Mozart & Listz...?

Came up in conversation over the Christmas dining table that people find the idea of ‘The Pisa of the Fens’ difficult to take seriously, let alone believe it really exists. So for those who need convincing here is a picture of ‘The Pisa of the Fens’. I have calculated the angle of lean at between 5 and 6 degrees from the vertical. Apparently a more accurate measurement puts it at a greater angle of lean than The Pisa Tower. But there seem to be some dispute about how much that leans anyway. The Pisa of the Fens has had a list since it was built over 100 years ago so it probably has many years of life left in it. There are many leaning buildings in the Fens because of unstable foundations and ground shrinkage after drainage. This building seems to lean as much as the world's most leaning building - or so some say - in Suurhusen, Germany.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

Only five services left to go. A couple of crib services – although Baby Jesus and the Wise Men don’t actually get to stay in the stable until Christmas Day or Epiphany; a couple of holy communions and lessons and carols with a brass band. I’ve nearly finished preparing the sermon for midnight communion on Christmas Eve, so I should have plenty of time to wrap the presents. It was very, very cold in church this morning in spite of the overhead heaters – I really look forward to sharing the peace in order to warm my hands up. One of downsides of rural and medieval churches... I could barely sign the service register this morning, my fingers were too cold to move properly. My 3-term attachment in training was to a church with little heating but this is worse. Plus there I was in cassock and surplice, and here I have one layer less because we wear a cassock alb. At least there is room to wear a thin fleece layer underneath, which helps. And, although my head gets some heat from a heater, my feet are on a stone floor… Singing hymns means that temporarily it is as foggy inside – with the breath condensing in the cold air – as it is outside. And this is in probably the warmest of our churches. The welcome is still very warm though and I left after the service with a couple of bottles to cheer up a meal or two.

And now, at long last, all the radiators in the vicarage work. Hurray!!

[The image shows part of the knitted Nativity set given me as an ordination present...]

It's all Greek to me...

Have you noticed that Microsoft could be seen as spreading a subliminal Christian message if you were minded to see it as such? Waiting impatiently as my computer booted, I saw the Windows XP screen as that program came on stream. No Windows Vista yet for me… And for the first time I really saw it – Windows Chi Rho, as XP would be be in Greek. And the same as the cypher for Christ. I don’t suppose that it is intentional but interesting all the same.

(Or am I, probably, the last person in the world to have noticed this…?)

LIght of the world...

Today has been a busy day, even for a Sunday. We have had three services – one at each church – but the collared of us were let off the early morning one while a lay worship leader exercised the skills learnt in the diocesan course. The mid-morning service was a Christingle. This service is a bit of a novelty to me. It seems to have been invented during my years as a non-attender of church. I don’t know – you go away and then when you come back they have invented new services, re-written the Lord’s prayer and introduced something called sharing the peace… I’ve been at a few Christingle services but I don’t really like sweets or dried fruit. Now if those four sticks had something savoury on them – a few kebabs, pickled walnuts, cherry tomatoes or cheesy balls which are all fruits of the earth so why not? – perhaps I might be more partial to them. But children like Christingle services and the church does look very pretty when lit up with all the candles. And because it is a doing thing it means that we can get away from all those Anglican words words words… Actions apparently speak louder than words to at least 66% of us.
Then in the afternoon we had Christingle 2 which I nearly had to do solo with last minute improvisations as the vicar was getting the roof covered where those nice people have stripped the lead from one of the churches again, as well as meeting with the police and getting stuff moved to somewhere dry. It was almost ‘see one, do one’ for me – which seems to be quite common in curacies. In the end it all went well and we had time to enjoy a few homemade mince pies afterwards before dashing off to Service No 3 (or 4), which was a confirmation service.
For the second time this weekend I processed in with the clergy – this still feels like a bit of a novelty, even though I am one of the clergy now. As a deacon my place in the procession is after the lay minister but before all the other clergy. But I have gone up (or back) a notch in the processing pecking order compared with the previous processions in the cathedral where I was placed for part of my training. There I had to walk immediately behind the choir and in front of the person carrying the cross. Now I am following the cross. (Does it really matter who follows who? – yes, in the Cof E. The last person in, of course, is the Bishop, in a reversal of the order of a royal procession where the people of highest status are more or less in the front. It’s supposed to be something about the first being last and the last being first but doesn’t really work like that, I think) Yesterday’s (non-hierarchical) processing was in Ely cathedral in the service of farewell to the Bishop of Huntingdon. It was a very good service with an excellent sermon from Bishop John and some magical musical moments. I am sure that many eyes in the building were at least moist as many of us are very sorry to see him go. Our loss is Worcester’s gain…
All this on top of going to the second parish bingo evening last Friday – yes, bingo is pretty big here and therefore good for raising money. At the moment I feel I could do with a day off rather sooner than it will be, which will be later than usual this week because of post-ordination training.
Only another two Christingle services to go before Christmas…

Passing thoughts...

It was sad to read that Dan Hardy died on Thursday. I met Dan and Perrin a couple of years ago at a friend's 'Desert Island Discs' evening - we each took the one track that we would choose for our stay on the desert island. He was very gracious and patient about my ramblings about how I came to be about to go to a selection panel to see if I was called to ordination. He was just another guest, chatting over the buffet (and yes, there was quiche on the table). Later I discovered that he was the Rev Canon Professor Daniel W Hardy of Princeton and Cambridge Universities, and a theologian of some repute. I haven't read any of his books or studied his work - perhaps I will now. I just remember the person with a twinkle in his eyes and regret that I didn't get to know him better.

Achtung please...

They say that if you stand in one place long enough the whole world will pass you by. If you have an impossibly long life, perhaps... And wouldn't it be a bit boring after a while anyway? But maybe it is true.

Staring out of my study window this afternoon in search of inspiration for Sunday's sermon - featuring Edmund, King of the East Angles and Martyr, 870 (because he is one of our patron saints and it is his day next week) - I wondered if I was still in the deep Fens, miles from any recognised centre of civilisation. (And many miles from any coffee bar chain, more to the point. I have to go to Kings Lynn or Ely to get a Starbucks or Costa expresso fix. And to Cambridge for Cafe Nero.)

Why? Because past the end of the drive came a German police car, like a less racy version of car in the image. I know that we have many people living and working around here from ex-Iron Curtain countries like Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as from Portugal. The Polish language mass at the local Roman Catholic church is always packed out. Local information leaflets are in any language except English - but perhaps we Brits know how the system works anyway. And I know that the county's police resources are stretched to the limit and beyond. But is it so bad that the County Council has contracted in the services of the German Polizei...?

Or, more frightening thought, perhaps we are a centre for international crime? Which, worryingly, wouldn't really surprise me...

We will remember...

