Quick Thought

Why is church designed for retired people?

A dawning sense of horror

I've just had a bit of a shock.  Going back to my suite of rooms tonight, I was tidying my clothes.  I noticed that my Badger Tribute outfit from earlier today looked rather like it had a tyre mark on it.
At first, I just thought that Alfric had gone in for realism to a really impressive degree.
Then I realised where all the black and white furry cloaks for today's ceremony had actually come from.
I am now speechless with horror and may well post no more.  At least, until tomorrow.

The Spirit of the Badger

That's one of the distressing things about this time of year.
As the days lengthen and warm, the boar badgers roam afield looking for sows.  Old Brock is a randy old beggar and no 60 mph speed limit will act as a warning to him.  So every early Spring, the Beaker Folk become a little sad about the black and white fuzzy bundles laying on the side of the road, or squashed flat in the middle.

So today we celebrate the "Spirit of the Badger" festival.  A whole day of celebrating Brock the Badger, and wishing him well and safe passage - either across the A421, or on his way to the Badger Afterlife, as the case may be.

We're interweaving the Spirit of the Badger around our celebrations of "Saint" Thomas Cranmer.  Seems quite appropriate, as badgers and Cranmer alike have met early ends at the forces of oppression - respectively "Bloody" Mary and the Motor Car.  And both have a tendency to black and white.

So we wear our black-and-white capes for the day with pride, as we say "Goodbye Brock".  And try not to get run down on the way to the White Horse for a celebratory, solsticial Quick One.

Celebration of the Martyrdom of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, 1556

In these troubled times it is good occasionally to remember those that have struggled through even harder ones.  We wouldn't necessarily see eye-to-eye with Cranmer on many things.  Being a Cantabrigian, after all, he was probably emotionless, intellectual, cold-eyed and inclined to treachery.  But we can forgive someone that, when he produces such sublime liturgy as the 1549 Prayer Book.  A work providing for flexibility, with not a word spare: with Collects so short and pithy that people could even have spared the time to listen to them.  A masterpiece.

Today being the anniversary of ++ Cranmer's "birthday", I would ask that certain decencies be observed.  In particular, we shall not be lighting any bonfires.  I know we like to light them on big occasions, but it would be on the tasteless side.  Likewise cries from my fellow Oxonians of "3-0 to the team in Dark Blue" will be frowned on.

And we are left to ponder.  It seems that the Roman Catholic Church continues to be able to announce that its favourite sons and daughters are saints in these modern times.  Yet although the Church of England seems happy to announce that it will hold celebrations and festivals, and continues to refer to those canonized in pre-Reformation times as "St Mark", "St Sebastian", "St Cuthbert" etc, apparently it does not do so for those after the Reformation. Cranmer, for example, merits a Lesser Festival in Common Worship.   Does this mean the C of E no longer regards itself as able to decide?  Or did Saints stop with the Reformation?  For truly, if any saint of the Church deserved the title, then Cranmer - liturgist, martyr, and founder in a way that Henry VIII wasn't of Anglicanism and its heritage of language - surely does.  Even if it would have annoyed him.

Pouring out Perfume John 12:1-8 Revisited

Or maybe it's all about commitment.  Maybe a year's worth of perfume is all Mary has.  Saved up for a whole lifetime - poured out in a moment.  A last farewell to a loved rabbi, teacher, miracle-worker - not yet seeing beyond the grave to the early-morning garden?  Was Mary one of the various Marys in the garden that Sunday morning?  Who knows - there were enough of them about.  But the sweetness of her commitment has hovered in the air over 2,000 years of hurt and scandal and failings.  She just gave what she had.  Go thou and do likewise.

The Rites of Spring

Well I think everyone's recovered from the Equinoctial Festivities now.

Never in the field of alt.worship can so many people have had just such a bouncy service.  Certainly the first time we've had a procession into the Moot House of people on Space Hoppers.  Touch of class there, for sure. Although it is rather tricky for the acolytes to bounce along while carrying those candles.  A couple of nasty wax burns is the price you pay for devotion.

Thanks to Hnaef for getting that bouncy castle into the Moot House.  Everyone had a lovely springy time during the Getting Rather too Close for Comfort of Peace.  Although on the bright side, all that kissing and hugging was rather damped down by the Spring Onion that we passed round during the Allium Dei.   An interesting and creative thought, although it does seem to be repeating.  The price you pay for authentic, traditional worship, I guess.  Also it did cause rather a lot of choking and gasping for water during the singing of "God is rather nice".

Once again, Hnaef's Equinoctial Tightrope Walk went horribly wrong. I'm thinking that we should now regard pulling the Executive Arch-Assistant Druid out of the duck pond as a set part of our equinoctial liturgy.

Well the sun's over our side of the equator now.  The days lengthen apace - the lengths of the days now already being longer than the nights for various wacky astronomical reasons.  And every day in every way it's a little warmer.  On the down side, Pouring out of Beakers is a little earlier every day now.  But hey - it's Spring!

And now I must retire to try and remove this very large spring I rather unwisely attached to my feet to do my Zebedee impression.

Sport Relief

In case you were wondering, this is the right place for Beaker Folk. 

This site is wearing a Man Utd strip for one day only as a "Shirt of Hurt".  If you have the money and the heart for the Sport Relief cause, go give.

Quantum entanglement on the Macro scale

Fascinating piece on Entangled States about macro-level quantum entanglement.  The ability to force one entangled entity to "choose" which state it's in by measuring its entangled quantum partner.

