Christmas Greetings

Here is the Racingdemon Award for Best Christmas Card of 2008, for all of you who are finding the festive season a bit of a trial:

For the others there’s this, a picture which inspired many of us forty years ago, is credited with beginning the green movement, and had a lot to do with developing the vocation that led me into Anglican priesthood.

"A merry Christmas and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth" (Frank Borman, broadcasting from moon orbit, Christmas 1968.)



Shalom, salaam, peace.

Combating Terrierism

Well the cuddly-wuddly puppy-wuppies are growing nicely (am I still looking at this clearly, I wonder?) We’ve been to see them, and it’s all being discussed with Mrs Demon and many friends and relations, and the decision is …. no, on second thoughts, I think you’ll have to wait until after Christmas to find out….

Meanwhile, three young men set out from the east, on a long journey to a far country, following the smell of food and the prospect of a washing machine, saying unto their father, “Pick us up from the station will you, dad?” And their father was troubled, for he had a lot to do, and privily called them on their mobiles, to enquire what time their train would appear. And behold, they came, and went into the house, and saw their mother, and fell down, and opened their treasures. Yes, the boys are back in town, and the consumption of lager and mince pies has increased accordingly. Good to have them around.

Feet 2

Interesting that I should post our amazing footfall through our biggest church at the same time as Peter Brierley should be predicting massive falls in church attendance in the next thirty years. Around here people seem not to have noticed that people have stopped going to church in the big cities. We will expect up to one third of the total population to attend a service over Christmas. Hats off to our volunteer stewards who have kept pace with all the scene-shifting, welcoming, and hoovering involved in the last few weeks. We have had our moments; not everyone has kept their temper; it's been like running a small theatre or concert hall, with half a dozen volunteers and no storage for the props; but we're nearly there now, and expect another couple of hundred or more for our Christingle Service on Christmas Eve, and then again at Midnight.

Up the creek without a poodle

Votes are flooding in, and I think the results will be tight (or maybe I'm just spinning the thing out??) I think I said patrimony the other night, when I meant paternity. Sorry. I've changed it now. Anyway, the latest is that the cocker's owner reckons they are dead ringers for his dog. We'll see. By the way, more dog puns than you ever thought possible at Les Barker's website, plus great poems, songs and a whole lot more! Go check it out now!

Feet

There have been a great many feet passing through the church doors in the past ten days. The county young farmers carol service last Thursday - 350. The community choir on Saturday - 350. The primary school, two packed nights of happy mums and dads and rellies- that's another 700. The secondary school, with a fab concert including Vivaldi, Pirates of the Caribbean and Slade, another 350. Plus, sadly, two funerals with about two hundred at each. Of course, it's not just about the numbers.But if Woolies had had this sort of footfall, they'd still be open. And they're regular churchgoers too; several folks leaving the concert last night said "see you again next year!". There's a quiet bit now, before the actual Christmas services, when, if last year is anything to go by, up to one third of the population will go to a church service at some point over the holiday. Me, I'm putting me feet up now, and enjoying a whisky mac. And they say nothing ever happens in the countryside.

Dogspot

Thanks for the comments passed in a variety of media re the canine question. thanks to women friends and colleagues who pointed out that a small manageable dog that could also mend the computer and the car would be an unbeatable combination. We have another slight problem .... paternity. The working cocker might not be the father. It might be a collie. Or a labrador. When it comes to dogs, our curate has evidently not been fashioning her household after the example of Our Lord.

A small manageable dog

Since we are on our own together, I’ll let you in on a conversation between Mrs Demon and myself some time ago. Having been married for many years, I summoned up all my courage and asked, if I were to die first, if she would miss me. She thought about this for a few moments.

- Of course, she said eventually, but the dog would be a consolation.
-What dog? I said. We haven’t got a dog.
-Well, I thought I’d probably get a small manageable dog, she said.
-As a replacement? I said.
-Well, yes, kind of, she said.
-You think I can be replaced by a dog?
-Well not entirely, in every respect, of course!
-But some of my functions?
-Well, yes, I suppose so!
- A small manageable dog?
- Well, that’s what I thought.
-Can I meet the dog before I go?
-How do you mean?
-Well, can there be an overlap, a sort of handover period?
-I suppose so. I don’t see why not.
-And I’ll be able to help to train the dog?
-Well yes, I suppose so.

So that’s how it all ends. Replaced by a small manageable dog. How humiliating. And is that the period we are now entering? I feel fine. No health problems. But maybe Mrs D can see things I can’t. Is this the beginning of the end… ?

We have a problem here

So we have a problem here. The keen reader will remember the post about the cockapoos (can’t remember when, sometime in the summer, look it up). Well, following that glance back into the world of dog-owning, Mrs Demon laid down the following conditions before any dog-owning could even be considered:
- The dog must be female (more than enough men about the place)
- A cross between a border terrier and a working cocker spaniel sounds like an interesting combination.

So here’s the problem. The curate’s border terrier has just given birth to five puppies; three male, two female. They are border terrier and working cocker cross. They are cute, and I mean, cute. Mrs Demon knows that they have arrived, and will be back from work (cos she works away) in a couple of days. The noises she was making over the phone when I told her suggested to me that dog-ownership was a distinct possibility in the not-too-distant future.

I have found myself driving about today imagining how the day would have run with a dog in the back of the jeep. Okay, was the general conclusion. Any dog has to be good with boats and water, and borders are good boat dogs. But what about all the other stuff that goes with having a dog; the restrictions on travel, going away for a few days, etc?

Well, I think I know what is going to happen, but in the end you, the reader, must decide. The decision is yours, unless we don’t like it. If you think that we should get a dog, and it’ll mean I get out more, and do all that exercise that I should be doing, then vote YES. If you think it’s a crazy idea, and these days dog owners end up walking around with carrier bags full of poo, then vote NO. The number to ring is 0999 123 45678. Lines are open until midnight. Remember to ask the person who pays the bill before you dial. The cost of calls is astronomical, and we’ll make sure you can’t get through the first couple of times. I’ll pocket all the money and invest it in a couple of business opportunities I’ve heard about on the island of Sark. Or start my own hedge fund scam. Can’t decide which. Lines are open now.

Emergency! Which service do you require?

The call we must all prepare for but hope never comes came on Sunday afternoon. The snooker was just getting interesting, and the log fire was well banked up. I had a nice cup of tea and a piece of Battenberg cake beside me. Suddenly, the red phone on the coffee table began to ring and flash on and off. “Emergency!” I said, “Which service do you require?”

“Evensong!” said an anxious voice. “Now!” It was the curate. “Eh?” I said, “It’s six o’clock already, and it’s your turn!”

“No can do!” she panted, “The dog’s having her puppies!” she gasped, “Gotta get her to the vet! She needs a caesarean!”

“Leave it with me!” I said, and sprinted to the study where a cassock and surplice hang ready for just this eventuality. I grabbed a prayer book, stuck the flashing light on top of the car (the purple one, for Advent), and drove at top speed four miles through the freezing night. The noise of my pounding feet rang on the stones as I dashed up the church path, and reached the door.

“Let me through, I’m a vicar!” I said, to no-one in particular, but I’d always wanted to say it. The congregation of eight looked around, rather startled.

I arrived just in time. “You’ve arrived just in time!” said the churchwarden, “I’ve announced the first hymn!”

“Keep calm, everyone,” I said in my reassuring, measured tones, “Everything’s going to be OK.”

Four Yorkshire clergy respond

“Forty six miles? You were lucky! Every day I had to get up and drive five hundred miles to celebrate holy communion in the middle of the night, and then drive back and take ten funerals, followed by a couple of church council meetings, a mothers union festival and then get to the cathedral for a diocesan meeting. We worked eight days a week, fifty-three weeks a year. Every forty years we had ten minutes off!”

“Dreamland! When I were a vicar, every five minutes the Archdeacon were round the parishes for a visitation, and if everything weren’t up to scratch, he’d kill us stone dead!”

“Luxury! Huh! When I were a parish priest, we lived in a vicarage with no roof, and our children froze to death every night before they went to school, and when they got home they froze to death again before they went to bed. Our stipend was a ha-porth of gravel every year, and we had to meet our own expenses out of that!”

“Gravel? Gravel? We dreamt of gravel! Bah! Yuh don’t know you were born! I were ordained when I were three, given a parish of fifteen thousand homicidal maniacs in Rotherham and made to stay there until I’d visited ‘em all twice, then sent to Outer Mongolia on a mission with one donkey and a nylon sheet to sleep under. When I got back twenty years later the bishop demanded to know what I’d been doing, and refused to pay me expenses!”

Hmmm. And if you tell young people that today, they don’t believe you.

Thinly spread resources

My trip counter showed forty-six miles. Nothing unusual about that, except that it was my mileage for one day, and nothing unusual in that either, except that it was all within our group of parishes. A funeral at one end of the group, followed by an early carol service at the other end, and a craft fair in the middle. In addition, my colleague was conducting a wedding during the afternoon. Add several other visits, and you have forty six miles. This is the reality of stretched ministerial resources in this part of the world.

