Going Back To Basics - Vicar Style

This is not a post about the style of Vicars, because even as Jesus himself did, we should all wear black and with tonsure collars. Images of Jesus in beige dresses was purely to appease the folk festival lot!

No, this is a post about us vicars revisiting some of those oft abandoned territories, those places left well behind in the wake of the Ordinal and the swap from the baggy Watts cassock that smelled of old men, to the viscose version with all the buttons that smell of younger men. I speak of that tectonic progression from honourable Altar Server to Clerk in Holy Orders. If you are a non-liturgical Christian (unlike Jesus, who said the Angelus thrice daily, and that's a fact), look away now - for you will have no idea what I am about to write about. 

It is a factor in parish life that when some people absent themselves from parish life, they leave little less than a whisper of a breath of a breeze and you would hardly discern their departure. Then there are others, who after turning and ankle in an (allegedly) drunken brawl, cease to be able to function in parish life and leave a chasm such as would hold even the ego of the Whitton Vicar. People come and people go. One such someone turned their ankle in an (allegedly) drunken brawl, leaving us short of one Altar Server this Sunday past. For those of my ecclesiastical tradition, we are talking about Taperers or Acolytes (like Jesus was when he turned eleven and hadn't fully learned to wield his plane).

There was ne'er a replacement server to be found. Ankle turn-ed lady was not able to heave the weight of her candle, and there was thereby a vacancy. So I stepped in. I'm the Vicar, I thought. I wrote the ceremonial, I reasoned. I have been a server for years, I ruminated. So it was that I donned a cassock-alb, wore my stole deacon-wyse, set aside my little skull cap and wandered into church the left-hand of two Altar Servers. 

The simple fact is that I cocked it up from beginning to end. I have a liturgical awareness that is fashioned by decades doing the very thing that I failed to accomplish this very day. I kicked the candle during the Gospel Procession and now have a viscose-smelling-of-me cassock covered in candle-wax. I moved the altar rail across for the distribution of the Holy Communion while I was on the outside of it, not the inside. Afore the aforementioned Gospel Procession, I had noticed that I had forgotten to label the short hymn "x2" so we verily sang it once and it was done before we even started to move off. 

Many lessons were learned - many reinforced home numerous times by my beloved Sacristan (who is, for the record, older that Solomon). If Sunday presented the Vicar-as-Server Gravestone, my Sacristan exhausted himself dancing on it! But what a fabulous insight into the worshipping life it presented. How quickly I had set aside so many of the simpler lessons of serving, and how quickly I have acquired habits of unpredictability so as to enliven the worship here. It is now clear to me how much of a pain in the arse I must be to serve for, and indeed how blessed I am by the team of servers that I have here. 

Indeed, this is my recommendation to ordained men and women, particularly those of a liturgical bent - serve once a year at least to remind yourself of where you came from, the skills you had already forgotten, what life is like in your ceremonial wake. In so-doing, be open to making a total pratt of yourself, because humility is no bad ally in parish life. 

To my own worthy team of Altar Servers - thank you, thank you and thank you. You are bloody marvellous!

Biblical Miracles in the Twenty-First Century

Just over seven years ago, the Lord blessed me and the fragrant Mrs Acular with the calling of parenthood and the blessing of not just one tiny life, but two. Two bundles of curly red-headed joy, a journey as yet unfolded, the future resting prone before us. Yes, they were a challenge of some intensity in the beginning - sleepless nights and fraught uncertain days. The handbook of parenting is yet to be written, (if we disregard Gina Ford, which is a good start) yet its blueprint is embedded within each and every new parent. We have the instinct hitherto unseen to know how to fix the problems that presented themselves. It was a small seam of knowing that accompanied the life-stage of the girls, only to vanish from our grasp once we had passed its needs by. 

You know what I think of my little girls if you read this blog, so I won't burden you with a plethora of superlatives. However, I wish to share with you, dear reader, the very real evidence brought into my life of a biblical miracle as granted us by our young ladies. 

Last weekend, it happened very simply - within the context of the celebrations that marked their shared birthday. Amid the balloons, the party food, the gleeful faces of the guests as they watched the magician work his magic before them. Their eyes were wide, rictus grins painted across their innocent faces. Life for them was bounded up the very moment that they existed in - a sufficiency and satisfaction so easily and readily lost in the wilderness years of adulthood. But happen it did and like this.

You will be familiar with the account of the feeding of the five thousand onlookers, the provision from what appeared be a lack to what proved to be a plenty - a ministry of hospitality and refreshment, food for the journey of faith. You know that story, and I can tell you here and now that by the gracious gift of my perfect little girls, I saw a latter-day equivalent of this miracle, and it unfolded before my eyes and in the power of God's Holy Spirit.

The thing is this, you invite 32 ankle-biters to your daughters' birthday party, you will be blessed by an outpouring of generosity in the form of gift-giving to mark the joyous occasion. In this case, that outpouring filled a table top that is 5' long by 3' wide. A neat pile. An exciting and promising pile of gifts wrapped largely in bright papers of pink and fuchsia. When the party drew to its climax and its inevitable end, we carried that little pile of gifts back to the house, during which time something miraculous happened, almost at a cellular level. 

But the gifts from the party, all 5' x 3' of them, all wrapped beautifully, became the manna from heaven that we read about in the scriptures, and it happened when those gifts were opened. 

Blow me if that little pile of gifts didn't expand at an exponential rate. What sat neatly on a table top soon became sufficient in volume to eclipse even the sun and moon - paper everywhere. Boxes hither and plastic yon. Indeed, the wife and I could hardly see the kids for detritus, and it spread from room to room, basket full by alarming basketful, up the stairs, along that landing, into at least four of the bedrooms, all overt the lounge floor, the Hallway, the kitchen table, the garden, on top of the dog and under the cat. Stuff everywhere I tell you. All that was visible of yours truly was the spiky tips of his grey hair emerging from a self propelled shifting mountain of wrapping paper. To the left, one kid's gifts, and to the right the other's. Never in my whole life have I seen physical matter expand in volume at the rate that this modest gift pile did. Like the magic porridge pot, the immanence of our certain drowning fast approached as we lamented our early departure and sought the comfort of Last Rites. Batteries were needed, and that right quick. So, therefore, did we need the little screwdriver - and that even quicker. Bawling and screaming accompanied the determined affront to our physical well-being by this every expanding Leviathan of gift stuff. 

