News from New Zealand

As we prepare to celebrate the longest day, in anticipation of howling wind, pouring rain and flash-flooding: spare a thought and a prayer for Christchurch, New Zealand in midwinter.

Church Closure Snow Line

Once again a dreadfully cold night is forecast over England. A night to remember those without log fires, central heating or, indeed roofs.

But after last week's outbreak of service cancellation and poor turnout, some fellowships are getting their cancellations in early to save their congregations turning up to find a locked door. Or the ministers having a total attendance of 4 if you include the Godhead (or 2 for Unitarians). So I'm glad to offer this early-warning service for church closures.

St Botolph's, Little Gibbering - Baptism cancelled due to frozen font.

St Vitus's, Skipping-Round-the-Mapole: Unable to light tea lights due to temperature below the flash-point of paraffin wax.

Benefice of Great Unease with Much Trembling: service will go ahead, as the congregation has been snowed into the church since last Sunday.

Chitterling Methodist Church - So cold it's snowing inside the chapel.

St Pingu, Little Sense - Door frozen shut

St Bernard, Little Hope - Door frozen open

St Nanook, Upper Blizzard - Bellringers frozen to ropes

Great Chattering in the Pews - The heating broke down. In 1765.

Bogwulf Fundamentalist Baptists - Service is on. Underfloor heating will be set to maximum. To remind the congregation of what to expect for all eternity, if they're not careful.

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 The Salvation Army
Crisis
Barnado's

Gathering Winter Fuel

Foolishly, as it turns out, we burnt a lot of our firewood on Imbolc as we celebrated the forthcoming end of Winter. A little early, as I now realise.

So we're needing to proclaim the Beaker equivalent of Martial Law here. Or, for the group of people on retreat this weekend who are members of the Jedi faith, Martian Law.

So can everyone get out and find every bit of available combustible material to keep the stoves going? Fresh-cut wood is not going to help, so please leave the Avenue and the Spinney standing.

I'm thinking more of any more old pallets from Marston Gate that may be laying around, the half-burnt remains of tea lights that we can melt the wax out, briquettes pressed out of doily lint, and any old tyres you can find? I know they're a bit smoky, but in environmental terms they're actually more sustainable than wind turbines. And nobody's going to know it's us burning tyres, as it's going to be too cold for anyone to come out and check.

I'll be in my office knocking up a quick "Liturgy of it still being Winter". I love the changing of the seasons - but why does it have to be so changeable?

Frost Frenzy

Please can Beaker Folk note that this morning's "Celebration of the Winter" ceremony will be held in the Moot House. It's a bit too parky outside.

Eternal Optimism

You never see the moment the first daffodil shoot appears above ground level. They sneak on you while you're not looking.

And I find the same with first snowdrop or early crocus. They're just suddenly there while you're thinking of something else.

Astronomically we've just passed the point of deepest winter. From now on the only way is up. Whereas from the weather point of view, chances are we've barely started. I've seen no ice on the pond this year - barely the occasional frost. But it doesn't mean that's not all to come. Frost, snow, ice - three months are yet available for all that.

For now, last season's more durable plants are still hanging in there - the hazel, brambles, roses and such-like that hang on to their leaves when the vines and cherries have long lost theirs, and and sleeping and dreaming of sunnier times.

But the daffs and crocuses and snowdrops - they're in action already. No wishful-thinkers, they. They know the next months can be hard but still they push their noses out. Spring's a long way off, but it is coming. The sun rises higher every day. And, tough but lovely, when Spring finally gets here, the flowers will be waiting for it.

Nights Drawing Out

Looking forward to the Summer Holidays, now.

A Busy Solstice

It's been quite a day.

When I posted this morning's comments on the origins of Christmas Carols I was grabbing a quick coffee in between our Marking the Moment of Solstice ritual and our Greeting the New Dawn. And then some bright spark asked - had we got it right? After all, was it last night's dusk that brought with it the threat that the days may never get longer again, or tonight's?

A great dilemma. So we discussed the theology, cosmology and pathology of the whole matter. We noted that today is the shortest day (whatever those strange people who think the 21st is always Solstice may think). And therefore today is the day that the sun should set the earliest (it's not). So we got some models out, and "whiteboarded it", as modern parlance has it. We considered the Angle of the Ecliptic, the Precession of the Earth's Axis and the Law of Unintended Consequences.  And we decided that, overall, we don't know.

