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. 

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!

Gratitude Adjustment

Let me paint for you a mere vignet of a mental image type thingy. You invite a cherished friend around for food and you spend the week before planning and deliberating about the perfect repast to offer your great mate. You prepare and roast the meat, searing it first to help with good gravy; you parboil the spuds, and then roast them until crispy and golden brown (after flouring their edges in the pan before roasting, of course). The vegetables steam and you prepare the gravy from the roasting juices while the meat rests. Your mucker arrives with a bottle of Vino du Plonque and you swap it with an apperitif to pique the appetite before retiring to the Salle de Manger to eat the much loved meal. You place the food before your chum, and wait to guage their response to your heard work and hospitality; your pal opens his mouth to speak, and you wait ... wait ... and then it happens:

"I am a complete sh*t. I am a worthless worm of a bug of a human, lower than a snake's belly and just as gravelly"

"Say wot?", is your best reply, polished after years of etiquette lessons and best deportment classes

"It's all terrible; woe woe and thrice woe"

"But what about the mange-tout?"

"I am not worthy so much to eat the mange-toute from off of your Royal Doulton"

Do you know what? This is what God hears every day of his/her life. Christians are so effective at self-flaggelation that we have fast lost the art of simple gratitude. We would rather moan about the slightest prosepct that the pews might be removed from church or that the preacher didn't agree with our personal theology. We enjoy focussing upon, and probably even relishing, the very idea that we are basically horrid (until someone else suggests it, when it becomes an insult, anathema).

I read a report written by a psychologst recently on the very real benefits of gratitude upon the grateful, let alone upon the recipients of that gratitude. Apparently, expressing gratitude allows a person to focus on what they have instead of what they do not, thereby lessening the negative effects of jealousy. Paying someone a visit purely to express a genuine gratitude is among one of the most positive psychological exercises and aids the reconfiguration in neuroplasticity (the re-moulding of the potter's clay, in other words). Gratitude can be expressed with skepticism but not cynicism, enhances a sense of true openness and connects the person completely to the event or matter in question. It seems that gratitude is a good fruit of the best kind of reflection. And Christians are hopeless at it, or so it seems.

If we take the ACTS model of prayer (adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication) it seems that depending on where you worship God determines which of these you might major in. Some do the adoration thing quite a lot (Jesus/God is lovely and all that), while others do rather well and confessing (I am but a worm and no person), with supplication being a healthy thing in all of us. However, think of the last set of intercessions you listened to - was it dripping in gratitude or bleak with the darkness of the human condition?

It seems to me that Christians have a great deal to be grateful for. I wonder how many people took it for granted that they had a church to walk into and a seat to sit in this weekend; that a minister of some sort had prepared some form of worship and delivered it; that there were lights on in the church and maybe just maybe even heat; that there wasn't a gunman stood waiting outside to take potshots because you were Christian. I wonder how many of us sat down to lunch without thinking about it, or falling into bed for a (hopefully) good night's sleep?

We are not bad people, in the main. But there is a very grave danger, in the West at least, that we are SO blessed (and God loved the world SO much ...) that we become almost immunised by plenty. I wonder if God doesn't tire of our hair-lined shirts. I wonder if we are missing some very basic pychological gains in this life by failing to make a gatitude adjustment?

The answer, I am told, is to make a list daily of things for which to be thankful. Eventually, after a period of those lists looking largely the same each time, they become more creative as the lister in question starts to re-notice the little things that make such a difference. This, my friend, is the path to happiness.

Thank you for reading.



The Value of Doing Easter in full

I am not a ridiculously pious man, despite my calling and present ministry. Indeed, some often claim surprise when they discover that do indeed have a spiritual side - a matter for concern perhaps, but not one that I lose sleep about just now. The fact is, I am a fairly normal type - maybe just not your typical rictus God-botherer.

Over the last few years I have been learning about something which, when expressed out loud as in the form of a blog post, seems obvious. Despite the impression of me that you may have formed if you read this thing often enough, I do not come from a heavily liturgical tradition of church. Indeed, my child-hood parish was a fairly straight-forward estate brick wigwam, blessed with a choir that could only sing in unison. I was not born into a bells-and-smells tradition - no: I chose it having tried other things first. 

As I have grown as a Christian, I have discovered the simple truth about Passiontide, Holy Week and Easter: the more I put in the more I get out. In simple terms, for me it is an all-or-nothing thing. 

