EAST COKER AND ELIOT

Thatched cottage in East Coker

For our trip to the West Country of England, I put the planning entirely in Cathy's hands, and she did a fine job of it, especially in arranging for us to spend the latter part of a day and a night in East Coker, a charming village in South Somerset, with one lovely thatched cottage upon another, built of local Ham stone similar to what you see in the pictures above and below.

The three photos below are of the cottage garden.

 

 

 

How sad I was to read in the Guardian of possible plans to build a large housing estate which would quadruple the population of the village and occupy what is presently farm land.

Cathy and I stayed at the Helyar Arms, which was only a short walk from St Michael's church, pictured below. The B&B was quite comfortable, and we enjoyed a tasty dinner there after our poetic session in the churchyard. I ordered duck, which was very good, but I can't remember what Cathy ordered. I had yummy banana and butterscotch crème brûlée with lavender shortbread for dessert.

 

St Michael's Church, East Coker

Beautiful gate to the enclosed churchyard

My everlasting thanks to Cathy for taking along a copy of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, from which we read 'East Coker' as we sat on a bench in St Michael's churchyard. We thought we should read the poem aloud, but neither of us believed ourselves to be good readers of poetry, so we read the poem silently. Finally, I thought we should have at least part of the poem read aloud, so I plunged in and read the final stanza.

The view from the bench in the churchyard

The final words from 'East Coker'

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

Eliot's ashes rest in St Michael's church, and his spirit is present in the church and the surrounding land and village. Tears came to my eyes more than once as I wrote the post and looked at the pictures and reread the poem.

T. S. Eliot Memorial, St Michael's church

Photo of St Michael's from Wikipedia.

EDWIN EDWARDS BOUNCES BACK

From NOLA.com:

Moments after marrying for the third time, former Gov. Edwin Edwards did on Friday what comes so naturally: He stepped before the cameras.

With his 32-year-old bride, the former Trina Grimes Scott, close by his side in the Hotel Monteleone lobby, Edwards, who'll turn 84 on Aug. 7, tossed off quips, joshed with reporters and glad-handed hotel guests who seemed happily surprised to find themselves in the middle of the tangle of reporters, cameras and microphones.

The couple had just been united in marriage, in a 14th-floor suite, by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Catherine "Kitty" Kimball.

Of his bride's dress:

Her strapless, knee-length white dress was "Italian silk, with a Cajun twist," Edwards said.

The romance began while Edwards was in prison, with letters first and eventually with visits by Scott to Edwards in prison and finally a proposal of marriage.

I kissed Edwards once, you know, and it was all my fault. The filters in my brain completely malfunctioned. I've already told the tale here at Wounded Bird twice, but I'll quote myself to give you the story again.

Although Edwards was a crook and a notorious womanizer, there was something about him that I found endearing. (God help me!) Perhaps, it was because he was seldom hypocritical - a welcome relief in a politician.

He'd campaign in black churches and tell the congregation, "I don't drink, I don't smoke. Two out of three is not bad."

In fact, on one occasion when he arrived at a gathering at the university where my husband worked, there seemed to be no officials there to greet him. I was standing there with a group who may have resembled a receiving line, and he came right up to me.

That was one occasion when words came out of my mouth seemingly without passing through my brain, because I said to him, "Does a kiss from the governor come with the greeting?" Of course, he promptly kissed me on the cheek. Grandpère was standing next to me wide-eyed and astonished.

After Edwards moved on he said to me, "What did you think you were doing?" So. There you are. I'm in the company of an enormous number of women who have kissed Edwin Edwards.
October 8, 2007 12:19 PM

Edwards was twice tried and acquitted, but the law eventually caught up with him for his shenanigans on the third try when Edwards was 73 years. A good many of us thought the 10 year sentence was a bit harsh, but Edwards paid his debt to society and lived to tell the tale and make a new life for himself.

The ex-governor had charm, charisma, choose your word, but he was a rogue and a rascal who hustled the citizens of the State of Louisiana. Still, he never left Louisiana as damaged as the present governor, Bobby Jindal, will leave the state after 4 and probably 8 years of slash and burn governance. I'd swap Edwards for Jindal in a heartbeat.

ALL TOO TRUE!

The photo of the billboard above is all over the internet, but Lapin sent it to me, so I may as well have it, too.

