Trinity 19 Elie & Pittenweem 22.10.06.doc
Elie and Pittenweem are old fishing villages in the East Neuk – on the south coast of Fife. Pretty as a picture and worth a visit if you haven’t been there. Pittenweem has two new windows designed by Ursula, one of the parishioners. It’s tough having to spend a Sunday there!
Looking at membership and church-going figures is a bit like taking a peek at your bank account on line on the days when it doesn’t make comfortable viewing. But decline is endemic, isn’t it … so why would we think that the tide might come in on our stretch of the beach when it is going out everywhere else? Except, of course, that we have growth as well as decline. And sometimes the decline is entirely understandable and predictable – places where there has been a long vacancy or where relationships have been difficult or where the diocese has failed to sort out long-standing problems. But sometimes we have growth and sometimes decline and there doesn’t seem to be an obvious reason for either. And numbers don’t tell you about quality or about what is happening in the micro as well as in the macro. I’m a great believer in trying to sort all this out – planning, organising, being business-like about things. You can’t just keeping on doing what you do and hoping for the best. But the glory of it is that you can’t predict or control it either. Hence my underlying belief that, when I apply all my energies at point [a], I shall probably see nothing whatsoever change. But my efforts at [a] are almost a precondition for something surprising happening at [b]. It’s obvious, isn’t it?
I was thinking that, after what seems like a lengthy period of rushing around and disturbance, some sort of order had been restored. In the good old days, I suspect that when one went off to a conference – or whatever else bishops do – one just stopped dealing with post and E Mail hadn’t been invented. But it isn’t as simple as that now so that one feels simultaneously on top of things and miles behind.
Meanwhile, Blogstead Episcopi at the moment is far from being the vibrant community we know and love. Poppy is here – back from her extended stay in Belfast. But Spice next door is away. As are +Bruce and Elaine who are sending back dispatches from the ecclesiastical front line in Virginia. Obviously, in deference to Bishop David Gillett, we are doing an alternative Hallowe’en. But my focus is increasingly on the need to convene the Christmas planning meeting – tree and carols in the courtyard, illuminated Santa with sleigh, etc
Missed a day yesterday going to London for a meeting. I’ve become part of the ‘have laptop will travel’ brigade but I got some quite difficult stuff dealt with just by being away.
Interesting to see how the veils issue moves on. The teacher, of course, lost her case yesterday. As so often in clashes of identity and culture, there is not a direct opposition between the view expressed. The western secular mind says, ‘I – and the children you teach – need to see your face, your eyes, your mouth because so much of what is communicated is subliminal …’ The Moslem response is, if I understand it right, ‘I cannot appear in front of other men unveiled’ Meanwhile, it was interesting to hear the thrust of the speech last night from Lord Phillips, the Lord Chief Justice. He warns against erosion of human rights – I suspect what he may mean is selective reductions in human rights legislation as applied to particular racial, religious or cultural groups. I’ll allow myself one ‘back reference’ to Ireland – the security-driven response to IRA terrorism had the effect of alienating the mainstream Catholic population. It doesn’t mean that they became active supporters of terrorism – far from it. But they became ever more separated from the mainstream of the community and young people in particular moved towards Sinn Fein in large numbers. I believe that these security-led responses were counter-productive then and they will be counter-productive in Britain.
Went to Edinburgh to meet somebody today. Arrived on time – just as he was arriving equally punctually at our office in Perth. Fortunately we managed to meet at the half-way point on the return journey. Good scones at Dobbies Nursery in Kinross.
And they were lifting potatoes in the dark on the way to Forfar tonight. Amazing
I try to pick inanimate targets. This time it’s the Exit sign in the Long Stay Car Park at Edinburgh Airport. However I interpret it, I always get it wrong and end up in a cul de sac. Plane was late last night so it was midnight when I was trying to get out. The pay stations weren’t working so I went to the Office and, to my surprise, was friendly and sympathetic to the staff member there. Perhaps it’s since Mark began working in a Call Centre? Anyway, he looked at me and said, ‘All I can do for you is to let you out free.’ Next stop the Promised Land.
Wonderful balance in my day today. Led a Quiet Morning for members of our Spirituality Group this morning – all silence and prayer – very good for me and I fitted in a little snooze as well. And this afternoon we had a meeting of our Diocesan Review Group. It’s going very well. Members of the group have been out meeting clergy and people in our congregations. We have statistics, comment, feedback of all kinds and we’re beginning to shape a stragegy for the future. The risk, of course, is that we organise and strategize so that there is no space for the Spirit to do its stuff. Now if we could just get the two groups together ….
Well I hope I get my pectoral cross through the airport security tonight – since the display of religious symbols is becoming such a huge political issue. One has to be careful – India Knight in today’s Sunday Times suggests that Moslems are becoming the ‘new Jews’ and that the political sensitivity about dress and veils is part of a growing anti-Islamic feeling in society. There is, of course, a legitimate and honourable argument about religious freedom – and religious groups which feel under pressure will naturally tend either to vanish out of sight in order not to draw attention to themselves or will do the opposite -asserting ever more strongly their identity and individuality. Out of my reading and exploring of the nature of sectarianism in Ireland, I find myself unhappy when strong expressions of religious identity become the bearer or the marker of other strands of cultural and political identity. I have no problem with strong and confident expressions of religious belonging – provided that they come with strong messages about including and respecting other strongly-held expressions of belonging. But then of course you run into the difficulty which I used to run into in my parish. I used to risk saying, ‘I don’t think I would be happy to send my child to the Free Presybterian Sunday School’ [Ian Paisley’s Church]. To which parishioner would reply, ‘Sure they are all the same anyway – isn’t that what you are always saying?’
Mission to Seafarers Belfast 12.10.06.doc
150th Anniversary of the Mission to Seafarers – Belfast Cathedral
Well – it looks as if I shouldn’t have been so pessimistic about the Northern Ireland talks. There wasn’t much of a ‘feel good’ factor about it all – but at least there is some agreement or an agreement to agree some time in the future. And then one says, ‘If they could agree that today, why couldn’t they have agreed it five years ago or ten or twenty …?’
But then it isn’t as simple as that. Nor are our difficulties within the Anglican Communion. I can see all the same tendencies – difference tends to move further apart and the centre is eroded; dialogue becomes difficult because it is fraught with misunderstanding. I suspect that, in the short terms, we shall hold together only if we make a decision to do so – regardless of the difficulties.
