Month: June 2026

The Lord Crewe Arms is a pub in the village of Blanchland, in Northumberland. I have friends there, so I visit the pub from time to time. There was an abbey at Blanchland; one of the bars of the pub is in a crypt from one of the monastery buildings. Every time I go in I am much taken by two pottery monks. One is stern, holding a plaque with the words “Drink is the enemy”. The other monk looks a much merrier fellow; he has a pint of beer in one hand and a plaque on the other. On it is written “Love your enemy”….. I am sure if I tried hard enough I could get a sermon out of that, but at the end of a blistering hot week, I am happy just to smile at the humour and enjoy a pint of beer.

Rev David Poyner

I have just come back from a short break to Aberdaron, on the Llyn Peninsula in Wales. It was the parish of R.S. Thomas, a priest but also a poet whose work I love. The door of the church on the sea front was open and the only sound was of the waves. In front of me was a copy of his poem, “The Other” and I was moved to tears.

There are nights that are so still
that I can hear the small owl
calling
far off and a fox barking
miles away. It is then that I lie
in the lean hours awake listening
to the swell born somewhere in
the Atlantic
rising and falling, rising and
falling
wave on wave on the long shore
by the village that is without
light
and companionless. And the
thought comes
of that other being who is
awake, too,
letting our prayers break on him,
not like this for a few hours,
but for days, years, for eternity.

Rev David Poyner

Video assisted refereeing, or VAR, is a topic the provokes strong opinions amongst followers of football. It uses video and computers in an effort to eliminate refereeing errors. Many people in this country started to call for it after a World Cup game in 201o against Germany when England were denied a goal because the referee did not realise the ball had crossed the line. What they perhaps did not realise is that it takes time to do a VAR check; it is not unusual now to have to wait several minutes to know whether a goal should stand. I hate VAR and would gladly see it abolished. I am pleased to report that the Bishop of Manchester has joined me in condemning it as sinful and offence against God and Man (Utd). Sort of… It was in a Thought for the Day and the point he was making was making mistakes is part of being human and we need to accept that. As a scientist, I can hardly condemn technology; wise use of it makes our lives much better, be it doing my research or writing a sermon. However, we must be careful that it does not detract from our own humanity. In the case of football, it is accepting that disputed decisions are part of the game; the instant joy (or despair) is what makes it compelling to watch. Perhaps there are even lessons that ultimately we as humans cannot take the role of God in a quest for perfection. England did have a goal wrongly disallowed which VAR would have prevented, but they only scored it because of a foul in the build up, which VAR would not have spotted.

Rev David Poyner

High in the roof of Highley Church is a wooden carving of a face of a bearded man, his mouth open. He is the nearest we have in any of our local churches to a representation of the “Green Man”, a symbol that was very popular in Medieval times and who has recently undergone something of a revival. In classic carvings, the individual has leafy stems growing out of his mouth, leading to the idea that he was a representation of the spirit of the forest or, more generally, of nature itself. Today the Green Man has been adopted by many as a symbol of the “Green movement”. Some have seen him as a survivor of pre-Christian religion, venerated by country people when the local priest or Bishop was not watching. This idea has particular appeal to modern pagans. There are some problems with this version of events. The surviving carvings are largely in churches; not only is it necessary to assume the local priest did not see them, but neither did the higher clergy who regularly inspected all churches to ensure that they were in order. As far as I know, there is not a single case in a church court about a Green Man. I suspect the carvings were regarded simply as the medieval equivalent of wall-paper, decoration with no pagan associations. And finally, the penny seems to be dropping amongst the modern equivalent of the medieval church courts. The Chancellor (the chief judge) of the Diocese of Gloucester has accepted that the Green Man is not a pagan symbol and can be used on memorials in his diocese. Perhaps it is time to knock the cobwebs of our local Green Man.

Rev David Poyner