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It was good to go with our Bishop Nigel to the installation of the new Catholic Bishop of Dunkeld, Bishop Stephen Robson. It’s three years since the greatly-loved Bishop Vincent Logan had to retire due to ill-health. So it will be good to have a new Catholic colleague. It was an interesting and very positive evening. Archbishop Leo Cushley preached an elegant sermon. The liturgy moved with the kind of confidence which we sometimes but not always manage. Mitres came on and off in a synchronised way. But it’s clear that ministry still means the ministry of priests rather than the shared ministry of clergy and laity

So I moved back to my reading in an anthology of writing from the Scottish Enlightenment. I believe that the attitudes and values shaped by that period – with the Scottish Reformation – shaped the distinctive nature of Scottish secular society. It’s a long, long way from Christendom.

Stuart wants to know why I am stuck in the past. To which I make the internally-contradictory response that I read a lot of modern fiction but find much of it not worth the effort. A recent exception is Simon Mawer’s ‘Glass Room’ which I thought was wonderful. Meanwhile I am re-reading 20th century classics which I haven’t read since I was a teenager, And beyond that there is Trollope – who is as sharply up to date as one could wish

Irene, whom I have known since my age was in single figures, invites me to contribute to her list of 20 all time greats – a sort of bucket list. Difficult but ..

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks is one of my all time favourites because of its evocation of the horror of war. My late mother was on a plane reading – I think – the passage where the young soldiers write letters home to their mothers on the evening before the battle and was so distressed that the cabin crew asked if she required assistance,

Trollope’s Barsetshire Chronicles is remarkable because of its deep understanding of the (almost) entirely political nature of the church and the flawed nature of the clergy. My favourite passage is the description of Bishop Proudie’s reaction to Slope’s ‘vexatious’ sermon – which Mrs Proudie of course thought was wonderful. It goes (something) like this: ‘Bishop Proudie knew that if he was to speak to his wife on this difficult matter it had to be now or never – but he knew that it could not possibly be now’

Anything by William Trevor – either the short stories which are masterpieces of economy and so painful that I can hardly bear to read them – or the Story of Lucy Gault which is a wonderful description of the story of the flight of the Anglo-Irish

I doubt if the Father Ted scripts qualify but …

As a family, we’ve always said that this is the only time when clergy can be at home and on holiday. It’s also quite easy for the bishop to slip out of sight a bit [ssh!] as clergy get busy with the nativity plays, senior citizens Christmas Dinners, Carol Services … Nobody is all that interested in meeting the bishop to talk about diocesan policy, mission strategies and the like. They are all too busy doing it.

So I have some space … which is being filled in with family things and some other bits and pieces

I’m continuing to work on my involvement in Twitter. I’m not there yet but getting better. And I’m reorganising the household computer arrangements which have gradually been becoming more chaotic and less satisfactory. Then there are the photographs marooned on various digital cameras.

Beyond that I’m reading – lots of stuff but continuing to read Trollope’s Palliser novels. I started in July and the Kindle tells me that I am now at 35% and with 53 hours to go. It’s not as funny or – I think – as acutely observed as the Barchester Chronicles. But every time I think it has become a bit boring, he writes a cliff-hanger. And all done in long hand after he came home from his work at the Post Office. Amazing.

My sermon from this morning

Great to be just up the road in Blairgowrie sharing in a joint service for the three congregations in Blairgowrie, Coupar Angus and Alyth

This is my sermon from the Midnight Eucharist in our Cathedral in Perth

I went off this morning to our small congregation in St Mary’s, Birnam/Dunkeld, where the Rector has recently retired. Except that it wasn’t a small congregation – lots of people and plenty of children. A real lift for them and for me!

It’s taken me a long time but I’ve at last got under way with Twitter. Signed up as @bloggingbishop ages ago but remained dormant in the nest, as it were. It’s an amazing world and I find that all my friends are there. Problem is that there are lots of other people there as well .. And WordPress, which I have never found particularly easy, has even woken up and offered me a simple and apparently effective way of feeding this blog into Facebook and Twitter. We’ll see how it goes.

