints (Tro Breizh), Finding Balance (seven chakra workshops), Threshold (ceremonies to mark rites of passage in our lives), and Celebrating the Year - the liturgies I've so far been posting here.

I hope the links between the blogs will work to and fro, so you can yo-yo between them - and I hope there's something of interest for you somewhere :-)
Please do let me know - they all have comment boxes, and it'd be great to get some feedback.

This primary blog will now revert to what I first intended: a chatty sort of journal of happenings, thoughts, dreams...

A bientot from changeable, beautiful Brittany!

A Red Letter Day

5^th January 2018

Yesterday had it's excitements: doing some online study I came across a link to a 'longevity calculator' - and the outcome of the questionnaire was that I should live to be 98! Wow... 36 more years - great! (providing William has 34 more years, and we both stay healthy)

But today's excitement tops that: my certificates arrived for my graduation as Doctor of Divinity and Ordination as an Interfaith Minister (which were both conferred on 6th December by a Theological Seminary in the States). Now there's a surprise for all of you who didn't know that I've been quietly but actively working towards them since we came here. In a way I think I've actually been working towards them all my life - all those years of work, service, and study, all that joy and sorrow and spiritual development... So it's amazing to have that recognised and affirmed in this way.  I know that in one way they're just pieces of paper, but the significance of them gives me a buzz. And it makes me smile not only to be a Lady, but also a Reverend Doctor! What fun :-)

It's also, at long last, a beautiful sunny day here in Brittany: so good to see the blue skies and sun again after weeks of grey clouds, rain, and constant winds.

I've begun working on a calendar of the Breton saints: it's quite a puzzle finding stuff out about some of them. We're going to go back to the wonderful Valley of the Saints soon – it's only about 30 minutes from here.

http://www.lavalleedessaints.com/

Musings on a Monday

Monday 11^th December

A chilly, wet, windy Monday morning, with a pile of laundry to do. After three years without one, I am so glad for our tumble dryer! The William and Shadow braved the elements and had a short walk to the village recycling bins with our bag of plastic, tin, and glass, and the birds are being blown to and fro as they peck at the fat balls and sunflower seeds on the feeder. The William then becomes busy putting up more pictures, including my huge image of a Buddha, and a prayer image given to William by his friend Sarah, given to her by a monk during her trekking holiday in Nepal, wearing William's his extreme cold weather gear. I make a Chinese-style mushroom soup (which turns out a bit too chillie-fied!) and baked spiced oranges and figs drizzled with maple syrup & topped with toasted pecans, which are yummy.

I have begun my annual re-reading of Rosamunde Pilcher's marvellous novel 'Winter Solstice' and this wintry day has put me in mind of the opening of one of my favourite poems: 'Midwinter spring is its own season, sempiternal, though sodden towards sundown'. It's certainly sodden here! The poem is 'Little Gidding' by T.S.Eliot, one of his Four Quartets, first published in 1945.

Forty years ago (really? how can it be so long?) I went with my friend and former university chaplain John Cooke to visit Little Gidding, which is a village about 30 miles from Cambridge. Back in 1626 Nicholas Ferrar and his family founded a lay religious community, the Community of Christ the Sower, there, based on adherence to Christian worship according to the Book of Common Prayer and the Catholic heritage of the Church of England. That original community existed for about thirty years, and although it was denounced by Puritans as Arminian heresy, it attracted visitors, including King Charles I, who, having been there twice previously, sought refuge with the community after the Royalist defeat at the Battle of Naseby.

In the mid 19^th century, at around the time of the Catholic Revival, or Oxford Movement, Little Gidding featured in a popular historical novel 'John Inglesant' by Joseph Henry Shorthouse, and interest in the Little Gidding Community revived.

Alan Maycock founded The Society of the Friends of Little Gidding in 1946, with the support of T.S.Eliot who had visited in 1936 and whose 'Four Quartets' had just been published. There is more about Alan Maycock here, with a moving recollection by his widow Enid:

http://www.littlegiddingchurch.org.uk/lgchtmlfiles/lgpeople5maycocks.html

From the 1970s – the time when John and I visited – until 1998 it was home to a new Community of Christ the Sower, led by Robert van der Weyer, and based in the former farmhouse and adjacent buildings. I remember the rather chilly chapel and sleeping on a camp bed in the dormitory-style accommodation over the barn!

Below are extracts of Eliot's poem, and there's more information (well worth a look) about Ferrar and the present day Community of Christ the Sower (who still use the Little Gidding Prayer book that Robert authored) now based at St. Mary Magdalene's Retreat in Yreka, California:

http://www.stmarymagdalenes.org/christthesower.htm

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart's heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul's sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time's covenant. Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow, a bloom more sudden
Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,
Not in the scheme of generation.
Where is the summer, the unimaginable Zero summer?

