And there's another country - I've heard of long ago..

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After the  infamous January 15th vote in Parliament the Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, quoted the TV Series Games of Thrones  ‘Winter is coming.’  However, I was immediately mindful of the receding winter of Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe because ‘Aslan is on the move.’ As the fictional Christ-like lion and his army march forward snow melts and gives way to Spring. C S Lewis, the author wanted to pick up on that sense of longing we have not only for warmer climates but also our longing for our deepest existential and spiritual needs to be met.

Though I think that the Brexit gridlock has to be solved and hopefully some acceptable solution can be found – it would be easy to forget that we have another homeland too.   I am reminded of the transcendent second verse from Cecil Spring Rice’s  I Vow to the Thee My Country. It is based on Proverbs 3:17.

And there's another country, I've heard of long ago,
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.

The Church’s teaching is not pie in the sky on this matter. It is not as Marx (Karl not Groucho) the opiate of the people – i.e. a sop to keep us from overthrowing tyranny.  

The other homeland, the City of God, is that reality which underpins ours. It is the very fabric which through the Divine energies, makes all things possible.  I think this reality, this transcendent land, underpins our sense of goodness and meaning as well as holiness and beauty. Therefore, whatever happens with Brexit, we can gaze beyond our own shores to a deeper place, a land that is the source of love and hope.
C S Lewis ‘It is the paradox of Christianity that to be any use of earth we have to have our gaze on heaven.’

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