‘Dance me to the end of love Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin’

Leonard Cohen’s ‘Dance me to the end of love’ arose from a photograph of death camp musicians

Patrick Comerford

I have long decided the hymns I want to hear at my own funeral – later, rather than sooner, hopefully. I am not being morbid in any way, needless to say, but I think the hymns and readings at my funeral should reflect my own theological and spiritual journey through life.

1, Opening hymn: ‘Thine be the glory’ (Irish Church Hymnal, 288) is filled with hope of the Resurrection, and was first written in French and later translated into English. It became popular after it was sung at the Jerusalem Conference in 1928 and then at 1948 assembly of the World Conference of Churches in Amsterdam. The hymn was written to be sung to the tune in the chorus in Handel’s oratorio Judas Maccabeus.

2, Gradual: ‘Lead kindly light’ (ICH, 653) was written by John Henry Newman in 1832, during a time of spiritual turmoil in his own life. On the Sunday after writing this poem, he heard John Keble preach his influential ‘Assize Sermon’ in Oxford. Newman did not imagine at the time that his poem would become a hymn. The tune is by John Bacchus Dykes, Precentor of Durham Cathedral, and this later became Gandhi’s favourite hymn.

3, Offertory: ‘How shall I sing that majesty’ (ICH, 468), written by John Mason in the 17th century, is also a resurrection hymn. The tune ‘Coe Fen’ by Kenneth Naylor is outstanding, and also evokes memories long summer walks by the Backs in Cambridge. But I want all four verses of the hymn sung, and not just the three verses found in the Irish Church Hymnal.

4, Post-Communion hymn: ‘Abide with me’ (ICH, 62) by Henry Francis Lyte is known to every football fan, but also has strong Wexford connections. Lyte served his curacy in Taghmon, Co Wexford, and his experience there inspired many of the themes in this hymn, although he wrote it later in life, when he was acutely aware of his own impending death.

But I also want to hear two songs by Leonard Cohen at my funeral: ‘If it be your will’ when I am being brought into the church; and his ‘Dance me to the end of love’ as I am being brought out.

‘If it be your will’ seems so appropriate a hymn for any writer who has to accept that our time has come and that it is God’s will that we should become silent:

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will
If it be your will

On the other hand, ‘Dance me to the end of love’ seemed, for so long, to be an appropriate way of saying that love continues after death, that death does not bring an end to love.

I also want this song because of its Greek inspiration: it follows a typical Greek Hasapiko dance path, inspired perhaps by Cohen’s long-lasting links with Greece and the island of Hydra.

So, I was taken aback earlier this week to learn from Allan Showalter’s blog that this song was inspired by a photograph Leonard Cohen had seen in his childhood of musicians in a death camp.

In a posting last year [29 March 2019], Allan Showalter quoted Leonard Cohen saying as he introduced the song at his concert in Koln on 10 April 1988, ‘This is a song that arose from a photograph that I saw when I was a child of some people in striped pyjamas prison uniforms with violins playing beside a smoke stack and the smoke was made out of gypsies and children, and this song arose out of that photograph: Dance Me To The End Of Love.’

The photograph Allan Showalter used to illustrate his posting shows prisoners in the death camp in Mauthausen, although it is only one of several such images, and he admits it ‘is unlikely to be the specific photo that inspired Leonard Cohen’s Dance me to the end of love.’

In an interview with CBC radio 25 years ago, on 26 August 1995, Cohen was asked about the origins of ‘Dance me to the end of love.’ Cohen said it ‘came from just hearing or reading or knowing that in the death camps, beside the crematoria, in certain of the death camps, a string quartet was pressed into performance while this horror was going on, those were the people whose fate was this horror also. And they would be playing classical music while their fellow prisoners were being killed and burnt. So, that music, ‘Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin,’ meaning the beauty there of being the consummation of life, the end of this existence and of the passionate element in that consummation.’

He continued, ‘But, it is the same language that we use for surrender to the beloved, so that the song – it’s not important that anybody knows the genesis of it, because if the language comes from that passionate resource, it will be able to embrace all passionate activity.’