If you came this way,

Taking the route you would be likely to take
From the place you would be likely to come from,
If you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges
White again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness.
It would be the same at the end of the journey,
If you came at night like a broken king,
If you came by day not knowing what you came for,
It would be the same, when you leave the rough road
And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade
And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment. There are other places
Which also are the world's end, some at the sea jaws,
Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city -
But this is the nearest, in place and time,
Now and in England.

If you came this way,

Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid...

Of weather and poetry...

After a day or so of rain, today dawned clear and bright, and I've spent a lovely morning in the garden, hacking back the ronces (brambles) and bracken at the southern end where we plan to create a small parking place and entrance into what will, eventually, become our little orchard.

I do enjoy being out in the fresh air, although it's also great to come back into a warm house, with our new stove now in situ and working well. I've had to forgo my intention to continue gardening this afternoon however: taking Shadow for his main walk after lunch we were caught in a hail storm, speckling his coat with white ice dots. I know I was reading Shelley's poem 'Hail to thee, blithe spirit' this morning, but not that sort of hail! :-) But even the hail storm was off-set by a full rainbow arching against the dark sky.

Being part of such a beautiful landscape, with its rolling hills, huge skies, morning mists, and ever-changing clouds, made me think of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem God's Grandeur:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

it gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

and all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

and wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

there lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

and though the last lights off the black West went

oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs - 

because the Holy Ghost over the bent

world broods with warn breast and with ah! bright wings.

I'm a big fan of Manley Hopkins, although these days he wouldn't get away with his use of the words 'men' and 'man' to mean people: but of course he was writing according to the customs of his own time, and the slightly jarring off-notes they create are vastly off-set by the genius of his imagery.

I think I first became consciously aware of such linguist niceties and changing social & theological  mores back in the 80s, and, while training for the ministry, particularly valued the work of a fellow URC minister and writer Brian Wren. His book 'What language shall I borrow' counter-balanced, for me, the stridency of feminist theology at the time. I have been very happy to include his great hymn 'Bring Many Names' in various acts of worship, and his poem/hymn 'Who Is She' captures the heart of what I am only now beginning to study in greater depth.

Who is She, neither male nor female, 

maker of all things, only glimpsed or hinted, 

source of life and gender?

She is God, mother, sister, lover:

in her love we wake, move and grow, are daunted, 

triumph and surrender.

Who is She, mothering her people, 

teaching them to walk, lifting weary toddlers, 

bending down to feed them?

She is Love, crying in a stable, 

teaching from a boat, friendly with the lepers, 

bound for crucifixion.

Who is She, sparkle in the rapids,

coolness of the well, living power of Jesus

flowing from the scriptures?

She is Life, water, wind and laughter,

calm, yet never still, swiftly moving Spirit,

singing in the changes.

Why is She, mother of all nature,

dying to give birth, gasping yet exulting

to a new creation?

She is Hope, never tired of loving,

filling all with worth, glad of our achieving, 

lifting all to freedom.

Jottings along the road...

We leave the Pyrenees behind us and head north... 

Fields of gold, not barley but sunflowers, gradually turning their heads down to the earth and dropping their seeds... 

Blue sky and sunshine too scorching hot to sit in... 

And now howling winds, pouring rain, thunder and lightning - yes, this is still the south of France in August... 

Walks along country roads (take me home) and a huge thorn, not in the side but through the sole of my Croc and into the ball of my right foot, which The William gallantly pulled out (ow!) - blood and pain and rest for a couple of days... 

A lazy afternoon with friends: one dear ditsy lady arrives with a baby bird in a basket and is more concerned to swat flies to feed it with than eat her own lunch... 

Chateaux, including one with a month-long Moliere event... 

Yet another public holiday in this secular state - the Assumption of the BVM... 

Discovering more dishonesty from the agent &/or notaire through whom we sold The Hearth and we're just glad to have the money in the bank; and more hiccups in trying to arrange the delivery of our stuff to Karningul, but hey, what's new?... 

Another long lunch in the sun with former neighbours, catching up on news and their plans for creating gites in their barn... 

Refining our plans for our Brittany garden, which now includes an avenue of fruit and nut trees, and the transformation of an old, small garden shed into the chicken house for Big Venus, Grey Malkin, and Chickpea... 

