good morning and welcome on this morning of friday the 22nd of october to the skies above canterbury cathedral it's a lovely autumn morning here and the skies apart from the tracks of aeroplanes journeying across the sky are clear this morning and giving us lovely sunshine as i sit down here in the middle of the tussocky lawn and we're thinking of journeyings and the importance of reference point for anyone taking a journey whether these days are in the air which is something that we're so used to but certainly in former centuries would have been unthinkable except for migrating birds who themselves needed reference points for where they were going but now it's a common place to fly in the air and be secure that your journey will end in the right place and now here i'm sitting on the lawn the great lawn which we're using this morning as a representation of oceans because like yesterday with the rhyme of the ancient mariner today our psalm and some of the dates that we mentioned will talk about the the vastness of the ocean and the need always once again for reference points and points of time we as human beings rely on those reference points it's actually one complete difference between fletcher and me that he absolutely hates being governed by time and won't wear a watch and at the same time won't have maps because he'd rather travel by by instinct and memory and a sense of that's where we're going whereas i need um time points and maps and everything else and we've talked before about a journey in provence that we were making when i was saying come on we need to get get on we need to get on and he said no we must go back and look at the the roman uh that wonderful roman uh uh remains uh the the the buildings at the side of the road and i said i'm sure they're 19th century buildings and then had to eat my words when i looked at my reference point which was the green guide to bronze and say oh no actually they are some of the most important roman buildings remaining in in europe so we turned round and went back but reference points are crucial to us and i wanted just before we even begin to talk about an extraordinary visitor who came to us yesterday having had an 8 000 kilometer almost 5 000 mile journey from the turkish syrian border all the way across europe calling in at rome and other cities on the way and being welcomed there and this visitor was a little nine-year-old syrian girl and she is called amal and her journey is continuing to manchester where at the manchester international festival on i think november the 3rd she will be greeted by thousands there in the castle build stadium and she was greeted here by hundreds in the streets yesterday and what i'm talking about might to some seem like a giant puppet but certainly having now met her and conversed with her although her language was all in silence and gestures and facial expressions and i met her in the cathedral nave and i had no idea what i was going to to to to do when i got there um but i found the cathedral nave with people there uh and the the the the ones who had walked with amal and amal represented when she was created and now the the the the depth of what she represents has become much bigger represented uh unaccompanied children found in refugee camps having in some way wandered from their home or been sent from their home because of danger and this humble in attitude and and silent those speaking with actions much louder than words uh amal walked into the cathedral and came in shyly and as she just looked around tentatively around one of the great pillars i found myself making gestures of don't be afraid come come near you're in a safe place and we stood together and i spoke to her and she in gestures responded and i reached out my hands to her and the great hands came and held mine as well and there was a sense of her representing so many thousands of others and it was a profound and wonderful experience and i know all have felt that in greeting her as she comes and as she left again quite shyly uh having also met uh syrian and afghan families who are living here in canterbury they came into the knave to join us when i i had greeted her and given the blessing and she in a sense had blessed me with gestures of goodwill and as she left her face lit up with a smile and it was a wonderful wonderful smile now all of those things representing so many others are a sign just like the earth shots were signs of our care of the planets this was a sign of our care of one another and i shall treasure that memory uh standing on the compass rose in the cathedral the fact that it was a complete surprise to me and the feelings i had were a complete surprise was makes it even better so um i give thanks for her journey as she goes on and she's going on through to london to oxford and then right up to manchester and then the journey will end after that 8 000 kilometer journey through so many countries so we give thanks today for journeyings but at the same time we give thanks for reference points let's start our prayers o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise send your holy spirit upon us and clothe us with power from on high alleluia blessed are you creator god do you be praise and glory forever as your spirit moved over the face of the waters bringing light and life to your creation pour out your spirit on us today that we may walk as children of light and by your grace reveal your presence 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 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 are some aptly enough for the theme that i was speaking of earlier is psalm 107 the psalm for the 22nd morning of the month and i shall read some of that psalm now it's a long psalm so we'll read a section of it i'm starting at verse 23. those who go down to the sea in ships and occupy their business in great waters these have seen the works of the lord and his wonders in the deep for at his word the stormy wind arose and lifted up the waves of the sea they were carried up to the heavens and down again to the deep their soul melted away in their peril they reeled and straggled staggered like a drunkard and were at their wit's