Dean's Diary (From Worcester News)

Dean's Diary

9:41am Wednesday 19th December 2007

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“Coming up to your busy time!” people say to me kindly, as Christmas gets nearer.
I smile, thinking of the diary that has been packed ever since I came to Worcester eight months ago, and wondering when my un-busy time comes round.
Not that I’m complaining – I would rather be the dean of Worcester than almost anything else I can imagine.
It’s been wall-to-wall carol services in the last few days: St Albans, RGS Alice Ottley, King’s, Bishop Perowne, with (at the time of writing) Cherry Orchard Primary School still to come.
I have listened three days running to John Betjeman’s Advent poem that ends with the words, “That Christ was born in Bethlehem, and lives today in bread and wine”.
I think to myself, that’s the faith I live by, and it’s good to be reminded of it.
The judges came to the cathedral for their annual service.
That wasn’t a carol service, but one of Worcester Cathedral’s glorious evensongs, which go on day by day, and so few people realise it.
The judges came to give thanks for ‘the Queen’s Peace’, and to pray for wisdom in the grave decisions they have to make.
I like the phrase, ‘the Queen’s Peace’.
It goes with all those other things that the Queen is supposed to have or hold on our behalf, like the Queen’s Highway, and the Queen’s English, and the Forces of the Crown, and the Royal Mail, and Her Majesty’s Government, and even Her Majesty’s unlucky Revenue and Customs.
We grumble about most of them, but would find it hard to manage without them.
‘The Queen’s Peace’ suggests that law and order, peace and prosperity, freedom and mutual respect, and all that makes up a civilised community, are not things to be taken for granted, but are gifts. So thank God for the Queen’s Peace.
At Christmas, Christians give thanks for the Prince of Peace.
His is a peace that goes deeper than that of any earthly king or queen, the “peace that passes all understanding”.
I hope you catch something of that peace, even in the busy time we call Christmas.