Dear All,

According to the all seeing and all knowing Wikipedia search engine on my computer Aidan Chambers is a County Durham man. Born in 1934 his schooldays hardly gave notice that he was to become one of the leading authors for children and young adults. However, he is the winner of many literary prizes for such books as Now I know and This is all: the pillow book of Cordelia Kenn. Many adults never consider reading young adult fiction: Aidan Chamber’s work should act as an encouragement to search in different places on the library shelves once in a while.

I was thinking of Chambers the other day just as I was about to take a wedding in church and I hunted out this quote from my occasional journal: Funny how, when you're about to be given something precious, something you've wanted for a long time, you suddenly feel nervous about taking it. Everyone wants more than anything to be allowed into someone else's most secret self. Everyone wants to allow someone else in to their most secret self. Everyone feels so alone inside that their deepest wish is for someone else to know their secret being, because then they are alone no longer. Don’t we all long for this? Yet when it is offered it's frightening because you might not live up to the desires of the one who bestows the gift. And frightening because you know that accepting such a gift means you'll want - perhaps be expected - to offer a similar gift in return. Which means giving your self away. And what's more frightening than that? From This is all

In the book the context is not that of a marriage but most definitely of a deeply significant relationship. The quote was too long to use in the marriage ceremony I was about to take but it put into words something of the miracle that many of us will have witnessed this summer as we have attended weddings of friends and family. For at a wedding we witness two people in all their vulnerability expressing some of the most profound longings of the human heart as they make their vows. After the wedding you might well have reported to friends the events of the weekend in rather undemonstrative terms: ‘What did you do at the weekend? Oh, I went to a wedding’. But you could have said: 'I saw two people find themselves by giving their lives away. I saw joy and hope before me...and honesty and integrity, trust and faithfulness. I saw families at their very best celebrating all that is good in life. I came close to seeing what God is like.'

Congratulations to all who have married this summer and to all who have celebrated another anniversary.

Alec