Glass

A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heaven espy.

George Herbert is remembered today in England.  It takes a little historical adjustment and width to work out why he is so spiritually significant but he represents the highest of Christian virtues from the least likely of settings.

Most of us who seek to follow Christ in the West struggle enough with the relative riches that we enjoy over against poorer people to whom God directs our gaze through his Son who had nowhere to lay his head.

 

Herbert was simply born to be great.  In an age when connections were everything he was famously and absolutely well connected.  Yet his glory seemed to be in reverse to his earthly prospects.  As his famous poem quoted above reveals he revelled in the extraordinary glory of the ordinary.

 

Here is a picture of the Parish Church he will forever be associated with.  It is only a mile or two from the grandeur of Salisbury Cathedral where his eloquent education might have more rightly been expected to be on display.  It resembles our church's scout hut in dimensions . . .

 

Bremerton Church

Praise God that not every Christian has felt the necessity to measure greatness in terms of greatness.

 

All may of Thee partake;

Nothing so small can be

But draws, when acted for Thy sake,

Greatness and worth from Thee.

Polycarp

Today much of the Church remembers one of the best attested early Christian martyrs.  Polycarp reminds us of the principle our Lord laid down to his Church at Smyrna in the Bible (Revelation 2): Be faithful to the point of death and I will give you a crown of life.

Whatever it takes

Several times in the past week, as the River Thames extended into Chertsey, the Somerset Levels became a new Lakeland and the beach at Dawlish incorporated the former railway the Prime Minister has stood and declared that he/the Government will do . . .

WHATEVER IT TAKES

 

I admit that in first hearing this I felt a little stirred and comforted (though not directly of course, living a few hundred feet above a river).  That may have been its intended effect. 

But then he's kept on saying it and now I'm becoming more analytical.  Because it's nonsense, isn't it?

 

King Canute, despite his supposed error of sitting enthroned on a beach as the tide came in as if he could prevent it, wisely actually said "Let all the world know that the power of kings is empty and worthless and there is no King worthy of the name save Him by whose will heaven and earth and sea obey eternal laws," (Historia Anglorum, ed D E Greenway).  It seems likely he deliberately set out to show he could NOT do 'whatever it takes'.

The problem, of course, is that in the face of powers too vast for politicians to control the simple, obvious thing for human beings to do is to turn to God in repentence and prayer.

But when Mr Cameron says the Government will do whatever it takes he does not in fact mean what he says if, as I suspect, what it takes is repenting or prayer . . .

Hayley Cropper - Happy Days!

At the National television Awards Julie Hesmondhalgh, who acted Hayley's character, picked up - probably quite rightly - an award for such a dramatic piece of televisual theatre.  It brought a very happy ending.  That's what we all want after all isn't it?

Julie said, "We’re so happy with this storyline. We’d like to thank the charities and everyone who helped us with it. And our wonderful writers and storyliners."

 

Ah.  If only.

 

If only, following miserable illnesses, tortured decisions, and the dark, final curtain of death a real person could pick up an award and spread some happiness!

 

My best friend, as a matter of fact, did.

 

Let us look only to Jesus, the One who began our faith and who makes it perfect. He suffered death on the cross. But he accepted the shame as if it were nothing because of the joy that God put before him. And now he is sitting at the right side of God’s throne.