Category: Blog Entry

So it’s official.  Doesn’t matter what age you start exercising – just so long as you do it.  So I dutifully puffed my way round the Wolfhill circuit [about five miles from Blogstead] this afternoon.  But the cold … this is the time of year in Scotland when you begin to believe that winter will never loosen its grip.

So I find myself reading cycle routes in bed.  How about Loch Katrine?   Cycle the length of the loch on a flat, traffic-free road and take a trip back on Sir Walter Scott. Sounds perfect.

Another dangerous word – along with ‘usual’ and ‘everybody’

So I enjoyed my Lent visit to Coupar Angus to talk ‘about’ God, Dawkins and Nigella.  Not that we ended up talking much about either Dawkins or Nigella.  But I have a regrettable habit of doing that.  All talks which I give to Probus and other groups have the same title – ‘A lovely place to go home from’.  But the title is all that they share.  It comes, by the way, from one of my former but favourite parishioners – Vera.  After we had been to America in a group together, I asked her how she felt about the New World with all its pulsating vigour, land of opportunity,  etc.  ‘A lovely place to go home from.’  Exactly.

At Coupar Angus, I plunged into what I hope was a lively conversation with Alison Peden – feinting left and right around the ‘So Bishop do you believe in God?’ question.   It seems to me that this kind of friendly but challenging conversation – where two people try to ‘push’ one another to say what it is that they believe – is far better than lecture.

But as I hoped and – to be honest – expected, the clearest and most authoritative statement of faith came from the lady on my right.  What part of her faith could she not deny?  ‘There is nothing which they can take away from me.’

Spring, by the way, has retreated from Blogstead and we have had snow today.  At our Clergy Meeting today in Auchterarder, several people arrived almost struck dumb by the beauty of the drive through Glen Devon and Gleneagles.

It was of course Father Dougal who said, ‘Sure you wouldn’t believe any of that stuff, Ted’

So I’ve done my fill of planning, strategizing, consulting and all that.  I’m moving on now to begin to get into some of ‘that stuff’ which Dougal found so disturbing.  I’m attempting a sort of roadshow around the diocese with a look at what we believe and how we believe it.  Starting off this evening in Coupar Angus – closest of our churches to Blogstead – with God, Dawkins and Nigella.

It will be interesting to see what happens.  I shall be particularly interested to see if, as I hope to find, people are rather more interested in faith than they are in the church.  Seems entirely healthy to me.  It’s just a pity that it is the church like a great hungry animal which devours us all daily.

If you want to know what I am doing and where to find me on this pilgrimage, the details are here

George Herbert popped up this morning in the Anglican calendar.

I have always been a great fan.  And what I like best is the extraordinary economy with which he writes.  I do a bit with words myself – but look at a hymn like King of Glory and marvel and how much he does with single-syllable words.  Amazing.

Only equalled by my all-time favourite, Charles Wesley’s ‘Forth in thy name O Lord I go’ – which passes the same test.   ‘Thee only thee resolved to know/In all I speak or think or do’

We continue to struggle with the consequences of financial melt-down.  It takes time but it makes its presence felt absolutely everywhere eventually.

I was interested to see Andreas Whittam Smith’s article in the Independent yesterday.

He’s calling the beginning of the end of the crisis.  Not a financial or economic judgement.  More a spiritual discernment.  He describes a series of business conversations which were characterised by a new realism.  He says that ‘the people round the table had resolutely confronted the end of their dreams and their own worst fears’  These things are as old as time.  It’s pride, arrogance, selfishness, wilful blindness, greed ….

The end of hubris.  Masters of the Universe tamed.  People who said that economic cycles no longer applied …   People who said that markets were a perfect system of self-regulation.  And all that stuff.  Allen Stanford.  Over.  Prodigals heading home.

It’s going to be difficult for the church.  We don’t have cushions or safety nets.  So we will end up having to decide what is really important for us.  So far as I am concerned, that is clergy ministering in congregations.  Everything else is secondary to that.

I’ve always had an eye to the progress of the Extreme Ironing fad – first encountered on the coast road south of Capetown when a VW Beetle came towards us with somebody on the roof hard at work on the collar and cuffs.

I’ve just confided to my Facebook Profile that I am travelling backwards up the East Coast Main Line at 125 mph. At last I’ve managed to connect to National Express’s wifi – not the fastest but at least you don’t lose it in the wide open spaces. The new broadband dongles should make it possible to undertake some fairly extreme blogging – so there’s a challenge.

I can never decide whether it’s better to do as I have been doing – carry on with my email and other stuff as if I was at home. Or make a virtue of necessity and read a book I wouldn’t have ‘time’ to read if I wasn’t travelling.

Since my retreat with the Benedictines, I have continued to ponder the issues of leadership and authority in the life of the church.  What I like is the way in which Benedict describes the kind of person the abbot should become if he is to exercise a good authority.  And to be loved more than feared – presumably because fear is the enemy of truth and without truth in relationships you have very little.

Meanwhile Anne Tomlinson – knowing my admiration for O’Bama – has send me an article from the Scotsman in which Joseph Nye discusses his exercise of power

It’s about soft power – ability to attract and enthuse – and hard power – organisational skill. But what makes Obama special, I think, is the flexibility and contextual intelligence with which he deploys his leadership abilities.

In the church, we put a premium on things like vision and passion.  And so we should – eyes fixed heavenward, etc.  But along the way, I think we need to deploy an extraordinary range of skills – rigour in pushing forward, firmness about boundaries, genuine responsiveness to the feelings of others, pragmatism, intelligence about situations and their potential, spiritual and scriptural rootedness….

Which brings us back to the abbot – a wily old bird, no doubt.  But a very complete human being.

I think I’ll let Benedict speak for himself today ..

Let the Abbot strive to be loved more than to be feared.

The Abbot should not be restless or worried, nor extreme or stubborn,  nor jealous nor overly suspicious, because then he will never have peace.

He should be far-seeing and thoughtful, discerning and moderate.

At last managed to get my few remaining hairs cut.  As usual – in my favourite place in George Street – the level of chat was in inverse proportion to the amount of hair.  Today’s topics ranged over Darwin, creationism, sectarianism, child protection and many others.  It’s bracing.

Meanwhile Morag has reminded me of the strong performance management culture which has put pressure on bank staff – not the fat felines but the people behind the counter in the local branch.  Time was when working in a bank was about getting to know people and helping them.   Then it became a series of sales targets which needed to be met.

Now why does that sound familiar?  Maybe because, when I started out in full time ministry in 1976, it was mainly about pastoring a community, getting to know people, holding together the community of faith.  The idea that the bishop might come down from Head Office with some bright new plan for growth would have been unexpected and unwelcome.  So here we are.  Caught in our own net, as it were.