[Music] good morning and welcome to the deanery orchard at canterbury cathedral on this lovely autumn morning we've been waiting here for the sun to give us enough light to send this message of of good morning and welcome to wherever you are across the world and also to welcome you into our morning prayers you'll see the game i've been playing here in the uh in the stream watching the sticks in a reflective sort of way and perhaps some of you will be aware instantly when i say that this was the day in 1926 that a.a milne launched onto the world his character winnie the pooh and we'll think about that and all the other types of characters in our reflection this day october the 14th is the date of the battle of hastings in 1066 when william of normandy crossed the english channel and then began his time as king of england better known as william the conqueror and we have his mark on a document which in which he ordered the english church in our library here still in canterbury witness by his queen and also by archbishop landfrank but william was a person of great order and the the norman influence in english history at that time was a crucial element i think 1066 is a date that most people here will know in 1644 william penn the english quaker leader who founded the quaker colony which is now named pennsylvania was born and we give thanks for that we could go through a catalogue of awful disasters of people caught fishing fleets caught in in a hurricane of bericon tweed in 1881 in 1913 400 miners killed in pit disaster in glamorgan in 1939 the battleship the royal oak torpedoed by a submarine in harbor in scarpa flow when 810 seamen were killed but and in 1940 people sheltering in balum station from the blitz were killed not by the bombs explosion but by a bus going into the crater and fracturing a water main so that the station filled up and killed all of them and in 57 floods in valencia we can remember all of that as we do generally for this world is full of dangers and humanity and all natural life is fragile we remember also happier things today that cycliff richard is 80 years old today he's sold more than 22 to 250 million records worldwide making him one of the top sellers in that way singer musician performer actor philanthropist and very faithful christian and on this day general eisenhower was born in 1890 not only a general in the in the second world war but also president of the united states so on this day too martin luther king was awarded the nobel peace prize and in another publishing act in 1892 sir arthur conan doyle published the adventures of sherlock holmes if we look across the days because quite often days are kept as national days and we see in different areas of the world that this is national emergency nurses day well we can all think of that whether our country is keeping that day or not as the pandemic is is is uh rising in spikes in certain areas across the world and everywhere the nursing uh organizations are are having bravely to combat it it's also a national bring your teddy bear to work or school day well that might fit in with the reflection we have a bit later on and also a national stop bullying day well that is something that we all need to keep watch on not only amongst children but also amongst working staff and when we see the range of characters that a.a milne produces for us i think we'll come to the same conclusion and then in 1960 john f kennedy as a presidential candidate first suggested the idea of a peace corps so we give thanks for that as we say our prayers and give thanks for the imagination of so many who have helped our human life oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the true the only light banish all darkness from our hearts and minds blessed are you creator of all to you be praise and glory forever as your dawn renews the face of the earth bringing light and life to all creation may we rejoice in this day you have made and as we wake refreshed from the depths of sleep open our eyes to behold your presence and strengthen our hands to do your will that the world may rejoice and give you 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 and as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our son this morning is psalm 72 it's quite often used as an epiphany psalm and if you want a metrical version of it you can turn to the hymn hail to the lord's anointed great david's greater son hail in the time appointed his reign on earth begun that hymn goes through in rhyme this psalm we're about to read give the king your judgment so god and your righteousness to the son of a king then shall he judge your people righteously and your poor with justice may the mountains bring forth peace and the little hills righteousness for the people may he defend the poor among the people deliver the children of the needy and crush the oppressor may he live as long as the sun and the moon endure from one generation to another may he come down like rain upon the moon grass like the showers that water the earth in his time shall righteousness flourish and abundance of peace till the moon shall be no more may his dominion extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth may his foes kneel before him and his enemies lick the dust the kings of tarshish and of the isles shall play tribute the kings of sheba and siba shall bring gifts all kings shall fall down before him all nations shall do him service for he shall deliver the poor when they cry out the needy and those who have no helper he shall have pity on the weak and the poor he shall preserve the lives of the needy he shall redeem their lives from oppression and violence and dear shall their blood be in his sight long may he live unto him may be given gold from sheba may prayer be made for him continually and may they bless him all the day long may there be abundance of grain upon the earth standing thick upon the hilltops may its fruit flourish like lebanon and its grain grow like the grass of the field may his name remain forever and be established as long as the sun endures may all nations be blessed in him and call him blessed blessed be the lord the god of israel who alone does wonderful things and blessed be his glorious name forever may all the earth be filled with his glory our men are men wonderful images in that psalm as we turn to our reading from the acts of the apostles and we return to paul's journey we're in chapter 27 and we're beginning chapter 27. when it was decided that we should sail for italy they delivered paul and some other prisoners to a centurion of the augustan cohort named julius and embarking in a ship of adremitium which was about to sail to the ports along the coast of asia we put to see accompanied by aristarchus a macedonian from thessalonica the next day we put in at sidon and julius treated paul kindly and gave him leave to go to his friends and be cared for and putting out to see from there we sailed under the lee of cyprus because the winds were against us and when we had sailed across the open sea along the coast of silicia and pamphilia we came to mira in naisia there the centurion found a ship of alexandria sailing for italy and put us all on board we sailed slowly for a number of days and arrived with difficulty of cnidus and as the wind