Well, that was an odd experience.
14th October is Hastings Day, when all of us down here in 1066 country remember the Battle of Hastings that the Saxons should have won, but didn’t. They were brave men. They’d marched up to Yorkshire to block a Viking invasion, and while they were there word came of the Norman invasion on the south coast, so they legged it back down without a break, taking only two or three days to reach Sussex.
The actual battle took place in Senlac Field (‘Senlac’ derives from the French for ‘lake of blood’) in what is now Battle, a little market town five miles inland from Hastings. The Saxons fought well, and their discipline was magnificent. The Normans failed to break their shield wall, so the Norman army appeared to retreat. I think they separated into two apparently fleeing flanks downhill. The Saxons then broke their shield wall to go in pursuit, whereupon the Normans, who heavily outnumbered them, turned to attack again, and the day was won when a Norman archer’s arrow found King Harold’s eye.
It was a sad day. The Normans cared nothing for the Saxon way of life, and took and imposed as it suited them in the land they had conquered. But the king had an abbey built in stone from his homeland on the site of the Battle of Hastings, in tribute to the courage of those who had fallen that day. The siting of the abbey was a problem to the monks in as much as the abbey was not where it needed to be – by the river – but on the crest of the hill where it looked very splendid but presented a serious water supply problem. But they were very rich. That’s kings, for you!
So anyway, every year on Senlac Field, at the back of the old abbey (now a school and museum) in Battle, there’s a huge re-enactment do. From around Europe craftsmen come to sell their wonderful leather tankards and forged cloak pins and carved wooden spoons and linen caps and all the rest of it. A Saxon village springs up, peopled with costumed re-enactors living an eleventh century life for the weekend, and on the Sunday the Battle of Hastings is fought again. The Normans win every time.
We like to go to this. The craft stalls are wonderful. I write novels set in a medieval abbey so it’s brilliant to go and wander there at a time when the place is heaving with medieval re-enactors.
But this year it felt a bit weird. As I was getting dressed to go out, I thought: ‘Am I going to wear a kapp like I do at home? Or would it be better to wear a zandana?’ (which is what I usually wear when I go out to attract less attention)
Then I thought, oh for heaven’s sake! You’ll fit right in in a kapp – just wear it! I hadn’t wanted to be mistaken for a re-enactor, you see – false pretences… this is not fancy dress… etc etc etc
So I wore my kapp and my blue linen jumper with a green T-shirt under it, and carried my shopping bag in case I wanted to buy anything. And, guess what? I looked weird to everybody! Re-enactors are very particular about historical accuracy, as you probably know. So they would give me a quick glance up and down and see ‘plastic buttons… Birkenstock sandals… cotton jersey Tee… 18th century kapp not medieval… oh dear oh dear oh dear….’
But the visitors kept coming up to me and asking the way to the café and the children’s archery competition…
I had a little grumble about it to Badger – I’ve hit bullseye this time, haven’t I! Anachronistic by anybody’s standards!
And he said: ‘Well, you’re not really a re-enactor are you? You’re an enactor.’ And that, in my head, went PING!!!
Absolutely!
In this book called The Road of Blessing that I sent off to the publisher last summer (will be out in January), about understanding the biblical principles for how to drive life without crashing, I wrote a bit about acted prophecy. That shows up in the Old Testament where some of the prophets, instead of delivering a spoken message, were asked by God to do rather than say something to depict God’s mind to God’s people. An example of that is in the book of Hosea, where God asks him to marry the prostitute as an acted prophecy of the relationship between a faithful God and faithless Israel.
In similar wise, I have the feeling that this call/leading to Plain dress is a form of acted prophecy: it is an enactment of the principles of the Peaceable Kingdom before the eyes of the people. Modesty, humility, simplicity, servanthood, refusal to compete, stepping aside from status and fashion, non-participation in the moulding of women into sex symbols, bimbos and Barbie dolls; this clothing is the enactment of God’s call to a recollected life of serious and single purpose.
I know that at first people won’t be able to read it. So when people see me they ask ‘Are you from Robertsbridge?’ or ‘Do you work at the castle?’ They haven’t the faintest idea what I mean by it. On the surface. But I think it’s like humming a tune that people don’t know at first. In time they will catch on. I think that when God calls a person to enact a prophecy whose time has come, though on one level the people may be bewildered, on a deeper level the Word will speak to their hearts. Because this picture of Plain dress is not an end in itself, it’s a word that God is whispering to call people out of consumerism, wastefulness, inequality, debauchery and greed.
‘Wake up…’ this dress is whispering to people: ‘wake up… it’s time… wake up… wake up…’
We’re an enactment society!