Tis the season to be jolly

God sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we could all rush around frantically from one service or party or event, in terrible weather, on dangerous roads, suffering from various winter ailments that would put any normal person in bed for a week. Tis the season to be jolly difficult, as bell-ringers refuse to give way on their practice night so that a concert can rehearse in the church, and people get proprietorial about flower arrangements. Silent night? Dream on! It’s minus a hundred outside and has been all weekend. I’ve decided to try whisky and Stones ginger wine as my evening tipple of choice in winter months. Must learn not to swig it like the Big Brewer’s bitter. Night all!

Burn After Reading

He’s a good boy that lad of ours, getting the aged parents in to see a movie every now and again. Coen brothers “Burn After Reading” this time; another good movie. We both enjoyed it- mind you, I’ll watch John Malkovitch reading from the telephone directory. Daft plot which became dafter, but we felt better coming out than when we went in, and that’s what counts. We always stay right through the credits, by the way. It is frustrating for the staff who want to clearup the cartons, but how else would we hear the final track on the music soundtrack, and know that it was the Fugs. For the movie anoraks, you can find out more about the Fugs here.

While we were away took the opportunity to watch “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” again on DVD. You don’t need to know Homer to enjoy it, and all the cast clearly had a great time, plus another fantastic soundtrack of really good American music.

Back to Basics

No-one can say we don’t teach the scriptures to our kids. Back to basics, and the Lord’s Prayer as Our Lord taught it, which was not in seventeenth century English, as some would have you believe, but in Aramaic. Yes, folks, out on the playground at the primary school 28 kids doing body prayer movements to my Aramaic voiceover. How powerful is that, to hear those sounds and syllables out loud! They loved it, and responded really well, so we’ll put it into the end of term service; threefold; Aramaic, Book of Common Prayer, and a modern translation.

Mwnt

A couple of days off, before the Christmas rush starts, spent over in west Wales. A magical day at Mwnt, on the Ceredigion coast between Cardigan and Newquay. If you can get there go. If you have been, you'll know what I mean.

A nun's scrum

Before we leave all that, as always, note that it's not just the Church. Joern Utzon, the designer of the iconic Sydney Opera House (sometimes known as "The Nun's Scrum" apparently)has died at the age of 90. He fell out with the funders and authorities and the project was handed over to others. It is said that he never saw the completed building. The interior was not completed according to his plan.

It's not just the Church, but we should be setting the standards by which others' behaviour is judged. On ministry and priesthood, some really good posts lately from Anne Droid and Howard Jameson in their blogs (see right for links).

Another one bites the dust (possibly)

Front page in a local paper in west Wales is the story of the priest who has published plans for a major re-ordering of the church, in the face of opposition from many on the town, some on the local council, and even a number of his own church council. Brave, brave man. It's one thing to take on bureaucracy and the media, but quite another to have to watch your back too. One church members comment was "Numbers are falling, so I don't see why this development is necessary!" The priest was jeered in a public meeting recently.

I have visited a remarkable town centre church in the West Midlands a number of times. A superb re-ordering, with everything one could wish for for a modern worshipping environment, except ... the priest who had the vision and battled to bring it in. He had a breakdown and left the ministry before it was finished.

BUT ... I have an Escape Strategy, and these posts will henceforth be more about that, and less about the stuff I shall enjoy leaving behind.

This is it

Of course when I say "This is It" I don't mean that the Roar is just about one incident, or that all I'm doing is going over some stuff that happened years ago. There's an accumulation of discontent here, and it eventually builds to such an extent that it cannot be ignored. There is a diocesan matter, not involving me, and now closed, about which I have felt very strongly, but to write about it would make my situation easily identifiable, and I don't want that. Similarly, a matter concerning the behaviour of our county council about which I've had a lot to say. Once disengaged from something, it becomes very difficult to re-engage. Plus I'm quite enjoying planning my future! So enough of all that! More cheerful posts to come I hope!

It's all about control 2

More on the Church of England report “Dignity at Work” from the Church Times a few months ago (regular readers know I don’t read the church press too often, so it takes me a while to catch up!)

Rachael Maskell, the national officer of UNITE, which has 2500 members in its faith-workers section, and helped to draw up the report, said on Wednesday that it deals with about 50 cases each year involving clergy who have been bullied. “Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to find bullying in the Church, and the Church needs to respond to this. We believe it has a moral responsibility to those who are bullied.”

She welcomed the suggestion of employing harassment advisers, and said that clergy who tried to implement change were often targeted by individuals in congregations who opposed them. “The Church hasn’t always been supportive enough of individuals who have been bullied, and we hope the report will change that.”

Dave Walker’s blog suggests that the report was hard to find on the Church of England website. I wonder how many dioceses are giving it space and publicity in synods, etc, and have plans to introduce its recommendations? No sign of it on our website when I checked. Googling “diocesan harassment advisors” or “anti-bullying policies” or similar does not produce much after coverage of the release of the report and press articles. But maybe someone out there knows different.

Anti-bullying Week 2008

I know of course that Anti-Bullying Week 2008 is just ending in the UK. I meant to mention it at the end of that post, but missed it off. Go to this link. There are many similar websites, many of which focus, quite rightly, on young people, but there is some relevant stuff for adults. Then there is the very brave and wonderful Andrea Adams, just featured on Radio 4 Saturday Live while I'm writing this. You can go to her website here.

It's all about control

The phone rang at lunchtime. One of the church officers, to say could I go round, as she wanted a word about something. I said I would go in half an hour, as I had something to finish first. I didn’t have anything to finish. I needed the half hour in order to get myself in to a frame of mind to go over and talk to her. I spent the time in an anxious, agitated state. My pulse was racing, my heart was pounding, I was distracted and unable to think clearly. Then I went round to see her. It was a trivial and day-to-day matter, and no problem. But I had instantly seen the thing as a crisis, as a challenge, as a confrontation.

Just over twelve months ago, another church officer and I had fixed to meet to discuss some routine business. When I got there, I found we were alone in the house and he told me that he didn’t want to discuss the matters we had arranged. What did he want? He wanted to tell me exactly what he thought of me and of my ministry. And let’s just say he hadn’t taken the trouble to get me round there to tell me what a good, hard-working fellow I was. I listened, and left. I came home, laid on the bed and thought. And thought. And this is a Myers Briggs ISTJ remember. If you know your theory, you know that we catastrophise like nobody’s business. When a crisis breaks it’s nothing less than the end of the world as we know it. If you’re lucky. I carried on thinking. And then I slept. And then I got up. And I got organized.

The next day, somehow, I had the presence of mind to do at least some of the things that you are advised to do when bullying takes place in the workplace. I wrote an account of what had taken place and what had been said. I wrote a response to each of the points he had made, as I remembered them. I sent him a copy of my account and asked him to go through it and respond to it. He refused to do that and denied it all, of course. I told my other church officers what had happened, and also my bishop, and sent the accounts to them too. In no time, he was saying that none of this had happened, or if it had, he had not meant it to sound like it did, or if it had sounded like that, that was my misinterpretation of what had happened. In other words, I was to blame. No action was taken against him. He still holds the same post on the church council. I have managed to get some sort of working relationship back, for the sake of the church, but I never meet him alone.

Most bullying support groups will tell you that bullying is about two things; projection, and control. I’m sure that’s true. But it doesn’t help me either to understand, or to cope, just because I know what was going on. I was bullied at school. I’d come round the corner in the playground, and there’d be three big kids waiting to knock me flying. I had my homework taken out of my bag and torn up and trampled in the dirt. It took me a long time to get over it. You may wonder why I ended up in one of the least understood, often barely tolerated, most commonly ridiculed professions. I don’t know. I used to walk through the streets of one city where I worked, and have to listen to catcalls and stupid comments from passers-by, including once, memorably, a man walking along holding his small child by the hand. One day a tradesman took the trouble to slow his van down as he was passing me, wound the window down and called out “More tea, vicar? Heh, heh, heh!” Why? Who knows. Projection and control.

Hey, I hear you say. Get a grip. Get real. You’re not facing martyrdom or something, like so many. True. But does that make it acceptable, mean that I have to put up with it? Because I’m damned if I’m going to.

Now, those childhood incidents come back to me. I’m very angry that my past can come back at me, all these years later. Now I’m standing at the church door saying goodbye and wondering which of these people is going to have a go and wag a finger in my face because of what I’VE done making changes to THEIR church, or because they didn’t know the hymns or the sound system isn’t working properly. Projection and control again. I’m very angry that this man can think that he can behave like that, and that I can do nothing to counter his behaviour. While I might accept pastorally that the need is with him, that this is because of some problem he is facing, in my heart I am simply furious that my trust is abused, my work rubbished, my good name impugned. I would like to hit him. I have said several times that I would try to explain what this Withdrawing, this Roar is all about. This is it.

A couple of weeks ago a priest not too far from here announced to his parish that he was leaving, and stated the reason; that it had become impossible for him to stay, because of a sustained campaign against him, which included phone calls, letters and emails, from a group within the congregation. These were not anonymous calls and letters. They were bold enough to put their names to stuff. Now he is leaving, and going to a parish a very long way from here. His wife was said to have had enough of the Church, but has gone with him. Presumably they have no choice, no alternative employment, no way of finding somewhere to live. I can’t see why they would continue otherwise. Perhaps their faith is stronger than mine.

