Genesis of a Church BBC Upload

As read at a quiet and contemplative Compline service Holy Monday 2025, a performance subsequently broadcast on BBC regional radio in August 2025. The church has currently celebrating 700 years "on this higher ground" in its idyllic setting.

Genesis of A Church, Fring, 1330 AD

On this higher ground

Let us house an altar

Where the Word may resound

Through time, prayer and psalter.

On this heavenly spur

Let us grow a tower

Where the great stir of Easter

May bud, leaf and flower.

He cam also stille

Ther his moder was

As dew in Aprylle

That fallyt on the gras. 

Defeats, factions, debts,

A weak tyrant king’s

Gone the way of all flesh

Burns for higher things .

In these emerald trees

Lifting monks’ eyes above

Earthy labour, dis-ease,

Let us sing divine love.

He cam also stille

To his modres bowr

As dew in Aprylle

That fallyt on the flowr.

In these sandcastle days,

A boy on the throne , 

Let us hold fast and raise

Firm foundations of stone.

Let here be Light

To summer the heart

Through spring, heyday, fall, blight,

Candling the dark.

He cam also stille

Ther his moder lay

As dew in Aprylle

That fallyt on the spray.

Let here be stillness

On strips, hill, vale, farm,

Green pastures and waters

That flow like a Psalm.

Frea’s  folk, we are grass, bone,

We come to pass;

But soul-fashioned stone,

We build to last.