Gizza Job

I am writing this post as a rather more thought out response (from me) to one listed on Uberblogger Lesley's Blog concerning the issue of lay presidency. This is the debate that surrounds the possibility of members of laity presding at the Eucharist in the way that a priest does, that they bless the oblata as a priest does. 

I attended to the issue of blurring the edges of priestly identity once before here, and this debate seems to be the accelerant on that glowing ember. I am going to call it as I see it as I have no other way.

The Church of England ordains priests, both men and women, after a full and lengthy period of calling, discernment, training, prayer and ordination. While the Holy Orders are lives in their own right, they too are jobs that have responsibilities, and quite properly, rights/propriety. Other vocations are the same, teachers, police, medics etc - whose discerned entry into their chosen lives affords them a given training and therefore the right/propriety to claim an ability to perform some action or another. Add to that fact that all Christians have to accept the distinct possibility that the Spirit is at play in there somewhere in the discernment of vocations to ordained Orders. At their ordination, deacons and priests are entrusted with specific roles that correlate with their Holy Orders, and they are charged to undertake to meet those obligations in their daily lives. All ordinands warmly agree in front of the gathered throng at the cathedral, recieve the power of the Spirit and go home - different, changed. 

Also in our world of the church, we have the uncomfortable imbalance that seems purposefully determined to dismantle the historic, overlook the formulary and re-invent priesthood into oblivion. I fear that in a decade or so,  churches will be largely evangelical non-sacramental chapels for preachers to preach and for praise to be loud. I sense breadth being lost and inside that decade there may not be parishes or communities for priests (or Christians) with a sacramental spirituality to worship, or minister. This isn't an evangelical bashing either, because those of a more catholic disposition are too busy fighting about lace and ladies, or so it seems. I daren't use the term 'traditionalist' of myself, because it would now paint me as something I most certainly am not. 

So, while catholic priests fight about what they consider is important (to the exclusion of all else it seems), the non-sacramentalists enjoy their ascendency, and ordained sacramental ministers become rarer than an England World Cup win, debates about how we can scrap priesthood for ts spare parts flourish.

In a world where Christianity is marginalised, we need to sharpen the edges of roles, not blend them one into another. There are millions of Christians, all of whom are called to that life by God. What the church could more profitably do with its time is to help Christians recognise and discern what their calling is, rather than diminish the roles of other specific and identified callings. The church needs priests and it needs pastors as it needs preachers as it needs clergy as it needs laity as it needs sacramentalists as it needs evanglicals. If we celebrate and work towards a full outworking of that, and not do the 'nice' thing of saying 'if you want to preside you can 'cos you asked' and reduce a distinct Order as a catchall for everying the laity can do - then the world will look upon us with different eyes.

...and my ordination will remian more than just a pretty liturgy for the pointlessly trained!

The Blogger's Art

This thing that we do, that we call 'Blog' is something of a slippery fish. It seems to defy definition, although some authorities are seizing the salmon and applying some typologies into the art.

This interests me, because I find myself affected by the blogs of others now that I am something of a practitioner in my own right. Clearly, I am more interested in Christian blogs and will one day write a dissertation on these and other such phenomena as Twitter and the like. In the evangelistic sense, there must be an effect in these things. I have yet to formulate a view in any serious way, but part of my formulation yielded the vehicle of the spiritual me - Flight Diaries. I think I am finding that the various facets of a personality cannot always comfortably sit alongside one another meaningfully. 

Anyway, I am going to plonk down the things I have noticed about them, and in terms of things I have heard said by the mad ol' eejits who regularly read Us! 

1. They do have specific characteristics. 

 - Some really are the sordid fruit of the 'Mimi' - that is to say, a narcissism, a vanity. Perhaps they all are - this one certainly shows signs and is in treatment as we speak. Some go so far that their frequency increases when reader numbers do - there is something narcotic about it all too.

