It's as Simple as That!

 

I do not usually post other people's photographs in my rambling columns, but this image of a genuine letter to the Financial Times was too good to ignore.

Tempus Non Fugit

Only three days of August remaining and these columns have not uttered a word of late.  A sense of guilt, or is it neglect, crept over me when I counted the days on the calendar and realized that I had not posted since the sixth day of the month.  Yet it seems longer than that, for August has a tendency to drag its heels every year.

As previously reported the east end of the island is under siege.  But so is any tourist honey-pot during the height of summer.  And for those of us who attempt to live routine lives when all around them are intent on frenetic pleasures the key obstacle to doing so is the traffic.  Highway traffic, of course.  It took my daughter an hour and three-quarters to drive home from Riverhead yesterday - a journey that ordinarily takes less than half that time. And a simple plan such as driving to the next village has to take into account long tailbacks and dangerous driving on the back, country lanes.

Journey times aside, it is also cars and the number of cars that keep me from my loves of fishing and boating at this time of year.  For even in the remotest places, by beach, lake or creek, there are cars carrying visitors, picnickers and others enjoying all that the great outdoors can offer.  And why not!  Good luck to them!  I hope that the weather gods smile on them for the short remainder of their vacation, and on me next week when I take up a fly rod and drive effortlessly to an empty stretch of water.

Aestas Fugit

On the fourth day of August it was quite extraordinary how the air and the social atmosphere had changed. Oh, we’re still enjoying (if that is the word) mostly fine days and warm sunshine, but when I rose at 5:55 that morning there was an unexpected coolness and total absence of humidity. Dare I say it – a light touch of autumn in the air.  Of course all this had changed by the time I arrived at church an hour and a half later, but it still left me wondering where part of the summer had gone.  I shared these thoughts with a parishioner after the early service of Holy Communion (a dyed in the wool hunting and fishing man) and his eyes gleamed.  Yes, he said. And the geese are moving early. Taking this to be some kind of code I merely nodded.  But I knew what he meant.

Socially we are at the apex of the summer season and the remaining days of August will be different from all the rest of the natural year.  For the creature known as the “August Renter” (aestas pensio) has arrive.  Aggressive in car and many other observable traits; interesting plumage; a disbeliever in standing in line and many common courtesies; agitated in the cause of enjoying their temporary habitat and their vacation experience (sic.) 

Oh yes, the geese are moving early.  Perhaps not early enough.

Mixing Sacred and Profane

 

Before the “rediscovery” of the Gospel Procession in the twentieth century, and allowing for diverse and obscure old church customs when the Book of Gospels was carried around fields and up hills, the Gospel and Epistle was read in church from an ambo or lectern.  And before Georgian and Victorian church craftsmen fashioned eagles out of brass or wood, such an ambo would be of various designs and ordinarily made out of stone.  Most of these were summarily ejected from English church buildings during the Cromwellian vandalism, and it is of one of these ambos that I write today.

The church of St John the Baptist in the village of Crowle, Worcestershire, is a mishmash of architectural heritage.  Its origins are twelfth century but many alterations took place over the following three hundred years and there was a complete rebuild in the nineteenth century (which remarkably kept the earlier design and integrity.) 

On a sunny summer’s day the erstwhile Vicar of Crowle, one Edwin Crane, was walking his dog and smoking his pipe in the churchyard when he decided that the lump of stone in the overgrown corner needed to be examined.  Now I made most of that up, but it is certainly true that in 1841 the vicar arranged for the restoration and mounting of this discarded ambo.  After much cleaning it was mounted on a new pedestal of five marble columns.

This ambo dates from the thirteenth century and is carved from smooth grey limestone with various leaves, grapes and vines decorating its front and sides.  Aha!  Eucharistic symbolism?  Not at all, for a bearded figure with raised arms and grasping a lower vine invites a comparison with Bacchus.  And its gets better or worse, depending on ones appreciation of medieval history. Under the supported vine branch is an inverted lion’s head – the lion being the ancient symbol of the devil.

Modern church furnishings are so dull and boring, are they not?

 

On Your Bike!

In over a quarter of a century of ministry I have consistently come into contact with funeral rites – the majority of which have been mono-chromatically uninteresting.  For when a person dies the undertakers take charge, and the final journey is by hearse or limousine to a place of committal, accompanied by a small cadre of black-coated acolytes a few of whom, while all professional, look for the first opportunity to light a cigarette under a distant tree, out of sight of the  mourners.

There are more fascinating rites in the world.  In parts of sub-Saharan Africa it is customary to cut a hole in the wall of the house through which the body is removed.  The hole is then sealed to prevent the deceased from remembering the way back to the living.  Likewise the journey to the grave is done in a zigzag manner so the soul cannot find its way back.

