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22/01/2018

Spiritual reflection to start the day with The Rev Dr Alison Jack of Edinburgh University's School of Divinity.

2 minutes

Last on

Mon 22 Jan 2018 05:43

Script

Good morning. My grandmother Katherine was born on the 25th January, 1901, three days after the death of Queen Victoria on this date, the 22nd of January. So nearly a child of the Victorian era, but not quite, Katherine’s childhood experiences were so very different from my own. My children’s ease in the digital world is a universe away from the mainly oil and gas-lit world of their great-grandmother.

And yet some things have a universal quality. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was appointed Poet Laureate by Victoria in 1850, the same year as his hugely popular poem “In Memoriam AHH” was published. This poem apparently brought great comfort to Victoria after the death of Prince Albert in 1861. Its relentless rhythm-pattern, now dubbed the “In Memoriam Stanza”, might seem monotonous to modern ears, but the sense of loss and hope for the future expressed in the “Ring out, wild bells” section of the poem are powerfully presented. “Ring out …/The faithless coldness of the time”; “Ring out false pride in place and blood/The civic slander and the spite”. Instead- “Ring in the common love of good”; “Ring in..the larger heart, the kindlier hand”. Finally, Tennyson hears in the bells a longing for “the Christ that is to be”. A powerful hope that has sustained women and men across the generations.

Loving God, where there is faithless coldness, false pride in place and blood, may common love of good prevail and kindlier hands be offered in place of civic slander and spite. Give us a hope in the Christ that is to be. Amen.

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Broadcast

  • Mon 22 Jan 2018 05:43

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