1978-83  Second Station and questions about Unity

In September 1978 Harvey, with Carol and baby Daniel, were sent to their second ‘Station’ in the Medway Towns Circuit.  They moved into a brand new house in Lordswood, South Chatham, Kent.

(St David’s United Church, Lordswood)

I could sense it was all very exciting – a new adventure, in a modern young community, completely different from  Winsford, which was a bit ‘old fashioned’.  Harvey was to work in the newly established Ecumenical Area of Walderslade, where Methodists and Anglicans were brought together in total unity, with a fully shared ministry, buildings and all resources.  His colleague was the young energetic Revd Julian Reindorp, who shared similar ecumenical passions and ambitions.

Harvey was also pastorally responsible in two other churches in the area.

Harvey became very fond of his Circuit Superintendent, the Revd Howard Skinner.  Much later in this diary I shall mention that Howard’s family bequeathed Howard’s violin to Harvey – an instrument made in the Sudetenland in the 1930s, would you believe?  Even though Howard’s violin playing was totally unknown to Harvey at this time, I sensed a particular ‘bond’ and sensitivity between them.

(Harvey with Howard’s 1930 Czech violin in 2023)

Throughout this time, I still felt as though I was forgotten and largely left alone in the darkness of my case.  However, there was a brief period when we joined the Rochester Symphony Orchestra, and played in Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral Symphony’ in the old Methodist Central Hall in Chatham.  But Harvey never ‘practised’ – church meetings took priority.

Harvey was soon embroiled in all kinds of ‘Church Unity’ schemes, committees, sponsoring bodies, and all manner of organisations both locally and nationally.  He became the Methodist District Ecumenical Officer, heavily involved in encouraging Local Ecumenical Projects (LEPs) around the District.  He was nominated to attend a significant meeting of the British Council of Churches in Nottingham, during which the Roman Catholic Church was brought into membership with all the other Protestant and Anglican Churches in Britain and Ireland.

Throughout his ministry, Harvey gave himself, body and soul, to the ecumenical endeavour, believing this was an essential imperative for the Christian Church, but in my hibernation, I felt there was something ‘not quite right’ with it all.  Again, there seemed to be too much theory and not enough ‘practice’; too many committees and not enough relationship building. It felt as though Christian Unity was an optional extra for many churches. Was it forgotten that Ecumenism was rooted in ‘the whole inhabited earth’ (Greek ‘oekumene’)?

There was one exceptional moment for Harvey, when he was attending a ‘Mid-Service Clergy’ course at Windsor Castle with Anglican priests and just one other Methodist minister.  On the day in July 1982 when the Church of England Synod had rejected the Covenanting Proposals involving Methodists, Moravians and URCs, all the Anglican course members asked Harvey to celebrate the Eucharist in St George’s Chapel.  Here was a real act of unity in practice!  During that evening, the Chapel organist played music by the great Catholic composer Olivier Messiaen (who we met at the Gorlitz Concentration Camp in 1943).

(Inside St George’s Chapel)

In the world of music, the concept of ‘Unity’ has exercised the minds and bodies of many composers. In particular, Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) explored the ways by which musical notes (or tones) relate to one another.  He became famous for introducing his ‘12 note method’ which sought to uncover the rich relationship and unity inherent equally among all the 12 notes of the chromatic scale – all the black and white notes on a piano.

(Arnold Schoenberg)

If there is a difficulty here, it is the temptation to focus theoretically on the nature of the notes’ ‘relatedness’ rather than listen attentively to the beauty of their unified sounds.

Anton von Webern, one of Schoenberg’s pupils, complained that the very nature of ‘Music’ is often misunderstood.  People forget that Music is wholly subjective and a constituent part of Nature, if only we would take time to listen for it within the unity and beauty of the whole inhabited earth.

Does this explain my uneasiness with the Ecumenical Movement which occupied my musical partner so much?