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Yes I’m feeling a bit better, thanks. But when I surfaced on Sunday morning, there was no way that I could have gone to Bridge of Allan for Christ the King and Confirmations and other delights. So we had to turn to the neighbours. And fortunately – Blogstead Episcopi being what it is – we are blessed with neighbours who are able to do Confirmations at the drop of a hat – as it were.

That of course brought us another of those preaching moments which I think we should do more of – when a sermon written by one is delivered by another. Sermons are such personal things – even if they proclaim the universal – that there is a delightful incongruity about the right sermon being delivered by the wrong person and vice versa. Fortunately – and somewhat surprisingly – I had already written every word so this is what Dom Ind delivered for me with footnotes and noises off.

While I was a bit slumped, I found myself watching those programmes of Choirmaster Gareth Malone bringing together a Choir of military wives – women whose husbands were on active duty in Afghanistan. My past life gives me a huge respect for what is sometimes called the ‘coping woman’. It’s the women who, against insuperable odds, keep life together for everybody else through some inner strength which women seem to possess more often than men. So I watched this through a mist of tears. Gareth said, ‘It’s music which has done this … ‘ I think that what he meant was that music had been a vehicle through which those women could bring to the surface and express in a controlled way what it felt like to be at home looking after your family and waiting for the knock on the door …… I thought about the links to what worship is or should be at its best – the first of the Nine Marks of Mission is ‘worship that renews and inspires’. Presumably worship like music should be a vehicle through which we express the deepest things in our lives in a way which cleanses, heals, renews.

As you know, I’ve never been able to get much beyond Father Ted … tho’ I am attempting to re-read Barchester in its entirety on my Kindle. Clergy as we all know are in equal parts fascinating and repellant. I thought as much this afternoon when, having spent all day discussing important ecclesiastical business in our Synod Office, I found myself having one of those, ‘Are you a priest?’ conversations on the platform at Haymarket with a lady who wanted me to pay her train fare to Stirling.

So I risked a look at Rev who was being upstaged by his new curate. It passed the test of creating discomfort. It was all there – the Mission Action Planning and the rest. And the impossibly personal stuff which gets mixed in: ‘Just because somebody is energetic doesn’t mean they are manic-depressive.’

I suppose the thing it really did get right was one of the tensions which is at the heart of ministry today. We deal with our apparent irrelevance and tendency to shambling amateurism by attempting to be polished, strategically focused and professionally competent. And yet when we do that – and none of it is to be despised – we find that it isn’t about that. Or that in some uncomfortable way, God isn’t about that. Or, if we try too hard at that, God somehow isn’t able to be about whatever he is about.

Ah well ..

I often think how useful it would be to have the ability to e mail myself from place to place as an attached file. But sadly this is not possible.

So I was given an exeat from the second day of our College of Bishops meeting to attend the Service to mark the 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible. In default of the e mail option, I walked up the street to Waverley and caught the sleeper at 2340. I’ve got better at sleeping pretty well anywhere – indeed staying awake is becoming more of a challenge – so I was quite fresh-faced when I reached the Abbey.

Because I am a words person, I’m actually a crypto-lover of the King James Bible and the BCP. And they have a certain ‘ring’ of authority and drama when used in a place like the Abbey

Archbishop Rowan said that to celebrate the Bible “is to recognise the absolute seriousness with which [the translators] sought to find in our language words that would pass on to us hearers and readers in the English tongue the almost unbearable weight of divine intelligence and love pressing down on those who first encountered it and tried to embody it in writing”.

‘One of the clergy at St Paul’s said that he found Jesus in the Occupy encampment. Do you expect to find Jesus here?’

As an opening question from a reporter from The Times as I arrived at the Occupy camp in St Andrews Square in Edinburgh .. it seemed challenging enough to be going on with. To which I responded that I expected to find Jesus in every place of suffering and poverty – indeed with the late Bishop David Shepherd I believe that the Gospel has a ‘bias to the poor’. But I also expect to find Jesus among bankers of good will and integrity .. among financiers and politicians who are desperately trying to rescue a failing financial system .. After all Jesus called Matthew the Tax-Collector

I’ve been wanting to visit for some time and I was glad to do so today. They are a community – attempting to function without leaders. They have a cause but they don’t see themselves as strategists – they are there and they intend to stay there, letting their presence and perseverence speak for itself.

And of course the really interesting thing is the speed with which the conversation turns to what the Bible says or doesn’t say about their issues. In that sense it is humbling to be with them because they expect so much from those who claim to stand for something better – and the question about whether or not Jesus was there was maybe not so wide of the mark.

Things have been a bit serious around here lately – so I thought it was time of for an update on Poppy – now of course also welcoming friends to her Facebook page

Here she is today having a bask in the sunshine on a short visit to Donegal. For all her 16 years she copes well with the travel and of course shrugs off her twice-daily insulin injections

The strategically-placed glasses case is there because she particularly likes resting her chin on things

There is a moment – I missed it last year and doubt if I quite got it this year – when the famous Beech Hedge at Meikleour comes out in Autumn colours. And then it is gone. Meanwhile two miles away at Blogstead Episcopi we’re coming to the end of the potato harvest. Not personally, you must understand. But the roads and our cars are filthy.

