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Pilgrims at Prayer

Walk of Witness

Monday 22nd June 2015

at 10.00 am

Sturminster Newton

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Please note all timings are approximate

Pilgrimage 2015

Peter and Paul – Prayer and Party

Introduction

Our ‘Petertide Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace’ has adopted The World Council of Churches’ call to seek Peace and Justice in

four distinct contexts:

Just Peace in the Community so that all may live free from fear;

Just Peace with the Earth: so that life is sustained;

Just Peace in the Marketplace: so that all may live in dignity;

Just Peace among the Nations so that human lives are protected.

Each day of our Pilgrimage and our Prayers will be dedicated to a place in the world where people suffer from poverty, deprivation, imprisonment, persecution or environmental

degradation. We are each carrying with us a Key: the symbol in Christian doctrine of freedom and knowledge; and,

biblically, of Saint Peter, who holds the keys and allows us to enter the gates of heaven which lead us to eternal life.

Karl Barth said that ‘To hold the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of this world.’ With this direct challenge in mind: to pray and act —the

poetry and readings on this ‘Walk of Witness’ seek to show that, in prayer, with others, we can all begin to make changes

that will bring justice and peace to our world.

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10.00 am MEET AT THE MILL CAR PARK

WELCOME & INTRODUCTION

READING

Prayer Walk (Malcolm Guite)

Written in direct homage to George Herbert’s poem ‘Prayer’ which we will hear in Church at the end of the ‘Walk of Witness’

A hidden path that starts at a dead end, Old ways, renewed by walking with a friend,

And crossing places taken hand in hand,

The passages where nothing need be said, With bruised and scented sweetness underfoot

And unexpected birdsong overhead,

The sleeping life beneath a dark-mouthed burrow, The rooted secrets rustling in a hedgerow, The land’s long memory in ridge and furrow,

A track once beaten and now overgrown

With complex textures, every kind of green, Land- and cloud-scape melting into one,

The rich meandering of streams at play,

A setting out to find oneself astray, And coming home at dusk a different way.

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Depending on whether the footbridge is open/closed:

10.10am IN THE MEADOW

READING

In the Bright Field (R. S.Thomas)

I have seen the sun break through

to illuminate a small field for a while, and gone my way and forgotten it. But that was the pearl of great price,

the one field that had treasure in it. I realise now that I must give all that I have

to possess it.

Life is not hurrying on to a receding future,

nor hankering after an imagined past. It is turning aside like Moses

to the miracle of the lit bush, to a brightness that seemed as transitory

as your youth once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

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10.15 am BY THE BRIDGE

READING

Which Comes First (Malcolm Guite)

Since every gift comes down from the all-giver, how

can we choose between the giver’s gifts, or say which should come first, the fish or the river ?

He scatters first, and then calls us to gather, to float upon his love, our loving craft,

and sail our songs upstream, back to the giver.

He gives us gifts when we are met together,

not in our splits, our schisms, and our rifts; we cannot prize the fish and not the river.

Divide the two and say ‘which would you rather?’ we drift through time on fragile little rafts

but time and life alike flow from the giver.

Away upstream, it all flows from the Father. The stream is his own Spirit, giving gifts, His Son, our brother, joins us in the river.

He is both-and God, not or, or either.

He gives full measure; steady, heady draughts! The giver must come first, always the giver,

and we receive his gifts: both fish and river.

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10.30 am BY THE EXCERCISE MACHINES

READING

The Prologue to Piers Plowman (William Langland)

In a summer season when soft was the sun, I clothed myself in a cloak as I shepherd were, habit like a hermit's unholy in works, and went wide in the world

wonders to hear. But on a May morning on Malvern hills, a marvel befell me of fairy, me thought. I was

weary with wandering and went me to rest under a broad bank by a brook's side, and as I lay and leaned over and looked into the waters, I fell into a sleep for it

sounded so merry. Then began I to dream a marvellous dream, that I was

in a wilderness wist I not where. As I looked to the east right into the sun, I saw a tower on a toft worthily built; A deep dale beneath a dungeon therein, with deep

ditches and dark and dreadful of sight. A fair field full of folk found I in between, of all manner of men, the rich

and the poor, working and wandering as the world asketh. Some put them to plow and played little

enough. At setting and sowing they sweated right hard and won that which wasters by gluttony destroy. Some put them to pride and apparelled themselves so in a

display of clothing they came disguised. To prayer and penance put themselves many, all for love of our Lord.

Living hard lives, In hope for to have heavenly bliss. Such as anchorites and hermits that kept them in their cells, and desired not the country around to roam; nor

with luxurious living their body to please. And some chose trade. They fared the better, as it seemeth to our

sight that such men thrive.

SILENT REFLECTION and/or EXERCISE

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10.40 am WALK TO MARKET SQUARE

READING

The Pilgrim’s Progress (John Bunyan)

‘This hill, though high, I covet to ascend;

The difficulty will not me offend.

For I perceive the way to life lies here.

Come, pluck up, heart; let’s neither faint nor fear.

Better, though difficult, the right way to go

Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe.’

