Category: Blog Entry

Back in the parish days, we were, as usual, struggling to comprehend the vagaries of human nature. It must have been one of those Ted and Dougal moments, ‘It makes you think, Dougal.’ ‘About what, Ted?’ In an effort to find solid ground, I asked my colleague Grace whom she most admired .. To which I got the instant and totally surprising answer, ‘Madonna’. Why? ‘Because she constantly re-invents herself.

So it’s with sadness that I’ve been ploughing today through all the stuff about the end of her marriage today. Not least because of her adopted child from Malawi. India Knight in the Sunday Times thinks she’s great too – worth much more than Posh and all the WAG’s and their kind. And I suspect that that ability to re-invent herself – which Grace correctly identified – means that she is [terrifyingly] in control of every aspect of her life.

A bit hectic. We fitted in a quick trip to Castleward in Northern Ireland for the wedding of old friends. There was just time to look at one of my favourite bits of Northern Ireland – the narrows between Portaferry and Strangford at the entrance to Strangford Lough. The tide runs at speeds up to nine knots and there are plenty of eddies and whirlpools to make life interesting for the sailor.

We found the first tidal power installation to supply power to the National Grid hard at work in the channel.  On for a quick visit to Braemar – which served to remind me of the astonishing beauty of Scotland and how much of Ireland has been spoiled by apparently random development of poor quality.

I called in this morning on a Training Session for congregational representatives from across the Province who take responsibility for Children and Vulnerable Adults. The attendance was very encouraging. The best thing one can say about all this is that it needs to become routine. I’ve never really believed those who say that ‘We’ll never be able to find volunteers because of all this form filling and legal stuff.’ The reality is that it makes everybody safer – adults as well as children.

If they had asked me what the unemployment figure was, I would have said ‘less than a million’. So how did it get to be 1.79 million with the addition of 164000 this month? Is that what has somehow become acceptable?

Clergy at least have a reasonable prospect of continuing to be employed .. Yes I know we technically aren’t employees … Yes I know we only work Sundays etc., etc. But I suspect that the fragile financial structures of the church are going to come under considerable pressure.  Pensions for a start.

Thank goodness for Blue Peter and a bit of escapism.

And now for something completely different. No 3 here at Blogstead passed me Paul Johnson’s September article from the Spectator. Apparently there are now 114 Church of England bishops – in 1834 there were 26. Here in Scotland we have seven – and one seems to keep reasonably busy. But doing what, I wonder? As a poacher – in my pre-gamekeeper days – I used to give thanks that my parish was on the extreme western edge [or was that left?] of the diocese. Anyway, far enough away to discourage any random calling from the bishop.

So back to the travelogue … bicycles at Blair Atholl for the Killicrankie circle. Down the path beside the north-bound platform at Blair Atholl .. across the 1865 footbridge over the Garry … along the path towards Killicrankie .. UP THE HILL and down the other side to the Garry Bridge and back. Puffection!

And again, as we headed early this morning for St Modoc’s, Doune. Another sunny Sunday morning with mist on the lower slopes. As the faithful Passat came down the ridge south of Perth on the A9 where you have the view right across to Dunning and the Ochils .. the mist was lying in wisps along the line of the Earn. Tough but .. etc.

I drove home this evening from Newport-on-Tay where we have been discussing the appointment of a part-time Rector who will be paid in a year what a hedge fund manager would earn in a morning.  I was moodily listening to a Radio 4 ‘talking heads’ discussion of the great future which lies ahead of us – particularly us baby-boomers who are starting to look forward to collecting our pensions.  The consensus?  That ultimately there will be inflation as governments print money to deal with the huge indebtedness.

I’ve been reading the paper every day – and I always read the financial pages.  Interesting that there is a short of unreality about the financial mayhem – rather like a hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico which hasn’t reached Texas yet.  But it’s coming and jobs will be lost and young people will find it harder to get their first mortgage and ..

