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Forgive me for name-dropping. It’s not so long ago that I met author Robert Harris and sat next his wife, Jill Hornby, at dinner who hearing my tales of parish life said I should write a book It shouldn’t happen to a vicar. So in Andalusia last week I read Harris’ compelling page-turner A Soldier and a Spy about the famous Dreyfus Affair in nineteenth century France when the government tried to cover up a national scandal to protect their army generals’ reputations in the face of an outrageous anti-Semitic injustice perpetrated against the said Captain Dreyfus.
On the satellite TV we were picking up reports of the British General Election campaign and the self-serving promises from all parties to make our lives better by giving us minute amounts of extra money in one form or another. If only there were someone who offered values other than bare faced materialistic ones. Could the Christian vision of peace and justice and fairness ever really transcend the economic? Then nationalism rears its ugly head, purporting to care for the underdog, but in the case of the SNP obviously with an overwhelming agenda of splitting the Union. I found the demonising language of we’ll join anyone ‘to defeat the Tories’ tantamount to saying we'll join anyone to defeat the English. What are the ethics of voting for any party determined to divide its own people?
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| | Services this Week
Tuesdays & Thursdays
12.15pm Lunchtime Eucharist
Sunday 26th April Easter 4
10.30am Choral Eucharist
Preacher: Revd Canon Judith Maltby |
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Forthcoming Events
Bampton Lecture Series - 5pm: 27 April: Love Life – God, Community, Practices
29 April: The Jews and Other Others
Moot-7.45pm Thursday 30th April, 7.45pm, in the small SCR in Oriel College, speaker: Revd Dominic Keech, Chaplain of Brasenose
On Anger Student Series - 7.30pm 7th May - The Aptness of Anger 21st May - All the Rage
In Numbers Poetry Series - 7.30pm 27 April : Maths and Language Panel Discussion 6th May: Poetry Workshop |
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Forthcoming Concerts Thursday 14th May 7.30pm Savitri and Francis Grier
Beethoven Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major op 30/1
Bartok Sonata for Violin and Piano no 2
Debussy Sonata for Violin and Piano in G minor
Elgar Sonata for Violin and Piano in E minor op 82
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Student Bible Study Starts Tuesday of 1st week, 8pm, in the Vaults and Gardens |
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Poetry
Competition:
Poems
for Queen Bess
In
1566, Queen Elizabeth I made a memorable trip to Oxford, when she was greeted with
a rich pageant of music, disputations and parades. On 23rd May 2015, the University Church will host a
re-enactment of this day.
Poems
are invited on the theme of “Tudor”.
There are three categories: under 13, 14-17,
and 18+. The winners in each category will receive book tokens.
First
prize in each category:
18+: £50
14-17: £40
Under 13: £30
Winners will be
announced on Friday 8th May. Shortlisted poems will be printed for
display on the walls of St Mary’s, as they were in the time of Elizabeth I, and
poets will be invited to read as part of the celebrations on 23rd
May.
To enter, email smv.heritage@gmail.com by Monday 27th April. Poems must
be original and unpublished. Please
email your poem (max. 40 lines) as an attachment (the poet’s name must not appear
on the poem itself) and include a separate document with your name, title of
poem, age (if under 18), address and email.
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| | | In Numbers
In the early days of Oxford University, the Trivium was at the centre of the curriculum: Logic, Rhetoric and Grammar. The Trivium comprised the lower division of the several liberal arts. Once these were mastered, the student could progress to the Quadrivium, or higher liberal arts. These included algebra, astronomy, geometry and music, and drew on the skills learnt in the study of the Trivium. The humanities, therefore, were inextricable from the mathematical arts.
On Monday 27th April is our first discussion on the relationship between maths and the humanities, beginning with maths and language. First, Dr Jamshid Derakhshan will speak on Logic in Mathematics and Language; Kanta Dihal will explore Rhetoric in writing about science; and I’m going to think briefly about Grammar in the form of the medieval debate poem, The Owl and the Nightingale.
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