Lift Up Your Hearts

When I was at S Stephen's House, the seminary in Oxford, at the end of the '80s Val and Mary Rogers were members of the congregation. I knew Val through university friends who had been at Potora where he was headmaster, but he and I had Haileybury in common, he having been on the staff from the end of the war until 1954. He had been told by Canon Bonhote to offer for Holy Orders. I took Val back to Haileybury for what I guess must have been the last time. He was convinced he knew the route from Oxford, but all the roads had changed and we got very lost. Val was a great fan of C S Lewis, whom he had known, and it was he who was driving us one afternoon up to visit Lewis's house just outside Oxford when he misjudged the speed of an approaching van as we were crossing the dual carriageway Oxford Ring Road and we were struck on the side of the car and thrown to the side of the road. Amazingly neither of us was hurt badly, though Val was badly bruised, and gave up driving after that.

Mary was delightful, a gentle scholarly woman, who was a great expert on her native Eniskillen.

As old age came upon them Val sought to prune his library, and one afternoon I went round to choose what I would like. Having spent some hours this week trying to get the quart of books I have into the pint pot of my new study and facing the reality that I shall have to let some go, I admire his courage. Of course the books I have shed are those which I hardly ever (or never in some cases) have down from the shelf, but it is still hard. I remember the old man's genuine delight that he well loved (and often annotated) volumes were going to what he thought of as a good home. He was very eclectic in his interests and there were some ideas which I did not think proper - he was more deeply read in Swedenborg than I thought safe for a Priest.

I have on my desk as a type a little book on the General Confession inscribed 'To Mary with "Many Happy Returns" from Val 12 Oct 46' which would have been when they were at Haileybury. I hope that the memory of the generous and open handed way in which it was given away - both times - will help me to let go a bit more of the things I cling on to. For we brought nothing into the world and we take nothing out. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.