The Society of Mary and Martha at Sheldon and a number of individual researchers and writers have done the Church a great service through their work on clergy stress and burnout. I believe there is a similar piece of work now waiting to be done on harassment and bullying in ministry. If I worked in a benefits office or a supermarket or a pub, there would be a sign over the bar or by my desk or on my till: “Our staff have the right work without the threat of verbal or physical abuse”. Ministers have no such protection. Most of our church members, and our bishops/ superintendents/ superiors, have no idea that this goes on. Most would never dream of doing this sort of thing to anyone. But some do.

Helping people to understand and to challenge this behaviour is really important. If you have been bullied in the workplace, get help. Take a look at this story from Australia. My experience is nowhere near as bad. But that doesn’t make it right or acceptable. What to do? This link is a good place to start.

Since all this happened to me, the Church of England has brought out a report "Dignity at Work" and guidelines, which contains some good stuff. Doesn't look like it helped my friend down the road though.

Well, here I am back

Well here I am, back again, later than expected, emerging from a tangle of wizened fruit and veg, bent poppies and a few wreaths. Will try to write something shortly.

I'm off!

Not much time to write after seven harvest festivals and before four Remembrance services. Dashing offup north to see mother. We made a deal when she was ninety; while she still makes the effort to have birthdays, I'm prepared to turn up. And I'll stay up on Tuesday night to see if the US can elect a truly great twenty-first century president. See ya.

More of that ...

Been revisiting my journal of 1998 again, in the course of preparing a couple of presentations on journal writing, and, if I may say so, am still pleased with it as a piece of work. I collected a lot of pieces, snippets, quotations, in the course of compiling it. Here are two more which I think still work today. First a Jewish academic on the tragedy of relations between the Children of Abraham/Ibrahim, the so-called People of the Book:

“The image I have is of three traumatized individuals walking through darkness and holding flickering candles to illumine their way; candles lit by their forebears to get them through the dark nights of the soul … three wandering pilgrims yearning to get back home, afraid that out of the darkness some old or new enemy will attack them, afraid of perpetual victimization, afraid to trust each other, afraid to trust others who might help them overcome their fear and dread. And then, suddenly, the three of them converge, and their candles illumine each others faces, and each experiences the shock of mutual recognition; in the human faces is the reflection of something mysteriously Divine, so that all three can echo the exclamation of the wounded Jacob, renamed Israel: “I see the face of God in your face”.
(Yehetzkel Landau)

And this:

“Late, and it’s starting to rain. It’s time to go home.
We’ve wandered long enough in empty buildings.
I know it’s tempting to stay and meet these new people.
I know it’s even more\sensible
To spend the night here with them,
But I want to go home.

We’ve seen enough beautiful places with signs on them
Saying “This is God’s House”.
That’ seeing grain like ants do,
Without the work of harvesting.
Let’s leave the grazing to the cows, and go
Where we will know what everyone really intends,
Where we can walk around with no clothes on.”
(Jal aladin Rumi, 1207-1273)

A Place between the Somewheres

During a month’s stay in Israel and Palestine ten years ago I kept a journal. In it I recorded this story by Daniel Rossing, who had worked in the Israeli government Department of Religious Affairs:

“A Romanian Orthodox church in Mea Shearim was being restored. A wealthy couple gave money for two crosses to be replaced, one on the dome and one on the tower. The Orthodox Jewish institution across the street was outraged, and demanded their removal, as they looked down on them in direct line of sight towards Temple Mount. I told them repeatedly that the Romanians refused to take down the crosses. Still they kept up their demands, until I offered them a compromise solution – that the crosses be rotated through ninety degrees. The Jews agreed to this and the dispute was settled. The Romanians have their crosses, but to the Jews they appear as flag poles.

Everywhere consists of a number of somewheres. Perhaps the Middle East needs more betweens and less somewheres, more compromises and less positions, more traveling and less arriving, more attempts to live with the differences and less attempts to remove those differences.”
I believe that’s increasingly true for all of us.

Something Understood

My Sunday radio listening usually consists of the Sunday programme on Radio 4, which is on while I’m getting ready for church services; and at the end of the day, if I’m still awake, I listen to Something Understood.

The Sunday Programme is often a religious version of the weekday Today programme. Religious spokespersons are usually pitted against one another, peddling differing interpretations of this or that doctrinal or moral point, across the faith divide or within the same faith. I find it a depressing example of all that I dislike about religion and, increasingly, refuse to accept or engage with.

Something Understood can be really good, or can be a bit dire. Sometimes it sounds like the presenter has always wanted to string together this poem, that song, and an interview with this other person, and has compiled some form of thread to hold the whole thing together. But, just occasionally, I want to “Yes! Thank you!” for the evening’s offering. Last Sunday was just such, and I did in fact say thank you out loud to no-one in particular. The lovely Mark Tully presented a simple, understated act of praise for liberal values of tolerance, acceptance and understanding, for finding what we hold in common, for being able to live with difference. The interview with the Reformed Jewish rabbi, only two years into her ministry, was a joy. Her problems came not with liberals of other faiths or none, she said, but with her own congregation. The arguments over the new Reform Jewish Prayer Book sound exactly like those we Anglicans have been having since our Alternative Services Series 2 appeared in 1967, the year I was confirmed. Modern versus traditional language; inclusive versus exclusive gender specific; and so on. The resulting book sounds great, and I intend to get myself a copy.

I'm off (duty)

I’m finding I need a break from duties every week now, whereas before I could take a couple of days every other week. This is all a bit odd, as I haven’t done it for years. Also, people’s reactions are rather strange. On those sort of committees where you must record your absence and the reason why you’re not there, I noticed that someone had said I was on a “family holiday”. Would people in ordinary jobs describe their average weekend as “family holiday”? I don’t think so. Then on another set of minutes someone had said that I had “felt the need to” have a day off. Do people in other professions only have time off when they “feel the need to”? I’m sure they don’t. I should not work more than two sessions per day, though I do. I should not work up to 60 hours, 6 days a week, though I frequently do. I should not have to justify being off duty for two evenings and one whole day, for no apparent reason whatsoever, though it seems to be expected. But I won’t.

Kinesthetics

Many artists, writers and poets down the centuries have shared the insight that children come into the world possessing great wisdom and insight, and fully equipped with the necessary tools for spiritual growth and development, only to find that adults spend inordinate amounts of time making sure that the tools of observation, reflection and wonder are not used and so grow rusty and stiff.

This morning was a bright autumn day, cold but clear and bright. We took the whole of one of our little primary schools (about thirty children plus the staff and assistants), onto the playground for Sacred Posture. We used a new pattern, devised by me, based on the four elements; Earth, Air, Fire and Water. If you chose or wish or need to know, its origins in the canticle Benedicite and St Francis “Song of Brother Sun” are very obvious. We even use some of the words of WH Draper’s hymn “All creatures of our God and King”. But the movements come from the Chinese tradition of Tai Chi Chuan. And the four elements owe a lot to the Medicine Wheel prayers of Native American tradition.

But the kids don’t want or need to know that. They love being able to stand still, between the earth and the sky and try to feel the world turning. They can push against the water in the swimming movements; they can be windmills turning against the resistance of the air; they can encompass the globe of the planet in their huge, slow circles; they can feel the heat and smell the smoke of the imaginary fires they make with their wriggling fingers.

-That was kinesthetics, said their teacher, when we got into the staffroom later.
- Really? I said, I didn’t know I could do that!
- You can, she said.
- What is it? I said.
- Look it up, She said.
- We can tick lots of the county council’s boxes doing that, she said.
- Yes, I said, If we were that sort of school, I said.
- Which we’re not, she said.


Several people from church came by as we stood, silent, motionless between earth and sky, still, as one, or whirled, slowly, our windmill arms.

- What was that? One asked later.
I explained as best I could.
- Shame we can’t get them into church, she said, You should be teaching them their Bibles. They don’t know anything these days.

Encouraging Noises

It’s Harvest time. A super all-age act of worship at the main church, with lots of people; kids in the band, including the newly confirmed; real bread and real wine for the eucharist for a change (Anglicans don’t usually use real bread; Methodists shy away from real wine); super shared lunch afterwards. “You don’t need me to tell you that was a lovely service,” said one of our ministry team afterwards. “Actually, I do,” I replied.

This was the first Sunday for four weeks that someone hasn’t had a go at me about something, usually the recently introduced nave altar that the older ones hate, or else some other thing. I long ago gave up imagining I could please anyone all the time, but maybe I can’t please a lot of them any of the time. This causes me some stress, mainly because I never know when I’m going to get the comeback; I never know which of the people I greet kindly as they leave church, or say hello to in the street, or telephone on some matter or other, is going to have a go at me about something or other, cutting me dead, or wagging a finger in my face and telling me what for. I think of witty reposts that I could never actually use, such as “It’s your turn to be upset this week; next week it’ll be someone else’s turn”. Mainly I smile thinly and sigh inwardly.

Percy, Edna, Nora, and now - Sidney!

