On Being a Bloke III

I didn't give this bit up for Lent! 

Now, the thing is this: there are few things that make me more angry that those things that seek to injure my family, or more specifically, my beautiful girls. Having posted on 'anger', I found that I am in the centre of a maelstrom of temper that seeks to overwhelm me!

For those who want a framework for this - let me explain. As a bloke, a less-than-touchy-feely individual, I am no stranger to rage. Rage is not exclusive to blokes, but it rates high in our arsenal of reactions to our world. We do not suffer fools gladly on the whole, and while we might founder in our efforts to describe how we have come to feel happy, elated, relaxed, peaceful or bloody 'postmodern', let me tell you, we never fall short of the verncular to describe those factors in our inner rage. For me it can focus on a whole panoply of things: those who insist on driving in the middle lane of motorways; those who jump queues; those who humiliate their children in public by screaching at them like deranged harridans; those who park their cars in 'parent-toddler' parking spaces without a child to mitigate their presence there; worse still, the able-bodies-yet-obscenely-lazy people who park in 'Disabled' parking bays; those who reduce marriage to the state 'well it's just a piece of paper'; plus a whole array of other things. 

My ire of the week has been brought to life by two types of person who, whilst made in the image of God and while bearing the face of Christ, transgress in such a way as chokes the world that my babies are growing up in. I speak first of the fly-tipper, and secondly of the classy folk who use my children's environment as an ash tray. Let me explain: on a journey that took me across some stunning countryside, my bucolic rapture was burst by the presence of not one, but two, piles of fly-tipped crud dumped on the verge next to serene space like a wart on the nose of a super-model. The second is concerning those who are still stupid enough to smoke cigarettes (despite being told that it is prolonged suicide), and yet don't want to pollute their beautiful motor-cars while indulging in their suicide of choice; no - they flick their carcinogen laden butts out of their windows as they drive along - you disgraceful eejits. Whilst I am peace loving sort of bloke, I feel inclined to do a couple of things - the first is to gather up the cancer-carrying tar pellets disposed from passing cars, and ram them down the throat of the nearest smoker. The second is to take my dustbin and empty it on the fluffy pillows nestling on the marital bed of the nearest fly-tipper (soiled nappies and all). 

However, it is incumbent upon me not to sin in the face of anger - so I will have to restrain myself. I shall pray for these algae-feasting bottom-feeders instead. 

Lent Course 2010 [Blog] - Part II

Jesus Christ and Anger

As a human being, I am very familiar with anger as an emotion; anger that I feel and anger that I have recieved. As a Christian, I no less experience anger but I labour under the tension of that anger in the context of 'love thy neighbour'. It is all tickety-boo being a loving being, but with it comes a sense of failure when anger comes to the fore (for me, at least).

Questions I must reflect upon, therefore, are:

• 
  
  What is anger?
• 
  
  How does it affect me?
• 
  
  How does my anger affect others?
• 
  
  Is anger an appropriate response for a Christian, (let alone for a priest)?
• 
  
  What good does anger do, if it does any good at all?

I ask these questions to set the scene of the next stage of the enquiry; whether Jesus experienced anger, how and when, and what was the result (intended or otherwise).

I believe in the Incarnation in its fullest sense; that it is God made (hu)man. This acceptance brings with it certain conditions - things that I have to believe if I am to fully accept the Incarnation. Primary among those things is that I must believe that Jesus was capable of all emotions.

In the case of anger, I have to believe that Jesus was capable of anger and all that can come from it - but capability and actuality are two seperate things. I am capable of murder, but I have never murdered! So the question stands: did Jesus experience anger; if he did then how; and if he did what was the result?

Scripture, as I have already said, did not deal with emotion particularly. We can only discern Jesus' emotions through their effects on those around him. This can bring with it some difficulty - what I interpret as anger you may interpret as exasperation, for example. Similar as they are in part, they are not the same. To that end, I have to approach Scripture with my own heart as my guide - that is to say, if I were involved in the exchange, would I feel that Jesus were being angry at me? We can therefore only speak for ourselves, so the examples I will give in a moment are to be regarded as limited by my subjectivity.

