Last night - Midsummer Day - I helped lead a service in the ancient stone circle near Priestweston, Shropshire, known today as Mitchell's Fold. The stones were erected by people whose world view we can hardly grasp, some three thousand years ago; but though their time was so remote from ours, I can understand something of what will have motivated them. Here is a height from which you might fancy the whole world could be seen, and a wild place, in which our worship accompanied the sound of curlew and skylark.
Many will stand in such a place and be hugely aware of their closeness to the rhythms of the natural world; some, myself included, while acknowledging that closeness, will find their soul's gaze drawn further, to the majesty of the Creator. And those who call themselves Christians will claim that this Creator, far from being remote and unattainable, and further than even the reach of our vision from such a high place as this, makes himself known to us, stands with us, in the man Jesus.
So we counted it a good thing to stand here in the wild stretch of high moorland, rather than safely inside a holy building, in order to sing his praise. And no less a good thing to draw and drink a pint or two in fellowship afterwards, down in the Miner's Arms. Before doing that, we turned to look outwards, in order to say the closing words together, words to send us out from the community of worship, and into the risk of witness and of service: having known a blessing and given praise for it, now to be a blessing, in all our several ways.
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