After thirty five years, this is the first time I've been asked to baptise a baby called Sidney (who is a boy). I told you (on 15 August)not to write off the old names. There could be a Walter along soon. Maybe a Mabel.

The Meaning of Life

599 days to my sixtieth birthday. Two hundred and sixty albums digitalised. Twelve websites and forums on slide scanners saved to favourites. Three weeks of not writing a syllable. Watched Monty Python's Meaning of Life with the Dude. We watched the opening sketch where the elderly clerks become pirates and attack the financial centre while Wall Street plunged 778 points in a day. The film is not as good as Life of Brian, in my opinion, and doesn't make much sense, but the songs are good.

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,

And you feel that you've had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough,

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine thousand miles an hour.
It's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
The sun that is the source of all our power.
Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In the outer spiral arm, at fourteen thousand miles an hour,
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred million stars;
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!

A bleak ending, and I'm not that bleak. But the rest of it has been going round in my head since I was a small boy.

Let's see, where were we?

Oh yes, this is supposed to be a blog charting my relationship with the Church of England, or more accurately, the decline in that relationship. But actually, we seem to have arrived at a plateau in that relationship, and things are, well, quiet, at present. We don’t say a lot to each other, the rest of the diocese and I. I haven’t been in the Cathedral this year. I haven’t seen the bishop for over six months. I don’t reply to a lot of the diocesan email traffic. Have you noticed that if you stop replying and sending emails, you also stop receiving them? I mean the junk and stuff; obviously, if you stop writing to your mates they don’t write to you, I know that. But my junk mail count has gone down dramatically. So that’s good.

The thing is, with very few exceptions, I’ve never really enjoyed the company of clergy. Generally, they make me nervous, or bored, or I’m just left feeling as though I don’t fit in. Thirty five years, and I still feel as though I’m on the outside looking in. Not that I want to be in either. I’m OK with being an outsider. It just puzzles me.

I was at a church service, a funeral, in the south of England not long ago. I knew no-one in the church except the bereaved family. I went in to the refreshments afterwards and looked around and sat down beside a lady in a dog-collar, who was politely welcoming. We did the usual stuff; where are you from; who do you know; how are you getting back. She very kindly offered to take me to the station, for which I am very grateful. And we did talk about ministry and stuff, but it all felt a bit stilted. She was non-stipendiary; a volunteer, therefore. She made it clear that although she worked in the parish, she didn’t live there, and couldn’t afford to live there. I said it must be a busy place, to which she replied that “they set the bar high for their clergy”. I offered the opinion that she was the future of the church , and old dinosaurs of stipendiary clergy like me were on the way out. No comment. I mentioned the emphasis in our part of the world on lay ministry as part of the solution. No comment. Lines of discussion got started, and then led nowhere. Was she interested? Bored with shop talk? Didn’t agree with me? We’ll never know. We parted happily enough, me to the train, she to her allotment, and I wished her well.

The Escape Plan continues. I’ve got to grips with iTunes now, and am digitalizing our music collection (is “digitalize” a word; or is it “digitize”? Dunno). This is quite large – some 400 albums I reckon – so is going to take some time. It’s all going onto an external hard drive, and can then be copied onto an iPod, or similar. Cousin D has over 1,400 albums on one iPod, he tells me. He’s my 24 hour technical support. I rang him the other day. He was in an airport departure lounge, heading for Vienna. Mrs Demon and I look forward to a simple carefree existence, living on our boat and moving slowly around the inland waterways system, but we cannot survive taking off with the minimum of belongings unless that includes a handy pocket size version of our entire music collection to take with us. Once that is done, I have to digitalize all our slide photos, which go back long before the boys were born, and contain lots of really important stuff from the days when were backpackers and intrepid travellers. So tonight I’ve been trawling the net looking at reviews of slide scanners. Down-sizing is so much more complicated than it used to be.

It's not the end of the World

If like me you dropped physics at 14 and don't have a clue what all this LHC stuff is all about, try this. Many thanks to second son for the link. really good stuff on the blog links to the right - couldn't have written better myself, and so haven't tried.

I take it all back

Ooh. England 4 Croatia 1. I take it all back. And there’s a very nice calm Welshman there to keep an eye on things too. Maybe we can do physics after all.

I saw the stars last night

I saw the stars last night. Briefly. This was the first time I’ve seen the stars for some time. That’s partly because I had given up looking up, only to see endless cloud. And because if you look up when it’s raining, the rain runs into your eyes. But yesterday it stopped raining. You could walk up the street at your own pace. Look in shop windows. Speak to people in the street. And then last night; stars.

8.25am. The radio is on. The weather. Rain in Scotland and Northern Ireland; dry elsewhere. Grey rain is once again sheeting across the garden, even though I am not in Scotland or Northern Ireland. The radio has switched to Geneva, where the Big Bang machine is about to be switched on. Many have predicted the end of the world as a result of this very biggest of scientific experiments, trying to recreate conditions at the beginning of creation. What’s more worrying is that there are British scientists involved, drawn from a nation that cannot recreate the conditions necessary to have a winning national football team. Should we be worried? I am suddenly reminded of the figure of Arthur Dent, in his dressing gown, enjoying a nice cup of tea, and finding the Vogon ship ready to destroy Earth.

8.30am. Machine is on. Tea is poured. Everyone waits. Nothing happens.

8.40am. Champagne is poured in Geneva. Cheering and applause. Outside is still there. I’m still here so I’ll have a second cup of tea.

Don't sweat the small stuff

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full? They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous “yes.”

The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things–your family, your health, your children, your friends, your favorite passions–things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. “The pebbles are the other things that matter not quite so much, like your job, your house, your car.

“The sand is everything else–the small stuff. If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.
“The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. There will always be time to clean the house, and fix the gutter. Take care of the “golf balls” first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented. The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of beers.”

Ah, yes, the Olympics 4

So it's all over now. Quite a show. I was talking to the Welsh National Stone-skimming Champion this morning after church (like you do) and she made out a pretty convincing case for the inclusion of, yes, you guessed correctly - stone-skimming in 2012. She also pointed out what others have noticed. Many of our medals have come from individual or relay events, not from team games. And quite a lot from sports where we can sit down (equestrian, sailing, cycling, canoeing) or even sit down and go backwards (rowing). So it's clear where we should be developing. Let all those ball games go. We invented football; let the world have it! Don't bother playing any more! Get into the sitting down sports; chess, backgammon, tiddly-winks, arm-wrestling. We can clean up, I tell you. Remember, you read it here first.

Ah, yes, the Olympics 3

Croquet. Punting. Poker.

Ah, yes, the Olympics 2

So I popped into the Little Pub earlier for a lunchtime pint. The Big Brewer was dispensing marmite and cashew nut butter toast as usual (see earlier post) and conversation turned to the Olympics, and, as it happens, to the topic of my last post, namely what sports we should be including in 2012. The 1908 games were cited as a good example (though no-one had actually been present at them). Then, apparently, we cleaned up gold, silver and bronze in the tug-of-war. We did OK at cricket. And darts was also one of the contested medals. No doubt someone is going to comment and correct all this, but, it seems to me, this is the way we should be going.

Whats the difference between God and a doctor?

A joke, courtesy of Doctor Death:
Q. What's the difference between God and a doctor?
A. God doesn't think he's a doctor.

Ah, yes, the Olympics

As well as a Lambeth-free Zone, this blog has been an Olympics-free Zone. Many have found refuge here, no longer required to know the difference between their keirin and their ynging, their finn and their bmx. But my favourite blogs all seem to go mad about the Olympics, so I thought I’d better do something before they finish. I feel slightly unpatriotic. I’m also not good on sport. As I always say, I love exercise, I could watch it all day. Only I don’t. Watch it, I mean. I don’t think I saw more than a few minutes of the Sydney Olympics live. I’ve watched a couple of the Olympics Today evening programmes on BBC this time. It’s not something I get excited about. But I’m really jolly glad that we did so well.

My mind is turning to next time. I’m interested in all the bids being put in for new sports at which we Brits can clean up on the medals. I have a few suggestions which I modestly put forward for consideration:

Synchronised narrowboating
Armchair football
Dog walking
Fishing
Lock-wheeling (cycling short distances between canal locks)
Pancake racing
Darts

I’d consider having a go at one or two of these myself. Johnny Foreigner won’t have a clue about any of them and by the time they get good at them, we’ll have come with another lot. More suggestions welcome.

And another thing!

Yes, and another thing. We have a number of regularly used phrases, and we know exactly what they mean. After lunch, “I’m off for a sit down”; I’m “just going to take five minutes before I go out”; on Sunday afternoon I like to “read the paper”. These are all euphemisms. We know what we mean. You’re going to have a sleep, aren’t you? You’re off for a bit of kip! You’re dozing in the chair! A zizz! We know all about it!

Percy, Edna & Nora

According to a radio item, many of the old names are dying out. There are no new Walters. Alfreds are in short supply. No-one is naming their child Wilfrid or Enid. Alan Bennett pointed up the changes in naming fashion very well in one of his Telling Tales (“Edna is a name forever associated with suffering; Sharons don’t get dementia”). But don’t be too hasty; I’ve baptised a brand new Albert; I know of a tiny Ernest, and a growing Ruby. There could, even now, be parents out there choosing to call their off-spring Nora, or Peggy, or Bill. Don’t write off the old names yet.

