Category: Blog Entry

I’m becoming a regular visitor to the Weather section of the BBC website – no real sign of a change yet. Maybe all this is because Heather the Weather retired from BBC Scotland TV. We haven’t done too badly as regards snow. But the cold …

Anyway the Passat and I skied down to Bridge of Allan on Tuesday evening to discuss the Anglican Covenant with members of the Area Council. Who could possibly want to come out on a cold night to talk about that? Well 25-30 people actually. And we gave each other a conducted tour of ‘Anglican Communion Issues’ What interests me about sessions like this is a sort of instinctive ‘feel’ that people seem to have for the distinctive culture and quality of the Anglican way of doing things. They may not have much of the information – offered the question, ‘What are the four instruments of unity of the Anglican Communion?’ they might not do too well. But they seem to have a feel for the extraordinary balances and tensions with which we live and which make Anglicanism so special.

Last night was ‘Let’s arrange to go to the Nutcracker in Edinburgh after Christmas’ So we did. I couldn’t face answering the question from somebody digging us out of a snowdrift at Kinross, ‘What was the purpose of your journey?’ So we went by train. With time to kill on the way home, we went into a nice bar just above the bridge on the way down to Waverley. And then we were introduced to that great levitational mystery which is shared by Old St Paul’s. Down the lift, through two doors and cross the street … and you’re at Waverley. I still don’t know how it was done. Pure Alice in Wonderland.

A little sensitive at this time of year about the passage of time …

‘So,’ I asked the barman in Molly’s Bar where the head on the Guinness stands proud above the rim of the glass, ‘in what year did Dana win the Eurovision Song Contest.’ To which I got the answer, ‘Sorry – before I was born.’

Oh dear. The Irish papers were greeting the arrival of Carys Rose, Dana’s first grandchild. Dana – who won Eurovision in 1970 with that vacuous hymn to inclusiveness, ‘All kinds of everything remind me of you’. Dana – fixed forever in our hearts and memories at 19. Yes she was born two months after I was.

Dana also unwisely contested the Irish Presidential Election in 1997 on a ‘traditional family values’ ticket – one of her more robust opponents said that to attack Dana was like clubbing seals.

We also mark the passing of Cardinal Cahal Daley – former Archbishop of Armagh and leader of the Irish Catholic Church in difficult times. He was, I think, a real leader. A ferocious critic of the IRA, he faced the dark stuff on his own side and earned unpopularity for doing so. Leaders in all religious traditions should take note

We’ve been in Scotland almost five years but not seen anything quite like this.  We have about 6-9 inches of snow here – night time temperatures down to -10C.  The forecasts suggest that it’s going to be like this for the next ten days at least.

It’s very beautiful but moving around is a little challenging.  So it’s good that we are in that extraordinary space which follows Christmas …

Happy Christmas from the Blogstead Community.  Poppy is keeping the paws warm on the radiator

You’ve probably been following the story of Bishop Stephen Venner,  Bishop to the Armed Forces.  He got himself quoted in The Telegraph as saying that the Taliban ‘can perhaps be admired for their conviction to their faith and sense of loyalty to each other.

I contributed this piece to The Scotsman.  It gave me the opportunity of discussing the dangers of dehumanising and demonising enemies.  If I disagreed with his comment as quoted, it was in my feeling that faith of this kind is not necessarily admirable.  Rather it  shows what I believe to be a weakness in religion – its willingness to be used by political movements for short term gain but at long term cost.  That’s what sectarian violence is about.

Then there is the question of what actually happened – for that you need to read Paul Vallely’s comments in this week’s Church Times.  The story is of an interview given 12 weeks ago .. of subordinate clause turned into main clause.  Yes I know a bit about that – though nothing as dramatic or damaging has happened to me.  What happens is that the journalist does a general interview for a profile.  The profile is never published.  He then either begins to use bits of it in relation to specific news stories as they arise or – as happened to Bishop Venner – he brings it out in a different context and climate of public opinion.

Which is why – for the media-savvy bishop – live radio is ‘the thing’ because it is the most controllable.

We’ve been to Dublin over the last 36 hours for the funeral of my Uncle Arthur.  As these things tend to be, it became something of a cultural and spiritual odyssey.

