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.

Waxing and Waning

A friend of mine, when presented with his newborn son, took a look at him and said “He must wax, and I shall wane”. In St John’s Gospel, 3:30, John the Baptist is recorded as saying of Jesus Christ, He must increase and I must decrease. In the light of this text, St Augustine of Hippo decreed that the feast day of the Nativity of John the Baptist should be held on Midsummer’s Day. After this the days get gradually shorter, until the feast of Our Lord’s Nativity at Christmas, when they begin once again to lengthen. This also had the handy effect of Christianising the popular pagan festivities of the Summer Solstice. The new feast took over the great fires of renewal and protection which had been a part of the old heathen festival. Bonfires blazed on hilltops; burning tar barrels were pushed about the streets; flaming wheels were sent hurtling down slopes. The festivities remained the same, but now said to be in honour of the Baptist, rather than a solar ritual to strengthen the sun at the beginning of its long slow decline to the Winter Solstice.

The tall trees in the greenwood,
The meadows where we play,
The rushes by the water,
We gather every day.

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small.
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

In some parts rushbearing ceremonies were also held in June and early July. Churches and other buildings had earth floors, strewn with rushes to make them more pleasant. The rush was worth harvesting, to make wicks for torches, thatching roofs, plastering on walls, weaving for seats, ropes and mats. This was a good time to go out and cut new rushes to renew and replace those that had been walked over for the past twelve months. The rush cart would be brought back with merriment, singing and dancing and, yes, beer would be drunk and the carrying-on would carry on through several days.

Some places, such as the little town, still carry these things on. Last night we welcomed visiting morris dancers. A rush cart has been constructed. Today there is a fair, and in the evening a concert and a country dance. And on Sunday, the whole procession heads to the church for a service the like of which is not often seen.

Oh yes

Oh yes. And magicians. Can't be doing with them either. Sorry magicians. Sorry everyone.

Send out the clowns

Coming back, people are telling me about the conference I missed. One or two are quite excited. Some of the things they tell me they enjoyed turn out to be precisely the reasons why I didn’t want to go, especially big halls full of people and lots of mealtime discussions. I was very happy with my own company, reading, tai chi on the grass, watching the birds. Thank you Sheldon.

There is one point I must make, because it seems that it is at this point that I find myself most at odds with, and distanced from, my colleagues. One of the guests at the conference was Roly Bain, the Holy Fool. Roly has been clowning for years, and has developed a very particular ministry. He’s involved in the annual clowns service that still, I think, takes place in one of the London City churches. And lots of people love him. But unfortunately, and no disrespect Roly, but I can’t take it. I sort of got “Godspell” (I saw the original London production with David Essex and Jeremy Irons several times with various church youth groups). I can see what he’s trying to do and good luck to him and he reaches a lot of people. But I don’t do clowns. Or circuses generally. Or funfairs, Disney or anything similar. Sorry. Just not for me. And having seen Roly in action at conferences in the past, I had to duck out. There, I’ve said it now.

Things pop up

Things pop up while you’re reading:

“You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.”
Heraclitus, On the Universe (540 BC - 480 BC)

“Tri peth a dylai dyn ystyried: Ble mae, O ble mae'n dod, a ble mae'n myned”
(“There are three things a person should know: Where he is coming from, where he is and where he is going to”)
A traditional Welsh saying

Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
R S Thomas The Bright Field

On Retreat or On the Run? 2

I went to see an elderly man to arrange his wife’s funeral, and told him that I would be taking a few days on retreat shortly. “What’s that?” he said. He had never heard of such a thing. Many people haven’t. The retreat movement is very widespread now, and yet there are many people who have never come across the idea of a few days away, in a religious community, or some quiet spot, either alone, or with others, sometimes in silence, sometimes with a conductor who gives talks and guidance. Even after the Extreme Pilgrim, and Finding Sanctuary and other recent TV programmes, there are people who have never heard of such a thing. They are not against the idea or puzzled by it; they don’t think of it as just another holiday (which many church people do, if they are honest); they’ve just never come across it before.

I am returning to Sheldon, a place I have stayed three times before. In fact, I think it’s the only retreat centre I’ve ever stayed at more than once, and we have a good relationship these days. The accommodation is very good, some say the best in the country. There’s nothing that says you must suffer on retreat, only that you use the time effectively in order to clear your mind of the clutter of everyday work and life, and get down to considering what is really important.

I am also on the run, because I really can’t face another diocesan conference. In the old days these were known as “clergy conferences”, because they were the only people who went, because there were few other types of minister in the Church of England, and most lay ministers worked and wouldn’t be able to come. Clergy were also all male, of course, so you had the prospect of being shut up with three hundred vicars in black suits in the Metropole Hotel in Blackpool or the Swanwick Conference Centre in Derbyshire. It could be pretty appalling, I can tell you. Things have changed; more lay people, more colour, but essentially the same idea. The Lambeth Conference only happens every ten years, and only bishops and bishop’s wives go (the poor dears have to accessorise to look good alongside purple) but the pattern is much the same.

In Myers Briggs terms, it’s an interesting phenomenon. Most of the sessions are big picture themes – Where will be in 2015? – that sort of thing; the worship is varied, but always on the creative and unusual side. Lots of touchy-feely stuff. Workshops where you can try out new ideas. Great, but the appeal will always be primarily to the NF types, of whom there are many in today’s ministry. Poor SJs like me are left saying Yes, but you dreamt this dream three years ago, we still haven’t identified the first steps and the sequence needed before we can make it a reality and now you’re off on further flights of speculation? Anyway, I’ve probably been to nine or ten of these over the years, in different dioceses and venues. I think it’s time I left them to it.

On Retreat or on the Run?

The diocesan conference is about to take place. Three hundred people all trying to eat breakfast and ask each other which parish they are from? Lots of people in coffee queues saying what they really think about the state of things? Loads of clergy all in one place? I think not. I’m off in the opposite direction, thanks very much.

Survival kit for a three day retreat must include:

One feather pillow
One orthopaedic pillow
Walking stick and boots
Laptop computer for keeping up with journal
Bananas
Cherries
Pringles

Books to take on retreat:
Revelations; the collected Canongate pocket canons
Road to Daybreak – Henri Nouwen
A Devil’s Chaplain; selected essays by Richard Dawkins
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe – D Adams
Looking into the Distance – Richard Holloway
A Reading Diary – Alberto Manguel
Do nothing to Change your Life – S Cottrell
Is there a Book in You? – A Baverstock
On Chesil Beach – I McEwan
The Reader – Bernhard Schlink

Music to take on retreat:
Bach Cello suites 1-6
Goldberg variations
A CD of the music we use in our tai chi sessions by Budi Siebert
Ask me no questions – Djivan Gasparyan
Shine eyed Mister Zen – Kelly Joe Phelps

Live Mandorock 2000 – The Phil Beer Band (for motorway driving)

See ya!