They Shall Drink Flat White Coffees, And They Shall Pick Up Worms

It has been a challenging morning liturgy.

Our "Feast of Fertility" was meant to have a simple, symbolic act where each Beaker Person took a worm from the worm tank, and dropped it onto the Holy Square of Soil. There to increase its friability, water retention and humus content, thanks to the leaves we were to scatter at the end of the act.

Instead of which, everybody ended up screaming and retching at the thought of having to hold worms.

Really, this was due to a combination of faux humility and bad planning. The specially designed worm-handling devices were all out on the side. But Hnaef and I were at the back of the queue - making the point that, because we were litirgically last, we are actually first.

And we didn't explain the use of the worm-handling device because, as is well known, people only remember 10% of what you tell them, but 90% of what they do.

If they are told to do it first.

Anyway, it's Burton I feel sorry for. He spent all night going through the compost heap, sifting out the worms with his bare hands. He says it's not so much the ant bites that he really suffered from. More the wasps' nest he found.

Noble Savages

As everybody knows, earlier human beings lived peaceful lives, until Civilisation, Christianity, Captialism and such like evils introduced us to the concept of being in the right, oppression and conquest. The Iron Age Celts, for example, were incredibly peaceful: singing along to gentle lyres and bodhrans, thinking up unexpected ways of pronouncing words, doing everything in threes and just occasionally cutting the heads off their enemies or burning them in Wicker People for strictly liturgical reasons. Clearly the peaceable nature of the Celts was exactly why they lived in hill forts like Maiden Castle. Because that's what you do when everything is peaceful.

'"Here, Llewellyn! If we Celts are so peaceful,
why do I keep having to make this here earthwork higher?"

Likewise - and especially - those early Neolithic farming peoples who spread across Europe bringing with them ploughs and beakers. Surely, thought the archaeologists, they were nice kindly folk, letting campers buy pints of milk from them and singing harvesting songs? And clearly the reason that the people in Europe before them, who disappear from the fossil record at this point, just went off into the woods hunter-gathering and got a bit lost?

Or not. Turns out that they were capable, when they put their minds to it, of killing the tribe next door, children included, and carrying off the young women.

So those Nobel Savages were more savage than noble. Not surprising, really - we know what human beings are like. Why would they be any different all that time ago? And if you want to reflect that this is what ISIS have done to Christians and Yazidis; what Russian soldiers did to East Germany; what some Serbs did to Bosnian Muslims - it's not like it's unusual. People under pressure, and people bashing up against other people, did nasty things. They do nasty things. It's part of being human. To deny it, is to fall into the trap of allowing it again.

A Quotation Springs to Mind, Inspired by Damian Thompson's Article on The "Songs of Praise" from Calais

And His mercy is on those who fear Him

from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm;

He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones

and has exalted the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich He has sent empty away.

He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy

as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever.

In Search of St Bogwulf's Well

Announcement for all Beaker people.

Whoever stole St Bogwulf's Well, please can you return it? It made a right fiasco of this morning's well-dressing. We had to use a paddling pool. Which is not the same thing at all.

Dormition

Dormition of the Theotokos: Theophanus the Greek

I was at first alarmed, and then amazed.
Alarmed by grace being poured in through me
And then amazed at that which I gave out to the world.

Thirty years I wondered and feared
As the tiny being to which I gave life
Grew into life, gave it to others and then gave it up himself.

Two dark nights I wept
Knowing my heart was pierced, my love mocked and broken
That burning life and fearful love was snuffed out.

But on a day of rest, when the earth lay waiting
In the quiet of a garden, he walked again
And the women brought us the good news.

So I have lived long, waiting for him and holding him.
That reckless son whose Spirit flutters one last time in my heart
is now calling me home.

The one I gave room to has prepared a room for me,
And to the one I once gave to the world, I will now bring the world
in prayer, and joy, and hope, until the Age.

New Tolkien Book - "The Shopping List of Isildur" - to be Published

It's the publishing event of the year. After years of research and analysis, a team from Oxford University have managed to publish "The Shopping List of Isildur".

