The Bells Of Wenchoster

In keeping with yesterday's tribute to St. Dunstan, who was a metal worker and bell caster, I decided to check in at the site of the Diocese of Wenchoster once more to seek information on their bells. Here begins the history of their bells:

The Cathedral Bells

There were three bells in the cathedral church of St. Ennodius and St. Veronica during the reign of Henry the Eighth but their weight and inscriptions are unknown. An ancient manuscript in the Chained Library records how Bishop Tosspot (Toby Codpiecium 1519-1530) ordered their removal since the ringing kept him awake on Sunday mornings. It is known that the bells were indeed taken down, but what happened to them is lost in the mists of the Wen valley. A new set of three were commissioned by Tosspot's successor, Bishop Overweight (Alfred Codpiecium 1530-1539). In 1605, Bishop Wearside, on being cleared of implication in the Gunpowder Plot, commissioned a new bell to mark the saving of Parliament. Bishop Thrust paid for a pair of bells in 1688, and the un-tuned ring of the bells was converted into a peal of six at a cost of 5,000 groats.

To get the full story, of course, you must go to their web site, but I will add that the firm of "David Vascular & Sons of Watercloset Lane, Smithfield" added three more bells for a total of nine. The names and details of the inscriptions on all nine bells are to be found at the diocesan site.

Wenchoster Cathedral is proud to possess the monument to Robert (Plain Bob) Oakhandle, the only one-legged, blind ringer to ever to have participated in a full peal (pictured above with the Dean and Ringing team of 1899). This feat was achieved in 1898 and has yet to be equalled. The annual Ringers Guild service is held next to his memorial on anniversary of his death, (May 29th).

You can find the picture of the group on the site, along with a picture of the bell-ringing team which celebrated the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

The bell ringing team of 1952 after their marathon 24-hour peal to celebrate the coronation. The hooded-figure at the back right of the picture is Brother D'Eath OHHSV of whom little is known. None of the members of this team could ever remember him being invited to attend.

Actually, Elizabeth II's accession to the throne was in 1952, but the coronation ceremony did not take place until 1953. Surely a simple slip of the typing finger by one of the editors.

The web site of the Diocese of Wenchoster is rich and full of history and present day news, enough to offer material for several more posts for my blog, plus, the editors of the site add to their material and are kind enough to send me an email each time something new goes up.

I had thought of doing a post on their organs, but I found the organ site loaded with specifications and details which were absolute Greek to me, so I thought I'd best leave that to someone more knowledgeable. Sorry, David Charles Walker. The names for the organ pipes are intriguing, and I like that their tuba pipe is named Tubby. Their organ charts indicate that wind passes in, and wind passes out, but I know nothing about that.

Feast Of St. Dunstan Of Canterbury

Image from Early British Kingdoms


Dunstan was born near Glastonbury in the southwest of England about the year 909, ten years after the death of King Alfred. During the Viking invasions of the ninth century, monasteries had been favorite targets of the invaders, and by Dunstan's time English monasticism had been wiped out. In its restoration in the tenth century, Dunstan played the leading role.

....

(Glastonbury is one of the oldest Christian sites in England, and is associated in legend with King Arthur and his Court, with Joseph of Arimathea, and with other worthies. It has been said that the Holy Grail, the chalice of the Last Supper, is hidden somewhere near Glastonbury.) Under Dunstan's direction, Glastonbury became an important center both of monasticism and of learning. The next king, Edred, adopted Dunstan's ideas for various reforms of the clergy (including the control of many cathedrals by monastic chapters) and for relations with the Danish settlers. These policies made Dunstan popular in the North of England, but unpopular in the South.

Edred was succeeded by his sixteen-year-old nephew Edwy, whom Dunstan openly rebuked for unchastity. The furious Edwy drove Dunstan into exile, but the North rose in rebellion on his behalf. When the dust settled, Edwy was dead, his brother Edgar was king, and Dunstan was Archbishop of Canterbury. The coronation service which Dunstan compiled for Edgar is the earliest English coronation service of which the full text survives, and is the basis for all such services since, down to the present. With the active support of King Edgar, Dunstan re-established monastic communities at Malmesbury, Westminster, Bath, Exeter, and many other places. Around 970 he presided at a conference of bishops, abbots, and abbesses, which drew up a national code of monastic observance, the "Regularis Concordia". It followed Benedictine lines, but under it the monasteries were actively involved in the life of the surrounding community. For centuries thereafter the Archbishop of Canterbury was always a monk.

In addition, Dunstan was a musician, a bell maker, and a painter.

