Category: Blog Entry

The Irish view of history is amazing.   We were sitting in McColgan’s pub in Dunfanaghy, Co Donegal, gently internalising some Guinness and watching RTE doing the build-up to the Ireland-England match.  They turned to ‘The Stats’ – which said, I think, that Ireland had beaten England four times between 1940 and 1949  ‘with a break for the Second World War’.  Good to have a proper sense of priorities.

Meanwhile, all attention has been focused on the playing of God Save the Queen at Croke Park – a truly eye-watering moment because of what it says about political movement and political maturity in Ireland.  Historian John A Murphy is quoted in today’s Irish Times as saying, ‘When our English neighbours are made warmly welcome next Saturday in such a splendid stadium in the capital of a mature and sovereign republic, the innocent Croke Park dead of November 21^st, 1920, will be honoured, not insulted.

 And change continues apace elsewhere.  The Northern Ireland Assembly Elections are coming close – Sinn Fein having declared support for the police.  I was interested to see that the election slogan for Ian Paisley’s DUP, ‘Getting it right’.  Could it really be that empty posturing about the Union is gone and people are being encouraged to adopt a pragmatic readiness to engage and share.

 And I should mention the astonishing economic dynamism of today’s Ireland.  It’s two months since we were here.  Within half a mile of our house, I think I can count 11 houses being built and the road west from Letterkenny is being transformed.  I see nothing like it in Scotland.  It’s as if we hadn’t been to Blairgowrie for a while and then found that they had moved it while we were away.

Josephine points to the ecstatic reaction to Poppy’s guest appearance here and, very properly, ponders the lesser reaction to other weightier matters.  And she’s right of course.  Measured in the great balance against … world hunger, global warming, protective missile shields, abused children, family breakdown … Poppy’s elegance hardly rates.  But I then move on to think about how I spend much of my time.  Saving the world?  Increasing the sum of human happiness?  Exercising a bias to the poor, the outcast ..  Thursday morning was spent at an averagely difficult meeting of our Administration Board.  I think spent two hours working with a small team on our Year of Stewardship Programme.  And I then chaired a meeting of the Mission to Seafarers Scottish Council at which we confirmed the decision to place a Chaplain at Grangemouth.  And I sent umpteen E Mails, wrote letters and tidied the rougher edges of my soul.  It always comes back to the classic Father Ted and Dougal exchange.  ‘Makes you think, Dougal’  Long pause.  ‘About what, Ted?’

Meanwhile, Karen has pointed me towards the new Lent site www.livelent.net which encourages us to do an act of kindness every day rather than undertake boring old self-denial.  Actually I think that’s great – and I really rather like the whole ‘random acts of kindness’ way of thinking.  Having looked at how I spend my days, a little random anything can only be welcome!

I’ve been reading and trying to understand the material which has come from the Primates’ Meeting in Tanzania. It looks as if the Primates may have come to the conclusion that to allow the division within the Episcopal Church in the US to widen in an uncontrolled way – intervention by Bishops and Primates from without/expensive and bitterly fought litigation within – in itself threatens the life of the Communion. Therefore the priority becomes that of trying to find a way of managing that division so that its power to damage the rest of the Communion is limited. Only time will tell whether that will be enough or not – and whether the liberal part of the Episcopal Church will be able to find it acceptable.

And, inasmuch as the divisions within the Episcopal Church are also present within each of our churches as well as between provinces, we all find ourselves facing the same questions. And it certainly has a familiar feel to me – much of what ministry in Ireland was about was the task of managing division over issues which could not be resolved – managing so that their power to destroy was limited and the hurts caused were mitigated.

Not much excitement here at Blogstead – no crowds or dancers ..

Come to think of it, the only excitement was the discovery of a friendly-looking but very dead mouse under the table in the family room. Poppy isn’t saying anything but we suspect – she must either have got it in the night or brought it in from outside.