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Oh, let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Further reading: ‘Play, Or Die. The Orchestras of Auschwitz,’ by Shannon Quinn



(Dance Me to the End of Love lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC)

A photograph from Cambridge for a new book in Bangladesh

Robinson Crusoe Island is a tiny islet in Cambridge where the River Cam splits between Coe Fen and Sheep’s Green (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I am seldom happy about my photographs being used for commercial or political purposes, although I am happy to see them used by educational and faith-based organisations, even when I do share their approach or particular point of view.

It is also a pleasure when publishers ask for permission to use my photographs, although I always ask for an acknowledgement and also ask for a printed version if practicable.

Earlier this week I received a request from MetaKave Publications, a publishing house based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The publishers are preparing a new book, Cambridge: Look Back in Love, by Professor M. Harunur Rashid, based on his memories of studying in Cambridge, where he studied in Fitzwilliam College.

He has been a Professor of English literature and language, a university administrator, a newspaper editor at the Dhaka Courier, and has translated modern poetry and prose in Bangladesh. He is also a noted writer on Sufism and Sufi literature and a commentator on social, political, and cultural life and literary texts.

The publishers want to use a photograph I took last year of Robinson Crusoe Island, a tiny islet in Cambridge where the River Cam splits between Coe Fen and Sheep’s Green.

I have visited Robinson Crusoe Island in Cambridge a number of times, and this photograph was taken on 9 September 2014 during an afternoon break while I was staying in Sidney Sussex College during the annual summer conference organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (IOCS).

Robinson Crusoe Island is a tiny islet in the River Cam, between Coe Fen to the east and Sheep’s Green to the west, on a point on the river south of the weir where Scurdamore’s Punts are moored at Silver Street Bridge and immediately north of the Fen Causeway.

Cattle grazing on Coe Fen in the late summer sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Coe Fen is known beyond Anglicanism as the name the tune composed by Ken Naylor for the hymn How shall I sing that majesty. Naylor was the music master at the Leys School, at the corner of Trumpington Street and the Fen Causeway, and named his tune after Coe Fen, the open space beside the school.

Coe Fen on the east bank of the Cam and Sheep’s Green on the west bank form a natural area that was once important for commercial activity in Cambridge. There was many watermills her, but because the land between the artificially raised banks of the watercourses was liable to flooding it was only suitable for grazing.

Cows grazed on one side of the river on Coe Fen and sheep on the other side, Sheep’s Green, and so they have been named.

By the 19th century, the Fen had become so marshy and boggy that it became necessary to drain it as a measure to prevent the outbreak and spread of diseases. A public subscription in 1833 raised £150 to drain the Fen, and later, in 1912-1914, the level of the Fen was raised by dumping rubbish on it.

On that late afternoon last year, I walked down Trumpington Street to the Leys School, and turned along the Fen Causeway. The Fen Causeway Bridge opened in 1926, and I am told it is sometimes called the Lesbian Bridge because of the graffiti sometimes written on its underside. Instead of checking this out, I joined a footpath south into Coe Fen, where the land is a semi-natural area and cattle still graze.

I walked south until the path meets Vicar’s Brook and then turned west and crossed a narrow bridge that took me onto Sheep’s Green, a small island formed by the way the river has split further north at the weir at Silver Street Bridge.

Sheep’s Green Bridge is a second narrow bridge that was rebuilt in 2006. Here pedestrians and cyclists jostle to give way to each other, and the bridge led me onto Lammas Land, a town park, with a small open air pool for children and a playground.

Lammas was observed on 1 August in England as a harvest festival when loaves of bread were made from the first ripe corn. Areas of green designated as Lammas lands in law were common land for nine months of the year, but passed to the sole use of their owners for the other three months on Lammas.

To the south of Lammas Land is the aptly-named Paradise, a nature reserve and woodland with a central marsh area, wet woodland and a number of riverside mature willows.

Crusoe Bridge, built in 1898-1899, is a steel footbridge with timber deck and supported on four cast-iron columns (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

I walked back north along Lammas Land and walked east along the Fen Causeway for a brief distance, and then turned to the north side of Coe Fen, where I found the bridge that crosses Robinson Crusoe Island to my left or the west.

Stepping across Robinson Crusoe Island and Crusoe Bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Crusoe Bridge, which was built in 1898-1899, is a steel footbridge with timber deck and supported on four cast-iron columns. This is the final bridge on the “Upper River” before it reaches the small weir at the mill pond.

