A HAZY SHADE OF WINTER

 

My, it’s cold today.  I have to use a hairdryer to persuade the boot of the car. During my drive to Coston, the roads look suspiciously black and shiny in some places where the sun hasn’t penetrated. There’s nowhere obvious to park, so I heave the Polo up on an angled verge where it won’t bother anyone, and gingerly make first steps up the lane which runs north from the ‘B’ road. Even so I still slip and slide on the black ice. The local forecasts in Morcott won’t admit to anything lower than minus 3 last night, but it might well have been less than that in the hollows. 

Cars have to ford the Eye just past the first farm out of Coston, but the prolonged rain of Monday has put the stream into spate, and the water has gathered more widely on both sides of the tarmac. I stand and look at the rapid flow.  A helpful person who’s backing her car out of the farm assumes I don’t know what to do. She gestures at the side-path over the small bridge which gives pedestrians an advantage. I wave a thank you, but I’d spotted it. 

Beyond, and rising gently, the lane is beautiful under the clear skies. There are some generous verges, reclaimed from the nineteenth century mud and now planted nicely. After half an hour the first houses of the next settlement appear.  Sproxton straggles. 

 

This isn’t the name of the village: it’s simply ‘Sproxton’, but since there’s somewhere called ‘Burton Coggles’ not so far away over the Lincolnshire border, I thought I ought to clarify. For all that the village stretches out (you think you’ve reached its heart at the pub, but then there are more cottages at a green bank, and more again up a steep little climb), the church is disaggregated, a few lonely hundred metres away at the top of the rise.  Long before I see it – in fact long before I arrive in the village at all – I hear the bells. They’re a cheering, lovely sound on a random Wednesday morning. At first I wonder if there’s a funeral, or if it’s local ringers practising, but the peal is so protracted that I’m not at all surprised to find seven cars parked in the church grounds. This is a team of visiting ringers.  They’re still going after the ten minutes I spend in St. Bartholomew’s, so I never get to find out where they’re from, or if there’s anything special about this particular set of bells. Their sound carries impressively across the countryside: it’s really loud as I’m walking up to the church porch. By the miracle of architecture, the ringing is muted to a pleasant, melodious tinkle from within the nave.

Everywhere has its own long-distance path these days – and jolly good too. I haven’t plotted its entire route on the OS map, but my exit from Sproxton is along the Mowbray Way.  Pork pies available at regular intervals, I presume, but no, of course not, because there are no village shops these days. Leicestershire has a great and simple policy which is a great help to walkers. Their paths are usually marked by posts topped with a yellow painted splash. Providing the posts are still in place, the line of the right of way is easily visible:  good for us, and good for the farmers too, I think.  Had it not been for the frost, the next mile and a half would have been a pain, because it rises across muddy fields. Today they’re merely tacky, but the depth of some of the footmarks tells me things were different last week. There’s just one field where I collect a pound or so of clay on each boot.

Stonesby is aptly named. The last but one field before the village is full of them.  It’s a pretty village, and St. Peter’s church is neat and attractive too. I don’t spend long inside because I want to push on to Waltham-on-the-Wolds where there’s an open pub, but when I set out up the road towards the latter, I have second thoughts.  Far better that I don’t put myself under any time pressure when walking back to the car. The light will have mostly gone by half past three, and I want to see my footing clearly: the temperature will drop sharply again at dusk.

Before I leave the porch of St. Peter’s my gaze falls on a letter from the Rector, John Barr. It’s an update to the following, which you can still find on the ‘Ironstone Benefice’ website.

‘The Leicester Diocesan Synod in October 2021 voted to approve the diocesan framework for Minster Communities. A Minster Community is defined as ‘A designated group of parishes, fresh expressions of church, and schools brought together collectively for mission’. Bishop Martyn has frequently stressed the centrality of the parish to our vision and mission, saying “what we are trying to do is to resource local churches such that they can serve their local communities. I believe that Minster Communities offer the opportunity for churches to grow and flourish. We know growth is the gift of God. It’s God’s work to grow the church and we seek only to respond and work with God”.

Minster Communities have been forming since the beginning of 2022, and now our Ironstone parishes are being invited to be part of this process. Together with all the other parishes in Framland Deanery and some from Goscote Deanery, we have been invited to take part in facilitated conversations with a view to forming two minster communities across North East Leicestershire. The initial introductory meeting is taking place on Thursday 27th April, and every church is being asked to send up to two representatives to that meeting.

We have been invited to embark on a new journey together across our churches and communities. While we don’t know what the destination will finally look like, we are travelling with each other, and with God. As the process unfolds, I’ll try to provide you with regular updates. Please do keep all who are taking part in your prayers.’

A little ‘reading between the lines’ is necessary here. Is this the only way to go for parishes like Stonesby, where currently there’s one service a month. Will it change or improve their pattern of worship? Or just effectively close St. Peter’s altogether? And will those who are drawn to Christ in the village make the journey to alternative worship venues?  Does it, despite the fine words, inevitably mean a further centralisation of church authority?  Will it privilege one set of attitudes and practices over others?

I don’t know the answers to these questions.  But I do sense an incompatibility with the Church of England’s claim to be an established, national Church.  And when I enter a building so loved, as St. Peter’s obviously is, so well-ordered despite its bats, so capable of witnessing and helping village folk find their way to God, I feel very sad.

I make my way back east along ‘King Street Lane’, which I presume to be an ancient trackway, probably Roman in origin.  I feel accompanied along the way by the thousands who have tramped along it in the past, Christians and pagans. As I go, I write the following, noting each verse on my phone, which is running out of battery…

Epistemological love poem

The hotter the world, the more ice in our veins.

We shed fewer tears the more it rains.

From behind the veil of our TV panes

Nothing is real.

 

The duller the senses, the more we are saved

from the consequences of how we’ve behaved

but – input and output: so maybe we’ve waived

our right to be real.

 

The older I am, the less I know;

the more life appears a Cartesian show.

Yet in recent years it’s been often as though

even I am not real.

 

The quotidian task to argue things through,

inspecting the data for what might be true

leads me to thinking my love for you

at least is real.

So, I am what I feel?

 

This might be a poem for my wife or for my son, for dear friends or for God.  I’m not greatly enamoured of worship songs which address God as if the object of human desire, but love is love.

Coston – Sproxton – Stonesby – Coston

13.5 km. 4 hrs. 2 degrees C.  Clear and bright all the way.

‘Hazy shade of winter’ is a song by Simon and Garfunkel from their album ‘Bookends’. It has a great acoustic guitar riff – probably a twelve string, from memory, although I haven’t checked that – and manages the trick S&G repeated a few times of being simultaneously cheerful and melancholy.  It’s a winning formula in pop music. They were musical jackdaws, of course – compare this riff with the opening of The Beatles ‘Day-tripper’ and see what you think – but it’s a classic nonetheless.