end then they cried to the lord in their trouble and he brought them out of their distress he made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were count and then were they glad because they were at rest and he brought them to the haven they desired let them give thanks to the lord for his goodness and the wonders he does for his children let them exalt him in the congregation of the people and praise him in the counsel of the elders the lord turns rivers into wilderness and water springs into thirsty ground a fruitful land he makes a salty waste because of the wickedness of those who dwell there and he makes the wilderness a pool of water and water springs out of a sasti land and there he settles the hungry and they build a city to dwell in they sow fields and plant vineyards and bring in a fruitful harvest he blesses them so that they multiply greatly he does not let their herds of cattle decrease he pours contempt on princes and makes them wander in trackless wastes they are diminished and brought low through stress of misfortune and sorrow but he raises the poor from their misery and multiplies their families like flocks of sheep the upright will see this and rejoice but all wickedness will shut its mouth whoever is wise will ponder these things and consider the loving kindness of the lord we're returning to the book of the exodus this morning we are coming to the seventh plague yesterday the fifth and sixth gave us sickness with animals and sickness with humanity suffering from terrible boils and we're beginning to see how each plague results in the next and all are seen as signs by the pharaoh and people of egypt the people wanting desperately to blame the presence of the hebrews amongst them and really wanting them gone the pharaoh is still anxious about his work force and the economic prosperity of egypt but egypt is suffering as it had in joseph's time in those days with famine and now with all kinds of natural disasters and today is one of the most dramatic of all the seventh plague chapter nine of the exodus starting at verse 13 then the lord said to moses rise up early in the morning and present yourself before pharaoh and say to him thus says the lord the god of the hebrews let my people go that they may serve me for this time i will send all my plagues on yourself and on your servants and your people so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth for by now i could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence and you would have been cut off from the earth but for this purpose i have raised you up to show you my power so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth you are still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go behold about this time tomorrow i will cause very heavy hail to fall such as never been seen in egypt from the day it was founded until now now therefore send get your livestock and all that you have in the field into safe shelter for every man and beast that is in the field and is not brought home will die when the hail falls on them then whoever feared the word of the lord among the servants of pharaoh hurried his slaves and his livestock into the houses but whoever did not pay attention to the word of the lord left their slaves and livestock in the field then the lord said to moses stretch out your hand towards the heaven so that there may be hail in all the land of egypt on man and beast and every plant of the field in the land of egypt then moses stretched out his staff toward heaven and the lord sent thunder and hail and fire ran down to the earth and the lord reigned hail upon the land of egypt there was hail and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail very heavy hail such as had never been in all the land of egypt since it became a nation the hails struck down everything that was in the field in all the land of egypt both humankind and beast and the hail struck down every plant of the field and broke every tree of the field only in the land of goshen where the people of israel were was there no hail then pharaoh sent and called moses and aaron and said to them this time i have sinned the lord is in the right and i and my people are in the wrong plead with the lord for there has been enough of god's thunder and hail i will let you go and you shall stay no longer moses said to him as soon as i have gone out of the city i will stretch out my hands to the lord the thunder will cease and there will be no more hail so that you may know that the earth is the lord's but as for you and your servants i know that you do not yet fear the lord god now the flax and the barley were struck down for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in bud but the wheat and the emma were not struck down for they are late in coming up so moses went out of the city from pharaoh and stretched out his hands to the lord and the thunder and the hail ceased and the rain no longer poured upon the earth but when pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased he sinned yet again and hardened his heart he and his servants so the heart of pharaoh was hardened and he did not let the people of israel go just as the lord had spoken through moses as we as we think about this particular plague our minds are reminded because of the sense of the crops being destroyed once again of what brought the hebrews there 430 years before and what joseph provided for the egyptians and it gives us a clue to how we read the scriptures because as we read them there are reference points to other things which we've read before and other times which will come after and when our lord is speaking he is speaking with reference to those incidents in the past and quite often just a sentence will take us back to an incident in the old testament which he's thinking about but also he is reminding us constantly that god is always the god of the present because the creator is outside time all times and seasons are in his hand and we reach out in the image of our god when we ourselves realize that although we're living in the present that are within us all those things which have created us from experiences in the past and this is never more