So we've held another Act of Darkness Fear tonight, leaving the Moon Gibbon Folk in a total state of terror - not least because the New Moon is due on Saturday. Poor souls, it's one thing after another at eclipse. On top of worrying that the Moon's not coming back, they're panicking that the Sun's not either.

So we're going to be up again tomorrow morning to stand in the drizzle, look south-westward and hope for the sun to come back. But at least this time it's going to rise a bit earlier.

Oh wait. It's not? How does that work then?

Sustainable Wicker Person

Please can Beaker folk note that this year's Winter Solstice will be at half past five on Thursday morning.

This means that the Act of Darkness Fear will be held at sunset on Wednesday in the orchard, followed by the Liturgy of Fear 'n' Trembling in the Moot House. Hi Viz will be Green as befits the solemnity of the season.

I know that it's the Liturgical Shortest Night on Wednesday but please don't use that as an excuse for staying up all night celebrating. The people that did that last year could barely hold their tea lights in the morning.

Thursday morning, hi viz will be Yellow, the colour of the Sun and Coldplay. If we're very lucky the bonfire will burn all night, but if it doesn't don't worry. I'm hoping the new environmentally-friendly Wicker Person will be arriving tomorrow morning. Through new technology, it's illuminated throughout by LEDs and controlled by a computer console. So the good news is that, in future, we can burn a Wicker Person whenever we like, without needing to do all that wicker-gathering and construction in advance.

A Damp End to the Oncoming Winter Festival

It was such a cold, crisp day that we thought it would be a great time for our Oncoming Winter Festival.

So we took the brassieres out onto the great lawn, filled them with burning charcoal, tried to roast chestnuts on them  - then realised our spelling mistake and went back to the garage to get the braziers. Set it all going for later, and then wandered off for the great Liturgy of Kicking Through the Leaves.

Of course the weather turned. Oh boy was that rain cold. And heavy. And wet. Kicking your way through sodden leaves when your hair's soaking wet is no example of joyful worship to set for anyone. We staggered back across the lawn, past the sodden braziers - although, to be fair, the brassieres were still burning well.

We're now freezing cold, the fire won't light (although the underwear on the lawn's even now still going), the heating's packed up, we've had no chestnuts and we're not feeling very keen on winter at all. Roll on Spring, I say.

How Cold is your church? Introducing the Parslow Scale

Brothers (and of course sisters, suitably guided by their lawfully and divinely appointed menfolk) - I am an expert in cold churches. Indeed during the cold snap over Christmas, it was only the warmth of my own assurance that kept me from frostbite when conducting services in Bogwulf Chapel.
But it was Eileen's Northern Liturgy that inspired me.  Just last January I was in Newcastle. Truly the depths of winter. And even so the hardy inhabitants of that city walked around in their vests. Indeed, even their womenfolk braved the Arctic conditions wearying the skimpiest of clothing. So shocked was I that I wandered about after some of them, intrigued to see if they were showing any physical signs of the impact of the cold on their bodies. But eventually a very nice policewoman  asked me to stop and go home. I am pleased to say that she, at least, was wearing full uniform.

How, I wondered, would one categorise the cold in a typical church? And I have therefore created a scale - along the lines of the Beaufort Scale - to classify cold churches.

Parslow 1 - Toasty - The warmth of a modern church with a well-funded oil or gas fund. Or meeting in a hired school hall. Happy parishioners wear shirtsleeves or suitably modest ladies' lighter clothing. There are rumours that the acolytes and servers (if all-male and Anglo Catholic) "go commando".

Parslow 2 - Methodist Church fallen on hard times. Although there is heating, the thermostat is kept on "defrost". Worshippers wear tweeds or suits, pashminas and jackets. Older ladies wear dead animals on their heads that they claim are hats.

Parslow 3 -  Mid-summer. Worshippers wear three layers of clothing. The organist wears fingerless gloves. Plenty of processions (or lively songs in evangelical churches) to try to keep some body warmth going. While people suffer from frost-bite in their feet, the male worshippers of the balder tendency get sun-burn from the radiant heat lamps in the ceiling. People lose the sense of feeling from their feet.

