Armchair Living

A second post in one night, Cloake? What is going on? 

[I had caffiene too late!]

I am not wishing to presume that all of you that read this are fully conversant with the form and nature of the Tweet or indeed of the thing we call Twitter. If you are that person, Twitter is a fairly new social-network device which allows the user to communicate electronically to the world (or varying strata within that number) in 140 characters or less. Life by statement, in other words. There is an emergent language too, which would would be seen as (for example):

@FrDavidCloake RT @revdlesley I am having a gr8 time at #gb10

Loosely translated, that Tweet (for that is what that array of symbols is called) states that Lesley Fellows [Twitter name @revdlesley] was having a good time at Greenbelt 2010 [hash-tag '#gb10' so all those who 'follow' that tag can see what she had written]. I  myself had read that and 're-Tweeted' it, hence 'FrDavidCloake [me] and RT [re-Tweeted]. Clear, dear? Keep up! 'Re-Tweeting' is bouncing a Tweet that I have read at all the people who follow my Twitter-feed [all the 140 character or less statements that I make, and that others read]. I've made it worse, haven't I?!

Anyway - Twitter is (and I have said it before) like being everywhere yet no-where. I was at Greenbelt today, in the Tiny Tea Tent, the Jesus Arms, listening to Maggi Dawn (though not ignoring my wife this time), getting a feel for the Edgy Mass - all from my settee in Aylesbury as the kids played dutifully at my feet. I am very frequently in the mind of some very dodgy folks, in their sober times and otherwise. I have seen governments fall and sports reporters rise, all without moving an inch from my sedentary position. 

So, if you are ludicriously nosy, Twitter is for you. It is like Eastenders without Dot; like Coronation Street but less amusing; like Top Gear but not as good and lacking Clarkson which is not an advantage; like Antiques Roadshow but digital (people air their dusty nick-nacks a lot on Twitter, but not for valuation) - it is a life you just can't afford not to lead (double-negative, I'm off to bed).

Leading By Example

Over the course of this weekend, I have trodden a transgression triply. That is to say - I have patronised a retail establishment not twice but thrice over Sunday and today.

Shame, shame and double shame.

As a former retailer (yes, reader, I know I have said it before, just leave it - ok!) and now as a 'professional' Christian (...zippit) I have soiled the kitty-litter of Sabbath, the Seventh Day that the Adventists love so much. 

On Sunday I went to the shop. And I made a purchase. Of something. Did I need to? No, of course I didn't. I had white but fancied red and was 'out'. Did my very life depend on that purchase? No, of course it didn't. Could I have waited until the start of Tuesday to make my needful purchase? Of course I could've, (though not had I intended to consume said Rioja - makes a mockery of the staff meeting if I turn up kale-eyed). The thing is this - I went to a shop on a Sunday and bought something unimportant that could have waited and upon which the very fabric of my being did not depend. 

It's all well and good when twonks like me roll up at shops to buy things. Great for us. The Covention for Human Rights rejoices for me - but what about the people who are called to man their emporia on the off-chance that I might feel called to make a non-essential purchase? They have to abandon family, weekend, Bank Holiday, maybe even a little dignity - to open up the stall for my non-essential purchase of the non-essential. 

Seriously, as a retailer (and a member of Da Management very often during that time) I was placed under no illusion that my 'right' to opt out of Sundays was not compatible with my status as manager (sod going to church, Cloakey). Contracts are written in retail these days in such a way as speaks of a 'sixth day worked', and not a Sunday, a sabbath day, not a family day. Employees, especially in retail, don't really have a choice all the while pratts like me feels inclined to visit the shop on a day when I too should be enjoying life in the bosom of my family. Me wanting to shop means that ten others are required to work for businesses that regard Sunday as the 'new Saturday' and are too fearful to close.

I am going to try, and I mean this, to stop visiting shops on a Sunday. Sunday working is a curse to family life, to church life, to quality of life. B&Q shareholders love it, but the thousands of people who (wo)man our stores on days when they should be with their families, but are too salary-dependent to stand up and say 'no'; many of them, even after so many years of Sunday Opening, loathe working when the rest of their family get on without them.

If you have read this post and give a toss for family life and those who are denied it by Sunday working - do something about it and don't follow my poor example.

A Breadth of Fresh Air

In our label-motivated society, I struggle at times with the nature of my own. I have wrestled with it here, and so many utterances that revolve around 'bloke' have already been made - and won't here be revisited!

I speak (naturally, and why wouldn't I, don't you?) of my 'ecclesial' label. What kinda Christian am I?

