Sometimes I find my blog-energy waning a bit. Maybe it’s the extraordinary mixtures of things. Among the bits of my day yesterday, I spent some time in a meeting attempting to formulate our response to the proposed Anglican Covenant – as always trying to identify the Anglican Goldlocks ‘just right’ point – prescriptive enough that it means something but not so prescriptive that it is used to drive a new and limiting orthodoxy. And on to a meeting of Mission to Seafarers in Scotland. I listened yesterday to broadcaster and Times columnist Libby Purves talking movingly about the suicide of her son. Coincidentally you can find her here talking about the divisions in Anglicanism. Meanwhile police were digging up a garden in Kent. And, finally, as I unfolded my Brompton bicycle in the public car park outside Halfords in Perth today, I pondered the extraordinary story of the man who simulated sex with his bicycle. What does one make of it all?
Next stop Perth?
I was interested to hear Simon Calder declaring the new Eurostar high speed line to be an irrelevance – unless you happen to live in the south east of England. He suggested that the money would have been better spent on a high speed line to Manchester. It was he who also suggested last week that short haul flying will ultimately be seen as an aberration of the 20th century. But looking at the historic under-investment in the railways, the cost of the fares and the dreadful train service between Perth and Edinburgh, it’s hard to see how it will be possible to give up flying.
Spice of Life
Sometimes one lurches rather from one thing to another. I spent part of the afternoon with a group of people trying to work out how diocesan structures might be redesigned. The challenge is to work out how the structures might encourage growth. It’s not easy. So after banging my head against that wall for a while, it was quite a relief to head away up the glen above Blairgowrie for the AGM of our congregation in Ballintuim. Characters all, they are a remarkably hospitable and social group. We dispatched the AGM fairly swiftly and moved on to the socialising. Among the nuggets of information which ‘might come in useful some day’ was some information about how to float my Land Rover across the Zambezi River on three canoes. You just never know.
Remembrance finally
Quick and enjoyable visit to Christ’s College, Cambridge, to preach on Remembrance Sunday. Christopher the new Chaplain is working through his Irish and St Andrews ‘little black book’ – so Canon Jonathan Mason will not be far behind me. A while ago, I dropped in on Jesus College Chapel where Niall, my nephew, is a Chorister. As I looked at the young men of the Choir, I had a sort of Birdsong moment – thinking that they were just the kind of ‘not quite grown up’ people who ended up in the trenches. And I had the same feeling yesterday. Anyway, after much flailing around, I preached a sermon a bit like this
Distress Purchasing
I had my infrequent clothes-buying down to a fine art in Portadown. I would enter McMahon’s bright new shop [bomb damaged and reconstructed twice, since you ask]. John the owner would be standing inside the door with a suit ready for me. It would fit perfectly. I would hand him my Visa and leave. Neither Marks nor Spencer was waiting for me at the Gyle Centre this morning – or they were busy looking after the whole of Scotland which seemed to have descended on the place at the same time. But at least you can bring stuff home and bring it back again.
Brrrr
Even as I was pondering the final cut of the Blogstead croquet lawn, winter has arrived. Top of the road this morning on my way to Glenalmond, I was greeted by snow-capped mountains all around.
I’m not much of a coat person, mainly because I leave them behind everywhere. But I dug out the overcoat today and managed to bring it safely home again. The faithful Passat – now 153000 miles – is a bit limited in the heater department since I resolved the leak in the heater matrix [which turned it into a travelling sauna] by giving it a dose of Radwell.
Remembrance again
Interesting responses on remembrance. I think that what disturbs me is this. Sacrifice is obviously a core Christian value. It is not absent from today’s [secular] society but it is counter-cultural – see the response to the Warwickshire firemen. The challenge of Remembrance Sunday is largely to do with how one honours sacrifice in war – while not getting drawn into honouring the very flawed sets of circumstances in which that sacrifice tends to be required. By that I mean the nationalisms – stretched between Horace’s ‘dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ quoted as ‘the old lie’ by Wilfred Owen – and the partial truths which sustain them: ‘They don’t love freedom the way we love freedom’ – George W Bush. And there is also what is plain to see – that sacrifice tends to be called for by older people and given by younger people. And what I saw plainly in Northern Ireland – that sacrifice tends to be made by working class people rather than by middle and upper class people.
Dignity in Words
It sounds patronising and it’s not meant to be. But I am overwhelmed by the ability of ‘ordinary’ people to say what needs to be said with dignity and almost without self pity. The families of the Warwickshire firemen are remarkable – the bride of three weeks .. ‘married on October 9th .. happiest day .. meant to be together for ever .. keeping a place in heaven for me’ .. extraordinary language which moves in and out of the religious world with utter naturalness. And the family of Meredith Kercher – particularly her sister – dealing with her death in what are obviously dreadful circumstances and yet quietly rescuing her dignity and value with gentle and powerful words full of humour and love.
Remembrance
I’m struggling with Sunday at present. I get very emotional about the remembering thing – maybe because I’ve lived most of my life with strutting and posturing nationalisms and I detest them. Done the war poets – I think I’ll go back to Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong which remains the very best for me – the passage where the young soldiers write letters home on the eve of battle …
Connected
Our Mark got safely back from Thailand on Sunday. He spent two weeks back in Bangkok – in the orphanage where he volunteered for three months just before last Christmas – using his physiotherapy skills with young adults, many with cerebral palsy. Facebook allowed us to watch him arranging to meet Simon in Bangkok – Simon in turn is travelling in SE Asia en route to a year’s work in Australia. Our children do the interesting travelling – I was on the 7 am flight to Luton this morning for interviews with the Mission to Seafarers. It suddenly seemed so cramped that I could hardly open my newspaper. Battery hen stuff. Maybe it’s time for the sleeper – 11.18 from Perth arriving 7.30 in Euston. Proper travel.