LETTER FROM YORK (10/9/18)
Dear All,
I thought you might like to know how I have been getting on during the first
week in my new home.
The answer to that is “very well” despite the chaos prevailing in the house,
given that I only moved in five days ago.
The only room which actually looks normal is my bedroom, elsewhere there
are piles of books and boxes still to be opened. All bookcases are already
full; I have been promised a lift to IKEA to buy some more.
As I write I am sitting at my desk in what would be the back bedroom but is
now my study looking out of the window at open meadowland bordered by
trees with, at present, cows grazing on it. A beautiful sunset sky behind the
trees adds to the effect.
I have been to church twice. The church
in question is Holy Trinity, Micklegate, a
medieval one, the surviving part of a
Benedictine prior founded in the c12th by
monks from Marmoutier in France.
There is just the one service, a Sung
Eucharist, on Sunday mornings. The
liturgy is similar to the Scottish Blue Book
but all done in a traditional manner, so to
speak. I am not musical but can tell that
there is a good organist and the
congregational singing seems good.
On Sunday last a young man chanted
the psalm. Although there were probably
only about 25 to 30 people present I did
notice that as well as people of my age
and older there were several in their
twenties and thirties, the generation that
a lot of Anglican churches usually lacks.
The walk from my house takes the same
time as walking to St. Oswald’s did but
there is no steep hill in the way! In addition to this I intend going to a mid-day
communion at the Minster which is according to the Book of Common
Prayer.
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