There is a Redeemer, and it ain't me

These words, the lasting legacy of one Charles Hampton, speak to all baby vicars about the way we aspire to live our lives, how we meet that aspiration, and what the aspiration looks like in the first place.

The snippet from the most excellent Calvin and Hobbes makes the inner monolgue's case in clearest terms. We are all, broadly, ordained from former careers - careers that in many circumstances are driven by success, promotion, the 'bottom line', and the abject fear of failure. 

To enter ministry is to take on a kind of topsy-turvy role in this mortal life. We all want to do well, we all abhor failure even more,  and yet for priests - what this looks like is something of a conundrum. Yes, we are to a greater or lesser extent lured by the redeemer-complex of ministry. 

Perhaps it is just me, of course. I want to be the best darned priest that ever put on a cassock, and am fast discovering that to be this figure is to be condemned to immediate failure - not because it is not possible in itself, but because to crave that is to defeat it. To be 'best' is not be found in wanting to be 'best'. Neither is it to be found in wilfull mediocrity or plain ole' crap-ness. It is perhaps more a case of being the wrong question  - oh my head!

I can't handle scripture properly, my prayer life is like a third-hand teabag, my sensitivity lacks a radar, I am grumpy and find it difficult to tolerate fools, I never fully mastered New Testament Greek, my Bible isn't threadbare and full of insightful pencil-comments, I feel like I care far more for liturgy than I do for the 'least of these my children', and yes - I confess here - I am a stinking fraud.

So, with me and the moth-eaten hemp sacking that is the cloth with which God seems determined to work with, I am left to ponder why. Why oh why oh why oh why? So no, the redeemer I am not - but what in the name of Christ am I?

Toilet Habits

Earlier today, when I was enthroned and in mid ... thought, I looked up at the windowsill in my Necessarium and pondered. To the left of this little missive, you will see a picture of the reading material that sits in my Chapel of Ease in perpetuity. 

I contend, dear reader, that my bookstack is proof enough of my blokishness if nothing else is. 

You will notice that the Lord Clarkson features prominently in my selection if those books best able to accompany the natural processes, and you may even note that my own writing style is somewhat influenced by the Man of Cars. Every house needs a small shelf purely for rant-reads and factoids. More especially, that small assortment of literary delectations finds its rightful place in none less the Little Curate's Room (the room that is small, not the Curate - take that how you like). I am aware that the Good Lord watches over all that I do, and alarming as that is, I think that a prayerful moment whilst adorning the Porcelain Trumpet is, well, wrong. 

So, friends, welcome to my 6' x 4' Blokery - a place where I can absorb the Vernacular of others (and those who get paid for it). All these editions were purchased in High Street Stores, so I needn't feel embarassed by having a book called 'Do Ants have Arseholes' or 'Is it just me or is Everything Shit' (the book called 'Do Bats have Bollocks' seems to have vanished - it will emerge covered in crayon soon enough). But, before you think that this is simply a Fellows-esque swear-a-thon, you will not have failed to notice the full back catalogue of David Attenborough - though in truth they are only there because they are too big for the other shelves. Former bookstacks in former Domiciles of the China Telephone have been the entire works of Calvin and Hobbes, with some Gary Larson and Garfield mixed in! 

So, readers - what books adorn your Temples of Relief? Any responses that include 'The Bible' will be treated as foul lies and calumnies.