 - Subtle plagiarism exists in the art, brothers and sisters. The Blog is very often simply a re-distribution device for the ideas of others - and this isn't wholly wrong. After all, newspapers make a living at it.

2. Blogs I like

 - I love blogs that take something original, in all that that can mean. I love daft blogs, but I also love blogs that attend purely to The Other and wrestle with the inaccessibility of it all. I am sensing that the best and most popular blogs are novels, not newspapers - first edition not re-print. Sermon blogs are such things, ironic blogs, tongue-in-cheekers - they all work from originality.

 - I love blogs that attend to a specialism - one such blog is that of my friend who has a love for and expertise in church art etc. He tells me things I don't know about the sort of buildings I love. 

3. Blogs that I don't like

 - Ones that attend to the 'I' too much.

 - Monochrome blogs (unless written as a specialism) - I like blogs that are like good magazines - different things for different days. If a magazine only wrote about women's giblets and Katie Price I doubt I'd be interested for long (for example)

 - 'A day in my family's life' blogs - though I recognise that such things are probably only for the family concerned.

As an evangelistic tool, I see bloggies becoming more and more valuable. The tripe that I expound here is read far more than my tripe that I expound from the pulpit. It tickles me to observe that more people follow this earwash than use my Parish website, and that does ok in its own right - but what an opportunity for a Christian with a mission-focussed heart. I believe, increasingly, that with anything like this, those who are not blessed with a skill for it should withdraw - as not everyone is called or gifted to be a preacher, for example. I have yet to establish finally my place in that scale, but you already know my thoughts on that. So, the Blog as part of the great Missio Dei - it is an idea that has to have legs, or else they are simply the work of a damaged psychology!

I will revisit this again - as today I have waffled!

Profits of Great Gladness

I recent years I have found myself developing a zeal for the great Planet Earth. I think it is right and good not to choke the old Rock, or poison the bits of it that others need.

This has translated into an happy synthesis with my former Hobby of Choice - profit making. I was very good at making a profit in business, and Profit & Loss Reports were like a battlefield to me. I could save a shekel here and a denarius there, and often save a whole outlet in the end! 

In the rare event that I happen into the Great Corporation of the Golden Arches (normally when they have 'Big Tasties' on the menu), I recieve my fare on its tray, together with my coffee and the sugar that I didn't ask for. When I am finished eating, I dump my rubbish then carefully and dutifully take back the sachet of sugar (or carton of unsolicited sauce) to the counter and hand it back in so that they don't waste it and can re-use it. This is partly born of my profit-makers eyes but also because I think that if a company maintains its profit margin, it might save the planet.

In restaurants, if I have not used something and have left it clean (cutlery etc) I will take it back so that a clean thing isn't needlessly washed up again. In this way I will not throw away a perfectly good sachet of sugar, a carton of manky milk, an unused serviette. Yes, let them make their profit - but in the end, if they arn't disposing of the packaging and not manufacturing the replacement for a perfectly good product, Mother Earth takes one extra little breath!

Holidads

During my summer sojourn to the coast of the extreme South West, I managed to fit in some very noble people-watching. This yielded many results, the most striking one I have already described in 'Naked Woman Flesh'.

However, I observed another phenomenon: holidads.

These are not just normal dads but dads on holiday with the kids and The Missus, hence 'holidads' - holiday dads (but shortened for poetic effect) ... keep up, dear!

Anyway - holidads.  For the sake of clarity, I was not a holidad. I was quite the opposite, I hope. You are intrigued now, aren't you? I can tell!

Holidads are that breed of men who seem to expect wifey to run around after them and the kids while they take in the Stocks and Shares in the be-minatured Times at breakfast time. In our hotel, there were a number of such geezers. Wifey would haul screeching Tarquin down to eat (and all the parafernalia of kiddihood) while Holidad brought nothing but the paper. Holidads don't even look up when wifey, having desposited the snot-and-tears Tarquin, scuttle around gathering the food for them all from the servery. Holidads don't bat an eyelid or so much as pause between column inches when the incandescent sprog throws a paddy. They leave their rather flustered and embarrassed significant-others to deal with all that malarky. These chappies are conspicuous and they are out there in their millions and billions. 