Yet more delays in completing our purchase because the Notaire wasn't back from his holiday when he said he would be, and was then out of the office for the rest of the week: how more unprofessional can these people get?!... 

Staying in a gite in a hamlet on the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere opposite an elaborate romanesque Calvaire in what was the original cemetary (now located to the more usual site at the village boundary, rather than in its heart) including not only Jesus on the cross but Mary, Queen of Heaven, foot on snake, and John the Baptist standing in a Mercurial, declamatory pose above a lamb... 

Thoughts of what Plan B will be if our purchase in Brittany does not, in fact, happen; and at the last minute, news that completion on Karningul will be tomorrow morning, although the immobilier still needs to arrange for the water to be reconnected before we can move in and camp for a week until our remover can deliver our stuff - fingers are still crossed... 

Online shopping thwarted because we have no mobile signal and so can't receive the security code... 

Temperatures in the mid-30s for the third week running... 

A minor hair cut for Shadow after he comes in from a walk with hair full of seeds... 

Scrumping a bag full of figs from a tree by the lane - delicious raw, but even more delicious baked for half an hour with dabs of butter, a drizzle of honey, and a squeeze of lemon juice...

More scrumping: bunches of black grapes from the vines in the garden where we're staying, brilliant thirst-quenchers while driving...

And at last we are over the Vilaine and in Brittany! Clouds and rain to greet us, as we head for our final Ibis in Pontivy for a night's rest before an early start to collect the key for Karningul and take possession. Fingers crossed that the electricity wasn't cut off after the vendors unhelpfully cancelled the account instead of waiting for it to be transferred into our name - same story as the water, and thanks for nothing - otherwise it'll be back to the Ibis: I can do indoor camping at a pinch, but not without water, preferably hot!...

Still no joy attempting to make online purchases, due to some fault with MC this time, although we at last have strong mobile signals, but the good news is (and we are surely due some?) that our remover will be delivering our stuff on Friday - hurrah!...

So, one short journey more and the road trip is done - never to be repeated :-)

Away we go!...

3rd August, and our three years in the sun are up.

It's with very mixed feelings that we are leaving The Hearth and the extreme terrain, climate, and people of this remote part of the foothills of the Pyrenees.

Our furniture has been removed this morning, our sale completes tomorrow, and The William, Shadow and I are off on a road trip, wending our way northwards, until we arrive in Brittany towards the end of this month. 

We'll be pretty much off line until we're set up in our new home there, so there'll be a blog gap - but lots of news then I'm sure!

à bientôt.............

Tenterhook time

I am not a person who enjoys being on an edge, either physical or mental, but so often, in a variety of experiences over the years, I have felt taken to the very edge of a horrendous precipice before the situation has changed for the better: for example, once upon a long time ago, I was finally offered a job I could take (even though it was 105 miles from where I was then living) after six months of hunting, when I was down to £200 in my bank account and had a mortgage to keep paying. There are other examples I won't bore you with!

Today feels like we're very close to that edge again, waiting to hear whether our house purchasers have finally got their mortgage confirmed, after unexplained delays, the very existence of which we were uninformed of until last week. If they have, then our own purchase can go ahead; if not......... 
The immobilier, who is supposed to be managing our sale, said she will phone us today. It is already 13.13 and the phone has not rung, despite 13 being my best number.

So we have progressed, if you can call it that, from being on the edges of our seats to being stretched pretty much to our limits. Now I recognise that tenterhooks were employed (in the process of making woollen cloth) for the benefit of the cloth - so that it would keep its shape and size as it dried on the big frame - the tenter - but I'm not sure it's quite so beneficial for keeping us in psychological and emotional good shape, rather the reverse; and I don't subscribe to the view that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

The word 'tenter' apparently comes from the Latin tendere, meaning 'to stretch'. Stretched as we are, a bit of tenderness from the Universe wouldn't come amiss please, other than the delightful first sighting of a Zebra Swallowtail Butterfly on our buddleia bushes.

p.s. 
Two hours later: We have at last heard that our purchasers have got their mortgage. Hu-bloody-rah. However, they have to wait ten days before returning some paperwork to their bank (who knows why; apparently it's a legal requirement), and only then do the bank let our Notaire know, so that she can complete the paperwork for the sale and request the release of funds so it goes through. The upshot of which is that the earliest likely completion date has slipped by another week, to about 3rd August. But of course that won't be confirmed until about a week beforehand. I'm all for spontaneity, but such short notice, when there's so much to arrange, seems (Frankly) bizarre to me.

Oh, and by the way, The William has today received his Carte Vitale. I've long since stopped counting the years & months since our application. Everything comes to s/he who waits???....................