As the Vicar, one of the things that I am required to do is to lay out the liturgical flow for the year. That I enjoy it and have something of a gift for it is besides the point (I am a crap preacher, so being good at something else is good). I sat in the immediate wake of a happy Christmas and made choices - not for me, but for the good people of Whitton, not least among whom are the worshippers at this here edifice. I pondered last year at the feed-back that I received after the first such sweeps of ceremonial formed by my vicarly hand, and it was good. It observed the very thing that I myself feel when I seek the Lord - that the more you put in the more you get out. This seems to be the plimsoll line for ritualist Christians. 

And so I drafted the list of services between Palm Sunday and Easter. Upon emailing it, I could sense the gasps, but it was my sense that it was my job to take my people on a journey with Christ. Yes, it needed flavour above and beyond the purpose presented in the Story, so we had Healing on one day, Meditation on another and longer prayers on another. It struck me last year that different people come to different things, so Good Friday was an epic Whitton marathon (for me and the three others who did all of it) of more than nine hours of worship. Each was well-attended and often by very distinctive groups of people. However, it was also having an effect on me - this year I have done more than I have been party to or have lead in previous years and in simple terms - the effect of the entire story on me was yet greater than it had previously been. The more I did, personally, the more I felt connected. 

My abiding memory of this year was being sat in the hall next to my wife watching The Passion of the Christ after a day of liturgising. She was weeping as the film ended and others were holding one another in consolation. For me, Easter 2013 will be characterised by people 'getting it', maybe for the first time. As I look back on the last ten days, I think perhaps more is more. How could anyone ever fully appreciate the joy and cost of Easter in just one visit?

Misogynistic Mariology?

If you are rich in the spirituality of Benedict of Nursia,  Ignatius Loyola, Julian of Norwich or Yoda, you will regarded as a devout, prayerful soul with a rich heritage of deep engagement with God though the work and examples of these fine human folk (unless it is Yoda, in which case you are a Jedi which is reputedly different).  

If you are enriched by the spirituality of Mary of Nazareth, you will fast discover a plethora, nay a panoply, of suspicion and confusion about your spiritual motives and the place of the human at the heart of it. 

The fact is that your basic Mariology is to many a near-hideous thing that is to be shunned, ridiculed or else cast away as wrong. I have never understood this. 

This emerged in a discussion that I was party to recently. Someone wanted to say some prayers in the context of a genuine and sincere Mariology, which is to say, to pray with Mary to the God who loves them both and to the God who chose the Virgin as the noblest vehicle for His grace. Sharp intakes of breath greeted this initiative  and not for the firs time. I just don't understand why. 

A further discussion in this issue revealed that perhaps the Mariology wasn't the target of the tooth-filtered inhalation  but the perceived misogyny that to many it represents. In the minds of many it seems to be - think Mary, think black-clad priests who say "no" to the ladies. It seems that the teenage refugee single-mother from Palestine has become the unwitting poster-girl for the anti-women lobby, but only in the minds of those who have a distaste for said lobby. Indeed, for some Anglicans, it seems that a reverential reference to Mary is tantamount to a claim of that vilest of offenses - membership of the Roman (ugh) Catholic (arrggh) Church. 

And it is all ridiculous, Poppy-cock.

Those of us who cherish the place of Saint Mary in our spiritual lives do so for many reasons. For me it is about the absolute trust that she displayed in God though her simple but universe-changing "yes". For me, Mary's example of paramount selflessness when, as Simeon said, "a sword shall pierce your own soul too". For me Mary was the one single human chosen by God for the Incarnation. That surely makes her special, as God had so judged. She was flawed, and she was human - but she was an example to many of how to try and live as Christians. She is a conspicuous example of motherhood and affirmative female ministry, a woman who gave without counting the cost, a woman who watched the agony and death of her own son without looking away, a woman who devoted her entire life to one end - God's plan for our salvation.

That is my Mariology. 

There is no voodoo. I haven't turned Mary, in my heart, into a quasi-deity. I pray with Mary and take her example to mould me. I do not pray to Mary as many might think, but simply ask her, presumptuously, to pray for me as, I believe, someone with a unique and special relationship with the Father. When I seek Mary's company in my prayers, it doesn't suddenly morph my theology or my politics. I don't suddenly become a different sort of Christian, or indeed make me want to change my ecclesiology. Indeed, when others seek openly to say some prayers in a Marian spirituality, I simply say 'thank you' that they want to pray at all. 

