The SEC is having a Year of Stewardship.  In line with our rather non-prescriptive ethos, we are not quite sure when it begins or when it will end – or indeed whether it will last a year.  Otherwise everything is crystal clear.

Meanwhile, when I met tonight with the group which is organising our clearly-defined, tightly-organised and non-prescriptive diocesan response to this, I realised that this is one of those points at which one experiences cultural difference – like my hair cut in Cape Town in September.  Stewardship programmes live in that fascinating place where spiritual commitment takes financial giving form – and thanksgiving turns into giving.  And when you challenge people about either or both, things get interesting.

I carry the scars – and the encouragement – of having done this several times in the parish.  As always in Northern Ireland, things were never quite what they seemed.  No problem encouraging people to have a set of church envelopes.  The problem was that they were perceived by some as a token of membership which would ensure burial – if not subsequent resurrection.  But not – for the most part – for putting money in.

Well, rather to my surprise – yes. And more than I have had time to do for a long time. I’m deep into George Lovell’s remarkable [but weighty] Consultancy, Ministry and Mission. He seems to me to have sorted out the challenge of finding the balances .. between leadership, collaboration and authority. He talks about the need for ‘Collaborative reflective practitioners, churches and communities’ I’ve just sent for Rural Children, Rural Church which suggests that one in five of the rural population is a child – and that many of them are socially isolated. And for a little light reading, I’ve been pointed towards ‘The Blogging Church’ – which may help me to become deeply purposeful about this exercise rather than just using it for my personal therapy.

What a good idea .. just join a small local choir .. sing Messiah .. meet some new people.   But why did Handel write such high notes.  More the tenor’s truss, I fear.  But lovely people anyway.

This place as always is a veritable safari park.  I had to pause for a deer in the middle of the road on my way to Dunkeld on Sunday evening.  And we saw what we suspect was a dog fox strolling through the field beyond our garden this morning while the builder and I were having an intimate discussion about the inner workings of the Bogstead Episcopi septic tank.  It was really impressively big – the fox, that is, not the septic tank – at least the size of an Alsatian or maybe an elephant or maybe….  Poppy was immediately confined to barracks and may only be let out under armed guard.  It’s as well we’ve been to Shamwari and know about these things.

BBC Radio Scotland this morning about Tony Blair and integrity.  Always amused me that, when Mr Blair was spoken of in Portadown, the local accent turned him into Mr Blur.
TFTD 5.2.07.doc

I took part this evening in a session called ‘Acts of God’ run by the churches in Dunkeld as part of an exploration of what they call ‘the curious nature of God’  I was supposed to talk about healing and reconciliation – which means that I talked about what I always talk about.  And this time the Powerpoint did work.  As always at this kind of event, there are interesting people around and you never quite know who you are talking to – and there are almost always people who served in the army in Northern Ireland and who have an intimate knowledge of the ditches of South Armagh.  Reactions also included a vehement condemnation of education provision divided on religious grounds.  No – I can’t see why it is necessary either.

Beautiful day today – but cold.  We took the first walk for ages along the bank of the Tay.  No sign of the salmon fishing even tho’ the start of the season was delayed until the beginning of February.  You can see where the level of the river reached at its height – most of seven feet above where it is today – and the river is still flowing faster than you could walk.  Snowdrops everywhere.  There has been a lot of clearing going on in the woods around us – out of the middle of the woods leaving the trees around the edges standing.  Meanwhile, the deer have apparently eaten the green shoots of our new hedge.  And I had to get the AA to stir up +Bruce and Elaine’s horses which couldn’t be got to move at all.  They are now eagerly trotting and prancing around ready for their return when summer comes.

+Rowan preached at the Service today in Southwark Cathedral – describing MU as the fifth instrument of unity of the Anglican Communion.  In the way he said it, I suspect he probably feels that it is more effective than the others – certainly at giving a sense of the unity of anglicanism at a ‘grass roots’ level.  There was a good turn out of Scots and Irish today – which gave us some time to catch up on the gossip on both sides of the Irish Sea.  And, for the record, the St Andrews contingent included David ‘limping towards the sunrise’ Campbell, Janice and David Cameron, Trish Heywood with David and Sheila Redwood.  How is MU so effective at getting the vote out?  +Rowan might also have said what all clergy know – ‘Don’t mess with Mothers’ Union’

Took time out this evening to go to a reception in Edinburgh hosted by the National Library of Scotland.  It was all about the Murray Archive – the records and letters of seven generations of the family publishing firm whose authors included Byron, David Livingstone and Charles Darwin.

As Father Ted said to Dougal, ‘It makes you think.’  Particularly on this day when Microsoft launches Vista .. that such an archive will probably never be built up again.  My biographers are welcome to the 5000 E Mails from the last year or two now stored on my GMail account .. and to the old sermons carefully backed up on Mozy.com ..   But it will never have the weight [literally] of the seven boxes of my grandfather’s sermons all handwritten in hard-back notebooks which are in the Church of Ireland’s RCB Library in Dublin.

Tomorrow afternoon, I’m off to London for a service on Thursday morning – supporting our own Sheila Redwood who is becoming our Provincial President and a Trustee of MU.

I have an affection for Eugene Peterson’s ‘The Message’ paraphrase – particularly for 1 Corinthians 13 which was read yesterday

Love never gives up
Love cares more for others than for self
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have
Love doesn’t strut
Doesn’t have a swelled head
Doesn’t force itself on others
Isn’t always ‘me first’
Doesn’t fly off the handle
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others
Doesn’t revel when others grovel
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth
Puts up with anything
Trusts God always
Always looks for the best
Never looks back
But keeps going to the end.

And part of a sermon from Newport on Tay to go with it

Newport on Tay b 4th after Epiphany 28.1.07.doc

I’ve declared the Northern Ireland turning points before and got it wrong – most notably on the Easter Sunday after the Good Friday Agreement. I failed to understand that the effect of the Agreement would be to squeeze the centre almost out of existence and leave the extremes facing one another. Why did the gradual removal of violence not squeeze the extremes and boost the centre? But still, today’s Sinn Fein decision to support the police in Northern Ireland is a remarkable moment – and a remarkable feat of political leadership.

And in the wake of that comes all the other Sunday stuff – significant or insignificant according to your taste. Shilpa Shetty’s victory was well-deserved but somehow felt more than a little patronising. My appetite for Cosmo-type info remains somewhat unsatisfied. There seems to be a famine of Kate Middleton news and I was reduced to reading the dress code for Liz Hurley’s wedding. Best joke of the day was Ronnie Corbett’s small people joke – too small to play James Bond and too big to be adopted by Madonna. I know just how he feels.