The moral of the story is this. If you are ever wandering through the Gallilean countryside, all bucolic and that, and you bump into five-thousand groupies looking for a free feed, this is what to do. Put on a birthday party for two seven year old girls and ask that their only gifts we in food and fluid. Mark my words - once you start faffing with them, they will feed a small continent of free-food foraging groupies. 

Telephobia

Brothers and sisters, and you in the cheap seats, it is time that I came out of the closet and 'fess up here and now. I believe in washing my dirty laundry in public, which is why I have a blog, innit, and today is the day for me.

Those of you who know me well will know that I have a bad case of arachnophobia, which put another way, means I petrified of araks. Such a phobia is no good for those of us gainfully 'employed' in buildings that are old dark and a little dusty in places, and to be honest, some of the araks that I have seen have not only had tattoos, but were of a dimension to warrant widened seating on an aeroplane. But it is not my irrational fear of araks that I have come here to discuss. No. 

I am deeply, irrationally, and annoyingly fearful of telephones. I am not referring to the actual article, as a Nokia handset doesn't in fact send me into paroxysms of hysteria or an effervescence of self-flagellation. No, it is the activity of the telephone that does it for me, and let me tell you why.

Once upon a time, I didn't mind the 'phone ringing. It would be my nan or a friend (the former who would batter on for two hours without taking a breath), and as such a source of joy. Then retail happened. And not only retail, but retail management. At that point I acquired my new fear for a new generation. 

In retail, and in particular in a sales environment, the telephone ringing was rarely the harbinger of joy. Indeed, if your sport of choice was a heady and masochistic desire for aural abuse, then a shop telephone was the place to be, and you would be oft pleased. In flooring (my former retail environment), we were paid to advise and then relieve the punter of sums of money which, in my case, peaked once at £17k per order. In flooring, such sums are paid for goods that have been untested, of varying shades to the colour swatch, fitted by human hands which are not always perfect, and with expectations at levels that would trouble the Vatican Army. At the least level, the telephone ringing would be a hapless soul demanding the whereabouts of their order, either in terms of the large lorry crossing the English Channel or else in the back of a battered white Tranny when the stuff is to be fitted. The answer, with every step of best preparation and expectation management, was insufficient and lacking for Mr & Mrs Customer, and so it began - the tirade. The abuse. The name calling. 

Then it would turn eight-thirty and the day would begin in earnest.

Once, some chap was chasing a cheap mattress that he had bought a week prior and that was on a fortnight lead time. When reminded that the nasty foam sprung object was still a week away, his retort was, I kid you not, that it would have been better if I had been in one of those two Towers (for this call took place on September 12th of that notable year). For retailers, such abuse is commonplace and much lamented, but it also stops us loving the fruit of the telephone.

Evidently, it is akin to some social-phobias and anxieties that can emerge - and telephobia is not an irrational fear of a voice in the ear (after all, I have several in my head), but of ridicule and abuse. It is closely related to glossophobia which I don't have (thankfully, in my trade). 

The upshot of years of retail 'phone abuse (often perpetuated by the upper ranks within the organisation too, I might add, and who would ever like being called 'crap' and 'shit' before the doors are even opened), is that I really truly struggle to take or make a telephone call to or from anyone. I would rather insert, slowly, white-hot copper wire into my pupil than take a call - which is inconvenient in this mobile-age and in my line of work. I have to know who it is before I answer it (and the cost of Caller Display was a non-negotiable, even before food). I hate 'phones. Simple. Where telephone calls are required I am the procrastinator extraordinare, risking (and probably achieving) the reputation of one who doesn't care enough to call, or else that I am disorganised and forgot. 

Well this is my confession. It is altogether worse.

...and Oxford customers were the worst by a country-mile, by the way (from a range of thirteen stores that I managed across much of the south of Britain)

Why We Must Ban the Future

Whitney Houston (may she rest in peace) once recorded a very nice song that largely echoes the sentiments of many adults in the parish life of our church. They are, to be sure, very nice words and tune isn't wholly barf-making either! 

I believe the children are our futureTeach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
 Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be

This is from the first verse of a song called "The Greatest Love of All" and it is a song with much merit that doesn't set your teeth on edge when it is played. Only it is precisely wrong. 

Oft have I heard that children are the 'church of tomorrow', that we should steep them in a heady mix of baybee Jesus and high liturgy so that people like me have altar servers and PCC secretaries in the hinterlands of the future. We might even sling them the odd shekel so that a neat little youth club with ping-pong might thrive, allowing us the means by which we can miss a God-given opportunity. 

Mark's Gospel gives us the proper approach to children, and they are words known to many of us God botherers. So well are they known to us that it is our default position to frown and tut when the under-fives maraud around the church between epicleses. We are told (well, to be sure, the disciples were told) to let the children come forward, and not frown and tut for fear of the wrath of a displeased God of volcanoes and dinosaurs and all that. 

I am here, dear Reader, to tell you that children are not the church of tomorrow. They are not our future. They are their own future and they are the church of right now. In the great unspoken hierarchy of Parish Life (largely a matriarchy for anyone labouring still under the misapprehension that the blokes are in charge), we have the Choir in their own appointed seats, the wardens in their stalls, the 'old guard' who occupy their life-right given seats of the last five decades, the adult visitors who get what is left (if they dare) with the small messy space at the back reserved for the nasty noisy ankle-biters to play. Should they feel inclined to cry because that is what small children do from time to time, then they are loving escorted out to stand outside in the rain with the mortified mother and the frustrated father (who will never be seen in the building ever again, ever). 

It is my modest opinion that treating children as the 'church of tomorrow' is among the single biggest cancers in God's Church today. We bolt their derrieres to the spot, enforce silence upon them and expect them to carry on and build a personal and meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ. They are the church of now. Tomorrow, they say, never comes - and it is entirely right. Scripture would even guide us in this, too: This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. At no point do we learn about tomorrow being a sacrament or the week after next being the grace filled moment. We are taught vigilance in the here and now, to watch and wait and not sit back and fritter the moment. 