Last weekend was really rather more hectic than we expected. Our entire family group in Scotland decanted to Dublin for Scott and Jill’s wedding – I did the honours in Rathfarnham Parish Church where Alison and I were married. Homilies at weddings always seem to me to particularly difficult. So this was my latest attempt at the genre

On to St Paul’s, Lisburn, for the Ordination of Stephen McWhirter to the priesthood. Coincidentally this is where I was made Deacon back in 1976 and I hadn’t been back in the interim. Steve was a lay worker in Seagoe when I moved to Scotland and it was good to be with him for the latest stage in his vocational journey. This was the sermon

I wish I had met Mandela. The opportunity never came near. But when I went to South Africa for the first time ten years ago, his influence and his spirit permeated the new South Africa. I was offered a brief sabbatical. For a person committed to reconciliation in Northern Ireland, a visit to South Africa was a ‘must’

I was in Durban. It’s an extraordinary place and I spent time with a vibrant inter-church group called Diakonia and the remarkable women of the Black Sash Movement. The reason I was in Durban for this part of my visit Diakonia was a link between Ulster Carpets, a world famous manufacturer of Axminster Carpets based on the famous or notorious Garvaghy Road in Portadown, and a carpet factory just across the road from Durban Airport. I spent a week with some workers from Portadown who were trying to raise productivity in Durban – but they were also learning about sectarianism by living in the middle of racial tension. They were wonderful – the kind of matter of fact and resilient Northern Ireland people who could cope with anything and with the skill to adjust the fine tolerances on complex machinery by touch alone.

Durban did not feel safe – or I didn’t feel safe anyway. I had a hire car and I was driving around on my own. Satnav hadn’t been invented so I spent an afternoon driving round the city centre to get my bearings. Every time I passed Durban City Hall I knew where I was – because it is an exact replica of Belfast. Every time I stopped at traffic lights, small black faces of the street children appeared at the car window. They were mainly children of parents who had died of AIDS – the HIV rate in that part of South Africa was running at 33% and there was a coffin shop in a steel container just across the road from the factory.

What caught my attention as I drove was the Talk Radio. In Northern Ireland the phone-in’s were angry and bitter – everybody making sure that their foot was firmly on the other’s windpipe – every statement met by a counter-statement. We used to call it ‘what-aboutery’. South Africa was different – and I think it was the Mandela factor, There was a bit of grace, space and elasticity in the discourse – some attempt to put oneself in the place of the other – some empathy. Over-religious Northern Ireland seemed to lack spirituality. South Africa seemed to have some,

This is what I put on the SEC website yesterday

The Most Rev David Chillingworth, Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld & Dunblane and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church says “To stand in the tiny cell which Nelson Mandela occupied for so many years was to wonder – to wonder how he could have emerged from such confinement with a warm personality and a generous and forgiving spirit. In the death of Nelson Mandela, the world has lost its greatest statesman. South Africa has lost a father figure, the founder of the post-apartheid nation. People everywhere who dream of peace and reconciliation mourn a person who showed that such dreams can become reality – but a reality born only of costly suffering and forgiveness.

“We give thanks today for Nelson Mandela and what he taught a troubled world through the depth of his character and his humility. We share the sadness of all who mourn his loss today – particularly with rainbow peoples of South Africa.

“May he rest in peace.”

Mandela was of course a particular hero of mine – because I was looking at events in South Africa from the perspective of Northern Ireland. He was the living embodiment of the belief that faith, spirituality, strength of character, generosity ….. could bring resolution to deep seated problems. But I remain puzzled and troubled by one question. Out of the mean-spiritedness and violence of apartheid arose the towering figures of Mandela, Tutu and de Klerk – people who appeared to meet the hour. But, with the greatest respect to many in Northern Ireland who lived sacrificial lives and did extraordinary things, the mean-spiritedness of Northern Ireland’s sectarianism did not produce people of similar stature. The late Seamus Heaney was an exception with a voice which both spoke to and transcended the limitations of context,

Dublin again – second time in a week and this time for a family wedding tomorrow. ‘Maybe you could have stayed ….. ‘ somebody said. But life isn’t like that.

Apart from all the usual things – and Poppy responsibilities in particular – I spent Tuesday in London on Continuing Indaba business. This is ‘honest conversation across difference in the cause of mission’ – a pattern for the Anglican Communion as we try to work through our differences, it’s an integral part of the reconciliation vision for the Communion which the Archbishop of Canterbury is developing. I’m passionate about reconciliation. So It’s a privilege for me to serve as Convenor of the Reference Group.

So we drove to Dublin today – a day late because of the weather. It’s a long time since I have driven from Belfast to Dublin. It used to take for ever. Now it’s a featureless motorway and dual carriageway and takes no time at all.

But as we drove, I reminisced to myself about more bracing days. Like the dark and wet winter night when the Renault 5 was drowned by a deluge of spray from a passing truck – in the spooky surroundings of Ravensdale Forest just south of the border. It’s the place where the body of Captain RobertCaptain Robert Nairac Nairac was found. Nairac was killed in 1977. The link takes you to material which explores his rather Lawrence of Arabia style – reputedly going under cover and singing rebel songs in the pubs of South Armagh,

And as we reached the toll booth south of Drogheda, I remembered being on the phone while Alison drove – trying to persuade an unplaced ordinand that his vocational duty lay in my parish. I failed.

Ah well!