John Hencher's funeral will take place at Hereford Crematorium
on Wednesday 13th April at 12.45. Details from: http://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/community_and_living/life_events/1401.asp
The Times obituary notice reads as follows:
John Bredon Hencher, died in Herefordshire on 3rd April 2011,
aged 79 years. John was an actor, a priest and an inspirational
teacher, and for 17 years was on the staff of Monmouth School.
He was the partner of John Cupper for 43 years. A great gap is
left in the lives of his family and friends. John's life will shortly
be celebrated in Hereford and enquiries should be made to John C.
or to AW Hughes and Son, Gladestry, 01544 370217.
He particularly requested no mourning clothes.
Donations in John's memory will be made to
Almeley Quaker Meeting House and Marie Curie Care.
Thursday, 7 April 2011
1000 hits
Thanks for looking at the blog again. The stats panel (hidden from viewers I think) reveals that there have been over 1000 hits since it started, where they (you) are geographically based and really interesting stuff like what type of operating system was used.
Any comments about colours/design welcome.
Thanks for looking and for the comments - on line or via email.
Thanks for all the comments, privately or from Fb, about the life and death of John Hencher. John Cupper gets to see them all.
Bernard
Any comments about colours/design welcome.
Thanks for looking and for the comments - on line or via email.
Thanks for all the comments, privately or from Fb, about the life and death of John Hencher. John Cupper gets to see them all.
Bernard
The Jewish roots of Christianity and Islam
Blog followers will know of my interest, borderline obsession, with the closeness of the Abrahamic faiths. Hackneyed, I know, I am always reminding people that it is not possible to get a cigarette paper between Judaism, Christianity and Islam, so close are they. The problem, well one of the problems, is that to members they look different. My assertion is that this is superficial and, the deeper one gets into the fundamentals, the ideology (there I go again upsetting yet more people), the more alike they not only look but are.
What follows is from a thread on The Guardian's Comment is Free this week:
The question: What would you add to the Bible?
The Jordan codices, which tabloids are already calling call the Jesus diaries, could yield wonderful revelations. Perhaps they contain new information about the life and beliefs of early Christian disciples who fled eastward around the time of the first century war in which the Jerusalem temple was destroyed. We cannot yet know whether these metal plates are a new Dead Sea scrolls epiphany, a Turin shroud conundrum, or even a Hitler diaries job. I leave that judgment to others more qualified in archaeology than me.
Assuming the plates' authenticity, what would I look for in them? Clear policy statements from Jesus about human rights? Or economics? War and peace? Race? Apostolic ministry and gender? How about a definitive statement on sexual orientation? Convenient as these might be, the gospels already contain plenty of clues about principles to help untangle those subjects. People who quarry the gospels for narrow fundamentalist soundbites usually end up with something incompatible with Jesus's first principles.
What I could do with is more solid evidence as to the character, theology and daily life of Palestinian Christians during the period in which they were simply Jews, interacting with the various factions and strands of Jerusalem life in the same sociological context as the gospels record.
John's gospel in particular often uses the term "Iudaeoi" to describe Jesus's debating opponents. To translate this as, simply, "the Jews" ignores its local and regional context. There is a strong north-south divide in the background to the gospels. When Nicodemus stands up for Jesus in John 7:52 he is accused of being "a Galilean". Peter in Matthew 26:83 is identified as a follower of Jesus by his northern accent. Examples can be found all over the gospels.
On some occasions "Iudaeoi" must mean particular groups of Jews, particularly "Judaeans" – members of the southern temple establishment, as opposed to northerners, Galileans, Jesus-followers.
It is crazy to think Christianity can be understood from within or without, separated from its Jewish roots. The assumption that "Iudaeoi" applied to Jesus's opponents always means "Jews" has spawned 2,000 years of wrong, and inspired people from Tomás de Torquemada to Jack the Ripper. Christians have built on a simple linguistic misunderstanding a toxic "replacement" theology that has spawned ignorance among Christians about their own identity, and shameful cruelty against Jews.
I'd like the Jordan codices to provide hard evidence to help us map much more clearly the factions and interests of first-century inhabitants of Jerusalem, including Jesus's first disciples. I'd love to know more fully who was who and what was what, not only for the light it sheds on the gospels, but because if Christians were better able to understand their Jewish roots, they might be able lay to rest, once and for all, a shameful history of racism and discrimination, which has done nobody any favours.
What follows is from a thread on The Guardian's Comment is Free this week:
The question: What would you add to the Bible?
The Jordan codices, which tabloids are already calling call the Jesus diaries, could yield wonderful revelations. Perhaps they contain new information about the life and beliefs of early Christian disciples who fled eastward around the time of the first century war in which the Jerusalem temple was destroyed. We cannot yet know whether these metal plates are a new Dead Sea scrolls epiphany, a Turin shroud conundrum, or even a Hitler diaries job. I leave that judgment to others more qualified in archaeology than me.