did not allow us to go farther we sailed under the lee of crete off cermoni coasting along it with difficulty we came to a place called fair havens near which was the city of lazia since much time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous because even the fast was already over paul advised them saying sirs i perceive that the voyage will be with injury and much loss not only of the cargo and of the ship but also of our lives but the centurion paid more attention to the pilot and to the owner of the ship than to what paul said and because the harbour was not suitable to spend the winter in the majority decided to put out to sea from there on the chance that somehow they could reach phoenix a harbour of crete facing both south west and northwest and spend the winter there now when the south wind blew gently supposing that they had obtained their purpose they weighed anchor and sailed along crete close to the shore but soon a tempestuous wind called the northeaster struck down from the land and when the ship was caught and could not face the wind we gave way to it and were driven along running under the lee of a small island called koda we managed with difficulty to secure the ship's boat after hoisting it up they used supports to undergird the ship then fearing that they would run aground on the thirties they lowered the gear and thus they were driven along since we were violently storm tossed they began the next day to jettison the cargo and on the third day they threw the ship's tackle overboard with their own hands and when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and no small tempest lay on us all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned since they had been without food for a long time paul stood up among them and said men you should have listened to me and not have set sail from crete and incurred this injury and loss yet now i urge you to take heart for there will be no loss of life among you but only of the ship for this very night there stood before me an angel of the god to whom i belong and whom i worship and he said do not be afraid paul you must stand before caesar and behold god has granted you all those who sail with you so take heart men for i have faith in god that it will be exactly as i have been told but we must run aground on some island the story of a very dangerous journey and paul is still utterly assured that he is following his vocation notice the care in which luke as one of the travelers is noting the details of the journey in quite a business-like fashion because the memory of that journey must have been really terrifying they've set off from caesarea and have a kindly centurion whose task it is to carry them on a trading vessel and get them safely to rome where paul will stand before the emperor to make his defense they put in its side and no doubt for trading reasons and the centurion julius allows paul to go and be with his friends and he's got with him both luke and aristarchus the macedonian from thessalonica whom we've met before earlier in the acts there is companionship there and there's a certain amount of understanding of paul's position by the centurion and they then set off again and they they make for the place where they will find an alexandrian vessel probably a corn ship from egypt and their habit was to leave alexandria and go right up to myra just going south north across the mediterranean and there those those ships big ships for for that time would set off for italy for rome but we know that the weather is beginning to be against them when paul mentions the fast remember a few weeks ago not not long ago at the equinox we remembered the jewish feasts of the atonement the fast that's what they're talking about and after that that equinox it was thought really first of all risky to travel and then later really dangerous to travel but every time they go on with the island of crete they're trying to find the right harbour they fail because of the winds and the captain of the vessel must have been very very aware that if they allow the vessel to drift south then they face the massive danger of the siertas sands in on the off the coast of north africa where a ship could easily simply found her so they let the wind take them and that's how we find it remember in those days you needed moon and stars to find your position the sky clearly was was thick black with clouds or so gray they couldn't see either and that meant that they were really in what they might have called the lap of the gods but paul would have said in god's hands and he wasn't ashamed to stand in front of them and tell his story quite simply the god whom i worship convinces me that we shall all be safe well we leave them there in that journey and we think of those things which have happened on this day and those things we've given thanks for but i've brought out from the drawing room in the in the deanery from the piano um a book which i know so very well because it was on the piano at home all the time i was growing up it's it's called 14 songs from when we were very young and we remember that a.a milne wrote that little book of poetry for children and for children to remember and say with their parents uh two years before he published winnie the pooh and the composer harold fraser simpson wrote beautiful music and we used to sing these songs and some of you will will know some of them probably by heart the little boy kneels at the foot of the bed droops on the little hands little gold head hush hush whisper who dares christopher robin is saying his prayers or their changing guard at buckingham palace christopher robin went down with alice here it all is i could sing the words by heart simply because of the tunes how often have we said that that tunes help us to remember words and if i went back to the psalm i could read it again to you but i could easily say hail to the lord's anointed great david's greater son most of the way through without help simply because of the tune but that's not what was published today what was published today is here winnie the pooh quite a character and i've i really could have read you something from anywhere because our enjoyment of the characters is actually because we know people like that but the whole message is one of companionship and hospitality and at times just reflecting and when uh winnie the pooh and piglet i brought little piglet here also from long back here he is um when they play poo sticks as it's called dropping the sticks into the river on one side and racing across the bridge and seeing whose stick get the win wins the race through it's really a way of being active in the countryside and enjoying what's there as we might throw them into the stream and watch them flow away and race each other i'm doing it by myself that's not nearly as much fun and also i've not got a bridge to run across so if you put the sticks in you have to put them in together but it's a wonderful way of just simply knowing the countryside and having time to talk as you lean on a bridge and look at the water flowing so i've actually got a section from chapter five to read the characters who appear are really only christopher robin and piglet and pooh himself but who is something of a philosopher though he keeps announcing that