good morning and welcome to the deanery garden in canterbury cathedral on this morning of tuesday the 26th of october we've come into the garden on another lovely awesome morning and i'm sitting in front of a cadastrious tree as it turns its beautiful autumn colors a kentuckian yellow wood and it's a favorite tree particularly of fletcher because it reminds us of the close around washington national cathedral where huge kentuckian yellow woods hang with the flowers that hang down almost like wisteria flowers white wisteria flowers and it reminds us of the life of that lovely place and the fragrance also of that lovely place when we are there and usually for autumn meetings of the friends of canterbury because he's in the united states we have been there but of course that has travel of that kind has stopped for the last two years so no hope of that at present but as we as we uh as we think we we remember our friend dean randy polaris the dean of washington national cathedral and his wife melissa and also john coppo no it's russell who's arrived uh uh jan cope and all the ministry of washington national cathedral there we pray for them this morning as we say our prayers here in canterbury and as we do so we are thinking of other areas of the world and if we go around there are areas at the moment of danger some of them take us across the atlantic again but right on to the other side of the united states where an enormous west coast storm a record-breaking storm with record-breaking rain has hit california and it's so much so much water after the mega drought that the great yosemite waterfall has begun to roar with water all over again and as we're thinking of the way that the climate can change suddenly from drought to rains and floods as we we um think of our planet and the dangers that all those things can incur but on the other side of the states on the east coast the governors of new jersey and new york have now issued a warning against a fierce east coast storm now that can be replicated right across the world and you'll be thinking of different different areas of of danger from climatic change um we also think of the way in which we are a danger to ourselves and we think of just a a news clip of another shooting a random shooting in a shopping mall in boise in idaho so all those things are dangerous to us as humanity but at the same time we go across perhaps in our minds to i'm going through news buddhism japan where yesterday princess maiko and her um fiance uh kei kamuro were uh married and are choosing that marriage i'm sorry i mean today actually i'm getting the time wrong from from japan to here um but choosing with a new life to go and start a new life in new york so princess mako is leaving one life for a completely different life in new york going with her husband there so we pray for them and at the same time bring your own prayers and concerns as we worship together here in the garden of the deanery this morning tuesday the 26th of october 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 and 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 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 our psalm on this morning is another section of psalm 119 and i'm beginning this morning at verse 105. your word is a lantern to my feet and a light upon my path i have sworn and will fulfill it to keep your righteous judgments i am troubled above measure give me life o lord according to your word accept the free will offering of my mouth so lord and teach me your judgments my soul is ever in my hand yet i do not forget your law the wicked have laid a snare for me but i have not strayed from your commandments your testimonies have i claimed as my heritage forever for they are the very joy of my heart i have applied my heart to fulfill your statutes always even to the end once again a psalm showing the qualities of light in darkness which we were thinking of yesterday and if i'd gone on to verse 130 which is still within the compass of this morning's psalms we would have had the verse the opening of your word gives light and of course we in our own thinking and praying think of god's word not only in written form but as the eternal word who took our human flesh in the person of jesus and revealed the uh creator in his own life and the quality of all it is of the kingdom of heaven and invites us into it so we're going to the book of exodus again and this is really uh last chance corral for the pharaoh we've got to chapter 11 i'm reading the whole of chapter 11 this morning the lord said to moses yet one plague more when i bring upon pharaoh and upon egypt afterwards he will let you go from here when he lets you go he will drive you away completely speak now in the hearing of the people that they ask every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor for silver and gold jewelry and the lord gave the people favor in the sight of the egyptians moreover the man moses was very great in the land of egypt in the sight of pharaoh's servants and in the sight of the people so moses said thus says the lord about midnight i will go out in the midst of egypt and every firstborn in the land of egypt shall die from the firstborn of pharaoh who sits on his throne even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill and all the firstborn of the cattle there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of egypt such as there has never been nor ever will be again but not a dog shall growl against any of the people of israel either of humankind or beast that you may know that the lord makes a distinction between egypt and israel and all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me saying get out you and all the people