[Music] so [Music] so [Music] um [Music] [Music] then [Music] good morning and welcome to the garden of the deanery at canterbury cathedral for our morning prayers on what must be the roughest morning of the year so far we are in the middle of an enormous storm and the rain is coming horizontally and so we've taken shelter here in the little tomato greenhouse the tomatoes are now coming to the end of their season as you'll see yesterday you met our lovely almost victorian heroine female turkey the hen turkey who lives with the chickens and looks after them and this morning we have these lovely uh pair of turkeys a stag and a hen turkeys are very gentle creatures as most of you will know and when we see flocks of them in the woods in with wild in the woods of rhode island one realizes that they are community birds and and go along quite gently and they're even known to mourn around a tree when it's been chopped down in in almost a ritual of sadness but here are two more this morning and they're growing bigger so the lovely other turkey that you saw yesterday she can join them soon it is as i said a tremendously rough day and wherever you are in the world please be welcome here i'm sorry if the noise of the rain in the wind is uh is is going to be fairly evident throughout the service i don't think this is going to die down for a long time yet and the trees the big trees are dancing around nightside in this very strong wind it causes us to remember that on this day november the 15th in 1928 the rnli lifeboat mary stanford capsized in rye harbour rye the most beautiful town near here and through uh silting up it's now a bit removed from the sea but on that morning as the lifeboat capsized all 17 members of the crew 17 men who were almost volunteers from that little community died and it must have been a time of great sadness it reminds us just how dangerous sea crossings in little boats and in sailing ships and and ordinary ships were in those days and still are and so we pray for the work of the uh rnli which looks after the funding and provision of lifeboats and we'll put a link on below because it's the most wonderful charity and all the support comes from that charity we remember on this day in 1897 that night evan was born who was the minister of health immediate here in england immediately after the second world war and was the architect of the national health service for which we give such great thanks at this time of pandemic and uh we are constantly trying to think of new ways of applauding them and thanking them in in that sacrificial work for all those who are in the uh grip of the pandemic but also with things that need to be treated in just the same way as they always have been despite the call on the resources of covid19 so all those things as we've always said every date has scenes of horror in 1943 the ss leader himmler decided that the romani people were to be put on the same level as jews and sent to concentration camps and so we we pray for them today with that awful memory of the time in the 1940s when all that was happening it's also the uh the beginning for some of the eastern orthodox church of a long period of fasting in preparation for christmas just as we keep a long period of fasting in preparation for easter and so we shall keep advent ourselves soon and that is a season of preparation for us it's just four weeks whereas uh they uh quite often keep a 40-day fast and a very strict one and it's often called the nativity fast so we pray for them we also remember that the prince of wales today is attending in germany the day of national mourning for victims of war as remembrance continues across europe and he in his speech will say or is intending to say we must be resolute in addressing acts of unspeakable cruelty against people for reasons of their religion their race or their beliefs wherever they occur in the world we must stand alongside each other in determined defense of the future we owe our children and grandchildren so we pray for his royal highness and the duchess of cornwall this morning as they join the german people in that act of reconciliation and forward intention let's begin our morning prayers o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your faithful servants bless you they make known the glory of your kingdom blessed are you sovereign god ruler and judge of all to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of this age that is passing away may the light of your presence which the saints enjoy surround our steps as we journey on may we reflect your glory this day and so be made ready to see your face in the heavenly city where night shall be no more 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 psalm on this 15th morning of the month is psalm 77 and i'm going to read some of the verses of that psalm now i cry aloud to god i cry aloud to god and he will hear me in the day of my trouble i have sought the lord by night my hand is stretched out and does not tire my soul refuses comfort i will remember the works of the lord and call to mind your wonders of old time i will meditate on all your works and ponder your mighty deeds your way o god is holy who is so great a god as our god you are the god who worked wonders and declared your power among the peoples with a mighty arm you redeemed your people the children of jacob and joseph the waters saw you oh god the waters saw you and were afraid the depths also were troubled the clouds poured out water the skies thundered your arrows flashed on every side the voice of your thunder was in the whirlwind your lightnings lit up the ground the earth trembled and shook your way was in the sea and your paths in the great waters but your footsteps were not known you led your people like sheep by the hand of moses and aaron so we come to our reading and of course as you will remember