so good morning and welcome to the deanery garden on a really frosty morning uh morning of thick frost on the lawns and i'm here uh we're playing poo sticks and watching in a meditative and reflective way the twigs go down in the water it's an a mill anniversary we'll come to that in our reflection and we were here um earlier in the last year when it was a much finer day but here we are again by the stream as it runs down so be welcome here in the deanery garden and bring your own prayers and intentions from right across the world this morning we've so many things to think about in our world at the moment and we're still waiting for better news from tonga but the runway there is so much covered in ash that the rescue planes with resources cannot yet land we've heard uh of the death of one woman an animal charity man manager angela glover but really not much more news so we're praying obviously for those who have been bereaved or have lost their lives like angela and we're also praying for those attempting to get relief and help there it's a very slow journey by boat long way away from new zealand and australia by boat and then uh we i have reports of twin earthquakes which has caused a lot of loss of life in afghanistan so our minds go there and then uh perhaps uh a bit more is is the the news of a death but it's a a a cheerful story because kolowali the indian tigress who was known as the absolute super mum of indian tigers has has died in old age she had mother 29 cubs and appeared on a a spy in the jungle wildlife on bbc but she had eight letters and that's completely changed the fortunes of the balance of tigers in the pench tiger reserve in madhya pradesh state in central india so we give thanks for her life kalawali and how she helped to enlarge her species there well let's say our prayers on this particular day it's the first day of the week of prayer for christian unity so we will say a prayer for the unity of the church when we come to our prayers o 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 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 and 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 on this morning of the month the 18th morning of the month is psalm 93 92 sorry it is a good thing to give thanks to the lord and to sing praises to your name o most high to tell of your love early in the morning and of your faithfulness in the night time upon the ten-stringed instrument upon the harp and to the melody of the liar for you lord have made me glad by your acts and i sing aloud at the works of your hands o lord how glorious are your works your thoughts are very deep the senseless do not know nor do fools understand that though the wicked sprout like grass and all the workers of iniquity flourish it is only to be destroyed forever but you o lord shall be exalted forevermore follow your enemies o lord lo your enemies shall perish and all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered but my horn you have exalted like the horns of wild oxen i am anointed with fresh oil my eyes will look down on my foes my ears shall hear the ruin of the evil doers who rise up against me the righteous shall flourish like a palm tree and shall spread abroad like a cedar of lebanon such as are planted in the house of the lord shall flourish in the courts of our god they shall still bear fruit in old age they shall be vigorous and in full leaf that they may show that the lord is true he is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him so we turn back to the book of samuel which we began yesterday and really this is hannah's story and i'm taking up from where i left off yesterday chapter 1 and verse 21 the man elkanah and all his house went up to offer to the lord the yearly sacrifice to pay his vow but hannah did not go up for she said to her husband as soon as the child is weaned i will bring him so that he may appear in the presence of the lord and dwell there forever elkanah her husband said to her do what seems best to you wait until you have weaned him only may the lord establish his word so the woman remained and nursed her son until she went him and when hannah had weaned him she took him up with her along with a three-year-old bull an ifa of flour and a skin of wine and she brought him to the house of the lord at shiloh and the child was young then they slaughtered the bull and they brought the child to eli and she said o my lord as you live my lord i am the woman who was standing here in your presence praying to the lord for this child i prayed and the lord has granted me my petition that i made to him therefore i have lent him to the lord as long as he lives he is lent to the lord and she worshipped the lord there and hannah prayed and said my heart exults in the lord my horn is exalted in the lord my mouth derides my enemies because i rejoice in your salvation there is none holy like the lord for there is none besides you there is no rock like our god talk no more so very proudly let not arrogance come from your mouth for the lord is a god of knowledge and by him actions are weighed the bows of the mighty are broken but the feeble bind on strength those who were full have hired themselves out for bread but those who are hungry have ceased to hunger the baron has borne seven but she who has many children is forlorn the lord kills and the lord brings to life he brings down to sheol and he raises up the lord makes poor and makes rich he brings low and he exalts he raises up the poor from the dust