good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this friday the 29th of january it's the very first day of the royal society for the protection of birds bird watch trio of days which i know many of you have enrolled in and there's still time if you look below and uh to sign up and spend an hour somewhere in up your the garden or on your balcony or in a park or wherever you would like and uh then um find uh the list of birds that you see and take photographs uh if you can and if you want to send that to us from different parts of the world then the the link is below send those in to us so that will be a specific canterbury bird watch internationally but if you want to do the rspb thing which is just for here then send that in officially with the the forms that that you'll have but it should be a lovely weekend for that however its forecast here in southern england for tomorrow is not good and so we were going to be with tiger this morning but we thought that we would swap the days around because this is a beautiful morning here so welcome wherever you are and so we've brought uh kemi and the four girl pigs out here here spotty in front of me here and they're having breakfast this morning and there are a multitude of bird feeders here which had birds all over them when we came but then leo came with us and the birds rather flew away and they may come back they may come back and you can hear them round singing but it's beginning to be later in the morning for for feeding time and they'll come back through the day but we've got feeders uh throughout the dealery gardens and uh so we shall be looking at those and seeing what's going on so that they're going to be uh just our company through but from for the moment it's it's our morning with the pigs because we thought saturday was going to be horrendously wet so we've also got some things to reflect about in our dates we have two very strong musical themes and two very strong poetic themes and a host of interesting dates but also we have a reflection which suits this day very well from st mark's gospel so let's begin our prayers oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your light springs up for the righteous and all the peoples have seen your glory blessed are you sovereign god king of the nations to you be praise and glory forever from the rising of the sun to its setting your name is proclaimed in all the world as the sun of righteousness dawns in our hearts anoint our lips with the seal of your spirit that we may witness to your gospel and sing your praise in all the earth blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever [Music] the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen the morning psalm for this 29th morning of the month is psalm 139 and we read some of that now so lord you have searched me out and known me you know my sitting down and my rising up you discern my thoughts from afar you mark out my journeys and my resting place and are acquainted with all my ways for there is not a word on my tongue but you o lord know it all together you encompass me behind and before and lay your hand upon me such knowledge is too wonderful for me so high that i cannot attain it where can i go then from your spirit or where can i flee from your presence if i climb up to heaven you are there if i go down to hell you are there also if i take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea even there your hand shall lead me your right hand hold me fast if i say per adventure the darkness will cover me and the light around me turn to night even darkness is no darkness with you the night is as clear as the day darkness and light to you are both alike for you yourself created my inmost parts you knit me together in my mother's womb i thank you for i am fearfully and wonderfully made marvellous are your works my soul knows well my frame was not hidden from you when i was made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth your eyes beheld my form as yet unfinished already in your book were all my members written as day by day they were fashioned when as yet there was none of them how deep are your counsels to me oh god how great is the sum of them if i count them they are more in number than the sand and at the end i am still in your presence so we turn to our reading from mark's gospel and i'm taking up where we left off yesterday from the 26th verse of chapter 4 and jesus said the kingdom of god is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground he sleeps and rises night and day and the seed sprouts and grows he knows not how the earth produces by itself first the blade then the ear then the full corn in the ear but when the corn is ripe at once he puts in the sickle because harvest time has come jesus also said with what can we compare the kingdom of god or what parable shall we use for it it is like a grain of mustard seed which when sown on the ground is the smallest of all the seeds on earth yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade with many such parables jesus spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it he did not speak to them without a parable but privately to his own disciples he explained everything well of course because the 12 and those who kept them company were going to be those who were given charge of the good news one day to spread like seed throughout the world and for that we give great thanks that lesson that little bit of saint mark's gospel that little parikhabi what two pirikabos really and both of them parables um always reminds me of a hymn that my distinguished predecessor here in the middle of the 19th century dean alford henry alford wrote for harvest time and it's of course a hymn that's used uh at thanksgiving services in the united states but we use it at harvest time come here thankful people come raise the song of harvest home it's not that verse that i'm thinking of it's this one all the world is god's own field fruit unto his praise to yield wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrow groan first the blade and then the ear then the full corn shall appear granto lord of harvest we wholesome grain and pure may be that's what the hymn book says in fact alfred wrote we ourselves our god's own field fruit unto his praise to yield that fits really better with the parable as jesus tells it and with the parables that we've been hearing him tell over the past few days in st mark's gospel beginning with the long parable of the sower and the different kinds of soils which receive the seed as it's planted in the good earth and finds either space to root or finds itself prohibited by the stones that are beneath the ground or the thistles and thorns choking the young seed as the shoot sprouts and all of this once again becomes a capacity to be good soil ourselves for receiving the word we hear at the end of the parable about the mustard seed that jesus spoke to the crowds and never spoke to them without using a parable he didn't only