Parslow 4 - Anglo-Catholic 8 a.m Mass. Older ladies in  ski gloves wear animals on their heads, that they claim are hats. In fact the animals are still alive, but in a state of hibernation. The ice in the font/baptistry has to be broken before a baptism. People lose the sense of feeling in their hands.

Parslow 5 - See amid the winter snow  - The church mouse has run himself up a nice cosy jacket out of a preaching stole. In churches of the Anglo Catholic variety, the worshippers huddle round the thurible. In churches of the alt.worship variety, they cluster round the tea lights. In Methodist churches they huddle around the hot-water urn. People lose the sense of feeling in their ears.

Parslow 6 - Gothick - The minister (in a church where they wear robes or preaching gowns) is standing conveniently over the only working hot-air vent. Ageing processes slow drastically, which is why so many regular worshippers live to 100. Smoke from incense is a liquid, which flows beautifully across the floor. The organ keyboard has frozen and the organist is reduced to humming. People lose the sense of feeling in their brains.

Parslow 7 - In the Bleaker midwinter - The temperature is below the point at which candles will no longer light.  It is snowing inside the building. Old ladies in gloves wear animals on their heads that went extinct in the last Ice Age. The words sung by the choir come out of their mouths pre-frozen. Falling to the ground, the notes can be heard months later when they defrost in the late spring. Bodily functions (of the type that I would be prepared to mention on this web site) shut down.

Parslow 8 - A country church on Advent 3 - Worshippers possess no thermal energy. Entropy is at a minimum (which is why the minister doesn't mind the temperature so much). In Newcastle churches, people start to think about maybe wearing a jumper. Smoke from incense lies, frozen, on the ground.  The treasurer concedes to the church wardens that maybe it's time to think about lighting the boiler.

Icebergs in the Stream - on Baptism in Brooks

I feel, brethren (for speaking of what I am today, this need not concern the sex that is less-equipped for leadership) that I should share with you what I have learnt on the subject of brooks, and baptism therein.

For surely baptism in a brook is more challenging than in the carefully-dug well with which the Frisby Baptists have provided themselves. Even at this time of year when we have been blessed abundantly with rain, sleet and snow, and the brook therefore flows more swiftly and voluminously, like the oil upon Aaron's beard but with a lower viscosity.

But notwithstanding the added volume, and our choice of the gravelly stretch down by school lane, it was still a tricky task carrying out the baptisms. In essence, our candidates had to lay on their backs on the gravelly bed of the brook while I spooned water over them.

It is true to say that we are always blessed in our services. When they are well attended, God has blessed up with willing hearts and ears. When it is just me and the Trinity attending, I am blessed in my adversity. When the congregation's singing is half-hearted and they do not respond I am blessed in pouring myself out as a drink-offering that the undeserving might be edified.

But today I felt particularly blessed. I was delighted to see Edgar and Elinor turning their lives around, and washed clean (once we'd removed the residual water weed from them).

Maybe in the circumstances the 45-minute sermon was on the long side to be preaching outdoors. Edgar and Elinor had gone a particularly strange colour of blue by the end. Eileen and her Beaker Folk passed by as they were processing to the White Horse, and Eileen offered them a draft from her hip flask. "An old Luton remedy against the cold" she called it, so it seemed acceptable. I discovered afterwards that it was brandy. I really must have a word with Eileen - it seems reckless to go offering people ardent spirits when what they really need is the laying-on of hands for warmth. However I followed Eileen's advice that what they really needed was to be got into the Great House by the fire, with blankets, and now they seem much better.

A great morning.

The sun often rises

And so the solstice comes to an end. Oh the relief among the more excitable and less scientific as the world span once more into half-light this morning while we stared, freezing cold, towards the north-east.

You know it's a kind of miracle, even though you know it will happen. The world turns, and it orbits the sun.  And its axis is at an angle and it wobbles. And the days shorten and the nights grow cold. And then the days lengthen and the world grows warm. It's prosaic, it's predictable, it's as regular as clockwork. And yet it gets you there. Every day the sun rises again, as the earth and sun obey the laws of gravity that we can only describe and can't really explain. It's a bloody wonder.

