Category: Blog Entry

Off to Rothiemurchus in the rain this morning for Patricia’s ordination to the priesthood.  It was another important staging post in the life of this very special congregation which practises the ministry of all the baptised – living, ministering, reaching out and growing without the support of stipendiary clergy.

It was a very moving moment – partly, I am sure, because the commitment and the love of many people had been contributed to the journey.

And I had to smile, as I always do, at the wonderful Anglican moderation of this key passage:

In baptism every disciple is called to make Jesus known as
Saviour and Lord and to share his work in renewing the world.  Some by ordination are given particular tasks.

It’s ‘particular’ that gets me.

And on the way home, I passed two very wet cyclists on recumbents heading for Drumtochty Summit.  A sign, I think.

So Thabo Mbeki has sacked his deputy health minister – the person credited with ending a decade of aids-denialism at the heart of the South African government.  I’ve been to South Africa twice in the last five years – wanting to see the miracle of reconciliation which saved it from an apparently-unavoidable bloodbath.  I saw that miracle.  It is truly wondrous.  But I also saw a country engaged in a race against time – struggling to grow a prosperity which would outdistance the ravages of poverty.  And many times I heard what some people there believe to be true – maybe it is true and maybe it is not – that the government can live with the idea that HIV/Aids will reduce the size of the urban black population.  I do not believe that a government could be that cynical – but it might be complicit …

Meanwhile – Lord Lucan is getting another outing – maybe living with a cat and a pet possum in New Zealand.  But, given the famed openness of Canon 4, he may be alive and well among the bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church.  Who would give him a second glance?

I’m not good at picking up hitch-hikers. But I make an exception for the large numbers of young people from Eastern Europe – mainly Czech Republic – who are here for the fruitpicking. I’ve picked up four couples in the last fortnight – all students – all obviously highly educated and well spoken. The tally is as follows. One content – ‘more you work the more you earn’ One visibly distressed by the working conditions and heading into Perth to find a job – ‘could earn same money in Prague’. One averagely unhappy and going to As-da to shop. One going to book a flight home and never coming back – could earn as much in Prague – not just the money but the way they were spoken to.

All sorts of issues here to disturb the Blogstead idyll. Without cheap labour, how will the crop be harvested? Unless the strawberries are cheap, they will unaffordable for the Blogstead table. And there is no doubt that economic progress in Eastern Europe has eroded the economic differences. But my over-riding feeling is that of a parent. My own children have been treated well in all sorts of foreign places. I do not like to see other people’s children far from home and distressed in this way.

Meanwhile the reaper and binder is at work in the field outside my study window. There may yet be biodiesel in Frankfurt to make the drivers of large Mercedes feel virtuous.

If you happen to have Landranger 59 and Bamm Bamm’s mountain bike

Leave Guardbridge on the National Cycle Route – up the hill to Strathkinness and along the High Road until it plunges down to Kemback, along the River Eden and on to Pitscottie.  Another three climbing miles to Crossgates.  Rewarded by a six mile descent into St Andrews –  follow the cycle path on the line of the former railway to Leuchars and beside the golf course.  Hilly but perfect.  19 miles.  Quicker than a round of golf.

Ever since De Trip on Saturday, I’ve been pondering the Ted and Dougal exchange – when Dougal went to the reunion and ‘D’you know what, Ted?  They’d all become firemen!’  Comprehensive Google searches have failed to bring it up.  Did I imagine it?

Meanwhile up in Kinloch Rannoch on Sunday, I felt a bit like Mrs Doyle.  Brought my sermon but couldn’t find it.  It wouldn’t matter a lot but then I thought it might be in the middle of the copies of the Diocesan Review I’d put at the back of the church.  So I went out to the car to check.  And found some German tourists thinking about coming in.  So I hustled them inside and they said, ‘We don’t think we can stay.  We’re Roman Catholics’  ‘Ah go on, go on, go on.’  And they did.

We went on the outing today with the Scottish Branch of the TCD [Trinity College, Dublin] Association – leaving South Queensferry just under the Forth Railway Bridge

and going to Inchcolm  It was a beautiful day and the Abbey looked lovely – not sure that I would choose to get married there myself. But there you are.

Great nebbing on the boat on the way home: ‘Do you know that the Japanese all train their cats to use the ordinary toilet?’

I began the day by recording two pieces and an interview for Heartland Radio – which covers Highland Perthshire. Local radio is great – very simple, very directly in touch with its audience and the table was very wobbly.  Some of our clergy in the area do quite a bit of broadcasting for them – it all helps to put a human face – or voice – on the church. But maybe that is an inappropriate metaphor.

Meanwhile – in the ‘I wasn’t ordained to do this and it wasn’t part of my training’ department, my life and death struggle with Plone continues. ‘Plone is a Content Management System’ says the voice .. But I think my defeat is rather less total than it was. And maybe we shall before too long be able to bring the new Diocesan Website out from behind its seven veils.

Anniversary time today – yes indeed .. married young … well preserved … thank-you very much. So it was the French restaurant in Perth – the remarkable Cafe Tabou. It is quite remarkably French – could be a summer evening in Burgundy. But it actually sits hard by St John’s Kirk. I lifted my eyes tonight as one does during a lengthy Presbyterian sermon and found the text above my head: ‘Le gastronomie est l’art de utiliser la nourriture pour creer le bonheur.’ One can imagine John Knox, who preached in St John’s in May 1559, taking a quick break for a Plat du Jour across the square.

Having lived so long in Northern Ireland, I’m quite used to time travel. After all they are talking about beginning again to make the De Lorean car which gobbled up untold millions of government money in a vain attempt to provide employment in West Belfast. It then starred in’Back to the Future’. And, of course, the passions of the 16th and 17th centuries were strong as ever until very recently. It’s amazing that in the tranquillity of St John’s Square this evening, it is as if they had never been.

The Diocesan Review took another lurch forward this evening. We’ve done eight meetings across the Diocese talking and listening [a bit]. About 250 people took part so expectations are high. This evening set the Working Group stage in motion – the ‘nice idea but what are we actually going to do’ department. I think that Gordon our Consultant and I had that good feeling of being in the room with a group of people who understand exactly what this task is about. We’ll sit back [a bit] and wait to see what comes back.

But what is it?

Orange sent me a Data Card for my laptop – to help me to pretend to be at home when I am not. The courier delivered it to the third drawer of the disused filing cabinet outside the back door of the Office. So I rang Orange to say that it had got lost. So they sent another. But they also cancelled the whole account. Now I can’t get the account re-instated and the new data card doesn’t recognise the Sim card. Orange – who are infamous for their customer relations – are helpful but ineffective. So if I had put the disused filing cabinet – which has been outside the door since before I came over two years ago – in the back of the faithful Passat and taken it to the dump last week, none of this would have happened.