Robinson Crusoe Island was once known as Swan’s Nest, but the present name has been in use for more than a century.

The land is deceptive in places here, and many apparently dry channels running through the grass are filled with marshy water, often filled with reeds and damp growth. These channels date back to the time when this area had many mills grinding corn for Cambridge.

Punters on the river between Crusoe Bridge and the weir at Silver Street Bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

I crossed Robinson Crusoe Island and the bridge, and enjoyed the spectacle of people enjoying the late summer sunshine in kayaks and punts. But the old boathouse that has been on Robinson Crusoe Island was closed and fenced off, and difficult to see.

Coe Fen and Sheep’s Green are important thoroughfares for cyclists and pedestrians, particularly between the city centre and Newnham, and part of the pathway along the river out towards Grantchester runs through this space.

The river was still busy with tourists and punts that afternoon. I walked on north to the weir and stopped at the Anchor at Silver Street Bridge for a glass of wine. There I sat watching the bustle at the pubs and the punting station at Scudamore’s before returning to the bustle of academic life at Sidney Sussex College.

‘A fantasy we create about people and places as we’d like them to be’

The Gates of Paradise in Cambridge at Owlstone Croft, once known as Paradise Garden and now part of Queens’ College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

The song “I’ve Never Been to Me” is probably better known by its chorus line: “I’ve been to Paradise, but I’ve never been to me.” This ballad, written by Ron Miller and Kenneth Hirsch in the 1970s, became a hit for the American singer Charlene when it was re-released in 1982, and the song went to top of the charts in the US, Canada, Australia, Britain and Ireland.

The song tells the story of a singer or star who addresses to a desperate wife and mother who would like to trade her prosaic existence for the jet-setting lifestyle the song’s narrator has led. The narrator recalls the many hedonistic episodes in her life, including times on the Greek islands. She describes our images of Paradise as “a lie” and as “a fantasy we create about people and places as we’d like them to be.” Instead, now that it is too late, she realises that Paradise is found in holding a baby in your arms, or being with the people you love and the people who love you.

And while she concludes that she has “been to Paradise,” ultimately she has failed to find self-fulfilment: “I’ve been to Paradise, but I’ve never been to me.”

But earlier today, I was in another, different and pleasant Paradise in Cambridge. I was at the morning Eucharist celebrated by the Revd Anna Matthews in Saint Bene’t’s Church, beside Corpus Christi College in the centre of Cambridge. There was a Baptism too, and it was enjoyable to return on a Sunday morning to the church that I have come to feel is my own parish church each year in when I am staying in Sidney Sussex College at the annual summer school organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

“How shall I sing that majesty?” ... Coe Fen in the sunshine earlier today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Saint Bene’t’s and Corpus Christi College are close to the corner of Trumpington Street and Silver Street, and after a very late breakfast I found my way down to the River Cam at Scudamore’s, below Silver Street Bridge, and strolled on along the west bank of the river, with Coe Fen to my left on the other side, through Sheep’s Green, passing Crusoe Island and Crusoe Bridge, before eventually a small bridge to reach Paradise Nature Reserve.

Paradise can be a fantasy we create ... but it is also an island on the River Cam south of Cambridge on the way to Grantchester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Today, Paradise is a small island in the nature reserve on the west bank of the River Cam, south of Sheep’s Green and west of Coe Fen. But at one time Paradise referred to the whole area up to the Lammas Land.

Paradise nature reserve is a meadow that has been left to turn into woodland, with huge willows and towering alders. In its informal, unkempt state this is an attractive area for walkers and anglers. Some open areas have a variety of fen plants, such as Stachys palustris, and there is an important collection of different species of willow too.

A recent report recommended Paradise should be maintained and not allowed to get further overgrown, and it said Cambridgeshire Wildlife Trust had taken this in hand. It also said new pollard trees should be started along the river bank to replace trees that had fallen into the river. The paths which can be muddy in winter, are the nearest rough ground to the middle of Cambridge and should not be levelled or hardened, the report said, but broadwalks would be useful in places to prevent erosion.

The references to Paradise go back a long time. The earliest mention of bathing in Cambridge records that while he was a student at King’s College, the son of Walter Haddon was drowned in 1567 “while washing himself in a Place in the River Cham called Paradise.”

