Lift Up Your Hearts

John Burnaby (BFr 1905) was one of the greatest interpreters of S. Augustine of Hippo, himself one of the greatest of Christian Theologians. Here, from his great book on Augustine, Amor Dei, is his explanation of the need of the Christian to seek forgiveness daily.

The Hulsean Lectures for 1938

Pelagius and Caelestus were rigorist monks who believed that despair of perfection makes the best excuse for laxity, and that the moral fibre of the average Christian can only be kept sound if he is assured of his freedom to avoid sin 'if he will.' To them Augustine replied that if despair is Scylla, presumption is Charybdis, and that the only way to escape both is to recognise that we are not born free but have to achieve freedom: the only safe rule is 'Make neither your own self righteouness a safe-conduct to heaven nor of God's mercy a safe-conduct to sin.' 'So long as we live our perfection is humility.' Augustine was convinced that our state of moral imperfection serves the purposes of God as a constant warning against pride. The worst danger that besets man, placed as he is but a little lower than the angels, is the worship of himself; and there can be no protection from this danger but the daily need to pray "forgive us our trespasses."

Flying People?

"An ambassador is an honest man who is sent to lie abroad for his country." The famous pun was that of Henry Wotton who was in later life a friend of Izaak Walton who, in addition to being a great fisherman, was also a writer of biography and wrote Wotton's Life. Walton links Tottenham and Great Amwell, where he is buried in the churchyard since he fished the Lea in both parishes, but my excuse for writing about ambassadors is the communique I received today from James Dauris (Th 78) who has just presented his Credentials to the President of Peru and is our Ambassador in Lima. There are some splendid pictures on the Embassy website of the occasion. Of Lima he writes:

Lima stands beside the Pacific Ocean and from my office up on the 23rd floor of one of the tallest buildings along the coast I can look down to the breakers rolling onto the beach at the foot of the cliffs below.  There are almost always surfers out enjoying the waves.  From high up they look like seals in their black wetsuits– although we’re comfortably inside the Tropics here, the water is too cold to stay in for long without protection.  The updrafts off the cliffs draw paragliders every afternoon.  For the first few days it was slightly disconcerting to have people flying past my office window, some of them almost close enough to reach out to, but I’m now more used to seeing locals and tourists floating by.


Flying people: he tells not a word of a lie!

Streets Called Haileybury 3

This one is in Ashby-de-la-Zouch LE 65. It is in an estate where the main street is called Marlborough Way and the roads off are named after schools. Hailebury [sic] has been spelt incorrectly!

Ties

The obituary of HH Maharaja Sriraj of Dhrangadhara (E 1936.3) mentioned that he took a great interest in the design of club ties. On the General Committee of the Society recently we have been discussing the design of a tie which would be suitable to wear to meetings in the modern business world. Personally, as I said when accepting the nomination as President Elect at the AGM last year, I don't get to wear ties as much as I used to. So I have been glad of the advent of the socks. Nevertheless ties are a great thing, and I guess His Highness would have been one of those who delight in the fact that there are so many variants of the "OH" tie. Town and country and crest; Oxford and Cambridge; shooting and rugby and golf, and of course  the Society tie with the winged hearts and crossed swords and anchors. I expect I have missed some, and I have noted the increasing tendency to House loyalty with members wearing their House Society ties.

Ties from the Bear Pub in Oxford. There is an OH tie in the top row, 6th from the left

The Maharaja is not wearing a tie in the picture that went with the obituary but don't let that stop you reading the life of an extraordinary man whose birth was celebrated by "the beating of war drums and the release of all Dhrangadhara-Halvad's prisoners, and towards the end of his life designed Indian tartan on a computer. 

Term Starts Today

No posts over the weekend, which was a bit busy round the edges. On Saturday the Vicarage was a whirl of trunks, tuck boxes and packing ready for the new term. The things we had lost - and the rather awful things found in the bottom of tuck boxes which had been left to fester!

Finally we had gathered everything, but the pile on the foot of the bed all needed naming, and even I tried my hand with a needle.

Meanwhile there was extra to do to be ready for Sunday to bring into use for the first time what the Faithful are calling "Father's new toy" - the new projector and screen which I used to put illustrations up for my sermon.

Luggage for Highfield

Haileybury term begins in the morning for those going into the Removes, as the eldest was, so, order having been forced on the heaps, I bade farewell to our new Remove and sent him off with his mother (driven kindly by a friend in their car). Then I went up later with another load of luggage and No 2 son.

Luggage for Lawrence

"Father's new toy" worked very well on what turned out to be a busy Sunday with just under 300 in church. I suppose Sundays are quiet for most people, but I wish term started on a Saturday!