A breath of fresh air

I should point out, with reference to an earlier post, that Mrs Demon does enjoy the occasional cigarette. And always has done, though there have been long periods when she hasn’t. Smoked them, I mean, not enjoyed them. But those who know us felt that one shouldn’t give the impression that we are strangers to the weed. But Mrs Demon would not wish to be described as a smoker. She is a non-smoker who enjoys an occasional cigarette. We have coded language for such eventualities. She is going outside /onto the towpath /up on deck for “a breath of fresh air”. We all know what she means. But we don’t say anything.

Tea with Doctor Death

Walking up the High Street I bumped into Doctor Death, who invited me to tea. Delighted, I said. We walked round to his comfortable bungalow with a lovely view over the town.

In the old days the family doctor was a figure of some standing in any rural community, along with the vicar. When you have been the doctor for fifty years, and retired into the same community; when you have looked up the tail-end of most of the women of the parish; when you can remember and have been involved in the birth of most of the men of fifty years and under; when you are also on the town, district and county councils; then you are a powerful man indeed. The Doctor is a dead ringer for the actor Ian Richardson, who played the sinister Prime Minister in the TV series House of Cards (“You may say so; I couldn’t possibly comment”). At over eighty, the Doctor is a shrewd local politician, and no-one should ever underestimate him. He is used to getting his own way. He is also extremely urbane and charming. Some use darker language to describe him. As one of the sons said when about four years old and watching a film on TV “That man’s a baddy, isn’t he daddy, because he smiles a lot”. Or as Anne Widdicombe once said of Michael Howard, many say there is “something of the night about him”. Some of my clergy predecessors have not got on with him. We seem to have established a relationship, even though after shaking hands with him I would always check carefully to see that I have had all my fingers returned to me.

I sat and looked at the view across the little town, while he put the kettle on. What’s marvellous, said Doctor Death, is that absolutely no-one knows you are here! Ah, but I did say I’d be back at five, I said, rather too hurriedly. But you can sit here and relax and enjoy a moment’s peace! He said, smiling. Why, what did you think I meant? Smile, smile. Oooh-er.

Homemade organic brown bread was produced, and some of Mrs Death’s delicious damson jam, together with a fruit cake. The conversation kept returning to the same subject. A recent funeral produced observations about the behaviour of the bereaved, and of the extended family (“death produces selfishness in families”). We recalled one man who had a headstone propped up in his hearth, complete with his name inscribed upon it. All that was necessary was the addition of the date of his demise when the time came. He had bought it when good stone was a lot cheaper and more plentiful than it is today, and he may yet have the last laugh on those who thought his purchase eccentric. As I left, the clouds parted and the evening sun burst through.

Two pounds of sugar please!

The fact that a lot of other stuff, meetings, etc, doesn’t happen in August means that I can get out and see people at home and stuff like what vicars are supposed to do but never have the time.

I went to see T, who is having to sit very still in front of the telly, because he is getting over major heart surgery, and had a slight stroke last week. He’s OK, but bored and a bit cross, because he thinks the doctors have told him to sit still and do nothing in case he does something and has a heart attack and they get the blame.

Don’t do anything, don’t lift anything, they told him. OK, he said, but does that really mean anything? Pretty much, they said. You’re OK if you take it steady, like a 2lb bag of sugar, they told him. I need some sugar, I said, you could go and fetch it. But what if I need 2lb of potatoes? he said. No chance, I said. You can lift a coffee mug, but not the kettle, they said. What bloody use is that? he said, in an exasperated tone. All too risky, I said, best sit there and watch the Jeremy Kyle Show and I’ll do it.

Eat at the Blue Thai Kitchen!

It is often said that a British summer consists of three fine days and a thunderstorm. The middle part of our trip was actually eight days of unbroken hot sunshine, something we have not experienced when boating for over eighteen months. On the last evening of this spell we sat on the bank by candlelight, drinking wine and talking to friends until nearly midnight. The next day the predicted storm hit and sent us onto the bank quicker than planned. Heading up from Gloucester was slow, with a strong flow coming towards us and a strong wind behind us, whipping up waves. Shifting 25 ton of boat up Britain's largest river takes some effort, even with our good old engine. Before we left we had a great meal at the Blue Thai Kitchen. If you find yourself in Gloucester and you like Thai food, go there. We said we'd give them a mention.

Gimme Shelter

The canalside pubs of the Gloucester Sharpness Canal and environs are very fine places. We explore a number of them when we are down that way, which is not often enough, unfortunately. Only turning up every couple of years does mean that the changes that have taken place stand out. This year we noted the growth of some very fine “external drinking areas”; patios, porches, terraces and, well, huts, many provided with heating, built in barbeques, cushioned benches and mood lighting. This set me thinking.

In the nineteen seventies we had first one dog, then two dogs. Most pubs we went to allowed us in with the dogs, who were well-trained and understood that their humans were going to be sitting talking for several hours, that it was going to be boring, and the best thing to do was to go under the bench and go to sleep. The Labrador did take the opportunity to try to reach the fossilised cheese sandwich remains trapped behind the pipes, and would try to respond to the sound of a crisp hitting the floor from the other side of a crowded lounge, but otherwise they gave no trouble, and we were welcome to sit and drink, eat and talk.

In the nineteen eighties we still had the two dogs, but we also had one, two and then three small boys. Suddenly we were no longer welcome, even in some of our favourite haunts. Cast into outer darkness, a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth, we sat in unheated outbuildings far from the sound of human intercourse and all that. The furniture was the remains of the last refurbishment; slashed vinyl and broken wood, and a couple of moth-eaten dart boards. No-one came through or shared this space with us except other social outcasts with small children.

These days, things have changed. The dogs have for the most part vanished, left to die in hot cars if they’re lucky. The children are all inside enjoying chicken nuggets and making a racket, balloons tied to their chairs on their birthdays and maybe even a room full of polystyrene balls to romp about in. How the dogs would have enjoyed that! But, what of all the new shelters, patios and terraces? What clientele are they designed to serve?

Why, they are there for the smokers, of course! It’s well known that smokers catch cold easily and get piles if they sit on hard surfaces, so the very best of outside furnishings must be provided for them. Oh, and they spend a lot of money in the place too, and we don’t want to offend them and lose their custom. Hence the lavish outside developments. If only we had had such delights twenty years ago, we wouldn’t have felt like having children was a notifiable disease and enjoyed the company of our fellow man and women, and watched the sun go down while enjoying a pint.

That'll be the improvements

There are those who believe that the inland waterways are a haven of peace and calm in a mad world. It is true that in many places and on many days this can appear to be the case. But the real world intrudes all too often.

Straining to wind up paddles on a large lock, two blokes are watching me. Neither offers to help. Bit of a bugger that one, then? says one bloke. You could say that, yes, says I. Didn’t used to be like this though, I reflected. No, he said. That’ll be the improvements, he said.

These paddles used to be hard, but you could with effort wind them up and let the water into the locks. Now, either I’ve got older and more decrepit, or something else has changed to make them much more difficult to open.

The bloke seized his chance to explain. The paddles (out of sight below the water, that you wind up and down to let water through) used to be made of wood. They formed a seal, which was OK, but would allow a certain amount of leakage. These days, no doubt for environmental reasons, they are being replaced with plastic paddles. These form a tight seal, and allow much less water to leak through. But they are also absolute bastards to shift by an unfit bloke with a windlass.

There are no locks on the Gloucester Sharpness Canal. But there are swing bridges. These are operated by bridge-keepers, who used to come out and give you a cheery wave and open the bridges for you. They used to be given grace-and-favour accommodation, in the form of little cottages, that, although no bigger than a detached garage, had porticoes and doric pillars adorning the front. British Waterways has sold off most of these assets. Now they are mucking about with the bridges themselves. This time, we noticed that the bridge-keepers stayed in their little huts and waved through the window. And the traffic lights that told you what to do at each bridge have been switched off. You used to get a red light to say stop and wait; a flashing red to say that the bridge-keeper knew you were there and was preparing the bridge, or that you had to wait to let another boat through the other way; and a green light to say pass, friend, all is well. Now you occasionally get a red, or flashing red, but no green. I’m told that this is for the inevitable “elfin-safety” reason, which is actually protecting the organisation against possible legal action. If we go giving you a green light and you run into someone, we’ll get sued, so we won’t give you a light at all, so it’s your decision, and we’ll just sit in our box and watch what happens. Lots of tricky decisions (Who’s nearest? Who’s going fastest?) all devolve to the person at the tiller. And the bridge-keepers carry the burden of everyone’s rage.

Slow Boat to Sharpness

If heaven is better than the Gloucester Sharpness Canal on a fine summer’s day, then, death, where is thy sting? Bring it on, I say! What a lovely cruise we had down there. Once south of Gloucester you’re on a broad, deep canal, with long straight sections, views of the Cotswolds on one side and the Severn estuary on the other side. Further down it becomes quite remote. The boats seem to be moving slower and slower, and it becomes clear than most of them are only moving for the sake of it; to charge the batteries or go to find somewhere for lunch. If you sit about staring at the water for long enough (which we did), the same boats come back the other way. We gave up recording our progress in miles per hour, and it became miles per day, and even at one stage days per mile, not moving anywhere for long periods.