on sundays we break into what we are reading regularly but november seems to be the time for the book of daniel in the old testament and the revelation to john in the new testament so i suppose it ought to surprise us that even the sunday lesson in november this time of preparation for advent is from the revelation but it's taking us back to a scene which we looked at together on the weekday reading only probably two weeks ago or so it's the whole of revelation chapter four and it is a good thing to read because it will help us once again understand the nature of this book after this i looked and behold a door standing open in heaven and the first voice which i had heard speaking to me like a trumpet said come up here and i will show you what must take place after this and at once i was in the spirit and behold a throne stood in heaven with one seated on the throne and the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian and round the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald round the throne were 24 thrones and seated on the thrones were 24 elders clothed in white garments with golden crowns on their heads and from the throne came flashes of lightning and rumblings and peels of thunder and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire which are the seven spirits of god and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass like crystal and round the throne on each side of the throne are four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind the first living creature like a lion the second living creature like a calf the third living creature with the face of a human being and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight and the four living creatures each of them with six wings are full of eyes all round and within and day and night they never cease to say holy holy holy is the lord god almighty who was and who is and who is to come and whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to the one who is seated on the throne who lives forever and ever the 24 elders fall down before the one who is seated on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever they cast their crowns before the throne saying worthy are you our lord and god to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created we've said as we've gone through morning by morning in the weeks of november that this book of pictures and images some absolutely horrendous like the horsemen and the archers which played on the fear of the whole roman empire of the passion empire away to the east who had won severe victories against the might of imperial rome and whose pride was their horsemen who were also bowmen and attacking on the eastern borders those armies on the move all those images come into the minds of those who lived in fear of that a fear of the breakdown of the peace that they knew but as we go through the book john gives us pauses when we stop and simply reflect and they will become more and more apparent for this is a moment of adoration you remember when being taught to say prayers that there are different kinds of prayers and we used to name them on our fingers and and and have uh mnemonics like the letters acts a c t s of adoration confession thanksgiving supplication or something of that sort or using our fingers to do the prayers on the way through but adoration always came first it's the most difficult to explain and yet it always to be there in our prayers for when we see a scene of glory and of wonder and that glory might be in a work of creation even in the angry red sky which is all we got of a suggestion of a dawn this morning before the dark clouds and the wind buffeted us all great scapes from mountain tops that we might see and be moved to wonder for adoration moves us to wonder and possibly the best response to that is simply silence for words find it hard to express adoration and when we try to describe it we always feel we're falling short think of how sin paul in the second letter to the corinthians describes being caught up into heaven but sensing their things which were too difficult to describe words too precious to share intimate experiences which are belittled by trying to explain them in simple human words artists try musicians try architects try with their glorious building those who work with their hands in creating things try but essentially adoration is something of wonder and of silence and leads naturally to thanksgiving or it might lead to an act of penitence of one's own unworthiness before such a scene of wonder given as a gift as you always say at the beginning of the service the gift of this new day it's a wonderful thought and that begins with adoration so we think of the prophet isaiah for example in chapter six in the year that king oziah died he dates it i saw the lord high and lifted up and his train filled the temple around him flew the cherubin each had six wings with two they covered their feet with two they covered them with two they covered them and then and they sang ceaselessly holy holy holy the same song that we're hearing in this chapter but what was what was the reaction where is me for i am unworthy an act of confession but it also leads to an act of thanksgiving and those prayers are integrally linked in everything we do but everything starts with a sense of adoration and the best way to shall we say enter a world of adoration is to enter a world of poetry and that is best done of course with the hymns that we know because so many of those are simply acts of adoration they are prayers with the music we have in our hearts but they are acts of adoration praise my soul the king of heaven to his feet thy tribute bring giving thanks for everything but essentially giving praise angels help us to adore him a line from the hymn we could go through the whole hymn book and find a majority of the