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! 

God's Mixed Messages

Yesterday I wrote about those moments of absolute clarity in one's ministry. Today, I wish to remember those whose moment didn't come as had been hoped, or as had seemed inevitable before. 

Somewhere along the line, when talking about calling and the forms it takes, there are conversations with others and those palpable moments when one senses God pulling. I liken that sense as a fine nylon thread (like fishing wire) - strong yet barely visible. Those of us who have responded to a call will know a little of that nylon thread - that call we cannot see yet are subject to. 

A lot of people feel a sense of calling, and some those people respond affirmatively to it by seeking the process of discernment. That is normally bound up in yet more conversations, meetings, interviews, exercises and tests maybe, and more prayer than you could swing a cat at. Lots of that. Of  that noble army of those seeking discernment, some get to do that thing we refer to as a 'selection conference' which is a gathering of wise and sage clerics of much experience whose task it is to affirm the work of none less than the Holy Spirit in the life of the hapless candidate who sits before them in arduous interviews. Some receive the 'yes' and some do not.

Perhaps the frustrating thing about the whole process of discernment (which doesn't end at ordination, I ought to say), is that it takes an age, demands absolute commitment and is rooted in a fairly solid certainty of the nature of the calling. I doubt that anyone goes off to selection with the sense that God really got it wrong, but that they are there just for the cake. No - to go to selection means that through prayer, conversation and all of the above, a 'yes' seems the only desirable and equitable outcome. 

It is fair to say that from the perspective of us mortal frailings God can send out mixed messages. Why me God? Why now? I thought you meant ... and so on. And so it is that there are people who have to confront a decision that states that discernment finds against their prayerfully and diligently expected pathway to ordination. I am blessed because I received the approval of the selection panel in 2006, but what of those who did not and those who do not as each month passes? The response back at home is likely to be that God 'obviously didn't call you to ordination, so let's consider alternatives'. When it is the person who shared the view with you that ordination was right, and the person who sent you off to have that view affirmed who says that - it must seem impossibly hard to accept. When the process of discernment up to the selection panel can amount to years, I can only imagine how hard it is to be told that the house you felt was built on rock was in fact built on balsa wood. 

I accept that there are many wounded men and women who, in this season of ordination, will feel like God led them up the garden path. At this time, I pray for them - I cannot imagine how I would have coped with a view that suggested that I couldn't be ordained as I believed that I was born for it - as these men and women did before their 'no'. My prayers go to them for some sense of a clearer signal from God so that they may just do the work that He calls them to, whatever it ends up being.


This post is dedicated to my friend Ernie at a difficult time. Peace be with you, brother. 

Moments of Perfect Clarity

This time of the year is special for many ordained people as it is Petertide (more or less), the time when many of us were ordained. Already I am considering the fourth anniversary of my Making as a Deacon, the third of my Ordination to Priesthood and they have been the best of times.

The very grave issue with blogging is that as an activity it can become a spittoon or else the residue of the rumination - which it to say that we use our blogs to whine, grumble and work though our minor psychoses. Mine is no exception, although I have tended to rant less than in previous years. It struck me how I log on to complain, and rarely to celebrate in that unfettered way that we Brits find so hard. Christian Brits do celebration with an ecstasy of self-apology like so other race on Earth. 

Earlier this week, and not for the first time since my own 'moment', I was privileged to be present for the First Mass of a new priest. For those of us of a sacramental disposition, such a Rite is in many ways the perfect pinnacle of priestly experience, the best of things. One's First Mass is a stunning balance of abject terror and child-like excitement, all bound up in the person of one who feels oddly fraudulent placing a chasuble over their heads, let alone waving arms around in a liturgical way. 

First Masses represent different things. By their very nature they are perfectly crafted and long-planned affairs with every facet and movement of ceremonial designed and intended. A new priest is so terrified that each step and gesture is deliberate, considered and executed with precision. The music is often from the heart of the new priest so a provision of such wonder and true authenticity, it is almost as if the spirit of the priest him/herself is singing for us. Family and dear friends, supporters well-wishers, observers and guests - all turn out to make First Masses fully populated and thereby buzzing with the tension that the Spirit sees fit to imbue such gatherings with. In short, you will see a priest presiding his/her heart out, and a priest almost certainly a sixteenth of an inch from tears all the way through (or else closer than that in my case). From within and without, First Masses (for those who do them) are the absolute summit of all that a priest regards as special before God. 