Matthew 21: 12 : The expulsion of the dealers from the Temple - this verse paints Jesus as calm and rational, but I wonder what level of anger would have committed him to the action of turning over tables. He is destructive; he is insulting; he is chiding - and I believe that his choice of insult is deliberately intended to vent anger and be hurtful.

Matthew 8: 25 : The calming of the storm - again, this account paints Jesus as calm and rational, but I sense that if I were one of the disciples, I would recieve this encounter as Jesus' anger. To question the faith of one so devoted to 'the cause' to have dropped everything for it, requires, I think a fair degree of anger!

Matthew 16: 23 : The first prophecy of the Passion - 'Get behind me Satan' is an utterance born of anger, I believe. Jesus was dealing in some very deep and poignant stuff at this stage in the story, and for that to be misconstrued must have been at the very least frustrating!

You may not agree with me at all on these examples, have other examples, or indeed question the hypothesis. However, it strikes me that the anger that emerges is a corrective force - not a destructive one. My personal anger is often destructive (of me or the external 'other'), so I take from these examples the way in which Jesus uses what I percieve as anger as a corrective tool - a short sharp shock brand of correction.

So (becuase I am in danger of rambling I ought to conclude), I reflect as follows:

• 
  
  Was Jesus in fact displaying anger in these (and other passages)?
• 
  
  How is Jesus' anger different from mine?
• 
  
  Positives / negatives of those differences
• How can I convert the weaknesses in my anger to mirror the positives in Jesus'.