he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor for the pillars of the earth are the lords and on them he has set the world he will guard the feet of his faithful ones but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness for not by might shall a man prevail the adversaries of the lord shall be broken to pieces against them he will thunder in heaven the lord will judge the ends of the earth he will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed then elkanah went home to rama and the boy was ministering to the lord in the presence of eli the priest it's the beginning of the ministry of samuel but those chapters are really hannah's story and i think you will already have felt the likeness of those chapters with the first two chapters of st luke's gospel perhaps to start with we might say because we've just read the song of hannah which is like reading another psalm if you like in our morning prayer this morning but it's a song which is given to the mouth of hannah to show how she is feeling in offering her son in this ministry to the lord's tabernacle at shiloh well before there was a temple in jerusalem and offering him to that service through eli the priest whom we met yesterday and who blessed hannah before she went home and before she conceived and that song is like so many of the songs put into the mouths of those in luke chapter one and two the song of zechariah which we call benedictus blessed be the lord god of israel for he has visited and redeemed his people and then the song well the song of the angels of course but the song of of mary herself in her magnificat and there are many likenesses in hannah's song to the intentions and thanksgivings of magnificat there is almost a parallel between the vocation of hannah to bear the sun and then to have the pain of offering him to a particular vocation as the lord's prophet and the judge of his people when he is older samuel and mary herself receiving her vocation with obedience my soul that magnify the lord my spirit has rejoiced in god my savior the song of mary which even song is sung or sometimes said every day just as the dimitis later in luke's gospel is the song of simeon and we shall come to that when we come on february the second to the feast of the presentation of christ in the temple but for the moment let's look at at this vocation of hannah for she until then had been the one who was feeling that everything for her was just at a close the lord closed her womb that the scripture said yesterday and now suddenly she has conceived and elkanah and hannah have a son and elkanah goes up on the normal route to the shrine and at the same time hannah says no i'll stay here until the boy is weaned and then i'll come and he shall be my offering to the lord lent to the lord she says for the whole of his life an offering of pain in passing from her son but also an offering of total vocation certainly the quality and character of this chapter have a great likeness to those lovely chapters of sin luke's gospel one and two which we dwelt on so much at christmas time that has almost a song in the mouth of each of the main characters there and here we have that too today the offering of a song there's music and the psalms are full of music as our psalm was today singing a new song to the lord and then also there's a sense of a journey to be made to the holy place and something that was regularly part of the life of elkanah and his family and hannah until then had gone up with them and it's only now that she keeps herself secluded until she's ready to come with the babe but at the same time we think of the way in which mary and joseph traveled to jerusalem for the festivals and when jesus was told they went up in a particular way and lost him there if you remember and then went back and found him and those words he spoke to them did you not know i must be in my father's house or i must be about my father's business whichever translation you give to that and that same kind of sense of travelling either in heart or mind or actually physically to a holy place to advance the service that we feel we owe to the creator and to gain new insights into what that will be all those things are there elkanah and hannah joseph and mary the offering of samuel the offering of the infant jesus to a vocation that simeon assures mary will give her pain as well as give the heart that the people joy well i said that we'd come here for a special reason as the the water flows down here and the reason is that this the 18th of january 1882 was the day on which the author a.a milne was born he died in january 1956. he'd grown up in that world where having started his career he went off for world war one service and uh only after that when he came back from the war his son christopher robin was born in 1920. now he was already a writer who was well known he wrote for punch the magazine from 1906 onwards became an assistant editor there and he was writing novels and plays and people knew of him and in 1922 two years after christopher robin was born he wrote a detective mystery which was very popular it's called the red house mystery and it's still in print and it's very much of its era of that genre of detective writing but then he began for the sake of the entertainment of his son christopher robin milne when he was growing up and in his nursery he began to write nursery rhymes shall we say poems with rhymes attached to them and the rhythms would give pleasure but they were inspired by what he saw going on as his