If you are a photographer, I have no doubt photographs are indeed the most important part.  I imagine chefs feel the wedding breakfast is the bit that matters most.  But I am a writer.  And so for me it was the words over which I agonised as I wrote the service, for the most part, myself.

That was fifteen years ago today. The calligrapher Ewan Clayton  wrote our words on a document (pictured in part above) which everybody signed. And Rosie Miles, our poet-in-residence, wrote this poem  as she sat among  the congregation on the day.

The words I give to you

To say I want to make a life with you

Will be the best that I can find:

They will be fit to purpose,

They will make love happen,

They will include,

They will speak of your God who is my God,

They will be words we can both indwell,

They will dance with desire and delight,

They will be all the colours of the rainbow,

They will be full of children and chaos and tulips and purple and lilac splendour.

The words I give to you

To say I want to make a life with you

Will be the very best:

They are all I have,

They are all I am;

Here are my words,

Here is my heart.

Rosie Miles

20 April 2001

Loneliness: Accident or Injustice? was commissioned by the Diocese of Oxford in response to research by the Church of England and Church Urban Fund which found that loneliness or social isolation was the most prevelant social concern of our time.

The Church in Action report found that loneliness is not restricted to parish size or social class. It’s more often noted in deprived parishes (81 per cent) than affluent ones – but even amongst the well-off, 55 per cent of leaders say loneliness is a significant cause of concern.

In response to this, the Department of Mission in the Oxford Diocese commissioned a publication looking at the causes of loneliness, celebrating what churches are doing to address the issue and making recommendations.

Over the next few weeks, I shall be sharing some of my findings in a series of blog posts but in order to do this, I had to ask myself an interesting question – how am I going to illustrate my post? In other words: “What does loneliness look like?”

This is the question that John Morse-Brown, of Morse-Brown Design, also had to think about that when he designed the front cover for the book.  You can download the publication: Loneliness Accident or Injustice by Jo Ind (PDF 536KB) if you want to see what he came up with.

For this post,  I have decided to use an image of nature.  That is partly a cheat, I know (holds up hands) but it’s also because I believe feeling connected to nature is the ultimate antidote to loneliness.  Knowing that we belong in the cosmos; feeling right through to our bones (and beyond) that we are the trees, the sky, the air, the sea….this is where we know we are never alone.

And so I start my series of posts with an image of two autumn trees, taken at Plas Talgarth, in the Snowdonia National Park, near Machynlleth in Mid-Wales.  I found myself thinking about marriage every time I looked at them. But marriage is only a partial solution to loneliness.  And it’s only available to some. And, unless you both die at the same time, it doesn’t last forever. Feeling at home in the glory of autumn leaves – that is a sense of belonging that endures.