who follow you and after that you will go out moses went out from pharaoh in hot anger then the lord said to moses pharaoh will not listen to you that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of egypt moses and aaron did all these wonders before pharaoh and the lord hardened pharaoh's heart and he did not let the people of israel go out of his land yet one plague left and it causes us to think how all of this succession of plagues handed down in oral stories until they were written down much later all this succession of plagues throughout the land of egypt recorded in the annals of the mind of the children of israel and written down and refined much much later on in their own country which was to become theirs so that the worship in the temple in jerusalem would be filled with these stories and the stories in the synagogue taught to little boys like jesus in nazareth and the psalms taught in the psalms full of allusions to this time and then refined and written down again in exile in babylon and brought back to the restored temple all of that going through history and it always makes me a glad when i see that these stories rather like as i've said before we do with children we have places and the psalmists do it quite often uh psalm 107 is a case in point with a sort of chorus where the people can join in we come to that point and we say it again and in this you quite often get with the plagues uh the phrase like the darkness darkness or pales i mean uh such has never was before and will never be again this sort of sing-song rhythm of this being the most decisive moment and it's put as the writing goes in that way on the way through and here we are now at this last plague about to happen but let's think and i've seen many scholarly treaties written about how each of the plagues represented and was a a almost a contest between the gods of egypt the river god or the god of fertility or the finally the great god of the sun and the contest between those gods so many of them centered around the waters of the river nile giving fertility and the seasons which guaranteed that fertility continuing but from time to time and one thinks again of the mega drought in california and the fires engendered and now the the enormous record-breaking storms of rain um all of those things were there under the egyptian gods in their minds but this is a contest between the god of the hebrews the creator the life force of everything in this planet the giver of the gift of this planet and the the the gods of the egyptians and um it's always fruitless fruitless to try and make things too exact but so many people have tried to do it you know the first plague was this god the second plague was this god the third plague was this god the fourth plague right up to the tents and the ninth the crocodile gods and the the the gods of the the the the waters themselves and then the great god of the sun and we shall go on to remember that pharaoh himself is a divine being and all of those things are part of this story so that to the egyptians this has been a contest which is really uh ruining egypt as the courtships keep saying but the ninth plague of thick darkness means that the great god of the sun has been darkened and the contest has been won but there's one still to come and we should look at that tomorrow but it was signaled today the way in which the next thing that happens is a a plague a particular pestilence or disease which which brings the children down including the crown prince and at that point one remembers that pharaoh himself is in the egyptian theology a divine being and the quran prince is due to inherit that divinity within that context all of those things we shall think tomorrow but we have seen it written out it becomes now as we enter this tenth plague tomorrow it becomes now more and more liturgical what i mean is that we've come to a point where a priestly hand so much later on is giving all the instructions as to how this is all to be remembered in worship and we have to remember that the different hands that are shaping these stories but at the basis of them is the way in which our planet throws things at us which humanity is threatened by or blessed by and the way in which we care for one another within that context is evident to us day after day so here we are this morning thinking of light and darkness life and death and also first fruits of crops and of flocks which had been part of liturgical worship festival life in the people of israel long before that the presentation of the first chief at the wheat harvest the presentation of the grapes at the vintage harvest the presentation of the the first barley at the barley harvest and then again the the way in which um the the firstborn of the flock was offered it was something that was common in those times well then that will all come as part of what becomes passover and moves on as a sign and we shall then be thinking not only of the eternal word as the light of the world but the eternal word as the lamb of god as john the baptist designated him and the festivals of the year just reminding us reminding us as autumn terms the kentuckian yellow wood into deepest gold and this lovely sense of the sun in the garden having one last throw of total beauty as created plants go into themselves again and leaves begin to drop from trees and this season of late autumn and winter goes on well um today is a day on the 26th of october 899 when king alfred the great died he is in our liturgical calendar he's in what i mean is in the calendar in this book of common worship this uh bravery this prayer book that i'm using day by day with all the seasons on this day we remember king alfred the great not the king