Hissing "the Mysteries"

No, I didn't really hiss them - the Gloucester Mystery Plays, that is; though I'm afraid we left Gloucester Cathedral this evening at the interval. I guess we are spoilt by so much fine professional theatre, available at the drop of the hat in our locality. I certainly felt a bit guilty, not sitting it out; but the Cathedral was freezing, the acoustics as always terrible, the lights dazzling, and the performances and production mostly, well, amateurish. Should one bring a quite different set of standards along when the subject matter is our Christian bible? Hmmm, perhaps - something of an Advent penance then? Oh dear!

My photograph shows the stage, which straddles the nave (audience members either side). It would have been more fun if it had been a promenade performance, like the stunning one we went to there in July. That would have allowed for more audience involvement too, which might have lessened the embarrassment.

There was some quite edgy music, not entirely fitting. The best bits were the short bursts from Gloucester's great organ. "God" was played by a number of different actors (all rather better than the rest of the large cast): each was resplendent in one of the Cathedral's fine copes, thus confirming the suspicions of those laymen who believe their clergy to be omnipotent.

The title of this post? Apocryphally, Dr. Spooner, late of New College, Oxford is said to have addressed an undergraduate thus: "Sir, you have tasted two whole worms; you have hissed all my mystery lectures and been caught fighting a liar in the quad; you will leave by the next town drain."

Job done

The oldest building in Cheltenham, St Mary's, is hosting a Festival of the Book in parallel to the LitFest. An exhibition in the South Aisle chapel commemorates the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, from which readings are being made from lecterns in the nave, day by day by teams from 16 of Cheltenham's many churches. Yesterday morning, it was my turn (with three others) to tackle the Book of Job.

I've always found it rather forbidding, but read aloud Job makes much better sense, and aren't there some wonderful phrases! "God forbid!" "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away." "The sparks fly upward." "The skin of my teeth." "The root of the matter." "Gird up now thy loins..."

It was with some reluctance that I went along after breakfast, but from the moment that my bicycle and I were ushered into the church by smiling stewards, I became glad I had made the effort.

"A stained glass Bible"

This is the title of a book I've published via Blurb online publishing. Not of course all the Bible as seen in stained glass, but some of the familiar stories. Alongside a text derived from the New Jerusalem Bible is one of my photographs of a stained (or painted) glass panel, taken from the collection I've built up over the years - 30 or so in total.

It's print-on-demand book, so if anyone wants to order a copy, then they do so by accessing the book on the Blurb site, and filling in their requirements, just like on Amazon. You can preview some of the pages of the book online (to help you make up your mind about buying!).

How did this all come about? Well, Mini, my new daughter-in-law from Japan, is an admirer of stained glass, and this prompted Leo to commission me to put together a book of photographs for her. So, rejecting all the many non-biblical subjects I seemed to have gathered in, I restricted myself to a theme of Old and New Testament subjects.

The age of the windows I photographed is from the early 14th to the late 20th centuries. I was worried about including a couple of images taken in a private chapel I'd visited, but the owners were happy to consent to my publishing them - provided I didn't identify the location. I hope none of the other glass's "custodians" object to their windows being included, with attribution and a general acknowledgement.

"Never again..."

For today's meeting of the Gloucestershire Churches Environmental Justice Network, we travelled to Wallsworth Hall as guests of Nature in Art. Simon Trapnell, its Director, joined us for part of our discussion.

What a vision! To take on that vast building (set in the middle of nowhere at the end of a long drive) and to establish within it a vibrant collection of works depicting things bright and beautiful, and in particular all creatures great and small!

So as to mark the second anniversary of the dire flooding in this part of Gloucestershire, we read together familiar words from the Book of Genesis about Noah, "a man of integrity among his contemporaries." God's covenant (made after the flood subsided) was: "Never again will I curse the earth because of man... Never again will I strike down every living thing as I have done. As long as earth lasts, sowing and reaping, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall cease no more."

In these days many prophesy the end of humanity as a consequence of human greed. In his latest encyclical, Pope Benedict says that if people destroy their environment, they will also destroy their own life source. No complacency in virtue of Genesis 8!