Vicars That Don't Pray

What would you say if an accountant did no work with money or numbers? What would you say if a train driver didn't go near a train? What would you say if WATCH didn't produce petitions? 

You would know that all was not right with the world. That's what. 

The rest of this post can be regarded as something of a personal confession - but I feel inclined to write about something that could be construed as such a problem as I allude to above. 

As a church-going boy and then a church-going man I spent an appreciable time with God in the liturgical times and in other times set aside for private prayer. Then I was ordained and that was that for prayer - or so it feels at times. 

Priestly ministry is the very best work a human can do. I wouldn't do anything else and without it, I am not fulfilling the purpose of my birth. That I can share it with a wonderful wife and best-friend, with two gifted and beautiful daughters, and in a place where we feel rooted and settled is perfect. But all this comes at a price. Parish ministry, by very definition, has taken us away from the place from where we were sent - often the places where our families and friends were, and often the places where we once found God. Priests are nomadic people and we rarely stay anywhere for longer than a decade (which may seem like a long time but really isn't). 

Priests who are vicars (as well as those in other roles) are priests who have much work to cram into a week. Someone once said that priests are incomprehensible on one day of the week and un-contactable on the other six. We don't hide away doing nothing - we are grafting away somewhere.

The bottom line is that I hardly find a moment to pray - unless I count the liturgical and public events. As a disciple of God, I no more touch base with Him as I do with my dear old mum, by brother and sister or my dearest friends. If you have a priest in the family, you will know what I mean. I console myself that blogging is prayer, that gym time is prayer time, that a few minutes running around like a dementer in the shower is prayer time, or else cooking or gardening. I console myself but never fully convince myself. And I am not alone. In her book 'The Cracked Pot', Yvonne Warren states this situation clearly based on a national study of clergy. 

Something has got to give. While most of me thinks that life is booming (and it is, Deo Gratias), there is a part of me that had withered and lies like an un-watered seedling. The thing is, I can't tell people that the Vicar doesn't pray enough - it is not what they want to hear. Am I not meant to exemplify prayer, to be before God with the people on my heart? I am not alone, as I say, and it is a perennial problem for priests - which is odd when you think about it. Perhaps the world only regards a day as 'done' when it is filled with tasks completed not time taken for space (read 'prayer'). 

Get a Grip

And another thing ...

I am sort of sorry, but I feel another bout of invective coming on. Please don't think that I am a terminally bad mood because I'm not; I am just jaw-slack watching the world.

Some of you will be aware that a nice little West-Country town took the momentous step, not to stop flogging the under-5s or putting pensioners up their chimneys, but to stop saying a prayer before its council meetings. The responses to this immense event ranged from "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" to "Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani" - or in other words, the sublime to the ridicuous. Some of the Dawkinsites (I still deny the existence of Richard Dawkins, and believe his followers to be deluded) hailed this as the death of religion. Some of the Christians of our fine nation hailed it as, well, the death of religion. 

I say get a grip.

This Careyesque persecution complex that we are currently enjoying in Britain today is as daft as it is needless. Even Baroness Warsi says we should get a grip and it is not often that I find my socialist heart being projected by the words of a Tory Peer (and a Muslim one too, telling Christians to get a grip). 

I think that we like to be defeated, and I don't know why. We believe in the God of the Universe and All Creation, the author of the stars and moons, of love and puppies. We believe in a Good News so overwhelming that it conquers even death - but not, it seems, the secularist hearts of Devonshire folk. We, the British people of the Book, in our thousands of churches who can pop and and out when we choose, if only we chose to do so, have no right to claim a persecution on the one hand, or that we are under siege from secularists on the other. If we were in danger of being shot in the face by an AK47-wielding sniper when we attend a service on Sunday, then we may have a case. 

Sadly, in many ways, we are giving the secularists and that man Dawkins all the 'ammunition' he needs. We fight among ourselves, we go to church when we don't have a golf game to play, we cannot communicate even within the sphere of our synods and governing structures, we would sooner stop going to a church of the wrong flavour than go and be glad of the chance, our national church website's guide to prayer will tell you only how to use your fingers and we self-flagilate with a whip of our own creation. 

