The richest 2% of the world’s population owns more than 50% of the household wealth.  The poorer half of the world’s population owns barely 1% of the wealth.  So says a report from the World Institute of Development Economics Research at the UN University.  That’s one of those dreadful measurements – but what does one do with it or about it?

Meanwhile, I cruised across Fife today pondering the meaning of life as one does and listened to Radio 4 conjuring up new words – one which suited me was to ‘birtle’ – meaning to make something worse while trying to make it better.  Yes indeed.

It used to be that Confirmation Services occupied a significant part of the Sunday routine of a bishop.  No so for me anyway – in our small congregations, confirmations tend to be ‘tucked in’ with other things.  Now that admission of children to communion before confirmation has become the norm in many places, confirmation as a rite of passage for teenagers has been fading steadily.  But it still delivers powerful messages.  There is the commitment of clergy to the process of preparation and the chance for real relationships to develop – family and godparents turn up to offer support and the bishop provides some added push to the idea that this is a significant event.  I still have some questions about it – but the chance of producing a memorable and affirming event in a young person’s life … at the point at which they are on the threshold of making their first really significant life choices.  It’s very compelling when you have the chance of being part of it.

St Andrews, St Andrews Advent 3.12.06.doc

Three memories.  A children’s ward in a hospital which I visited in New York in 1989.  All the babies were HIV positive.  Visiting San Francisco as a family in 1996.  We were following the Rough Guide and ended up at the Baghdad Cafe in the Castro District – not realising that it was the centre of the gay community.  It was a time of real crisis for that community but it was striking how dignified – and how everyday ordinary – the life of the community was.  Visiting Ulster Carpets’ factory in Durban, South Africa in 2003.  Across the road from the factory gate was a coffin shop in a 40 foot steel container.  The HIV rate was running at about 38% in KwaZuluNatal at that time.

Spent today in Edinburgh at an Inter-faith Conference in the City Chambers.  Glad I went – the inter-faith contacts don’t just happen so it was a useful place to be.  I was struck as always by the fact that one’s first assumption is that different faith groups will have different views on the same agenda.  But of course one also has to take account of that fact that some things matter hugely to some and hardly at all to others.  It was a warm, friendly event but we have a long way to go.

Ended the day in Perth’s beautiful Concert Hall at a concert by the Tokyo String Quartet – still, I think, the most perfect medium – intimate, balanced, mutually responsive – all the things church life would like to be but isn’t.  I reflected on the fact that JS Bach liked to play the viola in a quartet ‘so that he could be in the middle of the harmony’.  I suppose what he meant by that was that, rather than being the obvious leader, it was better to provide the mellow stuff in the middle, to provide the notes which announce the key changes and paint in the colours which bring richness and character.  Now there’s a model for church life and bishoping ..

Well – after my much-blogged-about excursion into Cosmo and Closer, I’ve taken the safer course of allowing myself to be read to.  I’ve been having another attempt to use Pray as you Go and the Daily Audio Bible – both downloaded into the MP3 player for use in the car.  It was a strange experience to drive home from Perth tonight with a rather breathy American voice reading I Corinthians 5 to me.  But I can’t help mentioning the fact that the content was no less spicy than Cosmo and Closer – although St Paul is a pretty forthright agony aunt.

Always an interesting question this.  Should one apologise for …. slavery .. the Irish Famine … terrorism.  I don’t think it is quite as simple as some would like to think.  Just to say, ‘It was five generations ago so it is nothing to do with me’ ignores the extent to which we are all the inheritors of our history and the way in which we still respond to one another in ways which are conditioned by that history.  On the other hand, our ancestry is so intermingled that it is hard to see how any of us is the direct inheritor of anything in that sense.  Maybe ‘apologise’ is not quite right – but I have no doubt that a carefully-timed and authoritative recognition of past hurts and indifference to hurts can have a significant influence on laying the past to rest.  And it needs to be received and responded to …

‘Good to have you with us, bish’ said the young people up at Tarfside. No higher praise – so I went down the mountain this morning content and glad to have been with them. I did take time out for a quick peek at the agony column in Cosmo – one has to keep up to date with these things – but reckoned without the instant technology which captured the image on mobile phone camera, bluetoothed it to David Campbell’s PDA and is even now lodging it on www.limpingtowardsthesunrise.blogspot.com

Still, that’s the price you pay for having a bishop who makes it his business to know about all sorts of things which one couldn’t discuss in polite company. How else is one to find out?
And on to lunch with the Trinity College Dublin Association – Scottish Branch – held in the Irish Consulate in Randolf Crescent – like sinking into a warm cultural bath of Irishness.

Exciting day tomorrow.  Starting with the passing of the torch from Charmian to Sheila – the handing over of provincial leadership of the Mothers’ Union for the next three years.  That’s an important moment – I wouldn’t risk saying anything else – but MU is actually one of the significant bits of infrastructure which holds the church together.  And they do positive things in the community – last night I listened to Sheila Brewer of the Fife Contact Centre describing the role which MU had played in setting it up – and they work in the prison – and …

And then it’s on to Tarfside – which is somewhere up a glen beyond the mobile phone signal – to take part in the Diocesan Youth Weekend.  Given the age profile of some of our congregations, that really is important.  Should be easy for me – after all, I am a former Youth Officer for the Church of Ireland.  Except that my youngest child is now about 6 years older than these young people will be …  But I’ll do my best and I’m sure they will take pity on me.

Visited Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust today and found a lively organisation where the desire to record and preserve the past meets a commitment to educate and enthuse people about the history of their surroundings.  Lindsay had sorted out a map of Blogstead Episcopi and its surroundings – including two earlier maps going back to mid-19th century – all available at the touch of a button on the computer screen.

I find myself increasingly interested in the rural community and the interplay between rural community and church community.  To find out more, read Sally Gaze’s book, ‘Mission-shaped and rural – growing churches in the countryside’