While he was at Corpus Christ College, the 18th century antiquarian, William Stukeley, wrote in 1704: “I used to frequent, among other lads, the river in Sheep’s Green, and learnt to swim in Freshman’s and Soph’s Pools, as they are called, and sometimes in Paradise, reckoning it a beneficial exercise.”

Byron’s friend Charles Skinner Matthews became entangled in weeds and drowned in the River Cam at Paradise Island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

It was here too, on 3 August 1811, that Lord Byron’s brilliant but enigmatic and libertine friend, Charles Skinner Matthews became entangled in weeds while bathing and was drowned.

Paradise Garden was once the name of the larger area now called Owlstone Croft, and it now provides post-graduate accommodation for Queens’ College. In 1740, Paradise Garden was taken over by a Mr Rowe, who had introduced to Cornwall a system of force-growing early vegetables for the London market. At Paradise Garden, he produced them in a scientific way.

Rowe’s son Richard became associated with a Dutch bulb grower, outstripped all competitors in the production of beautiful flowers, and invented the hyacinth glass for growing bulbs in water only.

Owlstone Croft ... once known as Paradise Garden and now part of Queens’ College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015

By 1802, the site was known as Owlstone Croft and in the Grantchester Parish Enclosure Award that year it was described as a garden of 2.24 acres, owned by Mary Harrison, “in the Occupation of R[ichar]d Row.”

The streets now known as Grantchester Street, extending to Paradise Island, and Grantchester Meadows are the only streets shown on that map, along with a branch from Grantchester Street to what is now Owlstone Croft. This branch survives today as a track for part of its length, connecting to the south end of Owlstone Road, which did not exist then.

Paradise is a meadow that has turned into woodland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The branch road connecting Grantchester Street to Owlstone Croft was then described as: “One other private carriage and drift road of the like breadth of twenty feet leading from … [Grantchester Street] and extending … through and over an allotment [now part of Paradise Nature Reserve], hereinafter awarded to the said Master, Fellows and Scholars of Benet College [Corpus Christi] into the said garden ground [Owlstone Croft] belonging to Mary Harrison, now in the tenure of Richard Rowe ...”

When it was sold at auction in 1879, the site plan was headed: “Plan of an Estate at Grantchester, Cambs, known as ‘Paradise’.”

The Chief Constable of the Cambridgeshire County Police, a Major Calvert, bought the estate in 1879, when the grounds were described as “not to be surpassed in the neighbourhood for growth and beauty,” with “choice fruit trees.” The house was rebuilt, with cottages for a coachman and a gardener, in 1881.

The site, now described as Owlstone Croft, Grantchester, was sold again in June 1892. By 1914, it was a girls’ school. From the 1920s to the 1940s, it was owned by Theodore Fyfe, Professor of Architecture at the University of Cambridge.

In the late 1940s, it was bought by Addenbrooke’s Hospital as a nurses’ hostel and training school. But when Addenbrooke’s Hospital moved out of the centre of Cambridge to a new site south of Cambridge, the use of Owlstone Croft declined. When the training school closed, it was leased in the 1980s to the Social Services department of Cambridge County Council, and for a period, students of CCAT, now Anglia Ruskin University, had rooms there.

Owlstone Croft was bought by Queens’ College in 1988 to provide post-graduate accommodation.

The walk to Grantchester begins at Paradise Island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Paradise House in Grantchester Street, near the entrance to Grantchester Meadows, was built ca 1780 and is the earliest house in the area, but is almost invisible on a tree-covered island in the river.

At one time, there were tennis courts known as the Paradise Courts on the University Hockey Ground. This hockey ground, located at the junction of Barton Road and Grantchester Street, has since been developed for housing, but this area is the opular starting point for walks to Grantchester for aesthetes and tourists interested in the life and writings of the poet Rupert Brooke.

I hope to be in Grantchester later next month. But after walking through Paradise today, I walked back across the Fens and on the Cambridge Rail Station to catch the train to Broxbouurne, the nearest station to Hoddesdon and the High Leigh Conference Centre, the venue for the the annual Us Conference.

In previous years I have walked from High Leigh to Broxbourne, but this afternoon I waited for taxi, and noticed a pick-up mini bus for Paradise Wildlife Park.