I have never understood why some dads just let the mother get on and deal with it all. Yes, maybe in some (and not all, this is the Third Millenium) cases they have the fancy job while mindful wife does the domestic stuff - and there may be some balance in that division - but ignoring the kids, letting them be as invisible presences before their newspapers? Once, I was at a party where a little kid was playing happily with mum and dad looking on. The little love spilled their drink; daddy tells mummy that this has happened and she ought to clear it up. This echoes in all things; dads that never clean the manky touche of a post-poo poppet; dads that never get up in the night to deal with the lung exersions of a yelling infant; dads who, while on holiday with the family, seem to take a holiday from them in their very presence. 

Domesticity may be split  - parenthood isn't. You might be the Duke of Financial Headquarters, that that is your child there - get involved and be glad you can!

That's as much as I have to say about that.

Don't Live all Your Dreams

In recent weeks, I have had cause to use the term 'living the dream' on a number of occasions. Preaching at the first Mass of a new priest is an obvious example, but in a curacy - if all goes as it should - we can readily describe ourselves as living our dream. 

In all good ways, of course, we are. Most ordained people have been labouring under the particular burden of their calling for years, and whilst it as often as difficult burden, in the end, it forms our dreams. Those dreams are realised at ordination. 

On a different tack, I once heard a lottery winner state that all their dreams had come true, that they could now fulfill every ambition and dream. That sounded marvellous, but only for a moment. 

In the cerebral world that is Coronation Street, one of its older characters stated that she still had her dreams, that she knew that they would never come true, but that they were still worth holding on to. This gave me cause to ponder over my Gin and Tonic and think how life really would be if we had no more dreams to chase after. It sounds perfectly awful to me.

Our dreams, aspirations and ambitions colour in the person that we are. We are clearly a product of 'past', and fact of the 'present' - but it is all of those things that give us our 'future' dimension. I number many people who (if they but did the thing) would give most lottery winnings away for fear that all the little (or not-so-little) things that we dream of would all ocme true and there would be no dreams left. Without our 'future' aspect, we are nothing, except flesh-bones-and-memories. 

Witnessing the ordinations of friends was bitter-sweet for me. It was sweet to see a much loved friend recieve God's Grace and Charism and to become that which they were born to be. It was slightly poignant then to realise that in fact, it is good to look forward to something (maybe or maybe not) happening. Ordination for me is now past - so now what ...?

For me, my dreams project upon my children now. I want for them and not so much for me, though I am still a man who harbours ambitions and dreams. The 'biggies' (family, priesthood) are real now, so they need to be replaced with other things. I once heard a story which I am reminded of now ...

There was once a man who loved to go fishing. He loved to fish and he dreamed of the  time when he could sit in his boat and fish all day. Eventually, his dream came true, and as he was rather a good fisherman, was quickly overwhelmed by his catch. He asked a friend to join him and they fished together. They too were very successful and other friends joined them. There were so many fish that they couldn't eat them or give them away as they had done so before, so they bought a little shop and sold their catch their. So popular was this fish that the man and his friends needed bigger and better boats, and then trawlers which needed a yard which needed staff which needed a bigger shop, and another and another. The man's fish business soon became the most successful and the most profitable and he and his friends became rich beyond their wildest dreams. Time passed and the man became stressed with the burdens of his business and became ill. When he went to his doctor, he was told that he needed a little hobby; something that could help him relax and reflect on the wonderful life he had. Being a man who took the advice of his doctor, he thought hard about how he could unwind after a hard day at his Corporation's Head Office.

So he went fishing on his little boat ....