This volume, with just 4 lines of actual text but 721 pages of appendices, in a handsome embossed leather cover, will be retailing for £72.99. It is believed that it represents JRR Tolkien's vision of what Isildur would have sent his squire Ohtar out to buy before the battle of the Gladden Fields.

"From the handwritten note found pinned to Tolkien's fridge after he died," said Professor Trollbane of Brasenose College, "it would appear that Isildur was needing 6 eggs, a loaf of bread, a bottle of Bass ale and a box of matches. The irony is that Isildur never managed to drink that bottle of bass and eat eggs on toast to celebrate his victory, as he was killed by orcs." 

Professor Trollbane is now working on his next recovery of the late Oxford don and author's Middle Earth fantasy - "Elrond's Note to the Milkman". There is a rumour that it may turn out that Elrond, far from being a brave and just ruler, was a racist.

Prescott Turned Gamkekeeper

Putting the indecent assault claim to one side here. I was staggered by the last paragraph, which suggests to me that Ed Miliband was never that bright a choice as Labour leader.

"Mr Miliband had brought the veteran Labour peer in as an adviser on climate change, to help him negotiate the UN climate change summit in Paris."

"So, John - you reckon to reduce the environmental impact of motoring, everybody should have a 2-Jag limit?"

"Oh yes, Ed. that's fair. We are Socialists, you know."

Left-Handers' Day

According to the Guardian - and who knows who we can trust these day? They think Polly Toynbee and alfalfa are good ideas - but, at any rate, in the Guardian's head - today is Left-Handers' Day.

I'm a bit concerned for Burton Dasset as a result. He's off to the Great British Beer Festival. And I'd worry about him getting caught up in a Left-Handed Pride march. All holding their Left Handed flags  with the poles on the wrong side. It's surprising to see so much left-handedness in public, to be honest. Makes me worry that if young children see left-handers in the street, they might think a left-handed lifestyle is something to be emulated.

I do think that the pendulum has swung too far now. When I was a child, anybody who was left-handed was regarded with suspicion. You didn't actually think they were evil, as such. But still, you knew they were different. We were all aware that the left-handers in the Bible were all violent. And it was the people on the left hand that were always in trouble. And if you were a left-handed priest obviously you'd end up with oil everywhere.

We used to know that left-handedness was tolerated in the arts world. Oh and the shock when Paul McCartney came out as a left-handed bass player. My mother wept.

Whereas now you can actually buy a mug with the handle on the wrong side. People are openly left-handed in the street. Even famous sportspeople are coming out as left-handed. Especially cricketers. In cricket, people seem to be applauded just for being left-handed - made special mention of. I blame it on people playing cricket in their pyjamas these days. It's affected their hormones.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to see left-handedness made illegal again. There were terrible times before legalisation. Lefties would have to live out the charades of right-handed lifestyles. Eating and writing with their right hands. Terrified that, at any moment, a smudged sheet of A4 - written in the privacy of their own rooms - would give them away. Worried that, picking up a glass wrong in an absent-minded moment, they would condemn themselves. And beating people with sticks to drive out  the left-handed demons was always wrong.

But I just don't expect it to be normalised. I mean, there's even talk of the Church of England tolerating left-handed priests. As long as they don't actually do anything left-handed. They'll be bishops before you know it.

No, left-handedness is OK in its place. And that place is in the kitchen. Looking at the mangled top of a badly-opened can of beans.

Morris Dancers and Blind Footballers in Mass Brawl

Sometimes I wonder why anyone bothers writing fiction. That is all.

Biretta tip to Bruvver Eccles who RTed this.

NB this could actually be a spoof article and really is fiction. But how can anyone tell anymore? We're just helpless prawns before the power of Social Media.

A Level Results

Is it me or are A Level celebrations not what they were?

With apologies to John Betjeman (Again)

When melancholy August comes to Dibley
And the LEDs are lighted after eight
The wax upon the tea lights goes all dribbly
And liturgical dancing goes on until late
Like the sound of massive hippos
jumping all around the Church Hall
when the music group is singing
something great.