There are some non-negotiables, and for sake of a start, will list them here [for ease, future employers]

1. I am happy that God knows what he is doing as regards those he calls to ministry (forgive the gender slant in my own words) - and I therefore do not regard sexuality, gender or academic prowess to be impediments to ordained ministry.

2. I am a proud Anglo-Catholic, love the living liturgy, celebrate the ceremonial, revel in the ritual. These 'do it' for me, as they bring me closer to my own relationship to the Holy Sacraments - the absolute centres of my spiritual existence. I love the music of the liturgy, and the older the better (broadly)

3. The Eucharist is the source of my energy and the root of the expression of my faith.

4. Those who call themselves Christian should go to church as often and regularly as they can, even on those occasions when it seems a chore and a burden (more so in those cases, perhaps) - I apply this model to myself and have always tried to live according to this model of discipleship. 

This is not an exhaustive list, but more the 'broad brush-strokes' of what I personally stand for. My parishioners call me 'Father', I wear black and a collar when I am in 'work' mode - and so on. Then there is the other side of me which has yet to find itself a list. They are facets of me that are growing. I am rather 'charismatic' in my liturgy - I am not bound to the spot, and wander around rather a lot; I have reverted to preaching without full texts, move away from the printed words at times. I am annoyed by the over-fussiness of some ceremonial style, regarding them as rites suitable only for the 'interest group'. This blog and my own persona are odd in my own ecclesial circles - and for that I can't and won't apologise. I find myself wondering whether Greenbelt might even a little be for me, and I have a reserved place at Spring Harvest already. I find I hold in tension a love for Walsingham with a frustration with lacey liturgy; a passion for Palestrina and a love for Metallica. I adore the transcendant beauty of liturgy-done-well, but I also thrive on the spontaneous opportunities that emerge in that liturgy. 

Perhaps I am a maverick, perhaps I am (to borrow the Heavy Metal styling) Nu-catholic! My DDO (look it up dear, I haven't the energy) once told me that I couldn't go to St Stephen's House to train, that I was catholic enough. I had to go somewhere else to train where I might acquire a little breadth. 

It is an interesting journey for me - often bewildering if I am honest, but one that is probably only of interest to this greying over-weight cleric, hence its appearance at nearly midnight on a Saturday night. 

I thank my God for my chance to be the hybrid breed that appears to be required of me. Who knows where it will take me next ...

Disclosure II

My last 'late-night-so-nobody-reads-it' disclosure was that I am chief among the cloud-adoring nerds of our world.

Tonight it is the turn of real-time strategy games. For years I have loved empire-building games that require some sense of the strategic. I am marginally addicted I think. 

My fix-of-choice at the moment is Tribal Wars, where I am enjoying a considerable success - it is a game where, in essence, the player manipulates time (acquire resources that increase at a constant rate) in the context of a group of like-minded folk (players form tribes, and I 'run' one of the largest). For me it helps me think about real life, but others take it very seriously. My wife and mother worry about me and my mother and sister-in-law worry about my brother, a similar addict. It is free on the Interweb (and slightly enhanced for a small subscription). 

Former games that I have fought and conquered include Settlers (all three), Populous, Age of Empires (and all the other Microsoft Age ofs...), Civilisation and another whose name escapes me. They have featured large over the last ten years or so for me - forget Sonic the Hedgehog, mate!

Why, I hear you ask. Well, each game is dependant on the management of really very complex economic processes, all held in balance with one another. In other words, I get to play God! There, I said it. Last week, on Tribal Wars, I won an award that was awarded for 'killing' the highest number of enemy troops - I think the number was 3.6million of them.

Yes, I am 38 - my wife has said the same thing over and over .... blah blah blah! It's a bloke thing.

Maggi Dawn or My Wife?

Every once in a while, circumstances collide in order to illustrate a very useful point, and yesterday was one such occasion. 

I was sitting in a soft-play centre while the kids burned off some of their superfluous energy, all the while nursing my Blackcurrant, my new gadget of choice. I can now text my wife, speak to her and others, read and send emails, order pizza, Tweet, update Facebook, and a whole manner of other things - all from one delightful little handheld gadget. While the kids played, I busied myself with said forest fruit of the gadget generation!

Then an two interesting things happened - simultaneously, I recieved a text from the Mrs Acular and a Tweet (direct to me) from none other that one Maggi Dawn, of blogging and other fames. Wow, she tweeted me! The thing is, Maggi Dawn or Mrs Acular - which message do I read first (what would Tommy Zoom do?). The wife lost - sorry wife! This quandary hadn't escaped me, but rather reminded me of something that I saw once that is now something of the frequent flyer - gadget world versus real world. 

