Ecclesiastical hedges
Planted in neat, straight lines,
designed to keep divinity in
or the world at bay?
Who can say?
They are thick and intricately tangled,
exquisitely manicured by God's officials
who have had long training
in the finer arts of hedging.
Snipping this way and that,
they mould the bushy green growth
into ever more ingenious designs:
flying fish, glamorous dragons,
motherly pelicans, tender lions,
meek lambs and impressive eagles.
So engrossed are they
in their tending of theological topiary,
they fail to notice God
popping out in her walking gear
and slipping out the back garden gate,
heading for the hills,
quietly whistling.
Nicola Slee (HT +Alan)
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Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
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Percy Dearmer worried about the feminisation of the church nearly a century ago!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Handbook-Practical-Directions-According-Rewritten/dp/B001FS2BF8/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221262344&sr=8-7
Some things will never change
and the Daily Telegraph is still stuck at about the same time as Dearmer at times
at least imho!!
The question is not what is the matter with this man? There are all sorts of strange people abroad. (Wicca influences Archbishop Jefferts Shori indeed! What nonsense.)
I think the question should be is why does the Sunday Telegraph, supposedly a “serious” newspaper, employ this man as their religious affairs correspondent.
women are leaving the church because they’re witches? – it is at times like this that I sympathise with Mary Daly’s extreme reaction to misogyny in which she refers to herself as a witch (the stem of the word being ‘wit’ – clever women had to be burnt as witches you see…)