Every day, as if on cue, boating friends and acquaintances appeared by boat or on the towpath, to provide us with just the right amount of company and entertainment. These are people we only know through boating. We’ve never seen their homes. We don’t know where they work. We never see their kids. We just meet, talk boats, drink beer and make plans. These plans generally revolve around how and when we can all become full-time water gypsies, and leave our old lives behind, Perrin-like, in a pile of former belongings left on the towpath.

On any map of England’s inland waterways, Sharpness is the end of the line in the bottom left hand corner. At Sharpness, a sea lock opens onto the Severn estuary, through which, should you be so foolhardy, you can progress to Avonmouth, and into Bristol, on to Bath, and eventually, if you are spared, to London. Of course there are many and various ways in which you could be dashed to pieces or swept away never to be seen again before you ever get to Bristol. On old maps it would say “Here be dragons”.

Sharpness does it’s best to live up to this reputation. During the day it is quiet and the streets are deserted, but, we are told, things can “liven up” at the weekends, and not in a good way. The docks still have regular trade, with coasters nipping up and down the estuary with coal, scrap metal and fertiliser. The last leaves an indefinable aroma hanging over the town.

Sharpness Dockers Club sits on a small rise overlooking the docks. The club looks like a redbrick cottage hospital or nursing home. It opens at 7.30pm prompt, and non-members are welcome. It’s packed most nights in the summer, especially at weekends, and I’d bet that hardly any of them are dockers. It sticks to what it does best; cheap beer and good food. Those in the know get there as the place opens and slap an order on the bar straightaway. The middle classes like us, brought up to be politely late, turn up, get a drink and think about what they’d like to eat for supper than night, and then order. Mrs Demon is not the fastest when it comes to decisions on food. But by 7.50pm we had ordered and settled down in the huge lounge, under the vast TV showing Sky Sports, peering round the collection of large men an small boys playing pool, to see the screen on the other side which appeared to be a security camera but actually allowed you to see the action in the skittle alley, out of sight round the corner.

By 9.45pm a diet of pure beer was taking its toll, and we enquired at the bar about progress on our meals. Just coming! was the reply. Sorry for the delay! But you were order number 91! The cook and two assistants served over 100 meals that night. Juicy steaks the size of mattresses soon appeared, as well-cooked and tasty as those served two hours earlier to the first customers. We staggered back to the boat for a good sleep. They say that New Year’s Eve is good at the club. Perhaps we’ll go back.

Cockapoos and the Water Dog

While we were away on our boat cruise I went for bike ride with Mrs Demon (she doesn’t like being called Tigger). We headed off down a lane where we were told there was nice pub. Round a corner a notice, painted on an old piece of board, offered “Cockapoos for sale”.

Cockapoos are dogs. They are what people call a cross between a poodle and a cocker spaniel. They could be called poodaniels I suppose. There are other crosses too, like Labradoodles. And Great Danehunds and Dachsations I expect. No, actually I don’t think those are possible.

We were dog people once. We had a Labrador who did nothing but eat, so we got a Springer to liven it up and that did nothing but hurtle around, watched by the Labrador between mouthfuls. Sometimes we feel that we might to close to Another Dog. This outing reminded me how terrifying close that other dog might be. Mrs Demon’s bike stopped dead in a cloud of dust and we went into the farmyard to see the dear little things. Fortunately they were all males. No way is Mrs D having another male around the place. Not with me and three sons. So we said our goodbyes and headed for the pub. We were just a willy away from some mewling, puking, barking creature taking over our boat and our lives.

When we got back to the boat a couple came along, with a sheep. Only it wasn’t a sheep, it was a Spanish Water Dog (Perros de Agua Espanol). It’s a very loving and loyal and hard-working breed, used for hundreds of years in the mountains and ports of Spain and Portugal for herding and guarding sheep and goats, and retrieving from water, said the man. The idea was that it blended in with the flocks, and then went for the wolves when they attacked. It looked like a sheep; it had a tight curly coat like a sheep, it was oily like a sheep, and it had a tail like a sheep, but it was a dog. And it was bilingual. “Sit!” said the man, and the dog sat. “Sentado!” said the man, and the dog sentado-ed. It’d be no good up in the hills where we live, I said. Go to market with that and the farmers would think you daft, buying a dog in sheep’s clothing. It’s very obedient and affectionate, and it loves water, said the man. Perhaps we should get a water dog, said Mrs Demon.

We support Dave Walker!

There is a Facebook group "We Support Dave Walker" if you do Facebook and feel like joining.

I'm Sparta.... Dave Walker!

Take a look at this link;

Blogs-I-Like

As a displacement activity (I should be sorting out paperwork and filing) I've found out how another bit of Blogger works. I'm sure all of you knew this years ago, but humour me, I'm a slow learner. To the right is a handy list of blogs I read fairly regularly. You might like to take a look. The links work, I checked them, all except To Do List, which doesn't seem to at the moment. When I have time I'll find out why. I'll go and do some more filing now. Or maybe have a cup of coffee.

Bookshop tragedy 2

For more on this go to here or here.

Bookshop tragedy

I heard some disturbing news while I was away, and an internet search confirms it. One is about the bookshop I wrote about earlier in the year. The other is about Dave Walker, the Cartoon Blogger. Steve was a very nice guy.

Dove Grey Reader

Been recommended a really good blog, with lots of good book reviews, and great photos. Take a look at dove grey reader.

It's OK, they've gone!

It's Ok, they've gone, you can come out from wherever you were hiding. The Lambeth Conference is all over for another ten years, and the big issues have been kicked well into the long grass, where they'll stay for a good while yet (And the Church knows all about long grass). And it's all clear for me to come back, having had an amazingly good few weeks on the lovely inland waterways of England, with lots of good weather and only one cataclysmic, world-endingly scary storm. Hope all of you out there in Readerland are well and happy.

By the way, if you want a really daft evening, go see "Mama Mia". We went, courtesy of aforesaid son's generous provision of freebies to his old folks. Laugh? Well, a bit. The audience clapped in time to the songs! When ewas the last time you heard that? More cheese than Sainsbury's, but a good night of harmless fun.

Right, that's it then. All done and off on the waterways for a bit. Tigger and Eeyore are messing about in boats (Wind in the Willows meets House at Pooh Corner, see?) More later.

The Starfish Story

Just had a fantastic week of activities and worship in church; lots of kids from the school, adult workshops, all sorts. We had exhibitions, painting, children’s activities; I did a Myers Briggs and Spirituality workshop, and a rather amazing evening workshop and meditation using Sacred Posture body prayer. Lots of people came from all over the place. At the end, one of them gave me a copy of this story:

While walking the beach, a man saw someone in the distance leaning down, picking something up and throwing it into the sea.

As he came closer, he saw thousands of starfish the tide had thrown onto the beach. Unable to return to the ocean during low tide, the starfish were dying. He observed a young boy picking up the starfish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean.

After watching the seemingly futile effort, the observer said, "There must be thousands of starfish on this beach. It would be impossible for you to save all of them. There are simply too many. You can't possibly make a difference."

The young boy smiled as he picked up another starfish and tossed it back into the ocean. "It made a difference to that one," he replied.

The hand-written note at the end said “I am that starfish!”

Why we still need Anglicans

Here’s more from the wonderful article by Will Hutton in the Observer this weekend. I have long since given up reading the Church press - my faith is not strong enough – but I do enjoy reading what others have to say about us. Very often they can see things that we on the inside have missed or forgotten. Hutton goes right to the heart of the tragedy of the present conflicts in Anglicanism, and explains why our inclusive liberal approach is essential, not necessarily for the Church, but for the nation and the world. Look at this:
“The genius of the Church of England is that because it is the official church it has to include the universe of all the English - Christian, agnostic and atheist of whatever sexual orientation. It represents the cultural heartbeat of the country, and as the country has become more progressive so has it. This is not just a precious institution at individual moments of crisis. Anglican priests are bulwarks for a cluster of values - tolerance, mutual respect, kindness, altruism, redemption - wherever they go in the communities they serve. I've never met one I did not respect enormously. In some social housing estates they are the only decent non-official figures people encounter. And even if God is only a hypothesis, it is crucially important that the country's leading religious institution is liberal.

(Rowan) Williams … has a greater responsibility to the genius of Anglicanism - its capacity to reconcile Christian faith with the lived lives of the English and in so doing transmute religion into a powerful liberal, rather than reactionary, force.

… The Anglican church moved with the sexual times in the 16th century, founded to free English kings from papal bans on whom they married, loved and divorced. It is moving with the sexual times in the 21st century by preparing to ordain gay priests and women bishops.

… And the liberal English, whatever divine hypothesis they favour, should not allow Williams to fight alone. If we don't want bigots running our liberal church, we'd better show it more support. One step might be to turn up for the odd service.”
Terrific! Thanks Will.