LEXIPHILES

When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate.

A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.

A will is a dead giveaway.

If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.

You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

A boiled egg is hard to beat.

When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.

The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine is fully recovered.

He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

Well, they made me laugh.

Don't blame me. Blame Doug.

STORY OF THE DAY - DESTINY

Destiny? There's only your time & then
there's not-your-time, he said. All the
rest is made up to keep you busy.

I love it.

From StoryPeople.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Today is the oldest you've ever been, yet the youngest you'll ever be, so enjoy this day while it lasts...

Thanks to Sue T.

BISHOPS IN EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE PHILIPPINES 'NOT IN FAVOR' OF ANGLICAN COVENANT

According to John Chilton at The Lead, the Rt. Rev. Edward Malecdan, Prime Bishop of The Episcopal Church in the Philippines, stated in his address to General Synod in May that the bishops of the church are 'not in favor' of the Anglican Covenant.

[T]he Anglican Covenant which is supposedly a proposed document to help diffuse the tension in the Communion. The document is intended to be the final arbiter in the resolution of conflicts in the communion and that all member churches will have to adhere to its provisions. The ECP Council of Bishops noted that the document provides for the creation of a Standing Committee that will be the “Supreme Court” as it were, for the Anglican Communion to lord it over all Anglican Provinces. This, to the Council is very un-Anglican because of the autonomous nature of each Anglican Province. Hence, we are not in favor of the document. (My emphasis)

In the Primates’ Meeting I attended in Ireland, the unity and diversity of the Anglican Communion was clearly and strongly affirmed. We recognized that Anglicans have many disagreements as a Communion but we still can be agreeable to one another. We can still move towards reconciliation as sisters and brothers as a gift of God to us by persistently talking about our differences. This is the beauty of Anglicanism. Unity in diversity which is a recognized uniqueness of the Communion is preserved.

Good news, indeed, accompanied by excellent reasons for not favoring the covenant. Thank you bishops of our sister church in the Philippines for showing us the way! If the bishops are not in favor of the covenant, it cannot be adopted by General Synod.

EXTRAORDINARY RHETORIC BY MITCH MCCONNELL

But at the Capitol, behind the four doors and the three receptionists and the police guard, [Senate minority leader Mitch] McConnell said he could imagine doing this again.

“I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting,” he said. “Most of us didn’t think that. What we did learn is this — it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming. And it focuses the Congress on something that must be done.”

And I thought the Democrats were over the top in their rhetoric when, according to second-hand accounts, Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) is quoted as saying, “We have negotiated with terrorists,” and Vice-President Joe Biden as saying the Republicans had “acted like terrorists”.

MAGNIFICENT SALISBURY CATHEDRAL

Salisbury Cathedral, formally known as the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Salisbury Cathedral is the most exquisite example of Gothic architecture I've seen in my life. Its symmetry, its relative simplicity, with little fussiness, its perfect proportions, its awe-inspiring upward thrust, all that and more served to make my visit to the great edifice a visual and spiritual joy.

The gorgeous vaulted and painted ceiling

The view down the nave toward the altar

The magnificent baptismal font, designed by William Pye and installed in 2008, has the following inscription:

'DO NOT FEAR FOR I HAVE REDEEMED YOU. I HAVE CALLED YOUR NAME, YOU ARE MINE. WHEN YOU PASS THROUGH THE WATERS I WILL BE WITH YOU. AND THROUGH THE RIVERS THEY SHALL NOT OVERWHELM YOU'

Read more about the font at the Salisbury Cathedral website.

All photos are from Wikipedia, with the exception of the font, which is mine.

And then, and then, as if the beauty of the cathedral were not enough, Cathy and I attended Evensong, sung by the choir of St Mark's Episcopal Church Choir from Berkeley, California, of which our long-time online friend, susan s, is a member. susan is third from left on the front row in the picture below. Imagine! I had to go to England to meet my fellow-citizen.

The choir from St Mark's sang beautifully. What a lovely finale to our visit to Salisbury Cathedral.

What a day! Earlier Cathy and I lunched with susan s., Erika, Laura (of Lay Anglicana) and her husband Robert, which lunch I will write about in due time. Chronological order is decidedly not my way of writing about my travels. Sorry about that.

JESUS AND MO - A TOUGH ONE

From Jesus and Mo.