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A child shall lead them
I DO NOT give my dentist much to do. (“How are the teeth, John?” “They’re both fine, thank you.”) So I was surprised — though delighted — to be invited to the “naming and blessing” of his granddaughter.
The ceremony, “to welcome Fenella into the covenant of her ancestors”, took place in the Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue. The simple “naming and blessing” took place after the morning service. The latter was conducted, as it is once a month, by the children.
“A little child shall lead them,” said Isaiah.
“Oh no he won’t!” is the pantomime response of the grown-ups in charge of most Christian places of worship. Jews are better at letting children lead than we are.
The service in the synagogue was followed by a kiddush in the hall next door. Bread was broken and wine poured. The blessings over the bread and the wine were said by two of the children. Not every church in the Chichester diocese — or anywhere else in the Church of England, for that matter — has progressed quite that far.
View from the shul
I WAS much impressed by this glimpse of Progressive Judaism. At every service, they pray for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
“Adonai Tzadik, Righteous One, who exhorts us to pursue justice, we fervently pray that a spirit of righteousness may prevail, so that both peoples find the courage to reach a just settlement of their differences. . .”
A passion for justice is a fire in the heart of Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah, the Brighton Progressives’ rabbi. Rabbi Elizabeth, who knows a glass ceiling when she hits one, has said some sharp things about the persistence of male power in the Church of England (The Guardian, “Face to Face”, 28 June). She will have welcomed recent developments.
20/20 vision
HOVE is home to the Sussex County Cricket Club. I was at their ground for a “Twenty20” match, the Sussex Sharks versus the Middlesex Crusaders. It was my first experience of one of these frolics. Fortunately, I had my good friend David Williams, priest of the Rochester diocese, with me. David watches more cricket than I do, and he was able to explain to me the eccentricities of the Twenty20 game.
There was much that demanded explanation. Why were the teams wearing vomit-coloured pyjamas rather than white flannels? Why was there a deafening blast of piped music every time a batsman hit a four or a six? Why the perversity of white balls and black sight-screens?
I took refuge in memories. I recalled a blissful Canterbury day, more than 50 years ago. I was in the cathedral very early. In the deep stillness of the great building — there were fewer tourists in those days — I caught the whispering echoes of centuries of prayer. I stayed to hear the choir sing morning prayer. As they sang an exultant Te Deum, “the things of earth grew strangely dim”.
After the service, I made my way to that loveliest of fields, Kent Cricket Club’s St Lawrence ground. There I saw Colin Cowdrey (“who lived life with a clear eye, a straight bat, and a cover drive from heaven”) score a leisurely and exquisitely graceful century against the Australians. After such a day, the rest of life is something of an epilogue. There is solace in such recollections, but also a piercing sadness.
The poet Francis Thompson understood how bitter-sweet our memories can be. He saw “Jacob’s ladder Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross”, but he watched a great deal of cricket, too.
For the field is full of shades as I
near the shadowy coast,
And a ghostly batsman plays to
the bowling of a ghost,
And I look through my tears on
a soundless-clapping host,
As the run-stealers flicker to
and fro, to and fro:
O, my Hornby and my Barlow
long ago!
Meet reward
I WANTED to cheer aloud in the chapel of Lambeth Palace even more than I did at that Twenty20 match. I was honoured to be there to witness the conferment on Paul Oestreicher of the degree of Doctor of Divinity. (As a Church Times contributor, I rejoiced to see Margaret Duggan receive an MA at the same ceremony.) Paul’s award was in recognition of “his work as a theologian and his ecumenical commitment to peace, reconciliation and human rights”.
As the Archbishop pointed out, reconcilers are often traduced by those they seek to reconcile. In the days of the Cold War, Paul Oestreicher set out to build bridges between East and West, but he was vilified on both sides by those who preferred to cling on to their old enmities. Paul bears the imprints of the cross of nails he wears.
Because I was meeting my wife to go to the theatre, I had to slip away early from the reception that followed the ceremony. Lambeth Palace does not display anything as populist as exit signs, and I had difficulty in finding my way out. Long-dead Primates frowned on me from their portraits as, in mounting panic, I hastened down endless empty corridors.
In the event, I got to the theatre in good time — in more than good time, in fact. As the box office pointed out, we were exactly a year early. Our tickets were for 1 July 2009.
Correctly processed
THE CONSECRATION of the new Bishops of Coventry and Huntingdon in Southwark Cathedral was a splendid occasion. The service began with several long processions.
I was pleased to see that, correctly, “Ostiarius” walked behind “The Taperers” but in front of “The Prolocutor of the Lower House of the Convocation of Canterbury”. So often they get that wrong.
The Revd Dr John Pridmore, a former Rector of Hackney, has retired to Brighton.
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