Category: Blog Entry

With my casual remark about the Abdication Speech, I didn’t realise that the anniversary was indeed last Friday and that the BBC is giving it quite a bit of attention during this coming week.  Its fascination for me is that this is one of those rare moments when the words spoken of themselves created the event.  Few expect the speeches of today’s politicians to have that power – but this speech did.  And to turn the focus onto faith and ministry for a moment, I suppose that those of us who lead worship or who give pastoral care do find ourselves hoping that the words which we speak – and the way we speak them and the way they are heard – will have spirit-filled and life-changing power in the hearts of people with whom we share our faith and our lives.

Brian Walden tried to give ‘today’s picture’ of the Abdication on Radio 4 this morning.  The King, product of a relatively loveless childhood, in thrall to Mrs Simpson .. behaving in a way like an addict.  A clash between the Victorian world of Baldwin and the establishment and a situation which they had no framework for addressing.  The political naivety of the King who thought that he could marry Mrs Simpson – his political naivety in visiting Germany so soon after the Abdication – his maybe lingering feeling that somehow Germany might one day restore him to the throne which he had given up.  Walden’s view in the end was broadly sympathetic – people acted with dignity as best they could in a situation which ultimately could not be resolved.

They’ve been electing a bishop for Aberdeen and Orkney today – to replace Bruce who will be taking up permanent residence here at Blogstead Episcopi when he returns from the US.  It brings back memories of the same process in St Andrews two years ago.  The SEC has an extraordinarily open way of electing bishops – they would not have ended up with me otherwise.  Indeed Canon 4 is a sort of hobby for the church – constantly fine-tuned and adjusted.  Still for today’s candidates – as it was for me – it was a fairly daunting task to go in and speak to over 100 people on the ‘future of the diocese and the role of the bishop’ – supported only by the Spirit and my minder’s efforts to ply me with sherry out the back.  One thing surprises me – I recently revisited what I said in my presentation and was surprised by how much of what I believed then about the diocese and its future I still believe now.  Which means, I assume, that either I knew what I was talking about – or that I didn’t then and still don’t.  Time will tell.

So we went round again this morning with Thought for the Day. So here it is. Meanwhile, having mentioned the Abdication Speech yesterday, I have had it going through my mind all day. Great script – not great syntax – and Edward Fox did it so much better than Edward VIII. It’s all in the pauses.

But you must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.

TFTD 6th December.doc

I was sitting in the BBC in Dundee at 7.20 am this morning – waiting to deliver my Thought for the Day to the nation.  And the moment came .. and they pressed the wrong button and played the back-up tape.  So I was left open-mouthed as it were.  Imagine if they had done that with Edward VIII and the abdication speech or whatever …

The richest 2% of the world’s population owns more than 50% of the household wealth.  The poorer half of the world’s population owns barely 1% of the wealth.  So says a report from the World Institute of Development Economics Research at the UN University.  That’s one of those dreadful measurements – but what does one do with it or about it?

Meanwhile, I cruised across Fife today pondering the meaning of life as one does and listened to Radio 4 conjuring up new words – one which suited me was to ‘birtle’ – meaning to make something worse while trying to make it better.  Yes indeed.

It used to be that Confirmation Services occupied a significant part of the Sunday routine of a bishop.  No so for me anyway – in our small congregations, confirmations tend to be ‘tucked in’ with other things.  Now that admission of children to communion before confirmation has become the norm in many places, confirmation as a rite of passage for teenagers has been fading steadily.  But it still delivers powerful messages.  There is the commitment of clergy to the process of preparation and the chance for real relationships to develop – family and godparents turn up to offer support and the bishop provides some added push to the idea that this is a significant event.  I still have some questions about it – but the chance of producing a memorable and affirming event in a young person’s life … at the point at which they are on the threshold of making their first really significant life choices.  It’s very compelling when you have the chance of being part of it.

St Andrews, St Andrews Advent 3.12.06.doc

Three memories.  A children’s ward in a hospital which I visited in New York in 1989.  All the babies were HIV positive.  Visiting San Francisco as a family in 1996.  We were following the Rough Guide and ended up at the Baghdad Cafe in the Castro District – not realising that it was the centre of the gay community.  It was a time of real crisis for that community but it was striking how dignified – and how everyday ordinary – the life of the community was.  Visiting Ulster Carpets’ factory in Durban, South Africa in 2003.  Across the road from the factory gate was a coffin shop in a 40 foot steel container.  The HIV rate was running at about 38% in KwaZuluNatal at that time.

Spent today in Edinburgh at an Inter-faith Conference in the City Chambers.  Glad I went – the inter-faith contacts don’t just happen so it was a useful place to be.  I was struck as always by the fact that one’s first assumption is that different faith groups will have different views on the same agenda.  But of course one also has to take account of that fact that some things matter hugely to some and hardly at all to others.  It was a warm, friendly event but we have a long way to go.

Ended the day in Perth’s beautiful Concert Hall at a concert by the Tokyo String Quartet – still, I think, the most perfect medium – intimate, balanced, mutually responsive – all the things church life would like to be but isn’t.  I reflected on the fact that JS Bach liked to play the viola in a quartet ‘so that he could be in the middle of the harmony’.  I suppose what he meant by that was that, rather than being the obvious leader, it was better to provide the mellow stuff in the middle, to provide the notes which announce the key changes and paint in the colours which bring richness and character.  Now there’s a model for church life and bishoping ..

Well – after my much-blogged-about excursion into Cosmo and Closer, I’ve taken the safer course of allowing myself to be read to.  I’ve been having another attempt to use Pray as you Go and the Daily Audio Bible – both downloaded into the MP3 player for use in the car.  It was a strange experience to drive home from Perth tonight with a rather breathy American voice reading I Corinthians 5 to me.  But I can’t help mentioning the fact that the content was no less spicy than Cosmo and Closer – although St Paul is a pretty forthright agony aunt.