“Solvitur ambulando”
around the ‘cloister’ meadow
of Grey Friars, Canterbury.

Five days in Bec, Normandy,
now, beckoned and called,
four days, silent, in Canterbury.

Cassock forgotten,
now vested from the vestry,
a gift, it turns out, from Bec.

“Something-than-which-
nothing-greater-can-be-conceived”
is God.

Quite a thought from Anselm,
a Prior and Abbot of Bec
and Archbishop of Canterbury,
echoing around the cloister
and through the centuries.

God cannot be thought of
as non-existent
without contradiction.

It seems too neat:
perfectly to define God,
in effect,
with the property of existence.
Kant couldn’t.

If conception is not earthed
is it real?
God was conceived and earthed
in Nazareth.

Maybe ‘meeting’ is the clue
  which coheres?
The co-inherent meeting,
  of Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
  of Word and flesh,
  of God and people.

“Someone-than-whom-
no-one-greater-can-be-met”
is God.

So, God-who-meets is
co-inherent not incoherent,
and cannot not be met.

A meteorological argument
to show whether
God exists?

Hail God, well met.
Quite an adventure,
coming across God,
in the meadow,
in the cool of the evening.

Grey Friars, Canterbury
28 July 2010

Note: St Anselm, who was born in Aosta, northern Italy in 1033, wrote Proslogion during the years 1077-78 when he was Prior of the monastery at Bec, Normandy. In it, he propounded in a logically a priori way what later was referred to as his ‘ontological argument’ for the existence of God, defining God as ‘something-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought’. In 1078 he was elected Abbot and in 1093 was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. He died in 1109.

The Franciscans first came to Canterbury in 1224, to Grey Friars (another name for Franciscans). In 2003, the Anglican Franciscans (Society of St Francis, SSF) returned to Grey Friars.

‘Solvitur ambulando’ is a Latin saying meaning literally ‘it is solved by walking’ and implying ‘the problem is worked out in the doing’.