Aids Week

Coffin Shop – all sizes – across the road from the entrance to the Ulster Carpets factory in Durban when I visited. HIV rates were in the high 30%’s at that time. My most challenging moment? Sitting in a township house near Port Elizabeth – plastic sheeting to keep the rain out – with a lady who was obviously terminally ill with Aids. She hadn’t seen a doctor and had got medicines that other people suggested. We talked about it – falteringly – while an American medical soap played on the TV in the room. Medicine as entertainment in the presence of terminal illness. Then the priest I was with said, ‘David, will you pray with us?’

Subtle Sectarianism

Just one more about this. At the Sectarianism conference, the Moderator raised a question about the way in which sectarianism inhibits open debate between churches. I think she was expressing the hope that we could reach a stage of maturity where churches could take issue with one another without the media and others placing that debate in a sectarian context.

Is it true that the latent and subtle sectarianism of our society hinders open debate? Yes I think it is difficult to debate issues such as faith schools or the social and moral positions set out by the Cardinal. It’s not totally the fault of the churches – just that some element of sectarianism enters in or is imputed to the debate in a way which makes it very difficult to conduct. It’s as if there is always more at stake than the issue itself.

And that in turn takes me back to Northern Ireland – where one of the signs of the presence of sectarianism was the presence of anger or passion which was out of proportion to the significance of the issue itself.

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Sectarianism

I took myself to Glasgow yesterday for a conference on Sectarianism.  The east of Scotland is largely free of ‘in your face’ sectarianism although that probably means that I haven’t grasped the nuances of it yet.  The west of Scotland is a different matter.  I got my ten minutes at the beginning with representatives of other churches.  Since I left Northern Ireland, I have become more aware of some of the unintended effects of sectarianism – chiefly the way it actually becomes at low levels part of the glue that holds communities and churches together.  It produces a illusory sense of solidarity rooted in ‘us and them’.  In that way it creates a false strength in churches while hollowing them out from the inside.  Some of the fragility in our churches here in Scotland is precisely because that glue isn’t there – and, difficult as it is, we’re the better for it.  By the way, I still believe that the ‘English Church’ tag is sectarian because it carries the combination which is at the heart of all sectarianism – a mixture of religion with one of the other strands of identity.

Outside In

I did a bit more exploring of the ‘outsider’ issue which has been around in the comments on the blog.  Down in Bridge of Allan today, we had five confirmations and celebrated Christ the King as their Patronal Festival.  If I understand it properly, Dom and his congregation – with some assistance from the Spirit – are busy drawing in outsiders.   They are a warm and welcoming community.  And what we had today was worship of high quality in the catholic tradition – which is the heartland of the identity of the SEC.  Today’s congregation was very diverse – friends and family of those being confirmed.  But even those who came from very different traditions could recognise and appreciate the authenticity of today’s worship.  I think that may be the genius of the SEC – nothing to protect and everything to share.  The sermon was something like this.

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Culture

Bit of culture today – the Joan Eardley Exhibition at the National Gallery. This is ‘Three Children at a Tenement Window’. It was good. I do have a tendency to lapse into people-watching in these moments – Edinburgh is unparalleled on that front. I also liked the idea that she kept on painting the same things – Samson children and her cottage in NE Scotland – bit like Monet and the Water Lilies. I thought maybe that this showed a lack of creative imagination until I realised on reflection that I am about to have my 31st attempt at the Christmas sermon. And I don’t expect to get it complete this time either.

In Prison

I’m tempted by the story of Steve McClaren. I have no interest in football but, after a lifetime around churches, I know the smell of death and decline when I meet it. And the FA Board are right there. Thank goodness for £2m pay-off’s I say. I’ll come back to it because I am fascinated by the way in which the mindset of decline – like sectarianism in Ireland – gets a grip without people realising that it has happened. And it is difficult to turn around.  An imprisonment.

Prisons Week this week and I preached at the local service in Perth .. which happens to have a prison with more than 600 in it. I doubt if I could cope with Prison Chaplaincy but all the issues are there.

Folding Enthronement

Just a quick [!] trip yesterday for the enthronement of my friend, Nigel Stock, as Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. We go back to Cuddesdon training days when Tamsin the dog and +Brian of Edinburgh taught us theology and Archbishop Michael Ramsay lived in retirement at the top of the lane. It’s always interesting to see the C of E in full establishment cry at an event like this – and to know that, beneath the veneer, things are pretty much the same as they are everywhere else. ‘Quick’ meant that I arrived in Bury St Edmunds at 12.15 after an eight hour journey that involved car, plane, train and bus – home about 11.30 pm. But of course the highlight for me was the arrival of the Archdeacon of Canterbury on her Brompton Folding Bicycle. While she didn’t actually ride it in the procession, she had cycled from Victoria to King’s Cross and then across Bury St Edmunds to the Cathedral. Next comes the Folding Lambeth Conference? If you want to know more about the folding world view, visit the Folding Society’s website.

White-water blogging

Alison is a rare sighting on this blog. So partly in honour of her birthday – partly because the registration process for the spouses’ outing at the Lambeth Conference required it – we thought it was time for a photo. Readers of the Church Times will have noted Caroline Chartres’ concern about the – shall we say – domestic arrangements at the University of Kent. All rooms are single and ‘the organisers cannot guarantee that spouses will be accommodated in adjoining rooms to their husbands ..’ or words to that effect. Sounds like an event to savour! So the rapids and overfalls of the Falls of Dochart symbolise one’s feelings about Lambeth joys to come.

TinTab

Killin Church

Killin Church

This is our church at Killin – one of the few remaining tin churches of the many which used to be scattered across the Highlands. Known as the TinTab by its congregation, it’s one of those places which I increasingly feel simply ‘is’ the Scottish Episcopal Church – small, warm, lined in wood, flickering candles, faithful congregation .. It was built in 1876 by the 7th Marquis of Breadalbane as a place where members of his shooting parties could worship – hence its other local name of ‘grouse chapel’. I brought this sermon with me. And if you want the tourist stuff, the church is just round the corner from the splendid Falls of Dochart and close to the western end of Loch Tay. The entire congregation enjoyed Angus and Jill’s hospitality after the service, sitting around the dining table. Quote of the day for me? ‘We demolished 23 rooms when we moved here.’

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God in the detail

So taking a leaf out of Chris’s diary and her advice to write about whatever I want to write about, I should share with you the major cycle expedition which Alison and I did today. Start at Dunning – along the side of the hills to Forgondenny and back through Forteviot – about ten miles with the wind strengthening and the rain coming. This raises two major issues. Are strong headwinds a greater impediment to forward movement than hills? The answer appears to be yes. Does a pub lunch in Dunning, which one requires as a reward for the headwinds, etc., involve the intake of more than the 400 calories expended in dealing with the headwinds? Yes again.