Lent Course 2010 [Blog] - Part I

The Emotions of Jesus Christ

As part of my own Lenten observance this year, I decided that the element that commits me to learning would be usefully expressed through this Blog. I am creating, therefore, a little Cyber Lent Course, as much for my own purposes as yours, and as something of a 'notepad' as I work on something that perhaps might be presented in my ministry at some point in the future! If you are reading this, please recieve it as a work-in-progress and not as a polished piece!

~~~

In the world of bloke-dom, the emotion is a fickle friend. Blokes are often accused of being insensitive, uncaring, laddish or silly (well, me at least). My experience is quite the contrary. I, ond others whom I know to be like me, are emtional creatures - we care, very passionately. We hurt, perhaps in private, but very deeply. When we are amused, our whole being is held hostage by laughter! Howver, blokes are not ruled by emotions, and part of our being is that to a certian extent, we can disconnect with how we feel inwardly. even if is paert of an expternal mask. As part of my plain and honest wrestling with myself and who I am (sorry, that is almost a smug and certianly self-centred thing to have just typed), I have wondered what kind of emotional creature Jesus himself was. My belief in the Incarnation means that I have to accept that Jesus 'did' emotion like all of us. He must have known happiness, sadness, jealousy, disappointment, annoyance, fear, disgust, and yes, Jesus will have had to have been capable of attraction and the amorous emotions. This inevitably lead me to ponder the good old Bible, where I quickly discovered that Jesus' emotions are not readily referred to. Yes, dear reader, I will have to go digging - and when I find what I seek, I will present my unearthed treasure here.

But first, some of the methodological stuff, so you know what I am doing! For me, I don't get hung up about such things (it is the 'pragmatist' in me), but some regard it as important, and I am all give give give, me!

When discussing emotions, I have a vast list from which to choose. As I only have one Lent in 2010 and only one lifetime, that list needed a little pruning. I discovered a geezer called Paul Ekman who did a famous study on emotion, but emotion as it is associated with facial expression. His work later took a swerve towards the subject of 'trust'. However, his greatest use to me here is that in 1972 (the year of my birth, sigh) he created a list of the 'dominical' emotions following observation of a tribe in the middle of a vast ocean (or something like that). His list comprises anger, disgust, fear, happiness sadness and surprise. While he expanded on this list in the 90's, this seems to me a good list to work with for this purpose. So, my next post will be on the subject of Jesus Christ and Anger.

There you go; follow this if you wish, or don't if you have better things to do. If you ever encounter my ministry in future years and get given a flyer about a Lent Course by me on this subject, you will know where it all started. Lucky you!

The Voices in my Head

After a good Mass this morning, Jo and I decided that so much virtuous eating needed a little balance with the finest that the Golden Arches had to offer! 

It reminded me of the way that the voices in head have been exploited by the marketing men of this leviathan corporation. What I am referring to is the way that I have been tricked in into offering positive testimony on their food, quite against my will!

Now, before you call in the head doctors, let me explain further. You will no doubt be familiar with the little whistle-tune at the end of their frequent television ads, and I bet, I just BET that once you hear the little whistle tune, your inner monologue pipes up with 'I'm Lovin' It' directly after. This of course is the vestige of the marketting campaign about three or four years ago when the whistle-tune was actually suffixed by 'I'm Loving It', often in silly or accented voices. After a year or so of that, once imprint has taken place, they dropped the lyric and left our inner voices to finish the advertising slogan for them. They have used and abused my inner monlogue, and quite beyond my own control or will, I am making an (albeit silent) statement of assent to the salt-laden trough that they spill out by the nano-second. Then, won over by the need for internal assault, I wander aimlessly in and ask for a Big Tastey. A value-judgement using my own voice! Arrgghh!

But before I write to my MP, I discover that the leviathan corporation is not the only organisation doing it. I drove to the artery-clogger of my choice following a Skoda Superb! Good grief - them and all. I assume that if I wanted one of their cars, I would need to amble in and actually ask for a bloody 'Superb'! It takes me a little time to notice that this is a wide-spread phenomenon, and one that has haunted me all my life. I can still remember, as a young child, asking for a 'Nice Cold, Ice Cold Milk' on Oldham market in the summer! 

I am possessed by the marketing men! They have taken my mind prisoner, and I passively approve their output without even knowing it. Big Brother? 1984? Too late; already happened!