so than the way the plagues go through with reference points back but also moses pointing forward to the vocation he has to lead the people away from egypt and pharaoh's hardness of heart but see how this morning moses uh comes and says this is all happening so that you may know that god is the god of the whole world and of all creation and those words appear in that this has been done so that you may know that the earth is the lord's where does that come from why of course the first sentence of psalm 24 the earth is the lord all that is in it the compass of the world and all that dwell therein there's the word compass reference points again and the sense of that wonderful we we tend to to use psalm 24 at ascension tide when who is the king of glory the lord of hosts he is the king of glory lift up your heads are you gates so the earth is the lord's the compass of the world and all that dwell therein and that reference is given there as the heavy hail destroys the crops well those kinds of hail storms are devastating but in parts of the world where they can appear just like that life-threatening completely if you don't get into shelter and the warning is given by moses tell your people get themselves and their creatures into shelter and at the end the the crops that have been sprouting are destroyed and there's this sort of note by a hand later saying that the two of the harvests were up and flowering and budding two of the harvests were later and were not charged and that's an interesting sort of writing later and giving us a hindsight of explanation just as we said these stories are added to an attitude by the way in which they're told so that you may remember them but also have those reference points to other incidents backwards and forwards well let's as we give thanks for the fact that the earth is the lord's and all that is in it the compass of the world and all who dwell therein let's let's think of some things which happened today which talk about the reference points and refer us also back to our psalm those who go down to the sea and ships and occupy their business in great waters these have seen the works of the lord in his wonders in the deep for at his word the stormy wind arises their hearts melted within them as they reeled and staggered as they were drunk on the deck because the ship was tossing them around like toys well in 1707 on this day october the 22nd a royal naval small should we call it a flotilla of four ships under the the direction of admiral cloudsley shovel the name that used to amuse us at school but what happened was not in the least of it amusing they were wrecked off the silly isles on the extremely um southwest tip of england and in a storm they were wrecked there but it wasn't the storm that wrecked them it was the fact that they had no idea where they were because the navigator had no way of assessing it certainly wasn't the navigator on the ship's fault it was the fact that equipment at that time and methods of finding out where they were could accurately plot latitude the imaginary lines that we cause to go should we say as we look at a map horizontally around the globe but had no way of determining when out at sea with no reference points the lines that we map of longitude going from pole to pole and through the prime meridian at greenwich and all of that became uh because of the the the wrecking of that fleet and the deaths of 1400 more than 1400 sailors on that day so near to home but because they didn't know how to find the reference point and there was no mechanism that could do it for them clocks in those days tended to work by pendulums and could not keep accurate on board ship and the one thing that gave longitude a possibility of being accurate was accurate time it had to be accurate more or less to the second and no timepiece could do that especially on a long journey latitude had been uh not easy but uh you could find your latitude by as they call it shooting the stars and taking your direction for latitude from the heavens but longitude needed completely different reference points and time had to come into that i'm sitting at the moment in the middle of the great lawn and around me if i look on the floor and these tussocks we said might represent the ocean um i'm i'm not seeing many reference points but i've got reference points all around me because i can see them i know how far i am from the house in that direction or from the ash tree in this direction or from the cathedral in that direction or the medulla tree but at the same time if you think of yourself in the middle of the ocean or in the middle of the sky with cloud underneath you there are no reference points of that sort and the crossing of the lines the imaginary lines of latitude and longitude became the focus point and chronology was massively important vital in that it had to be totally accurate time and after the 1707 shipwreck parliament voted in 1714 that there would be a twenty thousand pound prize immeasurable riches for the first person who could create a chronometer a clock that would be accurate at sea and going on long journeys and the prize was one i'll i'll short this shorten this because it's a very detailed explanation but um the prize was won by a man called joseph harrison a clock maker and he he worked hard at one one chronometer after another until he got there and in 1773 that massive prize was awarded and some of you may know that story from the marvelous book by davis sobel which is simply called longitude or the film the bbc i think it was a bbc television documentary uh starring jeremy irons as rupert gould the person who was attempting to restore the joseph harrison clock and that documentary goes on i think again it's just called longitude um that documentary goes along a parallel line in time of harrison in the 18th century working and working at this lifelong quest and then actually that quest resulted in accurate chronometers which ships could carry from then on and then the quest of rupert gould the horologist who was trying to restore and it's again a lifelong passion the clocks of of harrison but he's living in the 20th century well let's go on today in 