of the whole of england as we now know it but the king first of all of wessex which was the west country in the southern part of england which extended with his reign and he took over once again london and his influence reached even down to kent but the north of the country was held by the danes in an area which was known then as the dane law i didn't want to go into all the battles which alfred fought and some of them he won and some of them he lost and there was a of course a famous legend attached to king alfred the great after one of his um defeats in escaping into the somerset levels the villages of somerset in very sort of marshy lands down there and somerset is in the west country very near to the county in which i was born at the west country there before you get to devon before you get to cornwall you've got that the county of somerset and the county of somerset was where alfred fled to you've got places like glastonbury there and all of that um we remembered but there was a legend that we were told and it was a strange legend and it was of alfred seeking shelter in a cottage and seeking warmth amongst all the water and cold at the somerset levels and the king entered into the house and the the woman who was in there baking wheaton cakes was not aware of who this was but she was hospitable and sat in by the fire and said look i have an errand to make and say please can you make sure the cakes don't burn and alfred his mind absolutely on everything else how he was to win the next victory what had happened before his kingdom how he looked after his people let the cakes burn and the woman came back and scolded the king in a huge way and that story for some reason has stayed uh attached to alfred's name alfred who burnt the cakes well what is right is that alfred became a king with his capital in winchester so we pray to to uh for uh winchester cathedral and the life of winchester and the diocese of of winchester at this time and and dean catherine there um but we also remembered that he himself was a scholar who wanted his people to be educated and also the church to have educated people who could actually teach the scriptures there looking after them whether it be in monasteries or in parish priests he wanted the clergy to be better educated and so he absolutely concentrated on that he himself was someone who understood languages and he translated gregory the greats treaties on pastoral care so that people could read it in their own language he said okay for the moment the clergy do need to know the latin because they're stumbling through it and making a terrible hash of it in their worship on on at any time that they they celebrate the mass or read the offices because things have become completely uh should we say slipshod and lackadaisical at this time because of all the confusion and the battles going on and people not knowing whether they were in a christian land or a with the danes in in who certainly at that time weren't christian so alfred started to govern the people and saw his kingship as both looking after their temporal welfare their safety and their education and that the resources they needed for their daily life but also their spiritual welfare that's why he's in our calendar and uh it's it's good to see his statue there in winchester but uh you will remember when we were thinking of archbishop theodore of the way in which he established the the the diocesan uh areas and jurisdictions but since then there had been much disorder and one invasion after another from the danes and here was alfred striving to make sure that there were clergy amongst the people whom they knew and who themselves knew the scriptures not only in the latin language but in their own language so that the people could understand and the minute you start using words that people don't understand and there is a temptation sometimes for those who are good in one discipline or another to use the acronyms and phrases of i don't know business speak or museum speak or or whatever kind of speak you like the acronyms of of military service and education which of course find their place in there but when you start using them to people and they've no idea what you're talking about then you've sort of lost the plot because the the very name the eternal word means that there is an educated understanding even at the simplest level and you well know when you're looking at someone whether they're understanding what you're saying and when you see that you don't get an understanding you go back to pick up the stitches of the initiating so to speak and come again with a different image or something of that sort this was what alfred was wanting and the lovely thing is he began to give round his translation of gregory the great's pastoral care was something that caused him to be loved by his people because they knew he was looking after them where they were not at a distance but where they were and and wanting them to have a life which had the welfare of their own temporal resources but also their spiritual welfare deep in the king's heart so alfred we venerate in a great way in this land so long ago 899 but those principles which he established still very much the lifeblood of a church which has always been a pastoral church living amongst the people and being there um in their in their day daily life and and so um that we hold very precious so we give thanks then on this day for alfred we also give thanks for a poet elizabeth jennings her her name uh is and she died on the 26th of october 2001 she was born in 1926 and she is a lovely almost pastoral poet she lived most of her life in oxford and she's been called england's best catholic poet since gerald manley hopkins and