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Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven …

Well – restored anyway. I was in Killin this morning for a Service of Thanksgiving to mark the restoration of St Fillan’s Church – sometimes known as the ‘grouse church’. What’s significant is that it is a good example of what is known in Scotland as a ‘tin tabernacle’ or simply ‘tin tab’ – a pattern of pre-fabricated buildings which are found all over the Highlands as churches and schools. It’s a warm and cosy place – held in great affection by the members of the congregation. Now its future – and the future of the congregation – is secure for another generation at least.

The photos are of Provost Fergus Wood of Stirling, Rev Ladd Fagerson [who is by the way a tall person] and myself. And I couldn’t resist a photo of the Falls of Dochart in the middle of the village on the way home. Where is Killin? Western end of Loch Tay or head west through Crieff, Comrie and Lochearnhead and then over Glen Ogle.

In the Public Square

Today’s Consecration Service for our new Bishop of Brechin, Nigel Peyton, was something of a tour de force on the part of all at St Paul’s in Dundee – Provost Jeremy Auld and Pastoral Musician Stuart Muir in particular. But of course what is really interesting in these moments is when the meticulous planning creaks a bit under the pressure of events. So I was processing purposefully – full vestments and carrying the [extremely wobbly] Brechin crozier – from the City Chambers towards the Cathedral at the end of a very long procession. Somehow our bit of it got slowed up .. and got separated from the rest … and began to get confused with the people in costume promoting historic pageants at Stirling Castle .. and I found myself having a chat to the accompanying Police Officers and working the Saturday afternoon crowd on the pavements.

But we did get in eventually and a great ‘do’ it was. One of those moments when we do liturgy, colour and interwoven music as if our very lives depended on it. And as if we were a church several times larger than we actually are.

As I watched Nigel, I pondered the nature of episcopal ministry – seeing as what I am now the longest serving member of our College of Bishops. By coincidence, I found myself yesterday running a session in Edinburgh for people in church leadership yesterday. As you would expect, we talked about what Jesus’ picture of servant leadership meant to us and the conversation took a diaconal direction. We talked about our willingness to stack chairs and do the washing up along with everybody else. And then somebody broke free – and suggested that our ‘leadership as servants’ is really about being prepared to say the unsayable to people and to address the issues which nobody else will touch. I think that’s right. It’s by far the worst bit of the job but it’s probably the most important.

So I thought about Nigel – the early mornings and the late nights and all of that. But most of all I thought about those out of sight encounters where you begin, ‘I think I need to say to you …’ or ‘I know you may find this difficult but … ‘ May God go with you, my friend.

Farewell to Steve Jobs

I’m writing of course on the IPad. It goes with me pretty well everywhere – sneaked off the odd e mail in the Porvoo Primates’ Meeting and read a book on it on the plane home. It combines beauty and utility. And that’s why Steve Jobs was so special.

I came late to the IPhone – last May in fact. And of course the first one got drowned in our tent in France in July. What’s so special? Like the IPad, it is lightning fast. It has made the task of attempting to keep up with my e mail immeasurably easier. And it breaks the rules – it does many things and seems to do all of them well. I had always assumed that multiple-tasking of that kind never worked – male prejudice again, I fear. But it is phone, e mail, internet, camera, satnav, iPod, notepad. And for somebody like me who travels a lot, to have my mobile IT suite reduced to IPhone and iPad is a transformation.

I don’t know how much of all that is down to Steve Jobs personally … But if the church could bring just a little of that ground-breaking creativity to the task, things would be very different. It’s something to do with offering people something which they didn’t know they needed. That’s where it collides with the spiritual

Porvoo

I’ve been in Cardiff this week attending the meeting of the Primates of the Porvoo Communion. There’s a full turn-out – including Helga who is the newly-installed Primate of the Norwegian Church

In case you are ‘out of the loop’ on this one, the Porvoo Communion brings together in a relationship of full communion the Scandinavian and Baltic Lutheran Churches with the Anglican Churches of the British Isles and the Anglican Churches of Spain and Portugal.

