Category: Blog Entry

+Rowan preached at the Service today in Southwark Cathedral – describing MU as the fifth instrument of unity of the Anglican Communion.  In the way he said it, I suspect he probably feels that it is more effective than the others – certainly at giving a sense of the unity of anglicanism at a ‘grass roots’ level.  There was a good turn out of Scots and Irish today – which gave us some time to catch up on the gossip on both sides of the Irish Sea.  And, for the record, the St Andrews contingent included David ‘limping towards the sunrise’ Campbell, Janice and David Cameron, Trish Heywood with David and Sheila Redwood.  How is MU so effective at getting the vote out?  +Rowan might also have said what all clergy know – ‘Don’t mess with Mothers’ Union’

Took time out this evening to go to a reception in Edinburgh hosted by the National Library of Scotland.  It was all about the Murray Archive – the records and letters of seven generations of the family publishing firm whose authors included Byron, David Livingstone and Charles Darwin.

As Father Ted said to Dougal, ‘It makes you think.’  Particularly on this day when Microsoft launches Vista .. that such an archive will probably never be built up again.  My biographers are welcome to the 5000 E Mails from the last year or two now stored on my GMail account .. and to the old sermons carefully backed up on Mozy.com ..   But it will never have the weight [literally] of the seven boxes of my grandfather’s sermons all handwritten in hard-back notebooks which are in the Church of Ireland’s RCB Library in Dublin.

Tomorrow afternoon, I’m off to London for a service on Thursday morning – supporting our own Sheila Redwood who is becoming our Provincial President and a Trustee of MU.

I have an affection for Eugene Peterson’s ‘The Message’ paraphrase – particularly for 1 Corinthians 13 which was read yesterday

Love never gives up
Love cares more for others than for self
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have
Love doesn’t strut
Doesn’t have a swelled head
Doesn’t force itself on others
Isn’t always ‘me first’
Doesn’t fly off the handle
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others
Doesn’t revel when others grovel
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth
Puts up with anything
Trusts God always
Always looks for the best
Never looks back
But keeps going to the end.

And part of a sermon from Newport on Tay to go with it

Newport on Tay b 4th after Epiphany 28.1.07.doc

I’ve declared the Northern Ireland turning points before and got it wrong – most notably on the Easter Sunday after the Good Friday Agreement. I failed to understand that the effect of the Agreement would be to squeeze the centre almost out of existence and leave the extremes facing one another. Why did the gradual removal of violence not squeeze the extremes and boost the centre? But still, today’s Sinn Fein decision to support the police in Northern Ireland is a remarkable moment – and a remarkable feat of political leadership.

And in the wake of that comes all the other Sunday stuff – significant or insignificant according to your taste. Shilpa Shetty’s victory was well-deserved but somehow felt more than a little patronising. My appetite for Cosmo-type info remains somewhat unsatisfied. There seems to be a famine of Kate Middleton news and I was reduced to reading the dress code for Liz Hurley’s wedding. Best joke of the day was Ronnie Corbett’s small people joke – too small to play James Bond and too big to be adopted by Madonna. I know just how he feels.

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promised joy.

Alison and I experienced our first Burns Night Supper this evening in Blairgowrie with the congregations of the ABC Group – and a great night it was, thoroughly enjoyed by everyone.  We tucked ourselves into a corner – a bit like those who come to church for the first time must feel – and tried to come to terms with a solid wall of culture and friendliness!  There was haggis and dancers and Robbie Burns and songs and what they would call in Northern Ireland ‘a wee ballot’.  Which reminded me of a former Rector with whom I worked who dealt with the [in Northern Ireland] complex issue of raffles at church events by saying that ‘it was all right so long as the prizes weren’t anything which anybody would actually want.’

And then, just as I was feeling it was time for a verse of the Londonderry Air or Sweet Rose of Portadown, we sang, ‘My love is like a red, red rose’ – Sir William said the ‘thank-you’s’ to the big team of helpers – and it was Andy Pandy time.

Having read the comments on my last effort, I’m pondering the points at which I think I can act authoritatively. I certainly do so to try and create a competently-ordered diocese and one in which people can have a chance of knowing [in the best sense] their place and how they can contribute. I act to protect, to make safe, to set boundaries and to make room for [possibly divergent] views. I act in prophetic challenge ..

