IT WAS on the low-cost shelf, outside one in every of those secondhand book shops that was once so common in English seaside towns within the Nineteen Fifties. We were on holiday in Bournemouth after I chanced upon a distressed copy of the Book of Common Prayer. I actually have at all times had a special sympathy for objects and people who have come down on the earth, and I used to be immediately taken by the battered volume dated 1797. The tattered leather binding and the half-erased cipher on the duvet proclaimed a distinguished past. On opening the book gingerly, I saw a faded inscription revealing that the unique owner had been one General Philip Goldsworthy, Windsor Castle. The price was 7s. 6d., a considerable sum for a schoolboy, but I purchased it and have it still.
A little bit research established that Goldsworthy had been Equerry to George III. He had been appointed “Clerk Martial” throughout the King’s first descent into insanity. Only while writing this piece have I discovered that the General had also been elected as MP for Wilton, in Wiltshire. He had died there, where I now live; and his prayer book — after God knows what number of adventures — resides with me.
Our family didn’t attend church. There was no particular hostility, although my father used, semi-humorously, to confer with the clergy as black-coated parasites. Inspired by the associations of my Prayer Book, I began to read the psalms aloud, revelling within the sound of Coverdale’s words. This prompted me to explore further, and take myself to church. The world that opened up had such resonance that, little by little, I used to be drawn deeper into the mystery.
ALTHOUGH I actually have been inspired by voices from the past, I’m deeply grateful for the living saints I actually have known. One of my most precious articles of religion is an easy cross plaited out of a single strand of leather. It has a posh design, set with tiny white stones from the desert, and was made by a Coptic monk.
I met Father Marcos the Ascetic at a conference in Birmingham, and we discovered much in common. He was, in origin, a Luo from Kenya, and had been preparing for the priesthood within the Roman Catholic Church when it got here to him that he must explore a more authentically African Christian spiritual tradition. He moved to Egypt and joined the Coptic Church, and was eventually professed as a monk in Anba Bishoi, one in every of the surviving desert monasteries within the Wadi Natrun.
We became friends, and I used to be invited to spend a while there as his guest. For me, it was a spot of spiritual revelation. The Brothers (unless they were unlucky enough to be chosen as bishops) each lived in a cell, under whose earthen floor they knew they might eventually be buried.
Although the monastery was surrounded by sand dunes, it had been established within the fifth century on an aquifer, which supplied the vegetable garden with fresh water. Besides working within the garden, the monks occupied themselves in plaiting the leather crosses, which they wore and likewise sold. My own cross was a present from Marcos. It brings powerfully to life memories of the holy community, where we’d rise at 4 a.m. to hope before the sun began to beat down. There was no electricity, and I can still smell the oil lamps that illuminated the monastic church. Each morning, as we entered for prayer, the kiss of peace was exchanged with every member of the community. Then, abruptly, on Maundy Thursday, the kissing stopped.
Marcos was appointed to the Coptic community in Dallas, where he was subsequently murdered. We were the exact same age. I’m deeply grateful that I actually have the cross that he made. It continues to be a vibrating chord between us.
DESERTS are filled with a really speaking silence. I’m privileged to have experienced the sand dunes around Anba Bishoi, but in addition the tortured lunar landscape of Sinai, through which St Catherine’s Monastery is about. My third article of religion is a reproduction of an ancient icon of Christ which has been lodged within the monastery there because the monastery’s foundation within the sixth century.
The icon is before me as I write. Christ is depicted with one eye brimming with human compassion and the opposite eye reflecting serene divinity. One hand is raised in blessing.
Christianity can sometimes seem over-talkative, and our prayers excessively busy. There is blessed refreshment in simply sitting still, in order that Jesus can take a look at us with all our frailty, and we will take a look at him with love and gratitude.
The Rt Revd the Lord Chartres is a former Bishop of London.