Assuming the plates' authenticity, what would I look for in them? Clear policy statements from Jesus about human rights? Or economics? War and peace? Race? Apostolic ministry and gender? How about a definitive statement on sexual orientation? Convenient as these might be, the gospels already contain plenty of clues about principles to help untangle those subjects. People who quarry the gospels for narrow fundamentalist soundbites usually end up with something incompatible with Jesus's first principles.
What I could do with is more solid evidence as to the character, theology and daily life of Palestinian Christians during the period in which they were simply Jews, interacting with the various factions and strands of Jerusalem life in the same sociological context as the gospels record.
John's gospel in particular often uses the term "Iudaeoi" to describe Jesus's debating opponents. To translate this as, simply, "the Jews" ignores its local and regional context. There is a strong north-south divide in the background to the gospels. When Nicodemus stands up for Jesus in John 7:52 he is accused of being "a Galilean". Peter in Matthew 26:83 is identified as a follower of Jesus by his northern accent. Examples can be found all over the gospels.
On some occasions "Iudaeoi" must mean particular groups of Jews, particularly "Judaeans" – members of the southern temple establishment, as opposed to northerners, Galileans, Jesus-followers.
It is crazy to think Christianity can be understood from within or without, separated from its Jewish roots. The assumption that "Iudaeoi" applied to Jesus's opponents always means "Jews" has spawned 2,000 years of wrong, and inspired people from Tomás de Torquemada to Jack the Ripper. Christians have built on a simple linguistic misunderstanding a toxic "replacement" theology that has spawned ignorance among Christians about their own identity, and shameful cruelty against Jews.
I'd like the Jordan codices to provide hard evidence to help us map much more clearly the factions and interests of first-century inhabitants of Jerusalem, including Jesus's first disciples. I'd love to know more fully who was who and what was what, not only for the light it sheds on the gospels, but because if Christians were better able to understand their Jewish roots, they might be able lay to rest, once and for all, a shameful history of racism and discrimination, which has done nobody any favours.
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Martin Rees accepts Templeton Award
What follows is from Andrew Sullivan.
Martin Rees, a theoretical astrophysicist, has won the 2011 Templeton prize, which "honors a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works." Rees is nonreligious, but his acceptance statement makes clear his contribution to the greater good (pdf):
Martin Rees, a theoretical astrophysicist, has won the 2011 Templeton prize, which "honors a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works." Rees is nonreligious, but his acceptance statement makes clear his contribution to the greater good (pdf):
Some people might surmise that intellectual immersion in vast expanses of space and time would render cosmologists serene and uncaring about what happens next year, next week, or tomorrow. But, for me, the opposite is the case. My concerns are deepened by the realization that, even in a perspective extending billions of years into the future, as well as into the past, this century may be a defining moment. Our planet has existed for 45 million centuries, but this is the first in its history where one species—ours—has Earth’s future in its hands, and could jeopardize not only itself, but life’s immense potential.
See http://assets.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/kepler-alien-planets-illustration.jpg for graphic that depicts the the first 1,235 planets and stars NASA's planet-hunting telescope has found. 54 are deemed habitable like Earth.
John Hencher - further thoughts
John Bredon Hencher: actor, priest, teacher, calligrapher, friend
John always said he was born over a stable at Ombersley Court, Worcestershire, attended Hartlebury Grammar School and moved to London to train as an actor in London, shifting his accent from its native burr to RP. The Bredon in his name celebrates the Worcestershire hill made famous by AE Houseman in A Shropshire Lad. John's acting career included BBC radio, Stratford and the Century Theatre in the north west of England with its fleet of blue wagons transforming into a real theatre. John and I used to wonder if we were ever there together when the blue wagons rolled into my hometown of Rochdale and out across the boards trod the young, red haired Hencher. The life of a travelling actor was not enough so John then went to train for ordination at Lichfield Theological College. He served his title at Pershore Abbey, was domestic chaplain to Mervyn Charles-Edwards, bishop of Worcester and spent six years of as Vicar of Amblecote, Stourbridge.
Their new home, dating back to 1429 and built for a local priest, in the black and white vernacular of Herefordshire, was surrounded by what eventually became a garden of great distinction complete with commissioned sculptures. The sheds had classical Latin quotations in John Hencher's characteristic hand.
He found a part-time post at Monmouth School combining teaching English with being a chaplain. He greatly enjoyed his years at Monmouth, having Rowan Williams as neighbour. His love of theatre led to many, professional level performances, in some of the great Shakespearian leads providing much enrichment to the school’s curriculum. His prodigious memory had much of Shakespeare and the romantic poems easily to hand.
