Beating the Bounds

Such Larks! If you're going to beat the bounds, I say - do it properly.

Yes, I know what you're going to say. We should have beat them Thursday. But we're keeping Ascension today. Which is partly to recognise modern-day patterns of working. But mostly, to be honest, because we forgot.

Now the "bounds" we're marking are not the Parish ones - those are enormous, and go either side of the motorway, and don't necessarily cross it at convenient places. No, we're not having to retrieve terrified Beaker People from the central reservation again.

No, these are the boundaries of the nominal "thin place" within which the Community stands. Which is great. Since the "thin place" exists for ceremonial and theological reeasons, it can go where we choose - or where a suitably acute dowser can lead us with her or his plumb-line.  Conveniently, this morning it led 50 of us in through Drayton Parslow's door, up the stairs and across his bed. And while it is true that Drayton was sleeping in it, it's also true that he wasn't sleeping in it by the time we'd all stomped across him. And hit him with sticks as a recognised boundary marker.

Doubling back and rounding the Orchard and the Duck Pond, we stopped for a moment at Duckhenge to recognise the beautiful way the trilithons framed the rain clouds and the Amazon warehouse. Truly the ancient Druids can have known no greater wonders than these.

Then back to the Moot House to sing "Hail the Day that Sees Him Rise (three days late). A rousing experience.