In my church, the children are the honoured guests. They are treated as such (even to the extent of concelebrating with me [sort of]). It is their church building, their aisle to walk up and down along. Why is this so important? The answer to that is simple: children get the whole God thing at an instinctive level and the adult are, I truly believe, placed among the children to learn about faith. 

I wonder if the greatest love of all is to let children enjoy the day that they have been given, and not filed away until they start full-time employment. 

This Wonderful Whitton

It has, for some time, been my 'day-off' custom to accompany the fragrant Mrs Vicarage to an establishment nearby for a weekly fix of pig-meat and baby chickens-in-waiting, served with a mug of coffee whose temperature would melt titanium and a plate of fresh bread and butter to really seal the cholesterol deal. That I am now the shape of a modest beach ball is besides the point - and I blame the medication anyway. But, dear reader, it is not the art of breaking the fast that I have deigned to appear and write this grey day.

The establishment in question is situated in close proximity to the Lesser Whitton Jolly's Gyratory and a hastily claimed window seat provides the perfect vantage point for that greatest of all priestly pastimes - people-watching. Yes, you could claim that I ought to be talking to my ever tolerant wife, but gawping out of the window is such a worthy priestly activity. Why? Because at 9am on a normal weekday morning, I am once again reminded what a splendid place I live in with my family.

Last weekend, the goodly folk of Whitton and its environs turned out to celebrate one of the many St. George's that crop up from time to time, with a focal procession mit dragon and Knight-a-Slaying. The streets are lines with families and well-wishers, but rather than the slightly xenophobic undertones that can beleaguer a good "Let's Celebrate Being English", it provided a very real celebration of Whitton. 

So, back to my cafe pew. I watch the parents returning from the school run in their 4x4s (because speed humps are very steep these days). I observe the first-shift gamblers entering one portion of the great miasma of betting-establishments that have spawned up the High Street. Yes, I see the lady with her 9am Special Brew and I wonder what her story is. The preschoolers are taken to Costa for a baby-cinno with (on the whole) their mothers who take root until the noontime. The deliveries are made to the shops that punctuate the street and the staff arrive for their days in retail. Some faces are lost in thought, others burdened with the stresses and strains of existence. Some faces are concealing the joys of digital music being piped into the head that follows it. Some faces betray the simple fact that they will miss the train that they hurry towards, while others tell the story of a day of arduous labour in the many industries of London Town. 

Each face is a story often untold. Each face represents an account of joys balanced against sorrow, and to sit in my Greasy Spoon of choice is, frankly, one of the best ways to pray for these wonderful people who have had me inflicted upon their spiritual welfare. 

I am encouraged by the closed shop units that are starting to fill up, and I worry intensely about the implicit judgement upon this community that so many gambling firms can invest in so many shops in such a small space - I fear for the gambling problem that must overwhelm so many people in an asset-rich-cash-poor place like ours. I delight in the sense of self that Whitton enjoys and projects, the stability of its resident population, so many of whom have graced these streets for decades. It is a matter of considerable reassurance that I have brought my children to a community that suffers very little violence and where that due sense of neighbourliness is not completely eclipsed by the ever present need of self-preservation. Everyone seems to know everyone else, and as a lad from oopt'North, I find that a compelling thing. 

As I ruminate behind my bacon and eggs, it is my considered view that as a priest and as a vicar, I landed squarely on my feet with this gig. In all its shades of light and dark, this Whitton is a place that I would struggle to leave. 

Worthy

Courtesy of the Guardian, a paper that I do read

I saw an article yesterday from that paper I don't ordinarily read, the Telegraph (The Daily Star is about my level), where it criticised the comedy series Rev. for promoting a Christianity = Being Nice model, and promptly blasted it for that. Read the article here. The author of the report, one Dr Tim Stanley, stated in clear terms that the church should "shake things up a bit" instead of being nice in the Rev. style. 

Wah wah oops!

The thing is, Dr Stanley, you are totally missing the thrust of the humour in Rev. and let me tell you why. I am vicar in the same-ish tradition as the Rev Adam Smallbone, the character in question. My parish is growing (quite fast actually). I am the vicar in the same diocese as the portrayed parish in the comedy series which is, yes, growing. But the series Rev. just isn't about what Adam Smallbone is busy doing outwardly, which is the premiss for the comedy, but is entirely focussed (in my modest opinion) on what is going on within the principal character. 

What is going on is not nice-ness, though you may be fooled into thinking it is - no, it is about the constant wrestle that humans have when they inhabit the robes and ministry of God's Holy Priesthood. I can identify with the lead character in such an acute and accurate way that it makes my eyes water. Dr Stanley's argument is precisely the same as complaining that Top Gear's central modus operandi of the portrayal of the hedgerows along Britain's roads just isn't pro-hawthorn enough! 

Today I, along with hundreds of other clergy, crammed into St. Paul's Cathedral to renew our ordination vows. I was sat near the centre, right under the apex of the famous tower and as I looked up it struck me once again how unworthy I am to deign to stand there, dressed like that, bearing the precious responsibility of ministry in my chapped weather-worn hands. I felt the same crush of worthiness-anorexia that Rev Adam Smallbone is constantly enduring in the aforementioned programme. For my part, I am an averagely educated mortal male, flawed and foolish, barely theologically literate and only marginally spiritually gifted. Yet there I was, in one of the most famous churches in the world re-affirming my acceptance of God's call upon my meagre existence.

No wonder ordained  ministry is the raw stuff of comedy - but it is God with the bizarre sense of humour. Me, a priest  - snigger!

So, if I can identify with Rev. and mine is a growing parish where needless niceness is not my forte (I am a fairly direct type, truth be known) in a growing diocese where boundaries are daily tested, you can take your assertion, Dr Stanley, that it is the 'fifth gospel" of our "liberal tradition" of some outdated quasi-English niceness and ... pray about it at your leisure. 

Niceness be damned. Adam Smallbone and all priests are not in the least bit fussed about niceness - we are too busy fighting the battle within ourselves in order to shine the light of the gospel on a world that would seem to not want to see! 

