Povey Prattle

“Gilead” (published 2004), and “Home” (published 2008) are parallel novels by the splendid writer Marilynne Robinson. Both are set in the fictional town of Gilead in Iowa in the 1950’s.  They speak of the lives of The Revd. John Ames, a Congregationalist Minister, and his friend and colleague the Revd. Robert Boughton (a Presbyterian Minister). ----------------------------------- Ames (the story teller in “Gilead" ) is in his late sixties and is moving towards death.  His first wife and child had died many years before. In later life he married a quiet but perspicacious woman, Lila. Together they had a son Robert (Robby) named for the Presbyterian minister. Robby is now aged seven.  Ames tells his story in the form of a journal which he hopes his son will read long after his (John Ames’s) death. ------------------------- “Home” is told from the point of view of Glory, one of Robert Boughton’s eight children.  Glory has never married and she has ret...

Quaker poet, abolitionist, and social reformer John Greenleaf Whittier was born in Haverhill MA in 1807. He died in Hampton Falls N.H. in 1892 His remains were buried in Amesbury, MA. Whittier was one of the founders of what became the Republican Party (the party of Abraham Lincoln) . The Quaker founded Whittier College in CA was named for him. (President Richard Nixon was a graduate of Whittier College). The  hymn which many Christians know as “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind" i s part of John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem "The Brewing of Soma" The poem appeared in the Atlantic Monthly.  It started with an account, evidently from Max Muller's translation of Vashista, of the drink brewed by Hindu priests and drunk by worshippers, bringing "sacred madness" and "a storm of drunken joy." Italicised words from http://myweb.northshore.edu/users/sherman/whittier/index.html Whittier, a sober and sombre minded Quaker, was deeply suspicious...

Frequent readers of this blog will recall that I long for  silence in  Church services. I have written about the very wordiness of the liturgies of the Episcopal Church. With hymns, prayers, readings, psalms, creeds and sermons we scarcely have time to think, and often have no time to reflect. (This wordiness is probably endemic in all churches: mainline protestant, evangelical, fundamentalist or roman catholic). With that in mind I took myself to Sarasota’s Quaker Meeting last Sunday.  There we were, some forty or so folks who sat in prayerful silence for the best part of an hour. There was but one “speaker”, a man who (responding to the "Inner Light" as Quakers would describe it), reflected briefly on the recent death of a Friend. His reflection was followed by singing, when a woman arose and began to sing one chorus of “I’ll fly away”. Some of us joined in. (I did find it a wee bit incongruous to be singing a bit of an old gospel song in a Quaker Meeting!...

When young Toby was here on his visit from England my brother and I gently teased him on account of his non-stop chattering. Of course we were two pots calling one kettle black.  Martyn and I are also talkers. Last evening my friends Ron and Charlotte stopped by my home for a social hour, together with new friends Den and Karen. They were my guests for about 1 hour and 40 minutes. I swear that I talked almost without interruption for about 90 of those 100 minutes.

This photo' of the harbour on the island of North Haven ME was taken by my colleague David Macy, who is the year round resident minister there. (I visited the island some four years ago). The photo' makes me wistful for the beauty of New England.