With Philip due to be married (to Becky) in July we now have two others courting. the words of Henry Hobson (of Hobson's Choice fame) 'once you get one wedding in 't family it goes through 't lot like 't measles' are quoted quite a bit these days. David looks like he's too busy trying to simply exist to be at risk of courtship - but who knows?
Palgraves Golden Treasury is packed with gems appropriate to old age and youth - it's set me to thinking that youth is when everything is happy and do-able and old age is when you have to face declining decision-making and memory capacity. At the same, I become more convinced that there is great blessing in becoming old when it is accompanied by an increase in wisdom (which IS the intention...). Aspects of life which one has to cultivate a taste for (though they seem unpleasant at the first) like olives, deep poetry, good wine and challenging, but rich, music can better be savoured with a foundation of years of struggle, frustration and sadness behind one. when you are young you have the energy and ideas by means of which you can change the world - how important it is that young are teamed up with the old who would prevent a 're-inventing of the wheel' in terms of mistakes made in the process of making the world a better place and extending the Kingdom.
The banns have been read 3 times at the parish church - now they will be read at Virginia Water when Philip and Becky will be married. It set me to thinking (non-conformity causes one to think that banns are just another opportunity for the anglicans to get money out of one....) of the glory of the fact that marriage is not a mere private affair - it affects society. Society begins at home and spreads out to the local community so though it is unlikely that there will be any objections arising from the banns and many people will not have a clue who the people are whose names they hear today, something IMPORTANT is going on in the public declaration.
That all this points to the 'marriage supper of the lamb' is also full of profound fuel for the soul - I shall ponder it...