This other Paradise is about three or 6 km south-west of High Leigh, and was once a zoo with a poor reputation. But it has been transformed since it was bought by the Simpson family over 30 years ago in 1984. Today, it is a family-friendly place – and I believe it even has, appropriately, a special corner for Birds of Paradise.

The Irish TV puppet Dustin the Turkey, who is anything but a Bird of Paradise, re-worked the lyrics of the hit song “I’ve Never Been to Me” on his album Unplucked, bemoaning that he has been to Paradise but he has “never been to Meath.” But the, he has probably never been to Paradise in Cambridge either.

Punting past Paradise from Cambridge to Grantchester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

I’ve never been to me

Hey lady, you, lady, cursin’ at your life
You’re a discontented mother and a regimented wife
I’ve no doubt you dream about the things you never do
But I wish someone had a talk to me like I wanna talk to you
Ooh I’ve been to Georgia and California, and anywhere I could run
Took the hand of a preacher man and we made love in the sun
But I ran out of places and friendly faces because I had to be free

I’ve been to Paradise, but I’ve never been to me

Please lady, please, lady, don’t just walk away
’Cause I have this need to tell you why I’m all alone today
I can see so much of me still living in your eyes
Won’t you share a part of a weary heart that has lived a million lies
Oh I’ve been to Nice and the isle of Greece
Where I sipped champagne on a yacht
I moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo and showed ’em what I’ve got
I’ve been undressed by kings and I’ve seen some things
That a woman ain’t s’posed to see

I’ve been to Paradise, but I’ve never been to me

Hey, you know what Paradise is? It’s a lie
A fantasy we create about people and places as we’d like them to be
But you know what truth is?
It’s that little baby you’re holding, and it’s that man you fought with this morning
The same one you’re going to make love with tonight. That’s truth, that’s love

Sometimes I’ve been to cryin’ for unborn children
That might have made me complete
But I, I took the sweet life and never knew I’d be bitter from the sweet
I spent my life exploring the subtle whoring that cost too much to be free

Hey lady, I’ve been to Paradise, but I’ve never been to me

I’ve been to Paradise – never been to me
(I’ve been to Georgia and California, and anywhere I could run)
I’ve been to paradise – never been to me
(I’ve been to Nice and the isle of Greece
While I sipped champagne on a yacht)
I’ve been to Paradise – never been to me
(I’ve been to cryin’ for unborn children )
(Fade)

A note on this morning’s service and hymns

The dome inside the Daniel Pantanassa Church with frescoes of the Ascension (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

I am presiding at the Community Eucharist later this morning, marking the end of the residential weekend for the part-time students, and marking the end of the academic year for them.

My colleague, Dr Katie Heffelfinger, is preaching.

Two of these illustrations, and these notes on this morning’s liturgy and hymns appear on the service sheet being handed out this morning:

This morning’s service and hymns:

This is the Seventh Sunday of Easter. We are still in the Easter season, but in that in-between time, between the Ascension (last Thursday) and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Church on the Day of Pentecost (next Sunday) Our hymns at this morning’s Eucharist reflect the yearnings and the hopes of that in-between time, expressed in this morning’s readings.

Processional Hymn: The hymn ‘For all thy saints’ (461)’ was written by the Irish church historian Richard Mant (1776-1848), Bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore. In this hymn, he paints an intense image of the Church being inspired by Holy Spirit and is a call to discipleship.

Gloria: ‘Glory in the highest to the God of heaven!’ (693) was written by the Revd Christopher Idle in 1976 for this earlier tune, Cuddesdon, written in 1919 by Canon William H Ferguson, who had been an ordinand at Cuddesdon Theological College, near Oxford.

Gradual: ‘O thou, who at thy Eucharist didst pray’ (438), was written by William Henry Turton (1856-1938) as a hymn praying for Church unity and is based on words in the Farewell Discourse, and so has resonances with our Gospel reading. The tune is by Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), who was the Organist of the Chapel Royal and at Westminster Abbey, and one of the greatest English composers of his day.

Offertory: ‘Come down O love divine’ (294) was originally written in Italian in the 14th century by Bianco da Siena. It was first translated into English in 1867 by the Revd Dr Richard Frederick Littledale (1833-1890), a Dublin-born Anglican priest. The tune Down Ampney by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) is named after the Cotswold village in Gloucestershire where he was born and where his father, the Revd Arthur Vaughan Williams, was the vicar.