For those of us who bear witness to such events (I include ordinations in that), these Rites of Priestly Passage do something very deep within us. They remind us. They simply do that. They remind us why we accepted God's call. They re-affirm in us the absolute and complete rightness of accepting that call and making all the sacrifices in life that such acceptance demands. We feel again that feeling we had in our hearts when it was our time to process in to our own Masses or ordination - that sense of bewildering joy and trembling uncertainty. More usefully perhaps after the fact we are reminded of how wonderful this job is - how perfect, how it is more than we could ever hope for or dare dream ourselves capable of. Even in the context of the Stuff of Grumbles, we are given moments of perfect clarity as to why we are who we are - priests and ministers in God's Church. 

So to Fr Andrew next door, and all ordinands, deacons and priests all about to pass or have just passed through these exquisite moments of the greatest joy we can know - my prayers to you, your families and those who support you in your ministries. May the Lord be with us all. 

On Being Insulted Nicely

As one of your common or garden liberal Anglo-Catholic types, there are things I do well and things I do less well. I come with my own story and as priest, it is a story that contains (in large italicized print) the whole Calling Thing and in my case one that was within my consciousness most of my life.

As one of your common or garden Christians, I have me a relationship with God that is reciprocal, fruitful and yes, life giving. This Christian appreciates a bit of ritual, regard the Sacraments as central to my faith's expression, enjoy the beauty given by things like music and practice that (probably for very good reason) have survived the test of time and can now be regarded as old. I have been ordained in Holy Orders and as one who regards those orders as sacramental, endlessly wrestle with worthiness and and my place in such a precious ministerial and spiritual place. 

The Triduum - I can do that like a pro. You want liturgies emotional roller-coasters born of ancient ecclesiastical practices? I can do that. Tenebrae? Yup! Stripping of Altars after the Pange Lingua? Yessum! The unfolding light of Holy Saturday? No problems! Want pathos squeezed from familiar and ancient words? I'm your man! Want to sense the Passion, not just rock it up? My place, please!

Pentecost? Less sure of that, actually. For I am not your common or garden born-in-the-spirit charismatic Christian c1960s. Baptized in water and glad for it, but in the Holy Spirit? Can't claim that as a fact of my past in the way meant by so many. Do I find myself speaking in tongues on demand? No, not me. am I open to the possibility? Absolutely, but the Holy Spirit of the Charismatics seems not to want this meagre Christian man. 

After this Sunday's main service, a delightful women (and I mean that, her presence here is cherished) said to me that she wished I knew the Holy Spirit better. Now - that may sound like a nice thing to say and it was certainly said with love. However, the net result was that I felt like a stinking fraud. For the rest of the day. I regard the Spirit to be God as the Son is God and so on - so this was received as the gravest accusation delivered with such grace and without a scintilla of malice or desire to offend. 

The problem is (if 'problem' is the right word) that I am made as I am made. I am the disciple I am. I am not another sort of disciple, and if being Charismatic is what God wants, and that I need to be more richly imbued with God's Holy Spirit, then I am not the man for this job. Is being Charismatic the only way? Does the Lord only want people who speak in tongues? Why not me? I love God too, in my own way. If I am part of a wing in the church that God wishes reformed into oblivion, then God will lose my ministry and he will lose me - because he will have been stringing me along for long enough. 

I am what I am, and I cannot start to feel bad about it now. It's far too late for that. 

Disposable Laity

Someone very close to me wrote a blog post recently about the fact that she is, after six years, laying down her role as Churchwarden. If you want an interesting perspective on life in church, please read Doorkeeper's post here. It is a simple post, expressed well and offers a side to parish life that many experience. 

The nice thing about being "the Vicar" is that (Common Tenure allowing) we can hover around in a parish like a bad smell for decades. Because we feel called to? No; because we enjoy it and it works for us or our families to stay. Let there be no illusion there. We stay for us most of the time.

In a well run parish, this is broadly where it ends, unless the small matter of a wage or salary is brought to bear - but again, very often those people stay not because of calling, but because of economic reasons. It is our wonderful laity who step forward to do jobs around church who are called to it. They are there through that calling, with any luck take some pleasure from it, but in all cases do it in the context of their freely given spare time. This is the case for the lovely person who might polish a brass every month, who serves at the Altar on a rota-approved basis, or the kindly person who simply prays for the parish and her life. It is the same for Churchwardens too. 

Churchwardens, in most parishes I think, have a tenure. That is to say that they can hold office for a given period of time, having then to relinquish it and give to the next person. This is a good thing on many levels as we all know of Wardens who were in post six or seven years after they were clinically dead. Accounts of Warden who gripped steadfast to their staffs for decades are not uncommon, and rarely accounts filled with glee and happiness. 

So, dear reader, we have members of our wonderful laity who give their time freely, as a result of their sense of God's calling who - in the end - have to stop that work and give it away. Many have no choice at all in that, including Wardens. 

