An odd thing, often, the Feast of Annunciation. Often seems out of times. Last year I went with a fellow-student of micropetrology to Walsingham, to celebrate this micro-glimpse of Christmas.
It oftentimes falls in Lent - and occasionally, on Good Friday (when the modern-style Churches transfer it somewhere else).
John Donne saw the depth of irony in it.
TAMELY, frail body, abstain to-day ;
to-day My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.
She sees Him man, so like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur ; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast,
Christ came, and went away ;
She sees Him nothing, twice at once, who's all ;
She sees a cedar plant itself, and fall ;
Her Maker put to making, and the head
Of life at once not yet alive, yet dead ;
She sees at once the Virgin Mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha ;
Sad and rejoiced she's seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty, and at scarce fifteen;
At once a son is promised her, and gone;
Gabriell gives Christ to her, He her to John;
Not fully a mother, she's in orbity;
At once receiver and the legacy.
All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
Th' abridgement of Christ's story, which makes one—
As in plain maps, the furthest west is east—
Of th' angels Ave, and Consummatum est.
How well the Church, God's Court of Faculties,
Deals, in sometimes, and seldom joining these.
As by the self-fix'd Pole we never do
Direct our course, but the next star thereto,
Which shows where th'other is, and which we say —
Because it strays not far—doth never stray,
So God by His Church, nearest to him, we know,
And stand firm, if we by her motion go.
His Spirit, as His fiery pillar, doth
Lead, and His Church, as cloud ; to one end both.
This Church by letting those days join, hath shown
Death and conception in mankind is one ;
Or 'twas in Him the same humility,
That He would be a man, and leave to be ;
Or as creation He hath made, as God,
With the last judgment but one period,
His imitating spouse would join in one Manhood's extremes ;
He shall come, He is gone ;
Or as though one blood drop, which thence did fall,
Accepted, would have served, He yet shed all,
So though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,
Would busy a life, she all this day affords.
This treasure then, in gross, my soul, uplay,
And in my life retail it every day.
I think the lesson to be drawn here is pretty clear. Some people like tea lights, some like stones. But lots of people like both. Who are the people that like only stones? My guess is that they are fundamentalist evangelicals on their way to deal with an adulterer or blasphemer.
Moving ecumenically on, and considering the existence of the Coptic Church, we can consider the way in which the science of Vennology can shed light onto some of our favourite sayings:
Now let us consider an example seen in many fellowships across the land - the relationship between Worship Leaders, people with no sense of embarrassment, and people who assume fake American accents. Now there are Worship Leaders who speak perfectly normally in the accent of their own area of upbringing. There are those who do not feel obliged to tell you stories about their personal lives and development and their spiritual viewpoints. And... well, let's let the Venn Diagram tell its own story.