Communion Hymn: As we receive Holy Communion, we sing ‘Jesus, remember me’ (617), by Jacques Berthier (1923-1994) and the Taizé Community.

Post-Communion Hymn: ‘How shall I sing that majesty’ (468, but including verse 3 in the New English Hymnal, 373), by John Mason. This hymn, written in the late 17th century, contrasts God’s heavenly glory, splendour and majesty with the inadequacies and frailties of humanity. We are using all four verses of this hymn, and not just the three in the Irish Church Hymnal. Kenneth Naylor wrote the tune ‘Coe Fen’ when he was the Music Master (1953-1980) at the Leys School, Cambridge, which is close to Coe Fen. It has since been described as “one of the outstanding hymn tunes of the 20th century.”

Patrick Comerford, 17 May 2015

Salvador Dali: The Ascension (1958)

The Collect of the Day

O God the King of Glory,
you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ
with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
Mercifully give us faith to know
that, as he promised,
he abides with us on earth to the end of time;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Post-Communion Prayer:

Eternal Giver of love and power,
your Son Jesus Christ has sent us into all the world
to preach the gospel of his kingdom.
Confirm us in this mission,
and help us to live the good news we proclaim;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Blessing:

Christ our exalted King
pour on his abundant gifts
make you faithful and strong to do his will
that you may reign with him in glory:
and the blessing of God Almighty,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

How shall I sing that majesty ... cattle grazing on Coe Fen in the late summer sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Getting away from it all on Robinson Crusoe Island

Robinson Crusoe Island is a tiny islet in Cambridge where the River Cam splits between Coe Fen and Sheep’s Green (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

There is an island in the South Pacific that is known as Robinson Crusoe Island or Isla Robinson Crusoe. It is the second largest of the Juan Fernández Islands, and lies 670 km west of the coast of Chile. A neighbouring island is known as Alejandro Selkirk Island.

Robinson Crusoe Island was once known as Más a Tierra (Closer to Land). It was the island that became home to the Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk from 1704 to 1709, and is said to have inspired Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe (1719).

To reflect the literary associations of Más a Tierra – but more especially to attract tourists – the Chilean government renamed the place Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966.

I was on Robinson Crusoe Island on Tuesday [9 September 2014] – but not in the South Pacific. Instead, I visited Robinson Crusoe Island, a tiny islet in the River Cam, between Coe Fen to the east and Sheep’s Green to the west, on a point on the river south of the weir where Scurdamore’s Punts are moored at Silver Street Bridge and immediately north of the Fen Causeway.

Cattle grazing on Coe Fen in the late summer sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Coe Fen is known beyond Anglicanism as the name the tune composed by Ken Naylor for the hymn How shall I sing that majesty. And during an afternoon break from the IOCS summer school in Sidney Sussex College I had decided to go for a walk by the river at Coe Fen, inspired, of course, by that tune.

Naylor was the music master at the Leys School, at the corner of Trumpington Street and the Fen Causeway, and named his tune after Coe Fen, an open space beside the school.

Coe Fen on the east bank of the Cam and Sheep’s Green on the west bank form a natural area that was once important for commercial activity in Cambridge. There was many watermills her, but because the land between the artificially raised banks of the watercourses was liable to flooding it was only suitable for grazing.

Cows grazed on one side of the river on Coe Fen and sheep on the other side, Sheep’s Green, and so they have been named.

By the 19th century, the Fen had become so marshy and boggy that it became necessary to drain it as a measure to prevent the outbreak and spread of diseases. A public subscription in 1833 raised £150 to drain the Fen, and later, in 1912-1914, the level of the Fen was raised by dumping rubbish on it.

In the late afternoon, I walked down Trumpington Street to the Leys School, and turned along the Fen Causeway. The Fen Causeway Bridge opened in 1926, and I am told it is sometimes called the Lesbian Bridge because of the graffiti sometimes written on its underside. Instead of checking this out, I joined a footpath south into Coe Fen, where the land is a semi-natural area and cattle still graze.

I walked south until the path meets Vicar’s Brook and then turned west and crossed a narrow bridge that took me onto Sheep’s Green, a small island formed by the way the river has split further north at the weir at Silver Street Bridge.