This all said, I am supposed to be a 'reflective practitioner', so I have to ask how it would be if they resorted to plain honesty - and in truth, that wouldn't be so good. Echoes of Ben Elton and Bill Bailey flood forward at the point, as I accept that asking for a pack of Durex 'Split' might not be so red-hot. Walking in and demanding a test-drive of the new Fiat 'Broken Down' might not inspire me. McDonalds might not sell so many of the 'Big Artery Popper with Shavings from the Butt of a Dead Bovine' - cheeseburger with bacon is perhaps better (even if 'The Sodding Magnificent' is overkill).  This even affects church life. I am sure that pews would be empty for services called 'Musically Manky Eucharist', or 'Morning Yawn Session', let alone 'Rhetoric Ministry' - people sometimes do want and need to believe [these are fictitous examples, with no slur intended or implied on any aspect of my real world]. 

Anyway, my point is this: stop using me as your unwitting puppet, please. I am too stupid to stop you! Now, off to cook some more of daddy's 'Excellent and Life Enhancing' for the girls. They hunger this very moment ...

Ode To Gadgets

(to the tune 'Ode to Joy')

I have bought a brand new printer

Sparkly, black and wireless

Printing  sermons from the toilet

Or from the comfort of my bed

Added to my little iTouch

With its smooth and slidy screen

We have ourselves the kings of gadgets

Most blokes will know just what I mean

N’er a cable mocks my study

In the quest to rule my world

Sitting naked in my garden

If the feeling took a hold.

Sending pages through the ether

Double-sided if you please

I can work through every hour

Workaholism, my disease.

I needn’t stop to bath the babies

Typing while I watch Top Gear

Eating is edged out in favour

Of writing a blog for you lot here.

The wireless function of the gadget

Means I’m assured an early grave

If overwork and stress don’t get me

Then Jo w

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Doof Doof D D Doof

I admit it, I  watch Eastenders! So scourge me, so stone me, so mock me!

Today is the day when the folks from Eastenders celebrate their 25th anniversary. So, I have watched, on average, three episodes a week, fifty-two weeks a year for twenty-five years:

82 Days of my life  - good grief (and that doesn't include the omnibus on a Sunday)

There are those who claim to listen to the Today programme on Radio 4! I am not of that breed; I am not cut from that cloth. I am a blunt instrument, but I like to be entertained, not terminally bored by high-brow gubbins on high-brow Stations. 

Yes, Eastender is piffle. Yes, it is possibly the most depressing thing every to assault my senses. Yes, it makes me mad at times, but where would the life of any bloke be if he couldn't kick back with a beer and watch this tripe thrice weekly. 

(but if you refer to it as 'Stenders' in my earshot, I am apt to seperate you from your giblets, abbreviating fool)

WICKAYYYYYYYY

And who said we were culturally bankrupt ... those who listen to the Today programme I imagine

A good Lent

As a former business manager, I have learned the great benefits to planning in advance of execution (in both senses, often). The path to Nirvana that I used was Appraise, Plan, Execute, Evaluate, and on the whole it worked. On a good day, a project would come to yield with the greatest return, while on others it amounted to 'think up a list, write list, give out the list, screw the list up'.

And so Lent looms, and with it a considerable work-load in terms of written material and all that goes into it. I have Palm Crosses to nuke first, so pray for the safety of my modest abode, dear Reader! In years gone by, Lent has amounted to 'I will aspire to give up booze this year', only to lapse on the first Thurday evening. I have even tried the 'take something on' approach, and one year that amounted to me saying only nice things about people. That one failed too, in an alarmingly short spell of time, and as a direct result of a reality TV show being aired on the evening of Ash Wednesday. That said, I recognise that some things are just plain impossible for me!

Well, I have another crack at the whip, and this year I am in the zone, man! So, in order to pep-up my own Lenten observance, I am going to do something as cringe-worthy as writing a Blog - and that is to create for myself an easy-peasy aide-memoire, using letters to form a word that I will remember: the letters I choose are ELNT (hold on, they spell something else; gimme a moment)

L - Let Go

E - Education

N - New

T - Time

Funky huh?!

L - Let Go: This is the 'give something up for Lent' aspect of the enterprise. Why should I do this? Well, 'cos Jesus couldn't order curry  in the wilderness - I therefore give up takeways for Lent (it will mean that I cook more, save some shekels and will lose some of my bloated gut! Win, win, win)

E - Education: A vital part of Priesthood is the pursuit of continued learning. Lent at the very least should have time set aside for this important work, and this year, the little Blog Lent Course and the learning that it requires will be that facet of my Lenten observance.

N - New: This is the 'take something on' aspect of the Lent thing. This year, and as part of the 'L' element, I will learn how to cook some new meals for my family, as I am the primary cook in the house. I learn, they enjoy, and it is an act of love that is directed in to my family, so therefore a good thing, methinks.