From the The Lectionary


PRAYER

Almighty God, who raised up Dunstan to be a true shepherd of the flock, a restorer of monastic life and a faithful counsellor to those in authority: give to all pastors the same gifts of your Holy Spirit that they may be true servants of Christ and all his people; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Pakistani Christians In Danger

From the Associated Press via the International Herald Tribune:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Pakistani Christians living in a town beset by pro-Taliban militants sought government protection on Wednesday, a day before the expiry of an ultimatum warning them to convert.

About 500 Christians in Charsadda, a town in North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, received threatening letters earlier this month telling them to shutter their churches and convert to Islam by May 17 or face "bomb explosions."

Community leaders say several Christians — a tiny minority in predominantly Muslim Pakistan — have fled the town and that others are living in fear.

Chaudhry Salim, a Christian leader in Charsadda, said police had not taken the threat seriously.

"Police say someone is joking with us by writing these letters," Salim said at a news conference in the capital. "They have deployed only two policemen at our churches ... this is the kind of security we are getting now."

Pakistan is our "ally". Is the administration of our self-proclaimed Christian president doing anything to prod the Pakistani government to protect this small number of our Christian brothers and sisters?

Asif Daudzai, a spokesman for the provincial government, asked Christians not to panic, saying authorities were doing all they can to ensure their protection.

"Christians are our brothers and sisters, and we will not allow any one to harm them," he told The Associated Press.

I hope that this is true.

Islamic radicals trying to impose Taliban-style social edicts in northwestern Pakistan are growing bolder, bombing shops selling Western films, threatening barbers for trimming beards and warning hotel operators to remove television sets from guest rooms.

Minorities and secular opposition parties complain that the government is doing too little to counter the "Talibanization" of ever-greater swaths of the country.

Let us pray for our brothers and sisters who suffer persecution for their faith.

Brother Causticus In Trouble

Brother Causticus is somewhat beside himself because Deacon Andrewes is drawn a bit too much to the bottle, suffering from distress over reported voting irregularities in the Bloggers Choice Awards. Brother Causticus' "humble forum" was nominated, as you may know. In reference to a certain blog, which I shall not name:

“They’re beggin’ for votes on their site and even sendin’ out emails to all their registered users,” fumes the always well-intentioned, though at times volatile, deacon, whose irascibility often waxes – and diction wanes – as his glass empties, “And they’re tellin’ people how to cheat and vote lots of times. They’re proud they’re cheatin’ so good!"

Well, you can see why the good deacon is upset. Perhaps, if you are so inclined, you might pop over to his site and give Brother Causticus a word of support and even go to the Bloggers Choice Awards site and cast a vote or two or three for him as a sign of that support.

Letter To Congress From Episcopal Bishops

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori and more than 100 bishops of the Episcopal church have sent a letter to the United States Congress on the subject of the war in Iraq, according to Episcopal Life Online, via J. B. Chilton at the Episcopal Café.

Expressing "deep concern" for the situation in Iraq, more than 100 bishops of the Episcopal Church have written to all United States Senators and Representatives outlining the need for "a careful and reasoned debate" to end the violence "and bring stability and a just peace to the region."

....

"For the sake of all those involved, and to honor those brave women and men who have been maimed and lost, we encourage full and open discussion that acknowledges our mistakes as well as our responsibilities," the letter continued. "It is our hope that this discussion will lead to policies that will end the violence in Iraq and bring stability and a just peace to the region."

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They also acknowledged the need for the U.S. to work for religious freedom and protection of religious minorities in Iraq; serve the needs of Iraqi refugees wherever they may be; and seek peace in the region, including a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians.

The way things are going in Iraq now, I don't know if the situation will allow time for reasoned debate. We could be making a hasty and disorderly exit before very long.

However, I'm pleased that the bishops sent the letter. I note that my bishop, Charles Jenkins, did not sign the letter.

Ascension Day

The Ascension of Christ - by Pietro Perugino
Musée Municipal des Beaux-Arts, Lyon
Image from Web Gallery of Art


Preface of the Ascension

Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things: Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the ages; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.


Luke 24:50-53

The Ascension of Jesus

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.


Jesus left the earth with his resurrected body, but he promised to ask his Father to send the Spirit to teach us all the truths we need to know. I trust that the Spirit teaches us today if we open our minds and hearts to learn the lessons. Jesus promised to love us always and, with the Father and the Spirit, to make his home with us.

Thanks be to God.

I love the brilliant colors in the painting and the beautiful balance in the arrangement of the figures. I love the sweep of the folds in the garments and the movement of the streamers. Perugino stands among the best of the Italian Renaissance artists.

My Dog Diana

Dennis of Psychology, Dogs, Politics and Wine says in the comments:

and think about this: we are getting theology AND music recommendations from you now. Add some pictures of dogs and you'll give MadPriest a good run for his money!