Sheep’s Green Bridge is a second narrow bridge that was rebuilt in 2006. Here pedestrians and cyclists jostle to give way to each other, and the bridge led me onto Lammas Land, a town park, with a small open air pool for children and a playground.

Lammas was observed on 1 August in England as a harvest festival when loaves of bread were made from the first ripe corn. Areas of green designated as Lammas lands in law were common land for nine months of the year, but passed to the sole use of their owners for the other three months on Lammas.

To the south of Lammas Land is the aptly-named Paradise, a nature reserve and woodland with a central marsh area, wet woodland and a number of riverside mature willows.

Crusoe Bridge, built in 1898-1899, is a steel footbridge with timber deck and supported on four cast-iron columns (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

I walked back north along Lammas Land and walked east along the Fen Causeway for a brief distance, and then turned to the north side of Coe Fen, where I found the bridge that crosses Robinson Crusoe Island to my left or the west.

Stepping across Robinson Crusoe Island and Crusoe Bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Crusoe Bridge, which was built in 1898-1899, is a steel footbridge with timber deck and supported on four cast-iron columns. This is the final bridge on the “Upper River” before it reaches the small weir at the mill pond.

Robinson Crusoe Island was once known as Swan’s Nest, but the present name has been in use for more than a century.

The land is deceptive in places here, and many apparently dry channels running through the grass are filled with marshy water, often filled with reeds and damp growth. These channels date back to the time when this area had many mills grinding corn for Cambridge.

Punters on the river between Crusoe Bridge and the weir at Silver Street Bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

I crossed Robinson Crusoe Island and the bridge, and enjoyed the spectacle of people enjoying the late summer sunshine in kayaks and punts. But the old boathouse that has been on Robinson Crusoe Island was closed and fenced off, and difficult to see.

Coe Fen and Sheep’s Green are important thoroughfares for cyclists and pedestrians, particularly between the city centre and Newnham, and part of the pathway along the river out towards Grantchester runs through this space.

We are enjoying an extended summer this week and the river is still busy with tourists and punts. I walked on north to the weir and stopped at the Anchor at Silver Street Bridge for a glass of wine. There I sat watching the bustle at the pubs and the punting station at Scudamore’s.

Before returning to the bustle of academic life at Sidney Sussex College, I had one more look at the Mathematical Bridge that links one side of Queen’s College with the other across the river. The punters below seemed to be deft enough not be marooned on Robinson Crusoe Island further south.

Punts at the Mathematical Bridge below Silver Street Bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

How shall I sing that majesty?

Sir Jacob Epstein’s bronze statues of Saint Michael and the Devil on the wall outside Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Patrick Comerford

Thursday 29 September 2011,
Saint Michael and All Angels, 8.30 a.m.,
Holy Communion:

Genesis 28: 10-17;
Psalm 103: 19-22;
Revelation 12: 7-12;
John 1: 47-51.

May I speak to you in the name of +the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Last month, at the end one of my regular retreats in Lichfield, I had an hour or two to spare before catching a flight back to Dublin. And so I took time out to visit Coventry Cathedral.

For my generation, when it comes to church art and church architecture, Coventry Cathedral is one of the most influential Anglican cathedrals.

Facing the world ... the Gethsemane Chapel in Coventry Cathedral

Basil Spence’s cathedral symbolises new life and new hope in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust. It had profound and lasting influences. My old school chapel in Gormanston is a mini-replica of Coventry. Jacob Epstein’s sculptures, Graham Sutherland’s great tapestry, the Chapel of Christ in Gethsemane framed by the crown of thorns, the Chapel of Unity, the unusual aisle windows, or the Coventry Cross of Nails, all had influences on spirituality, art and architecture that lasted for generations.

Even before you enter the cathedral, Saint Michael features prominently. As I approached the cathedral that Sunday afternoon, I was overlooked – overwhelmed again – by Epstein’s bronze statues of Saint Michael and the Devil on the wall.

When Basil Spence commissioned Jacob Epstein, some members of the rebuilding committee objected. They said some of his earlier works were controversial. And, although Coventry was at the centre of post-war reconciliation, some even objected, saying Epstein was a Jew. To this, Spence retorted: “So was Jesus Christ.”

