Letter from the Rectory July 2010

One of the subjects I talk about in Confirmation preparation is the lay-out and contents of a church building. It is surprising how much the design and furnishing of our parish churches tell us about our beliefs. Jim Tweed’s wonderful articles about the parish churches of Sussex which he writes for this magazine illustrate the oddities as well as the conventions of our places of worship. One of the standard features you will have noticed in his pictures is the Chancel Arch, which separates nave and chancel. In some churches the ‘holy end’ is partly concealed behind a screen. The word ‘chancel’ comes from a word meaning the lattice-work screen which protected senior court officials from the intrusive stare of the crowd. Thus we have a ‘Chancellor’ of the Exchequer. To what extent his work should be concealed from view is a matter of opinion.

It was also a matter of opinion that the ‘holy end’ of the church should not be hidden, and so in the 16th and 17th centuries most parish churches lost their chancel screens, and the mysteries of the Mass, now called by another name, were thrown open to full view. As part of the process of de-mystifying worship our reforming forebears broke up the stone altars and replaced them with wooden tables. At Holy Communion the table would be moved from the east end towards the middle of the church, and the communicants gathered round.

Then in 1633 came Archbishop William Laud.. ‘This has gone too far,’ he said. ‘Familiarity breeds contempt’. Or words to that effect. ‘Put the altar back’. And so they did. Churchwardens were ordered to construct an altar rail. The declared reason for this was to protect the altar from being fouled by dogs (they seemed to have a lot of trouble with dogs; to beat them off churchwardens were given staves). Laud – a canny fellow – had something other than naughty dogs in mind. He knew that the rail, once secured to the floor, would prevent any disobedient clergy from ever again moving the altar away from the east end. He was only partially successful. Parliament chopped off his head, which hardly helped, and then Cromwell stabled his horses in church, which was about as far as you could go in de-mystifying any building, let alone a church.

The Age of Reason came along and in the churches built during the 18th century chancels almost disappeared, reduced to a pretty alcove reminiscent of an Adam drawing room. Our Georgian forebears did not wish to be disturbed by the miraculous or the sacred. Then came Newman, Keble and Pusey. Reginald Sackville-West heard them and preach at Oxford.. When he became Rector of Withyham in 1841 he set about restoring the chancel. The clutter of old box pews which would have obscured the altar was replaced by choir stalls, set east-west, for a robed choir. A low wooden screen was put up (later removed). These and other details of furnishing were introduced to draw attention to the holiness of the sanctuary, and the separation between sacred and secular.

And so the pendulum of liturgical fashion swings reflecting two extremes: too much reason and we lose the mystery, too much mystery and we lose our reason. I tell the children in their confirmation preparation that the church building is their house and God’s house. Because it is theirs they should feel at home, and because it is His they should show respect. Hands out of pockets, no shrieking and shouting, no whistling (oh, certainly no whistling), kneeling straight, no slumping, and when they enter the chancel to copy their elders and bow to the altar. How well the children learn that lesson depends upon the example we set.

Adrian Leak.

Letter from the Rectory August 2010

The 13th August is the centenary of the death of Florence Nightingale. During her life she was revered almost as a saint. The image of ‘The Lady with the Lamp’ took its place in the nation’s gallery of icons.

But she very nearly did not make it. In those days the pressures against a woman doing anything other than sit at home were immense. Of course, it was entirely possible to do a great deal within that sphere, but for many women it was a claustrophobic restriction. Florence Nightingale was a sociable, funny, lively, attractive, highly intelligent, well-connected young woman, and not without her suitors. She glittered and danced and played her part in the ballrooms and fashionable drawing rooms of London. In the country life was less exciting. ‘What have I done this fortnight?’ she wrote in July 1846. ‘I have read ‘The Daughter at Home’ to Father and two chapters of Macintosh; a volume of ‘Sybil’ to Mamma. Learnt seven new tunes by heart. Written various letters. Ridden with Papa. Paid eight visits. Done Company. And that is all’. She was bored. In her words, ‘bored to desperation’. She was 26 years old.

She was not only bored. Unknown to the world, which saw only an agreeable and accomplished young woman, she was racked with guilt, tormented by the knowledge that she was capable of so much more, and that God was calling her to a higher purpose. The struggle against her family’s opposition to follow that calling would have broken most daughters. It nearly broke her. ‘I cannot live’, she wrote in a private note, ‘Forgive me, O Lord, and let me die.’ Added to this, she suffered from a dark, disabling sense of her own sinfulness. Sheer strength of will carried her through, but at what a cost. To achieve what she believed was her purpose in life, she had to give up so much. Friendship, she said, could be a distraction. ‘Dearest, it is well that we should not see too much of each other,’ she wrote to a close friend, ‘Farewell, my beloved one.’ And in a private note she wrote, ‘O God, no more love. No more marriage, O God.’ By an act of will, she became what in that culture she needed to be: a single-minded, domineering, wilful, manipulative martinet, feared by every person in the land save one, and that was Queen Victoria. She would have got nowhere by being gentle and kind. It is hard to believe that so many generations of women were held back, compelled to submit or bravely to strive and in doing so become oddities in the eyes of their contemporaries. When in 1980 the Church drew up a list of modern worthies to be commemorated in her calendar, the twenty names included only one woman. Why such disparity? ‘Because,’ came the answer, ‘Conduct which was regarded as sanctity in men was regarded as insanity in women.’

Well, we have moved on a bit since then, though the reluctance by a few of my fellow clergy to accept women as bishops suggests we still have some way to go.