Took my first Remembrance Day service and Act of Remembrance around the war memorial today. It went as well as these things do. Producing a suitable sermon was a bit of a challenge. I know little about war although I suppose that I have lived through several, Vietnam being the first one I remember hearing and seeing anything about. That and the Cold War. Guess that I was about 9 or 10 years old when I lifted the telephone handset in the fire station and listened to the signal (a regular beep) that meant that we were not under attack and did not have to do all the things that the booklet on ‘What to do in the event of a nuclear attack’ said that we should do. Something like ‘Take to the space under the floor (a sort of metre high basement), tape over the air bricks with black polythene and make sure that you have a radio, water and food’ I seem to remember. Not that it would have done much good.

So what can I say that is of any possible relevance to those sitting there wearing their medals and memories? I don’t have any medals, not even my father’s – he sent his back in disgust… The Panorama programme shown this week on the BBC was a bit of a reality check though – the experiences of a camera crew and reporter in Afghanistan with a unit of the Guards. Rivetting viewing but I hope that is as close as I ever get to battle…

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
– Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can putter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
Wilfred Owen

Friends...

Nearly everyone has friends. Some have lots and do a great deal of socialising. Some have a few close friends and more aquaintances. I suspect that how many friends you have and, possibly, how much time you spend in maintaining those friendships depends largely on your personality, mainly if you are an extrovert (lots of friends and maintenance) or an introvert (not so many or so much).

A lecture in the Ethics module last year at college started me thinking about friendship. According to the lecturer, friendship requires some sort of equality between the two people concerned, especially equality in knowledge about each other, and in the relationship – you can’t be friends if one is exploiting the other in some way. At the time I was pondering over a new friendship that seemed to be uneven and wondering on how it was going to work out. (And it has worked out fine because it has evened itself up.) You choose to spend time with your friends and to get to know them, and they you. It is a mutual relationship, in which you each give time, attention and love, to the other. Most of my friends make me laugh too; joy in and with each other should be there as well.
But it seems that part of the process of friendship is being vulnerable to each other. That is something that ordinands are told about too, that being a priest or pastor means allowing yourself to be vulnerable. I think that I would worry about a minister who has no close friends – or perhaps whose only close friend is their ‘nearest and dearest’. How else do you learn and practise being vulnerable?

And here we come to a possible problem for those of us who are ministers living in parishes. How do we make new friends? Where do we find them and who are they? And how do you manage boundaries in such friendships?

Whenever I have moved in the past I have been pretty quick in joining a few things – partly because those are my ways of relaxing and partly because it’s a good way into a community. The advantage of having children, especially youngish children, is that you automatically find yourself drawn into the local community through them and their friends’ parents. If, like me, you don’t have children you have to make the effort. But finding time to do anything other than ‘work’ (and study for me) is not easy. I certainly spend more time and effort now on maintaining friendships I have brought with me.

After four months as a curate, I have got to know a couple of people in my community who I think may become friends. But they are also my parishioners which raises the problems of equality and boundaries. It is easier to separate parish and personal life and find friends outside the parishes and among other clergy. But doing that feels like a bit of a cop out. We are called to live in these communities and be part of them. At my sending church I was fortunate to find two very good friends in the curate and his wife. Looking back now I realise that was quite an unusual thing…

Reverend Wrant writes...

Why has the standard of driving become so bad? Is everyone trying to get on the ‘bad driving’ TV programmes? Recently I’ve lost count of the times I have been overtaken when driving at the limit in 30 and 40 mph zones. I almost expect to it to happen now. The local police staked out a road in one of our villages recently and clocked someone travelling at 68 mph in a 30 mph area. And someone told me of another driver caught locally doing 80 something in a 30 mph street. Last Sunday in the village we were saying goodbye outside the church where a car was parked on the road – legally, on a straight stretch – and were approached from both directions by cars travelling at least at 30 mph. Neither slowed and somehow managed to squeeze by each other opposite the parked car (which had a passenger in it). This in a road where you have to pull over a bit to allow a bus or lorry going in the opposite direction a polite and safe amount of space. The three of us standing on the pavement – all drivers – stood open-mouthed and unbelieving at what we’d just seen. And it’s become quite normal for me to be overtaken on country roads by cars doing 70 or 80 mph.
And another thing…
Why do people drive so close to you? I can be travelling at 55-60 mph and the driver behind me decides that a gap that would just about be OK at 30 mph is perfectly safe. Even when there is a continuous stream of traffic in the opposite direction they insist on following for miles at ‘overtaking’ distance behind me. I have three strategies, in order of deployment: put my left foot on the brake pedal so that the brake light comes on which works about 70% of the time; slowly adjust the speed to fit the gap which they get annoyed at but if they insist at driving at that distance then I’ll drive at the appropriate speed; pull over when that is possible and let them go by. The last choice is when I am scared of the driving behind – which happens much more than it used to. If I can’t see the number plate of the car behind in my rear view mirror then it is usually far too close. The other day I missed a turning because the car behind was so close – the driver apparently blind to anyone other than him/herself – that it would have hit me had I braked to slow for the turning. Years ago someone drove into the back of me and maybe I am a bit more twitchy about it as a result but even so…
And yet another thing…
Why do so many people drive around on clear nights with their front fog lights on? I’ve got them and you have to make a positive decision to put them on. Isn’t it still illegal to have them on unless the driving conditions warrant it?
Why are so many headlights badly adjusted?
Why are the headlights of SUVs at just the right height so that their reflection in the rearview mirror blinds you when the SUV is driven close behind, as it often is?
And why are cars travelling in an unpredictable or eccentric manner always driven by men wearing hats? This has puzzled me for many years…

(There, I feel better now...)

Pilgrim's pace...

A few weeks ago I walked the St Cuthbert’s Way with a friend, whose fortunate idea it was in the first place. This long distance path runs for about 65 miles connecting Melrose Abbey in the Scottish Borders with Lindisfarne or Holy Island off the Northumbrian coast. In the seventh century Cuthbert joined the community at Melrose Abbey, in time becoming the abbot of the community at Lindisfarne. Increasingly he felt called to a solitary life and lived as a hermit on a very small tidal island at Lindisfarne. Finding it too close to people he moved to an island in the Inner Farne Islands just down the coast. Even there he was visited by people coming to him, speaking to him from their boats. He was made the bishop of the northeastern Christians but after a few years retired to his island to die. Things didn’t stop there though. His body was removed by the monks when the Vikings came to call and he was moved around for many years, eventually being finally put to rest in what became Durham Cathedral. The route we followed was probably not actually trodden by Cuthbert but visits some of the places he would have known and visited on his way from Melrose to Lindisfarne. I really don’t think that he climbed over bits of the Cheviots, as we did, when there were easier valley routes with abbeys to stay in. It is a good walk if you are looking for a route with varied and beautiful scenery, that can be walked in a week without too much difficulty if you are reasonably fit, and has a bit of history to it. We treated it partly as a pilgrimage, I guess, and spent a couple of nights on Lindisfarne at the end. It was a privilege to stay in such a special place. The veil is thin there…
One thing that I particularly noticed after I returned home is the effect of moving and living at what you might call a human pace. Flying back down from Edinburgh (yes, that was the cheapest solution to the ‘how do we get there and back’ problem) meant that we covered 400 or so miles in a few hours. But during the week we had been moving at say two miles per hour on average and covering up to 18 miles a day at most. Such a slow pace means that you inhabit the landscape when travelling through it. You have time to stop and talk with people you meet on the way, time to stop and watch the herons on the river. And you note how the landscape changes. All your senses are engaged with where you are.
Life became very simple – get up, pray, eat, walk, eat (and drink), pray, sleep. Our concerns became focused on feet (blisters in my case which I knew would happen and was prepared for) and whether there would be a bath at our B&B for that night or not. A simple pattern probably similar to Cuthbert’s and his travelling companions.
And for a week or two afterwards that simplicity and feeling of being placed persisted.