Once, a couple I know were sitting next to one another on a settee in a room where I too was sitting. Both were texting ... each other. It turned out that while the bonhomie of the moment flowed like good Rioja, they were entwined in a grotesque marital bicker which they continued electronically underneath the good conversation we were all having. 

At said Soft-Play area, I looked around. Easily a third of the adults in the warehouse in which we sat were engaged in an electronic encounter. I could see Facebooks, Twitters, texts, games, pictures of the kids, and so on. It is seeming to me that the most prolific relationships are those that involve none of that filthy personal contact stuff - Heaven forefend. On my Facebook I have two-hundred-million friends (well, a few fewer than that), on Twitter I can engage in dialogue with both Maggi Dawn and Banksy (of graffiti fame) at the same time - and I could easily burn away hours doing it. 

These were once hours I used to grant my wife, do chores and the little jobs that 'keeping home' demand. I am guilty as charged m'lud! I am now starting to spend more quality time with my gadget friends than I do with the centre of my universe, the fragrant and wonderful Mrs Acular. I am in good company, because it seems that we are all 'at it' - even the aforementioned Uberhomefuhrer is Facebooking like a woman possessed - to friends who themselves are married. 

This extrapolates easily into the world of our faith. No wonder some eejit is proposing to celebrate the Holy Mysteries on Twitter - the eejit might have a point. I am willing to bet that many Christians spend more time 'logged on' that at church ... so I am secretly hoping that God has a Twitter account too.

Save a Kitten

On September 11th 2010, I am going to sit on one end of a tandem with the Mayor of Aylesbury sitting on the other. We are cycling to raise a few shekels for the Buckinghamshire Historic Churches Trust and for my own church St. Mary's - a huge ancient and costly place that does so much for so many in Aylesbury

Please sponsor us by making a donation here

X

Good luck to all those who are taking part in the Stride & Ride Event this year! 

This post has nothing to do with kittens, or their saving - but 'Gimme Cash' would not have engaged you to read! 

School Shoes and Easter Eggs

Firstly, noble reader, I must apologise for not spewing forth this last few days. Sometimes, the Day Job gets in the way - you know how it is!

Today I want to grumble about something ["Makes a change, Farv", I hear you hollerin']. 

I was watching the Gogglebox over the weekend, ensconced as I was amid the gubbins of the Matriarch, and an advert appeared which took me wayyyyyy back to my halogen days of yoof. It is was a 'Back To School' advert for some shop or other. It reminded me of those bitter-sweet days of yore, the last day of school when half of me couldn't wait to get the hell out, and the other part of me that is clingly and needy and would miss the routine of daily school life. Normally, the Scarper Tendency won, and I can still remember a considerable number of those moments when I left the school for the last time for the summer. We weren't a family for copious foreign holidays so I had the prospect of a whole six weeks at home mucking about with the others in the park or at home - blissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

 I used to spend the odd summer back in the Homeland with my Nan and Grandad - memorable and wonderful days of Sesame Street, Painting with Nancy, Laurel and Hardy, Crossroads (with Benny and Miss Doi-anne) and Granada News at Six. We would go to Oldham Market and Nan would buy me gladly recieved plastic crap that only an 8yr old could love. We'd have Scotch Pies for lunch, perhaps a trip to Presto for something for Grandad's tea, a drop by the big Co-Op where Nan used to work - then past C&As where it all went horribly wrong - 'Back To School', on the 18th of frigging July!

It must happen now for the little poppets as they gaze forth to a near-eternity of holiday wonderfulness - only to be assaulted in so many media by the stark reminder that they will have to go back to school sometime. Leave the kids alone, man! Oh, the humanity!

But it happens in all walks of life. I have no doubt that supermarket warehouses will already be holding full pallets of Christmas fodder. By the 3rd of January, Easter fodder starts to find its way to the shelves. Fourteen seconds after the Lord rises from the tomb, summer-holiday fodder is called to the front. We are in such a hurry ..... The problem with this is not so much the cynical profiting from religious feast days the meaning of which has been lost by most, but more because in all this hubbub of retail foreshortening, the year seems shorter and increases our sense of hurry. It is the McDonald's effect - food presented for delictation in less than minute that causes the punter to neck it at Warp Factor Nine. Speed begets speed. Hurry begets hurry. 

I know that in about eleven seconds it will be Easter 2011. I daren't sleep anymore, life is happening too fast now. I might miss a Christmas and a Valentine's Day if I use the loo. Welcome to the 24/7 World that never stops, even if you are caused to by the needs of living.

Pragmatic Faith

I have been wondering, in recent times, why I am something of a square peg in a round hole. The hole that I describe is that of Christian Faith, the spiritual life in Christ. I wonder sometimes, if me and it are entirely comfortable in their fit. 

