Video for May 8th, 2025
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s video.
It’s a joyful week in Hereford as the May fair has come to town. The centre of the city is full of fairground rides. The screaming, which you probably just hear in the background, goes on well into the night. I think one of my first encounters with the diocese was the Church Times caption competition around the obligatory photo of the Dean and Bishop going around the big wheel. It Michael Tavinor and Richard Frith at the time. I thought the winning caption of ‘Rick and Mick being sick’ was rather witty. The fair was founded by the Charter of Henry 1st to my predecessor +Richard de Capella, granting him the right to hold a three day fair every May. In the 12th century the Canons were allocated 10% of the profits. Following periodic disputes with the mayor, the rights were transferred to the Hereford Corporation in 1838 by Act of Parliament. A yearly ceremony is played out in which the mayor has to pay me 12 ½ bushels of finest wheat as compensation. As a former agronomist I can assure you it isn’t really very high quality. It looks like its been around since 1838, and I’m not sure there is any in the unopened sacks, but it seems churlish to argue when we get along so well.
Its one of those endearing Hereford traditions that is both bonkers and delightful at the same time. To get into the spirit I have taken to wearing this 200-year-old episcopal wig that I found in a cupboard in the house. Its really very fetching, although it does seem to attract quite a lot of insects life.
The mayor and I will shortly enact the ceremony on the wagon. The fair will be officially opened, and great fun will be had by the citizens of Hereford. I can imagine previous, stern Victorian Bishops being very disapproving of such frivolity. Sadly, there is a strand of puritan Christianity that disapproves of any expression of celebration. Christmas celebrations were banned under Cromwell’s commonwealth. Serious protestants have disapproved of dancing, the cinema and excessive laughter. And yet this Easter season should be one of celebration. I spoke last week of the disciples’ residual doubt and bewilderment, but there was astonishment and joy as well. Metaphors of eternity in the Bible picture joy and feasting as part and parcel of eternal life. Rather like the explosion of joy and relief we celebrate on the 80th anniversary of VE-Day, the fear of death was gone. The forces of death had been defeated. How much more the disciples joy at the resurrection. Paul can scarcely contain himself as he reflects about it. The great enemy that all will face is humbled. The way to eternity is clear; all barriers to our relationship with God and eternal life are removed. Death is no longer the end but a gateway to something far greater beyond our imagination. Joyful, exuberant celebration and thanksgiving is entirely appropriate, although I grant you not very English.
JRR Tolkein had an extraordinary way of speaking about such intense emotion. Although never explicit, his books are laden with Christian imagery. At the end of the Lord of the Rings when the final battle has been won against all the odds, Sam the Hobbit is overcome with joy and described thus, “He laughed out loud for sheer delight, and he stood up and cried: “O great glory and splendour! And all my wishes have come true!” And then he wept. And all the host laughed and wept, and in the midst of their merriment and tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver and gold, and all were hushed. And he sang to them, now in the Elven tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together, and tears are the very wine of blessedness.”
+Richard