speak in parables he but he didn't speak without using a parable as they were able to understand and hear but with the disciples after he began to explain but as we said yesterday every parable and one of these today is the simplest parable of all what is the kingdom of heaven like it's like a mustard seed no story except for what can happen to that mustard seed you like i as a child would have been given a damp piece of flannel and and some mustard and crest seeds and put them on window sills and watch them grow up it was an early lesson in horticulture but jesus uses words of seeds and garden plants and plants from the landscape around him as we do and seeds are the order of the day at this time of bird watch also the order of the day in times of frost and cold for nourishment for those creatures that we need feeding but jesus of course is talking about a very different kind of harvest the harvest within ourselves we ourselves are god's own field fruit and to his praise to yield and he traces as dean alford did in his hymn the development of the seed he talks about someone planting seed and going to bed night and day and the season unfolding and the rhythm of our daily office and the rhythm of the days and nights and the rhythm of the seasons are all interwoven in the way in which we receive god and praise him in his creation but also in the characters of that which is created whether plant or creatures or humanity and all are asked to be fruitful and we are asked to be fruitful body mind and spirit and jesus gives us little parables not only to hook on but to grow used to making our own parables because he never says the kingdom of heaven is he always says the kingdom of heaven is like and gives us an image or a word or a story and we can create those for ourselves from modern life in the same way but everything tends towards fruitfulness and good growth creativity in partnership with the life that our creator has given us and the spirit which the anointed messiah has released for us by his own giving of himself in all its wonderful humanity and all it shows of the gifts of his divinity as far as we can take it and in the growth of our own journey and our own soil receiving that word well this is a weekend we shall be considering if we're doing the bird watch life and growth and different kinds of weathers if we're to believe the the icons of the weather on on my screen this morning was showing snow and rain and wind and weather like this still and blue skied and winter weather and the plants just having their winter sleep but some already flowering and beginning to sprout and the pigs here growing and being nourished well on this day let's do some historical dates first very quickly because i've got four very important ones i want to mention um in 1856 queen victoria on this 29th of january establishes the victoria cross a decoration for valor and for bravery in 1874 john d rockefeller the great philanthropist was born another kind of creativity encouragement through giving of resources in 1899 the french stroke english painter alfred sisley died and his wonderful colorful paintings remember we remember in 1840 on this day the first governor of new zealand william hobson who was a co-author of the treaty of waitangi between the crown and the chiefs of the maori nations there he arrived in the bay of islands on this day and we give thanks for the whole life of aotearoa new zealand and the pacific islands around the polynesia and pray for the church there on this day on this day in 1820 king george iii died he had been suffering from periods of of mental instability and in the end had had to give over to a regency for almost 10 years of his son the prince region but he had at that time been reigning for almost 60 years and that was the longest reign until now of course in english history and uh then um the birth and i say this because of local connection of lord nelson and lady hamilton's daughter horatia i only say that because next door as i've said before the first ellen l nelson who inherited a title and a grateful bequest from his nation on behalf of his brother who was shot at trafalgar he was living here as a cannon of canterbury cathedral so horatio nelson became a guest here quite often uh and now let's go to our musical things and our poetic things because those are the ones i want to deal with first of all in 1996 on this day the theater the opera house in venice la finitre burned and uh was largely destroyed it has since of course been gloriously rebuilt and uh out of the ashes as has risen something wonderful we ourselves in i think 2014 in january went there in that elegant still 18th century kind of form of the lovely auditorium and saw performed there la clemenza di tito one of mozart's operas and enjoyed that the act act one ends for those of you who know it to remember with the with the burning of the capital in rome of course i'm talking about and uh say the flickering of the light lit the auditorium at the end of that and we enjoyed that even very much on a winter's night in in venice i also remember though after it's burning finding that the venetians who could not do without the music of opera to help their own creativity had created another opera house made of an enormous and strong almost like a marquee on the tronchetta and going down there through the january fog and mist in the vaporetto in order to see maria de rojan a donizetti opera performed there and hearing that's all rarely done because it needs three really first-class tenors but that night in the the venetian winter was a wonderful time to to see that and and received the the encouragement of the venetians themselves who just adored the opera and it was local people really because it was the depths of winter that tourism hadn't started but of course now we pray for all these areas in lockdown and they are not really within our compass also on this day frederick delias was born an english composer and but he lived most of his life in france and he took inspiration first of all from chopa yesterday taverner john taverner took inspiration he said to begin with from mozart's magic flute taken there to see it by one of his aunts but delias began with chopper but then developed a style all of his own now what i want to say about delias and of course we can think of his beautiful music of on hearing the first cuckoo in spring or the lovely music in in the village romeo and juliet or or the summer night by the river or all of those things but what i want to say about him is that in uh 1968 in september of 1968 sitting at home on a sunday evening the the long vacation was still happening and so i was there with my mother and father and on the television in black and white was produced i think the second of ken russell's omnibus films the first had been about elgar and had been wonderful the second was called a song of summer and it was about delius but not his whole life just the last little bit where eric fenbie and