July 1977 – Ordination Symphony

Harvey’s ordination as a Minister in the Methodist Church took place in Bridlington, Yorkshire, on a hot summer’s evening in July 1977.

I had been left alone in my ‘cell’ case at the Manse in Winsford, while Carol with Daniel (their 9-month old son) and all the family and many friends, gathered to share in this great moment, which I sensed, even at such a long distance, was something like a grand historic symphonic performance.

The Ordination was preceded by a 3-day ‘retreat’ for the Ordinands alone – I would call it a ‘rehearsal’. Harvey’s heart was ‘strangely warmed’ when the retreat Leader, the Revd Donald Eadie, encouraged him and his old college friends to listen to a recording of Antonin Dvorak’s Cello Concerto, played by Paul Tortelier.  (This same ‘cellist had played this wonderful work for a TV broadcast at Watford Town Hall in 1963, and Harvey was there!)

(Paul Tortelier recording at Watford Town Hall)

When the great day arrived, I’m sure I caught some sounds. It was like a four-movement Symphony:

First Movement.

There was a noticeable ‘buzz’ among the congregation in Bridlington.  Sounds of expectation and hope filled the air, and it broke out in joyful singing.  I heard the voices of Harvey’s Wesleyan ancestors from Norfolk, the emotive ‘stimmung’ of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Ludwig van Beethoven, Harvey’s mother, his friends from the Sudetenland, John & Charles and Samuel Wesley, Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Eric Fenby, Cyril Eastwood, the communion of all the saints, as well as friends from Harvey’s five churches in Winsford – all breathing together with the music of celebration.

‘I love the precise moment when the entire orchestra begins to breathe along with the music’ said a violinist from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

After a question came from the President ‘Do you believe they are by God’s grace worthy to be ordained?’, all the voices rang out THEY ARE WORTHY!

Second Movement.

There was intense prayer – asking for the Spirit of God, that mysterious divine love I have often wanted to feel in my frame, to fill and overwhelm the bodies and souls of those to be ordained.  When hands were laid on Harvey’s head, something wonderful, beyond words, was confirmed and strengthened.  Now everybody knew that his whole body (not his head only) was an instrument of God’s love, and that mysterious love could now sound out from Harvey’s life, his whole body, head and heart.

Third Movement.  

As the people listened to the President preaching the sermon, by resonating with the voice of God, Harvey was challenged to keep on calling out to others with God’s demanding sounds, and to keep on caring for them with harmonic discipline – ‘By fisherman’s hook and by shepherd’s crook!’

Fourth Movement.

When Harvey, along with Bridlington and the whole body of the universal church, took into his body the bread and wine (from one of John Wesley’s chalices) at the Eucharist, the mystery of God’s sonic presence in the whole universe was celebrated.  ‘This is my body given for you, this is my blood poured out for the world.’

(Inside my body)

I think it was Gustav Mahler who felt that the whole world was expressed in his symphonies. Or was it Jean Sibelius?