I’ve been reading Paul Vallely’s excellent article in the Independent about Rev Julie Nicholson, the Bristol Vicar who is resigning because she cannot forgive the terrorists who killed her daughter in the July bombings in London.  One can only admire and respect her integrity and her courage – empathise with her as a parent … and wonder.  It takes me back to a meeting with Father Michael Lapsley in South Africa – his hands were blown off by a letter bomb sent by agents of the apartheid government in South Africa.  I remember him saying, ‘The church uses forgiveness like a weapon – you must forgive ..’  But it isn’t like that.  Surely she deserves more time and the prayers of many people

One of the charming things about parish life was the people – let’s not say little old ladies – who thought I floated around on some sort of cloud.  If only …  The reality of life for most clergy and certainly for me is a wierd sort of crashing around between the sublime and the ridiculous – and not being quite sure which is which.  So, while I have done my best to do the sublime today, much of it has been pretty feet on the ground stuff.  Where is the estimate from Pickfords for moving house in 16 days time.  Will the central heating oil last?  Only if the weather warms up.  Why didn’t we make the holiday booking sooner before what we wanted was gone?  I’m realising I haven’t come back to you on my progress on driving with Pray-as-you-go on my MP3 player.  I think I need to revisit it.

In discussion this morning on BBC Scotland, I found myself back on home territory – debating the government’s proposal that MI5 should take control of intelligence gathering in Northern Ireland.  I found myself expressing the frustration of all who try to build new relationships in such situations – that progress is easily and instantly destroyed by terrorist outrage but can also be destroyed by insensitive or inappropriate action on the part of politicians and security agencies. If that is true in Belfast or Portadown, it is also true in Leicester and Bradford and East London. The challenge is to undertake the work of community building and community healing where security-driven responses to politically-motivated terrorism are also being pursued. The former ne seeks to create good and wholesome community in the long term. The latter, at best, seeks to protect the community in the short term but often has a different long term aim. They are both necessary but are almost incompatible.

One of the signs of my own inner ‘moving on’ is that I don’t feel I have to talk about Ireland every five minutes.  But I couldn’t help watching some of Archbishop Desmond Tutu tonight in the search for truth in Northern Ireland.  The strange thing, it seems to me, is that what brings healing is not the statement of objective, dispassionate truth.  It is to hear the truth from the lips of the perpetrator or the victim – the person for whom that truth is most costly – which brings the healing.  By a strange coincidence, I find myself on BBC Radio Scotland tomorrow morning debating issues of terrorism, policing and community as we experienced them in Northern Ireland and as they apply to mainland Britain.

Fascinating the reaction stirred by Tony Blair’s ‘admission’ that he prayed about the decision to send troops into Iraq.  ‘Bizarre’ and ‘disgusted’ were among the comments.  But the Prime Minister was simply placing himself in the honourable tradition of  informed Christian conscience in the sight of God and acknowledging his authority as ultimately derived from God.  His critics obviously believe that to ‘take it to the Lord in prayer’ is to embrace irrationality and abdicate sense and responsibility.  Surely not.  It’s tempting to say simply that, ‘God gave him the wrong answer.’  But that, it seems to me, just dishonours what he also said about how difficult the decision was and how aware he was of the potential cost in lives.  Yet, looking back to the time, my own feeling is that decision-making approached in this God-breathed way might have been approached with more obvious humility .. might have recognised that the possibility God’s voice might also be heard in the voices of dissent .. might have been more ready to acknowledge the mistakes made over intelligence and the reasons for going to war and to say sorry.  But which of us would have wanted to make the decision?

This has been one of those days when one wonders.  I’ve driven 270 miles … big carbon footprints all over the planet.  I’ve managed two meetings – one about homes for the elderly and the other about the Mission to Seafarers.  And at 9 pm I ended up in Ikea in Glasgow [this is a recurrent theme] attempting to change the 60 cm sliding kitchen shelves for 50 cm – all part of the struggle to move house in three weeks.  One of the great blessings of a secular society – I can walk around the returns section of Ikea dressed as a bishop and people either don’t notice or kindly assume that that’s what suits me today.

The smudge of ash on the forehead on Ash Wednesday …  in much of religious practice today, the news is always good, always brighter, better, newer.   It is refreshing to be part of a tradition of faith which is capable of  the change of gear from Mardi Gras to Ash Wednesday.  And as I knelt to receive it, I though again of the power of ritual action.  And I thought too of Ireland where everything points towards something else – in Ireland the smudge of ash would be an unintended marker of religious division.  It would mean ‘Catholic’ rather than ‘Protestant’

So the next thing is to see how I get on with the Jesuit Media trial podcast download of ‘Pray as you Go’ – daily prayer for your MP3 player. I assume that this is about encouraging me to pray better – not that my MP3 player says its prayers or that I pray for it. It should work well now that I have the MP3 player set up to work in the car.  I did once attempt to learn Italian by using tapes in the car but it got dangerous when I had to wave my arms around to do the accent. This should be all right unless I close my eyes. I’ll let you know how I get on.

My parish sometimes seems a long way back – today we travelled over 50 miles into the Trossachs to visit the congregation at Aberfoyle. It’s amazing to get there and find a cohesive and friendly congregation busy making brave plans about its future – and we all went to lunch in one of the houses beside the lake.  People are amazingly kind and hospitable.  Our friend John who has been with us over the weekend is a train buff – kept talking about the old line from Stirling to Crianlarich which passed through Aberfoyle. And then we walked across the cattle grid at the entrance to the house and found that it had been made from the old railway lines. Perhaps there may yet be a railway resurrection?