really is his story that's being told had read about the fact is a young man who read about the fact that this poor composer had lost his eyesight and was unable to get his works down on paper and he offered to be his emmanuensis to go and be with devious and to hear delias trying to dictate to him without any kind of recording apparatus or anything else uh the music that fenbie had to write down or play on the piano and say is this what you mean and the the tensions and the rages but at the same time the creativity which finally develops between them it was a wonderful thing to watch and if one wanted the sense of another one human being being the eyes and hands and ears of another then this with delius's wife uh being nearby loving the fact that delius is composing again and perhaps the uh the the summer of all that and i'm remembering it back so i found this morning that you can still watch it on youtube if you look it up and i certainly intend to do that because i haven't seen it really since then but i do remember them carrying delius to the top of a high mountain because he wanted to sit there and feel the golden sunlight shine across him and still have a sense of that in his body and that kind of creativity one to another is something that we want to do for each other at the moment two poets today um first of all uh amusingly um we've got the poet edward lear who actually enjoyed writing uh almost nonsense and spotted coming up to hear it nonsense poems because the piggy wigger appears in this one and i'm only going to read one but actually it gives us a sense of how we remember poetry and also hymnady and spirituality from rhythm here we are you'll know it well you can say it with me the owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat they took some honey and plenty of money wrapped up in a five pound note the owl looked up to the stars above and sang to a small guitar oh lovely oh my love what a beautiful you are you are what a beautiful you are said to the owl you elegant fowl how charmingly sweet you sing oh let us be married too long we have tarried but what shall we do for a ring they sailed away for a year and a day to the land where the bong tree grows and there in a wood a piggy wood stood with a ring at the end of his nose his nose his nose with a ring at the end of his nose dear pig are you willing to sell for a shilling your ring said the piggy i will so they took it away and were married next day by the turkey who lives on the hill they dined on mints and slices of quince which they ate with a runcible spoon and hand in hand on the edge of the sand they danced by the light of the moon the moon the moon they danced by the light of the moon wonderful pictures but a lot of it is completely inexplicable but sort of parables are like that and we give thanks for that kind of creativity which edward lear poured out there are so many of his poems and it's fun to read them they cheer us by that kind of creativity and they're cheering this little big wink here as uh she sits by me so then um the other poet i want to remember is robert frost who died on this day in 1963 a parachute earlier in life had been amazingly the friend of edward thomas the poet who was killed in the first world war and we've dealt with him before back in the summer but i'm just one robert frost pain just to give an uh a feeling of his work and that is stopping by woods on a snowy evening i think it's my favorite frost here we are excuse me woods these are i think i know his house is in the village though he will not see me stopping here to watch his woods fill up with snow my little horse must think it queer to stop without a farmhouse near between the woods and frozen lake the darkest evening of the year he gives his harness spells a shake to ask if there is some mistake the only other sounds the sweep of easy wind and downy flake the woods are lovely dark and deep but i have promises to keep and miles to go before i sleep and miles to go before i sleep and just the last thing i wanted to mention this actually could go on all day um the last thing i want to mention is the fact that in 1942 on this day desert island discs the radio program began and that is the longest running factual program on any radio station still going strong today with the same signature tune and it was an idea of roy plumless and for years he introduced it with great elegance and sensitivity to those he's introducing and the glorious thing is that you can again online look back on so many of them and remember people coming forward and they share therefore their poetry in their talking but most of all their music and they say why so that that brings out aspects of their lives the birds are coming all around us now so you'll hear they're singing again um they're not worried about the pigs so let's say our prayers or we could go on all morning reflecting in a lovely air at the moment and this little girl actually is is perfectly keen to stay here and let me rub her tummy all day long but i'm not going to because i need to say our prayers with you and we're thinking this morning of the let's have a look 29th of january the diocese of albany in the anglican communion the episcopal church of the united states of america and also uh for justin of course our archbishop and for uh rose bishop of dover for tim bishop at lambus and we're praying in our own diocese today for the diocesan children's schools and young people's team in all their very very necessary work and in all the difficulty at the moment which schools are having because most teaching except for the children of frontline workers is having to be done online and at home so we remember all of that let's say then our prayer for this day the colleague for today and then we shall say the our father together almighty god whose son revealed in signs and miracles the wonder of your saving presence renew your people with your heavenly grace and in all our weakness sustain us by your mighty power through jesus christ our lord our men so together in whatever language you like to use we say the prayer our savior taught us our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our justices as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever amen moment of silence now as the birds sing and we make our own prayers on this day [Music] the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and if his son jesus christ our lord and the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be upon you upon those whom you love and those whom you would pray for today and always are men have a good bird watch and enjoy the day let me come and see what this little girl is doing here hey you're all by yourself the others have gone round far and wide but you're still finding nice things here aren't you okay here we are a little bit of carrot here for you hey all right spotty come on spotty come on hi spotty here we are a little bit of carrot for you well they're going to have a lovely morning okay