he's a bearer of little brain and piglet has a much bigger brain but he's rather timid and needs protection not appearing are tigger who bounces over everyone robustuously so that people like piglet are rather scared of him being around because he sort of bounces everything around eeyore the donkey who is always always miserable and uh delights in saying something miserable after someone has said something happy and kanga who is tremendously motherly with her little baby roo the kangaroos we missed rabbit efficient rabbit who all the time is ordering people and writing notes signed rabbit and trying to organize your life for you well we all know characters like that and probably we fit into that characterization some to how ourselves but let's read this little bit and the problem with reading any of this is that we want to go on one day when christopher robin and winnie the pooh and piglet were all talking together christopher robin finished the mouthful he was eating and said carelessly i saw a heffalump today piglet what was it doing asked piglet just lumping along said christopher robin i don't think it saw me i saw one once said piglet at least i think i did only perhaps it wasn't so did i said pooh wondering what a heffalump was you don't often see them said christopher robin carelessly not now said piglet not at this time of year sid pooh then they all talked about something else until it was time for poo and piglet to go home together at first they stomped along the path which edged the hundred acre wood they didn't say much to each other but when they came to the stream and had helped each other across the stepping stones and were able to walk side by side again over the heather they began to talk in a friendly way about this and that and piglet said if you see what i mean pooh and poo said it's just what i think myself piglet and piglet said but on the other hand pooh we must remember and poo said quite true piglet although i had forgotten it for the moment and then just as they came to the six pine trees pooh looked round to see that nobody else was listening and said in a very solemn voice piglet i have decided something what have you decided i have decided to catch a heifer lump who nodded his head several times as he said this and waited for piglet to say how or poo you couldn't or something helpful of that sort but piglet said nothing the fact was piglet was wishing he had thought about that first i shall do it said pooh after waiting a little longer by means of a trap and it must be a cunning trap so you will have to help me piglet pooh said piglet feeling quite happy again now i will and then he said how should we do it and pooh said that's just it how and then they sat down together to think it out pooh's first idea was that they should dig a very deep pit and then the hufflepump would come along and fall into the pitch and why said piglet why what said pooh why would he fall in who rubbed his nose with his paw and said that the hephalam might be walking along humming a little song looking up at the sky wondering if it would rain so he wouldn't see the very deep pitch until he was halfway down and it would be too late piglet said this this was very good trap but suppose it was raining already pooh rubbed his nose again and said he hadn't thought of that then he brightened up and said that if it were raining already the hephalam would be looking at the sky wondering if it would clear up so he wouldn't see the very deep pit until he was halfway down and piglet said that now that this point had been explained he thought it was a cunning trap who was very proud when he heard this and felt that the heffalump was as good as caught already but there was just one other thing which had to be thought about and it was this who should dig and where should they dig the very deep pit piglet said the best place would be somewhere where a heffalump was just before he fell into it only about a foot further on suppose pooh said to piglet you wanted to catch me how would you do it well said piglet i should do it like this i should make a trap and i should put a jar of honey into the trap and you would smell it and you would go in after it and and i would go in after it said pooh excitedly only very carefully so as not to hurt myself and i would get to the jar of honey and i should lick around the edges first of all pretending that there wasn't any more you know and then i should walk away and think about it a little and then i should come back and start licking the middle of the jar and then well yes never mind about that sid piglet there you would be and there i should catch you well one could go on but the whole book is full of foy balls about people what they like and what they're tempted by and how they react with each other and it's actually a good part of the garden that's one can even see the beehives here behind me where all the honey is but let's think about all our friends today and their wonderfully different characteristics and the way in which we can encourage each other and sometimes when we know that puffing themselves up a bit or being too proud or really down low we know how to correct that and they do the same to us because the relationship is always a mutual activity in that way it's the loveliest gift that a.a milne has given us with that huge set of different sorts of characters and one never tires of reading it i'm going to sit piglet down here by the teapot or perhaps i can put him back with another character here who is playing winnie the pooh for us today he's called snoopy but he's uh just almost as old as piglet and has been around for a long time and is uh got some of the characteristics of winnie the pooh on this take your teddy bear to school or work day we're going to say our prayers and we look at the areas of the world that we're asked to pray for on this day and in the anglican communion we're praying for the diocese of pretoria in south africa and praying for alan kanemaya the bishop there and his people and the diocese of concepcion in chile and enrique zugadi the bishop there and his people and here in this diocese today as we pray for justin our archbishop and for rose bishop of dover and tim bishop at lambeth we pray for the parish of birchington all saints with ecole saint mildred and st thomas minis bay and the priest there mark ham and all his company and community there so let's bring our own prayers to today's prayer and imagine in our hearts and minds those we would pray for almighty and everlasting god increase in us your gift of faith that forsaking what lies behind and reaching out to that which is before we may run the way of your commandments and win the crown of everlasting joy through jesus christ our lord amen so as we say the prayer our savior taught us let's think also those who are nervous this day the international day of stop bullying and uh we pray for encouragement and support for anyone to whom that is happening throughout the world say this prayer in your own language however you like to say it 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 on this lovely morning here to say our own prayers the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and of 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 [Music] [Music] you