I read Lesley's Blog from time to time, and I often come away wondering why I am so vexed. It isn't her fault; what she writes is good and varied and appropriate. Her post this morning epitomised this, writing as she did on the issue of guilt. In the nicest possible way, I read it and felt myself wanting to yell 'get a bloody grip woman'! 

I am a pragmatist by style and learning, and it is this that is at fault, if blame were to be apportioned. I am the quintessential 'doer', and every measure of my personality indicates that I am a 'suck it and see kind of guy'. If I am not sure what will work, I will try it out. I used to pull electronics to pieces to learn how they work. A book would have bored me and a lecture even more so. Give me a radio to break and I will learn how to fix it. Same with bikes, same with cooking; I cannot cook to a recipe, instead I need to just think something up. 

Lesley's Blog is written by a woman who is not a pragmatist, more a theorist I think. She wants to work out the 'why' all the while I am focussed on the 'how'. Her Blog this morning talked of the burden of guilt - and my first reply was  'so stop feeling bloody guilty then'! I wonder if that means my heart is not so pastoral.

So the thing is this; faith is in many ways the antithesis of pragmatism if dealt with at the spiritual level. Priesthood is the 'doing' of faith for me - but the pondering and reflecting, the Christian appetite for self-flaggelation, the waffle - all those things are difficult for me to grasp and understand. Maybe that is why I take to a more ritual style of worship with sensory elements? This is a paradox that doesn't sit so easily with me, as I regard myself as outside of that inner-circle of the jolly holy pious and good folk who go to church. I am too much an activist, too much a pragmatist, too little a theorist or reflector - and then add to that a whacking dose of extraversion in a world where introversion is the common denominator in so many areas of religious life, and you see where I feel I have a problem.

Anyway - I will stop there. In the end I will be discovered as the fraud that I am - that God calls peaceful and prayerful people, good and willing to be better - not those of us for whom a sermon is a frustration and prayer difficult. 

Gimme More

I was sitting in my study doing what I always swore that I would never do, and which I do every day - eating at my computer while I work. Today I was fashioning my next Parish Rag, so in one hand I grappled a very substantial bacon sandwhich and with the other, moved images around a screen

This, my brothers and sisters (and those who may be unsure), is the meat and potatoes of a good curacy. Sling a little prayer in there and you fast discover the reason why no curate is ever unhappy and never complains (sorry, I choked on a crumb) - in short, the joy of tending to the Vine whilst nomming on moreish food (not moorish food - that is 'meze' and most made using bulgar wheat).

I have often wondered why such food is irresistable, almost universally. My chew of choice, the bacon sandwhich, is the Prince of Dishes - closely followed by none less than the choc-chip cookie, another present feature dans la salle du cuisine Aculaire. What makes such food so moreish? I don't find this phenomenomenomenon with other food like, say, carrots or even cheese - but some things just cannot be resisted and are not so much consumed as consume (to the tune of 'Make me a Channel of Your Pizza'). Whatever I may have just eaten, and in whatever quantity, if I see a chocchip cookie or smell cooking Pig Flesh - I just gotta have it. It might even prove to be a Mr Creosote moment with his Waffer Theen Meent, but I just gotta have it. I feel called to lyrical outburst:

Oh Bacon Roll, oh Bacon Roll;

Can I hear you Calling?

Oh Bacon roll, oh Bacon roll

Recieve by my mouth a mauling.

Is it me, or can you talk?

My spindly legs you cause to walk?

Oh Bacon Roll, oh Bacon Roll;

In love with you I'm falling!

Baptismal Boosters

From time to time it happens: you know how it is, you read the Church Times and then you get all flustered and annoyed about something. Well, this happened to me last night as those who Tweet will confirm!

On the back cover, there was an interview with a very nice lady who does stirling work as a Street Pastor (carbonara?) She does this work despite some serious constraints, and I am delighted that good people do good things for those they do not know. It is not about her work that I am upset, but about something she thrice claimed to have done:

she has been rebaptised...

I have a very specific diffculty with this. In her interview she talks of a very active life of prayer prior to her rebaptism. For me, baptism is a once-only absolute and sufficient rite of intiation into God's own family. It is an answer to God's calling that through baptism, we are called to Christianity. We are baptised through the grace of God and by the power of His Spirit.

I am left with questions:

 - do some Christians regard baptism as a means of entry to a denomination or to the whole Family of God?

 - Example: If I am my mother's son, how could I have need for her to adopt me again later? Even if I had walked away from my family, I am still her son and they still my family. I can return, but my family is my family. The same for Baptism - if we are recieved into God's family by God's grace, how can this lapse, especially in a life meshed with prayer as was described in the interview? 