The God of Surprises

Last weekend, a rather wonderful thing happened. No, I am not referring to 

       (all glory laud and honour)
Palm Sunday though that was pretty special as always
        (it never seems to rain on Palm Sunday, either).
This year, our Hosannah-ing was followed by the baptism of two youngsters. It should have been a two-family-four-kid baptism week but one of the families cried off with chicken-pox, which is unfortunate. Our prayers
        (and calamine)
are with them at this time. No, what was wonderful was something that was entirely new to me in my modest professional Christian ministry, and also unheard of in the somewhat longer
        (and levitous)
ministry of my brother priest, now retired and a great asset to the parish! 

The two children being baptised were themselves from a clutch of four, and I was dousing Number Two and Number Four - number one was 'done' already and Number Three resolutely refused to be involved! Number Four was a babe-in-arms and Number Two was a 
        (very well turned out)
lad of about 9 or ten years of age. And so it was: we went Declaring and Promising and we even agreed to fight the devil, corruption and evil
        (no theological dilution needed in Whitton, thank you)
and then anointed Two and Four with the usual aplomb and style. The godparents were resplendent and were duly thanked for their service to the ... well, service and returned to their seats for the Half-Time Entertainment - the Collection. Suitably frisked by two youngsters, the assembled throng
        (as distinct from 'thong' which is something else altogether)
turned on their heels to face The Font for the Main Event - the Baptism of Two and Four. 

Suitable quantities of pre-warmed
        (cold is simply anti-social)
living water was poured, tested and blessed - and so it was that Number Four was gently held under my arm 
        (not unlike a rugby ball)
and received the appropriate aspersion. Number Two, being bigger therefore heavier, was trapped and held
        (rather like a jousting thing at a joust)
over The Font and was granted spiritual and fluid entry into the Faith of Our Fathers. Job done a good'n! 

And then it happened. Number Three
        (formerly agin the whole enterprise)
shimmied up, the way one does in a pew-bound church, and asked if she could be baptised. "Yes" I said, "but I haven't got my diary, so I will have to talk to mummy". No, mister, I meant now - right this minute
        (yes, Revd Imaginationless the Un-Creative, Vicar of Failing to Spot Gift Horses)
while we are here, if you please. Well, thought I to myself, what to do. What would Canon Law make of all of this
        (and should I care?)
so I did the only decent think and press-ganged three new Godparents, sent for the oils and did what any right minded cleric would do, and baptised her before she changed her mind!

A spontaneous baptism! It doesn't much better than that!

The Pilgrim Course

I am writing this post in the happy wake of a few weeks of following the Pilgrim Course in my own parish among no fewer than fifty other pilgrims this time around. As there are other courses around, themselves much vaunted in the press and elsewhere, I thought I would burn a trail of my own and offer a guide to how we did it here in Whitton. I to add, therefore, that I do not set myself up as the expert in any of this, but with 50-odd of us doing it, our experience isn't inconsiderable either.

I am writing about our experience of the Course as we have encountered it, mindful that each parish is different. I am not offering a detailed account of the Course in its content, either. For that, do visit http://www.pilgrimcourse.org/the-course - I heartily recommend it!

1. Why the Pilgrim Course - As a sacramental priest in the catholic Anglican tradition I sought a course for the parish that would speak to my broad congregation. I have charismatics, conservatives and fellow catholics and a course needed to appeal to all. We are also a congregation comprising a broad age-range, so it had to serve the needs of adults of all ages. I am familiar with a number of courses and have sat through a number, but I was instantly drawn both the content and to the quality of the production. The course content features light touches of liturgy, solid Bible-study in the Lectio Divina tradition (with guidance notes for the leader), reflective material that approached the text from a non-expert perspective yet challenges even those who have been Christians for decades and then something to take home and think about.

It is accompanied by high-quality video and audio material that is freely available from the Pilgrim Course website which, if the technology is lacking, is not a painful absence if it cannot be accessed. That said, when it is used, it adds much to the event, simply because it appeals to the visual sense adds other voices into the mix.

2. Approach to the Course - there were questions that needed to be addressed before any further action  was taken. Here, we considered whether the course was one that could be offered to a larger group en bloc, or if it would work in smaller groups. We opted for the latter and therefore used the course as a means to initiate home groups in the parish. In line with the guidance offered in the Leaders Pack, this is a course that works more fully if undertaken within the context of hospitality and in the homes of the parishioners.

Here, we took a two-pronged approach to the possible logistics of the course as we were launching into the unknown. First was to contract five potential group leaders, who themselves were happy with the course content and felt that they could work with it. Each person then considered a co-leader and a potential host, thus avoiding the pressures of being both host and leader within the same group.

Secondly we placed a home-made application form into our service book over several weeks asking that they give their details and a sense (as comprehensive as possible) of when they could attend such a group (simply adding tick boxes for each day and morning/afternoon/evening). We left that process to unfold for three or four weeks, and once complete, gathered in the forms. From the forms that we had, it was clear that we could form six home groups at distinct times in the week, leaving two or three individuals for whom no immediate choice of time was clear. We contacted them directly and they made a choice from the six that has been identified. All but one were able to make a choice.

I returned to the five identified group leaders (me, two retired priests, a licensed lay-minster and one other lay person) and they took their pick of groups based on their own availability and had by that time informed me where they could meet. Each group leader contacted their own group members and a start time was agreed. The course booklets (fifty of them this time around) were ordered (and arrived the next day) and distributed to the group leaders.

3. The Course in Action - Our members range from those in their twenties to those in their nineties. Some have been practicing the faith for a year or less, others for much of their ninety-plus years. Some have new-born children and others are long since retired - so it is fair to say that the palette of perspectives was broad.

The structure of the course course components is largely the same: it begins with a gentle liturgy that is simple and responsorial (and reminiscent of Common Worship Morning/Evening Prayer), lasting for less than a minute. This helpfully sets the scene, creates a recognisable point of departure and also grants a helpful and prayerful ambience (and a place where the 'chatter' might end sensitively). Once this act of worship is complete, we watched the film provided by Pilgrim which set the scene for the encounter about to unfold.