OK, Dennis. Here's my dog. Not her best picture, but the one that I could find easily. She was not named after the tragic Princess Diana, but after Diana, the goddess of the hunt. You see, she was to be a hunting dog for my husband and sons. What can I say? That dog don't hunt. Period. When the men in my family take her into the woods and let her loose, she runs back to the truck and is ready to go home.

Our previous dog, Rusty, The Wonder Dog, was a natural hunting dog. He retrieved not only the kill of my husband and sons, but anyone else's that he could find. He's buried in our back yard, having died of lymphoma at the age of nine. He was so good that my men would like to clone him from his remains.

When Rusty began hanging around, and before we decided whether we were going to adopt him, he ran loose each night and returned to us in the morning dirty and exhausted. He's the only dog I ever knew of to have venereal disease. We put an end to his night roaming quickly, after we decided to make him one of the family. He lived peacefully with a goodly number of cats which were part of our ménage at the time.

But I digress. Back to Diana, the dog that don't hunt. She was a stray that was found with an arrow in her leg and turned in to the humane society. Fortunately, the arrow was lodged in the fleshy portion of her leg and did not pierce the bone. Our local paper put a large colored picture of her on the front page. Rusty had passed on about six months previously, and Diana stared at me from the picture. My husband and I talked about adopting her, and he finally agreed.

Diana is a good dog. She's about 10 years old and has never growled or snapped at a human, not even my grandchildren when they were toddlers and annoyed her. But she hates cats with a passion. We had one cat left when she came to us, and each time Boy went into the yard, he was chased up a tree by Diana, and we'd have to restrain her and rescue him. Boy died of kidney failure not long after Diana entered his life. Stress is my diagnosis of his final illness, stress that led to kidney failure.

Diana has glaucoma in one eye, and her medication costs the earth. She has cataracts, too, and is nearly blind in the bad eye. She doesn't listen either, but that's our fault, because we didn't train her.

So, there are my dog stories. If you don't approve of hunting, remember that I do not hunt, and if you are not a vegetarian, in my humble opinion, you have no moral ground on which to stand to speak against responsible hunting.

So, Dennis, am I giving the MadPriest a good run?

Martyrs Of Sudan - In Remembrance

From the The Lectionary:

The Christian bishops, chiefs, commanders, clergy and people of Sudan declared, on May 16, 1983, that they would not abandon God as God had revealed himself to them under threat of Shariah Law imposed by the fundamentalist Islamic government in Khartoum. Until a peace treaty was signed on January 9, 2005, the Episcopal Church of the Province of the Sudan suffered from persecution and devastation through twenty-two years of civil war. Two and a half million people were killed, half of whom were members of this church.

From the proposal before the 75th General Convention

The Commemoration of the Martyrs of Sudan was provisionally approved by General Convention, June 2006


Wisdom 3:1-4

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.
In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be a disaster,
and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace.
For though in the sight of others they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality.


PRAYER

O God, the One who is steadfast in the midst of persecution, by your providence the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church: Grant that we who remember before you the blessed martyrs of the Sudan, may, like them, be steadfast in our faith in Jesus Christ, to whom they refuse to abandon, even in the face of death, and by their sacrifice brought forth a plentiful harvest, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.


Today, in Iraq, the Christian community is disappearing through persecution. Many have been forced into exile, as others have been murdered, kidnapped, and forced to convert to Islam. Pray for the Christians in Iraq.

UPDATE: Here's a link to an article in the Guardian on the plight of the Christians in Iraq.

Iraq's Christian community is close to extinction as thousands are forced to flee their traditional strongholds in Baghdad.

....

Priests claim that half Baghdad's pre-2003 Christian population - estimated in the hundreds of thousands - has fled or been killed. They also claim that the Iraqi government is failing to protect them.

Link This For The Sake Of The Nation

Scout Prime at First Draft has asked bloggers to link to this piece in the Washington Post by John Barry, the author of Rising Tide, the story of the 1927 flood of the Mississippi River Valley.

How can I refuse Scout, who has taken up the cause of New Orleans and south Louisiana as though it was her own, even though she lives in Wisconsin? Actually, it is her cause and mine and yours and the cause of everyone in our country.

I'll use the same quotes from the article that she uses:

Without action, land loss will continue, and it will increasingly jeopardize populated areas, the port system and energy production. This would be catastrophic for America. Scientists say the problem can be solved, even with rising sea levels, but that we have only a decade to begin addressing it in a serious way or the damage may be irreversible.