 - Is one 'mode' of baptism more effective that another? Is full submersion the best way therefore?

 - Rebaptism, to me, makes denomination supreme over Church. If that is the case, then we live in dangerous times.

 - Can baptism lapse due to non-attendance at church? Is God's love that feeble?

I am trying hard not to be ranty and ravey about this, but I am appalled at the implications behind the state of affairs that can suggest a person is re-initiated from 'a religious club of like-minded people' (that's the Church of England she is describing) to another group who were 'aware of the love of Christ'. That's insulting, by the way. Packaged in this way, I read it as 'a poor baptism replaced by an improved one'. Not good.

Liturgical Leftovers

Life for me, these days, is a tapestry of funerals marriages and CBeebies. I work, I come home, I relax with the Twins Aculae - and share with them their pleasures. CBeebies.

For those who kindly read this on distant shores, CBeebies is the BBC television channel aimed at the six-and-unders. We have such joys as The Tweenies, not one of my favourites; Mr Tumble, a great love in the hearts of my kids; Bob the Builder (yes he can); Mr Maker and the unquenchingly energic Sarah-Jane. A new programme has emerged in this year, an excellent production - Let's Celebrate. It is a production that focusses on the great celebrations of the world-faiths and other community. For us, Easter and Christmas have both been done, as too has the Notting Hill Carnival. Eid for the Muslins, Wesak for the Buddhists, and also Vaisakhi, Eid al-Fitr, Holi, Purim, Diwali, St Patrick's Day, St David's Day, St George's Day, St Andrew's Day, Norouz, and Chinese New Year. Marvellous!

Even though I am 32 years too old for CBeebies, I find this programme informative and enjoyable, and the kids love it - and that is always good. The quality and balance of each programme is laudable - even if Thomas Ticker is a pain in the derriere! However, it is wonderful that the BBC provides such a programme, a celebration (broadly) of the joyousness of faith and its outpourings in the lives of so many people. 

What is also interesting is the liturgical structure that so many of the World Faiths have. Ceremony is hugely important. As a ceremonially-biased Christian, I pondered this. I pondered and wondered why it seems that only in Christianity, so many want to lay aside ceremony and that dirty-word 'liturgy.' The head of our Body, Jesus Christ, was himself a liturgical creature. He was born and raised into a practicing Jewish family where Temple presentation, baptism, and even the rites surrounding death were held as important. I would even go so far as to suggest that humans are liturgical creatures. Watching the expressions of other faith groups pressed home to me the apparent fact that only Christians in some quarters want to do away with such things. I worry about it, if I am honest. 

The drive for absolute spontaneity and freedom in worship worries me. Why are we so heart-set on putting aside ritual and ceremony? Such things are often regarded as stifling and limiting, which is wrong. Ceremony, ritual - liturgy; these things provide edges and a direction. Such 'routine' ensures that we do what needs to be done, that we share in the re-enactment of the same rituality of our ancestors whose ritual inheritance we enjoy in our lifetime. Spontaneity within liturgy is good and right, but why is it that only Christians seem to want to distance themselves from their past. It isn't just about now, because 'now' is about us, and our faith is altogether more than just 'us'.

And the Truth Shall Set You Free II

Further to the visit to my humble abode by the Jehovah's Witnesses (see above post), I have read further in their publication The Watchtower.  

In style it is unique, because every clause in every sentence on any subject is underwritten by a Scriptural citation. Now to me, such 'cake crumb' uses of the Bible is a worry, for we can say just about anything if we pick and choose clauses of scripture. I had a go myself:

Then [he] kept in existence two living creatures; the one hecalled Behemoth and the name of the other Leviathan (2 Esd 6:49). God saw that it was good (Gen 1:18), so he ate it (Gen 27:25). [He] rose early in the morning (Gen 20:8) to a place in the garden where he was crucified (Jn 19:41) and he did not die (1Sam 14:45), but instead he washed his face and came out; and controlling himself he said (Gen 43:31) ‘blue, purple, and crimson yarns and fine linen, goats’ hair’ (Ex 25:4) because all is vanity and chasing after wind (Ecc 1:14). Then he went home (Mk 3:19)  

 From a library of sixty odd books, I am sure I could re-string the words together creatively to recreate Mein Kampf, which would be a grotesque use of the Bible. I prefer to eat my cake by the slice, not by the crumb. That way I get the full flavour. 

