Gay Marriage and Marching Bands

We are up early, as Normy and I are walking with Betty and Nellie, before attending ten thirty mass. We cook Norman's favourite breakfast, kippers, and eat them in the garden. Already by eight o'clock it is very warm. We walk down Carr Lane and over the little bridge, Norman and Nellie, keeping under the shade of the willow trees and then running gratefully into the coolness of "almost straight wood", where I fall victim to a nettle sting and treat with a handily placed dock leaf. We only walk as far as the corner of the field and then retrace our steps, but this time walking alongside the wood, in the shade. Betty has brought a little bag with a bowl and some water for the dogs, as well as their usual bag of treats. She is going to visit her son for Sunday Lunch, he lives in a village outside Doncaster. We return home for ten. I leave Normy plenty of fresh water and the door to the garden ajar, before mounting my bike and riding to church. In this lovely summer weather, I much prefer the bike to the car and by twenty past ten, I have arrived at Saint John's and am locking up my bike, which I have leant against the wall of the church that lies in shadow. The church is little more than half full, perhaps quite a few people are on holiday. Then, during the sermon, Father Roy has to ask for the front doors to be shut, because the local regiment is marching through the bar with military band accompaniment. Today is "Armed Forces Day", in Beverley and perhaps people have attended other masses in order to watch the celebrations.Today is the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, my Buddhist practise of meditation has taught me to appreciate the ordinary in life. Father Roy has chosen well known, rousing hymns and although we are not many in number, we still sing boldly. I choose to attend the ten thirty mass because we sing the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei, in Latin and I find that beautiful. The combination of familiar ritual and thought provoking, often soul searching, sermon, is a powerful combination, repeated in many other places, theme and variation, structure and agency, to name just two. I also believe creativity to be a divine gift, from where else might creativity spring, other than the mind of the creator? After communion, I have a cup of tea in the meeting room, before cycling home in the heat. Father Roy has handed out leaflets asking us to write to our MP's and anyone we know in the House of Lords, in protest at the "Gay Marriage", bill passing through Parliament. I respect and like our priest immensely, but on this subject I think the church is just plain wrong, but there again I am also in favour of women priests. I believe that, as a society, we are too obsessed by sex, quite frankly what people choose to do with each other for a few hours a week, is of no great concern to me. But I do wonder, if the requirement for celibacy and a single male priesthood, isn't a major factor in the spate of child abuse scandals that the church has suffered. More openness and less cant and hypocrisy, would be my prescription. Marxist/Buddhist/Catholics aren't exactly thick on the ground, so I may well be a minority opinion. I cycle back along Swinemoor, the ponies are sheltering under trees and there must be a couple of hundred roaming free at the moment on the common pasture that borders the River Hull. As I change down to first gear on approaching the footbridge, my chain slips off the sprockets and I have to dismount, in order to put it back on, which I manage using a 75p off coupon from Tesco, that I find in my wallet. A small price for clean hands! I get back for half past twelve, the radio four news announces that Andy Murray is playing Novaq Djokovich in the men's singles final at  Wimbledon this afternoon, but as I don't have TV, I shan't be watching. If he wins he will be "Our Andy", in the tabloids tomorrow and " A Scottish Choker", if he loses. I hope he wins. When it becomes a little cooler, I make a salad Nicoise and eat it in the garden, the living lettuce I bought whilst collecting Laura, ten days ago, has regenerated, after I cropped it the first time, so I have kept it watered. Perhaps by the time I return from holiday, it will feed me again. I spend the evening putting the finishing touches to Gino's legal file and then catch up on my blogs until bedtime. I ring Gino around ten, to confirm arrangements for tomorrow, I am staying at their house overnight, before our appointment with the solicitor on Tuesday.