Although John was a priest, his spirituality was far wider and deeper than that which could be easily contained even in the then capacious, and now so sadly reducing, Anglican Church. He was not at home in the Sea of Faith movement, on the very edge of the church, or when he moved to an ambivalent position akin to Buddhism before finally finding a home, as many have like him, in the Society of Friends. His letter to Rowan explaining the reasons for leaving the Church of England and the reply he received spoke much about the relationship the two men had and how they could remain friends though in disagreement. The near silent worship he found with the Quakers chimed in with his deep interest in monastic life or more precisely with those who live a life based upon a rule. For John, his way of being a Quaker combined so many deep elements within him including the Bhutanese prayer flags that fluttered by the stream at the end of the Tank House garden.
John Hencher, the polymath, larger-than-life man, combined aspects of the characters of Hamlet, Lear and Falstaff but with much of John Keats in him developed, in his later years, yet another career at which he excelled – calligraphy. His works, on paper and wood, are now prized possessions. I think his finest pieces match those of David Jones – the Anglo-Welsh poet, calligrapher, painter and man of letters. His spirituality certainly does. But John was a man of relationships, friendships, love, the beauty of the English language and its supreme genius William Shakespeare.
At the end of The Tempest Prospero speaks the epilogue:
Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.
Next, every, time from now on you hear these words, hear John Hencher's voice.
A few days before he died, JH was watching the episode of Treasure Hunt together with JC. which had them had them pitted against clock. 26 March 1987. What a joy that episode was to us who just knew that the two of them would come home with the Treasure. Their personalities just shone out, together with their brains, was a sure fire winner.
Coronation Street was a must at The Johns. More follows on this soon
A few days before he died, JH was watching the episode of Treasure Hunt together with JC. which had them had them pitted against clock. 26 March 1987. What a joy that episode was to us who just knew that the two of them would come home with the Treasure. Their personalities just shone out, together with their brains, was a sure fire winner.
Coronation Street was a must at The Johns. More follows on this soon
If heaven is the Persian word for paradise, this was heaven. Even in the last years of his life, to be at a lunch party in the garden, among a crowd of friends, The Johns at home, the sun, the garden, the sculptures, the food, the wine, the talk, the talk, the talk, the laughter, here in Herefordshire….if heaven is half as good as this…At the heart of John’s life though was his love for John Cupper. ‘The Johns’, were always welcoming, always generous, and always full of laughter and delight. Many lives have been transformed, my own included, by the love that the Johns had for each other. Always a mark of a real relationship, there’s was one which overflowed to embrace many, many other people.
Sunday, 3 April 2011
John Hencher
Many of my friends will have heard me speak of my friends "The Johns". Well, one of them - John Hencher - died this afternoon in hospital in Hereford. He and "Little" John (Cupper) had been a couple for 43 years since they first met on Whit Monday 1968. I started work in January 1969 and met John Cupper at Kidderminster College. Soon I was invited to supper with them in their home at a Stourbridge Vicarage. We had eggs and gammon in the vicarage kitchen with dog Jesse very present in their lives.
After Stourbridge, they lived in a tiny lodge one roomed house at Ombersley (where John had been born in the stables, no comment), at Salperton in the Cotswolds then in Herefordshire until now.
My life was fundamentally changed by meeting the two of them. They were the first gay couple living an open, honest life I had ever met. This was very rare at the time. The Johns and I have been friends ever since - 42 years. For the last 18 months John Hencher has been cared for at their home, a fifteenth century priest's house in a hamlet in Herefordshire, by John Cupper, their friends and a team of carers.
John resigned his priest's orders some years ago, in disgust at the homonegativity of the Church of England and embraced the Society of Friends where he felt very welcome. He was the very best kind of Christian: polymathic, a character from Shakespeare - think Hamlet, Falstaff and Lear plus John Keats all in one person, deeply spiritual, bawdy, but never really offending, controlling, generous beyond generous beyond generous, the best of friends. He changed others' lives, the Johns' changed other people's lives. Paul and I always felt cherished by him. May he rest in peace. His spirit lives on.
After Stourbridge, they lived in a tiny lodge one roomed house at Ombersley (where John had been born in the stables, no comment), at Salperton in the Cotswolds then in Herefordshire until now.
My life was fundamentally changed by meeting the two of them. They were the first gay couple living an open, honest life I had ever met. This was very rare at the time. The Johns and I have been friends ever since - 42 years. For the last 18 months John Hencher has been cared for at their home, a fifteenth century priest's house in a hamlet in Herefordshire, by John Cupper, their friends and a team of carers.