T - Time: All of the above is broadly pointless piffle if I don't add a little reflective time into this. Some valuable time has been gifted to us clergy in our Archdeaconry (thanks, by the way, appreciated). I commit to an hour more a week of reflective time. It isn't much, but believe me, it is 58 minutes more than I devote to it currently.

So, for me it will be (by the Grace of God) a LENT Lent. Even a potato like me will have trouble forgetting that. So, dear friends, as we step forward into another Lent, I invite you to think of ways to make it meaningful for you, especially if (like me) you will be buried under the duty (and joy) of providing Lent for others too!

Yes, but how?

As it was the last day of my holiday, we went to St Mary Magdalen's in Oxford (see picture). Plonked right in the centre of the city it is my 'church of choice' when I am free to visit somewhere else on a Sunday. It is my 'sending parish', that is to say - I went there before I was ordained. It was like returning to the bosom of the family, and Jo me and kids were recieved warmly as anyone is there. The music was, as ever, out of this world.  They have long paid a professional choir to lead the music of this exemplary High Mass, and yesterday saw them in fine voice (even if the funky organ was sounding more like Ivor the Engine). The girls were on their bestist behaviour, and Jessica (who loves to sing above most other pursuits) was hypnotised by the angelic beauty of the music. She was in my arms for most of the Mass, and she was transfixed by them - not even a chocolate coin broke her gaze at one point. It is also the church in which they were Baptised, so it is to us a profoundly important place.

It was also the day that 'the Ordinand on Placement' offered a sermon as part of his training. This is normally a mixed affair, with some good and some bloody awful sermons. The geezer who preached yesterday did very well, in fact - and it is a tough gig for even the most seasoned preacher. I am pants when I preach there, trust me! He praught on the Beatitudes (Mary Mags follows the Roman lectionary, traditional language if you please), and gave much for us to ponder upon. In essence, he invited us to be as poor people, not fixed on the material things of our world etc etc - and he is right, mate! 

There is always a question that lingers in my mind after hearing such noble sentiments about giving up the things that I have - how do I do it? In truth, in very truth I say unto thee, I would find it nigh on impossible to give up a lot of what I have - not because I need that stuff, but because I like my stuff. I like my car, I like having a few shekels in the bank, and I have worked hard to get that.  I want to be a good Christian (and I think that largely, I am), but I can't just give it all up to be even better! This quandary has never been resolved in my mind. Do I want my cake and to eat it too? The other things that weighs heavily on my heart as a priest, is how I can have the audacity to preach such a message when I fail to heed it myself - or at the very least, fail to understand how best to meet that expectation. Answers on a postcard, please.

The Mysogenist Creed 2010

When my most excellent missus and me discovered that we were going to be parents (and way before finding out that two little ankle-biters were spawned), we recieved much good advice on parenting. One that stuck in our minds was: 'say "yes" as often as you can, but if you have to say "no", mean it'. I was able to readily adjoin to this sage directive as it feels like an essentially Christian way of thinking. It has the feel of something that God might think (though we are sure that this didn't come to us in a dream Joseph-style). It has a feel of enablement, opportunity, freedom - but within the confines of determined boundaries that were robust and clear. Bada-boom, bada-bing - parenting made easy.

I was alarmed to read an article in today's Daily Express http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/157891/Vicar-Women-should-shut-up - the title is in the link. This is where my blokishness overtakes me, and I find myself getting annoyed and apt to speak out of turn. In essence, this is a story of a Curate (the same as me) preaching a sermon (like I do) about the submissive role that women should adopt before their husbands (because, like Christ, they are the head of the family, apparently). This is a Curate, about the same age as me, with a wife and kids. As if this weren't bad enough his boss, The Rector, advocates the view that wives should 'remain silent' and obey their husbands. What kind of Pumpkin Factory were these Reverends trained at? In my College, if anyone sat and aired a view like that in any tone louder than inner-monologue, they would have been gutted, battered and fried before their bile and spittle had hit the floor-tiles! Yes, this is all rooted in a statement made by Paul, but lest we forget, women were also rendered social pariahs after menstruation - unclean unclean unclean burn burn burn. One assumes that Mrs Curate isn't consigned to the cupboard under the stairs at that time - or perhaps she is. She was very upset by the harsh criticism that her poor little lamb was recieving. If that were my wife, I would have recieved - quite properly - a swift kick in the testes for such an antiquated, offensive commentary. This particular Jelly Shop in Sevenoaks is now the lighter by a significant number of offended women. 