14th October is Hastings Day, when all of us down here in 1066 country remember the Battle of Hastings that the Saxons should have won, but didn’t. They were brave men. They’d marched up to Yorkshire to block a Viking invasion, and while they were there word came of the Norman invasion on the south coast, so they legged it back down without a break, taking only two or three days to reach Sussex.
The actual battle took place in Senlac Field (‘Senlac’ derives from the French for ‘lake of blood’) in what is now Battle, a little market town five miles inland from Hastings. The Saxons fought well, and their discipline was magnificent. The Normans failed to break their shield wall, so the Norman army appeared to retreat. I think they separated into two apparently fleeing flanks downhill. The Saxons then broke their shield wall to go in pursuit, whereupon the Normans, who heavily outnumbered them, turned to attack again, and the day was won when a Norman archer’s arrow found King Harold’s eye.
It was a sad day. The Normans cared nothing for the Saxon way of life, and took and imposed as it suited them in the land they had conquered. But the king had an abbey built in stone from his homeland on the site of the Battle of Hastings, in tribute to the courage of those who had fallen that day. The siting of the abbey was a problem to the monks in as much as the abbey was not where it needed to be – by the river – but on the crest of the hill where it looked very splendid but presented a serious water supply problem. But they were very rich. That’s kings, for you!
So anyway, every year on Senlac Field, at the back of the old abbey (now a school and museum) in Battle, there’s a huge re-enactment do. From around Europe craftsmen come to sell their wonderful leather tankards and forged cloak pins and carved wooden spoons and linen caps and all the rest of it. A Saxon village springs up, peopled with costumed re-enactors living an eleventh century life for the weekend, and on the Sunday the Battle of Hastings is fought again. The Normans win every time.
We like to go to this. The craft stalls are wonderful. I write novels set in a medieval abbey so it’s brilliant to go and wander there at a time when the place is heaving with medieval re-enactors.
But this year it felt a bit weird. As I was getting dressed to go out, I thought: ‘Am I going to wear a kapp like I do at home? Or would it be better to wear a zandana?’ (which is what I usually wear when I go out to attract less attention)
Then I thought, oh for heaven’s sake! You’ll fit right in in a kapp – just wear it! I hadn’t wanted to be mistaken for a re-enactor, you see – false pretences… this is not fancy dress… etc etc etc
So I wore my kapp and my blue linen jumper with a green T-shirt under it, and carried my shopping bag in case I wanted to buy anything. And, guess what? I looked weird to everybody! Re-enactors are very particular about historical accuracy, as you probably know. So they would give me a quick glance up and down and see ‘plastic buttons… Birkenstock sandals… cotton jersey Tee… 18th century kapp not medieval… oh dear oh dear oh dear….’
But the visitors kept coming up to me and asking the way to the café and the children’s archery competition…
I had a little grumble about it to Badger – I’ve hit bullseye this time, haven’t I! Anachronistic by anybody’s standards!
And he said: ‘Well, you’re not really a re-enactor are you? You’re an enactor.’ And that, in my head, went PING!!!
Absolutely!
In this book called The Road of Blessing that I sent off to the publisher last summer (will be out in January), about understanding the biblical principles for how to drive life without crashing, I wrote a bit about acted prophecy. That shows up in the Old Testament where some of the prophets, instead of delivering a spoken message, were asked by God to do rather than say something to depict God’s mind to God’s people. An example of that is in the book of Hosea, where God asks him to marry the prostitute as an acted prophecy of the relationship between a faithful God and faithless Israel.
In similar wise, I have the feeling that this call/leading to Plain dress is a form of acted prophecy: it is an enactment of the principles of the Peaceable Kingdom before the eyes of the people. Modesty, humility, simplicity, servanthood, refusal to compete, stepping aside from status and fashion, non-participation in the moulding of women into sex symbols, bimbos and Barbie dolls; this clothing is the enactment of God’s call to a recollected life of serious and single purpose.
I know that at first people won’t be able to read it. So when people see me they ask ‘Are you from Robertsbridge?’ or ‘Do you work at the castle?’ They haven’t the faintest idea what I mean by it. On the surface. But I think it’s like humming a tune that people don’t know at first. In time they will catch on. I think that when God calls a person to enact a prophecy whose time has come, though on one level the people may be bewildered, on a deeper level the Word will speak to their hearts. Because this picture of Plain dress is not an end in itself, it’s a word that God is whispering to call people out of consumerism, wastefulness, inequality, debauchery and greed.
‘Wake up…’ this dress is whispering to people: ‘wake up… it’s time… wake up… wake up…’
We’re an enactment society!