Which, while it lasted, was a good position from which to be and do this curate stuff…

Earth to earth (again)...

It seems that my recent posts have tended to be about the third of the clergy services of ‘hatch, match and dispatch’. I’m sorry about that and hope to balance things up a bit in future but here is another one concerned with dispatch. One of the more interesting, and probably memorable, things in the diary is an exhumation and re-burial. Has anyone out there in cyberland any experience of this procedure? The process is carefully explained in detail in the letter of permission to do this but one hears things: someone knows someone whose best friend’s mother-in-law… – you know the sort of hearsay that comes back. If it’s true then I am not at all sure that it is something to be looked forward to, except for the training aspect. Permission to move a burial is not easy to get apparently and most funeral directors and clergy have never been asked to carry out the procedure. Not so much as ‘see one, do one, teach one’ but ‘do one, teach one’ all at the same time. Goodness knows what liturgy one uses…
It’s something else that they don’t tell you about at college. Along with how many clerical shirts to buy – to which, from experience, the answer is rather more than you think that you will need. I wear one most days and so far have tried out five of the seven I bought. Unless you know that you are going to a curacy where clerical dress is not worn, then you probably need long and short sleeved shirts, and maybe in a couple of colours (depending on your churchmanship) and then it is one on, one clean and one in the wash. Is the fabric to be cotton, polycotton, peach finish acetate, T shirt interlock, silk mixture…? What sort of collar: tab, tunnel or slip in, standard, ‘Father Ted’ Roman style (smart and surprisingly comfortable), white 360 degree collar? And, until you wear one for real, you don’t really know what is comfortable, what doesn’t make you feel as if you are choking or as if you want to throw up. Which, come to think of it, might just be a good excuse at an exhumation…

Kublai Kalm...

Haven't posted for a few weeks as things seem to be very quiet on the blogging front generally - must be the summer hols. But can anyone enlighten me about the following please?
When putting my new 'Accent' wooden bed together the first instruction was 'Place dome of silence onto legs, using a hammer.' A 'dome of silence' is apparently a thing like a big drawing pin with a blobby plastic head. As instructed I bashed a 'dome of silence' onto each leg end using a hammer. But what are these domes of silence supposed to do? And how do they work? What's the point of them? And what would happen if you didn't attach them? Would you have a noisy bed?
This is not, I think, a case of 'Manual English' as the text reads as perfectly normal English. Can anyone explain?

'Go on, go on...'

There you are, walking around a cathedral in Ireland, admiring the building. You turn a corner and there it is…

More dust and ashes...

Another two funerals appeared today for next week...

Dust to dust...

After a few terms at college you realise that, once ordained, you will be spending quite a lot of time doing funerals, and funeral visits, and that you may well preach as many eulogies as sermons. We have lots of weddings this summer, which are wonderful occasions, even if the curate isn’t necessarily sure of what she is doing all the time. (Although I seem to have managed OK so far.) But I suppose I didn’t really think that we might be doing so many funerals as well, especially during the summer, as the number of people we serve is not that large. The third funeral in five weeks in our parishes happens this week.
Well, actually it will the second funeral for me as curate because I was excused the funeral last week I should have been assisting at to go to one of my own – for someone I had known and worked with for 30 years. And for whom I gave the first real eulogy I have ever done. It was a privilege to do and I was pleased to be able to contribute to our celebration of our friend, colleague, son, brother, in that way. And it was a celebration too – with the family all wearing colourful clothes, with great music, and lots of laughter and good memories at the lunch afterwards. Unfortunately I am no stranger to funerals – I think that the tally stands at about 25 or so now – but this was the first ‘non-working’ funeral I have been at since being ordained. To start with I prepared and gave a eulogy. And even though I was just an ordinary mourner, I found that I cannot switch off the ‘professional eye’ and stop noticing good and not so good ways of doing things, and stop looking at the watch to see how near the service is running to the 45 mins allowed, and wondering where the vicar got that prayer from, and whether the crematorium staff liked dealing with wicker coffins (beautiful things, I would like one myself when the time comes), and why the coffin was left on trestles rather than put on the catafulque, and…

Something to reflect on and watch, because sometimes I need to mourn too…

What they don't tell you - No 1

I have been pondering what I can blog on now while still respecting life, people and confidentiality in the parishes of which I am curate. It's all part of the interesting tension between being who I really am and the public persona that I both occupy and am given by others. And I expect that, no doubt, I will get it wrong from time to time. Bloggers at Ridley in the past year were similarly exercised at times, and a constructive debate went on. See the archives in wannabeapriest's blog if you are interested in the guidelines that evolved.

One thing I am starting is an occasional series of 'What they don't tell you at theological college' in the hope that it might inform, and sometimes entertain. Here is the first, offered solely in the interests of helping those who follow us into this ordination business.

Consider cultivating the absence of a sense of smell. Mine was badly dented by treatment to control chronic rhinitis (a runny nose) brought on, I discovered by experiment, by too much exposure to swimming pool chlorine. Keeping fit is dangerous... I'll leave it to you to decide how to lose your olfactory prowess. What they don't tell you is that sometimes the deceased can still make their presence known at funerals. The priest taking this funeral had to work very hard at not throwing up. Whereas I just noticed a certain fruity mustiness... Forewarned is forearmed. In such circumstances wreaths containing lilies are to be welcomed instead of being cursed for the orange stains the pollen makes on a lovely white, newly laundered surplice. I suppose we could always revive the custom of carrying nosegays...?

'He restores my soul...'