At dinner last night, I sat between the Archbishop of Estonia and Bishop Carlos from Spain – whose church of course has very close links with the Church of Ireland because Irish bishops for many years visited regularly for confirmations and ordinations. I’ve been coming to terms with these relationships for some time – meetings like this in the British Isles and visits to Sweden, Denmark and Finland. There are big differences – many of these churches are state churches supported (on a voluntary basis now) by tax revenues. In the SEC, we are rather more loaves and fishes. But I warm to their sense of historic rootedness in their societies and the stability which that gives them.

And the other way round, I find that they in turn are increasingly interested in talking about how state churches can become missional faith communities – and how churches which are used to having more resources than we could ever dream of might learn to live in leaner times.

Satis superque

If your Latin isn’t quite up to it, the above might be roughly rendered as ‘a bit too much of a good thing’

Which means that I have just come back from two days of College of Bishops meeting in Pitlochry – which is as good as any gathering of friends is likely to be. Unless you spoil it by having a massive Agenda. But we were at least in the rather sumptuous Atholl Palace Hotel because we had just hosted the biennial meeting of the Celtic Bishops.

Like many things Celtic, you might reasonably ask what it is – which is the bishops of the Church in Wales, the Church of Ireland and the Scottish Episcopal Church. So it was definitely a cheerful gathering. We were addressed by Professor David Brown of the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts and Chaplained by Revd Roger Quick, Rector of our congregations centred on Pitlochry. Having moved from Ireland to Scotland, I am very aware of how little ‘in depth’ knowledge we have of one another. But there is actually considerable commonality – not least in the area of shifting identities and relationships. We invited local MSP, John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth, to come and address us.

And before all that, I spent Monday taking Bishop Ashoke Biswas of our link diocese of Kolkata in the Church of North India around part of the diocese. We’re gradually developing a link – it takes a while – but it promises well.

Festina Lente and all that

Normal service resumed this week after the summer. I’ve just had three days in Edinburgh – one for the Faith and Order Board and two for the Mission and Ministry Board. We inch forward – slowly digesting the Whole Church Mission and Ministry Policy. We are basically trying to work out what it means to recognise that the place of missional energy has moved to the dioceses. I remain cheerful – however difficult it gets, people continue to smile and come back for more. We shall get there in the end.

This evening, as if my day was not complete already, I’m off to listen to yet another group of the most commmitted Anglicans on the planet telling me why they don’t like the Anglican Covenant. Nor, I think would my late grandfather, Canon Bateman.

I came home today to find that an ongoing search for family photographs has brought up a letter to the Irish Times written by him. Maeve Binchey had written an article poking some fairly gentle fun at the wedding of Princess Anne to Captain Mark Phillips – 14 November, 1973, just in case you were wondering. He writes to defend her right to do that while wishing the couple every blessing and happiness

Lord thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another

Canon 4 by 4

We’ve begun the process of electing a new Bishop of Edinburgh. It’s my fourth episcopal election but I’ll be living close to Canon 4 for the next while

This evening the Electoral Synod held its Preliminary Meeting in P’s & G’s. As is my wont on these occasions, I touched base with my thoughts on elections and episcopal ministry – so this is what I said

Last of the summer …

I thought I should offer you a couple of things just to mark the moment at which I plunge back into doing whatever it is that bishops do.

I’m deep in the Barchester Chronicles on my Kindle at present – it makes me a regular visitor to Plumstead Episcopi. I’ve always wanted to maintain the fiction that Blogstead Episcopi is a place not located in time or space – and this charming envelope from the hospital in Saumur which treated my pied gonfle bears witness to that. The address is approximately correct. But it also succeeds in honouring my Irish Passport and the Scottish Independence debate along the way.

Next is a picture of Tory Island which I visited last week – it lies about eight miles off the coast of Donegal across the open North Atlantic. I described the experience of getting there on the ferry as being akin to being strapped to a rubber duck in the bath.

And finally an example of the work of the school of painters on Tory Island. This was developed by English society portrait painter Derek Hill who was a regular visitor to Tory. The paintings are expensive!