Scapegoat?  All of us, in one sense.  Any of us who has taken at look at the rising value of property and felt wealthier – even tho’ we weren’t.  All of us who helped the bubble on its way by suspending disbelief – glad to think that money might be created out of nothing in particular and even by the trading of debt.  And the bankers’ sin?  Well the key human sin, I suspect, is almost always a variation on the self-centredness theme – in this case arrogance.  Laced with no small amount of greed.

Alison and I are doing a series of meetings around the Diocese – exploring Lambeth and its implications with people.  Full marks to Trinity Wall Street for their Video Diaries – no better way of giving people a feel of the Conference.  When I showed some sections to our clergy, I think they were positively relieved to find that the Anglican Communion which we value is still in existence in the measured contributions of bishops from provinces all over the world.

But why would anyone come out to a meeting on a cold night in Scotland to hear about Lambeth?  Strange that.  Some curiosity .. undoubtedly some concern about the future and whether we will be able to cohere .. the desire of people in a small church to belong to something bigger.  Strange thing this Anglican Communion.  I’ve just decided that it doesn’t really exist and then …

We met today with the congregations of our St Andrews West Area Council – in a Leisure Centre in Glenrothes.  These are the congregations which have probably seen the greatest social change – the end of mining in Southern Fife and the gradual development of a culture of commuting across the Forth Bridge into Edinburgh.  So times have been hard for some of them and they’re still very much alive.

The gospel reading was the Unjust Stewards – and this is the globe which the children created during the service to symbolise a world exploited and spoilt.  Children?  Yes .. gradually becoming visible in our congregations.  Hope for the future.

Well it was, shall we say, a not unpleasant interlude in the best of company. But what is this Celtic thing? In the humour, maybe? A certain elastic lateralness of the mind? I wonder – after all most/all of those present are of mongrel background. The Irish Primate is English – the SEC Primus is Welsh. I may feel very Irish – but I have big slices of England and Germany in me.

So here are two things to think about.

The most obviously Celtic group seem to be the Welsh – who live closest of all to England. The strength of the Welsh language movement must have something to do with it – but why is that movement so strong?

I suppose – particularly in the immediate post-Lambeth period – we wonder whether there might be a distinctive contribution which the ‘celtic’ churches of the British Isles might make. The Church of England is in a different place – big, established, central to the institutional life of the Anglican Communion through the Archbishop of Canterbury, colonial past … At its best, the celtic tradition is spirituality and missionary energy.

I spent a couple of years of ministry looking at this mural on the east wall of Bangor Abbey in Northern Ireland. It shows Gall, Comgall and Columbanus receiving the great missionary command from the ascending Christ.

The Church of England has just published its new rules which make it easier for couples to get married in church. There’s a shift going on – to seeing a church wedding as something which can be positively offered to couples as distinctive and special. We’re moving in the same direction and experimented [very successfully] with a stand at a Wedding Fair in Glasgow.

I’m very happy with that. Some of the best of ministry is in working with a couple to custom-make a wedding liturgy. People get drawn into that process and begin to find that this is not just something which the church ‘does’ – but they can shape it so that it expresses their love and their hope for the future.

Contrari-wise, I think we are still more accommodating than is wise with weddings outside churches. Yes, I too feel the pull of the island in the middle of the loch. But more often it is just the hotel .. and it suits people .. and it risks just being a piece of ‘bolt on’ religious ceremonial rather than something with the richness and status it deserves.

Welcome to the biennial meeting of the Celtic Bishops – meaning the bishops of Scotland, Wales and Ireland. We’re in Chepstow – which I understood was to the east of Cardiff. So why did the taxi driver who picked me up at Cardiff Airport say that it was to the west? Anyway, I’m delighted to be here, wherever it is. And wondering precisely what Celtic means in these circumstances. Yes of course it means more than ‘not English’. But what does it mean?

Anyway, we all went to have a look today at St Fagan’s – welsh equivalent of the Ulster Folk Museum. And it was fascinating. A bit wet and cold and dark. Otherwise grand.

I’ll be home on Thursday night.