Since being ordained deacon not quite two weeks ago – although it seems much longer – it feels as if my feet have not touched the ground. In a couple of days’ time all that I will have left to do in order to have experienced all of a deacon’s ministry will be taking a funeral and leading a communion by extension. And I suspect the funeral, at least, is not far away…
But in all this busyness a huge bonus – and which I had not realised – is the wonderful countryside nearby. After three services in three churches last Sunday I went off in the early evening to the Norfolk coast, only 30 mins away. And there on Snettisham Beach was a view to restore anyone, let alone a rather disoriented deacon. I walked a mile or two on a near-deserted shingle beach, watching the day end over a vast expanse of sandbanks and the sea in the far distance. ‘I will lift my eyes to the sky and sea. From where will my help come? It comes from the Lord’, to misquote Psalm 121.

Followed with a fish and chip supper eaten out of the paper with the fingers, and an hour spent with friends visited on the way home, and what more could I need…?

So...?

Yes, it was a life-changing experience although I am not quite sure yet who emerged from the cathedral... It will be fun finding out.

Que sera, sera...

This is it then - the next stage after Simon’s ‘That’s that then’ on the end of our time at Ridley. Tomorrow the pre-ordination retreat begins, from which we emerge to robe and process into the cathedral. And it will be interesting to find out who emerges from the cathedral in my skin after the service. Will it be a life-changing experience?
Current life has been busy since Leavers’ Day but also not quite real, a bit dreamlike. I’ve managed a few, not very good, games of golf and spent a lot of money. The vicarage is more or less liveable in, and will become more so. Things became more real today when we sorted out what I will be doing on Sunday at my first service and official appearance in the benefice. And it looks as if I might well experience the first funeral of my ordained ministry shortly after, with a PCC meeting and confirmation class on the horizon too. I am very glad that the head verger where I was on placement last summer went through how to assist at the table in a eucharist so I am not completely ignorant of my role. But it would have been nice to know why some of the things are done the way they are – it can’t all be hygiene and neatness, must be some theology under it all somewhere…isn’t there?

The Monster Raving Loony Party...

Elsewhere David has written about the weirdness of being a Returner at Ridley and watching many friends leaving as they graduate to ordination and learning how to be a curate. It is indeed, as he writes, why we are at Ridley in the first place – except I wasn’t, as for four terms I was an independent student paying my way, like most students would like to instead of racking up debts. Being freed up and resourced by redundancy enabled me to do whatever I wanted for a few years. And I ended up choosing to study theology in a theological college surrounded by ordinands and priests…adamant that God was not calling me along the path to ordination. Well, yes…
I was thrown on reflecting how I have got to where I am now – to be Revd’ed in a few days – when, by a series of coincidences, I met someone I haven’t seen for about 3 years. Ushered into a room and the door shut, the ‘How are things?’ conversation quickly changed into ‘How did you get to this stage?’ to me. You get quite used to giving your testimony as an ordinand – provides handy sermon illustrations if nothing else – so off I went. But by return came back the surprising statement ‘I am a Christian now.’ My history was described as ‘more dramatic than many’ by the Bishops’ Advisory Panel (why, oh why, choose a title with the acronym BAP?) but the story I was told was truly the work of God. And I indentified with the puzzlement and ‘How have I got here? What is going on? What do I do now my life has been turned upside down but makes so much sense?’ And the ‘I’m going to be put in the Loony category now…’ fear.
At college you are protected to some extent from the Loony label as you are all Loonies together and being Loony is normal. Several Ridley ordinands have commented that a problem with being at a theological college is that you spend nearly all of your time with Christians (and Muslims this past year), all Loonies. In less than a week I will be back in ‘normal’ society but firmly labelled as a Loony by my profession and dress. It helps that during the time at Ridley I still did ‘secular’ things that I had done before and my circle includes many non-Christians – some of whom are coming to the ordination. Moving to the Fens means that I have to find new groups to join – if I have the time. But one thing that I value about the Church of England is precisely that it is the Church of England. The cure of all souls in our parishes is given to me (jointly, of course) whether they are fellow Loonies or not. If I spend all my time with Loonies like me then I will not doing what I will be ordained to do. Quite how I get the balance right and manage to be be a Loony in a really loony world will be interesting to work out…
Please pray for my friend if you are a Loony, and if you are not, well, you can still pray…

This week I am mainly...

Life at the moment consists of spending lots of money on things that I am not that interested in, ie, furniture and stuff for houses, in order that the vicarage can become ‘home’ for the next three or four years. It seems to be coming together relatively easily and gradually – so far so good – but I suspect that some of the bedrooms will never have very much in them. Most of my friends are OK about sleeping on floors anyway. My mother was very good at home making in the ‘House and Garden’ style and I have pondered for years why I am not. Or, rather, why I am not interested in it – I could do it if I was bothered enough. Is this a failing, a character flaw? Or perhaps just a question of priorities? I appreciate beautiful things in a beautiful house but when visiting a stately home or National Trust place I am much more interested in the building than what is inside it. And as for ornaments and nicknacks, I have fought all my life to avoid having any. But people give them to you… Fortunately, because I will have rather a lot of it, I like uncluttered space.
It is tempting to think that I am following the instructions given to the twelve disciples in Matthew 10 – ‘…take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals or staff…’ – or am being very Franciscan. And I do like to ‘travel lightly’. But the truth is that I would much rather spend my time doing other things than searching out that curtain material that would make the dining room just perfect – difficult when the carpet is a honey beige and the walls are light pink… (Yes, it really is.) Just paint everything white or neutral, have neutral coloured carpets, and keep everything minimalist, plain and unfussy, and that will suit me very well.
Just as long as I can have lots of books; the vice of the clergy it seems, given the high rate of theft from theological libraries, the state of most vicar’s studies that I’ve been in, and the amount of shelving already in my study…

and in the end...