1962 october the 22nd those of you who remember that will remember that all of us were terrified and really had great certainty that tomorrow or the next day a nuclear war would break out because on this day in october the 22nd at 22nd 1962 president john f kennedy made the broadcast saying that he was placing a blockade around cuba to stop russian ships bringing missiles into missile bases they were creating on the island of cuba and at that point the tension in the cold war reached its highest point of believing that a nuclear war would break out in the next few days i remember the the fear and also that the fear of my parents at that time it almost seemed that nothing could could save us from that how could anyone step into that in fact through good diplomacy everything gradually by the end of november relaxed but those days from the 22nd come on tiger from the 22nd of october onwards became very very tense and lessons at school became filled with that same tension so we remember not only the way a storm can arise on the oceans but also the way in which humanity can create another storm which creates huge dangers and nuclear war dangers to itself and to the life of the whole planet thanks be to god that that didn't happen in 62 but the fear is still there as we remember that day now i've i've three people i just want to mention one work of each of them the first uh is paul cezanne the artist who was born in exxon provence and died in exxon problems and he died on this day 22nd of october 1906. he was a a wonderful portrait artist and he painted lovely portraits of you perhaps you know the two men playing cards or the one of uh the fam o chapuvir the woman in the green hat and uh the other of his father reading the newspaper but what we remember him for and i just want to mention this one thing what we remember him for is the fact that in the middle of provence at that point and we love driving all the way around it so the journey of many miles that it rewards every time we do it is the site of monsan victoire the great mountain which stands there which says i'm never tired of painting in different moods i mean the mountain in different moods and communicating his love of that landscape and of that mountain and he did so passionately hugely respected by um artists who took inspiration from him um matisse and and uh picasso picasso said he was the father of us all and picasso went to to live in a small chateau near there and although it's now become a private show and picasso is buried there you can as you go around that wonderful route sit in the village cafe at a particular point in the open air terrace there with a generally with a covering and on hot days and you're looking down on the beauty of that valley and below you know you can see the chateau but you know that picasso is buried there and uh within the the region of monsan victoire and the way in which cezanne gave that mountain to us in so many different moods and perspectives and then again i want to go to another who died on this day in 1973 this time 22nd of october this is the cellist another pablo but this time pablo casao he was catalan and puerto rican and he is regarded fairly universally as the greatest cellist who ever lived and even the the great violinist chrysler extended that compliment by saying he is the greatest man who ever drew a bow but obviously he was a devout and lovely man and he was asked to write things as well so his hymn of the united nations was one thing that he wrote because he was passionate for peace and justice [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] uh [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] and his journey with the cello and he played just about every piece that a cellist loves to play very well known for his solo bark jello suites but at the same time for the cello contracting that we were thinking of with jacqueline de pre the other day and as he played also he was a composer who could give us moods rather like cezanne with the mountain and i want to mention just one of his works it's not a cello piece at all it's a piece he wrote for passion tide for he wrote beautiful pieces for liturgical music and the the piece is called ovo's omnis so all you who pass by behold and see is there any sorrow like my sorrow it's a verse from the lamentations which we use it passion tight but it is one of the most beautiful pieces that i can think of for passion tight and when our choirs sing that that ovos omnes then the cry from the cross becomes really passionate and those lovely motets which he wrote just short full of melody full of climaxes full of passion but striking the moods and giving us reference points as the psalms do for our own human feelings thank god for the music of pablo casals and then finally and this um comes with some some uh heart rending for me uh on this day uh 22nd of october in 1919 the novelist doris lessing was born now doris lessing was an icon for my sister and i only want to mention she died in 2013 um but i only want to mention one of her works and that is and i can see it as i mentioned it on pauline's bookshelves it was never not there for this was a a real shall i say um an inverted column bible for pauline as well as the other bible of course and proust of course but the golden notebook was passionately something that she loved to read and those of you who know it's it's it's an in a very intimate picture i'm going to mention this one of her books it's an intimate picture of doris lessing herself in which she pours out her own life and experience her young days uh pre at the second world war and uh in the the war itself was spent in what was then southern rhodesia now zimbabwe and so she describes things there and her book is really a charting of individual and societal breakdown and you could say mental and societal breakdown and it's written by a fictitious person called anna wolf or wolf because she was german and the four notebooks in which anna tried to record her life she has a friend molly jacobs but the catalogue of people in the book are manifold and they're from different books so that you go from one book to the other notebook to the