most wondrous hymns that we know glorious things of the are spoken are acts simply of adoration and we know that sometimes with the way in which we respect each other for usually acts of such wonderful self-giving that one pauses in wonder before the life of faith or the way in which a particular gift is being used in creativity body mind or spirit by another human being these are gifts and it's the way that we receive the wonders of god's creation and then tap into them ourselves because all prayer must end with intention and intention each morning is also part of our prayer life so we thank our lectionary for taking us back to chapter four after all those picture scenes of terrible things happening in earth and the struggle between good and evil in the heavens and heavenly places which john tries to express in words and pictures and sometimes they frighten us and at other times one just sort of steps back saying i just can't take all this in well don't worry because in acts of adoration like the door opened into heaven which can happen at any time of life in different ways that adoration gives us real strength in our silence i mentioned uh the sense of of wonder and another person's self-sacrifice and i noticed this week that a letter was sold at an auctioneer for 42 000 pounds just a sheet of sheet of paper and i mentioned do you remember it remembrance sunday the the letter that my grandmother had which signaled that her son whom she thought was dead was alive and in a prisoner of war camp and would be coming home well this was a letter written by a baptist minister john harper in queenstown now cove in county cork on board the stationary titanic before it set sail from its last port of call sherborg and and queenstown and then off into the atlantic he had no idea what was going to happen and the letter was sent to a friend thanking him for some deed done the same time on the titanic john harper spoke comforting words of the gospel to those around him and when the time came that he was offered a seat he was a widower but he had his little daughter annie with him and his sister jesse and was offered a seat beside him in the lifeboat and he said no i i'm i'm staying here i've my words of comfort to give people the boat went off and annie in fact was the last scottish survivor she died in uh 1986 of that awful tragedy at sea and john harper then gave up his life built to someone else who also survived but he himself went on comforting people with the words of the gospel right to the end that's an act which causes wonder and the right response is silence at the fact that our humanity can be capable of such acts of self-giving and that little piece of paper became precious simply because of that well let's say our prayers on this particular morning in thanksgiving for john's moment of adoration and his attempt to describe in human words in pictures that which he experienced we turn to the prayers of those we're looking for in the anglican communion today and on this 15th of november we're praying for the church of ceylon in sri lanka which is an extra provincial church to the archbishop of canterbury and we prayed for the new primate earlier this month when he was made primate and bishop of colombo there and also we pray for the bishop of kuranegala also there in sri lanka in the church of ceylon siri fernando and pray for all the people in that particular province which is under the direct care of justin archbishop of canterbury so we pray for him on this morning and in the diocese we pray for bishop rose of dover bishop tim at lambeth and today for the parish of saint nicholas at arlington and saint peter at maidstone under the care of the parish priest and area dean chris lavender who has a heavy responsibility as both both areas and pray for that community too so let's say our prayers a new prayer of course for the beginning of a new week we shall use this prayer through the week heavenly father whose blessed son was revealed to destroy the works of the devil and to make us the children of god and heirs of eternal life grant that we having this hope may purify ourselves even as he is pure that when he shall appear in power and great glory we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom where he is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever amen so we say as the rain pours down and the wind buffets this little greenhouse but the turkeys remain very calm we say the prayer that our savior taught us and we use each our own languages 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 justices 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 this morning in all of this when i was thinking of the the lifeboats at rye we found a poem by emily dickinson imagining miranda in the tempest by shakespeare and here's the tempest the tempest by shakespeare telling the story of the shipwreck and here's this little poem by emily dickinson glee the great storm is over four have recovered the land forty gone down together into the boiling sand ring for the scant salvation toll for the bonnie souls neighbor and friend and bridegroom spinning upon the shoals how they will tell the story when winter shake the door till the children urge but the forty did they come back no more then a softness suffused the story under silence the teller's eye and the children no further question and only the sea reply sometimes silence is the only way and silence in wonder or silence in sorrow both come together on this morning so let's say our prayers in silence before the blessing 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 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 now and always amen well you've been very good both of you in all this storm here you are come on let's have you over a little bit suspicious about what i've just given you i think aren't you foreign