The next portion is what it terms 'Conversation' and is a general (yet incisive) question to whet people's appetite and encourage them to open up. The content of the 'Conversation' question is not a theological one or indeed one rooted in faith, but one that might ask, for example, what we are thankful for. They are questions that anyone can answer, whether they be of faith or none and whatever the depth or tenure of that faith. It is, in my opinion, for the group leader to allow all members of the group a chance to answer, or not. (It is worthy of note that each group leader, at the start of the first meeting, covered off housekeeping rules that covered confidentiality, generosity - both in speaking and in listening).

Following the 'Conversation' is a piece of scripture that has been specially chosen to illuminate the given topic. As I have already said, the course booklets walks the members through the Lectio Divina approach that encourages a spiritual reading of the text, rather than an exegetical one. It places a clear emphasis upon the members' experience of the text, not their biblical knowledge. In my experience to date, if allowed, this part of the course component can itself fill an hour as people are given permission, often for the first time in their lives, to experience the scriptures in a new and entirely personal way. I even found that they held back to begin with, waiting for actual permission to question the words that jumped to their attention as intended. Having sat in three of the six home-group, this part of the course component came as something of an epiphany moment for many.

After this time of scriptural encounter, those of us who were able, offered the first audio reflection which comprised a moderate level of background to the text, though more often than not, echoed much of what had already arisen in the Lectio Divina just prior (which to begin with, was a welcome yet unexpected surprise for many). The audio reflection gave way to a number of more in-depth questions that found their fix in the text just read, yet seeking an experiential response, for example: 'what is it that attracts you about Jesus and the Christian faith?'. The asked people to speak of their feelings and not their specific theological knowledge which, I think, was a very successful way-in for many of those taking part. All have feelings, though not all would claim a theological knowledge!

The second audio reflection follows (which, if the technology is lacking, can be read out by someone just as effectively) which was, in my opinion, more exegetical and to a deeper level than the first reflection. If the first reflection discussed Christian experience, the second might look at terminology, history, specific context - tailored to guide us through the text with an appropriate level of teaching so that this wasn't simply a free-for-all in scripture! This reflection, as with the first, gives way to a few more questions that demand a greater level of self-reflection this time. If the first questions are of the order: 'how does make you feel?', then the second wave are of the order: 'in light of this account and the truths contained within it, what fresh questions or challenges are raised in your mind?'.

After about ninety minutes (in our experience), the discussions are brought to a gentle conclusion and resolved with a concluding prayer which is also provided.

What has been a great blessing with the Pilgrim Course so far has been what it terms 'Sending Out', or homework as we have referred to it. It comprises a selection of short passages from the saints and mystics that are catalysts for reflection at home in light of the discussions already had on the subject concerned.

4. Reflections - those who have journeyed with me this time round (fifty souls) have been impressed by the fact that they have been taken back to the 'beginning' of their faith in that the first stages of the Pilgrim Course follow the catechumenate. Others have found this experience one of permission-giving to test aspects of their faith that have hitherto been untested or unquestioned, finding that they emerge from each session with their heads buzzing with a myriad other questions and feeling more secure in their beliefs. The duration of ninety minutes per session seems to be about right, too, when you add the time for informality and hospitality to the start of it. Each member has valued having a booklet to take home and a piece of work to complete alone. I had tested this with my own group and was assured that they had pursued the 'Sending Out' themselves rather than shelve the booklet until the next session. I have also found that each group was very mixed by virtue of the approach that I took to forming them. They weren't necessarily a group of friends or relative neighbours, but those who, in parish life, had never really encountered one another's faith journey. This alone was a blessing to the groups. Each group took on their own subtle characteristics based upon the nature of the leader or the context, and this blend has also been an interesting talking point between members of different groups.

5. The Future - when we embarked upon this venture, we had no home groups and the parish hadn't undertaken a nurture course in many years. We formed six groups (which was perhaps too few given the numbers) and as I write four of those groups have agreed to continue to meet as home groups after the first stage of the course is complete in a week or so. Each group has found its own balance in terms of frequency, timing and location and will, with proper guidance and prayer, become self-supporting. The clergy have been working on who might lead the groups so that we might be freed up to lead new ones in the future, and that too has been successful. It is my intention, as the Vicar, to work my way around each group and break bread with them in their context, and in the meantime, to encourage them to continue in the way of Lectio Divina until we embark upon the second course focussing on the Lord's Prayer. Two groups have chosen to continue straight into that, another to have month or two before doing so. It is my plan to run another recruitment drive in September and set some more groups on their way, and to use this course as the means by which I will prepare confirmation candidates.

After that ... only the Lord knows!

Contagion or Carcinogen?

The whole thing with this church planting malarky has weighed on my mind for some time. For those of you who don't live within the scope of an Oyster Card and therefore not in HTB heartland, a church plant is nothing much to do with Mrs Miggins and her flower rota, or indeed the lovely chap who tends to the weeds by the gravestones. 

No, this is far more important. 

Church planting is de rigueur around London and environs and refers to the creating of a new church community, often within old disused church buildings or the local school. The art of the church plant is exemplified by the Church of the Holy Trinity in the Archdiocese of Brompton, who regard it as a gospel imperative (the 'making disciples' thing). The simple fact is, if you leave a spare bedroom un-used for too long, one of two things will happen: you will pay tax or else your spare bedroom will be planted by the planters and a church dedicated St Flossy in the Wold will be created among your detritus. Church plants are also easy to spot for there are some common characteristics in each

1. There will be a polyvinyl Alpha Course banner outside

2. The Pasta will be wearing the obligatory hoody and have a funky modern hairdo, goatee and that church-plant fringe thing

3. The Pasta's name will be abbreviated from that given at their baptism (often with a 'z' added for extra funkiness)

The fact is, in sitting here and writing this, I have been absent from my own church building for a few minutes, and I am already sure that Muff and Baz have taken over the joint to create the next branch office of Alpha International. 

Now, as the meagre parson that I am, with a church community to love into the Kingdom, I find that the greater burden on my reverential shoulders is manifest in the need to keep the present day subsidised so that tomorrow has half a chance. I am largely a fundraiser to maintain, if I am lucky, the parochial status quo. Most incumbents across most parishes across Christendom face the same challenges, unless of course they are those Johnny-come-Latelys from the fecund breast of the HTB mothership. They pitch up, rip the hoarding down from the crumbling carcass of St Silas under the Wardrobe, by their own effort paint it and make it look pretty, install the rock act and the obligatory sound desk, and crack on. Are they worried about the bills? Possibly. But what is the case is that they are ready to use the re-enlivened St Silas by the Bedside Cabinet as launch pad to a new church plant.