other and the first one is the black notebook which she writes about her experiences in southern rhodesia before and during world war ii the second is the red notebook and that is talking about her membership of the communist party and her life as a as a rebel the third is the yellow notebook which is the story of the painful ending of anna's own passionate love affair and the fourth is a blue notebook of her own memories dreams and emotional life and each notebook returns four times in the golden notebook and also in there is the novel that anna wolf is writing called free women and the golden notebook is the title of the whole piece and what he's trying to do is actually an impossible task to make a synthesis of the four notebooks and the the novel three women of anna wolfe's life and it's blessing trying to do this for herself but something like that a synthesis um is rarely achievable and the more complicated your life and personality then the different aspects in the notebooks clearly become too difficult to make a synthesis so what you end up with is an attempt to overcome fragmentation and for um doris lessing also a sense of of growing um mental stress i'm saying all these things because here's another act of creativity all bound into one book of massive complication and sophistication and we've actually done that step by step this morning from amal whatever she brought on behalf of so many and it's impossible to make a synthesis of all of that but emotions of a desire for justice and mercy and wholeness and care and peace and all of those things come again and then harrison's chronometer giving reference points for the safety of people cezanne's lovely constant paintings of monsanto giving inspiration to so many others and casaus there's playing the cello and also writing his motets and music but at the same time striving for justice and peace in our world and receiving honours and awards peace medals and the president's medal from the united states but at the same time his journey never ending a lifelong quest in which synthesis is only found in that realm beyond where no reference points are needed anymore and it's outside time and then doris lessing and i of course link that with my own sister's life quest um to to to give the the message of of um a synthesis and and the way in which she was passionate for justice and passionate for people but so keen on everyone's story and that's where we find ourselves today and so i'm going to start our prayers and tiger's not finding this particular reference point very good because we're out in the middle here and he's nowhere to rest his head i don't think you want to come up so should i lift you up and see whether you do come on come on baby oops no i don't think you do do you yes you do come on there we are come up with me a bit warmer up here isn't it yep that's better good boy um so let me see what we're praying for today uh in the anglican communion today we're praying for the diocese of guadalcanal in the anglican church of melanesia and of course in this diocese for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover for uh emma bishop at lambeth and today for the parish of temple yule saint peter and paul with lydden st mary the virgin pray for ian parish in his ministry there and we remember that uh mark and louise mark is our school busser here in in under a close friend of ours uh it's at kings and he's got a lovely house in temple which we like to go to and see how his garden is getting on with some of the tallest trees that we know standing above it um so let's say our prayers on this day and bring your own prayers of thanksgiving for anything that you plucked as a sprig from psalms or lessons or whatever today and for those that you would want to pray for here is the collect for today god the giver of life whose holy spirit wells up within your church by the spirit's gifts equip us to live the gospel of christ and make us eager to do your will that we may share with the whole creation the joys of eternal life through jesus christ our lord amen so then we say the prayer our savior taught us each in our own language 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 amen moment of silence now for our own prayers on this morning [Music] jesus [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] please [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] yes [Applause] [Music] series [Music] [Music] um [Music] so before the blessing let's give thanks for reference points in our own life and also for the fact that we are tending in our prayers to come near to that eternal dimension which needs no reference points but is in itself a reference point for us in our daily life 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 i mentioned yesterday that uh um today is the end of the first half of term so our school are going on holiday but last night was the house song contest meant that each of the houses had to sing a song and then they were judged by a competent musician generally from outside to come and say which song was the best it's taken very seriously indeed and we hear them rehearsing around and as i said lineker next door here uh were singing their song day in day out and they won last night and neither of us are surprised because it's a beautiful song called viva la vida live the life and um it's a cold play the group coldplay song and we could probably sing it along with them but we're delighted that they won and for fletcher it was important because i've cold play the group co-play has in it a guy from the group coldplay was a friend of his at school so we give thanks for all these reference points but the the biggest reference point for the school that october the 22nd is uh the day the holiday begins and so we're hearing excited noises as as as bags are packed and we shall have a a quieter week next week and the week after [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] feel the fear in my enemies [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] in a foreign field for some reason i can't explain once you're born there was never never an one that them my [Music] that was when i ruled the world