MONDAY

In our small country church I have been very slowly going through the Psalms in the Anglican Prayer Book. I like the way each psalm in our King James version is headed by the Latin, a meditation in itself.

Thus Psalm 1:

Beatus vir, qui non abit / Blessed be the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly.

I can imagine Oliver Cromwell reading that. We know he had a pretty dim view of the Parliament of his time, even those on his side: witness Pride’s Purge. I wonder what he would have thought of today’s Parliament.

TUESDAY

Talking of the seventeenth century, my son found on Google a biography of an Edward Leigh. A Civil War Parliamentary officer, he sat in Parliament and was ejected by Cromwell in Pride’s Purge. Edward Leigh wanted a constitutional settlement with the King. A noted biblical scholar, he was very interested in religious writing. He did quote a lot of it himself. After being thrown out of Parliament he retired into private life and lived quietly well into the Restoration period.

WEDNESDAY

Perhaps the seventeenth century Edward Leigh would have sat in his quiet country parish church and looked at Psalm 2 as I am doing now.

Quare fremuerunt gentes / Why do the heathens so furiously rage together

THURSDAY

There was a little debate in Parliament on the birth of Prince George. I took the opportunity to speak on the limits to reason. Why is it that the Monarchy which is so irrational is so popular whilst so many modern-day politicians are so rational believing in modernity and equality in all things yet distrusted.

Perhaps the appeal of religion is its very irrationality.

FRIDAY

Back in our church looking at Psalm 3 now.

Domine quid multiplicati / Lord how are they increased that trouble me

SATURDAY

I went for a long walk down the edge of the Wolds from Sixhills into the darkening valley and up again. The harvest is still busy but coming to an end, the distant sound of great machines churning, splitting, and grinding the goodness out of the soil. Summer giving way to an earlying autumn twilight, the last of the sun glinting dully off the stones of the old priory. What must they have seen.