Stormy Weather
Folklore sees February as a month for forecasting. Britain being Britain, much of the forecasting concerns the weather. After all, talking about the weather is the nearest the British get to theological discussion.
Also, as we’ve such a changeable climate, folklore forecasts don’t agree, but, fair play, a modern TV forecaster achieved fame by assuring viewers that there wouldn’t be a hurricane just before the 1987 hurricane struck.
However, being born in February, I can provide a forecast that’s infallible. You should avoid my Lottery numbers if you want a chance of landing ‘the big one.’ Send me a tenner and I’ll tell you my numbers. Cheap at the price, and the nearest I’ll get to receiving any money from the Lottery.
Back to February weather. February was seen in folklore as a rainy month, hence the month’s nickname Fill-dyke. ‘February Fill-dyke, be it black (rain) or be it white (snow)’. You couldn’t escape getting wet, and probably this month we’ll get the expected soaking. Unlike our simple forebears, we now build on flood plains, so whether we get rain or snow, February could be better named ‘Flood-dyke.’
However, cheer up. ‘If February give much snow. A fine summer it doth foreshow.’ So, if the snowflakes start falling, go to your laptop, start on-lining and book up an English seaside hotel for the summer. No need to dally with Dubai or bake in Benidorm.
On the other hand if February starts well, watch out. ‘If Candlemass Day be fair and clear. There’ll be twa winters in the year.’ More of Candlemass anon - to use folklore speech, as we’ve strayed into that realm.
It’s not just weather forecasting according to folklore that’s difficult and where forecasts conflict.
Think back to 1980 and the coming of the ASB. Abandon the Book of Common Prayer and the crowds will start flocking back to church said the liturgical loreists. In fact, it’s the pews that have been abandoned at a more rapid rate than ever before. Then there was 1992 and the approval of female ordination. Similar optimism about building up numbers attending church. Yes, certainly the numbers have increased, but of female ordinands, not pew squatters.
As a one-time oil magnate, Justin Welby should be familiar with forecasting the weather, given the often stormy seas in which many oil rigs are situated. When the November Synod narrowly failed to give the expected approval to the introduction of women bishops he said that the outlook was ‘grim’, and with his predecessor, forecast that the Church would be marginalised unless it got in step with majority secular opinion favouring the measure.
One forecast that could undoubtedly have been made, and would be guaranteed to be correct, was that if a vote doesn’t go the way that ‘right-on’ opinion demands, you’ll have to vote again, EU style. If the Holy Spirit speaks, and doesn’t give the answer wanted, you must have misheard.
As for marginalisation, that’s likely to occur even if Justin is succeeded by Justine. ECUSA has pioneered the route that the CofE is now following and has become the fastest declining church in Western Christendom. Equally, you can forecast that Codes of Practice will be as ignored as the Highway Code. Conservative evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics will become as oppressed as they now are in ECUSA.
Away with gloom. Back to Candlemass, Festival of Light. Light driving away February’s gloom, but light that, in Simeon’s words, is also accompanied by a sword that pierces the spirit. One fears that, despite the Archbishop-designate’s optimism, the soul of the Church of England will be pierced in the years ahead.
Anna also gave voice at the Purification, but what Luke says she was, points to a role that might have been a better one for the modern church to have granted Christian women rather than priesthood and episcopacy. Anna was a prophetess. How the church today needs prophets rather than fallible forecasters.
And ladies, in Biblical times, the Prophet outranked the priest.
Alan Edwards