son grew up and the poems which he wrote he published in 1924 in a book called when we were very young and these were illustrated by one of the cartoonists who he knew at punch e h shepherd it was almost a throwaway book his writing was detective series and articles and in journals and yet suddenly this book began to be popular and there was a poem in it which gave him thought to go on to write something else and these poems later were set to music beautifully set to music by harold fraser simpson but i brought two of the volumes of those out and this volume contains poems which were in when we were very young in 1924 and although they are the rhythms of the nursery and easy read and very humorous each of them contains seeds of truth some of them quite deep seeds of truth winnie the pooh isn't in here but there is a starter character for winnie the pooh and uh he is called simply teddy bear and he is drawn here looking out of his window onto the street with bear twigs beyond him in a lovely little cartoon by e.h shepherd and uh as he uh sits there he thinks now here is the poem sorry we'll see how it proceeds a bear however hard he tries grows tubby without exercise our teddy bear is short and fat which is not to be wondered at he gets what exercise he can by falling off the ottoman but generally seems to lack the energy to clamber back now tubbiness is just the thing which gets a fellow wondering and teddy wondered lots about the fact that he was rather stout he thought if only i was thin but how does anyone begin he thought it really isn't fair to grudge me exercise in there for many weeks he pressed in vain his nose against the window pane and envied those who walked about reducing their unwanted stout none of the people he could see is quite he said as fat as me and then still more moving sigh i mean he said as fat as i now teddy as was only right slept in the ottoman at night and with him crowded in as well more animals than i can tell not only these but books and things such as a kind relation brings old tales of once upon a time and history retold in rhyme one night it happened that he took a peep at an old picture book wherein he came across by chance the picture of a king of france a stoutish man down below these words king louis so and so nicknamed the handsome there he sat and think of it the man was fat our bear rejoiced like anything to read about this famous king nicknamed the handsome there he sat and certainly the man was fat nicknamed the handsome not a doubt the man was definitely stout why then a bear for all his tub might yet be named the handsome cub might yet be named or did he mean that years ago he might have been for now he felt a slight misgiving is louis so and so still living fashions in beauty have a way of altering from day to day is handsome louis with us yet unfortunately i forget next morning nose to window pane the doubt occurred to him again one question hammered in his head is he alive or is he dead thus nose to pain he pondered but the lattice window loosely shut swung open with one startled oh our teddy disappeared below there happened to be passing by a plump man with a twinkling eye who's seeing teddy in the street raised him politely to his feet and murmured kindly in his ear soft words of comfort and of cheer well well allow me not at all tut tut a very nasty fall our teddy answered not a word it's doubtful if he even heard our bear could only look and look the stout man in the picture book that handsome king could this be he this man of adiposity impossible he thought but still no harm in asking yes i will are you he said by any chance his majesty the king of france the other answered i am that bowed stiffly and removed his hat then said excuse me with an air but is it mr edward bear and teddy bending very low replied politely even so they stood beneath the window there the king and mr edward bear and handsome if a trifle fat talked carelessly of this and that then said his majesty well well i must get on and rang the bell your bear i think he smiled good day and turned and went upon his way a bear however hard he tries grows tubby without exercise our teddy bear is short and fat which is not to be wondered at but do you think it worries him to know that he is far from slim no just the other way about he's proud of being short and stout now that's not winnie the pooh but if you look at e h shepherd's drawing then it is absolutely the beginnings of those stories which became winnie the pooh which actually created for a.a milne an absolute storm of popularity and that's gone on over the years i don't need to expand on that the characters winnie the pooh piglet eeyore kangaroo tigger all on display in new york the original toys um taken from the nursery of of uh his son christopher robin as he was growing up and the landscape of the hundred acre wood from the 500 acre wood in ashdown forest near to where he was living in east sussex but it was the poem teddy bear that started all that off in a book of not quite nonsense rhymes because there's a often a sentence in each of them which makes us feel better about ourselves or makes us wonder about things in the world itself this volume of fraser simpson's songs is entirely poems from that first book when we were very young and the poems themselves give a sense of people mattering often they're in creature form here's another it's called the four friends i can find it ernest was an elephant a great big fellow leonard was a lion with a six-foot tail george was a