A couple of months ago I told of how my wife and I enjoy visiting cathedrals and taking part in the service of evensong sung daily by choristers and lay clerks. At that time I did not mention that we also sing evensong on the fourth Sunday of each month in St John’s the Evangelist at Pauntley and that, like the cathedrals, we also use the prayer book service compiled in 1549 by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop to Henry VIIIth.
At the time of writing I did not know that a TV programme made by Lucy Worsley would reveal the story of the development of Evensong which is that, after being banned by both ardent Protestants and the Catholic Mary, it was reinstated by Elizabeth the first. Although when her parliament voted on the matter, the vote for Evensong was won by one vote only. Thank goodness that ‘Good Queen Bess’ loved music and that the vote was not overturned because the service of Evensong went on to be recognised throughout the world as one of the high points of human cultural attainment.
A low point however was reported a few weeks ago by German scientists, see link below, who counted the total biomass of flying-insect life within a number of protected nature sites. They were alarmed to find that the population had reduced by 75% over a 27 year period.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809
however, I will briefly summarise, the problem which is this. Because the animal kingdom, of which we are the top of the tree and, like fungi, cannot make our own food, we wholly rely on the plant kingdom to use sunlight and water to make food for us. Because insects pollinate about 80% of plants (as well as recycling nutrients and being a food source for birds) our own lives depend on them. Without insects our food cannot be produced and that is bad news.
However, we can end the year on an optimistic note because Advent is a time for looking forward. It is also a time for us to choose whether to see life as being about global destruction, social Armageddon and personal despair, or about deciding to see the birth of a baby as the first step to an understanding that we are each born so that we “Might have joy”. There is a lovely carol, “Joy to the World”, and although my favourite remains Adestes Fidelis, (O come all ye faithful) I do hope Joy to the World is one of the hymns we shall sing at Pauntley at 9:30 on Christmas Morning.
Talking of Christmas morning however, reminds me that as a child I always wondered how Santa got down the sooty chimney, and how he could complete his journey in just one night especially as he had to eat mince pies and have a drink. Being Methodists we gave him water but were convinced he’d probably get something stronger from the Anglicans and Catholics. Later on the abstemious nature of my childhood was challenged, especially after reading that Jesus’s first miracle was to change water into wine. Of course in that era, fermentation was a way of ensuring that water was fit to drink, but even so arguments relating to the virtues and vices of alcohol continue to this day.
Recently my mind was being very mischievous, and it started to put together jumbled bits of ideas as to why it was, that Mary and Joseph were in a stable on the night of the baby’s birth. We hear that ‘on the same night Shepherds saw angels singing,’ but why, I wondered, did no one propose a toast?
Was it maybe, because there was no rum at the inn?
View from the Pew 