John Hutton’s ‘Screen of Saints and Angels’ at the entrance to Coventry Cathedral, reflecting the ruins of the old, bombed cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The cathedral is entered through John Hutton’s “Screen of Saints and Angels,” with tall glass panels inspired by Basil Spence’s plans for the new cathedral, rising up from the ruins of the bombed cathedral, and by his vision of a new church rising through a screen of angels and saints, linking the old and the new.

Gazing at this screen, especially on a sunny summer’s day, picking out the angels and archangels, patriarchs and prophets, apostles and saints, you see a vivid reflection in the glass of the ruins of the old bombed cathedral behind you.

Inside, Graham Sutherland’s giant tapestry shows Christ in Glory, surrounded by four figures from the Book of Revelation, the four evangelists. Beneath Christ’s feet is a chalice with a dragon, referring to our reading from the Book of Revelation: “Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon … But they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb” (Revelation 12: 3, 11).

On the right, between Saint John and Saint Mark, the Archangel Michael is hurling down the devil. (Revelation 12: 7-9).

What is your image of an angel?

Is it fluffy little cherubs with white wings and pudgy cheeks, floating above the earth on white fluffy clouds?

Or is an angel for you someone like the angels in the screen in Coventry Cathedral, inviting you into the Communion of Saints, into a Church built on the past but looking anew to the future?

Is an angel some “new age” figure, easily dismissed because of those angel books on the “Mind and Spirit” shelves in bookshops?

Or is an angel for you like the Archangel Michael, depicted by Epstein and Sutherland, inviting you into the triumph of good over evil, to join Christ in Glory?

Is Saint Michael the patron saint of shoppers at Marks and Spencer and all others who have made the shopping malls their earthly cathedrals?

Or, like the Michael of Coventry Cathedral, does he challenge you to reflect on our values today?

For the name Michael (Hebrew, מִיכָאֵל; Greek, Μιχαήλ) asks the question: “Who is like El (the Lord God)?”

Where Michael is mentioned by name in the Bible, in the Book of Daniel, the Epistle of Jude and the Book of Revelation, he represents reliance on the strength of God and the triumph of good over evil.

In today’s world, where angels and archangels are often the stuff of fantasy, science fiction and new-age babble, we need a reminder that angels are nothing more than – but nothing less than – the messengers of God, the bringers of good news.

Saint Michael above the main door into Saint Michael’s in Lichfield … what does this story say to you today? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Michael’s traditional virtues were standing up for God’s people and their rights, taking a clear stand against manifest evil, firmly opposing oppression, violence and corruption, while seeking forbearance and mercy, clemency and justice – virtues we must keep before us in ministry and mission as messengers of God.

In his hymn Ye holy angels bright (Irish Church Hymnal 376), Richard Baxter invites us to join the angels, the saints above and the saints on earth in praising God. We joined in that praise earlier in the Gloria, and that invitation is repeated again in the Great Thanksgiving: “And so with all your people, with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we proclaim your great and glorious name, for ever praising you ...”

How shall I sing that majesty ... Coe Fen in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The hymn, How shall I sing that majesty? (Irish Church Hymnal 468), contrasts God’s heavenly glory, splendour and majesty with our inadequacies and frailties. It emphasises the truth that when we attempt to sing of God’s glory, all our human efforts appear feeble and pathetic.

As I sing that hymn to one of my favourite tunes, Kenneth Naylor’s Coe Fen, I am forced to ask: “Who am I?” – the question we all ask when we first hear God’s call to mission and ministry.

I may not feel as powerful and agile as the Archangel Michael in battling for the world and confronting evil. But we do this in the company of the great heavenly host of archangels and angels, patriarchs and prophets, apostles and saints, martyrs and missionaries, strengthened by God alone. For we should always be prepared, like Michael and the angels, to ask and to answer the question: “Who is like the Lord God?”

And so may all we think say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Collect:

Everlasting God,
you have ordained and constituted the ministries
of angels and mortals in a wonderful order:
Grant that as your holy angels always serve you in heaven,
so, at your command,
they may help and defend us on earth;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion Prayer:

Lord of heaven,
in this eucharist you have brought us near
to an innumerable company of angels
and to the spirits of the saints made perfect.
As in this food of our earthly pilgrimage
we have shared their fellowship,
so may we come to share their joy in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This reflection was shared at the Michaelmas Eucharist in the institute chapel on Saint Michael’s Day, 29 September 2011.