The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

There is in God, some say,
A deep but dazzling darkness

Thought for the Day recently, looking forward to the clocks changing, featured these well-known words by Welsh poet Henry Vaughan (1621-1695) which made me wonder where they came from – which turned out to be a poem much too long to reprint but easily accessible on-line.  I’ll content myself with the full final verse:

There is in God, some say,
A deep but dazzling darkness, as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
         See not all clear.
    O for that night! where I in Him
    Might live invisible and dim!

Sadly I can’t now remember what else the speaker had to say or how he tied the poem in with the clocks – if indeed he did.  Since I have no natural awareness of time the putting back or forward of clocks hardly impinges on me – I do it and when I get up the next morning my body accepts that it’s whatever time the clock says it is and I’m bewildered by people who ‘feel’ as if it’s too early or too late.  But November has other ways of counting down to winter and very little opportunity to live ‘invisible and dim’ – All Saints, All Souls, Remembrance, even the Christmas Market, all proclaim a major change in the season.  Suddenly we’re galloping through the weeks and before we know it it’ll be Christmas and New Year, and Lent starts 10 days after Candlemas! 

So what have we lined up for this month?  Well of course the All Souls Service of Remembrance on 1st and the Remembrance Day Service on 8th, preceded by our ‘Come and Sing’ Rutter Requiem on 7th – conducted by John Rutter himself.  On the 15th the Social Action Group will be launching their Christmas Hamper Appeal and there’s the aforementioned Christmas Market on 21st. Do take note of that and come and support the charities who set out their stalls – Traidcraft will have an extended range of foods as well as cards and giftwrap, there’ll be a Church Gift Stall (for which we welcome gifts to sell), Tombola, and Children’s stalls and Lucky dip.  All this in the parish rooms, along with the Friends of the Music Coffee and Lunch bar – worth coming for that alone! The following day (22nd) we celebrate St Cecilia with a special Choral Evensong, followed by supper in the vicarage (please look for the list and sign up if you’d like to attend that.)

Moving on we find ourselves in the 18th century with the Bennetts, the Bingleys, Mr Darcy et al – the Hampstead Players’ production of Pride and Prejudice runs from 26th to 28th.

We round off the month on Advent Sunday (29th) with Admission of Children to Communion in the morning (and a baptism) and a performance of Messiah at 7pm.

2nd Wednesdays
This got off to a good start with four of us sitting together knitting, sewing and – I don’t know how to describe making partitions for boxes to keep the sherry glasses in – a craft activity perhaps? This month (11th) we’ll be packaging the Christmas cards ready for sale and if we finish that, bundling the cards we deliver round the parish into streets.  Plenty for everyone so do come and join us – any time from 1 o’clock onwards.

And finally a very warm welcome to Amanda Kneller, who has recently taken over as Vicar’s P.A. Amanda did visit one Sunday in August and although she doesn’t live locally we hope we may occasionally see her and get to know her – if only at a stapling party towards Christmas!