I’ve been busy with Inter-faith and Ecumenical things. First, Cardinal Keith O’Brien invited the whole community of faith leaders to come together in Edinburgh to mark a similar gathering hosted by Pope Benedict in Assisi. There was a dignity and formality about the occasion which seemed to me to suggest that there is substance in what we share. And then two days of ACTS – Action for Churches Together in Scotland – Members’ Meeting. We can all see that we are in transition and so we are searching for vision and common purpose. I’ve never, to be honest, been much of a ‘one’ for the formal processes of ecumenical dialogue. But there’s clarity and straightforwardness – not always comfortable – in the mix at the moment. And that suggests that we are on the path to somewhere.

I have a slightly strange relationship to the processes of democracy – since I think that I have never in my whole voting life cast a vote for the winning candidate in any election. Not a surprise when you think about where most of that voting life was spent.

The extraordinary Presidential Election in Ireland wound its way to a conclusion with the election of retired politician and – one suspects – thoroughly decent man Michael D Higgins. It’s what happened to the other candidates which tells you so much about Ireland today. One was unwound by revelations about a clemency plea for a former gay partner. Another by past and present ambivalence about his involvement in violence. The third by the revelation that, far from being a-political, he had sought donations for Fianna Fail.

Meanwhile I’ve been reading – with some difficulty – The Lost Child of Philomena Lee. It tells the story of one of the unmarried mothers of rural Ireland in the 1950’s – within my lifetime – the so-called Magdalenes. Taken into the Convent pregnant – made to work in the laundry for three years – child taken away for adoption in America – made to sign an undertaking that she would never seek contact. Painful, painful stuff.

It was good to be in St Andrew’s Church in St Andrews this morning. Like Moses heading for the Promised Land, the Rector, David Wilson, is leading his people towards a place of light and warmth – they are almost ready to turn on the new lighting system which will make the church bright but will also allow all sorts of variations of mood and atmosphere. And it will be very energy-saving and green. The new heating system is already in operation and the church was warm – the recent cold winters have been a considerable trial for the congregation.

They’ve been making progress too with Casting the Net. Why wouldn’t they when the suggestion of the name came from Richard Evans, one of the clergy team and the organist? I played around a bit with ideas of form and function – whether in congregations or IPads. I also hinted at what has been our experience with Mission Action Planning across the diocese. Sometimes it seems to make things easier. But sometimes it makes them harder because it challenges ‘how things are’ and encourages clergy and people to reassess all sorts of things – expections about relationships and leadership. When that happens, it seems to me that Casting the Net is fulfilling its purpose and function.

And this is [roughly] what I said

Sometimes its in the contrasts. Last Sunday I was in Killin with our faithful congregation, Gina reading in the accents of heaven and the Falls of Dochart roaring away out the back. This Sunday I was in Cambridge to preach at Corpus Christi College and do some family stuff en route to meetings at the Anglican Communion Office

I could have gone to one of the local congregations to hear the Vicar setting out the new vision for the congregation. But no. So we called in to Kings College where we found them in the midst of a Howells and Stanford weekend

But the most disarming thing was to be handed the full text of the sermon on the way into church. I dont know what Frank Skinner would have thought – remember his read-across from stand-up that you should never take your eyes off the audience and must change material if you think they may be about to go to the bar.

I think you need to have a script – otherwise there is no chance of economy. But somehow you need to find a way of not reading it. I’ll upload my sermon from Corpus Christi College on Sunday night – I’m away from home and havent worked out how to get the IPad to do it. But here it is

In the Scottish Episcopal Church, we’re thinking about our response to the Scottish Government’s consultation on same-sex marriage and other related issues. It’s a difficult issue for us – as it is for all churches and faith groups. We have among our membership people who feel passionately that this is the direction in which we need to go – and those who feel passionately that we should not. The consultation period is very short . Among the things we shall say will be that if – and it’s a big ‘if’ – we were to consider changing our canonical definition of marriage, that would require a two-year process in our General Synod, the outcome of which could not be predicted with any certainty.

We haven’t got involved in public debate about this. We’ve been asked for our view and we shall give that in a considered manner – believing that the time for public debate comes after.
However it seems to me that some of the comments from our ecumenical partners in the Catholic Church raise significant issues about how we understand the relationship between church and state – particularly when they suggest that there are certain issues on which a government doesn’t actually have the right to legislate.

If the Scottish Government was proposing to legislate to enshrine in law discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, colour or race, I would publicly oppose them. But that is not what is being proposed. I have often said that I am a supporter of the secular state. If you have experienced a confessional state, you will know why. A secular state should defend religious freedom – but it will not make any assumptions about religious faith nor will it defer to it. We may regret the ‘privatised’ status for religious practice which that implies but that is the society in which we live.

If, following the consultation period, the Scottish Government and Parliament feel that they should legislate in this way, I believe that this is their right. The proposals on which we are being consulted make clear that there would be an ‘opt-out’ protection for those who cannot accept this. In practice this means that churches would have to decide whether or not they wished to use or to stand outside the provisions of such legislation.

For a fuller discussion, you’ll find this article from me in today’s Scotsman