We are a society in confusion. More deaths in the shooting war among young people over the weekend bring more tragedy, more questioning, more blaming of absentee fathers, more wondering if Britain really is the worst country in the developed world in which to bring up children.

I believe that where people suggest that there is a single answer to this problem, they are wrong. When they suggest that this is a problem limited to one particular place and culture – and that we shouldn’t ask wider questions about our society – I think they are wrong too.

One of the things I learnt when I lived in the gun culture of Northern Ireland was that the gunmen and bombers did not come from Mars. They were not disconnected from the rest of society. People of violence were a tiny minority of that society. But their violent actions played out in brutal fashion the hard thoughts and hard words of people – who themselves would never consider committing an act of violence. Everything connected and everybody in some measure shared responsibility.

Britain is of course a much bigger, more diverse and more secular society. It would be hopelessly simplistic to say simply that ‘God is the answer’ to these very complex problems. But I do believe that there are two things which become more difficult when a society loses the language of religion and faith.

The first is that it seems to become harder to take responsibility – politicians apportion blame and reach for answers – but they don’t say ‘This is a symptom of a troubled society and it involves us all.’ And the second is this. We find it hard to express a common set of values – so it becomes difficult to talk about the inter-laced strands of care, commitment, inclusiveness and obligation which will build a new kind of society and a better future for alienated young people.

Out of Blogstead under the arch [yes there really is one] – over the T junction and down the back road to Burrelton. Drive along the sunlit ridge from Coupar Angus towards Forfar – Sidlaw hills on the right and endless fruit growing on the left. Turn left for Kirriemuir. Drive for 10 miles between beech hedges imagining the daffodils which will soon line the verges on each side …

Rector Bob welcomed people and they said – as if part of the liturgy – ‘The sun always shines on Kirriemuir’

It’s hard to do new things in the church.  But sometimes even harder to decide that the time has come to stop ..   So today we drew a celebratory end to our 15 year relationship with the Diocese of Pelotas in Brazil.  We met, told the story, celebrated the eucharist and gave thanks.  I found it particularly impressive to listen to some of the adults who had gone to Pelotas in their mid-teens – for them it was clearly a life-changing experience.  I am a great believer in these companionship relationships – but they take enormous commitment and energy to sustain.  I thought about the group of 14 from Seagoe and the Diocese of Down and Dromore who went with me to visit our companion diocese in Albany.  We were supposed to go one week after 9/11 – we delayed for six months and visited Ground Zero on the way.  You never forget that kind of moment.

So just remind me how this fits together. Equality tells us that it is important that we should allow same sex couples to adopt and bring up children. But today we are being told that gun crime among teenage boys in London is due to the absence of fathers in their upbringing.

My attitude to computers and all their works is similar to my attitude to Volkswagens.  So long as they keep working, that’s fine.  But don’t ask me to know what lies under the bonnet.  I wish I could find the time and the resolve to learn my way around WordPress so that I could show you a picture of Poppy.  But since it took me about six months to find out even where the instructions were, it may have to wait a while.  More urgent is the need to get to grips with Plone which is the engine room of the renewed diocesan website which we are working on.  So geek-in-chief Tim will be glad to know that I have spent part of today touring the ‘Teach yourself Plone’ websites and that I now know how to open the bonnet.  It’s not that it isn’t intuitive.  It just isn’t intuitive for me.  But I’ll get there.

I suppose this Valentine’s Day, I should be discussing the merits of Father Dougal’s Buckaroo Speed Dating Event.  But maybe we’ll leave that for another time.

Big event today for all of us who live to the north of the Forth was the announcement by the Scottish Executive that they intend to build a second crossing.  And it’s badly needed.  But, of course, nothing is as simple as that any more.  The possible second crossing was being discussed primarily as being about economic development in southern Fife.  But it’s also a climate change issue.  Continuing my survey of ‘interesting Car Parks with public transport attached’, Alison and I visited the Ferrytoll at the Forth Bridge – from which she got the 747 Stagecoach Service to the Airport.  She was the only passenger.