We need to stand up and be counted. We need not whine and self-pity, but be strong in our faith and in the sure belief that we have in the Good News of Christ. We must bust our buns embodying the example of Jesus Christ who never once whined and complained, and do the job we have been mandated to do, and make disciples. To do that, we must make our beautiful wonderful altogether human church seem the slightest bit like a body that people would regard as Good News incarnate, not as a snivelling brood of sulkers as we are in danger of appearing. 

As I said a few days ago: the mission of God does not need a place on the Agenda of a council meeting. It is the reason why the council meeting can happen in the first place.

Un-Holy Smoke and Brass Handbags

It is the thing more likely to precipitate a response in church life - one way or the other! I speak not of wearing my underpants over my trousers in a family service, and I speak not of my pious red socks. Having previously mentioned vases of flowers, you can surely set them aside in favour of this red-hot potato. Nothing more than this causes either a sigh of pleasure or the tooth-gritted snarls of Beelzebub and all the Imps of Hades, normally transmitted through the bodies and expressions of good Christian men and women!

I speak of course of incense, the prayerful odours of none less than the smoking handbag - the beloved thurible. 

Be it in theological college, or in parish life - if you lob some flavoured frankincense on a hot charcoal, you get a reaction. There is no middle ground here, but rather two extreme poles of feeling, passing from deep spiritual rapture through the wonderlands of allergy and asthma and all the way to irritating skin conditions. Those who love it, love it a lot. Those who hate, loathe with menaces and blame it for just about every condition known to the medical profession. 

And I don't know why.

It is but one part of worship, like bells, like robes, like hymns, like readings, like flowers, like Gift Aid envelopes - just one small part of the greater whole. You may not be surprised to learn that I am fond of holy smoke, but that isn't to say that I am in mourning when it does not billow. 

What confuses me more and more is the reaction of the 'against' lobby. It borders on (which is to say that it is well past border-control) the irrational. I think there is a part of some human brains that associates incense with some voodoo or child-sacrifice. The reaction is rarely slight - but bombastic and fully vehement. When I am witness to this irrational response, I challenge it - inquiring what kind of hocus-pocus they are afraid of, and the simple fact is that although they HATE it (as distinct from 'dislike', 'not fond', 'marginally irritated by ...'), they don't know why. Ten millenia old it might be; mentioned in the Bible as representing prayer it could be, but when people hate the stuff, it is a formless hatred born of nothing more than silliness, or so it seems. 

Now child-sacrifice; there's a thought!

When Family is not Family but is Still Family

A Typical English Family

It might be a British thing, or it might just be a Christian thing. It might even just be a British Christian thing, and possibly even a Christian British thing, but a thing it is and I intend fully to speak about it now. 

Liturgies, Services, Acts of Worship, Praise Sessions - or whatever label you may wish to apply, have different stylings and those stylings tell the trained observer a great deal about what to expect. 

They are also a euphemism.

A High Mass will be one of sacrament, music, vestments and choreographed ceremonial. Mattins is a non-sacramental service of hymns, readings and prayers, as distinct from Morning Prayer that is more rooted in reading and prayer (with the odd spoken song [canticle] interspersed). Evensong is likely to be in language older than your grandmother, a little singing and hymn-based mirth. Compline is not a slimming product but one of the Hours (that array of liturgies that those in the religious life did or still do throughout the day and night), typically observed in the late evening - a short and gentle act of worship rooted in Psalmody and Responsory. Get the idea? If you know the name, you know what to expect. 

Then you get the Family Service. We who provide such things want them to be regarded as accessible, family friendly (read 'not boring to kids') that is perhaps a little shorter than the normal offering. We would want you be know that the music might be a little less 'specialist' (which is to say short, punchy and not according to the four-part harmony structure so loved by church choirs). With any luck, that is the message received bu the passer-by, the seeker, the enquirer. It is a liturgical styling not without its issues, however.

If the Family Service is for the young, the un-initiated perhaps, then the Sung Eucharist must surely deserve the title 'The Grown Up Child-free Specialist Not for Beginners Service for those Who Pay Their Subs and Are on The Electoral Roll Service'. No, of course not. To my mind, every act of worship in the church's life deserves the title 'Family Service'. We are, after all, family in Christ. This is partly the reason why in many churches (though not where I have worked or worshipped, gladly), on the other Sundays when there isn't a Family Service, children are little higher that vermin - a noise curse to be chased out of the building. No dear, you belong at the Family Service. This is partly the reason why in many churches (though not where I have worked or worshipped, gladly) the "main service" is a specialist affair where strangers fear to tread, or if they do they are gathered up, hidden in a darkened room and converted to within an inch of their lives (before they get a chance to escape). 'Family Services' have become Eucharist-Lite, theologically and  qualitatively, or they have become Praise Service Dumbed Down, musically and spiritually. They are shorter in duration, because only true proper Christians can cope with a full-length service, surely. 