And now for something completely different

This is just to let you know, dear and beloved readers, that I am 'going where called' (I think), as I embark on another Blog called:

Flight Diaries

It is more of a spiritual direction blog than anything else, and a place where the more 'priestly' side of my mind and thinking will be wrought. It will be free of gadgets and most importantly, free of 'counters' - I offer my thoughts freely and into the ether. Who is looking at what is not my interest there!

Perhaps you will read it, maybe you will get something from it. Either way, I will proceed with it (with less frequency than here - or else my head will splat)

Endings

I am not normally one to write blog posts whilst in an emotional state (except the misanthropic), but I need to refect on the day that I have just had.

I have spent the day at the school in Aylesbury where I serve as both chaplain and governor. It is has been a wonderful day for a panoply of reasons, among them:

1. Year Six Leaver's Assembly: Awards were given for a range of wonderful gifts and skills, most significantly for effort and good endeavour. Yes, there were cups for those who were good at sport and science, and rightly so - but the most poiganant awards went to those who bust a gut trying. It was my (painful/emotional) job to close the Assembly for them with a Blessing, painful because it is tough to let go, even to crowds of kids you don't really know very well. I reflected that in them we all have hope. I reflected on the quality of their characters in all the colours and hues they were made manifest, that grace poured out from them to us. It is my belief that if we invest in children properly, that the world might just be saved one little bit at a time.

2. The Headteacher Retired: Today was the day when the Head retired. I commented that she reminded me of the Good Shepherd: loving her flock, knowing them by name, laying down (all but) her life for them, looking for the lost sheep, and so on. I am part of that flock, a young(ish) Curate who entered her school after ordination petrified. I am now a gob on a stick thanks to her oversight and care for me. Even kids feel the pain of separation, and I can't be sure if the tears were for the leaving kids or for the leaving Head. Oh Lord, how I wish I could bottle the purity and intensity of care and connection that children have for and with others, whom they trust with just about anything.

3. Being mobbed: I have worked my socks off to be a positive clergy presence in the school. I am there with collar as often as I can be, and when I am, I am a normal human being. I don't do needless piety or waffly kid-centric theology. We have fun and we 'do theology' at the same time. At three points today, this 38 year old priest, in blacks and collar, was being chased by well over a hundred screaming kids around the school field. They loved it, and so did I - what a remarkable privilege to be a priest whom kids are not afraid of, or diffident about. Maybe I have had the the good fortune to convince some children that being a God-botherer is ok, a bit fun, acceptable even - possible maybe. These moments were among the Magic Moments of Vicarring.

4. Leaves from the Prayer Tree: Kids are so instinctively altruistic. The things they they hold in their prayers are remarkably mature and insightful. There was a simple prayer saying 'thanks for pencils', for example - that is one child who does not take the richness of the gift of their education for granted. I recieve them termly and pray over them at church so that they have a way of 'processing' them meaningfully. They pray for those in need and for loved ones, quite without prompt and in private (the tree is in the main hallway and accessible at all times). If I could pray like a child, my own flock would be the better off I think.

I nearly cried (fool that I am) at one point when addressing a full school hall. Our children are the best asset that we have as a society. They are real and pure and believable and honest in a way that adults simply are not. Perhaps childhood is wasted on the young, I don't know - but I know that I would love to be seven-year-old again. Tonight (heat and twins allowing), I will sleep safe in the knowledge that the world we live in isn't quite on the edge of peril as I had once feared.

May God bless those and all children as they start their holidays. May they find rest, live in safety and surrounded by love, and may they return safely next term. Amen

Fair Trade?

I am going to venture into dangerous territory now. You have had some lighter posts this week while I lacked the time to write, but now I must explore an issue that fizzes away within me.

I should say that I am supportive of everything 'fair', be that trade or treatment. FairTrade as an enterprise and as a cause is worthy and good and I support all that it stands for, until ...

