Author: David

I keep meaning to fake the timings of my postings.  Irish people are notorious for not going to bed early.  But here we are – Saturday night – tomorrow’s sermon for Aberfoyle [in the Trossachs] written in full script – pondering what it means, following this week’s Church Times article, to have a new virtual identity as the ‘blogging bishop’.  I suppose it could be worse.  On the other hand, it could be better.  Maybe this is the new medium through which it is possible to communicate with all sorts of people in all sorts of places and to ‘get across the boundaries of the church’.  Or maybe it is  an excuse for talking to oneself rather than talking to real people.  Only time will tell.

Just back from Dundee where I attended the 25th anniversary of the consecration of my Catholic colleague, Bishop Vincent Logan. I must sit down with him – he could tell me some things I need to know. As always, one feels completely at home – the worship, the people, the robes, the friendship. And yet we still have the madness of being unable to share the eucharist – the sacrament of unity – together. And then there are the more subtle and wonderful differences. We have nothing to match the exoticism [and broken English] of the Apostle Nuncio. And I am always fascinated by all the busyness around the altar – people moving all the time like a sort of fluid tableau. And close to me were the people doing the signing – one of them with the most wonderful red/orange hair. The ballet of the hands often seemed to express the spiritual truths of what was going on far better than the words. Maybe I should learn to preach in sign language alone. More use, probably, than the course in Powerpoint that I have been contemplating.

It’s been a day of catching up – an apparently endless series of phone calls, E Mails and letters  ….  push, push, encourage, support, nudge, praise, cajole … trying to manage the everyday and not lose touch with the possibility of being creative.  And all the time I am uncomfortably aware that, in this strange, strange way of life and leadership role, silence is more to be prized than speech, listening than talking, vulnerability and humility more than forcefulness and certainty.  But tomorrow is another day.

After my wistful ‘not cycling’ of yesterday, today was even worse.  I added another bit of ‘healthy mind, healthy body’ stuff to our discussion of future meetings of clergy.  More wistfulness.  Maybe we could sing, or do relaxation or be holistic in some way.  I began to reminisce about the period when the whole of Northern Ireland seemed obsessed with step aerobics.  ‘I don’t do Pilates’ said a voice.  And it was over as soon as it had begun.

Set out today on a series of commitments at opposite ends of the diocese. Not good planning when distances are big – but you can’t get it right all the time. Another wonderful bright day – snow on the mountains and string quartets on the MP3 player. Took the Brompton folding bike in the [unrealistic] hope that I might cycle on a bit of the National Cycle Network which wanders all over the diocese. They must have known I was coming when they planned it. But I did get a look and will come back – just where the road to Cupar leaves the southern shore of the Firth of Tay, there is a wonderful little road which skirts the hillside above the shore – runs through Newport and Tayport – into the Forest Park just north of Leuchars and then to St Andrews along the route of the old railway. Another day, perhaps, particularly when the weather is warmer.

We’ve been in Yorkshire this weekend and took ourselves to Vespers at Ampleforth.  Part of the magic of it – if that isn’t inappropriate – is that they spend no time on most of the things to which we give great importance.  No concern for relevance or variety or immediacy or particularity or communication or explanation or strategic planning  ..  They process in out of the middle ages.  They do what they have always done and they process out again.  It’s very refreshing.  I couldn’t help looking into their faces and wondering.   With some, you just wouldn’t know.  Others had those faces which mature but don’t age in that sort of ‘lived in’ way that the rest of us have – difficult to tell what age they were.  And some of the older ones had that aura which means that they had given themselves totally to it.  It makes you think …

I’m still pondering the mysteries of leadership.  Every time my paper shows pictures of polar bears standing on ever-shrinking ice floes, I say to myself, ‘I know about that.  It’s like Canute trying to stop the tide going out.  But leadership ….. the strong, confident, decisive, affirming, encouraging role model is all very well.  Except that people [or at least people like me] actually bounce off that and are repelled by it.  And the Jesus model of teacher, leader, healer, sufferer …. is all about creating a new kind of space and openness within which people can find healing and grow.  As always, it’s a balance but where is the point of balance?

As bishops go, I’m probably just about OK with computers.  I have just got on top of RSS feeds and I sorted out my mother’s internet connection over the phone last week.  But I know my limitations – and wireless networks are over the edge for me.  So I spent a happy four hours in the office last night setting up some new computers with Tim who is, as he says, ‘geek and proud of it’.  So he made the WiFi sing songs to the router and pinged everything in sight while I shoved the back files in the filing cabinets into archive boxes.   And at the end of it all, the computers would all talk to the world outside but not to one another.  So it’s more pinging next Tuesday night.  Thanks, Tim

We once ended up by accident sitting in the front row at the ballet. What seems effortless and swan-like from a distance becomes a series of grunts and heaves at close quarters – rather like an Olympic weight-lifting competition. My re-entry into the world of chamber music playing with my violin last night was rather similar. I was never effortless but I was better than that. I remember my violin teacher – a very splendid Czech lady – saying ‘If it doesn’t hurt it is not doing you good’ Sounds pretty Protestant to me. Some pain ahead, I think. And not unlike dealing with one’s soul.

It’s dreadful. It’s wrong. Even viewed tactically, it’s always counter-productive. But without getting into the area of sympathising or excusing, can one understand or behave as if it is unexpected? I watched some film recently of soldiers coming home from Iraq – saw the big, tough soldier moved to tears of sheer relief at getting to the end of what was obviously a nightmare experience to see his family again. The strain of fighting a war – or is it peacemaking – which they can’t really hope to win, where they don’t know who is friend and who is enemy … more of the intangibles and irreconcilables. Politicians carry their share of responsibility for putting people in such a position. And more about dealing with intangibles and irreconcilables another day.