This is part of a wider issue upon which I feel strongly called to comment upon here. It isn't just the Jellies of course, but also the Carflicks that have members of their number who seem to favour men over women in the contemporary Christian context. My testicles do not afford me the right to think I am in any way advantaged in any aspect of  life under the Lord. Yes, people held this view once. Yes, people also stoned others to death in public (at about the same time in history). Yes, people also emptied their personal effluent on to the street below their bedroom windows.

I have spent a nice week away with my family, and we work as a team, with all the joys and dysfunctions - and I am in no way its 'head'. While away, I got around to some fine 'people-watching', and it is clear that there are so many different people.They look different, they sound different, they dress differently, are different ages and different genders, they think differently, they hope and fear for different things. What they need (even if the vast majority wouldn't claim to 'want') is a Church that said 'yes' to all that they are and all that they bring. even (dare I say it) if it is a sense that God calls them to ministry. The challenge to my ministry is how I adapt all that I do to make it accessible to the people whom I encounter every day. I do embrace difference when it is in oppostion to my own views. However, I get the right hump when Prize-Winning Plums stand up and damage my Church by peddling their twaddle in public like they did in Kent last week - such as gets headlines like this one. I visited their parish website, and noticed that you do well in that place if you are women and you don't work (that is to say, you don't hold down paid employment), because one assumes that all the little obedient wifies there remain at home and bake while the strapping beefy breadwinning menfolk go out and kill bison all day and write wise sonnets all night. Whilst I am clearly characaturing wildly here, I cannot for the life of me understand why the (remaining) women of that community in Sevenoaks find this line of theology even mildly acceptable in this day and age!

May God help me if I am wrong, and it turns out that it is right and appropriate for one half of a civilised society to diminsh the rights and place of the other. If that is right, then may God help us all. Amen.  

Cap Badge

Today gave me the very great privilege of Baptising four young people, and welcoming them as new Christians in the midst of our community in Aylesbury. I have fast discovered that there is little that exceeds this in terms of ministerial high-points, and I rejoice with Chenai, Tatenda, Tafadzwa and Lamora and their families as they take the courageous step of accepting their rightful place in the Army of Christ. Part of that process of initiation was to anoint them, by signing them with the Cross upon their foreheads with the Oil of Chrism. As I explained in my short preamble, they wear that Cross as a soldier wears his Cap-Badge. A soldier will give up his/her life for the badge he/she wears and for those who wear the same. A soldier wears his/her badge with utter pride, as it marks him/her out as belonging to something worthy, a collective of parts that creates a far more impressive whole. 

Within the context of this service today, we were blessed with the gift of song given to us by the Zimbabwean community, from among whom the baptismal candidates came. They sang a hymn in their own language, wearing the uniform of the Zimbabwean Mother's Union, as they do every Sunday. We Brits had no inkling what the words meant, but we felt good, we felt alive, and we sensed that we got its essence if not its specifics! I thank God for them!

I have been given, therefore, a couple of reasons to consider the whole subject of 'badge and uniform'. We send our children to school in a uniform, and it is often a uniform to which we and they feel much loyalty. Our health-care professionals wear a uniform - and we know that we can trust them and their training, implicit in their attire. The man (fact, not exclusive language) who puts my letters through my door wears the uniform of the Royal Mail - and even if he fell out with his employers, he would man the picket in his uniform. The armed services live and die in the context of their uniform, as I have already described. People in business wear a uniform, the uniform of the business suit, shirt and tie. Retailers are decked in corporate colours. Imagine if the Army went to war in cords, a stripey shirt and a comfy beige jacket from Marks. Imagine of the kids in our school went in everyday in jeans and hoodies! Imagine if the nursing staff in our hospitals tended to their patients in chinos and a fleece. Imagine a person closing a multi-million pound deal in hiking trousers and a wicking t-shirt!  Imagine if the Police on response on a Saturday night arrested their client base whilst in Hawaian Shirt and Bermuda shorts. Imagine a devoted Manchester United fan, a committed lifelong one, turning up to the game in anything other than the team colours. 

  So why are priests the exception to this?

This is not a picture of me, but of the style of collar I prefer to wear. Style is of no real importance beyond the significance of its genus.

