Lifting The Latch On The Soul’s Door
Seeking a Liturgy of the Wild, (Part 36)
Hello friends,
I am delighted to be Liturging in a Wild Way again. This is just the right thing to be doing in the autumn season. I’m excited. Before we dive in, an interview on Christian Wonder Tales with Jonathan Pageau, just out:
More about the course: The Symbolic World Christian Wonder Tales course
A cobwebbed St Petroc, South Brent, Dartmoor
Today is no great yomp, but a large village just down from me, South Brent. The church is named after my Orthodox namesake, St Petroc. Petroc got a great swathe of communities started down in Dumnonia (Devon and Cornwall) and towards the end of his life travelled around with a decent sized wolf. He was a hermit sometimes and a mover and a shaker at others (this is typical of the early Christian pioneers). I’ve written about him before (see: Riders To The Sea), so I won’t paint too detailed a picture here.
South Brent is a quiet village: a few pubs, a butchers, and a charity (thrift) shop where I pick up a nice coat for the royal sum of three pounds and fifty pence. It’s October, the sky is blue, air crisp, leaves falling – it’s very Van Morrison, very Moondancey. My wardrobe suddenly makes complete sense.
The church is large and handsome, fresh flowers everywhere and a nice little library by the door. Underneath the main stained glass window (a nativity) are five beautiful seashells, and underneath them five Celtic crosses. The air has that lovely scent of recent incense and the place feels quite wonderfully peaceful. My radio this morning is filled with news of war and invasions, and I feel both sobered and lucky to lift the latch on this sanctuary and simply be here for a while. To my right is a plaque to the dead of the village in the First World War, and again I feel a sharp pang for what is happening elsewhere at this very moment.