I was reminded of my annoyance with an aspect of Fair Trade when I was at the wonderful Eden Project earlier this month. I bought and enjoyed a carton of very normal apple juice. It was Fair Trade apple juice as you would rightly imagine, with the vital ingredient coming from growers in Chile. Very nice for the growers in Chile, I thought - until I remembered how far Chile is away from south Cornwall (or Manchester in fact, where the juice was 'recieved'). I am very close friends with a man who lives and works in Hereford, and he reports that the apple-drink industry has been hard hit in recent years. Cider sales are not as bouyant and apple juice sales are just as troubled. In fact, one of the larger apple-industry companies was forced to lay-off staff in recent times. You can probably see wher I am going here. Why are we choking up the planet ferrying in apple juice from across the globe all the while we watch people in Britain lose jobs because we have stopped buying their apple juice?

I believe that the strength of Fair Trade is in establishing fairness for those communities who provide unique and specific crops or goods to the West who have to power to cost them into oblivion. Coffee, bananas, chocolate, cotton, tea - these are all things that we have to go to the Second and Third World for and who would be most compromised by our buying power here in the First World. Fair Trading in these and other such commodities is absolutely right and within the Gospel Imperative.

But toilet roll, wine, bread, apple juice, orange juice, cereal bars? The list goes on. The last time I looked, France was within the EU and was, to the best of my knowledge, working ethically and treating its staff in the same way as we would hope to in England. So why are we shipping Fair Trade white wine many thousands of miles when the French gear toddles mere hundreds? Is it just choice, or are we bringing it here because it is FairTrade?

It raises a wider issue maybe. Which ethical issue takes precendent? Fair Trade, global warming and its causes, preserving industry and work at home for our communities? Which takes the lead here? My belief is that with Fair Trade, we have taken it to the Nth degree and a little to the extremes. With a proper balance, we in the West can support communities who would otherwise fail if we didn't trade fairly, but we can also ensure that the working communities of Herefordshire (et al) can remain in their jobs and my kids aren't choked by the emissions of the transports that are dragging my apple juice 6000 miles.

I can mess with your mind ...

I saw this on holiday in a poster shop. It is easier to remember that this is not actually animated when it is on paper. Try this after a few beers and a jalfrezi!

Work/Life Balance

This is the moment when being a dad, being a priest and being human all collided at the same moment. (I have since learned to close the door behind me)

David Baibey or Lord Titchfield?

I am amazed by this photograph. That it is one of my daughters is not the reason. That it is reasonably well composed is not the reason. That the photographer and subject have managed to negotiate a smile for the picture is not the reason. That the light is right and the colours vibrant is not the reason. That it is focussed and crisp is not the reason either.

The reason that this picture is amazing is that it was taken by my other daughter, barely three years old. I have never taught her to use the camera and neither has my wife. We know she was fiddling with it, but never for a moment thought that she had taken anything! Add to this that our camera is notoriously difficult to use at times (it's a little older than most digital cameras). 

Aren't children amazing?

(and for the cynics, it wasn't me cos I wasn't there, and it wasn't The Wife because that is her shoulder you can see)

Naked Woman Flesh

I am guessing that this blog will appear in all the wrong lists with a title like this one, but this is the exact subject I wish to discuss.

The picture isn't right, but I am not going to type 'half naked teenagers' into my search-engine - oh no! 

Whilst on holiday mit the family in Newquay, and during a gentle constitutional through the town centre, I was struck by something that made me feel uncomfortable and old all at the same time.

During the mid morning, the entire place seemed to be filled with semi-clad kids, mostly girls. There were tummies, thighs, bottoms, cleavages and more (much more in one case), all on show in the street. One girl was wearing a pair of shorts that were so brief that I could see the imprint of her spleen. Another wore a skirt so short that I was fully informed of the nature of her next-day's dirty laundery. All in all - I felt like I had fallen into the centre-fold of a lad's magazine. 

I am red-blooded and appreciative of the finer aspects of the female form. I am no prude, I am not squeamish and I am, on the whole a 'live and let live' kind of man. But I found myself feeling uncomfortable, and suddenly I realised that I had turned into my own dad. It seems that beach-chic Newquay style, on a hot day in July, involves as little as possible in the clothing department - and why not? Many girls were wandering through in just bikinis, the boys seemingly overdressed in the long-shorts and tshirt culture of surfing dudes male.