John resigned his priest's orders some years ago, in disgust at the homonegativity of the Church of England and embraced the Society of Friends where he felt very welcome. He was the very best kind of Christian: polymathic, a character from Shakespeare - think Hamlet, Falstaff and Lear plus John Keats all in one person, deeply spiritual, bawdy, but never really offending, controlling, generous beyond generous beyond generous, the best of friends. He changed others' lives, the Johns' changed other people's lives. Paul and I always felt cherished by him. May he rest in peace. His spirit lives on.
Notre Dame de Paris
With the Triduum and Easter coming up soon I will be watching the liturgies from ND in Paris on French Catholic TV http://www.ktotv.com/cms/programmes
The contrast with St Peter's Rome and Westminster Cathedral are marked. Musically, Westminster wins with little competition though ND de Paris is improving. Rome is nowhere in my view. If you seek the roots of the word 'liturgy' and find 'worship' then you go off in a certain direction. See the word linking to that which 'the gathered people do as worship' then the outcome is quite different. For me, Judith Butler's concept of 'performativity' is helpful though it is a an odd sounding mouthful. Westminster is a first rate musical performance (heavily influnenced by the wonderful Anglican cathedral and collegiate traditions) with some contributions from the congregation. Paris's musical tradition goes back to the radical developments of the twelth century which led from monophony to polyphony. For those used to the sheer professsionalism of the Anglican cathedral and collegiate sounds, Paris is cheap and cheerful: one or two cantors, perhaps a small mixed (voice and ability) choir and a nave full of people who will have a go at the French or Latin congretational parts. Rome, almost all in Latin of course, is but a background to the papal liturgies. The singing is usually poor to middling. For those with a liking for Counter reformation baroque big-space liturgies this is the place to watch. B16 and his boys, and they are all boys, believe me. These days, of course, lace is big with the boys especially those with glitzy careers ahead of them, ad orientem, muttering in Latin to fewer and fewer of the faithful (whilst the rest of us sing 'Shine Jesus Shine' and other atrocious ditties because of the refusal to accept that musically we are a big house with lots of tunes, including SJS and worse etc). Sorry, rather got carried away with myself there. Where am I? Oh yes, back to ND de Paris Vespers for the Lent 4 with the celebrant splendidly arrayed in a PINK cope incensing the altar and the statute of ND to the right with her International Style Gothic S shaped body. By the end of the Vespers the cathedral is now packed ready for evening mass usually celebrated by the cardinal of Paris, Msg Andre 23.
Watch KTOTV.COM this Holy Week and Easter to see everything either from Paris and Rome then make up your own mind. Meanwhile, back at Westminster? One of the best church choirs in the world and how do you get to hear it other than being there? Buy a CD. The UK Catholic Church really needs to think about how its spends its resources. A tv channel might be worth the dosh. Happy mothers day.
The contrast with St Peter's Rome and Westminster Cathedral are marked. Musically, Westminster wins with little competition though ND de Paris is improving. Rome is nowhere in my view. If you seek the roots of the word 'liturgy' and find 'worship' then you go off in a certain direction. See the word linking to that which 'the gathered people do as worship' then the outcome is quite different. For me, Judith Butler's concept of 'performativity' is helpful though it is a an odd sounding mouthful. Westminster is a first rate musical performance (heavily influnenced by the wonderful Anglican cathedral and collegiate traditions) with some contributions from the congregation. Paris's musical tradition goes back to the radical developments of the twelth century which led from monophony to polyphony. For those used to the sheer professsionalism of the Anglican cathedral and collegiate sounds, Paris is cheap and cheerful: one or two cantors, perhaps a small mixed (voice and ability) choir and a nave full of people who will have a go at the French or Latin congretational parts. Rome, almost all in Latin of course, is but a background to the papal liturgies. The singing is usually poor to middling. For those with a liking for Counter reformation baroque big-space liturgies this is the place to watch. B16 and his boys, and they are all boys, believe me. These days, of course, lace is big with the boys especially those with glitzy careers ahead of them, ad orientem, muttering in Latin to fewer and fewer of the faithful (whilst the rest of us sing 'Shine Jesus Shine' and other atrocious ditties because of the refusal to accept that musically we are a big house with lots of tunes, including SJS and worse etc). Sorry, rather got carried away with myself there. Where am I? Oh yes, back to ND de Paris Vespers for the Lent 4 with the celebrant splendidly arrayed in a PINK cope incensing the altar and the statute of ND to the right with her International Style Gothic S shaped body. By the end of the Vespers the cathedral is now packed ready for evening mass usually celebrated by the cardinal of Paris, Msg Andre 23.
Watch KTOTV.COM this Holy Week and Easter to see everything either from Paris and Rome then make up your own mind. Meanwhile, back at Westminster? One of the best church choirs in the world and how do you get to hear it other than being there? Buy a CD. The UK Catholic Church really needs to think about how its spends its resources. A tv channel might be worth the dosh. Happy mothers day.
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