Despite all this and President Bush's pledge from New Orleans in September 2005 that "we will do what it takes" to help people rebuild, a draft White House cuts its own recommendation of $2 billion for coastal restoration to $1 billion while calling for an increase in the state's contribution from the usual 35 percent to 50 percent. Generating benefits to the nation is what created the problem, and the nation needs to solve it. Put simply: Why should a cab driver in Pittsburgh or Tulsa pay to fix Louisiana's coast? Because he gets a stronger economy and lower energy costs from it, and because his benefits created the problem. The failure of Congress and the president to act aggressively to repair the coastline at the mouth of the Mississippi River could threaten the economic vitality of the nation. Louisiana, one of the poorest states, can no longer afford to underwrite benefits for the rest of the nation.

That's why it is your cause and my cause and our nation's cause. As with so many problems that the Bush maladministration ignores, time is running out. It's in everyone's selfish interest to save the coast of Louisiana.

Little Freddie King Sings The Blues

A couple of weekends ago, while I was visiting my friend in Houston, I met a fellow native of New Orleans. We started right off talking about what parts of the city we had lived in and comparing notes on schools attended. She was not my contemporary, being a decade or so younger than I am, and we did not land in the same neighborhoods at the same time. Still, we had much to talk about.

Her father had moved to New Orleans to play music. Not because he had a job playing music, but because he wanted to be on the music scene in New Orleans. He had a day job which supported his family, but he played the music he loved on the side. How many folks moved to New Orleans to play the music?

Little Freddie King was another non-native musician, who headed into New Orleans from McComb, Mississippi at the age of 14. Here's King's story from the Times-Picayune by Chris Bynum:

Stress, says Little Freddie King, is what beckons his fingers to the guitar strings and unleashes the best of the blues.

The 66-year-old bluesman, among the last of the gritty country blues originals, has known stress in many forms: rocky relationships with women, overdue bills "or when your car is broke and you need to get somewhere, and you can't. Or a family member don't treat you right," said King....

Hurricane Katrina is his most recent muse, flooding his home and forcing him to live in another state.

The storm brought King loss and gain, that ebb and flow of life that adds a deeper raspiness to the throats of those who sing from personal experience.

On the Wednesday after the storm, as water flowed into the Central Business District, he and Alabama Slim (fellow bluesman Milton Frazier) left the Hotel Monteleone and headed to Texas.

....

"The blues has been stronger since Katrina," said King, whose soulful songs ironically express much gratitude. "Most of it is about homesickness. Before Katrina, my biggest blues was about the different women I had."

...

King hopes to bless some hearts with his gift of music. In August, he will move back to New Orleans, into a rental house designated for master musicians in residence at the Musicians Village in the Upper 9th Ward. The rental units, sponsored by New Orleans Habitat for Humanity and Shell, are provided for musicians to work in the planned Ellis Marsalis Center for Music.

The Musicians Village of rental property reserved for New Orleans musicians is an absolute genius of a concept. Affordable rental property is becoming more and more of a problem, harder to find, and this project will enable a number of musicians to remain in or return to the city.

Handing down blues to a younger generation can be difficult, King said. The title of his latest CD for Fat Possum Records, "You Don't Know What I Know," pretty much says why. But King is patient when it comes to his music. Blues, he reveals in his own life, is all about waiting.

Along with many other musicians, King could not make a living playing music.

King worked long hours for 37 years rebuilding carburetors and electrical equipment, and stayed with the wife who inspired the song "Mean Little Woman" until she died in a nursing home several years ago.

What a way to go down to posterity - as the "Mean Little Woman".

But life goes on for a bluesman. Today there's a new girlfriend, and she, too, has inspired a song: "My Little Baby-Face Baby" is about love's frustrations when two people try to share a life.

"She's my little baby-face baby, and every time I ask her to do something right, she turn around and do something wrong," he spoke the lyrics, the consonants rolling seamlessly from one to the next. King has no teeth to bite spaces between the words, so the easy momentum in his voice flows like uninterrupted thoughts.

I encourage you to read the whole beautifully written article. Bynum's piece gives a true feel for the kind of folks who were not native-born New Orleanians, but who were drawn to the city by the magic of the music, the food, the laissez-faire ambiance, and the soul of the city.

Before Katrina, New Orleans had many problems, the worst of which was a public school system which was close to totally dysfunctional, that no one seemed to be able to provide the will or the wisdom or the money to fix. And then there was the seemingly intractable problem of violent crime. I won't believe that the two problems are not connected one to the other. New Orleans was in decline before Katrina. I'm not blind to that. Nevertheless, I'm still in love with what's left of the city I grew up in, the city of the blues.

Yes, I know what it means to miss New Orleans.