Beyond this, they claim the following:

Jehavah's Witnesses are Christians (Awake, p6). Jesus Christ, as a created being is not part of the Trinity (p8). The Kingdom is ruled 'by an actual heavenly government' with Jesus as its King, and 144,000 corulers, brought from earth (p9). After the destruction of the wicked (p9) the earth will be populated by the righteous. God cannot lie so he means what he says (p9). The early Christians had no clergy class (p9). Bible translators have replaced the divine name with titles such as 'God' and 'Lord' - "thus showing gross disrespect for the Author of the Bible" (p8)

...just so you know!

Visitors to My Door

I have just been visited by two very nice ladies from the Jehovah's Witnesses. They flinched when I opened my door be-collared and when they recognised that I am something of a religious practitioner. That said, they didn't run, and we talked....

...quite a lot (while they got rained on, sorry)

They were pre-occupied with the question, 'when will the Day of Judgement come?', and clutching a translation of the Bible that I do not recognise, cited verses like so much rat-a-tat tat from an Ouzi 9mm. I said that whilst I couldn't conclusively rule out its possibility today, I rather expect to enjoy my Sunday dinner. They didn't like that, protesting that God would smite sinners from his Beautiful Garden and would introduce His Kingdom. Now. Not in a minute. Now. Got it? Now.

I argued that the beautiful green shoots of the Kingdom were already alive and growing, and indeed yielding fruit, on this Earth this day. So we moved on.

Apparently, in a Noah-esque flood, the following people can expect a little more that a splash across the mush: 'failing human governments', those who pollute the earth, naughty people and those so bad that even God in all his Majesty can't sort them out (or words to that effect). Well, ladies, I said - that's me out. I own a car and wear clothes made in factories (they weren't happy that I said that included them). I asked about murderers or those who were accessory. Nope, the mighty Smiter will issue a far tighter smiting for such blighters. Would such people go to heaven, I asked. No, of course not, they answered. 'Poor old St. Paul' I commented.

This game of theological tennis lasted 45 minutes, and I will say this, they were charming and polite and it was nice to engage in a discussion with them. 

However, I think that for me, the Witness Movement is not for me. I took my copy of The WatchTower, and have pawed through it a little. 

p6: When Will the End Come: now, 'cos the following things are happening ...

 - social upheaval

 - worldwide multi-language preaching campaign (so the end will be the JWs fault then)

p6: What Will Follow the End?

 - 'mild-tempered' people will inherit the Earth (no more Mandelas, Jesuses or Tutus then)

 - The Kingdom will be established - and the subjects will last for eternity in perfect health - in houses, apparently - and only their own houses - no renting in the Kingdom! (Isaac Azimov was right all along - robots will rule)

p7: 'The earth will not end, but those who ruin it will' (me and my kids will be recieve the Heavenly Bug Spray then - for we have a carbon footprint and use electricity)

p13: 'Acknowledge that your husband is now your God-appointed head' - so if a wife rejects her husband's headship, she rejects none less that God himself. (My wife is toast too, as we are equal in our marriage)

p13: if your husband cocks it up 'allow him time to master his new role as head of a family' (even if he beats you after a Stella or twelve?)

More later. As I said to the lovely ladies who knocked at my door, Christians (not sure if they call themselves that, must ask if there is a next time) have a tendency of labelling themselves on the side of good, and of others on the side of bad - like we are safe and sorted. As I pointed out, I believe in a God of love who includes, not a God of Hatred who excludes. 'Be the Damascus Road',  I said, 'so that sinful people may find God, not be told that they, in common with all humanity (us included), have put themselves beyond the hope of the Salvation simply because they are imperfect and make poor choices from time to time'.

Then I needed caffiene ... and a smoke (and I don't even smoke)

What Can I Say?

A

As a blogist, and one who reads the output of other blogists, I have wondered about the appropriateness of some material. 

No - you have a mind like a sewer; I wasn't thinking about material like that!

I was contemplating the propriety of some levels of disclosure in a bloggy. This is bound up in the fact that what is written on this 'ere screen could protentially be viewed by anyone daft enough to log on and read it. 

I think I am approaching this from both perspectives that I bring to this: as reader and as writer.

 - Other people's stories: reportage is OK up to a point, but only, I believe, in more general terms. The disclosing of private narrative or events of someone other than the blogger is unacceptable to me, and as a reader I sometimes find myself feeling like I have my 'eye' at a 'keyhole'. There is a danger too that the subject of the blog may recognise themselves and their story, and I can only guess the scale of the hurt that they would experience. As a priest, this is all the more important; partly to protect those in our past, but also to assure those in our present that their accute pastoral need today isn't going to be the blog fodder of tomorrow. We only have a right over our own stories.