On the reconfiguring, I assume that we are heading into a very mixed economy indeed and that one of the major bits of that mixture is that some situations will have a stipendiary priest ‘in the mix’ and others will not. If I have myself experienced reconfiguring, it was mainly at the hands of George Lovell and Catherine Widdicombe of the Avec Movement. They did a huge amount of work – partly about the role of the churches in partnership with others in community development. They also developed understandings of the concept of non-directive leadership. As I understood it, this placed the priest [or other community leader] in the position of ‘worker’ with the group – placing faith, spirituality, intellect, skills, knowledge and experience at the disposal of the group to enable the group to arrive at the ‘best’ outcomes and decisions. It seems to me that they discovered one of the ways of describing the balance which we are searching for here – recognising the authority of the group/community but seeing the authority of the priest as being at the service of the group and making a distinct contribution to its life.

Or have I missed the point?

To Inverness by train today for the first meeting of the Preparatory Committee which is part of the process by which a new bishop will elected for the Diocese of Moray, Ross and Caithness.  The scenery, of course, was amazing – up through Pitlochry, Blair Atholl and Aviemore – with plenty of snow along the way.

The distances which the new bishop will have to travel are fairly daunting.  The AA says that it is three and a half hours from Inverness to Thurso.  Maybe a helicopter might be useful.

And, of course, it makes one think about patterns of ministry – and about shared/collaborative ministry in particular.  Appropriately enough, once I ran out of Sudoku on the return journey, I immersed myself in ‘Local Ministry – story, process and meaning.’  Shared ministry is obviously a ‘good thing’ in itself – and in small and widely-spaced communities there is probably no other way to go.  The challenges seem to be all about getting the balances right.  For example, this is not about clericalising the laity.  Nor is it about removing priestly authority.  Indeed I have a feeling that at its heart is the task of helping clergy to re-negotiate their role – so that they can work authoritatively in the collaborative context.

Goldilocks is much in my mind these days.  In her search for the porridge that was ‘just right’ and her rejection of the extremes, she reveals that she was almost certainly an Anglican – although she falls foul of Revelation 3:15.  So as we work to get our Diocesan Strategy into the right form for consultation and discussion, I have a feeling of having been here so many times before …  Too prescriptive and you risk people dismissing the suggestions and not looking at the underlying issues.  Not prescriptive enough and you risk being too ‘airy/fairy’.  Too managerial and it becomes a ‘Godless document’.  Too Godly and it needs to be earthed.  Time, I think, for the bed which is neither too hard nor too soft.  And Poppy who is neither too affectionate nor too remote is looking for some attention.

I suppose it’s the Father Ted script that never got written – the Whiskey Galore shipwreck which washes up onto the beach unimaginable quantities of drink for Father Jack or … At least it would present a cheerier picture than the people who are descending on the beach in Dorset to remove BMW motorbikes and other stuff. Which reminds me of one of my most unpleasant experiences in all ministry – the time we got involved in giving out free butter from the EU butter mountain to pensioners. Sadly there is something about the possibility of having something for nothing which stirs the nastier side in otherwise sensible people.

Meanwhile two of the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland are locked in conflict about which is to profit from the tourism legacy of Father Ted. One has stolen a march on the other with a Friends of Ted Festival – attractions include Hide a Nun and Seek, a Father Jack Hunt and, in honour of Dougal, a Buckaroo Speed Dating Event. No mention of the Kicking Bishop Brennan up the arse Competition?  What I always liked about Father Ted was that it was so true to life.

22nd January – the worst day of the year, calculates Dr Cliff Arnall.  It’s apparently a combination of six factors – weather, debt, time since Christmas, time until pay day, low motivation and failure to keep New Year resolutions.  I’m tempted to say that I can’t even summon up the energy to comment on that.  Weather-wise, today was wonderful – bright, clear and bitingly cold.  In kingdom-building terms, it had some things that were really encouraging and others that made me want to bang my head on the wall.  We’re putting the replacement computers into the office tomorrow evening – tried to buy WiFi dongles from PC World this afternoon but they had run out of them.  Rather as if the church ran out of hymns.  And our broadband is being intermittent – as it has been for the last week.  Now that really deserves a place on Dr Arnall’s index.  How do I cope when the little green lights flash together rather than separately?