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The animals closest to my heart are our pair of pug mutts, Lola and Lily. Last week, especially on Groundhog Day, I was reflecting on their nature and love and what they teach me for St Francis famously wrote: “Ask the beasts and they will teach you the beauty of this earth”
For Lola and Lilly, every day is Groundhog Day: They: wake up, dance wildly at the joy of a new day, gobble some Pedigree, tear around back garden, bark at Next Door’s dogs, snuggle masters before they go out, sleep, welcome boys home from school, dance wildly, go for walks, gobble supper, welcome me home from work, dance wildly, snuggle, wind down, get in basket, go to sleep. Repeat.
Lola is more Jack Russell than pug. Unlike Lily, whose forebears had the brains bred right out of them, Lola has just enough extra IQ to be mischievous. Who snuck upstairs and chewed Mum’s shoe? Who clamours out the old cat flap at 5am and barks at squirrels? Who gained a doggy ASBO for disrupting a Keble rugby match? Every time, it is Lola, Miss Thinks-she’s-Human.
Lily, the almost-purebred, chocolate coloured one, is wonderfully sweet, naïve and thick. She looks like a seal pup. Lily practices Mindfulness. She lives in the moment. She takes everything as it comes. Every day is Groundhog Day, but that doesn’t stop her waking up every single morning and doing her Dance of Eternal Happiness. Every person who walks in the front door – Bill, a son, a teenage friend, the Deliveroo Guy – is a source of wonder and joy.
So what do those creatures teach me when I ruminate on life and God’s creation? Lily and Lola have such a blissful life. Every day is a joy, they live in the moment, they love me unconditionally and they are not aware of their mortality or that one day it all ends. Thankfully as Christians we have faith that when this earthly chapter ends another one of inconceivable beauty and happiness begins. In the meantime, living in the moment and treasuring each day as something wonderful and special is the way to go. It seems that the pugs have somehow absorbed Jesus words: “Look at the birds of the air they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” Matthew 6:26-27.
The Revd Charlotte Bannister-Parker
Acting Priest-in-charge
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| | Services
—Tuesdays & Thursdays at 12.15pm
Lunchtime Eucharist —
Sunday 12th February 3rd Sunday before Lent 10.30am - Choral Eucharist
Preacher - the Revd Dr Jenn Strawbridge, New Testament Fellow, Mansfield College Music: Lassus, Missa Qual Donna
Giovanni Gabrieli, Jubilate Deo.
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| | Intercollegiate Corporate Evening Service, next Sunday, 5.30pm
Join us for a choral evening service with the massed choirs of ten college chapels. The University Sermon will be given by Tiffany Stern, Chair of Shakespeare and early modern literature at Royal Holloway.
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| | Intercessions Workshop
Sunday February 19th, at 12 noon in the Old Library
Erica Longfellow, chaplain of New College and a regular worshipper at St. Mary's and Claire our Ministerial Assistant, will be holding a short workshop for anyone currently leading or interested in leading Intercessions. This will be an opportunity to share ideas and to consider the role of intercessory prayer in our worship and faith. Please join us if you are able to.
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| | Reflection Morning
There will be a reflection morning on Saturday February 11th, 10.30am-12noon, we are going to be looking at how we as individuals approach the scriptures, there will be a follow-up session on March 11th in which we’ll consider how we might develop our use of scripture. All welcome, coffee and pastries.
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| | | | | | | | Forthcoming Concerts & Other Events
Check out our website and Facebook pages for more events.
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| | Poetry Corner
Sonnet XIX. The merry cuckoo, messenger of spring
THE MERRY cuckoo, messenger of spring,
His trumpet shrill hath thrice already sounded,
That warns all lovers wait upon their king,
Who now is coming forth with garland crowned.
With noise whereof the choir of birds resounded, 5
Their anthems sweet, devised of love’s praise,
That all the woods their echoes back rebounded,
As if they knew the meaning of their lays.
But ’mongst them all, which did love’s honour raise,
No word was heard of her that most it ought; 10
But she his precept proudly disobeys,
And doth his idle message set at naught.
Therefore, O love, unless she turn to thee
Ere cuckoo end, let her a rebel be!
Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)
The second movement in Britten’s Spring Symphony uses Spenser’s lively cuckoo sonnet as its text. It is traditional to write a letter to The Times on hearing the first cuckoo; it is a sure portent of Spring that sweeps northwards as the season progresses. Although February is early to hear the first call, it is not unheard-of; and with Valentine’s Day nearly upon us this poem is appropriate, calling upon Love as it does.
It is a compacted, somewhat roundabout poem, with confusing pronouns. Presumably ‘he’ is the Spring, personified here as a garlanded king; ‘she’ is Love (or perhaps a real woman) whom the Spring is failing to rouse. Add to this the confusion of ‘they’ in line 6 – which refers first to the choir of birds, and then to the woods – and it’s a little hard to unpick. Spring, Spenser persuades us, is the time for love; so ‘unless she turn to thee / Ere cuckoo end’ (i.e., unless you find love before Spring is over), ‘let her a rebel be’ (let her be off and leave you solitary). Is this a ‘now or never’ poem – love me now, or turn away completely? Who is this ‘thee’ anyway – the object of the poet’s affections, or himself addressed in the second person? It is hard to pick a single intention from among the clamouring of the birds, the confusion of the trees, the blurring of distinction between self and the other. The poem has got a touch of Spring fever.
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