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WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING?
CHURCH
On Wednesday 4th I led a Quiet Day for 11 members of St Mary Abbot’s Kensington at St Mary’s Convent , Chiswick. The subject was the Psalms – how to use them in daily prayer and how and when they came to be created. St Mary’s Convent is a lovely island of Anglican peace next to the main A4 Chiswick roundabout, the sun shone throughout and one of the participants brought the most sublime salad lunch with smoked salmon mousse!
The following Sunday the new vicar of St Mary’s Abbot’s was inducted and collated (don’t ask me what they mean!) so now I just go along to the Monday lunchtime communion as an “even Christian” (Old English for “fellow Christian”). A bit less pressure. (There is a sandwich lunch after the Monday service; it is where fellowship happens).
On Wednesday 18th I went for a couple of days retreat at my normal Monastery of the Holy Trinity at Crawley Down, near Gatwick Airport. It was a good break. I peeled a lot of apples. Lunch, as always, was wonderful. It was the first time I had had beetroot leaves. Just like spinach – delicious!
On Sunday evening 22nd I went to ‘Moot’ – a small Christian community baed in St Mary Aldermary in the City for a meditative Taize service (i.e. using the music of Taize). tea beforehand and a pint in a pub after. Looking back on this month, you could say that religion was food and drink for me!
TALKS
On Monday 9th I gave the St Cuthbert’s Talk on ‘the Old Testament – History or Myth? ‘ It went very well. You should have received my blog of it. I am particularly excited at having discovered who started writing the history of the kings of Judah – Jehoshophat son of Aliud! We are told he was the court recorder under David, and he was the only one of David’s officials to survive Solomon’s purge of the traditionalists.
On Tuesday 17th I led a discussion on Israel for my HTB Connect Group. Slightly taken aback at how several of them saw the whole question of Israel and Palestine simply through the lens of Old Testament prophecies. On Wednesday 25th I had a discussion in a local pub, the Bolton, hoping that a new group of people might be attracted by the location. Five people came, and we had a useful discussion, but having it in a pub made no difference, though I did enjoy trying a Dutch stout, a bit like Mackeson’s.
WRITINGS
Writing “The Church and the Future” has progressed, but slowly. One of my favourite writing places for writing late is a nearby hotel, the Hotel George, where I write accompanied by a pint of draught Guinness. The bar stays open till 1.00 a.m., so I often get quite a bit done. It’s where I prepared my talk on the Old Testament to send out as a blog.
On Wednesday 23rd I drove to Hackbridge to see Emma and Clare , my website administrator and book designer. In less than an hour we changed my website’s landing page to include my latest events, and got a step nearer to doing a major revision of my book “Discovering Psalms as Prayer”.
POSTS & TWEETS
Here are some of my posts this last month on facebook.revandybooks:
Secret London – the massive east window of St Margaret’s Westminster made in 1509 to celebrate the betrothal of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon. Amazing history!
Cheap n cheerful – Asparagus pasta, so simple: asparagus, garlic ,cream and parmesan.
Saints alive – 12th century abbess Hildegard of Bingen, with actual music she composed
Amazing Bible – eyewitness account of the brutal death of Jezebel
Dhammapada – earliest Buddhist scripture: the only way to overcome hate is love.
Finally, I have finally arrived in the 21st century – I have bought a Samsung smartphone. Particularly for our Japan holiday, but I think it will really help me with social media.
FILMS and MUSIC
On 30th Linda and I went to the Dior exhibition at the V&A. We were very impressed by his designs, less so by those fo his successors. His original “Bar Dress” is great. Dior wrote, “a dress is a piece of ephemeral architecture, designed to enhance the proportions of the female body.” We also popped into the Mary Quant exhibition. It is what Linda grew up with. Classy.
A week later we went to a film in a local garden, courtesy of our estate agents TLC. We saw the classic 1955 Disney film ‘the Lady and the Tramp’. Everyone of a certain age remembers the two evil cats, Si and Am= “We are Siamese if you please..” Iconic. I was surprised they only were in the film for five minutes. It was lovely sitting out on a pleasant September evening watching a film right out of memory lane.
On 20th Linda went to spend the weekend with her parents in Plymouth, and I saw “For Sama” – a home-made video of the fate of Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria. Sama was the baby daughter of a journalist and her doctor husband who stayed in the city to the very end. After the regime had bombed eight hospitals, only one remained, In the final twenty days they admitted 6,000 wounded people and conducted 890 operations. It was the UN who finally got them out. Very sobering.
A week later we saw the filmed live performance of the original one woman show “Fleabag” – funny, filthy and fabulous!
And we have of course been transfixed by the high drama of Parliament this month, watching it on ‘Parliament live’”. The Book of Proverbsin teh Bible is quite relevant, e.g. 28.15: Like a roaring lion or a charging bear is a wicked ruler over a poor people.
WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN?
Here are some dates for your diaries. All the meetings start at 7 pm. If you have any queries, do drop me an email.
Monday 11/11 ‘The Book of Job’ performed by the Earls Courtiers with organ music for the interludes. Also I will launch the revised edition of my ‘Job’, to include a version which can be used in Bible study groups.
Monday 9/12 Making Sense of the Bible – the book of Revelation.
TRIP TO ISRAEL 16th – 27th March 2020
A reminder of what the trip to Israel will consist of:
visit the splendid new Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv;
three nights in Nazareth, exploring Galilee and life in a 1st century village;
travel through the West Bank, two nights in Bethlehem and a trip to Masada;
five nights in Jerusalem, a walk from the Mount of Olives to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre plus a day visiting the splendid Israel Museum (archaeology, history, art).
JOIN THE GROUP!
I am starting a discussion group on my Facebook page called “Spiritual Exploring”. I would love it if you signed up for it. You can log in on the landing page of my website biblenbrief.org. It is a closed group, so we can have some serious and safe discussions. My aim is to have a discussion each month on a specific topic, such as “Has the word “God” passed its sell-by date? Can you suggest alternatives?”
Do log on and tell me what you think.