I felt myself rebuking them in my thoughts (all the while explaining to my daughter why that girl was showing off her pants, and why those pants were far too small for her [she did the 'why' thing]), then rebuking myself for being a dinosaur. Actually, I reasoned, they are their bodies - they can do what they like with them. My first instinct was to pass judgement on their sense of taste and decency in the inner workings of my own thoughts, though this quickly turned into thought about how much of a hypocrite I was being. I would ordinarily fight for their right to their own expression of who they are. I would preach that they celebrate the gifts that they have been granted in the brief moment of their younger years. They were celebrating their gifts, I was heart-set to want them to conceal them like a dirty secret. They were dressed for their own comfort and convenience and they were at ease. 

Is this the slow descent into genuine old-gitism? I was embarrassed by beauty which, in the end, wasn't cheapened - it wasn't a pornographic show (not that I know what one looks like, you understand). They were being themselves all the while I was wishing that they weren't. It was me who cheapened beauty ....

(For those who reached this Post through a Google Search and didn't get what you expected ... tough!)

The Hope and Joy of Old Age

Old Age Ain't For Sissies! ~ Do Not Resent Growing Old... Many Are Denied The Privilege.

This is the strap line for the eminent and wonderful blog offered by The Old Geezer.  I read it awhile ago and it has haunted me ever since. It is a simple statement of the obvious - though it is only obvious when it has been stated, if you catch my drift. 

I live with a list of people who were close to me and who died 'young' - and among that number my father (who never reached the age that I have), my wife's two best friends (both of whom died in their teens), at least three school peers and others around the periphery of my life who are nonetheless important and worthy of passing mention. Too many youngsters reach the end of their lives before those lives have been tested by the normal expectations of time. We utter platitudes about 'quality over quantity', age not being important, love being the only thing that counts, blah blah blah. Tell any of that the mother of a teenager who has just succumbed to Hodgkin's Disease. You may find yourself the proud owner of a dented wind-pipe. 

This is all compounded by the fact that, after my father died so young, my mother met and married a man considerably older than she - more than 30 years older. My dad has now died, having done so far too soon but at a good age in his eighties - and a sainted hero to me he will always remain. 

Anyway - the thing is this, we live in an age where age is derided. We put our 'elderly' in safe places and then often leave them to it, complaining about their unreasonable demands for more than a passing visit once a month. Children's telly programs paint elderly people as dotty flat-cap wearers who are to be patronised like benevolent centenarians. We slap goo on our faces in the effort to pretend to the world that we are not in fact aging, heaven forfend. We paint more goo on our faces to hide lines - often the lines that frame a kindly wise face, if only we took courage. We do the 'Cheltenham' thing of dressing a decade younger than we actually are (trust me, it is the case in Cheltenham). In summary, we hold on to the fervent need to not want to get old - like age is a curse, a malevolent stalker who will 'get you in the end'.

Age is not a failure. Age is not a fading into irrelevence. Age is not a reason to be ignored or overlooked. Churches are also guilty of this too - how many funky Youthies work day and night to provide for the kids that they are chasing? In church life, we seek new blood and young blood like bloodhounds, and we often overlook what we politely term 'loyal pew fodder' - in other words, the older members of our community, often the most loyal, regularly the most frequently disregarded. Actually, when (if) I am an incumbent, I will pursue toddlers and dodderers. Both are God granted gifts of age. Let the church up the road bust a gut over the teenies and the yummies! Hurrah! My church will be full, mate!

As Geezer says, older age is a priviledged gift. It is not a right, it is not inevitable. I wonder if, given the chance at life, my young friends and father would embrace old age like the Spanish embraced the World Cup trophy: as hard fought, deserved, a blessed gift - thankfully.

