January 2011 offcuts_Jan Offcuts 2010.qxd.qxd - The OKS Association

To Trust and To Love: Sermons and Addresses
by The Very Reverend Michael
Mayne, OKS, Dean of Westminster,
1986-1996, edited by Joel W. Huffstetler
(publ.Norwich Books I
9780232527988)
In editing To Trust and To Love, a collection of
hitherto unpublished sermons and
addresses by Michael Mayne (MO/LX
1943-49), Joel Huffstetler, Rector of St
Luke’s Episcopal Church, Cleveland,
Tennessee, author of a critical study of his
writings, has enabled the reader to sense
the continuing guidance of this most
exceptional priest, pastor, preacher,
thinker, teacher and writer.
The sermons and addresses are suffused
with Mayne’s unshakeable belief in the
power of God’s transforming, inclusive,
love for human beings. Throughout, his
conviction that ‘the God who is Love, the God
revealed in Jesus is a tolerant and forbearing
God’ is apparent. He speaks of the scandal
that some use the Gospel of God’s wrath
rather than his love, insisting on ‘the absurd
generosity of God’s love ...not just for religious
people, but for all people.’
The suicide of his father, a
Northamptonshire country parson,
dominated Mayne’s early life, plunging him
and his mother not only into painful
bereavement, but also into poverty.
Through the support of clergy charities, he
was able to come to King’s in 1943.
Although he went up to Cambridge to read
AUTHORS
So literate and distinctive as a novelist is
James Hamilton Paterson (WL 1955-
61), (see Offcuts Nos. 5, 12) that it may be
a surprise to find that his latest book could
qualify for an EcPol study of Britain’s post-
War industrial decline.
Empire of the Clouds : When Britain’s Aircraft
Ruled the World (Faber, £20) was warmly
reviewed by Jonathan Glancey – himself
the recent author of Spitfire: the Biography –
in The Guardian (6.11.10):
“New Elizabethans like the young
Hamilton-Paterson thrilled to the feats of
test pilots scything the latest experimental
jets over and along genteel south coast
resorts, or else pirouetting above them at
crowded Farnborough air shows. The
assumptions for boys of Hamilton-
Paterson’s generation, born during the
Second World War, was that British was
rip-roaringly best.
One new aircraft after another appeared to
take to the skies above southern England,
each piloted by a self-deprecating daredevil
who would as soon jump into the cockpit
of some untried bomb-on-wings as whirl a
girl in a swirling frock around the floor of
the Café de Paris.
English, and with the intention of
becoming an actor, the Headmaster, Canon
Shirley, whom Mayne greatly admired,
wrote to him, ‘You’re not going to become an
actor; you’re going to be a priest.’ And so it
was that Mayne was ordained as priest in
1957. After a curacy in Hertfordshire, he
became successively domestic chaplain to
Mervyn Stockwood, the flamboyant former
Bishop of Southwark, Head of BBC Radio
Religious Programmes and Vicar of Great
St Mary’s, Cambridge, before serving as
Dean of Westminster from 1986 to 1996.
In a sermon given at his installation as
Dean, aware of the complexity of its role as
place of worship, national shrine, and
tourist destination, he emphasised certain
facets of the life of the Abbey which he saw
as his prime charge, and which he believed
should speak of ‘its nature, its purpose and its
goal.’ The first of these was that it should
maintain the spirit of the medieval
Benedictine community, so that by its
example of warmth and hospitality it
would ‘build up of the body of Christ in love’.
The second, that worship should offer to
all-comers, religious and non-religious, ‘a
deeper understanding of the beauty and the love
of God.’ The third that the Abbey’s chief
function should not become its own
maintenance, but that good stewardship of
its fabric ‘should be matched by loving and
generous giving to the needs of the poor and
deprived.’ As a meeting place for the
nations, Mayne wished the fourth facet of
his charge as Dean to be that the Abbey
While it was hard not to admire such men,
it was harder – much harder – to thrill to
the inner workings and commercial
dimwittedness of the companies that built
the craft they flew. And it is here, at the
core of this book, that Hamilton-Paterson
is at his convincing best. Britain certainly
had the boffins and blueprints to fly into
the future; what it lacked was the necessary
should continually manifest development in
its understanding of the mysteries of God.
To Trust and To Love illustrates most vividly
the spiritual and pastoral qualities which
Mayne did indeed bring to the life of the
Abbey during his time as Dean.
As in his other published work, sermons
and addresses, To Trust and To Love
demonstrates that the arts have essential
spiritual significance for Mayne. Drawing
on art, music, and literature, especially
poetry, and modern drama, he weaves
together his reflections on the mystery of
God’s love for humanity, and his belief that
‘life is the setting in which we learn how to trust
and to love.’
To Trust and to Love is not a random
selection, but a collection carefully crafted
from addresses and sermons stretching
across a period of over twenty years. It is
not a quick or easy read. Every sermon or
address warrants careful reflection.
Worthily, in publishing these reflections,
Huffstetler has enabled Mayne’s voice to be
heard anew.
Publ. Norwich Books I 9780232527988
Footnote: The novelist Susan Hill wrote a tribute
to “My hero : Michael Mayne” in The Guardian,
9.10.10. This can be read online at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/Oct
/09/michael-mayne-hero-susan-hill.
Janice Reid (Common Room, 1992-2010)
back-up by politicians, management and
labour. The decline of its aircraft industry
– one that had shone like fireworks in the
1940s – makes for sorry if illuminating
reading.”
Clive James describes Empire of the Clouds as
“the best book I have ever read about the
post-war British aviation industry… a
sobering analysis of how so much
inventiveness could come to nothing.”
Edmund de Waal (MR 1977-81)’s The
Hare with Amber Eyes has been awarded
the Costa Biography of the Year. The
annual Book of the Year columns have
been profuse in their praise: “The best
book of the year” (Anita Brookner),
“memorable”, “enchanting”, “gripping”
are some of the compliments (The book
was reviewed in the previous issue of
Offcuts).
In the Times Literary Supplement’s Book of
the Year sisters A S Byatt and Margaret
Drabble both make it their first choice,
whilst Michael Howard calls it “the
book, not only of the year, but of the
decade.”
OKS Offcuts • Jan 2011 • Issue 31
11
The OKS Association • www.oks.org.uk