Oubliette

That’s got you going hasn’t it? What does oubliette mean? Ah well…here’s how I know what it means. I have been many times to Corfe Castle. It sits in the village of Corfe in the Purbecks in Dorset, although it would probably be more accurate to say the village is there because of the castle! It was built by Willian the Conqueror and has a lively history. And it’s because I visited Corfe Castle that I know what oubliette means. The castle, you see, has an oubliette. Oubliette is a French word that means “to forget” and in the castle, there is a place to forget! But not just any place. An oubliette is a place where you put a person you want to forget. It’s true! Oubliettes come in various forms. The oubliette in Corfe Castle is a dry well, except it’s not a well at all. It look like a well, but instead of having water in it, it had people. People you want to forget. This is the place in the castle you put the person you didn’t want to escape…or live. You simply dropped them into the oubliette and then…forgot about them! There was no way of escape. And twenty two prisoners never did! Oddly, I remembered about the oubliette in Corfe Castle because I was thinking about remembering! Don’t you love that! Or maybe that’s just me! I was thinking about remembering because I was speaking about how, many years ago, we as CBC gave what little we had to God and were amazed as we raised the money to redevelop the building, the cost of which was around the £2million mark! As I prepared that talk, I was amazed as I remembered some of the things we did, some of the things we experienced. And what struck me was how easily I had forgotten (there’s the link) much of the journey from raising the questions about the suitability of one building, to sitting in a brand new building some thirteen years later. That was an inspirational, challenging, wonderful, difficult journey, one on which I learned many things. And yet, one I realise I had mostly forgotten. The trouble is, life moves on and so does church! Now I’m worrying about a whole host of other things, things like the redevelopment project, I don’t think I can solve. What has occurred to me is that maybe I should do a bit of remembering. Remembering how we trusted ourselves to God for something we could not do, and how, when we gave what little we had, we went on an incredible journey. I don’t think I mean that if I can summon the right amount of trust in God (whatever that means), I can be assured everything will turn out how I would like or expect. More like, if I trust myself to God with what little I have, I can be assured of a journey of faith along which I will see the hand of God. So, oddly, realising how much I had forgotten, has helped me remember. It has helped me to remember God’s presence in the past and the promise of his presence in the future. And maybe that’s something I would do well not to forget!