 - Our own stories: This speaks to why we choose to maintain a blog that is read by others. Do we have a perspective on the world and want to share it? Are we seeking to self-counsel using the comments of others as our 'shrink'? Speaking entirely for myself, it seems that there is a brand of blog writer who like to expose past pains, to a fault. They are met by a brand of blog reader who feast on that stuff, doing the cottage psychology thing, or simply relishing the chance to do the 'there there' thing. I read blogs and I study not just them but those who comment on them, and there are those readers who only ever emerge to comment when a difficult skelington has just been outed. It makes me a feel a little like a voyeur, so I stop reading. For myself, I think that you are less interested in me than my thoughts. I am in no hurry to tell my story because frankly that is what it is - my story. My wife and my children, my mum and siblings - they are those who are the right audience, not the anonymous reader, no disrespect meant. My past contains great bits, and crappy bits, mistakes and successes - but only by getting to know me in person will you get to that stuff - then you can be utter underwhelmed by it.

- Biting the hands that feed us: there are blogs that seem to have one aim: to offend and wound the organisation that the blogger works in/for. Case in point are those who poke fun at the church as a sole M.O. all the while doing so anonymously. I won't now read a blog if I don't know who writes it, simple as that. It seems that Mother Church is oft concerned about scurrilous blogs - and in truth, I tend to share their concern.

These are, of course, only my views. I'd be interested to know what you all think. Is this a Counsellor's Couch, a stool at the bar with mates, a spittoon, or a canvas for doodling? I am not sure that I know what this thing we called 'blog' is, but I feel strongly that some serve undisclosed purposes and have the potential to leak too readily.

What a Weekend

My last post described my immersion into the West Indian culture. That was Friday! On Saturday, I was immersed in Zimbabwean culture, presiding over the Blessing of the marriage of two members of their community, taking them into on to the great celebration of the Eucharist.

It went a little like this: a service scheduled to start at noon saw me sipping coffee at five-past as I waited for the congregation and couple to arrive. Worshippers started to arrive by quarter-past and promptly burst in hymns sung Shona-style.

I started the service at half-past twelve (not everyone had arrived even then). I opted to use the 'said' version of the service, but giving the Zimbabwean community the chances to embellish the Rite in their own way. My lot from Zimbabwe know how to be the beating heart of worship. As I said to them, their worship and praise go to my heart! We had two english hymns and two Shona hymns, but whenever there was a hiatus in proceedings, more choruses burst forth! 

I have no idea what they were singing about - but I was all the same connected. I knew  not what the words were, but I knew well what they meant. Amongst maracas, whooping, shreaks and screams, the harmony-perfect music was (and always is, in my opinion) the music made in heaven. Unaccompanied save for the Spirit, it is worship that entrances and intoxicates and adds to my view that in so many cultures there are such wonderful ways to make music to our Lord. The whole thing defied the lines and edges of english liturgy, but actually - in a way that made 'some old said Eucharist' quite the most spectacular act of praise you could witness.

It is of profound importance to me that what I offer as the adminstrator of any Sacrament is that the context of that Sacrament is seemly, fit for use and meaningful. That means (to me at least) that a West-Indian act of worship, a Zimbabwean act of worship or even a kid's act of worship be of them and for them. I know what is important to me in liturgy, but that is only for me - but to deliver Fr David's standard service to all - well, that is just unacceptable. So, as I said at the end of the service yesterday:

Mwari, Mweya Unoyera, ngaakusimbisei muchitendero nerudo, akudzivirirei kumativi ose, akutungamirirei muchokwadi nerunyararo, uye Chikomborero ChaMwari Baba, noMwanakomana, noMweya Mutswene zvigare nemi kubvira zvino dakara narini. Amen

...and apparently I got it right and didn't inadvertantly insult anyone.

In a world where we are all different, only in a world like that can we stand a chance of really knowing God. 


*This image was from my First Mass, a service also greatly enhanced by my friends from Zimbabwe 

Now That's a Send-Off

I have just returned home from a most remarkable experience. I don't normally like to talk of the specific cases of my ministry, but this was something very special.

It was my honour to officiate over a West-Indian funeral, that the family arranged to the smallest detail. For a start, it has been a six-hour affair for me which already makes it unique in my modest experience.

Caribbean funerals are very different to 'standard' white English ceremony, partly because of what goes into the service but also the way that community recieves death.

The body was recieved tby the family this morning at their home, where they paid their final respects. The coffin was without its lid as that community seem at pains not to contain and shroud death. They seek to focus on the deceased, not their coffin. We processed the near mile to the church with a jazz band leading us and accompanying us along the way (similar to the image above); we will have crippled the traffic flow of Aylesbury for nearly 25 minutes, but no-one seemed to mind. The service itself was long by my own standards, lasting well over an hour and a half. The main difference is that the coffin is opened once again and that all the mourners (over three-hundred in this case) undertake the Viewing where they file past the deceased and pay respects to him and to his family who are close at hand. At the graveside, the usual words gave way to the family  filling the grave in themselves while the gathered throng sing Negro spirituals without pausing for breath. In short, the family do just about everything that can be done beyond the minister. Sons carried the coffin, daughters led the tributes, and so on.