As my fellow C Staircase Leaver and now fellow ex-staircase steward Simon hints in his blog, this last period at Ridley is turning out to be a curious time. We know that come Thursday or Friday we are out of here, having handed back our keys and loaded our books and study stuff into our cars. From being a returner for the past two years, I know, too, that being here after the Leavers have left is a curious time too. Then I was aware that things felt different – familiar, and loved, faces were no longer around, especially in the shared study, and the dining hall suddenly seemed very empty. This year I am here – going to meetings about next year’s Lent book, clergy finance or how to manage pressure (perhaps a bit late there then?) and still trying to get as much done for the dissertation as possible – but not here, because my mind and thoughts are also on organising this at the vicarage or phoning that person up to check that they know how to get to Ely on the 30th or have got the precious blue or yellow card that promotes them eastwards down the nave. I feel that I am in a sort of limbo – which I suppose I might be, being a ‘baby’ priest not yet ordained.
There is a sort of unreal quality about life at college, a marking of time, some of which is filled by things like a session on the ordainal and a dramatised reading of the service with our own temporary Bishop of Ridley, Bishop Matt (complete with shaven head and eyebrow stud). Very spooky. And the rest is filled with admin and trying to do some more on the dissertation, most of which will have to be done over the summer.
It is also a time of Last Things – the last normal college communion, the last Monday and Friday staircase prayers, the last Thursday MP homily… It’s not sad or happy but noted in a more or less detached way. After Thursday many of us will never meet each other again, which, having spent two or three years together and sharing our vulnerabilities, is strange to contemplate. At least knowing people well makes email conversations easier. Morning prayer in chapel on Wednesday – for the last time – was very special; beautifully led by Simon and with the sun striking through the east stained glass window spectacularly. St Peter was highlighted while Christ and the other three apostles were lit rather moodily – which I will think about further… I think of all things I will miss morning prayer in chapel the most.
The day ended with the final of the croquet tournament – a match of very high quality, by far the best I have seen here – contested by two pairs containing between them three staff members and one first year ordinand. The staff pairing won although I would award individual honours to the ordinand player – he’s so good I wonder if he has played the game before coming to Ridley.
Later today it’s morning prayers and breakfast on our staircases – the last chance to taste Simon’s wonderful scrambled eggs. Then sometime I have to pack up the books ready to take them to the vicarage (my vicarage!) on Friday. And wrestle with the various utilities to get them to do what I need them to do. Back to real life again – no more swanning around as a student.
And I’m looking forward to it…

Democracy rules...OK?

What is the Kingdom like? This morning we thanked God for the right we have in this country to be governed democratically and prayed for those countries and people who are not thus blessed. What is the Kingdom like? Was Jesus a democrat? Did he promote majority rule? What are our rights according to him? Are the needs of social justice, by definition concerning minorities, met best in a democracy?

It’s just that the difference between what rules our nations and what rules in the Kingdom struck me very forcefully this morning. Yes, pray for the removal of oppression and the denial of what most agree are rights for humanity. But pray and work for more than a democratic government system alone. Rights come with responsibilities.

But we have no rights at all really – just grace.

Freedom, O freedom...

For the few visitors to this page, I am alive and well but writing. The 'Modernity, Postmodernity and the Gospel' essay needs a killer end and an edit for submission next Monday. And the dissertation has about 1,000 words of text, lots of reading and a questionnaire all done so far... The final day at college is less than 4 weeks away and ordination now less than 6 weeks. Time seems to have speeded up somewhat.

Ridley Hall Gospel Choir's concert in Cambridge over the weekend was fun - about 140 in the audience who seemed to enjoy the evening, as we did. The copies of the CD we recorded in the chapel the other week arrived in time for the concert and they are selling well. Will try to put a sample on here sometime soon (but can't so far work out how to do this with the software I have). Where the idea came from 2 years ago into my head to try to start up a gospel choir I really don't know. A step out in faith, I guess, because I can't conduct. And then Lisa stepped forward to do the bizz in front and teach the songs, and those who didn't know they could even sing, let alone perform... It's been fun, as well as worship and evangelism all rolled into one. And with Mark taking over from Lisa I think that its future is assured for a couple more years at least.

The End Time...

Not suprisingly, we Leavers are getting a bit demob happy. The lecturer’s comment the other day along the lines of ‘You’ll soon be out there doing all this,’ got the gleeful response ‘Less than 5 weeks to go…!’ Most of us cannot wait to leave. It’s not that we hate the place – although it has its frustrations – and I guess most of us are glad that we came here. But it’s all starting to seem a bit irrelevant and filling in time. We know what our title parish is, who our training incumbent is – the second batch visit here next week for the ‘Things you should know about what we’ve done with them here’ day, where we will be living, the colour of the walls and what size curtains we need, we have our clerical shirts, robes (for those who need them in their parishes) and white or red stole, completed the seemingly endless stream of forms, several us have received a cheque or two covering the grants, got the quotes for removals, written our last self-assessments – and one or two have finished all the essays already. Just the course on funerals and a series of half days on aspects of worship and theology left to attend. Today the Common Room (student union) elected the Deacons (these are equivalents of classroom monitors such as the Food Friars, Punt & Croquet Deacon, Community Tasks Deacon and Chapel Deacons) and sometime next week we current Deacons will cease to hold office. So we are being eased out back into the real world – well, more real than college anyway.
This week the college is particularly full, with various visitors, Mixed Mode students in residence all week and all three years of the students doing the BA in Christian Youth Ministry in some day/night or other. All of which stretches the practice of living in community, the brunt being borne by increasingly twitchy resident ordinands – essay deadlines and exams are just around the corner. There is no doubt that having additional facilities would help greatly and I guess our experience this year has supplied more reasons to try to do that. Having survived nearly three years here I think (for the little that my opinion is worth) that there are many things that the college does very well. What it will have to learn to do well in the future depends on whatever the CofE and God have lined up. After the machinations of the Hind Report on training for ordination and such like we have a pretty good idea about the first, but the second will probably surprise us...

AKA...?

‘Doctor Who is, above all, a programme about identity,’ our Old Testament lecturer proclaimed this morning in chapel as he kicked off a series of homilies on Exodus – we leavers take our turns later. And yes, this is a valid position. But it is so much more than that, as Exodus is so much more than just a history or a story. ‘Dr Who’ follows the journey of a group of people, built around the core of Dr Who and his travelling companion(s), and is all about the defeat of evil through these people led by the iconic Dr. It’s the same moral story as depicted in Westerns – the white hatted goody on his white horse wins over the black hatted baddies on their scrawny nags. (And pause to think about the stereotyping in that…no wonder few Westerns are made now.)
The good Dr is not human although he appears in human form. He has powers and knowledge that are super-human on our scale of things, and, in the end, always wins out against the worst baddies that the human imagination and the BBC’s FX Department can produce. Other non-humans in the stories often already know him as The Master. There is sacrifice for the cause – his companions may die – and the body count in many stories is amazingly high, both in terms of exterminations and transformations from human to something else. But all tastefully done with the mimimum of blood and bits. ‘Star Ship Troopers’ it is not. Dr Who – always, so far, a male Dr – is quirky, not your Mr Average, and nowadays youngish, with good looks and GSOH but not always – Dr W No 1 (William Hartnell) was crotchety, of late middle age and devoid of a funny bone. The programme’s success back in the 1960s owed very little to the cult of the personality or celebrity.
Of course the really astounding thing about Dr Who is his ability to take on a new human form – a commercially brilliant idea that allows the BBC to continue making the programme for generations. Entering into the story, we don’t know what he really looks like (although I have a very vague, probably mistaken, memory of something Other appearing briefly during one regeneration), only see him as he chooses to present himself and that is in a form that we can accept and understand. In this sense we are his chosen people, and he has a passion and admiration for humanity that seems much of the time to be unjustifiable. I have shied away from describing his transformation into a new Dr as resurrection, partly because he doesn’t die and also because I think that it stretches any parallels too far. But it is interesting, and perhaps fruitful, to ponder on what insights ‘Dr Who’ might give us into the spirituality of Western, pluralistic, postmodern culture. The series has lasted from modernity into postmodernity and accommodated itself to new audiences. Like the book of Exodus, Dr Who is a story about the salvation of a people. The saviour comes in human form and is committed beyond all reason. But ultimately Dr Who is meandering around killing time in his eternal life rather than on a journey towards an end; his motivation is curiosity rather than love.