Why I don't read much theology

“'Let's at least agree on one thing, God is a hypothesis.' That's what one of my professors used to say. 'Your hypothesis may be different from mine, but if you insist it is superior because you have a better line to God than me, it leads to nothing but bitterness, rancour and even war. The best course is mutual toleration - live and let live.' But then, Jonathan is an Anglican.”
(Will Hutton: The Observer 6 July 2008)

I’ve just read two books that would appear on the face of it to be coming from opposite directions, but actually have far more in common than either author would wish to have pointed out. Stephen Cottrell is the Anglican Bishop of Reading, one of the new breed of “Call me Steve” types, I guess (why are they always called Steve?). His book is “Do nothing to Change your Life”. The cover, the marketing, and the chapter headings seek to catch the zeitgeist of the slow movement, and books that I have mentioned on the blog before, such as Carl Honore and Tom Hodgkinson. “A joyous affirmation of life for anyone feeling exhausted” it says in the blurb on the front, and “Discovering what happens when you stop”. It opens with some unlikely premises that you are supposed to swallow, like a bishop who can decide to lay in bed until eleven in the morning, and perhaps encourage his clergy to do the same occasionally. “We need to stop imagining everything is so urgent. We need to nurture our inner slob”, it says in the blurb on the back. Do you believe that? I thought not.

“The Form of Things”, by AC Grayling, promises “Essays on Life Ideas and Liberty in the 21st century”. Indeed the first, third and fourth sections are exactly that; witty and perceptive, thought-provoking, gentle, generous. He writes on fashion, beauty, colour, dance. Towards the end he writes well on civil liberties, terrorism and human rights. So far, so good. But in the middle section called “Polemics”, rather sadly, we get a gloves-off attack on religion, in the manner of Dawkins and his disciples. Why? Why could Grayling not be generous here too, and at least accept that here we have two hypotheses on which we are not going to agree, alongside a great deal about which humanists, atheists, scientists and believers will want to agree wholeheartedly?

And it is here that we find the common ground between the two books, for Cottrell’s work is in fact, at heart, an evangelical tract, dressed up in modern clothes, just as Grayling is, at least in part, writing an atheist tract. The core of the book, in chapter five, is “the strange story of Jesus of Nazareth, and the incredible claims Christians make about him”. This is what Cottrell set out to deliver, and the rest of the book, before and after this story, is gift wrapping to help to get it off the shelves.

What a pity. Both books could have been so much better. I found neither book honest about its intentions, and therefore both books, while containing many good things, ultimately disappointing.

Why I still read the papers

I get fed up with reading newspapers and wonder why I still bother. Then an issue comes along that knocks my socks off, with so much stuff that I might as well have personally ordered to be written, so relevant and interesting is it. The Guardian Review last Saturday was one such issue. A real page-turner.

The main article was on “The Art of Texting” by David Crystal, with Will Self and Lynn Truss. Really good stuff about this research that shows that texting has not led to the decline of the language, the end of spelling, or anything like that. In fact, text language is just a process that’s been going on since the first use of “IOU” in 1618.

Over the page, and Martin Amis and the trouble with God; a review of the Sixties Unplugged by Gerard DeGroot (Wilson was a great PM; yes!). It gets better; Anne Enright on writing on page 15, plus ten of the best Last Sentences, including Laurence Sterne’s “A Sentimental Journey”; Lives and Letters on page 21 has Geoffrey Moorhouse’s account of a visit from Janet Frame, and John Crace’s Digested Classic is Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”. How good is all that? Well I enjoyed it, anyway. Worth the £1.50 just for the Review, I reckon.

New Ministers - Instructions for Use

Congratulations on choosing a new Anglican minister. Your new minister is designed to give you many years of trouble-free service. To get the most from your minister, please follow these simple instructions:

Allow your minister to get started gradually in the morning, with several cups of tea and a chance to watch breakfast TV, or listen to Classic FM, Radio 1, or Radio 4, according to age and model.

Your minister will perform best in warm sunny conditions, with a temperature of between 22 and 27 degrees centigrade. The minister can operate outside these temperatures, however, as low as -10c, and as high as 40c. Pouring rain, howling wind and blizzards of snow will not usually prevent your minister from operating but you may find that performance levels will drop in adverse conditions. Lower your expectations accordingly. There may also be some deterioration in the condition of the bodywork. Protect delicate exposed parts.

Your minister needs a warm, dry, secure environment in which to live, with plenty of fresh water, clean bedding and a shower that actually works. A telephone answering machine and a decent computer provided for use are not luxuries. Many ministers work best with a degree of privacy, so that their word-processing and reasoning functions are not interrupted or impaired. If it is necessary for parishioners to enter your minister’s living space, they should know when it is time to leave.

You should not operate your minister for more than two sessions per day, and no more than four hours in a session. If you find it essential to run your minister for longer periods than this, make sure that your minister is fully recharged before you re-commence operation. Failure to follow this instruction will invalidate the warranty.

Daily and weekly maintenance should include: three meals a day, eight hours sleep a day, and twenty fours break from duty each week, to include two evenings (yes, two).

Top up your minister’s reservoir of self-esteem with regular praise. Check your minister’s levels of confidence with encouragement and positive feedback.

Negative criticism and excessive or competing time demands could damage your minister’s delicate operating systems.

Despite anything you may have heard, ministers do not generally appreciate being called after 10pm on weekdays or during the snooker on Sunday afternoons to be asked questions that can easily be answered by referring to the parish magazine or website.

Prolonged use of your minister for boring or repetitive tasks that could be done by other means will lead to excessive wear on the mechanisms, and may mean that some parts, or even the whole minister, have to be replaced earlier than the recommended intervals.

If your minister does not seem to be performing as expected, stop operation immediately and go through the above checks carefully. Your minister should respond to talking through the situation, ideally with someone other than members of your church. Please note that kicking, thumping or shouting at your minister is unlikely to solve the problem and will invalidate your warranty.

An annual 12,000 mile service of forty-eight hours complete break from duties, with peace and quiet away from the area of operation is recommended.

Failure to follow these instructions could lead to reduced performance, inefficiency, and may eventually lead to costly breakdowns.

We want you to get the most from your minister. A lot of time and money has been expended in research, development and training. Do not waste this by misuse. Any suggestions on how we can improve training and development will be appreciated.

Ordination goes ahead

The journey to the ordination from one side of England to the other was eventful, enjoyable, entertaining. It involved four cars, three trains, two narrowboats and an imported Brazilian VW “Big Bay” campervan. Excellent! Just the sort of journey I like. It took two and half days, and I had the chance for a quick looks around Worcester, Birmingham, Ely and Cambridge on the way.

Despite rifts, schisms and turmoil across the worldwide Anglican communion, the Third Little Maid was canonically ordained to general acclaim. The service passed off peacefully, even though several vertically challenged people were among the candidates. It was feared that those who are opposed to the ordination of small people may stage some kind of protest. Many scholars have pointed out that there are no theological objections to the less-tall becoming priests, and that even the Apostle Paul was “probably quite short”. Neither the Archbishop of Canterbury’s office nor GAFCON has made a comment so far. Even though the candidates were wearing restrained earrings and sensible shoes, the fact that one lady of reduced stature took a prominent role in the service will no doubt be seen as a provocative act. We await developments. (By the way: note to the Archbishop of Canterbury: GAFCON - Gaff – a mistake. Con – someone’s trying to get one over on you).

Meanwhile, away from the controversy, much fun and merriment was had by family and friends in an obscure corner of Suffolk. Wine was drunk, food was consumed, delightful music played, and a game of “Apples to Apples” enjoyed by the young people. And those who find that they have become old codgers passed the time wondering where the years went.

A makeover

Given the blog a bit of a makeover, and found some new buttons to press. I took the picture earlier this year, near where my sister lives. I've got several others like it, only without the wave. Hope you like it, all you readers out there. You are out there? Aren't you?

Here are the gumboots you ordered, Madam

Further mature reflection revealed that not only is a trip to Whitstable out of the question as part of a weekend in East Anglia (there are insurmountable obstacles, such as the Thames estuary), but staging a performance art event of my own following a Church of England ordination would not be practical either. Having abandoned that idea the Dude and I did the next best thing and watched the whole of Reggie Perrin Series One on video. Nobbs writing is sublime. It appeared surreal and overstated at the time, but now many of the scenes he suggested (the ridiculous excuses for rail delays, 24 hour helplines that have no-one available, the management speak) and the speech mannerisms given to the characters (unlikely tabloid headlines; “cock up on the catering front”; or “I’m a fish person” – it’s not just me, is it?) are part of everyday life. The series ends with Reggie at his own memorial service, and, after Alan Bennett in “Beyond the Fringe”, one of the best comic sermons ever , delivered by one of the best TV vicars ever, Gerald Sim. And so to bed. Great! Super!

Eye eye!

Look at this!