It seems to me that a rapidly increasing number of the ordained members of the Church consider the uniform of the 'job' to be optional, or even undesirable. The reasons given are to do with the 'barrier' that a dog-collar presents in encounters with others. Other reasons surround progress and 'moving on'. In one conversation, an ordained person (that person was not comfortable being called a 'priest') said that they 'like to get to know someone before they tell them that they are a minister', in case the disclosure put the other person off. Now I know I am being controversial here, but I feel strongly about this. Yes, the image above comes with some negative connotations, largely to do with gender issues at the moment. When I pitch up to gathering of clergy, I go in my uniform, and this still causes much mirth! Why? I dunno, mate!


To my mind, the collar is akin to a cap-badge. It is our uniform. Priests, whether is palateable or not, are set apart to do a job to which we are called by God. It is a wonderful job, but not always easy. However, when you see someone dressed in a collar, you can make a whole raft of assumptions that set the scene for an encounter. You know that they are Christian, you know that they are (to a greater or lesser extent) trained in their work, on the whole trustworthy, steeped in prayer and in a close relationship with God. I am proud of all of that, and a dog-collar is the only way, short of tattooing it on my face, to declare this to the world around me. I have no appetite or right to be a priest-by-stealth. I have been chosen and sent-out from a community to work in another. I am so proud of my priestly orders that I can't imagine why I wouldn't wear its cap-badge. From my own experience, I have more meaningful encounters in collar than I do out of it. Barrier schmarrier. The people of Aylesbury have an absolute right to know what and who I am when I talk to them, otherwise I am not being straight with them, in my modest opinion. If the removal of our uniform and all that it represents is 'progress', then I pray earnestly that the members of our armed services (who would die for theirs), remain in the Dark Ages!

Purple Peoplewatcher

'People watching' should be at the heart of the priesthood like the Sacraments should be (now there's a controversial statement, and I am not referring to the people-watching bit). People watching, also referred to as 'naturalistic observation' (for those too bright to cope with with a simple term like 'people-watching'), and not to be confused with 'naturist observation' (that comes with a prison sentence), is a noble endeavour.


For those who haven't the foggiest idea what I am banging on about, try it. Pop along to your local coffee emporium, gain for yourself a window seat, sit back with your caffeine-fix of choice, sit back and watch the world go by. Observe people as they pass the window, take mental notes, ask questions in your mind about the person whom you are observing (and not staring at, for that too is a very different pastime). 

Priests should already have this process at the centre of their world, just a step behind the Sacraments (if I hadn't already mentioned that), for how can we we pray for people that we have no knowledge of? No, this is isn't an excuse for 'eyeing up the totty' (though beauty in all its forms should be appreciated) - this is taking a moment to be interested in those amongst whom we live. So many shoppers may pass us by, almost unnoticed - but lest we forget, all those shoppers are formed in the image of God, and bear the face of Christ. How easily we could miss that. People-watching is not about drawing conclusions either (although Burberry is still questionable, in any garment), because watching is not knowing. I am a seasoned practitioner, and I can tell you that the pains and joys are almost always etched on the face of the person passing by. Looking is one thing, but seeing quite another. Joy or heartbreak exude from people - just have a look and see. Only once we notice the people around us, properly notice them, can we ever stand a chance of praying for them even in their relative anonymity. No, we can't watching the whole world pass by, but we can take in a representative sample!


People-watching yields other unconnected and interesting results. I was in Oxford yesterday, and as a former resident, had forgotten how, erm, unique the place and its people are. There is clearly a 'university' style that I had formerly become immune to, and it broadly consists of owning expensive classy clothes while having no sense at about how to wear them. The people of Cheltenham do an interesting thing too: a lot of them dress ten years younger than their age (people of forty dressing as a person of thirty, or worse still, a person of fifty dressing like a person of twenty). Go and have a look, and you will see that I am right. These are, of course, blokey observations, and only grunts like me would ever conclude thus.


So, people-watching. This is not a gentle form of voyeurism, perving, letching or getting-kicks. This is watching with a heart full of concern and genuine interest in the well-being of the person who enters the frame for that snap-second of time. My passion for the people of Aylesbury is rooted in this quirky activity - dismiss it at your peril. 


(To be a 'purple people-watcher', you just need to hold your breath until your eyeballs rupture)