And yes, I have met Dr Who – in a shop in Yorkshire where he was buying waterproof clothing.

Beginnings and endings...

A new term dawns... This afternoon I have the first of this term's classes, with lots of texts that I should have read in preparation. The vacation tradition of morning prayer followed by breakfast on F Staircase continued this morning but for the last time, for me anyway. Brewed coffee, croissants, pains aux chocolat and good bread toasted and buttered while hot - not to mention the greengage jam and the homemade marmalade. Of such is heaven made... Now a lot a reading and the completion of my self-assessment form will fill the rest of the morning. And perhaps a bit of essay writing this evening.

The made-to-measure clerical shirts arrived on Friday - trying them on I was told that a black clerical shirt really suits me. In 10 weeks time it will be the second day of my curacy...

I will lift mine eyes...

I was quite taken aback unexpectedly when travelling down the A66 towards Keswick on Tuesday. The tops of the Blencathra ridge were hidden in cloud so it wasn't the view that affected me. It was seeing the hills and remembering the last time I was up in the Lake District - between being told that I had advanced cancer and the operation. So I was expecting the last time to be the last time... Thankfully the tumour was benign and I more than survived. But all that emotion came back as I drove along.
'I will lift up mine eyes to the hills; from whence cometh my help? My help comes from the Lord.' Good old psalmist.
It has been wonderful walking on the tops again even though I did rather too much yesterday and seem to have picked up a ligament niggle that I have never had before. But a pain killer, a night's rest and only the steep downhill bits cause a twinge now. Off to the south of the Lakes tomorrow...

And down in the Conistonwater area the weather continued to be hot and sunny, and dry - no mud and not much in the way of boggy bits either. All a bit unusual for the spring... It was too hazy to get any good photos from the tops so you will just have to imagine what it looked like from the summits of Wetherlam, Coniston Old Man and Bowfell.

Alleluia! He is risen indeed...

I just love this time in the Christian calendar. Christmas has been highjacked somewhat but the real party happens now, at Easter. And it’s partly the contrast with Holy Week, when we pretend that we don’t know what’s coming on Sunday. Even though we are halfway through the vacation a small group of us have been continuing to say morning prayer together in Ridley’s chapel. I don’t know why the others come – apart from those who are ordained – as most sensible ordinands are not getting up to gather anywhere for anything at 8.15 am. Perhaps it might be the bacon butties or the croissants or toasted homebaked bread afterwards… But for me it puts the day – my life – in the right place. We met on Good Friday morning, six of us, led beautifully by Rob. It was a very stripped down service which concentrated the mind on the significance of the day and set off wonderfully by starting with Psalm 69. Read it and remember the story of Good Friday.

That was the first of four services that day for me. No 2 was a Good Friday meditation at St Bene’t’s (my adopted church – I have a sort of dual nationality when it comes to which church I belong to). That concentrated the mind and heart even more on the day. After the third hot cross bun of the day (buns for breakfast too) we joined the ecumenical service of witness in the market place, clutching our individual wooden crosses from the meditation service and shivering in the wind. The large cross had to be held in place as the one that the council puts up had been vandalised last year and not replaced. But about 150 people turned up from several denominations and attracted curious stares from passers by and tourists. Are we just a folk or historical curiousity now, I wonder?

The last service was in the large Roman Catholic church in Cambridge where for about the fourth, and last, time I joined the choir for the service of the veneration of the cross, one of the Triduum services. It is a dark service, with unaccompanied singing throughout of several different styles of music. It takes you to the stunned ‘I cannot believe what is happening’ reaction that the disciples and others must have experienced after the crucifixion and burial. The sort of service that you walk or drive away from quietly and thoughtfully. And being a Roman Catholic service – albeit in a not very high church – it has a sense of theatre about it. Something that Anglican churches are often not that concerned about or good at, which is a pity as about two thirds of us are not that grabbed by words but by actions and visuals.

Back to the RC church last night to sing in the choir again in the Easter Saturday vigil, a three hour service. Not to mention the rehearsal before. It all makes for a great deal of singing – much of it almost by sight for me. The service started in complete darkness, with a congregation of about 1,000 – standing room only. Then the west doors opened to show the fire outside. After lighting the paschal candle – imaginatively decorated by the children – from the fire the single flame of light came into the church and processed up the nave to the crossing – with acclamations on the way. We lit our candles, the liturgy began and we sang three or four psalms by their light. At the Gloria all the lights came on, all the altar candles lit, Wayne Marshall in the organ loft went beserk on the keyboards and pedals and lots of bells were rung. Clouds of incense were made and the purple curtain in front of the large rood cross came down – narrowly missing the paschal candle. Easter morning had come. He is risen indeed! Then we were off. Lots of singing, baptisms, confirmations, lighting of candles, more Marshall extravaganzas on the organ – where is he going and how on earth will he get back to the tune/key?, but he always does – and communion, finishing with easter eggs and a celebratory drink aterwards. Musically it was fun, with Wayne in the loft and one quarter of G4 in the choir, and the drama and overall joy of the occasion emphasises the meaning of Easter and why we just have to celebrate it.

Being a bit befuddled getting home after midnight, I mis-set my alarm and managed to wake up too late for the 6.30 am service in my home church. But this morning’s baptisms (full immersion) and confirmations were also a joyful occasion. Bishop John gave an excellent address, all the arrangements worked, the worship was uplifting and it was a wonderful start to Eastertide. But we are Easter People, living in joy and anticipation.

The final seal on the day is the chance that a Brit might just pull off a win in the Masters this evening…

It's a Wonderful Life...

Got seduced this weekend into wandering around the UK census records on the internet seaching for scraps of information about my grandparents, etc. So far I’ve got back to the 1850s without trying that hard. The experience reminded of me how small the world has become. There’s a saying that we are all only seven steps away from the rest of the world; you know someone who knows someone who knows… seven times and you have contacted everyone on this planet. Sounds farfetched, even to me, but it has, apparently, been proven to be true. And so I discovered that I am only three steps away from the American actor James Stewart, a long-standing favourite of mine.

So, how can that be…? After WW1 my grandfather was in the CID in London but apparently had to resign in a hurry. The matter made the ‘News of the World’ – though I can’t find out what happened. I suspect a bit of corruption was the case as an off-shore banking account surfaced years after he died. My grandparents never had any money worth speaking of when they were alive. Or so everyone was led to believe...

