People who love gardens

In a recent Books and Culture magazine, Alan Jacobs writes on Governing and Gardening, a book review of Tim Richardson's The Arcadian Friends: Inventing the English Landscape Garden.

A quote from Jacob's review:
Classical—or more specifically Palladian—buildings like Stourhead's Pantheon were common features on the larger estates, but there were also many kinds of pseudo-temple, the aforementioned grottoes, and, increasingly as the century wore on, hermitages. Usually the hermitages would contain statues or books, but it was sometimes thought that hermitages should be inhabited. Curiously, this becomes a major theme in Tom Stoppard's magnificent 1995 play Arcadia, during which Lady Croom hires a bumbling landscape designer named Noakes, whom she comes to refer to as "Culpability" Noakes [as opposed to Culpability Brown, the famous landscaper].
When Noakes tells her that he is building a hermitage, and she inquires where he plans to get a hermit, he stammers—not having considered this point—that he could perhaps advertise in the newspaper for one. To this Lady Croom replies, "But surely a hermit who takes a newspaper is not a hermit in whom one can have complete confidence."
A wonderful scene, and we learn from Richardson that it's not wholly fictional. The Hon. Charles Hamilton, in the course of creating what would become one of the masterpieces of the age at his estate Painshill, in Surrey, actually did advertise in the newspapers for a hermit to live in his hermitage. He offered said hermit not only (a very small) room and (meager) board but the princely sum of 700 guineas—about $50,000—upon certain strict conditions: for seven years the hermit could not shave, cut his hair, trim his fingernails, or speak to anyone.
On the plus side, he would receive a hermit's cloak, a human skull, and a Bible. Hamilton got a taker soon enough, and was quite pleased until—just three weeks into the experiment—the hermit was found carousing in a nearby pub and was fired on the spot. Thus confirming the wisdom of Lady Croom's suspicions.

Wellness and overwork

I was alerted to the following quote by . It comes from an article on the site called RethinkingMission.org. It was written by Neil Richardson.

"Finally, a more personal comment is about re-connecting with our deepest selves. In the first year of my first circuit appointment I had to take some time off through overwork, and I guess most of us battle with diaries which are too crowded for our own good. The New Testament encourages us to distinguish those pressures we are under which come either from inside ourselves or from other people, and those pressures which simply go with the territory of being a disciple and a presbyter or deacon in the Church of God. About those pressures the New Testament is extraordinarily positive; ‘in all these things, we are more than conquerors’ (Romans 8.37). But we need to distinguish the pressures which are inseparable from our vocation from those which are not. So I end with part of a letter written by Bernard of Clairvaux:

‘How long can you be like a spirit that goes out and never comes home again? How long can you give everyone else your attention – but not give yourself any? Yes, if people treat themselves badly, how can they be good for anyone else? So think on this: give yourself some space. I’m not saying, Do that all the time. I’m not saying, Do it often. But I am saying Keep on doing it, again and again. Be there for yourself, in the same way that you are available to everyone else – or at least be there for yourself when everyone else has gone’. (Quoted in Seeing Christ in Others, ed. Geoffrey Duncan, Canterbury Press 2002, p.184).

Incidentally, this blog has suffered a little from lack of posts over the last couple of weeks due to preparations for the Presbyterian General Assembly, which took place from the 2nd Oct till today (the 6th). For those interested in catching up with what's been happening there, you can read the daily reports on the PCANZ Presbyterian website.