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The Rev Richard Harries |
Thoughts for the day on a brave bishop
Heart in My Head: A Biography of Richard Harries. By John S Peart-Binns. Continuum £20. order this book
THERE are many paradoxes that lie unsolved in this insightful biography of Richard Harries, the recently retired Bishop of Oxford. How he, the workaholic son of a Brigadier and an adoring mother, ever got entangled in the cumbersome series of outdated factories that go by the name of the Church of England, with the Anglican Communion only hanging on as a single entity by the merest thread, remains unsolved.
I first knew Richard as a friend in the late 1950s when we were both undergraduates at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He was a bright spark, with social skills I couldn’t hope to emulate.
Later, in 1963, when Richard was assistant curate of Hampstead
St John, he let me stay at Hollybush Vale in a room overlooking the graveyard. There I wrote the title-poem of my book, The Child Walks Around Its Own Grave.
Richard came into his own when, as vicar of All Saints in Fulham, he became the most amazing communicator of simple but profound truths the BBC has ever been lucky enough to have on Radio 4’s Thought for the Day. It was work he was born to do and adored doing.
Like the neglected poet he was in his heart of hearts, he loved the discipline of compressing as much as possible into a few minutes.
He gave himself the further challenge of broadcasting live for many years. Rabbi Lionel Blue ran him a close second.
The biggest mystery which this fascinating and well-written biography doesn’t explain is that Richard has remained for the most part physically undemonstrative for most people with whom he has had dealings. Rabbi Julia Neuberger comes closest to the “Richard needing to be hugged when he is feeling angry or let down”.
Nor do we get to fully understand how he and so many of his colleagues in the diocese of Oxford came to so passionately support Jeffrey John, when Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams chose not to endorse his nomination as Bishop of Reading because he was gay which was without precedent. Richard came close to resignation.
Today, Richard is working as hard as ever in the House of Lords. The paradoxes of his complex personality will probably go with him to the grave.
One thing is for sure. he is the bravest clergyman I have ever known.
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