Let’s just say that Arthur was a major character .. he became a Catholic about two years ago and found a real sense of belonging in the local parish.  Having watched Father Ted on Channel 4 in the hotel last night [the Golden Cleric Award episode] I was well wound up for my meeting with Father Liam of St Laurence O’Toole Parish in Kilmacud, Dublin, this morning.  And very welcoming and hospitable he was – in a church into which the entire membership of the Scottish Episcopal Church would comfortably have fitted.  And this is what I said about Arthur.

But there’s more … three bookshelves of his diary which I took into safe keeping.  It goes back to 1950 and maybe earlier.  So what will I do when I retire?  Well maybe – just maybe – between the diaries, my grandfather’s sermons from his ordination in 1911 [which are in the Church of Ireland’s Library] and my own stuff, there might be a book.  There are a number of common threads.  Cats for a start.  Mrs Putt in Arthur’s childhood, the mighty Nipper and many others .. through to our own Cleopatra and many others before Poppy.  But the most interesting thread is the story of how the Protestant population in Ireland south and north managed – or failed to manage – the changes of identity and allegiance which the 20th century brought.  We’re 98 years from my grandfather’s ordination – I’ll not manage it for the centenary.  But if I’ve told you about it maybe I’ll have to get down and do it.

Sorry I seem to have been away for a little while.

My life has been rather bounded by Canon 4 and the process of electing bishops – two days last week in Glasgow and one day in Oban.  Wonderful drive to Oban this week.   Loch Earn turned a delicate shade of episcopal purple in honour of my passing – sunrise through the back window if it was possible to see through the back window.   The Passat and I surfed westwards on a wave of Scott Joplin, Bach and Gospel Music from the Brooklyn Tabernacle.

Interesting stuff of course.  But I’ve come to the conclusion that, as with appointments of Rectors to congregations, what matters is the willingness of the congregation or diocese to seek to discern their own vocation.  Everything else is follows from that.   I decided today that I must be dreaming about Canon 4 when I found myself reading a newspaper hoarding about episcopal elections at the end of the bridge in Perth.

So here we all are having a good time on The Wave – Stop Climate Chaos March – in Glasgow last Saturday.  Always good to be photographed with the Cardinal and the Moderator outside what looks like a Rangers-suppporting pub.

It was a remarkable event – it takes a lot of organisation to get 7000 people to turn out for a march on a wet Saturday in December – and it tells me that the people are well ahead of the politicians on this issue.

And looking at the photo, I have a feeling that this ‘Stop Chaos’ campaign rather suits me – like Henry’s Cat tidying up the jungle.  I could do ‘Stop Ecclesiastical Chaos .. ‘ and many others

It’s the snow that does it – gives you that feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world.  Like in Murder on the Orient Express.

So it was last night when we went up the glen and up and up above Blairgowrie for the AGM at Ballintuim.  It was snowing.  The satnav was struggling because the voice was set to English-Belfast  rather than English-Perthshire.

We sat down – most of  the congregation – around the table in the bothy.  It was Orient Express carriage-shaped and there was a blazing fire.  Dandy was on my left.  We discussed the tableau of photos on the wall – pictures of her mother jumping fences on a bull which she bought at Gloucester Agricultural Show in 1902 for 35 shillings.  There are times when I begin to think that all this is entirely unremarkable.

Thinking of bulls … as one does when the meeting gives itself to a discussion of maintenance issues at The Birks,  my mind sidled towards one of my all-time favourite funerals.  All clergy have favourite funerals.  It isn’t disrespectful – just rich.  Three of my – how shall we say – slightly more charming and eccentric parishioners and I sat in the funeral parlour in Portadown beside the open coffin of a friend.  She was not wearing the Davy Crockett hat with which she normally greeted me.  Above her head had been fixed a picture of random matadors with random bulls.  Her nephew stood up and began his tribute, ‘My Aunt was like a wounded bull….’  Too rich sometimes, I think.

And then we had supper which was sort of what we really came for.  Poirot did not make a cameo appearance on this occasion.  We enjoyed the company of friends.  We shuffled the Passat down the snowy glen again …

Lighting the first Advent Candle last Sunday during the Radio 4 Morning Service from our Cathedral in Perth.  It took two attempts with the match.  The Choir produced some wonderful music – you can listen to the Service here

The sermon is here