I have often pondered this gentle spread of the planters across the territory. That they are of a single breed of ecclesial expression, that they all seem to have the same theology, that their outward face is often mitigated by the same nurture course - this, I confess, worries me. That I sit in some measure of fear for my parish community when I eventually leave because I am quite sure that a planter is already being cloned in readiness to take over and turn the altar into a drum kit - that worries me. That they are all the same worries me too as I believe passionately in the diversity of the church. That there seems to be no future place for Christians born as I have been born worries me, and there are times when, in my less charitable moments, I feel that this relentless church planting is carcinogenic. Not all church communities are the same, of course, so why are all church plants the same? 

The fact remains, though, that I know that what the planters are doing is right. They are broadcasting their seed so that new Christian communities can grow. Rather than being a carcinogen, they are in fact contagions for the Gospel and rather than wish to wipe them from the face of the Earth, wish that my 'tribe' could learn a lesson and see the very real need for all types of church plant in the breadth of expression that the Lord must surely favour. Us catholic types surely have it easy. We don't need sound-desks and drum kits, my name doesn't have to be changes to Davey and I am delighted, thank you very much, with the Pilgrim Course. All I need therefore, for a church plant is a cup, a plate, and the heart for it. 

In my little parish, thriving though it is, I have neither the first idea or the apparent resource to accomplish any sort of plant, as I see it. I don't have an International Corporation to which I can claim a place at table to help me. I do, though, want to see the church of God grow. I grant that in this part of London I am HTB-locked, so what do I do? I am so locked into the the need to have church pay its way in the present day that the idea of sending out some good folk with a roll of cash seems impossible. I so want the church that I love grow and thrive. It is an exciting time to be a Christian and the world is hungry, but I have been born into a tradition that seems to favour the liturgical moment and not the risk of a tomorrow in the dust and uncertainty somewhere new. As someone that I know (who is much wiser than I) put it  - we need more mission-minded Catholics so that we can be contagious too.

The Real Cost of Christmas

I confess, that as I read this morning's appointed readings for Morning Prayer (Abram, Sarai and Hagar to be precise, and indeed to prove that I do remember), a thought jumped into my head that had no unearthly business being there. And no, not that sort of thought - how dare you. 

It occured to me that the monetary yield of my vine-tending would have been deposited into the off-shore account, and it was a thought that offered some small relief - though why the plight of Hagar prompted this train of thought I have no idea.

And so it is that the meagre shekels of my stipend were paid into my account and that I am no longer borassic-lint and borderline bankrupt ... for a day or two. I don't normally worry about pay day as I am blessed to (finally) be a person without debt and provided for by a wife who knows the manner to which I have become accustomed. It's a January thing. Payday at the end of January was always a matter of some relief, even back in the days when my monthly income could buy me two Mars bars, not just the one. And the reason: Christmas.

I have observed an alarming trend in recent years with the proliferation of Christmas clubs and savings enterprises, which is to say at the same time as it is made easier to pay for Christmas people then go mad on it. One present for little Persephone is not enough. Presents measured in the Transit Van-load is not the new chic! I remember the first (or was it the second?) Christmas after we had the Twins Aculae. So many presents did they receive that we had to pace their opening over several days for fear of overwhelming the poor poppets. The simple fact is - people spend ridiculous and non-representative amounts on their Christmas festivities, people whose appetites for apparent altruism are fuelled by the heart-tugging advertising campaigns of the likes of John Lewis and Tesco. The sad result of this is that people are largely wiped out financially throughout January - the very same month during which the second dozen pricey gifts have been forgotten by the darling who only wanted to play with the bog box they all came in. Even those of us not given to seasonal extravagance feel the pinch. Our kids got a couple of dog biscuits and a suck on a napkin for dinner, but still the coffers were squeezed until the pips squeaked.  

I am willing to bet that people are already stashing their hard-earned for Christmas 2014, or else making the first card-payment for the stash of gear bought for Christmas 2013. I could of course blame baby Jesus who received lavish and multiple gifts from his well-wishers, but that would be churlish and would see me de-frocked. But look back on the Christmas that has just passed us by and seems so long ago and try to remember the highlights: yes, I loved my presents and I delighted in my dinner but the fact is, the best of Christmas by far (and not including the spiritual and religious for a moment) was that I was able to sit with my children piled on top of me while some pointless telly blathered on in the corner of a room bathed in the flickering lights of the Tree. That will be my enduring image of the good Christmas that I just had. And to be honest, I couldn't have bought that experience will the tea in China. 

I wonder if the Church doesn't have a role in encouraging people, believe it or not, to do less for Christmas. We cannot fight for our Festival without taking a lead in its effects, even those effects that we quickly blame on over-commercialisation. Perhaps we should focus on the Christ-child, not surrounded by the latest output from the Apple Corporation, but was surrounded by love even in the most profound poverty. 

Is It Me (Again)?

I am convinced of two things:

1. We have to die of something

2. The world is going slightly mad

If we set aside the first of those two (though in passing, did I tell you that I do a mean funeral), I wish to focus on the latter for focus is good. And what might be the target of my ire this time? You may well ask (though suspect that you aren't). The first is "Since Records Began" and the second is ... well, you'll see.

When I was quite young, like last year and that, I would hear  news reports that would speak of this or that being some superlative since "records began". I would often revel in this new-found knowledge as a man with something of an autism for statistics. It is good to know that last July was the most wasp-infested since the day before they buried that King under a Leicester car-park. Yippee-doo - the cup of life runneth over. My life is enhanced by that stuff - although this tendency in reporting seems to be the sole preserve of the doom-mongers. 

The thing is, even that has changes and not for the better let me tell you. It is true to say that in our Great Britain it has, of late, drizzled a little, been a little chilly - you know, like it often is in winter. In fact, there are many people in their homes that were built on the flood-plains that have, rather less than unexpectedly, been - well, flooded. Them and Tewkesbury whose carpeting bills are somewhat higher of late. Actually, to do people a measure of justice, it has in fact widdled down for weeks on end and places that were once flower-bejewelled meadows are now new lakes and some 'B' roads the new tributaries of the River Severn, so fairs fair, it has been bloody nasty down west. 

