Nobody expects the Beaker Inquisition

I think I've mentioned before that Hnaef has a habit, in the morning and evening, of reading a thing called the "Daily Office". It seems to be some kind of religious newspaper, as it contains Biblical quotes. And every morning, Hnaef has a kind of discipline where he sets himself to live up to the readings of the day.

But after breakfast this morning, I found that he was wandering around looking very miserable. It turned out that his reading from Deuteronomy 10 was the following:

"So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being."

How, asked Hnaef, was he to live up to this? But being the wise Archdruid that I am, I pointed out that the Daily Office quotation is a bit like an exam where you can choose which question to answer. And knowing that the New Testament section is normally a bit easier, I suggested he tried that. And he read me this from Ephesians.

"Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."

Hnaef was already having a bad time. Yesterday evening I asked him to look into these reports of closet "Anglicans" in the Community and let me know who the people were. I figured that being a Cambridge man, he'd be better able to spot them - at Brasenose College Oxford, it was impossible to tell them apart from the Roman Catholics. But instead of leaping willingly to my task, he mumbled a bit and suggested that maybe it wasn't so much "either/or" but "both/and". A policy that normally I'm very willing to support, but really - in this kind of extreme case? Apparently these Anglicans demand that you spend all your time sitting in Committees, selling second-hand toys and books, and debating the replacements to windows and such like.

Anyway, this Bible reading business seems to have put the kybosh on Hnaef now. He's out on the Rocking Swing in the garden at the moment, kind of sobbing and rocking. It's very demanding, is reading the Bible.