Mute I have been since I got back. Maybe a plane-borne bug or just tired. I think voice is maybe starting to return now. Body telling me something, no doubt.
Anyway .. all sorts of new things to think about. Particularly the contrast between the absolute chaos of the average Calcutta street with bicycles, random cows, cars, honking horns … and the grace, order and fundamental decency of the people we met. I’ve come back content that we have in our hands a relationship which can challenge and enrich us .. and hope that we can offer something similar. There’s much more to explore. We hardly got to the edges of how a church like the Church of North India, ecumenical in its foundation, actually works. The interfaith dimensions are fascinating. The Christian schools are highly sought-after by all religious, cultural and ethnic groups. They are overtly Christian – in one, the school song was ‘Make me a Channel of your Peace’ – and that doesn’t seem to be a problem. Yet there is huge sensitivity about any suggestion that the Christian community might proselytize.
So I had a bit of enforced ‘time out’ – missed the meeting of Church Leaders with the First Minister … and a meeting about the Anglican Covenant with one of our Area Councils.