good morning and welcome to canterbury cathedral to the deanery the front garden of the deanery at canterbury cathedral on monday the 17th of january as we meet to say our morning prayers wherever you are in the world feel welcome and bring your own prayers and concerns if we look at areas of great danger and particularly our climate danger in the world today we go first of course to tonga and it's still astonishing that so little information is able to pass through the ash cloud and uh help is is really ready to go to tonga but it's difficult to be too definite about what has happened there and so for the moment we simply hold them in our prayers and perhaps uh tomorrow the day after we shall have more definite information to think about them in a more real way but we hold them in our hearts and prayers across the world this morning and the islands around them and all who've been affected by that cataclysmic eruption of the volcano and at the same time we think of those in the united states who are facing a really severe storm which is sweeping up the eastern side of the united states it started in florida with two terrible tornadoes and the the devastation there looks uh dramatic and we think of people who've lost their homes there but at the same time now it's turning into a winter storm which will disrupt very many things as it sweeps up through so we keep those people in our mind as well you will have many areas that you want to pray about and so bring those two it's it's impossible for us to cover the whole world as we begin our prayers on this monday morning monday morning feels like a bit of a new beginning and so here we are and we'll 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 our light and our salvation to you be glory and praise forever you gave your christ as a light to the nations and through the anointing of the spirit you established us as a royal priesthood as you call us into your marvelous light may our lives bear witness to your truth and our lips never cease to proclaim your praise blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind does 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 before we say our son let me say that we're here amongst the trees in the front garden of the deanery for a very special reason uh this is the feast it's just a 24-hour feast from sunset last night to sunset tonight for the jewish communities across the world of tu bishfat and that is a a feast which celebrates trees and is really kept by the planting of trees and the care of trees and the use of trees and thoughtfulness ecologically about trees wherever they are in the world and we might join them in that because we have learned just how important trees are for our planet we're sitting in this area of trees and each one is different we planted it 12 years ago and as we did so we had in mind with each tree places and friends special to us from different parts of the world and as we've gone through using this area and you'll remember it uh last year with the the pigs here uh enjoying clearing the the sixth thatch of the the grass and uh the remains of last year's bulbs in here and now here it is cleared and ready and it's looking bare but it won't look bad it will soon be full and i can see them coming up now of the bulbs and flowerings that the gardeners here have planted right across the patch here and we look forward week by week to seeing that under these trees and this uh uh the old cannon treasurer uh chris ervin and his uh i should say the former cannon treasurer not the old cannon treasure uh cannon librarian um chris irvin and his wife rosie who's lived next door here used to call this the forest of dean uh but i'm sitting at the the base of the trees and it causes us to remember so many things that we have remembered as a garden congregation as the year has gone through and last year went through and that is the fact that the creator and nature don't just work at one level just not on the ground floor with flowers and life not on the ground floor but up and up and up with the birds in the trees and the squirrels in the trees and life right up through so that there are layers of ecology to look after and these trees are growing up towards the light on a lovely winter's morning of blue sky and sun touching bell harry tower in a wonderful way as we worship here so let's begin uh our psalm and then read our lesson for today and i'll explain how we're going on because this is really a new beginning don't be surprised if there's the the sound of monday morning work all around us this is an ordinary working day and school and cathedral staff are at their work so you may hear the noise of all kinds of things around us our psalm this morning is psalm 87 one of these psalms for the 17th morning of the month her foundation is on the holy mountains the lord loves the gates of zion more than all the dwellings of jacob glorious things are spoken of you zion city of our god i record egypt and babylon as those who know me behold philistia tyre and ethiopia in zion were they born and of zion it shall be said each one was born in her and the most high himself has established her the lord will record as he writes up the peoples this one also was born there and as they dance they shall sing all my fresh springs are in you well there's a lovely sentence to remember as they dance they shall sing all my fresh springs are in you and this morning we are beginning with a new venture and it will take us up i think to ash wednesday on the 2nd of march and i'm going to go not to the completion all the way through and reading every bit but to the four books which in most bibles are one and two samuel and one and two king sometimes they're called kings one two three four uh but i'm going to call them the first book of samuel and the first chapter and the first verse and it will take us through the the building up of the kingdoms of israel they're not kingdoms when we start they are the communities of israel after they have settled in the promised land and it will take us through to the reign of david who becomes so important in salmony and in our thinking and also we remember one of the titles of our lord jesus christ as son of david which the blind man in jericho bartimaeus was crying out son of david had mercy on me and so this is a little bit of preparation then when we get to ash wednesday well then we'll start lent together in a workbook way as we did last year but we'll think about that when we get there for the moment we have a project which won't be too historical and won't be too detailed and will also to point to other areas of the scriptures of the old covenant and the new covenant the old testament and the new testament which link with our thoughts for that day but one samuel the beginning of a monumental literary work of