Time

The British (though strangely no individual Briton I have met) are quite keen on ancient peculiarities.  We had a dose of them at the Royal Wedding recently when the Archbishop, dressed in finery that threatened to outshine the bride but bespeaking some other century, led the couple in thees and thous, past a betwixt and a wedlock and generally reminded us of the glories, if such they be, of ancient Church of England liturgy. 

You can get an ancient peculiarity daily in Oxford Cathedral (which, were I an Anglican, would be my diocesan mother church).  For Oxford cathedral keeps Oxford time, not Greenwich Mean Time or British Summer Time like the rest of the nation.  So the 11:00am service starts at 11:00am Oxford time, which was five minutes later than London.  So, unless you've adjusted your watch, it will be 11:05 to you.

It's all a bit of odd fun, isn't it?

Mmm.  Yet in the field of human life there are few things more important than than marriage, the public commitment of a man and a woman to stay together faithfully until parted by death.  If there is something more important it might be a service of worship at which humans gather to address, and be addressed by, their God and Saviour.  So why, I wonder, are these things the ones that are anachronistic?  Why make these the museum pieces?

Although, of all the things that happen in Oxford, only the worship of almighty God is stuck in this time warp the real peculiarity is this - that worship of almighty God is the only thing happening in Oxford that will also happen in a New Order of things when time itself is history . . .