Generally I have no trouble with telling people what to do.  But we have serious problems sometimes trying to get Beaker People to make up their minds when we have no preference ourselves, which is why there are so many voting doors in the Moot House.

But now I have the answer.  We've borrowed old Mr Schrodinger's cat from down Mill Lane and when Beaker People are dithering we get the cat entangled in their Arran sweaters.  Then we measure the cat, and the Beaker person concerned has to make up his or her mind.

Stop me if this is overly technical.

But we are actually suffering from the after effects of these quantum entanglements.  Once entangled on the quantum level, it becomes very hard to separate the cat's behaviour from that of the Beaker Folk.  Last night, for example, we had to retrieve Wierdgulf from a tree.  Yellbert became stuck in a drainpipe while chasing a vole.  And Lavender has taken to playing with a ball of wool in the library.

Gather Ye Rosebuds....

.... or as the Poet Horace put it, "Carpe Diem". I hasten to add I am neither a reader of Horace nor of Herrick.  Although I am sure they were both great chaps in their own way.  No, I am a reader of PG Wodehouse, and these are quotations of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves - referring to the poets Horace and Herrick.

But how true it is, nonetheless.  Yesterday morning dawned clear, sunny - a beautiful blue sky over the South Midlands or, if you prefer, Northern Home Counties.  A day to rejoice in, to be glad that one is alive.  A day to sing out for joy to God.  But, as the Bard of Avon put it:

"Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:"

But the trick, surely, is to enjoy the glorious morning afore the sun ends up with egg on his celestial face.  Don't let the thought of the later clouds bother us while we gather rosebuds, make hay while the sunshine, seize what day there is.  For sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.  Consider the lilies, and go and do thou likewise.  Don't worry too much about the bridges ahead - we can burn those when we come to them.
 
As the prophet Arkwright put it, "If I can help someb-b-b-b-body as I travel along..."  then I will have made something of the day. 
 
And as another poet said,

"Jenny kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss'd me."

Or, to revert to the Master one last time - as the Prophet Fink-Nottle said, ""It's a beautiful world, P.K. Purvis."

Worship leading - Prayer

You know, the Prayers for Other People and the World  (or "Intercessions" to give their posh name) can be an awkward piece to get right in any fellowship.  The knowledge that Coffee is hanging in the air gives an air either of impatience or foreboding to the whole thing.  And yet you're supposed to be standing between the World and the Divine - calling the One into the Other to make things happen.  Or something, depending on your theology of these things.  So to give you some creative help, here are some ideas.  Some may work for you, some - well who knows?

1.  Instead of having the usual boring prayers from the front, ask everyone to join in with their own contributions.  If you're middle-of-the-road Anglicans you'll enjoy an unusual and rather wonderful 5 minutes of silence.  But if you're at the more charismatic end of things, you may even find people preaching whole sermons during this time.  I've know one "spontaneous" contribution that included 3 points, a summary, a handout of the prayer with footnotes giving the biblical references and an altar call.  It can also be a handy way to find out about new and interesting places where nasty things are happening.

2.   All-together spontaneous prayers not your thing?  Then why not break everyone up into small groups and ask them to discuss - or even to pray - together.  Give them some starters - maybe "who's got a condition they'd rather not talk about" or "who'd like to share something that will embarrass a close relative" and away they'll go.  Or not.

3.   Ask everyone to write one prayer out - one thing they really want to happen in the world - on a square of paper.  Then light them all in the fireplace and.... no, sorry.  I've got that confused, haven't I?

3(a) What I meant was - and then read them out prayerfully.  You may have to apply some discretion.  If anyone's wishing any actual physical harm on anyone else in the fellowship that's not great.  But I see no harm in prayers for character in Soap Operas - Dot's knee or Ken's love life or whatever.  After all, prayer's gotta be good in general, even if it's meant to be directed for the good of imaginary people.

4.  Many churches have a prayer list for ill people.  And then they have a prayer list for dead people.  Followed by the list for people who've been dead for a while.  And it's a depressing fact in many cases that people move gradually down the list.  So why not have a prayer list for people who are better than they are?  Then some people will move up the list.  OK, you're not going to be expecting people to do a Wigan and go up all four divisions - but maybe just up from "not well" to "well" would be nice once in a while.

5.  Build on the list of unwell people.  Many people in your fellowship won't know them, as they don't make it to meetings as they're not well.  So why not pray for other people who you don't know?  Maybe pray for a list of people from the phone directory each week, or day, or month according to your worshipping patterns.  Better still bring a phone directory back from your holidays, and pray for the people in that.  Then every week there will be people in another part of the country being mysteriously blessed - and they'll never know why.

6.  Pray for Richard Dawkins.  Not for him to be converted - then he'd only go to heaven and hate it.  Just pray for him to have a nice day.  And then if he does, you've won!

Programme for the Nativity of Glenn Close, 1947

10 am - Reversals of Fortune

12 noon - Dangerous Liaisons (led by the Fertility Folk)

2 pm - Stepford Wives (a talk from those faithful women who go to church meetings every night, do charity work all day, raise four perfect children, have immaculate houses and give endless prayerful support to their husbands).

4 pm - 101 dalmations (although, due to a shortage of dalmations, a fair number will be mongrels and labradoodles)

Please note that Bunny Boiling is against Beaker principles.  Whatever some may have whispered in the past.