Water is important in many traditions.  In the Hindu customs of India the body is cremated on an open raft on the banks of a river, and then floated away.  Native Hawaiians believe in water burials when the body or ashes are given back to nature via the ocean.  And as for the Zoroastrians insisting on funeral rites involving water, sand, bull’s urine and the presence of a four-eyed dog (one with two dark patches above the eyes,) well that is another study in itself.

In gentler vein:   I read that a funeral home in Eugene, Oregon, is now offering deceased cycling enthusiasts one last ride.  A local funeral home offers what they are describing as “natural burials.”  This includes a towed ride to a final resting place via tricycle as well as transport to the “great unknown” in a bamboo casket.  The cost of these arrangements is $3,500, and for that money I hope that cycling helmets are included.

Mel Smith 1952-2013

It is a beautiful, if still warm and humid, evening here in Wainscott, and we wait for the promised thunderstorms. After a day of writing for Sunday, chores about the house, errands for tomorrow's parish party, welcoming two house guests and wondering (with more than a touch of envy) how Sandi and Kate are doing in the North Carolina mountains and Cashiers, I had planned to settle back, munch on pizza, pour some wine and read another couple of chapters of Never Look Back by my friend Richard Thornburgh. This is a summer ritual for me, visiting in my mind and through his pages the towns and villages en route to Rocomadour.

Yet I find myself back at the keyboard lamenting the news that Mel Smith has died. “Who?” I can hear some people ask. Mel was a British writer and actor who, in addition to his already established talent in theatre, emerged as a comic genius in 1979 in the BBC comedy Not the Nine O'clock News (1979-1982.) And then many times again over the following forty years. His biographical details are out there in all media for people to read, but I offer a brief personal tribute and apology to him.

As one who has always been interested in media, scriptwriting and comedy, Mel stood out in ways that are always apparent. Look back at the sketches of NotNON and the later, long-running series Alas Smith and Jones (1984-1998) and notice that he hardly ever smiles. Playing the sad clown to other brilliant comedians (Griff Rhys Jones, Rowan Atkinson et al) he performs in the tradition of Tony Hancock and Ronnie Barker, and his varieties of character and costume echo those of Stanley Baxter, Dick Emery and many others.

My note of apology stems from my own comedic and satirical inheritance in 1985 when it was determined that I take over as editor of the church-based and orientated magazine Pharisaios. Listening to early tapes of Mel Smith and crew performing I did indeed borrow themes, ideas and even lines, translating them into church settings and genres. Not too often , but in the last of the recorded Pharisaios albums one sketch may be directly attributed to Mel. Even the accents required.

Requiescat in pace, Mel. I am deeply sorry. May your genius find another home.

The Animals Go Out Two By Two ...

It was not the easiest of days, that slightly humid day in July.  After progressive medical issues we, that is the Lewis family, decided that it was time to send our two remaining cats on their spiritual journey.  This was no spurious decision, for what person rushes into a double euthanasia, but a gradual one as Sebastian (age twelve) and Bela (age unknown but in all probability circa ten) had both reached a nadir in their health from which there was no humane or even practical treatment.

Sebastian came to us unexpectedly in September 2001.  His first few weeks on earth were anything but guaranteed. Born into a feral litter he was discovered, half alive, in a rubbish bin at a local beach by two women out walking.  Then restored to health by a local veterinarian, my family found out about his plight by reading a sign on that very same beach.  I was then informed that we had adopted a new kitten named, not by us but by the vet’s staff – and so Sebastian moved in with us in our small rented house.

Bela’s story is so different, especially as he was once considered to be a she!  In December 2008 we learned that a cat had been abandoned in the schoolyard at Our Lady of the Hamptons, then Kate’s school.  With the permission and blessing of the Principal we intervened in the face of expected snow and took Bella (sic) home for Christmas.  And the New Year.  And into January.  Temporary became permanent, and we took her (sic) to the vet for a full inspection.  And it was then that the technician, inspecting the nether regions, exclaimed, “Look!  It’s a boy!” (Or some such phrase.)  And so Bella became Bela that day.

Sebastian was the cat who, raised with labradors thought he was one of them.  We jokes about him being the “labracat.”  And almost until the end all dogs would defer to him.  Bela was our “mystery cat” who always lived his own life, often disappearing, Macavity-style, within the house.  On occasion, until we blocked off the opportunity, he would climb into the wall spaces of the basement.  And at other times he would sleep for hours in the most unlikely of niches.  Yet now and again, perhaps when the moon was blue and the stars were bright, he would sneak onto the bed in the early hours of the morning, and purr softly at our feet.

Happy memories and gentle deaths.  And if there is a place in eternity where loved animals may gather, I dream that they are there.  Reunited with cats Thomas and Luke – and, as far as Sebastian is concerned, reasserting his authority over Henry and George.

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