Good and bad news on the Moon Gibbon

Well, quite a Solstice, all things considered. So far, remembering it's not actually solstice till round about midnight and so we're going to have to get up tomorrow and do it all again. But tonight's "Darkness fear" was very moving. Indeed, some of the more impressionable Beaker People are still quivering with terror under the chairs in the Moot House.

As to the Lunar eclipse: the layer of white cloud prevented us seeing the colour of the moon, blood red or otherwise. And that kept the Moon Gibbon folk quite calm. I thought I'd calmed their fears that the Moon Gibbon, enraged, was causing the moon to run red with clanger blood.
And then I came out for a tour of the grounds round about 9am, to find a dead clanger laying on the ground. I got the wombles to bury it, which had a good side - it kept the news from the Moon Gibbon people - and a bad side. The bad side being that the wombles have declared war on the Moon Gibbon, and are trying to gather enough litter to build a rocket. My "non-existence" line on the Moon Gibbon is starting to look a little shaky.

Winter Solstice

It's the shortest day of the year, when earth stands hard as iron and the sun sulks away below the horizon like a teenager disappearing into the bathroom for a 3-hour spot-squeezing session.

If you get a move on you've still time to get down to Husborne Crawley to join us in the Act of Darkness Fear.
Unless you've found this posting some time next year, in a Google search for "Gibbon Moon" or "Hitler's Underpants" or "Water Polo in East Grinstead", in which case it's probably far too late by now. Or unless you live in Fiji, where the concept of "Solstice" isn't terribly important at the best of times.

If you listen very carefully you can probably hear the sound of the Gibbon Moon Folk screaming. Try to pay no attention. They're always like that at Lunar Eclipse, and it's not even started yet. I'm just glad we only get one every few years. If we had one every month they'd be intolerable, whereas generally they're just unbearable.
On an unrelated matter, some people have been asking how my part-time degree in empathy and motivational engagement went at Cranfield University. Well, they said the lecturer got depressed because I kept telling him what a twit he was. So the bad news is, I've been taken off the course. But the good news is that they gave me the degree anyway, to stop me throwing any more books at him.

How are the mighty fallen

The thing about Drayton Parslow is, you may think he's dogmatic and not over-bright. But you have to admire his heart for people and his dedication. He's spent all day out on a rope tied between two trees, learning to tight-rope walk. He has adopted the phrase "narrow is the rope that leads to salvation"  from the rather poor-translated Funambulist's Bible and is trying to get himself fit to lead his new flock.

Seeing him after eight hours, covered in hoar-frost from the cold and bruises from falling off, I eventually said he could put the rope up in St Bogwulf's Chapel. It's no warmer in there, and the floor is stone and his falls will hurt even more. But at least now I won't have to look at him.

However I left him with an alarmed look on his face. Congratulated him on his whole-hearted adoption of inculturation. That's got him worried.

A stray thought

The airport said "they'd never seen snow like it", reports the BBC News in a snowpocalypse story.

"never seen snow like it"? It was white, made of frozen water, and fell out of the sky. Just how abnormal was that? I've seen white snow falling downwards loads of times.

Sense and Sustainability

There's been a certain amount of grumbling about the log fire in my Archdruidical lodgings. How can we  claim to be a sustainable community, some ask, when there are all those logs being burnt? What about the CO₂?

Well you're all wrong. The point is - that wood was grown in the grounds of the Great House, and it's being burnt here. More trees were planted to replace the ones that were cut down to burn. It's all short-term carbon, not like burning nasty diesel or natural gas. It's all part of the circle of life. We even chuck the ashes around on the kitchen garden to spread the potash.

If we used fossil-fuel powered chain saws to slice the logs, we would be adding to the carbon footprint of my log fire. But that's not a problem, because they are sliced up by Beaker People using whatever saws happen to be available in the woodshed.

And the good news for other Beaker People, as you sit shivering in your rooms this evening, is that healthy, wholesome, holy physical exercise will help you to get warm.
So if some one could nip out to the woodshed and split some logs for me, that would be great. I get a toasty study, and you will feel the warm glow of physical exertion. And Mother Gaia will be just that little bit cooler.
Everyone's a whiner. Sorry. Winner. Winner.