I Just Gotta be Me

I have been thinking about Priesthood, being a Christian, and about being a person in the world today. I was thinking it last week and into this, but this thought process have been brought into sharp focus by a gathering of Curates that I have just enjoyed this last 24 hours or so.

A question raised towards the end of this little gathering was 'Who am I in Christ?'

This question was raised within the context of a bunch of baby-vicars trying to make sense of their newish lives in public ministry, and how best they may do that small thing. It seems that much of what and who we are in our own perceptions is the hinge upon which our work and life swings. Questions about self-identity, the blood-pursuit of Christians to model themselves on the person of Jesus Christ, and the inevitable mopping up after the inevitable failure - all these things dog us as they do all Christians, irrespective of tradition or ecclesiological expression. 

This issue is often right at the forefront of our thinking. In the days in which we find ourselves, we learn of the battle that ordained women are enduring in their claim for full equality with men in the Church. We further learn of the divisions that this is causing between the many lobbies and their members. We are all alive in times that scream out a litany of self-improvment, self-awareness, betterment, sin-purging, de-toxing and so on. Christians are the worst offenders in that, sadly. We have more choices in our lives than ever before. We can be just about anyone we want to be, the choice is ours. The thing about it, my brothers and sisters, it is our right to be whoever we seek to be. 

Those of you who are kind enough to read this Blog regularly (thanks to you) will know that a lot of what is in my mind is about either identity (mine or that of others) and my idolisation of children and childhood (my own kids in the main). The latter, I am fast discovering, informs the former.

Christians spend the large majority of their spiritual time wishing that they were better (in whatever criteria they mean it). The liturgical expression of many Christians hinges on prayerful self-flagellation and 'mea culpas' aplenty - all in the long journey to perfection in the image of Christ. This is, sadly or not, a path to absolute ruin. I am quite sure that I am called not just to be a priest, husband, father and friend - but also to be David Michael Cloake. I am quite sure that I am not called to be Jesus of Nazareth, or the Angel Gabriel. I think my adoration of childhood stems from the fact that at the moment of birth, a person is at their purest. At birth, the human being is as Christlike as it is possible to be. Only as we walk forward in life do we move away from that and in the end we become so divorced from ourselves that we have trouble finding the pathway back. The minute that I resolve to stop trying to be someone that I am not, and turn around to aspire with a whole heart to be the person that I am, will I start to become a fit disciple. As 'me' I am the person made in God's image; as a poor impersonation of someone whom I believe is more Christlike than I, I most certainly am not. 

My prayer for me, for those in my care, for those in the Church and in the world at large is not about who may or may not do this or that (though such matters are important, pressing and painful), but that everyone may learn to be who they are meant to be - themselves.

Authentically, perfectly, rightfully ...

Friends Old and New - plus Ghosts

Vernacular, Mrs Acular and the Twins Aculae are now back from happy holidays.

We are at that happy stage in life where we can go on our jollies without being robbed by the tour operators and the hotels 'simply because it happens to be a school holiday'! Glady, we can toddle off just before the greatest volumes of red-scorched white man-flesh goes on display, the myriad snot-and-ice cream kids dig their endless sandy holes and the plethora of organised mums and their 'packing lists' descend on every coastal haunt known to civilised humanity. We went to Newquay where we avoided the other visitors and spent our time in a wonderful hotel  - the Sands Resort - that caters for families like us: parents with toddlers. Granted, to be a guest at this hotel you have to be earning squillions a year (or bag a really neat offer which is how we managed it), but it was a great place away from the naked navels and blond tresses of the Newquay surfing set. 

