It was a great day in Aberdeen as, with a little help from the Spirit, we sent Bob on his way as the new Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney. Provost Kelvin said that it looks as if there has been a bishop inside him all along – it looked right and it felt right. The liturgy was magnficent and the music superb. Trevor Hart managed to get Trollope into the sermon but must have left out the Father Ted section – I’ll forgive him for that.

As the moment arrived for Bob, I thought about how much he will give of himself without letting himself get in the way. And I thought about what an extraordinary gift this all is – the trust which is placed in you, the wave of goodwill and prayer on which you are carried along, the brave hopes that your leadership may point the way forward, the surprise when people seem glad to see you. Then I saw the other pictures – the endless travelling, driving alone at night; the impossible meetings, the festering problems, the administative stuff.

It’s impossible – but Bob will be made equal to it and more. I do believe in the grace of ordination. That’s the wonder of it.

It’s tempting to write about the trivia of Blogstead and diocesan life – is that real life or is it not? But I’ve been continuing to read the news from the Bishops’ meeting of The Episcopal Church on Thinking Anglicans

The 30 September deadline – or is it a deadline? – looms.  It’s not that the issues don’t affect us in Scotland.  They do.  And we are not good at dealing with them.  But what is happening in New Orleans will deeply affect all of us in the Anglican Communion.  And there is virtually nothing which we can do – apart from pray.

Those of you who aren’t part of the charmed inner circle of life in the close here at Blogstead might be surprised to know that I don’t spend much time at our Cathedral – St Ninian’s whose very day it is today.  It’s not that I don’t want to and don’t find it congenial – more that episcopal ministry is actually worked out in the trenches of diocesan life more than in my seat in the Cathedral.

So imagine my surprise when I went in today and found that it had changed out of all recognition.  I think it is a beautiful building anyway – but new lighting has enhanced its proportions.  The floor has been lightened so that it reflects the light and enhances the overall effect.  The pews are gone – replaced by comfortable chairs in the most delicate shade of episcopal purple.

In our Diocesan Review, many of the clergy suggested that we needed to pay attention to our buildings – to make them bright, inviting and able to convey a sense of the numinous.  St Ninian’s now does that in the most wonderful way – it speaks of a church which is serious about its ministry and its future.  Drop in when you are passing.

I drove back from Edinburgh on the M90 today listening to the reports of the dreadful crash and loss of life on the M4 at Newport – car pursued by police turns onto motorway heading in the wrong direction.  A couple of years ago, I was driving on the M1 back to Portadown from visiting my mother in Belfast – passing some lorries on a long straight stretch – car in the distance – coming towards me.  It is an extraordinary thing when you expect a car to be travelling with you to find that it is closing at 150 mph.  I found a space between two lorries and dived.  My sister was with me: ‘I heard somebody screaming and realised it was me.’  We were very lucky.

The driver of the other car had a history of drug abuse – had come onto the motorway and been involved in a minor accident.  While being interviewed by the police, he got back into his car, turned around and drove off.  He was killed in a head-on collision about a mile behind us.  Fortunately the occupants of the car he hit had only minor injuries.

Like the chap that I am, I headed off down to church and conducted Evensong.  We didn’t sing, ‘O for a closer walk with God’

Sorry I forgot to bring my camera to the 150th Anniversary of our congregation at St Ninian’s, Alyth, today. You haven’t been to Alyth? You don’t know where it is? It’s a most beautiful small town just to the east of Blairgowrie with a little river running through the middle and a wonderful hardware shop in the square. It was a great celebration. The church was full and there seems to be confidence and hope in the future.

My attempt to link St Ninian and the Northern Rock crisis brought forth an answering and spontaneous response from the leader of the intercessions. I do find the sight of depositors queueing up to get their money back strangely disturbing. In my case it would be more likely that the banks would be queueing up outside Blogstead. The only exception to that is our oil supplier with whom we are astonishingly in credit because of the warm winters, the efficiency of the Blogstead boiler and the high levels of insulation – thermal, theological and emotional – in which Blogstead is wrapped.