The ex-policeman became a private detective and, in between being the house detective for the Lyons Corner Shops in London, did a spell working for Bernard Docker in the 1930s. Docker later became known for all sorts of things – gold-plated Daimlers, accusations of dodgy business with money, and a rather glamorous and outrageous second wife. My grandfather worked for him around the time of Mr Docker getting divorced from Mrs Docker No1. He married Jeanne Stuart in 1933. It was a dreadful mistake, all went horribly wrong, and they divorced in 1935 – quite a scandal at the time. Jeanne Stuart was an actor, quite well-known and successful. After the divorce she went back to the stage, and supposedly had a three year relationship with James Stewart, before he went to war, came back, married and settled down. And that is how I am three steps away from James Stewart.

It would have been good to have asked my grandfather about this side of his life – what exactly did happen when he was a policeman and what was it like working for the Dockers? But he’s long gone now, and so are those who might have known more of the story than I’ve been able to find so far. Somewhere I have a paper napkin with family trees sketched in it during a family outing to the local posh carvery when my mother and uncle worked their way through all the relatives they could remember. By the end of that lunch I had several new cousins and great aunts/uncles I never knew I had. But until I can find that piece of paper it’s a matter of trawling the on-line archives when I should be reading or writing that essay.

Hang on though, the essay is about modernity and postmodernity, and that means things like globalisation and the world getting smaller. Wonder if I could get Jimmy Stewart into it somehow…?

You will endure...

Here is the desktop image for Thursday 29 April, verse from Ps 102. Back to Lyotard, Foucault and Derrida... And thinking about what to do for the all-age service I've picked up at my home church for 22 April. And the sermon I've volunteered for in St Albans Diocese the following Sunday, Vocations Sunday. And the dissertation. Perhaps a glass of wine first...

The Present is a gift...

My penultimate term at Ridley ended on Thursday and the coming Easter term will seem even shorter than it usually does. And as usual I have lots to write over the vacation, partly self-imposed this time as I intend to get the one essay due this semester done and dusted to leave the Easter term in which to get the most of the work on the dissertation done and a good draft prepared. The MA in Pastoral Theology costs about 40,000 words one way or another. In the three years I’ve been here there’s only been one vacation out of a total of eight in which I haven’t done some work, and that was really only because I wasn’t an ordinand then. Good job that I like writing.
This Sunday will be the last at my attachment church, and I am leading the service. It’s been a good place to be and I will miss the people, who have been gracious and welcoming. Not so the lack of heating…I have become used to seeing my breath in front of me when preaching or leading. Thank goodness it is a church where the clergy robe up. Although I have a sneaky feeling that one at least of the three churches I am going to might be similarly challenged.
And Sunday will be extra-busy this week as a member of our particular sermon class preaches at an 8 am BCP service to the north of Cambridge, and I have to be at my attachment to the southwest of Cambridge by about 9 am – breakfast is an interesting idea, given that my attachment church doesn’t have a loo. Add the rehearsal and performance of the Brahms ‘German Requiem’ by the Cambridge Philharmonic Society and another sermon class assessment at 5 pm – plus the loss of an hour for the clocks going forward for British Summer Time. So…early to bed this evening, I think.

The Future is rapidly becoming the Present. Ordination is 3 months and 1 week away, and paperwork arrives frequently from the Diocese. This morning it’s the third set of CRB forms that I have been asked to complete in three years. Yesterday it was something about stipend, and last week a very welcome email telling me what work the Diocese will do on the vicarage, which is most of what needs doing. I expect the request for various evidences of baptism and so on soon. And I’ve been told that the details about the ordination will be sent out shortly. Meanwhile I have already – poor, sad person that I am – sorted out somewhere for people supporting me to gather after the ordination service. How to reconcile this with living in the Now…?

Father of all mercies...

Today was the last time this term that we met together as a college for Morning Prayer. And it was a Morning Prayer that many of us will remember, I suspect. It was a peripatetic service, starting in the bright sun and keen wind on the new front steps. Led by the Principal, the Opening Prayer prayed for all coming into the college and going out over the steps. We also prayed for the skill and well-being of those who made the steps. And sang. Then round to the new bike sheds behind the Chapel. Here we heard the Word of God in the shape of Psalm 136, adapted for the occasion, including some memorable lines. After giving thanks to God for all sorts of things in the words of the psalmist, we gave thanks for God (responsorily by half verse for the technically minded reader):

‘Who cares for all our needs
for his mercy endures for ever
and provides means to travel the city,
for his mercy…
Two-wheeled contraptions for us to ride.
for his mercy…
Bicycles for lower CO2 emissions in the air.
for his mercy…
And bikesheds to keep them dry at night,
for his mercy…
Perspex and metal to please the eye,
for his mercy…
Special lights to keep the riff-raff away,
for his mercy…
Next to the Chapel to remind us to pray
for his mercy....’

The service continued with a Prayer for grace – when cycling, adapted from one of Cranmer’s prayers. Thankfully for those who had forgotten that Morning Prayer was outside, we moved into the Chapel and continued more conventionally in the warm.

It had its moments and I had to check that it wasn’t actually 1 April. Helpfully I was reminded by a tutor that we are all fools for Christ even if it was still March. But it was a good service. We remembered Thomas Cranmer and all that he did for the Church. And, in the tradition of Cranmer, the liturgy showed that you can be creative within the framework and be relevant to today’s needs. I think that Cranmer was smiling this morning.

What we didn’t know when we were round the back of the bikesheds was that one of our ordinands had come off his bike on the way to college…

I keep watch...

Here's today's desktop image from Psalm 102 - just because I like it.

Meditation for Lent...

As last year, I am producing a series of images that can be used as your desktop. This year they will be based on Psalm 102 and will be published daily Monday to Friday.
Here is the first one, for Ash Wednesday.

If you would like a daily email with the day's image please leave your email address in a comment (which will not be made public or used for another purpose). Only conditions for getting the images (which I have taken) are 1) that you can use them for free and as you want as long as you do not charge for them or make money from using them, and 2) that I retain copyright to them. If you use them publicly then an acknowledgement of their source would be nice.

I expect that the odd meditation will find its way on to the blog when I have nothing much to post…

Psalm text from Common Worship Daily Prayer
© The Archbishops’ Council 2005

A good read...

http://inclusivechurch.blogspot.com/
Scott Gunn has been running this blog while an observer/press at the Primates’ Conference in Tanzania. With so little official information apparently around – and I have been having a good look for it, I assure you – his blog has been compelling reading. Thanks, Scott, for providing a picture of what has been going on. It has been fascinating to see through your eyes…

Photo is Scott’s of +John Sentamu at the Memorial to Slavery in Zanzibar on Sunday

Primus intra pares...