the four books and one one and two samuel used to be kept together when it was a hebrew scroll it fitted into one scroll and when the hebrew was translated into the greek septuagint and vowels appeared between the consonants the writing got longer and say it went into two scrolls and so it's one two samuel and then one two kings and here's one samuel it's a strange beginning for something which is an historic documentary and i would say it's been written by many hands over the years with revision and we won't get to the bottom of all of that and nor will we want to what we will want to do is to deal with broad themes to help us as we go forward and our understanding of the scriptures as a whole and also the way in which things move towards the new covenant so i'm going to read the first part of chapter one and it's headed in my uh scriptures he had the birth of samuel but it begins as with the the uh the other stories now we've got our our robin of this part of the garden uh fluttering about you'll see him i'm sure uh he's a completely different robin he's a robin of the willow tree and of the of the woods out here they all have their territories and so if you're seeing a bird fluttering around that's our robin for this area of the garden just as friendly just as curious [Music] first chapter of the book of samuel starts just as the book of roost did with an ordinary community an ordinary rural family and a man with two wives and the one making fun of the other because she could not conceive and bear children and we'll tell this story because it's a story also of pilgrimage and then we'll just look at some explanations about what is going on there was a certain man of ramatham zapim of the hill country of ephraim whose name was el khanna the son of jeroham son of elihu son of tohu son of zaf an ephrathite he had two wives the name of one was hannah and the name of the other peninnah and penina had children but hannah had no children now this man used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the lord of hosts at shiloh where the two sons of eli hofney and finihas were priests of the lord on the day when elkanah sacrificed he would give portions to penina his wife and to all her sons and daughters but to hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her though the lord had closed her womb and her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her because the lord had closed her womb and so it went on year by year as often as she went up to the house of the lord she used to provoke her therefore hannah wept and would not eat and elkanah her husband said to her hannah why do you weep and why do you not eat and why is your heart sad am i not more to you than ten sons after they had eaten and drunk in shiloh hannah rose now eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the lord she was deeply distressed and prayed to the lord and wept bitterly and she vowed a vow and said o lord of hosts if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant but will give to your servant a son then i will give him to the lord all the days of his life and no razor shall touch his head now she continued praying before the lord eli observed her mouth hannah was speaking in her heart only her lips moved and her voice was not heard therefore eli took her to be a drunken woman and eli said to her how long will you go on being drunk put your wine away from you but hannah answered no my lord i am a woman troubled in spirit i have drunk neither wine nor strong drink but i have been pouring out my soul before the lord do not regard your servant as worthless for all along i have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation then eli answered go in peace and the god of israel grant your petition that you have made to him and hannah said let your servant find favor in your eyes then she went on her way and aired and her face was no longer sad they rose early in the morning and worshipped before the lord then they went back to their house at ramah and elkanah knew hannah his wife and the lord remembered her and in due time hannah conceived and bore a son and she called his name samuel for she said i have asked for him from the lord these first chapters are really the story of hannah and they become the story of her son samuel god's gift to her starting in the most intimate way just like the gospel of saint luke starting in that particular way and here we are with hannah and we are in an unnoticed part of that land and they go on pilgrimage to shiloh now when the ark of god was brought into the promised land in the end the communities and the tribes settled the ark at shiloh at a tabernacle there a fixed place and tradition says that for 369 years the ark stayed at shiloh that's from about 1450 bc on the way through and eventually we shall find out how it came to to leave shiloh but shiloh itself was then faced with destruction but the place was a holy place and it was almost a midpoint between north and south of where the tribes were so people would travel there on pilgrimage for the feasts just as mary and joseph traveled with the little jesus up to the feasts and the various ceremonies of their own uh faith at that time and one remembers and you can if you want to tune back to it that on the 15th evening that was saturday evening always on the 15th evening the very long psalm 78 is sung and it was sung on saturday evening by the choir with many changes of chance but we asked people to find it in their prayer books as it sung because it's a long and complicated historic sound but it tells this story not of hannah but of the fact that shiloh was the place where the ark found itself and the way in which the lord led his people out of egypt and through on this journey until that settled place was found and then because of the disappointment of god in shiloh he forsakes shiloh and then goes on because at the the time that this story of hannah is being told uh jerusalem does not belong to them at all it's still in the hands of a a a different culture a different tribe and and not one of the israelites tribes [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] sure [Music] me [Music] is [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] yes [Music] um [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] us [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] with us [Music] is [Music] is is [Music] [Music] is foreign [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] yes [Music] with us is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] which [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] so for the moment shiloh is the tabernacle and there resides the ark and inside traditionally as we're told by the epistles of the hebrews were the two tablets of stone and aaron's rod and a pot of manna and people