I’ve been heading home – head full of all the high-flown stuff of episcopal ministry after the consecration of Alan as the new Bishop of Connor. In fact the service did allow plenty of time for reflection – so I pondered the way in which a bishop has the best and the worst of it. One has all the opportunities in the world to encourage, guide, strengthen, praise …. but one also ends up dealing with stuff that others either will not or cannot touch. And maybe that’s all part of the binding and loosing in ministry.
So it was [literally] down to earth with a bump after our Peeasyjet flight landed this evening. A rather forward young lady standing in the aisle said to me, ‘Unless I get off this plane really quickly, I’m going to wet myself.’ And her rather restless demeanour suggested that she meant nothing less.
Meanwhile I’ve been continuing to ponder David Campbell’s description of my customary hard-nosed toughness . I think he may have been referring to my ‘innocent as doves’ manner of promoting the Diocesan Strategic Review in Crieff. I always think I’m a bit of a wimp – maybe I have to learn to see myself as others, etc., etc.
But, to my absolute delight, I met a nice man at the back of the room who pointed to his nose and said to me that ‘We had something very much in common’ – referring to my own not-insignificant hooter. ‘Time for a bit of spin,’ I thought – and suggested some suitable epithets such as aquiline or Ciceronian. The nasty and brutish ‘hard’ never crossed my mind.