Reading Doorkeeper's account is helpful because it reminds people like me that such transitions are not painless. When you give your all to something, it is difficult to stop if those years have been good (as they were in Doorkeeper's case). What do they do afterwards? How do they re-integrate back into parish life in a revised way after a period of holding much authority? How do they fill the many hours that they previously gave, not to the parish in question, but to God? Vicar's (myself included) preside over these moments, and I will do so this session with a Warden of my own who ran her own Interregnum. Doorkeeper's post is a timely reminder that it isn't just puffed-up priests who hurt when the job stops or has to change. We forget that to our peril and to the pain and cost to our vital lay volunteers. 

Hardcore Calling

If you say "vocation" in a church, chances are people will think priest 'minister'. If someone comes forward claiming a sense of calling, invariably they are saying "I think I want to be a vicar". Vocation and ordained ministry have become synonymous (more often than not).

Oh that it was that simple. 

I don't deal with vocations in the way some of my colleagues do. I don't have to read the fine print and the words between the lines with those who feel that inexorable pull from God. Maybe one day I will, but not now. Now, I regard it as a tough job and one where I would struggle. 

Today we remember Simeon ('the Righteous', for there is a panoply of Simea), the old geezer of Candlemas, the fella who just happened to be stood there when Mary and Joseph carried in that peculiar little bundle of out-of-this-world new life. With Simeon, we then witness a hardcore calling, an extreme vocation. 

The thing with Simeon, is that his calling was there from before his birth, placed within him by God as he was formed in his mother's womb. This is, I believe, where all callings are placed - whether we care to take any notice or not. His calling was not to pop down to the nearest clerical outfitters for an array of Fairtrade poly-cotton tunnel-collar sky-blue shirts. His calling was not to move into a generously proportioned vicarage or take the keys to a marvellous edifice. 

Simeon was called by God to receive that Christ child - and then, basically, to die. For Simeon, his vocation to was wait an entire lifetime for the moment that may or may not happen in his dying days. When we think "vocation", we think beginnings, new directions. For Simeon, "vocation" meant fulfillment, accomplishment and endings. God, having filled the old bloke with the Holy Spirit, had kept him alive so that his eyes may see the child, the Messiah. We know that it all worked out perfectly for Simeon, for our Bible tells us so. But imagine waiting seventy, eighty or ninety years for a single moment that may or may not happen - a moment that you feel called to enter. 

Callings are universal - which is to say that all people have a calling placed upon them from God. Some listen, some can interpret that, many mis-interpret that, but some are the hardest callings of all. May Simeon become your Patron Saint. 

That is My Job

Blogging has been an interesting thing, but the thing it has done most frequently is to cause me to face up to my identity as a priest. In my 'former life', it was easier - I was a shopkeeper, married happily to a wonderful woman, lived a simple life, went to church, liked fast cars and planes, liked a glass of wine and a single malt, then I went to bed and the cycle started again. I could do all of that - it was eminently do-able.

Priests enjoy many blessings (no pun intended), but we live with something of a curse - the 'why on earth am I doing this?' conundrum. We are priests by the intervention of God (as we believe), and such a rare and precious gift is very often too much to cope with unless you have the ego of an aircraft carrier. Without a blog, I didn't have to think about it much. I did what I always do - put my head down and graft hard so that in some measure I could cause myself to be worthy of this precious gift by effort alone. Pah - as if....

Sometimes the angst and dissonance overflows and as I read back over some these posts I can see how often I wrestle with this stuff. I guess I will have to learn to live with this calling. Don't get me wrong, I love it. However, if someone walked up to you in the street and gave you keys of an Aston Martin DBS and said, 'Here, this is yours' you'd be glad, thank them, have some great times driving the thing, but always wonder how that came about - the 'why me' thing. I doubt you would ever fully resolve it. I haven't, but I have to get on with it. That is my job.

Yes, I am different. That I am sitting here in a dog-collar listening to yet more heavy metal as I write this is odd. That I may be the only sacramental priest in my geographical area (or so it feels) beyond my own Incumbent is tough for me. That I am more traditional in my style and all the while acknowledge the rightful calling of women, homosexual people and anyone else that God sees fit to call to any role in the life of His church makes me a very small minority.

As a new friend from Twitter said, this is my calling. I am sick of stressing about it, and so I am just going to concede that I am here for some purpose, perhaps as yet undisclosed, and just get on with it. This isn't a job that I can stop doing, it is a state of being - a 'new me' in one sense. In fact, I have to also accept that there are beer swilling, heavy metal loving,  sacramental yet tolerant car loving plane admiring Christians out there - and they too have a right to be ministered to. That is my job (among others)