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Sun Sept 14.Boughton Lees. 21.7 km.

 Yesterday’s Unite the Kingdom march in London brought together people from all over the UK for a huge (at least  150,000 people) march in support of the far-right and Tommy Robinson. Google him - pretty unsavoury.  I’m going to continue to bury my head in medieval pilgrimages.

Of course, there has been scandal a-plenty and multiple troubles throughout time.  Yesterday I passed by the site of Boxley Abbey.  Pre-Reformation an Archbishop wrote to Cardinal Wolsey saying this “is so holy a place where so many miracles might be showed”. 

A few years later, as the Abbey was being ransacked for treasure during the Reformation, it was found that a carved figure in the rood screen that had amazed pilgrims by occasionally moving was in fact a puppet. Moreover, when pilgrims had given generously to the Abbey, they had been invited to try and lift a statue of a saint that only righteous people could move.  The monks simply loosened a screw under the statue, depending on the size of the gift.  And last but not least the finger of the Apostle Andrew, inlaid with silver, was sold off cheaply when pilgrims no longer came to worship it.

While I’m on this theme, here is a monument in a fairly prominent place in Southwark Cathedral. The deceased, Dr. Lionel Lockyear, died very wealthy during the seventeenth  century. But he was a complete quack. One of his best-selling miracle pills featured “sunbeams” as an ingredient.


Alright, I will conclude on another example that times have never been very great, thanks to human nature. At the Toronto airport I itched to buy a book, and the very small selection actually included a really good translation of Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations” (trans Gregory Hays, paperback Modern Library).  If you haven’t read this, I highly recommend it.  Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor (121 - 180).  He wrote these reflections just for himself, and in this translation in particular, they take the reader right in to the intimacy of a man with immense responsibilities striving to live a good life.

“”…look at the way people around you behave.  Even the best of them are hard to put up with - not to mention putting up with yourself” (Book 5, 10)

“Don’t be heard complaining about life at court. Not even to yourself.” (Book 8, 9)

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognised that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.”  (Book 2, 1)



Comments

  1. TimKellySeptember 14, 2025 at 4:15 PM

    Nice reflections, suitable for today's news. Enjoying your posts.

    ReplyDelete

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