Had an eye test, about three years later than I should have. They’re good! In fact they’re improving! (Only bit that is improving, in fact). Every time I go the eye tests get better, and the information gets more, well, informative. Like they can tell you stuff about your past medical history, and not just your eyes. She told me that I had had a squint operation as a child (which I knew), and that it was the left eye that had been corrected (which I didn’t know). And they can tell you stuff about your heart and brain and all sorts of stuff. Which is great. But you also get to look at this really cool picture of the inside of your eye, just like this one, taken with a computer and a digital camera. I can get really excited about this sort of thing. It’s just like the planet Mars, with canals and everything. Amazing! Just like those pictures of swirling galaxies that are just like the curls of a seashell. How good is that? Go get an eye test today!

I didn't get where I am today ...

Not only that, but this weekend performance artist Lee Campbell is inviting everyone down to Whitstable to re-enact the opening sequence of the great David Nobbs comedy series “The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin”. The idea is that everyone turns up in suits, runs down the beach, takes a momentary look at the expanse of ocean, and then strips off and plunges into the waves. How good is that! Reggie is my hero and role model. I want to be there! But I can’t; I’ll be in a cathedral in East Anglia. But maybe we could do something outside the cathedral at the end? Maybe there’ll be other Perrin fans who would join in? I wonder …?

Wrong Trousers Day

The weekend is notable for other reasons. Friday is National Wallace & Gromit Wrong Trousers Day. Join in. be improperly dressed! Wear something stupid! (I usually do anyway).

Important Appointments 2

I’m off to the other side of the country, where a very dear friend is to be ordained this weekend. Having celebrated the very radical and disturbing John the Baptist, we commemorate the ambivalent character of St Peter and the frankly unattractive (in my view) figure of St Paul, always known as “the founder of Christianity” (not always meant as a compliment, I feel). This weekend is the time for ordinations, and many will now be preparing, as my dear friend is. I shall be there, as also the priest who had a formative influence on both of our lives. Together we have something like 78 years of ordained ministerial experience; how scary is that? We told her we were delighted, but also deeply impressed. My view is anyone going into ordained ministry today is extraordinarily brave and committed. My prayers are with all of them this weekend. Last one to leave, please turn the lights off.

Important Appointments 1

Our diocese is about to spend £55,000 appointing a diocesan stewardship adviser, to help us all to raise more money. Our problems in the Church of England concern too many clergy that we have to pay for, including those who are retired; and church buildings, of which we have a great number. So maybe if we invested fifty grand each on a Diocesan Assassin and a Diocesan Arsonist we might make some progress?

Just don't start!

Just when I think I’m getting more mellow about stuff, someone does something that annoys me and sets me off again. This weekend we had a great time, and a lovely inclusive act of worship in which everyone could participate, and it was just about a whole lot of people having fun. The gospel message, if you must find one, was implicit, not explicit, and it was about welcome, joyfulness, acceptance. It was market town Anglicanism, which is a local expression of the “big tent” Anglican inclusivity that we once took to be a given of our Christian tradition, but has been under attack, having to defend and justify itself for years now. Those traditionalists in Jerusalem want to see an end of it, as did the guy who slipped under my radar and managed to hi-jack part of our worship on Sunday with an inappropriately earnest and didactic piece on sin and judgement, when we were all trying to have a jolly day. Where are they coming from, and what do they think this achieves?

He tells people he follows “biblical principles”, and wants to see “biblical morality” applied. What does that mean? He doesn’t eat prawn cocktails, and if his daughter is raped he’ll have her stoned to death? Come on! These phrases have no meaning!

It’s like those people coming back from our conference saying “We must learn from the African church!”. Learn what exactly? Islamophobia and homophobia? The continued subjugation of women? What? What they really mean is learn how to manage on very little, because we can’t fill our parishes and priests are thin on the ground, and if we could learn how to get people to give joyfully a really large proportion of their income to church funds, because that’s what they do there, our problems would be solved.

Except it’s not as simple as that, because it’s all part of a package. Simple messages that form strong exclusive congregations attract people more readily than complex messages that seek to be inclusive and live with difference. And they raise more money more quickly too.

I’ll continue to try to preserve the big tent approach, despite those going around cutting the guy-ropes and pulling the pegs out.

The Cure of Souls

Listened to the Australian novelist Peter Carey on BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs. No use for religion, he says, And I don’t need the Bible. He might have no need of religion but he hasn’t lost touch with spirituality. One of his records is the wonderful piece by Gavin Bryars, which I’ve heard before, that uses a recording of an unnamed homeless man singing:

Jesu’s blood never failed me yet, never failed me yet.
Jesu’s blood never failed me yet,
This one thing I know,
For he loves me so.

I used to do graveside funerals for homeless men (they were usually men) when I was chaplain to a day centre and shelter. We would meet at the cemetery at 8.30am, as these funerals were done before the main programme began. Years ago they were known as “paupers funerals”, and the coffin was basically a cardboard box, paid for by the council. I buried army officers, doctors and lawyers in this way. I would usually read “foxes have holes, and the birds their nests, but the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head”. When I took these funerals the men from the centre would all shuffle up silently and stand around in the rain. While I was reading the service, cans of Carlsberg Special Brew would be drawn from pockets, and the hiss, hiss of these being opened signaled the start of breakfast.

Another piece of wisdom from my recent supervision group meeting was a discussion on the real role of the priest in society today. Essentially, we concluded, the need has not changed, and we should not change. The old phrase, particularly in the Church of England, was the “cure of souls”. This is not “cure” in the sense of making people better, but simply the care and love for all the people in the place where we have been put; not just the ones we like, or the ones who go to church, or the ones who might go to church if we work on them. We are there to get alongside the bores, the rich, the adulterers, the pompous, the drunks, the comfortable, the agnostics and atheists, the mad, the bad and the sad. The danger of a Church where priests become managers (I speak as one with a management degree) is the loss of this loving, on the street, in the home, round the shops. I am at my best out and about amongst the people; as I shed more of the peripheral responsibilities for maintaining the institution, I can spend more of my time on the core purpose for which I was ordained. I can lean on a gate or stop by the schoolyard or pop round the homes and be with the people. Thank the Lord for that.

Running Away or Running Towards?

When I was considering ordination in the late sixties, one of my hesitations was the fact that I didn’t consider the Church to be an admirable institution in all respects; in fact, in a number of ways I felt it could be the Church it was originally meant to be, if it got its finger out and sorted out its attitudes, principles, policies and practices. Well, they said, All the more reason to get in there and try to sort it out! And that’s pretty much what I have been trying to do every since, and maybe in a few corners from time to time, I might have had some small successes.

The point is still made to me. Don’t knock it, work to change it. Alongside this, someone comes along from time to time and chides me for complaining, or criticizing. That’s disloyal, they say. Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. When I got ordained I didn’t take any vows that prevent me from speaking the truth as I see it. An organization that can’t hear the constructive criticisms of its members is not a strong organization, nor an institution that one can be proud of.

As I prepare to leave, a number of thoughts strike me. First, as I have said before, I’m not sure that a full-time ministry of more years than Our Lord lived on earth is any kind of a good thing. I feel that someone should have taken me to one side and told me this, rather than allowing me to find out for myself, and encouraged me to find some other means of making a living. Also, in fact, had I left ministry at, say, twenty five years, I would have considered the whole thing to be been very successful (whatever we might mean by such a term). As it is, I’m not sure that I could say that the past ten years has been either successful or, really, worth doing in whatever way one can assess such a thing. And also, one person actually suggested that what I contemplate is really “running away” from the issues that are facing and changing the Church. Well am I? Running away? Or running towards?

There is no doubt that the present state I find myself in includes many aspects similar to that in which I spent time considering my vocation originally. Of course, I am a very different person. The circumstances in which this internal dialogue is taking place would have been beyond imagining for the nineteen year old me. There is, however, a very real sense of expectation now, as I contemplate doing and being someone very different. And that is exactly as it was forty years ago.

At our spiritual direction supervision group one of our group, who has already gone through a process that is very similar to my own, described what had happened in Myers Briggs terms; “my shadow capital is exhausted”. This made perfect sense to me. My shadow capital, my life as an introvert with a public role, is almost spent. I have functioned in an extraverted public ministry for a long time, and now it feels that it is time to stop. Stopping is exactly what J did, and now she lives as she chooses, and prefers, and does not feel at all guilty about turning down anything that will involve public speaking, leadership, or large groups (our supervision group is small and we know each other well). She saw what was happening to her not as running away, but as running towards a new future; a future in which she could be herself. Her evident delight in what has happened, and how it has turned out, is encouraging.

As feedback from the diocesan conference continues, most people, it seems, had a good time; some had a great time, especially those, like some from our deanery, who were new to ministry or new to the Church. Good. I’m pleased for them. I still know that I made the right decision for myself; in fact, I am even more confirmed in that decision. I gather that my absence was the cause of comment, and some concern, which is kind of people, I suppose, except that I can imagine what was said, because I’ve heard it said of others in the whispered late-night bar-closed conference conversation - poor old so-and-so, can’t hack it any longer you know; poor whats-is-name, lost his faith, I hear. It is not possible, it seems, that someone might just have decided this sort of event was not for them, or be tired out, or feel that their energies were better spent elsewhere. It has to be a breakdown, a crisis of faith or conscience. Well no, it’s none of those things, just my shadow capital running low. The warning light is flashing on the dashboard.