would come to that holy place made wholly by the ark but also there was serving the priest of the line of aaron and the old priest on duty there at that time when hannah came was eli we we know he was in older years he becomes even older when samuel goes sir and eli is coming to the end of his time as a priest but his two sons hofney and finnehas are all set to take over but will prove unworthy of him and unworthy of the the tasks that they have but for the moment were in earlier days and hannah has come and you heard the story i don't need to tell it again eli has mistaken her first of all for someone who celebrated too hard at the festival and hannah then shows that what she is feeling is grief and she's pouring out her soul and her spirit to god and eli then recognizes a story of obedience and a faithfulness and he gives her his blessing and there's that lovely human touch where it says that hannah rose her face no longer sad something internally has happened to silence her worryings and when they get back and elkanah had said is my love not more to you than ten sons but hannah feels that this she wants as not only a gift to her and to elkanah but also as a gift to the lord when she gets back she conceives and she bears a son and calls his name samuel the lord's gift to her that story we shall continue it has so many resonances with so many other stories which you will be thinking of in scripture and particularly in the gospels themselves but if we say that this is hannah's story then that takes us very much to the gospel of saint luke at the beginning of the way in which that story opens up with mary's story and tomorrow we shall have an even more um shall we say likeness of the story of mary when we come to the next part of hannah's story but for the moment i wanted to not only to talk about this day when we're thinking of trees and i ought to say that i'm sitting beside a huge pile of uh recycled christmas tree shall we say we ourselves took the christmas trees that you saw and fresher decorated them but we had taken them from their use already before christmas when the school when it was still here was keeping christmas in its boarding houses and we were able then to take some of those trees which had ended their days in the boarding houses celebrating christmas to come to the deanery and be redecorated and used again for all of you to enjoy in different rooms here as we celebrated christmas but now they're being recycled into uh areas of of uh christmas tree which can be put into the chicken run uh and give not any shelter but a little bit of fun for the chickens as they go around and everything that is used with the trees we we try to recycle and use well and that is that the really the secret of this jewish feast at the moment of the way in which we care for trees plant the right trees look after them in the right way but also use everything they give us and recycle just as much as possible for the good of the earth and the climate but on this day in 1964 the english writer t h white died on the 17th of january and he died as it happened in a ship off the paraus and is buried in athens because he was on his way back from a lecture tour which he'd been giving and was going back to his home on the island of aldeny in the channel islands but we remember him mostly for one particular set of books that he wrote he was in many ways a solitary figure he was a scholar and a study a student of literature a great expert in the books of uh thomas mallory the late uh 15th century writer who is best known for his mort data of collecting the tales of the arthurian legend and putting them into his medieval poem and t.h white had written a thesis about that when he was young as a young man but then he for four years been a school teacher at stowe school and after that began to to live sometimes a solitary life mostly in in secluded places where he could engage with the natural history around him and one of his books which he published later was the story of trying to to tame and train a ghost hawk and finding all the the quirkiness of the hawks behavior something that was really beyond him it's a wonderful story and it's a story of a relationship between the two of them uh and tells the tale of something like a gospel never really being totally uh tameable or trainable but it that that's a a essay in in how he was looking after that bird and using the experience to share in a book it's not that book that i want to talk about it's the fact that one day in 1937 he was wondering what on earth he would write next and was searching about and he in his mind he went back to his thesis and picked up the book of thomas mallory the 15th century writer that he knew all about and the stories that he knew all about and he wrote to a friend that day i got desperate among my books and picked mallory up in lack of anything else then i was thrilled and astonished to find that a the thing was a perfect tragedy with the beginning a middle and an end implicit in the beginning and b characters that were real people with recognizable reactions which could be forecast anyway i somehow started writing a book now that book which was published in 1938 was entitled the sword in the stone and it certainly wasn't a straightforward rendition of mallory it was t.h white playing with time and playing with human characters and giving them characters that might be recognizable in his own day in the 30s and 40s and 50s when he began to write all of this and then uh write sequels to the books and there was much humor but there was also much insight now like hannah he had found that part of himself was closed until something happened to release the creative spirit and one felt or one feels that this sentence written to a friend i said that day i think what i'm actually reading in this is something that was written some time later when the book was in progress i'm sure he got up when he picked up mallory and that idea sprang as if from nowhere so many of our creative ideas do i'm sure his face was no longer sad and also his body was filled with a new energy because that happens too when a creative idea comes to one and you think yes this actually is what i've been looking for and this is what i shall do and he began to write and the sword in the stone now of course is known to us from the disney film which was uh filmed much later in 1963 th white did live to see that happen and the musical camelot but at the same time he himself was pouring all his knowledge and insight of people into the characters he was inventing and he he wrote about a merlin the wizard who was living through time in the other direction if you can believe that merlin had already lived the future and was going back until he crossed the young arthur's path when arthur was a boy and certainly had no idea that