Well I’m closer to catching up – a combination of the week of General Synod and a few days in Ireland.  But a happy birthday spent churning through some of the backlog of letters and other stuff has dealt with most of it now.  I can never decide whether it is better to just keep on top of it all the time or to take a break now and again.  Meanwhile, the rest of life moves on.  Alison has gone to a hen weekend and is presumably having a great time in Shrewsbury [yes – Shrewsbury] wearing a pair of rabbit ears.  So Poppy and I are back on the bridge.  She constantly wants to go out – but last time she disappeared totally into the corn field and I doubt if she would know her way back.  I don’t know whether they do periscopes for cats.  The world moves on in other ways too.  Ruth Gledhill’s blog reports the new Presiding Bishop of ECUSA as saying in a sermon, “Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation and we are his children.”  I must try that a few times and see if anybody notices.

I don’t do anniversaries and stuff very well.  Birthday tomorrow and, as I did some preparation today for our ordination service on Saturday, realised that it is 30th anniversary of my own.  Amazing to look back and think of the book which I ought to be writing.  And it rolls on – yesterday was one of those long, long days spent in the trench warfare of diocesan and congregational administration issues.  When the roll is called up yonder, those of us who struggled together yesterday with the immoveable, the intractable, the incomprehensible and the unresolvable certainly deserve to be there.

And by the way, if any of you are passing St Mary’s College in St Andrews at 10 tomorrow [Friday] please tell David, who thinks for some strange reason that I am going to meet him there, that I am in Perth.

Yes of course.  Who could say otherwise?  But I get uneasy when politicians suddenly decide to put families and family togetherness up in lights – as if one should be patted on the head for doing what simply comes naturally.  It seems to me that we live much of our lives trying to deal with competing visions, aspirations and responsibilities .. things where one ultimately cannot hope to declare a sort of ‘pecking order’.  Working out of the relationship between vocation/ministry and family life is certainly like that – and so is much of the work/life/family life balance.  And I’m happy with that.  Happier too with people who moderately successfully struggle with those tensions than with people who single-mindedly do one thing and let everything else go.  And so far as children are concerned, which is the better role model and preparation for adult life?

Having written my Thought for the Day on spirituality in a secular age – or Catholic boot camps for beginners – I can now list the other things which have been part of today which I might have written about. Clifford Longley produced a very effective Radio 4 Thought for the Day which I heard as I was driving home – about prisons, what they tell you about a society, about what they might achieve. I also today received and signed an Oxfam petition against the arms trade. And of course the election of the new Presiding Bishop in the Episcopal Church of the USA, Katharine Jefferts Schori, is a momentous event – both because of her gender and because of the pivotal role of the leadership of ECUSA in shaping the future or non-future of the Anglican Communion. Interesting to note – when one assumes that everything in the US of A is absolutely enormous – that the Diocese of Nevada is not much different in size from the Diocese of St Andrews. Slight cultural difference between Leven and Las Vegas – and between Blairgowrie and Boulder City – but I did enjoy my visit to Las Vegas. Completely OTT in the most refreshing way.

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Today was a great ecumenical gathering of Scottish Churches at the Bell Sports Arena on the North Inch in Perth.  I was the only person to arrive by bike.  A casual observer might imagine that the SEC is one of the largest churches in Scotland – we seem to have groups and enthusiasts in every area of christian interest and concern.  It was wonderful to see them and all kinds of other groups all in one place.  These events are really networking opportunities and I did my best to make the most of it.  Thanks to Lindsay and Kevin and all at ACTS.

It’s all been a bit hectic – getting back from Donegal on Thursday was one of those trips which seemed like a good idea at the time. We ended up on the Stena HSS at 10.30 pm with Poppy sitting in her carrying basket on the table in the lounge. I felt that she might have expected to be in a custom-made Louis Vuitton carrier on a Cunard liner. But you can’t have everything. We landed at 12.30 am and headed for Perth. Do you know that dawn began at 3.10 am?

The lady who sold me my Irish Times this morning certainly didn’t have much time for Charlie Haughey, former Taoiseach.  And nor did I.  David McKittrick writing in this morning’s Independent says he was Ireland’s Richard Nixon.  To that I would add that he was more like Ireland’s Silvio Berlusconi. It is offensive that such a man should be given a state funeral.  His financial corruption was comprehensively established – but, like General Pinochet, he always seemed to be too ill to answer to it.  He was lucky to escape prison.  He was sacked from the Irish Government on allegations of gun-running for the IRA but staged a remarkable come-back.  To me he simply expresses all that was most wrong with the old Ireland – a moral ambiguity about  both violence and finance.  In many ways, this state [of which I am a citizen] has made huge progress – becoming a prosperous, modern, european state – and some claim that he played his part in laying the foundations of that.  I find that difficult.  This is an unfortunate throw-back to the past.

Brief visit to Donegal to see the sea and check that the house is all right.  We’ve got the hot water working again but the lawn-mowing arrangements seem to be under strain.  Poppy is enjoying being able to run about but there are no sheep around for her to worry.  Met Colm the local painter [and decorator] in the supermarket.  He complains the new houses are being built so close together that you could shake hands with your neighbours.  He used to complain, in his capacity as Chair of the Dunfanaghy Development Committee, that the sewage arrangements for all these new houses were inadequate and that if everybody answered the call of nature at the same time we would be in trouble.  The pace of development is quite amazing.  Some of the planning decisions look at little surprising – but then we are marking the passing of Charlie Haughey today.  Would that the great Irish tradition of inadequate planning would die with him.  As always there is a tension.  I saw a report recently that tourists were going home dissatisfied – that Ireland is no longer particularly Irish in the tourist sense.  On the other hand, we are looking at the first generation of young people for whom there have been jobs and homes here without the need to emigrate.  And there are jobs for others as well – 10% of the population is now non-Irish.

Strange but good to be back in Holy Trinity, Belfast, after nearly 30 years – my goodness, I am getting on a bit.  Surprisingly, there were lots of people whom I remembered.  Correction – there were lots of people and it surprised me how many of them I could remember.  Learning things?  How utterly dreadful that phase of the troubles was.  How amazingly brave was the ministry of my Rector, Jim Moore.  I hope he will write it up – if he doesn’t, I’ll start writing it up here!  How much of what one learns in ministry one is unaware of – until suddenly you recognise its value years later.  I think I learnt that good pastoral relationships were wonderful to live with – but are really there to be put under stress for the sake of the gospel.  True?