Memorial
Work this morning, sorting out some final moderation discussions and paperwork for the Open University, and dealing with other emails. Tidying up as much as time allowed because we were quite possibly going to have the kittens tonight - though it turns out that tomorrow evening is now the likely date. So we are still waiting, with as much kitten equipment we could gather from Sainsbury's over the weekend in place, all shiny and as yet unused.
But this afternoon to meet my friend J and attend a memorial service in Piccadilly for an extraordinary man. And nothing at all like Michael Jackson, for Father Robert Llewelyn (Church Times obituary here) was 98 when he died last year and today would have been his 100th birthday. He was an Anglican Priest of the Anglo-Catholic school and spent much of his life teaching mathematics and subsequently being principal at a school in India, but I met him during my time as administrator of the Julian Centre in Norwich. Fr Robert was in his 90s by then so officially retired from his 'retirement' post as chaplain of the Julian Cell but still very much maintained a presence there. He was both wise and kind, and much loved by pretty much anyone who came into contact with him - and that was by no means restricted to the traditional church 'crowd'. Robert always said 'I like to keep an open mind', and he did.
The service today was at St James Piccadilly which has a good tradition of being open minded too, especially in terms of the events it hosts, plenty of them being in the 'alternative' spiritual and holistic traditions. There was music and there were readings and songs too, including a canticle by five sisters of Fairacres Anglican contemplative convent in Oxford. This was extraordinary in itself - the sisters rarely leave their community house(s) and stood at the front of the church singing beautifully as one in a sustained but muted tone (as generally used by nuns singing the Divine Office). The effect was that of witnessing their performance as though via a distancing device - the wrong end of the telescope. Perhaps fitting as their presence seemed from a different time and their singing echoing down to us in the present as an after-event; like light from a distant star.
A good friend of Robert's had made a DVD about him with reminiscences from various people, many of whom I know from Norwich days. Just a brief section of Fr Robert himself, speaking in his characteristic simplicity of the love of God being like sunshine streaming through the window - you can draw the curtains, choosing to live in the dark, but it's not possible to put out the sun. A traditional enough spiritual metaphor but hearing him say it is still touching. The subsequent reminiscences had me reflecting how hard it is to get a real sense of what a person was really like from verbal reports, perhaps especially if they are of such high praise; it's such a common thing to praise someone who has died as though they were a saint - no matter if this particular person really did have a notable quality of sanctity, serenity, luminescence - whatever one calls it. To borrow a term from buddhism I like to think of Fr Robert as a kind of Boddhisatva who had achieved enlightenment but refrained from entering his nirvana for many years in order to help others. I told him that once and seem to remember he was quite amused.
Not to imply that Fr Robert knew everything or that his mind was still - he had a number of new reading and spiritual enthusiasms even in the few years I knew him. So it seemed appropriate to have this excerpt from Eliot's Four Quartets (East Coker) as one of the readings as rain and sun alternated outside.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning
But this afternoon to meet my friend J and attend a memorial service in Piccadilly for an extraordinary man. And nothing at all like Michael Jackson, for Father Robert Llewelyn (Church Times obituary here) was 98 when he died last year and today would have been his 100th birthday. He was an Anglican Priest of the Anglo-Catholic school and spent much of his life teaching mathematics and subsequently being principal at a school in India, but I met him during my time as administrator of the Julian Centre in Norwich. Fr Robert was in his 90s by then so officially retired from his 'retirement' post as chaplain of the Julian Cell but still very much maintained a presence there. He was both wise and kind, and much loved by pretty much anyone who came into contact with him - and that was by no means restricted to the traditional church 'crowd'. Robert always said 'I like to keep an open mind', and he did.
The service today was at St James Piccadilly which has a good tradition of being open minded too, especially in terms of the events it hosts, plenty of them being in the 'alternative' spiritual and holistic traditions. There was music and there were readings and songs too, including a canticle by five sisters of Fairacres Anglican contemplative convent in Oxford. This was extraordinary in itself - the sisters rarely leave their community house(s) and stood at the front of the church singing beautifully as one in a sustained but muted tone (as generally used by nuns singing the Divine Office). The effect was that of witnessing their performance as though via a distancing device - the wrong end of the telescope. Perhaps fitting as their presence seemed from a different time and their singing echoing down to us in the present as an after-event; like light from a distant star.
A good friend of Robert's had made a DVD about him with reminiscences from various people, many of whom I know from Norwich days. Just a brief section of Fr Robert himself, speaking in his characteristic simplicity of the love of God being like sunshine streaming through the window - you can draw the curtains, choosing to live in the dark, but it's not possible to put out the sun. A traditional enough spiritual metaphor but hearing him say it is still touching. The subsequent reminiscences had me reflecting how hard it is to get a real sense of what a person was really like from verbal reports, perhaps especially if they are of such high praise; it's such a common thing to praise someone who has died as though they were a saint - no matter if this particular person really did have a notable quality of sanctity, serenity, luminescence - whatever one calls it. To borrow a term from buddhism I like to think of Fr Robert as a kind of Boddhisatva who had achieved enlightenment but refrained from entering his nirvana for many years in order to help others. I told him that once and seem to remember he was quite amused.
Not to imply that Fr Robert knew everything or that his mind was still - he had a number of new reading and spiritual enthusiasms even in the few years I knew him. So it seemed appropriate to have this excerpt from Eliot's Four Quartets (East Coker) as one of the readings as rain and sun alternated outside.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning
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