An early frost

"April is the cruellest month", wrote Eliot. And in many respects he had a point. April is a spring month, when the strengthening sun taunts the hungry with the knowledge that abundance is just three months away. But then December is a cruel month. It's a more obviously cruel month, of course. But it's still cruel. The bitterness of the frost, the knowledge that, even as it's getting light, it will soon be dark. The 4-hour queues for the Queen Elizabeth Bridge, whatever that is.

The trouble with wild rabbits is their memories are so short. The younger ones don't even remember last winter. They have only ever known green grass, green leaves, green shoots. They look at a grey sky and the weird white crystals that cover grass and don't know what it means. They panic. They think maybe their eyesight has stopped working with colour. The older ones remember that sometimes there is crispy, white stuff on the ground but they don't remember why. So they panic as well.

There's a kind of rabbit folk memory. It says that, from time to time, the days get short and the nights get long and the place generally gets dark and cold. And in these days, says the Rabbit Unconscious, rabbits can die if they're not careful. The  memory is passed down through generations. And at times the bunnies find it unlikely. The ones born in autumn can't even imagine what "hot" feels like, how the sun looks when it's nearly overhead, what young shoots taste like on a dewy May morning. They can get snarky and say that "spring" is just a fantasy that the old ones tell to keep them digging the burrows, to give them some kind of purpose.  Some say it's just going to get colder forever.

But the old ones just nod wisely and tell them, as sure as the sun comes back each day - even when you can't see it - one day it will be warm again, and there will be carrots to eat in the Archdruid's vegetable plot. And that whatever else they do, they mustn't go losing hope and wandering off and getting eaten by the foxes                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

The Annual Darkness Rant

Ragnarök. That's a very Norse sounding word.
It's never nice in Norse-land at this time of year. It gets dark early - i.e. round about lunchtime - and stays that way till April. It's all very well being able to play golf at midnight in June, but that's just the Yin side of Vitamin D deficiency.
So as we crash into darkness (any Southern hemisphere readers will have to bear with me at this point) we know that annual prefiguring of Armageddon. Loki breaks free from his prison, along with his companions Knocki, Flocki, Moomin and Rikki-tikki-tavi, the Mongoose of the Apocalypse. The Bunnies of Night hop across the dark lawn.  Fenris the Wolf swallows the sun, while the Great Gibbon does likewise to the moon. As Valhalla empties, gods and men fight across the face of the earth - a battle none can win, except Skrymir the giant and possibly Wagner the bearded wally off the X-factor.
Small children are mysteriously transfigured into characters with pumpkin heads and the face of George Osborne - rushing from Social Services department to Regional Development Agency and terrifying the inmates. Gimli Gloin's Son sharpens his axe, while Zephyrus, the god of slight breezes, gives us a very insignificant wind-chill factor.
And we face the void - no flowers, no leaves, no Pimms, no sunshine, no swallows, no cricket - at least until next month, when the Ashes can be seen on Sky Sports 1.


I think I'd better have a lie down.

Winter Solstice

And so the shortest day has slipped into the longest night.  For tomorrow - against all reason - the sun rises even later than today.  The pagan festival of Yule, the middest- of mid-winter, is truly with us.
I'm glad we squeezed in the evening ceremony just in time before the snow really started to come down, but it was close.  The traditional running off of Moon Gibbon Folks into the country was definitely cancelled this year, for reasons I may need to come to in a later bulletin.
The Solstice Midnight ceremony may have to be held indoors.  While we are still building the fire-proof Moot House, we will have to hold the Occasion in the dining room.  There's no way we're going out in this.
So maybe there's time for a brief few words.  The winter solstice - or Yule - is the critical time in the Beaker year.  Indeed, we believe that Stonehenge was aligned on the winter as much as - if not rather than - the summer one.  In the midst of darkness and devastation, as the year dies, the Beaker person looks to the west - the direction of the dead - with trembling.  And we look to the east with hope.  Will salvation come from the east?  Every year we look and long.  So far we have not been disappointed - although each year it slips away again.
In Husborne Crawley we have long enjoyed the beautiful Avenue, planted by my forebears on a north-easterly alignment and lining up with the alignment of the Moot House doors, at least it does when there actually is a Moot House.  This year, however, I suspect we shall instead be imagining what sunrise will look like from the Great House.  Still, the snow is the colour of the moon and brings a certain magic to the time of year.  We shall make the most of it and be spiritual and warm.  Could be worse.