Part of the reason for the choice of timing was the Ordination to the Priesthood of my bezzy mate, Fr Simon A. Bone and his First Mass (about eight minutes after we left the wonderful Truro Cathedral). Five hours of good liturgy in one day - marvellous (isn't Jesus awesome?). Even the Twins Aculae sat through every minute happily, such is the quality of their up-bringing and the resilience of their excellent mother! Both services were emotional and finely done, and I pray that Simon has as good a ministry ahead of him as he clearly deserves. If you want to meet a good man, look this guy up. It was my pleasure, at the ordinations to sit next to a wonderful Australian bloke who liked wandering around taking pictures during the service (not just me who likes to do that then). He had a wicked sense of humour and we had a right good laugh. That he was the Archbishop of Wales' Chaplain made this interesting - but finally, another collar wearer a bit like me in terms of outlook - bloody marvellous! Nice to meet you, Chris!

Well, my face and arms burned as they do; my gut is somewhat larger that the week prior; I am bankrupt; I am happy. We had a wonderful time, I did lots of good pondering, I successfully won the World Cup (iTouch App version) and ploughed through most of a hitherto unread Mario Puzo novel. I got to watch the world-class 'Rev.'  in my hotel room (oh my word, how I identify). The kids were happy, Mrs. Acular was happy - we didn't divorce despite the close proximity that we enjoyed for a whole week. And I thought of ten (yes, ten) blog posts - not including this one - that I can scribble down in the days ahead!

Then a funny thing happened. A ghost, an apparition emerged - one that was born of my former retailing days. In carpet retail of a particular brand, it was the habit of the Inquisition to visit the store of a given manager during his holiday - to dig the dirt, the discover evidence, the build a case. I knew many managers who were relived of their livings two days after coming back to work (I merely attracted a demotion in the mid-90s for a policy oversight) - so in the later hours of yesterday, the old paranoia re-emerged. It wasn't very nice - and wholly irrational, but a surprise nontheless. In the end, Monday morning was the same as all Monday mornings (mostly), and so it is that The Vernacular Curate remains.

Just a Quickie

As this is likely to be my last post for a few days, I thought I would catch your attention with some silliness - the sort of silliness that we tolerate on a daily basis here in Blighty. 

I speak of 'over-egging the pudding', 'over-playing the hand' - and with particular reference to the packaging supremos!

1. My Cheddar: apparently, it is 'slow matured for extra flavour'. Is it me? I thought, and I apologise if I am wrong, that time passed at a constant rate. Surely the rate of maturation is thereby constant too - so something can be neither 'hurredly matured', or 'slow matured'. Perhaps you can put my cheese into the Tardis and wang it forward a month or three and lob it out with such sentiment more accurately plastered across it. 'Slow Matured ...'. What else would it be?

2. My kids' toothpaste: apparently it is 'sugar free'. Now, perhaps I missed something during GCSE Biology (excepting sex education, which just didn't happen) but I thought that the primary factor in the decay of not just my kids' gnashers but also my own was sugar. Why oh why would there be sugar in toothpaste, let alone giving me the happy advantage of having removed it? What next, 'botchulism free yoghurt', 'salmonella free chucky eggs'? Don't do me any favours, people.

3. McDonald's Hot Drink Cups - now I know that there are some pathologically silly people on this Rock we call home, but surely even the most absurd fool would not fail to realise that by tipping the cup over, when full, to peel off the little freebie sticker, will result in not just a spilled drink, but also a scalded lap and  par-boiled family jewels. I feel moderately insulted that I need to be told in advance that the laws of physics will indeed intervene with my Filter with Milk. Furthermore, the Corporation seem to think that I have the memory of a ...

...goldfish. I bought a coffee, and they put it in a cup. That cup need not tell me that the cup that containing the coffee that I just ordered thereby contains a hot drink. I know it contains a hot drink, because I ordered the coffee that they put into the cup, expecting it to be hot, thus leaving the fact that the cup will contain hot liquid. Had I ordered a Coke with ice, poured it over my leg (as one does with ones drink, not) and been burned by it, then I would feel that I had a case. 

This list could go on forever, and I might add to it in the future. It's my birthday, I am half way to 76, so halfway to being irretrievably grumpy and beligerant. I needed to say this stuff - or else I would have had to tell the wife, and that just wouldn't do.