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For those of us who spend too much of our time in meetings. time sometimes hangs heavy. The inhabitants of our General Synod Office know that in Room 13 I always sit on the side of the table facing the window so that I can count the chimney pots across the magnificent roof-scape towards Murrayfield.

I was sitting in one of the rooms at our Cathedral in Perth having what was obviously an exceptionally interesting and engaging meeting with representatives of Perth Presybtery of the Church of Scotland when this clock took matters into its own hands. I noticed it when the minute hand passed out the second hand and was heading for a second lap. I shall take it everywhere with me.

You may be interested in three pieces of material which I presented at our General Synod last week.

The first is the Primus’ Charge from the Eucharist

Our Synod decisively decided that we would not adopt the Anglican Covenant. This is the speech I made in proposing the subsequent Motion which affirms our commitment to the The Anglican Communion

We continue to discuss the Whole Church Mission and Ministry Policy This is my summary of where we are at present.

Our General Synod begins today in Edinburgh,

Anybody with long experience in ministry knows to approach Synods, Annual Meetings, Easter Vestries and the like with a degree of healthy caution. You never know.

But in general I look forward to this. Scottish geography and our relative smallness conspire to prevent us having the kind of inter-diocesan contact which helps to build a sense of being together. So our General Synod is important and encouraging in building our sense of who we are and where we are going as a church. And we are quite upbeat at present.

My key focus is of course on the Anglican Covenant debate. We are slightly taken aback because our mood seemed to be that we were prepared to stand alone if necessary in our lack of enthusiasm for it. And now the Church of England has got there before us. That wasn’t in the plan. But it seems to me that, whatever our feelings about the Covenant, we defer to no one in our enthusiasm for the Anglican Communion.

I’ll also be glad to see the Whole Church Mission and Ministry Policy continuing to move forward. I know this is a bit geekish. But I have been greatly encouraged by the way our church has been bravely working on this at many levels. I think its time has come.

Well it was of course magnificent – particularly the music. With the Primates from Ireland and Wales and the Archbishop of York, I was given a place of honour near the altar. Which meant that I didn’t see anything at all. Nothing. There’s probably a sermon in there. Something about the Sermon on the Mount I expect.

But it did give me time to reflect on one of those casual comments which somebody made to me recently – a casual comment which was anything but – reflecting on what it feels like for the Church of England to be the Established Church. That often leads to a conversation about how it feels for us to be not/never established and not the national church in Scotland either. To which the answer is usually ‘entirely comfortable, thank-you’

But on this occasion it went in a different direction – like this. ‘Because of the personal faith conviction of the present monarch, every significant event in the state is marked by a piece of classical Anglican worship in a Cathedral. Things will and have to move on. The inter-faith dimension will move to the centre as it must. Things will feel different for the Established Church’

Well I did get home in the end – Friday evening on the train, I really like the London-Edinburgh journey, it’s a classic railway trip. But this was pretty grim. Or maybe I just wasn’t in the mood.

On Sunday, I visited our congregation in Alloa. They are in the middle of a fairly searching exploration about their future life as a congregation. They have been working on a collaborative ministry model. We need to try and work out how they are going to sustain and develop their life into the future. They are warm, resilient and determined – in equal quantities. It is really important that we have active congregations in places like Alloa

And then on – after a Brompton cycle along the side of the Forth near Kincardine – to a Jubilee Thanksgiving Service at Dunfermline Abbey with Cardinal O’Brien. It was good to see the Choir from our Holy Trinity congregation taking part.

I’m on the way back to London now for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving Service in St Paul’s. I’m part of the procession which leaves at 1007 – which sounds a bit like a branch line. It will be a great privilege to be there and to represent our church.

So it’s home tomorrow

I’ve been at the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion in London. It’s a great privilege to be there. It’s the Anglican Communion sitting round a single table – talking, praying, worshipping, eating together.

Cuba, Malawi, South Africa, England, Ghana, America, New Zealand, Scotland, Hong Kong, Burundi

Quebec is very beautiful. It sits of course on the escarpment above the St Lawrence where in 1759 on the Plains of Abraham Wolfe defeated Montcalm. Two interesting things about that – first that both generals died in the battle and are commemorated in a shared memorial; second was the presence of Scottish soldiers in the battle and the belief that they had also fought at Culloden.