The thing is, children are pure theologians. As early-speaking toddlers they are wrestling with the deepest truths of life and existence. As young school-age kids they are working out what life is in the context of death. They grasp the facts and the meaning of Good Friday all the while us adults euphemise and fret. They, like us all, want to be enlivened, not patronized and condescended to. Half of me wants to ban Family Services as a curse to all liturgy. The other half wants to ban all other liturgy and work on getting Family Services right for all people. 

Remembering 9/11

The answer is: in a carpet shop in Staines, UK. 

The question has been posed on at least three media forums this week - the 'where were you when ...'. A man called Barry (whom I had not met before and not seen since, as I was only in Staines for the day), came into the shop to tell us all that two planes had flown into the World Trade Centre. Our response was in the perhaps understandable vein - "don't be stupid". People just didn't do things like that. 

But they did. 

By the time I had driven from Staines back to Crawley, the Towers has fallen on top of the rescue services and had vapourised many hundreds of innocent people. In the aftermath, a mere ten percent of the bodies were recovered. Oddly, at the time, the terrorist attack on New York's financial heart was too great to take in so, so I received the images like so many Schwarzenegger films. I took it in a little and never really absorbed it. The image above was the first of the hours of news-fed imagery that I saw of the terrible events unfolding. 

As a decade turns fully, I find myself more affected by the event than I did on the day itself. 9/11 did change the world and many many thousands of people have died in its wake, with declarations of war, their reprisals, and the ripple-effects that accompany them. The planes that were flown full speed into the WTC are the same as pass by my house now, so close to my home and my children. I have found myself wondering what must have passed as thought for the poor souls unto whose windows those planes were directed. Then there were those who, so desperate as they were, threw themselves over a hundred stories to their deaths - falling for countless seconds, seeing their end approach them at terminal velocity. 

So many innocent people. So many innocent rescuers caught up and killed by their duty and their love for their fellow humans. So many families left to grieve. 

I once stood at the foot of one of the Towers and looked up. They touched heaven, I thought. Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of the day when the world turned differently. It seems that Bin Laden did his work well as it is quite clear to me that this catastrophe was merely the Overture. Ours is, in many ways, a frightened and suspicious world where people's visible differences are cause for concern. Ours is a world where anything is now possible - even terrible and audacious things. Without doubt, ours is a more violent world where the near-three thousand deaths of 9/11 will eventually (if not already) seem small by comparison with the continuing deaths that happen in the name of the events all those years ago.

I pray earnestly that we can take the example of the fire-fighters, the ambulance crews, the sole chaplain, the passers-by - and remember that even in the darkest of moments, light can be found. It is the light that will, in the annals of history, be the remarkable story to tell. 

May God bless those who died on that darkest of days, or in the days that followed. I pray for their families too, for whom the next few hours may be among the worst - again. Amen

Stones and Water

A thought crossed my mind as I sat on the train yesterday - one that made me smile out loud!

I can reveal now, loving reader, that the Continuum of Prayer revolves around two physical substances: stone and water.

Let me unpack my hypothesis before you log off ...

   Structured Prayer   ------------->  Water passing through old stone [walls]

(with books, old books)                                 (in churches, old churches)

               |                                                                                     |

               |                                                                                     |

               |                                                                                     |

              \/                                                                                  \/

Spontaneous Prayer ------------->    Pebbles passing through water

      (no books)                                      (shiny pebbles into a bowl of water)

If you have no idea what I am talking about, speak to an Ordinand or a recently ordained person

All In a Day's Work

I am just back from a lunch appointment, and on the fairly long drive back from it, pondered the strangeness of life in minstry. I ought to point out now that this is not intended to be a Facebook-esque smug-a-thon - simply a recalling of facts.

I started the day in a normal fashion, with prayer at church. All normal, all good (save for the slighly unfortunate wording by Luke in his passage provided by the lectionary today - shall say no more). I printed off the Pew Sheet for Sunday, and thereby finally mastered the Great Whore which is the photocopier. Fickle she is; destructive she is; in control always.