SILENT RELECTION

10.45 am WALK TO THE EXCHANGE

COFFEE AND FELLOWSHIP AT THE EXCHANGE

11.15 WALK TO THE MARKET CROSS

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READING

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Malcolm Guite)

‘Stop Christian passer-by! Stop child of God!’ You made your epitaph

imperative, and stopped this wedding guest! but I am glad to stop with you and start again to live

from that pure source, the all re-newing stream,

whose living power is imagination, and know myself a child of the I AM, open and loving to his whole creation.

Your glittering eyes taught mine to pierce the veil, to let his light transfigure all

my seeing, to serve the shaping Spirit whom I feel, and make with him the poem of my being.

I follow where you sail towards our haven your wide wake lit with glimmerings of heaven.

11.30 WALK TO NAZARETH LODGE

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Dear Lord and Father of Mankind

Text: John Greenleaf Whittier, 1807-1892 Music: ederick C. Maker, 1844-1927 Tune: REST, Meter: 86.886

Dear Lord and Father of mankind forgive our foolish ways; reclothe us in our rightful mind,

in purer lives thy service find in deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard beside the Syrian sea

the gracious calling of the Lord let us, like them, without a word

rise up and follow thee. O sabbath rest by Galilee

O calm of hills above where Jesus knelt to share with thee

the silence of eternity interpreted by love.

Drop thy still dews of quietness till all our strivings cease;

take from our souls the strain and stress and let our ordered lives confess

the beauty of thy peace. Breathe through the heats of our desire

thy coolness and thy balm; let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;

speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire, O still, small voice of calm.

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The Lord’s My Shepherd The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want;

He makes me down to lie in pastures green; He leadeth me

the quiet waters by. My soul He doth restore again,

and me to walk doth make within the paths of righteousness,

e'en for His own name's sake. Yea, though I walk in death's dark vale,

yet will I fear no ill; for Thou art with me, and Thy rod

and staff me comfort still. My table Thou hast furnished

in presence of my foes; my head Thou dost with oil anoint,

and my cup overflows.

Goodness and mercy all my life shall surely follow me, and in God's house forevermore

my dwelling place shall be.

Collect for the Apostles: Peter and Paul

Almighty God whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul glorified you in their death as in their life:

grant that your Church inspired by your teaching and example and made one by your Spirit may

ever stand firm upon the one foundation Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen

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The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven

Hallowed be thy name

Thy Kingdom come

Thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

And forgive us our trespasses

As we forgive those who trespass against us

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom

The power and the glory

Now and for ever.

Amen

The Grace

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ

and the love of God

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit

be with us all

now and forever.

12.00 Noon (or 12.15) WALK TO ST MARY’S CHURCH

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Short Taizé Service

INTRODUCTION & OPENING PRAYER

SILENT REFLECTION

Taizė Chant:

O Lord hear my prayer, O Lord hear my prayer,

When I call, answer me.

READING

Kneeling (R. S. Thomas)

Moments of great calm, kneeling before an altar of wood

in a stone church in Summer, waiting for the God to speak; the air a staircase for silence;

the sun’s light ringing me, as though I acted a great role.

And the audiences still; all that close throng of spirits waiting, as I, for the message.

Prompt me, God; But not yet.

When I speak, though it be you who speak through me, something is lost.

The meaning is in the waiting.

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SILENT REFLECTION

Taizé Chant:

Bless the Lord my soul,

and bless his holy name. Bless the Lord my soul,

He rescues me from death

‘PRAYER TO THE HOLY SPIRIT’

Two or three readers to pray alternately

Spirit of wisdom and understanding, enlighten our minds so that we may perceive the mysteries

of the universe in relation to the eternal.

Spirit of right judgement and courage, guide us and make us firm in our baptismal decision to

follow Christ’s way of Love.

Spirit of knowledge and reverence, help us to see

the value of kindness, justice and mercy in our everyday dealings with one another.

Spirit of love and truth, may we respect life as we work to solve problems: of family, community and nation; and of economy, social justice and

ecology.

Spirit of creation, fill our lives with wonder and

awe in your presence whenever we are out in your natural world.

Spirit of God, spark our faith, hope and love into

new action each day.

Amen

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READING

Prayer (George Herbert)

Prayer the Church’s banquet, angels’ age,

God’s breath in man returning to his birth,

The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,

The Christian plummet sounding heaven and

earth;

Engine against the Almighty, sinner’s tower,

Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,

The six-days-world-transposing in an hour,

A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and

bliss,

Exalted manna, gladness of the best,

Heaven in ordinary, man well dressed,

The milky way, the bird of paradise,

Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s

blood,

The land of spices; something understood.

SILENT REFLECTION

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Taizė Chant:

Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom

Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom

READING

The Pilgrim’s Progress (John Bunyan)

‘It is always hard to see the purpose in wilderness wanderings until after they are over.’

SILENCE

Pilgrims leave Church in their own time for:

PICNIC LUNCH IN ST MARY’S HALL

Talk on Guys Marsh Prison by John Barrett

LUNCH

THE PILGRIM PRAYER

God our Father, you sent your Son to proclaim your

kingdom, strengthen us, the people of your new

Covenant, to walk together in the name of Jesus, to watch for your presence in our communities, and to work in the power of

the Holy Spirit, now and in all our days.

Amen

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2.00 pm WALK ALONG LONG RIVER

To Hinton-St Mary

BIBLE READINGS En Route

3.30 pm Act of Worship at St. Peters

Followed by tea and The Grace