What do a medieval church in Oxford and an Indian orphanage have in common? | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

I read a chapter from my first book, Wandering Between Two Worlds at St. Nicholas Church, Oxford, last Saturday at a benefit reading for Divya Shanti, an orphanage in Bangalore.

One gets spoiled in Oxford, as events are rarely mediocre. My fellow readers included the poet, professor and editor, Jon Stallworthy– I owned anthologies of his when an undergraduate!–the novelist, Lorna Fergusson; a GP who writes about snails, and an American poet and playwright. And a minor bonus is that my book is now in the top 60 in the Religion section in Amazon. Not bad for a book published 4 years ago!!

Another way one is spoiled in Oxford is the wealth of history. St. Nicholas is a pre-medieval church, granted in 1122 to the canons of St. Frideswide’s Priory by Henry I. It has the oldest continuously used chalice in Britain, I was told–continuously used from the middle ages.

Since, for now, we go to an enormous church, 1200 or so regular attenders, we have had no experience of small Anglican parish churches. This congregation seemed lovely, warm, and supportive, and I was really impressed that they have adopted Divya Shanti, an Indian orphanage which they support regularly. It must be easier to get things done in a small church. They seemed cheery and good-natured, and worked together happily.

The reading raising over £1000 for a library for the school and orphanage. It illustrates Mother Teresa’s axiom that perhaps all we can do is remove drops from the ocean of misery–but the ocean would be greater were they there.

I thought too of Loren Eiseley’s starfish story.

Loren Eiseley, while writing his book The Unexpected Universe, was walking along the ocean in Costabel early one morning. It was shortly after a storm had subsided and as he continued walking, he noticed that thousands of starfish had been washed up on the beach. Ahead of him was a gigantic rainbow of incredible perfection shimmering into existence. At the base of the rainbow stooped a little boy, gazing fixedly at an object in the sand. Eventually, he flung the object far beyond the breaking surf.

Eiseley went up to him and asked, “Son, what are you doing?” The little boy answered, “I’m throwing starfish back into the sea because if I don’t they’re going to die.” “But there are thousands of starfish. In the larger scheme of things you’re not going to make much of a difference to all these starfish.”

The little boy looked up at him, stooped down again to pick up another starfish and, gently but quickly, flung it back into the ocean. “It’s going to make a big difference to that one” he replied.

Eiseley was embarrassed, uncomfortable with the contrast of the little boy’s youthful, innocent love for the living with his own hardened, “mature” indifference to death. He had nothing to say and left, continuing to walk on the beach but unable to get the picture of the little boy out of his mind. It was a moment of truth for Eiseley, of deep soul searching and self-confrontation. In time, he returned to the star thrower, silently picked up a starfish and spun it far out into the waves. “I understand.” he said quietly. “Call me another thrower.” Together, still under the hues of the rainbow, they spent hours throwing starfish back into the ocean.

http://www.adifference.com/starfish-story.htm

Here’s a couple of links to Divya Shanti, the orphanage the church supports.

http://www.divyashanthi.org/Educational%20Programme.php

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