Then followed a drive to Aldershot to the Army Headquarters for lunch with Lt. Col. Cole, one of the Chaplains General. Sat in the rather splendid surroundings of Governement House (aka the Officers Mess) I sat and listened to another Officer who was just back from Afghanistan. He was struggling with the level of injury his troops had sustained, citing the 'good fortune' of one lad who merely had three of his limbs blown off. Another lost both eyes. This was over lunch and Padre Cole sat and listened as this Officer poured out his heart for a few minutes. Evidently, that is not unusual over dinner - it is 'the place' for that kind of conversation. Later, Col. Paris joined us and the conversation quickly reverted to the state of politics in the Chaplain's Department (Col. Paris is another senior Padre). Politics, money, health and safety, the needs of other padres - all colliding on his desk. The three of us went and had coffee in the garden, where the conversation quickly moved to flying (I disclosed that I am a [lapsed] paraglider, and Col. Paris is a pilot). I shared my analogy of prayer being like paragliding as we sipped our java, after which point we got on to aspect ratios and angles of attack. All this in the space of less than two hours. Me, Colonels, fancy lunches - what on earth ...

On the drive back up the M3, there was a time when the traffic slowed considerably. I later discovered why. A hearse was pootling along, devoid of box, I assume on the way back from a sending-off. The driver and front passenger were fine - very proper, but the woman on the back seat had fallen asleep - and in a fashion where she was slumped  to one side with her head thrown back, mouth open. In other words, she looked all the while like a carelessly discarded cadaver (she was a little pale and dishevelled too, and that didn't help). The spectacle slowed the traffic, though as I passed (admittedly 'rubber-necking' like every one else), I won a wave from the driver who must have spotted my collar.

Tomorrow I will be soaked in the stocks at the school fair that I am opening; on Sunday I will be officiating at a Civic Service for a new council. I am just about to complete my first parish magazine (don't, just don't, talk to me about parish mags). 

I am a normal bloke from a normal background. I ask for nothing except that I am happy, that my family are happy and healthy, and that I am an effective minister priest. No one is more surprised by the life I lead than I am - it is bonkers and amazing. I can be priest, father (as in dad), fool, chaplain to soldiers, an IT specialist, a publisher/editor, a preacher, a teacher, a friend, a financier, husband and son all in the space of hours it seems. I don't deserve all this, I am not trained for most of it, and I'm not good enough - I really am not!

Why the long face?

This poor little grub of an alien is, I think, conspicuously Christian. How do I determine this, given my specific lack of Spaceperanto or a Babel Fish? This little Beteljuician Herb Farmer before us is not wearing a Crucifix, and I see no evidence of a car with a fish on the back* (or indeed a laser-emitting zlotter with 'God luvsya' on the side). 

Like the inevitable slime trail behind a slug, you know what is coming here don't you ...

This alien looks so unhappy. It is Easter and yet the green-oozy fella is looking so glum. Gotta be a Christian. 

It gives me no pleasure to make this observation either - because I love Christians and I love all that they stand for, obviously (I hope). Perhaps it is the blokish side of me, but I have often pondered why so many Christians appear so 'down in the mouth'. I know that some smile beyond human endurance (or cramp) all the time, but there seems no happy medium for so many! It is broadly manifest in the way that we pray, I think. 

Like a news editor, it is now something of the vogue to believe that in prayer 'good news' doesn't sell. Intercessions focus on all that is in the negative tones on the pallet, rarely the positive. This must have an effect on worshippers over time. While there is so much to pray for always in terms of remedy and solution to problems, I think that we see too little 'thanks for it being a beautiful day today, and thanks for all that I have'. Such prayers do not have to come with an obligatory tambourine, but they have a place. When I recieve a gift from someone, it is not my first instinct to say 'what about the person who got no gift?' - my first utterance is 'thanks, I appreciate the thought, and it means a lot'. Yes, both are important - but let me lean heavily on the word BOTH!

So, whether you are man or woman, fish or fowl, alien or ordinand - spare just a little of your prayerful zeal for gratitude. Let's give God a break here!

*the fish on the car is regarded in all civilisations to be a sign that the car to which it is affixed will be driven at a funerial pace, and is to be overtaken with some urgency