Then the stattoes start. The numbers-folk start their analyses and present the damning evidence of a generation. It has been the wettest winter since ... wait for it ... 2011 (actually, this is an invented number for sake of effect). But it happened elsewhere too - that November was the, I don't know, most face-furnished since 1998. It's ridiculous. I really am not that old, so to cite "since ..." dates that are within my own lifetime are just meaningless and speak of the crisis in the world of statistics. The fact is, I await a news report that will appoint today as the most Thursday-like Thursday since last Thursday, and that was a hum-dinger in its own right. Tell me that today is the most manky depressed grey day since before the time of Christ, and you have my attention, but don't be telling me that it is just a bit wetter than yesterday. 

Then there is the other thing, and in this I speak the God's-honest truth. In Great Britain, we ask our ambulance crews to prove that they were out on an emergency call so that they might appeal against - you guessed it - a speeding ticket. If my giblets were protruding through my soft-palate, I would be rather keen to see an ambulance crew a minute sooner, and not worrying why they were taking so long. But to discover that our green-clad heroes and heroines are subject to the same speed regulations as the rest of us is just, well, silly. It won't end well, either. Reason for appeal: we were attending an inter-cranial bleed on the High Street. Did he survive? No - he had passed into paradise before we arrived, poor soul. Verdict: That'll be sixty quid and three points! 

Meh!

Why It Just Isn't Alright

I can't talk to the kids today; I have too much to do. Actually, I haven't seen them for months because you know those annoying golf matches - they just need to be played. I can't tell you how they are doing because I have broadly forgotten what they look like. I have to assume that they are doing alright - their mother is a good and loyal sort and I trust her to look after them. I'd have seen them before now but I prefer to have a lay-in and get more valuable sleep; I work hard, you know that. Surely it would be easier if didn't have to meet up so early, but that isn't all. They want so much time and I just don't have the time to give to them these days. I have about an hour a week, no more. I'll give that to them if they could cope with seeing me a little later in the day so I can enjoy another coffee when I wake. And guess what; I am not going to feel bad. You cannot and will not make me feel bad because if you ask them they will tell you that I love them. I don't have to see them to still love them; they have always understood that. They know that, just ask them. And before you say it, of course I love my kids; I always have. They are everything to me. There isn't a thing that I wouldn't do for my kids, so don't go claiming otherwise. 

Dear reader, please put down your pitchforks and your torches. I understand how the words above must make you feel; that I am some sort of pratt and a poor parent. Were these words true and situation real, then of course you would be right and I would no more deserve my kids than they to be exposed to such an appalling parent. But - the thing is, if you replace the "kids" with God, you have the great myth there before you: that you don't have to go to church to be a Christian. 

I accept that there is a fundamental difference between spirituality and organised religion. I accept that for many a regular habit of corporate worship is difficult, that life can and does get in the way from time to time - or indeed because the simple act of getting out of the house is beyond the physical capabilities of some. What I am sure of, though, is that a belief in God is to be in a relationship of mutual love and trust akin to that of parent and child or between lovers. We galvanise these human relationships with temporal proximity or indeed some effort to keep those relationships alive if some distance exists between the parties concerned. 

The thing is, the top paragraph is a (not widely off the mark) caricature of some of the comments that I have been privy to in recent years. They fall into the same categories: that Christians don't need to go to church; that "I don't like a service that goes on too long, say over an hour; that church should be there at my convenience (like a shop, for example). I have witnessed efforts by priests to curtail their services to that of time compliance, for example - never daring to exceed the expected time-limit. 

Why would we treat God like that? Why would we apply to God those things that we wouldn't apply elsewhere. When we go to the cinema, do we pass over the blockbuster that we had hoped to see because it exceeded 90 minutes in duration? Our world is fast becoming one that is "on demand" and "to convenience". We can store and hoard television so that we can watch it when we want to. Shops remain open all night on the off chance that we exercise our democratic right to buy jam tarts in the wee-small hours.  

What would happen if God treated us in a like manner? What if God was the parent in my little narrative at the top - only available at his convenience? What if God rationed us to 59 minutes a week, or simply didn't bother because he favoured time with his golf bats? What if God ignored us because he simply couldn't be arsed today?

So, it is the start of a new year. Have I just upset you be describing an all too familiar situation? Have no fear - the relationship you have absented yourself is still there; still real. And thankfully for you and for me, God will simply be delighted to see you again. Enjoy!

Christmas Closedown

Well, this is it. My last offering before I do the Christmas thing and by virtue of which I will step away from my screen and draw closer to the Baybee Jeezus. 

What a vile year it has been (for me at least). I have acquired health disorders like they were going our of fashion and I cannot now drive a car. I am far greyer than I was in 2012 and I have discovered that more than a few of the priests I looked up as a child were bound over by some destructive behaviours. Yes, I will be glad when 2013 ends and 2014 begins as there is always that due sense of a new beginning. 

But I must not be too hasty. I look back on the last twelve months and yes, the headlines were, as with the newspapers themselves, the paradigmatic bad times where I have failed, been failed, or witnessed the failure of others. That life is not the headlines is also reinforced for me. Actually, if I am honest, there have been some cherished moments of profound and God-given grace that I must surely regard this 2013 as nothing less than a blessing. 

One of the harder parts of this year for me is that it robbed me, for a time, of the optimism that I have for life and that colours my perspective. The hues seen in the light became polarised and its greyness was amplified as a result. I can normally cope with whatever flies my way and have become resilient. The thing with losing the colour of life is that when it returns, it is all the more vivid and welcome. The thing with being exposed to life's shadow is that one is introduced to an aspect of living hitherto unknown. Another blessing. I 'see' people altogether more clearly, and then too the society in which I am a member and called to serve. In some very clear ways, my vocation within my priesthood has changed - and I think for the better. I have learned, perhaps a little late, that I am called and ordained to be a priest and not an ecclesiastical administrator; a spiritual person not a task-orientated person. Indeed, I think of those folk in the Bible who seem to be a little hard-done by from my point of view - the blind-man or else dear Simeon. One's calling was to have his sight restored so that others may see; the other to wait until his dying breaths in a state of constant expectancy, to bear witness to the Christ-child and attest for the rest of humanity the nature of the miracle in his arms. The simple fact seems to be that God uses the dark as well as the light to enhance and edify us - to draw us close and to show us the better way.