I’m getting into the Alistair Campbell Diaries at present. What the diaries show, of course, is that leadership anywhere at any level is a fairly scrappy business and the ‘great leap forward’ is usually illusory.

But there are exceptions.  At the moment, I’m with Tony Blair’s move to scrap Clause 4 in his first Conference speech as leader of the Labour Party. This was an attempt to make a radical break with the past.  It was a high-risk moment of daring – and it showed the distinction between symbol and substance, so important in Ireland. The less daring said, ‘But Clause 4 is only a symbol’ – why risk all the conflict which will result?  Our instincts are to go for substance and let symbol look after itself. But sometimes, I suspect that that opposite is true.

Other moments of leadership daring which I respect?

Michael O’Leary of the dreadful Ryanair went out in the week after 9/11 and bought 140 new Boeing planes at knockdown prices – because nobody would ever fly again.

Nelson Mandela put on a Springbok rugby shirt – symbol of white South African manhood – to present the cup in 1995. Yes – symbol again.

Sometimes I think about it … when my Easyjet flight is poised above the runway and about to land, for example. How would I feel, I ask myself, if this organisation was run by the Scottish Episcopal Church? Would I step on the plane? I think not.

Bit of that around at this week’s residential meeting of the SEC’s Information and Communication Board – an oxymoron in itself, you may think – in the Quality Hotel, Perth. Since four of the seven members present are bloggers, you and the high command of Quality Hotels may be interested to read the results here and here Welcoming angels unawares, I think. It was just dreadful. What is unforgivable is the tendency of the management to blame the customers – as John Cleese/Basil Fawlty used to say, ‘What do you think this is? A Hotel?’

If the SEC were to run a hotel, it would be shambolic. Lots of policy documents but no lunch. If you came to complain, we would be happy to talk to you endlessly about your feelings – so much so that you would forget what you came to complain about. If too many people came, we would shoo them away because we don’t do crowds or the mass [sic] market. But for all its shortcomings, it would be a friendly kind of place so that after a while you would start to forget that any other kind of life existed …

People often ask about the new Northern Ireland politics. How can it be that the old enemies seem suddenly to be able to live and work with one another? I too find it extraordinary – and if now why not five, ten or fifteen years ago? So those of you who don’t read the Northern Ireland news may have missed the information that Ian Paisley is stepping down as Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church. Going before he is pushed, it seems.  Read about it at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/08/npaisley108.xml

While the Democratic Unionist Party seems to have been able to make the political movement towards power-sharing, the Free Presbyterian Church has found it more difficult.  Not surprising really.  Politicians can choose to change direction for the most pragmatic of reasons.  Conviction-driven churches can’t and don’t do pragmatism.

I never quite know how these things work out this way. But, after the excitements of our trip to Fermanagh, we headed for a wedding party in Dorset – on one of the best days of the summer. Old friends from Ireland but also former members of our congregation in Muthill – tho’ gone before we arrived. All I can say in my carbon footprint defence is that it was accomplished in one ferry journey and two flights.

I finished Ian McEwan’s ‘A Child in Time’ as I got back to Edinburgh.  It’s a slightly spooky psychological thriller and wonderfully written – the story of the loss of a child who disappears in a supermarket.  Remarkable to read against the tragic, unfolding story of the McCanns.

We headed for Fermanagh this morning heading west from Belfast past Dungannon, Augher, Clogher and all the others.  We even passed the charmingly named Lungs Gospel Hall.  And out beyond Enniskillen to Reilly’s Cross.

Jones Memorial School – my first school – did themselves and us proud as they celebrated their Centenary.  The children sang and recited – one week into term.  Letterbreen Silver Band played and the sun shone.  So here I am with Miss Beatrice Crawford, my first teacher

We met on my first day at school in 1956 – she taught me to read and lots of other things as well.  She made a wonderful speech about her 40 years teaching in the school.  She reminded me about the bats which lived in profusion in the roof beams of the classroom.  There were 43 children in three classes in one room.  I talked about my memories of the school in general and of the toilets in particular.

I pulled strings, unveiled plaques and cut cakes.  I felt like the Queen.