he was the heir to the throne and would be the one who pulled the sword from the stone merlin was there during that point of crossing in order to give him wisdom and advice and try to show him experiences that would give him learning and wisdom of his own and you remember if you've read that or even in the film in the disney film this happens that in order to give him and uh merlin's nick name uh sorry uh everyone's nickname for for arthur uh who was just a boy in the community that didn't no one knew that he was the heir to this um but you'll remember his nickname was the wart from like art and and say wartv came and they caught him the wart and he when he was feeling low and merlin always said look the way to get out of feeling like this is to learn something learn something new but moana didn't just teach him he actually made him into a series of creatures suddenly arthur found himself as a fish in the moat on a hot afternoon he'd been looking at them and merlin sent him down amongst the fish to learn what it felt like to be a fish and then on another occasion he sent him into the the hawk enclosure in the the cage and they were hunting hawks of the the sport of that time and merlin faced all the dangers on murmuring arthur faced all the dangers there as one of them because as merlin said experience is the best teacher and he was trying to give arthur a vision that would end up not only with the pulling of the sword from the stone but in an idea of a round table where people would venture out for good using weapons of what had been war in order to do good and uh merlin at one point in the book when arthur says i i think that's the the best i can do with this it's in i think it's not in the thought in the stone it's in the book which follows uh and merlin raises his eyes to heaven and and says young to mitis because he feels he has he has caused arthur to have that right idea the books went on uh in 1938 that sort in the stone was published in 39 the queen of air and darkness was published and then in 1940 the ill-made knight which is the story of lancelot and also the temptations that lancelot and guinevere face and how the seed of that temptation and that evil given into became the seed of the destruction of all arthur's best laid plans and then lastly much much later 1958 18 years after the ill made knight the candle in the wind the last of the four and the candle in the wind has never been published separately because at that point all four became one book with the title the once and future king playing with time again now those books you may well know yourself and they are beautiful entertaining books and they are a gateway into mallory or a gateway into tennyson's poems the ideals of the king they're certainly a gateway into the arthurian legends which lie at the heart of so many things in english literature and culture and they have influenced those books have influenced so many jk rowling herself said they were a strong influence on her harry potter books albus dumbledore the headmaster who was very much the the wise guide to harry potter is based on merlin in t.h white's novels and aspects of merlin the absent-minded wizard are there in albus dumbledore but the deep wisdom that he has as well and arthur the wart is uh and this is i'm using jk rowling's words harry's spiritual ancestor and so we remember all that and all those influences and uh we remember also the bbc merlin series which went from september 2008 right through to christmas eve 2012. uh and uh it was a a a wonderful way in which uh merlin himself as a young man could become uh through his his own uh imaginations and power uh uh an old man and be totally unrecognizable in the series but you'll you'll remember all these things and the way in which uh the the the king there king arthur was being helped by merlin but merlin is shown there as a young man like a friend of arthur but at the same time is someone of intense wisdom going back through the the ages so you probably know that series very well but the books of t.h white are there as a foundation stone for many of these things so um let's uh let's go now to um our prayers for this day and we are praying uh let's pray for all our jewish communities across the world who are keeping this festival of tu bishvat and giving thanks for the trees as we do in our prayers with them and today in our anglican communion we're praying for the diocese of johannesburg in the anglican church of southern africa pray for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of uh of dover and for emma bishop at lambeth and in the diocese we're back with the reculva deanery with their what we call ignite hub which are communities that are trying to inspire new sparks of life throughout the deanery so we pray for that area of our diocese around reculver we shall eventually come to the names of those parishes as we go through but not for a day or two yet so let's say our prayers for this day and um then uh we can bring our own concerns from across the world almighty god in christ you make all things new transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace and in the renewal of our lives make known your heavenly glory through jesus christ our lord amen and together in whatever language you like to use 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 trespasses 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 are men moment of silence now for your reflection so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] just [Music] so [Music] so [Music] christ the son of god perfecting you the image of his glory and gladden your hearts with the good news of his kingdom 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 you may have had uh during our prayers the peregrine falcons who tend to nest on the top of belharry flying around they're alarming for the little birds but and there's always a a great sort of commotion around from magpies and crows if they're about but the trees give wonderful protection for the birds as they're hopping around and a peregrine would not dare try a flight down into this it would be too dangerous for them with the branches of the trees protecting the little birds so let's give thanks for hannah's story which we've begun this morning and also for the sense of various experiences when we think of merlin and arthur various experiences being given to us which build up into a point where suddenly they burst into flame and prove a new beginning at a certain point of our life and we hope that that's an experience we will have many times through life have a happy day [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] now hello [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] know [Music] [Applause] me [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign foreign [Music] [Music] you