Generally I avoid the more sensitive subjects on this blog but I just have to write something about the Primates’ Conference, meeting at the moment, especially after discovering yesterday that Bishop Mouneer – a resident on this staircase last term – is there, having just been elected the Primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East. If there ever was a group of people in need of his example of humility, good humour, graciousness and gentleness they are in Dar es Salaam today. This morning in chapel we prayed in groups of four for the Conference – for Archbishop Rowan, for Mouneer, for all the Primates and for the worldwide Anglican Communion. For the blessing of God’s wisdom, discernment, grace and presence on them all – brothers and sister together in Christ. As we all are.
I don’t know how much of what seems to be going on is about politics, power and position. Some of it seems to be less about God and more about being the one who is best or right. But who is the One who is the best or right? The homily in chapel this morning – if it’s Thursday it must be Homilyday – was about Mark 8.27-37. And mainly about v34 – ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’
If the Primates cannot be the body of Christ, united in one Church, and act towards that end, the rest of us will have to show them how…

For better, for worse...

Isn’t it strange where ideas come from?! A chance conversation with Janice as she was cleaning the bathrooms this morning has led me to a sermon. My ordination stole arrived from Juliet Hemingray last week. Being a purple/mauve sort of person – ‘winter colours’ I am told – I eventually decided on a white stole with some purple and mauve on it. And with symbolism that I was happy with – the issue of what theological messages are given by what clerical stuff you wear is a whole blog, or even book, in itself. But when the stole arrived it looked rather different from the illustration. For ‘mauve’ read ‘pink’ – and quite a girly pink at that. I might be a sort of crushed raspberry acid pink person but girly pink…! After a few days I was able to put to one side what it ought to look like and see it for what it is. And it is rather beautiful…
So when in time I will be wearing that white stole at a marriage service I will be wearing a good sermon illustration. When you get married you think that your stole will be purple and mauve. Then you discover that actually it’s pink and not what it is supposed to be or what you expected. In time you stop thinking that it should be mauve and discover that pink is pretty good. In fact, it’s better than mauve. And the stole becomes not only beautiful but unique to you too (or two).
Add in the fact that an ordination service is a sort of wedding service and …

Now, if only I can store that away somewhere and remember where I put it when that wedding comes along…

Photo and design © Juliet Hemingray Church Textiles. www.church-textiles.co.uk

Lost...

You know how things are supposed to drop off and not work so well as you get older - or perhaps you haven't got there yet. In which case you will find out... I was watching the news on the TV last night and there was this item about a concert with the BBC Concert Orchestra, featuring the World Whistling Champion. My Dad taught me to whistle when I was a child. I thought I could whistle quite well but this guy is a virtuoso. Pursing my lips up to whistle along with him I discovered that I have lost my whistle. It seems that now I can't whistle. What has happened? No one told me that this might happen as I got older. Has anyone seen my whistle or perhaps someone has a spare one?

A place for everything...

After a thrilling Saturday spent at ARU, as a treat I went to the cinema to see the newest James Bond, ‘Casino Royale’. I know that it has been out ages and I am probably the last person in the country to see it but I don’t get out much… I lost track of time while watching it – it certainly moves on apace – and as usual the FX and stunts were pretty good. But I don’t know if I will watch the next one or not because of a few things that struck me as I was watching this one.

One reason definitely to see the next film is Daniel Craig himself – very nice for these eyes to look at anyway. The way he plays Bond is much truer to the books – at least as I remember reading them a long time ago. His Bond is hard and dark, not a very nice person and one who uses his charm (and everything else) to get what he wants. ‘Casino Royale’ is a prequel in that it explains how Bond becomes like this early in his career as a ‘00’. The film is a darker, perhaps more realistic film – depending on what your idea of real life is like – and not the entertaining fantasy romp we have got used to. So I came out less entertained and more provoked to thought than I would expect to be. It’s rated at 12 with parental guidance, which surprises me in retrospect. Not that it is excessively violent (see ‘Starship Troopers’ for gore and violence, and body parts scattered around) but I wonder what insidious effect the hardening process that Bond goes through and the sort of person he is at the end, which sequence is all about revenge, has on the viewer.

For the first time in a film I became very conscious of ‘product placement’ and once I spotted what was going on it became difficult not to notice. Every electronic gizmo has the name Sony on it, usually very obviously so. And although Bond drives his usual Aston Martin, he also hops into a few other makes as well. The car parks are littered with brand new Range Rovers, Fords and Jags (especially Jags), and MGs. Again it is probably not excessive compared with many films but it is noticeable. And the opportunity to get money for product placement might, I guess, be a reason why the film is set now rather than say back in the 1960s or 1970s which in a way would fit better with the chronology of the character and the other Bond films.

Maybe I am particularly tuned into such visual things as I have just started a dissertation about what the physical environment of a church or sacred space says about what happens in it, and the interrelationship between the two. Do you have mixed messages when you use 21st Century Common Worship eucharistic liturgy in a medieval church last re-ordered slightly by the Victorians? (And does it matter anyway?)

Perhaps a challenge that ‘Casino Royale’ sets us is to think about Christian ‘product placement’…

Floating in the Doldrums...

This week is turning out to be a rather curious lull or downtime, an ‘in between’ time. The essays have been written and handed in – and probably marked by now. The MA module for this semester starts next week and there are few lectures to go to, mainly optional ones at that. I have sort of started reading for the dissertation and there is a study day at ARU this Saturday (the whole day, O bliss, O rapture). But that sense of urgency that has been around since the end of the last academic year – brought on by the core module, mission, placement, sorting out a curacy and then, in last term, the Lent book, reading all the texts and writing essays – that has disappeared. There’s nothing much bugging me to blog about it. I’ve fiddled around – doing a service sheet, thinking about the next sermon – but generally have been having a bit of a break, which my body sorely needs.
After two years at Ridley, I can’t help noticing the parallel between this ‘in between’ time and the one we all live in. And the gospel passage I could preach on in a few weeks time also seems relevant. Luke 8.22–25 sees Jesus asleep in the boat in a bit of ‘in between’ time. But, of course, he is rudely woken up by the terrified disciples – who must have experienced storms like that and worse before – and he ‘rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased and there was a calm. He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’’
I think that I might be writing a sermon this afternoon…

This could just change your life...

Just a small plug for a slim book on a huge topic. The 2007 Ridley Hall Lent Book 'His journey, our journey' has now been published by Canterbury Press - and it's a cracker (although I would say that, wouldn't I). See www.ridley.cam.ac.uk to buy and see what the previous year's edition was like. This year the daily reflections follow the journey of Jesus told in Luke's gospel from when he starts walking towards Jerusalem and ending with the first Easter. In a way the collection of reflections is also a commentary on the gospel, so it's a BOGOF offer too - commentary and Lent meditation.