I love Christmas for all the reasons that you do, but there are magical moments that do much to lift me higher. Standing before a church filled beyond safe capacity with Christmas-Eve kids, all wearing the precious mask of eager expectation; falling into bed after the Midnight Mass and after a single-malt (my own personal relaxation ritual); the kids' faces when they wake on Christmas morning; closed shop-fronts; awful music and choral interwoven everywhere; and that time on Christmas night when I am wrapped up in the arms and legs of my family as we watch some appalling television through the unique and golden Christmas light that always seems to permeate the room each year. Wonderful. Perfect. Gracious. 

So, thank you to you and thank you to 2013. To you for bearing with my relative absence but still coming back when I deign to write (and often in a grumpy state I notice); and to 2013 for showing me more of a life that I thought I had sorted but in fact had hardly scratched the surface of. 

May I wish you, and all those you love, a peaceful and blessed Christmas. May your 2014 be a time of the richest of God's blessings. See you next year!

Giving and Receiving

'Tis the season to be jolly and all that; a  time to give and give in abundance; a time to fling millions at the retailers so that we can gather unto our fecund breast the trappings of the baybee Jeezuss. 

I find myself a little confused.com!

I have, in recent weeks, become familiar with the therapeutic encounter and in that setting there are rules that establish the basis for trust and openness - themselves pathways to healing. One of those rules, in the group encounter, is that there is to be "no care-taking"!

Care-taking in this setting refers to that instinctive response (in many) to reach out and offer care to one in distress. If one who is expressing him/herself does so through the visceral haze of tears, or else a rictus grin or the black depths of fury, there is to be "no care-taking". Leave them to cry; let them express their ire. The reason for this is clear, in therapeutic circles:

"The hand that gives is above the hand that receives".

I have pondered this for a few weeks now, in light of the phrase found in Acts that we all know: "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20: 35). I have pondered this hard as I have tried (and yes, often failed) to model my meagre existence on this tenet of faith. That there is an inherent power imbalance had never occurred to me, and I am left wondering.  

The church (that august body of good men and women) is equipped with many gifts that it would bestow upon you if you so allowed it. We do charity a good'n. We'll cure your homosexuality with the Holy Spirit if you want us to*. We'll lob you a hand-out if the need arises. We'll fling water and oil around to solve your spiritual dis-ease. Yes, we can do all of that. But where is power in this?

Let us forget that it was Napoleon Bonaparte who expressed, so eloquently, the power imbalance so often present through the acts of giving and receiving. It does sometimes worry me that we the church will claim to have them the answers for you the sinner. We will look at your life and tell you where you have gone wrong and bring with us a remedy. Actually, I would go even further. We focus heavily on giving as a virtue because we cannot happily receive. So few of us feel worthy of a God-gift so we shy away from receiving such a grace as that, and defer to giving as the thing that we should be doing. 

Again, I write this only for myself - as one with an all-too-quick comment to help you fix that which is broken. I am often too quick to give worthy advice, the answer, a solution. I am learning that just sitting and resisting the urge to "give" means that I remain an equal to the other person, and in real danger of receiving a moment of grace in being party to the story of another. It is certainly a male thing to do the quick fix, but I wonder if it is also an innately (and well intentioned [on the whole]) Christian thing? 

* The author of this blog does not regard homosexuality to be a disease like some do. I do not believe that you can be cured of it or should be cured of it. I cannot be cured of my brown eyes or my boyish grin - and why not? Because I was born that way. I condemn homophobia in all its forms - including that which regards it as a curable disease. Enough said. 

The Toxicity of Sea Air

I don't know whether I should write this or not, but another week has passed when another name known to me has reached the headlines. No, I cannot claim any association to Joey Essex or Steve Davis - this is another priest arrested for offenses against children, known to me personally, who practiced his ministry in the town where I lived and in the parish where a significant number of my own family lived until recently. 

I am fast running out of fingers to count the names of men that I know who have been arrested, charged or convicted for offenses against children - children that are about the same age as I was, and I must confess that each new "story" is another significant blow. 

I write as one who is familiar with this issue, though you will forgive me if I don't (can't) go into specifics. I find myself wondering what it is about Eastbourne that attracts the kind of priest that seem so keen on those who are too small, weak and innocent to defend themselves against those who come armed with the significant power-armour of a minister of religion. Where does a youngster go to find the words to explain that one he trusted undertook acts of such unutterable degradation upon their tender frames? Who would ever believe them? Surely not him? That kid was always trouble, after all. 

I write this post as one who approaches it with a sense of profound sadness. I am realistic enough to know that in every barrel of apples there are one or two that are on the mushy side, but why the barrel that existed in and around my neighbourhood? Why does it seem that half of the sodding thing was steeped in mould? I feel like every one (beyond my blessed family) that I have ever trusted or looked up to is in fact a monster. It makes me feel sad at times to be a priest, more often sad to be an Anglo-Catholic, and daily saddened that my faith and vocation were expressed and explored in this toxic sea air. 

All praise to +Martin, though. The Bishop of Chichester is doing much to repair the damage caused by these toxic tsunamis, even within the midst of evidence that emerges afresh with every single passing week. 

I wrote a post some time ago about being a child of Chichester - a post that was in many ways the sand into which I placed my greying head. It was a post of half-truths and a healthy amount of self-denial, because I have struggled to come to terms with the fact that so many men who have actively nurtured my faith and calling have hands that would cause unutterable pain to children. I look back upon a church-centred childhood and I wonder. Was he? Were they? To tell you the truth, I don't know which way is up any more and that makes me feel afraid. I extrapolate my Eastbourne life onto my wider existence and I am fearful that I am starting to see shadows everywhere, or that I am a shadow in the making and that I just don't know it. Most of all I want to go back to those days when I was a teenager in Eastbourne when so many of my peers were being gently destroyed, and beg it to stop. Oh for the power of hindsight.