Just like home? Well it’s not for me to attempt to say anything about the Anglican Church in Canada. But they are a small church here in Quebec – trying hard not to be the English Church – living in a province of Canada which has a long history of debate about separatism/independence – living with a language issue

We’ve just been doing some work with Professor Douglas John Hall, Emeritus Professor of Christian Theology at McGill University in Montreal. His most recent book is ‘Waiting for Gospel – an appeal to the Dispirited Remnants of Protestant ‘Establishment’. Hmm. Not sure I know too much about that.

The pictures: the St Lawrence from the historic town; old houses; sundial at Laval Seminary ‘our day is like a shadow’; the remarkable interior of the Catholic Cathedral

So the week winds on – from the Clergy Retreat to the extraordinary Dinner at Holyrood and now to the Class Reunion in Quebec. I suppose that the difference from former times is that the technology makes it possible for all the e mail and everything else just to keep on going.

This is the Cathedral just across the road from where we are staying

Class of 2009?

TEC has set up a College for Bishops and makes it a canonical requirement for all new bishops to take part. The Canadian church also sends its bishops and I went with Bishop Trevor Williams of the Church of Ireland. They call it the Living our Vows programme

In that wonderful American way, it acquires a strap line which is ‘Building Collegiality through Learning Together’. So it seemed to me to be about creating shared learning experience so that the differences and tensions might find a proportion in which they could be handled in personal relationship and shared discipleship.

Over a three year programme – and the quality was outstanding – you become part of a close knit group. And I’m part of it and not a visiting observer. And the fact that in this context I embody the shade of Seabury makes it more so.

So here we are. It would have been easy to persuade myself that it was ‘one too many’

This time it was the diocesan Clergy Retreat where I arrived before most people, stayed the first night and left again.

The venue was our College of the Holy Spirit and the Cathedral of the Isles on Great Cumbrae. You haven’t been there? Then you’ve missed something special – the closest you can get to seeing the culture and ethos of the Scottish Episcopal Church expressed in stone. It’s miniature Butterfield and a delight set in the middle of the Clyde just across from Largs

David Todd and his team have transformed it into a welcoming place set in an atmosphere of prayer and worship. I was sorry I couldn’t stay. And there was sunshine and the river and the boats.

Archbishop Rowan is visiting the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland this week so we are off to the Lord High Commissioner’s Dinner at Holyrood this evening.

That turned out to be a remarkable evening – 80 people sitting either side of the long table in the Dining Room. And the flowers …

To represent the Scottish Episcopal Church in these moments is a great privilege. Sometimes you have to do a little bit to be noticed. At other times – as on this evening – we are honoured beyond what one might expect. Alison was beside the Lord High Commissioner – a wwwk after sitting on the right of the Lord Mayor of London at dinner in Merchant Taylor’s Hall

I enjoy parties.  But you need to be there as it gathers itself – not so good when you arrive and find it already going well and you aren’t quite part of it!

In a sense I did it twice today.

First when I turned up to preach at at the concluding Eucharist for our Provincial Lay Readers’ Conference – held at Tullyallan Police Training College near the Kincardine Bridge.  It’s vast – about to become the HQ for the unified Scottish Police Service.  Finding our modest-sized group inside it was like roaming the decks of the Marie Celeste looking for signs of life.  Their theme was ‘The Word in the World’ and this is what I offered them

Second I moved on to the closing Eucharist for the Cursillo Weekend at Kinnoul Monastery in Perth.  With Cursillo, you definitely need to be there at the beginning if you are going to be there at the end.  But I didn’t have that choice.  So I offered them a few thoughts on the Gospel – ‘Come and See’ seemed fairly appropriate.

I said this the last time I went to the Lay Readers’ Conference and I thought it again today. It also applied to the Cursillo group. What was great and refreshing was that I had to introduce myself and say a bit about the strange office which I hold. They weren’t ‘insiders’. They were deeply committed members of their congregations and glad to be so.