i brought some of her verses you many of you will know her well but the verses are little cameos which speak about gardens and plants and feelings we have when when we're there uh and uh i'm going to just read three they're quite short as we give thanks for elizabeth jennings the the poet this one is called in a garden and she the gardener in her garden uh has just gone home and left everything absolutely neat tidy clipped and in in a way uh as a gardener would want it and she actually is lamenting the way that the plants have been so tidied up that something of the spirit of the garden has disappeared so this is in a garden by elizabeth jennings when the gardener has gone this garden looks wistful and seems waiting an event it is so spruce a metaphor of eden and even more so since the gardener went quietly god-like but of course he had not made me promise anything and i had no one tempting me to make the bad choice yet i still felt lost and wonder why even the beech tree from next door which shares its shadow with me seemed a kind of threat everything was too neat and someone cares in the wrong way i need not have stood long mocked by the smell of a moon lawn and yet i did sickness for eden was so strong and that uh gives you a a flavor of how a garden has a particular life a different kind of life for different folk she mentions the beech tree and there's one of her poems called a beach and it's written i think at this time of year she's thinking of the leaves i think on that same beech tree and her neighbor neighbor's garden here it is very short poem again talking of the leaves they will not go these leaves insist on staying coinage like theirs looked frail six weeks ago what hintings that excitement of delaying almost as if some richer fruits could grow if leaves hung on against each swipe of storm if branches bent but still did not give way today is brushed with sun the leaves are warm i picked one from the pavement and it lay with borrowed shining on my winter hand persistence of this nature sends the pulse beating more rapidly when will it end that pride of leaves when will the branches be utterly bare and seem like something else now half forgotten no part of a tree autumn coming and the beach as you probably know keeps its leaves much longer than any other tree and she spotted that but lastly the last poem i want to read of hers is simply called friday and here it is we nailed the hands long ago wove the thorns took up the scourge and shouted for excitement's sake we stood at the dusty edge of the pebbled path and watched the extreme of pain but one or two prayed one or two were silent shocked stood back and remembered remnants of words a new vision the cross is up with its crying victim the clouds cover the sun we learn a new way to lose what we did not know we had until this bleak and sacrificial day until we turned from our bad past and knelt and cried out our dismay the dice still clicking the voice is dying away that's simply called friday so you can find many more poems of hers like that and they're all very beautiful so elizabeth jennings died on this day in the year 2001. well as we come to say our prayers maybe we should remind ourselves that as we are sitting here we're surrounded by plants which speak of completely different parts of the world we have here a japanese iris and so that makes us think of the royal wedding in japan and here european and english silver birches all the way around us and then round to the kentuckian yellow wood and the oriental magnolia truly a garden congregation in their own right from right around the world we're remembering with thanksgiving today one of our garden congregation who has died marry her in evanston illinois remember her friend patricia dench both of them were members of the choir at the church of the holy spirit lake forest in illinois and sadly they were due to come and sing here for a week last year as a visiting choir but of course the pandemic put an end to that but she's felt herself very much part of life because uh mary has been part of the garden congregation and joined in in that way so as her friend patricia said she'd been to canterbury morning by morning since then and we give thanks for that so bring your own prayers and intentions we are praying this morning on this day the 26th for the uh the diocese of uh guinea in the church of province of west africa and praying here again for the parishes of the deanery of the elam valley and this day we're thinking of all those who exercise chaplaincy ministry there malcolm sawyer tricia hill david slater bill mills and heather parsons in their ministry so let's say the prayer for this particular day blessed lord who has caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning help us so to hear them read mark learn and inwardly discuss them that by comfort and patience of your holy word we may embrace and forever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life which you have given us in our savior jesus christ amen and come back so let's say the prayer our savior taught us in 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 are men the image of silence now for our own prayers ah [Music] ah [Music] uh [Music] i think when leo left us he got stung by a bee in the pool so he's sorry you're all right she's only a bee sting don't worry you're all right come on come and be comforted 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 amen you shouldn't go going off like that and then diving into beehives it doesn't do you'll be better don't worry i don't think you can be too bad certainly give me your fright made you forget russell really didn't it surrounded by dangers you are leo aren't you alright lick it better