Category: Blog Entry

It’s as well my ‘appearance’ this morning with Sally Magnusson was sound only.  Having failed to make the studio in Stirling, I got off the road into a filling station at Dunblane and got stuck in the snow.  Did the interview while still stuck – is this a first?  Since I was – as it were – a foolish virgin who didn’t have a shovel, I bought a scoop from the rather astonished guy behind the till, dug myself out and carried on round the M9 and back across the Forth Bridge to Kirkaldy, where I arrived during the Offertory Hymn and changed from virtual to actual Bishop.  I am becoming concerned that this blogging thing is becoming fashionable.  This poses me two problems.  One is that the market is becoming crowded.  The other is the more serious issue that I have always believed that Christian faith is at its prophetic best when it is both unfashionable and counter-cultural.

Interesting day tomorrow – my second Diocesan Synod and on the first anniversary of my consecration as bishop.  It will be an interesting event.  For a small church, we have huge levels of involvement from some very able and committed people.  But I have to confess to some of the feelings which were brought on by the annual Easter General Vestry when I was a Rector.  I would tell everyone how important it was and how I hoped they would all be there – while secretly hoping that it would be the usual faithful 50 or 60.  Best sign of a contented parish – a big attendance usually meant trouble!  And ‘Any other Business’ was dangerous, dangerous …

A furry tap on the shoulder reminds me that Poppy, our Brown Burmese Cat, has not featured here for some time.  Her concern of the moment arises from a casual conversation which she overheard concerning our move to the new house [14 days].  In the context of peaceful, rural location, the word d*g was mentioned.  She needs to know that this agenda item has been shelved indefinitely.

On some of the more lofty areas of discussion which have featured here recently, she points out the following.  She is always ready to be worshipped – whether through Pray as you Go or otherwise.  She also experiences no difficulty with issues such as forgiveness.  Indeed, she carries no hatreds, bears no grudges, makes no judgements – except with regard to small birds outside the window.  Indeed, she suggests that it is humans, with all their false intellectual sophistication, who have the problems.

Spent today in Forfar.  I was wafting towards Coupar Angus on a tide of Scott Joplin Piano Rags –  Elite Syncopations with a wonderful stomping bass – and wondering whether I could get my MP3 playlist to reach Elgar Pomp and Circumstance with Land of Hope and Glory as I passed Glamis Castle where the Queen Mother grew up.  And then realised that I had forgotten Pray as you Go from the Jesuits.  Apart from a phone call in the middle, it was very good.  The lady doing the reading was rather good and gritty but the other voice was a little precious.  Which encouraged my mind to stray as it does to thinking about what kind of voice is best for leading worship – too little personality as bad as too much.  And so to Goldilocks and the search for what is ‘just right’.  And at the end of all that, I had a good day with our congregation – a little visiting of parishioners, a visit to one of the local schools and a visit to a factory.  It encourages me – I hope it encourages them too.

I’ve been reading Paul Vallely’s excellent article in the Independent about Rev Julie Nicholson, the Bristol Vicar who is resigning because she cannot forgive the terrorists who killed her daughter in the July bombings in London.  One can only admire and respect her integrity and her courage – empathise with her as a parent … and wonder.  It takes me back to a meeting with Father Michael Lapsley in South Africa – his hands were blown off by a letter bomb sent by agents of the apartheid government in South Africa.  I remember him saying, ‘The church uses forgiveness like a weapon – you must forgive ..’  But it isn’t like that.  Surely she deserves more time and the prayers of many people

One of the charming things about parish life was the people – let’s not say little old ladies – who thought I floated around on some sort of cloud.  If only …  The reality of life for most clergy and certainly for me is a wierd sort of crashing around between the sublime and the ridiculous – and not being quite sure which is which.  So, while I have done my best to do the sublime today, much of it has been pretty feet on the ground stuff.  Where is the estimate from Pickfords for moving house in 16 days time.  Will the central heating oil last?  Only if the weather warms up.  Why didn’t we make the holiday booking sooner before what we wanted was gone?  I’m realising I haven’t come back to you on my progress on driving with Pray-as-you-go on my MP3 player.  I think I need to revisit it.

In discussion this morning on BBC Scotland, I found myself back on home territory – debating the government’s proposal that MI5 should take control of intelligence gathering in Northern Ireland.  I found myself expressing the frustration of all who try to build new relationships in such situations – that progress is easily and instantly destroyed by terrorist outrage but can also be destroyed by insensitive or inappropriate action on the part of politicians and security agencies. If that is true in Belfast or Portadown, it is also true in Leicester and Bradford and East London. The challenge is to undertake the work of community building and community healing where security-driven responses to politically-motivated terrorism are also being pursued. The former ne seeks to create good and wholesome community in the long term. The latter, at best, seeks to protect the community in the short term but often has a different long term aim. They are both necessary but are almost incompatible.

One of the signs of my own inner ‘moving on’ is that I don’t feel I have to talk about Ireland every five minutes.  But I couldn’t help watching some of Archbishop Desmond Tutu tonight in the search for truth in Northern Ireland.  The strange thing, it seems to me, is that what brings healing is not the statement of objective, dispassionate truth.  It is to hear the truth from the lips of the perpetrator or the victim – the person for whom that truth is most costly – which brings the healing.  By a strange coincidence, I find myself on BBC Radio Scotland tomorrow morning debating issues of terrorism, policing and community as we experienced them in Northern Ireland and as they apply to mainland Britain.

Fascinating the reaction stirred by Tony Blair’s ‘admission’ that he prayed about the decision to send troops into Iraq.  ‘Bizarre’ and ‘disgusted’ were among the comments.  But the Prime Minister was simply placing himself in the honourable tradition of  informed Christian conscience in the sight of God and acknowledging his authority as ultimately derived from God.  His critics obviously believe that to ‘take it to the Lord in prayer’ is to embrace irrationality and abdicate sense and responsibility.  Surely not.  It’s tempting to say simply that, ‘God gave him the wrong answer.’  But that, it seems to me, just dishonours what he also said about how difficult the decision was and how aware he was of the potential cost in lives.  Yet, looking back to the time, my own feeling is that decision-making approached in this God-breathed way might have been approached with more obvious humility .. might have recognised that the possibility God’s voice might also be heard in the voices of dissent .. might have been more ready to acknowledge the mistakes made over intelligence and the reasons for going to war and to say sorry.  But which of us would have wanted to make the decision?