goat and his beard was yellow and james was a very small snail leonard had a stall and a great big strong one ernest had a manger and its walls were thick george found a pen but i think it was the wrong one and james sat down on a brick ernest started trumpeting and cracked his manger leonard started roaring and shivered his stall james gave the huffle of a small of a snail in danger but nobody heard him at all ernest started trumpeting and raised such a rumpus leonard started roaring and trying to kick james went to journey with a goat's new compass and reached the end of his brick ernest was an elephant and very well intentioned leonard was a lion with a brave new tale george was a goat as i think i mentioned but james was only a snail and yet james in his way has accomplished his journey and uh gone through to the end of his brick right for his size and adventure which is a symbol of so many adventures we make which are fitting for us now this time it was the fact that people were saying to a.a milne um you should be writing more of these and as christopher robin grew up and he wrote the two books uh uh winnie the pooh and the house at pooh corner and he wrote uh uh when we were very young and now we are six that came out in 1927. um he felt that the inspiration for that now had gone because it had all come from the activity of his son growing up and that then was growing out into a different area and he wanted to write something else and from that time here's a sentence he wrote about what we do when we're being badgered into things and saying we want more of these books and he was saying no i i'm not inclined to do that and he wrote the only excuse which i have yet discovered for writing anything is that i want to write it and i should be as proud to be delivered of a telephone directory con amore as i should be ashamed to create a blank verse tragedy at the bidding of others the intention the creativity has to come from the spark inside and everything that he had written of course about the 600 acre wood was there left and that lovely phrase in that enchanted place on the top of the forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing is a lovely sentence to end that but creativity within him had gone on and then he found himself as a captain of the home guard in the second world war in his own area and went on writing plays and stories but his time for writing these kind of things was over yet there are times when in playing these and uh letting the music flow it's not just about creatures but about the atmosphere he writes and is being pondered in the mind as if of his little boy about the wind here's one called wind on the hill no one can tell me nobody knows where the wind comes from where the wind goes it's flying from somewhere as fast as it can i couldn't keep up with it not if i ran but if i stopped holding the string of my kite it would blow with the wind for a day and a night and then when i found it wherever it blew i should know that the wind had been going there too so then i could tell them where the wind goes but where the wind comes from nobody knows nobody knows nobody knows resonances there in that child's poem are they known of uh the conversation with nicodemus the wind blows where it will and uh it those are the words of jesus in the simple illustrations of what's going on in weather and landscape and also helping nicodemus in all his wisdom to re-enter that wonder of childhood and begin to see the workings of the spirit it's an invitation for us all so we give thanks for the creative writing of a.a milne in verse and in stories but also his desire to write what the creative instinct was telling him to write so let's come to our prayers on this day and uh it's the 18th of january we're praying in the anglican communion for the diocese of jos in the jos province of the church of nigeria and we are also praying in our own diocese for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover and for uh lemma bishop at lambeth but this is the first day of the week of prayer for christian unity and so we are praying for the growing unity of all christian denominations and particularly within this diocese and this county of kent so that prayer could be yours wherever you are in the world for your own area and for the unity of the church of christ throughout the world here is the prayer for the unity of the church heavenly father you have called us in the body of your son jesus christ to continue his work of reconciliation and reveal you to the world forgive us the sins which tear us apart give us the courage to overcome our fears and to seek that unity which is your gift and your will through jesus christ our lord amen and the prayer for this week 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 so 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 amen so now uh some time for your own reflection and my reflections will be helped by the stream carrying thoughts by its own current and journeying for me [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is is [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] christ the son of god perfect in 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 it's a pleasant thing to watch the stream but you see how some of them on their journey get uh stuck a bit and uh one or two more will be needed to just go down and help them dislodge and go on further so many lessons to learn as the stream goes past on a morning like this and the frost now beginning to melt away