This all took approaching six hours. It was six hours of time with a remarkable family who, within the context of their grief, celebrated a life lived well. Such was the outpouring of love for a self-styled simple man that for me it was overwhelming. We white English people tend to be so reserved at our funerals, wanting to be on our best behaviour for who knows who. I learned how to grieve today. I learned how readily hope can be snatched from the jaws of death. 

...Death, where is you sting? Death, where is your victory?

Not in Aylesbury, not this day! Rest in peace, Ken.

What is The Point of Wasps?

This is a question that has fascinated me for years, but is not what I want to talk about today!

I want to talk about stone [not the hamlet on the Oxford-side of Aylesbury; not about the town I once passed on the train to Manchester; not about a powder-induced state of near floaty-lightedness].

I spent a wonderful time as Day Chaplain in Orxford's diminutive but otherwise wonderful cathedral church. My job there was to dither about among the hoards of tourists, pose for umpteen pictures until my cheeks got cramp, lead short prayers on the hour and on that day, to preside at Holy Communion, Cranmer Style! It was a good day, and one that reminded me of a strange phenomenomenomenon. 

Stones, the ones that the builders used to build such edifices as Orxford Cathedral, Lincoln Cathedral and, say Ripon College Cuddesdon (where I trained to be a vicah) - they have selective memories. Yes, dear reader, stones can be contrary (and almost certainly perverse). 

When I have visited great ancient churches (big and small, and the not-so-ancient, come to think about it), I have felt the power of prayer ooze from the stones they comprise. No church is silent, trust me. Even when there is no noise and you are the only person there, churches are not silent. Jubilant choruses, heartfelt hymns, intoned psalms, Great Amens, bustle and chat, applause maybe; and also minor-chord laments, the anguished cries of grieving relatives, the pathos inducing recitations of Psalm 22 as the heart is ripped from the church late on past Maundy Thursdays - every note resonates from the stones. If you think I am mad, work out a way to be alone in a church sometime, and make the journey. The noise is deafening at so many levels.

But then you get other stones that seem to have no memory at all - Teflon coated blocks of absolute silence. My Theological College is like that. Whilst it is a wonderful place and a warm and vibrant place, nothing sticks to it. Maybe because in many ways such colleges are sausage factories, airport lounges. Ordinands enter, pre-Deacons leave - in mere months it seems. It is odd having lived, worshipped and raised a family there, to visit to find it looking like it did before but n'er a note of past parties and lectures hangs in the air. Silence is silent (even in the chapel, oddly). This isn't a criticism, more an observation.

I have no doubt that this behaviour applies to house-bricks too - but in which way I have yet to establish. My manse has seen many things, I am sure - but I am not sure what, if anything, has adhered.

Too Much of A Good Thing

The Full English Breakfast is to me a work of culinary art. It is moorish comfort food and the prospect delights me. 

There are times when such a prospect emerges on life's horizon, and such a prospect every day for a week or so. Hurrah! Nom nom nom!

Something unforseen happened when I was walking the West Highland Way for a week once; by Thursday, I couldn't bear another bite of such a grease-feast. The same thing happened when we were away a few weeks ago - by the end of the week I just had no more capacity for a fried breakfast.

It is not just food that works in me like this. I was once offered a fancy car for a weekend by a friend, as a favour. You may know that this is for me a wonderful thing, and this Mercedes was the mutts nuts. I took mum and dad out in it, The Wife too, and I drove and drove - until in the end it just felt like any other car. I couldn't believe it! 

This probably connects with my views on not achieving all our dreams. It seems that when we get what we think we want, very quickly we get used to it and in the end we realise that perhaps we didn't really want it at all. Sometimes, the idea is better than the thing itself. 

The exception to this is the miraculous in life; the love of one's children, the joy of seeing the person you love most in the world every day, a good experience of prayer, the soaring melody of a piece of music - those things can be soaked up to excess and never lose their valency. Perhaps the exception to this is in the non-material ...

The Might of Women

This is Woman - she is to be feared.

Not because of her mighty claymore sword, not because of her intimidating glare. Not because of her feminine charms and not because she looks acceptably good in a leather skirt.

No, this is Woman and she is to be feared by all who behold her (except for a few days a month when she unclean and should be ignored, and more properly mocked for her weakness).

But I hear you asking 'why?'

I will tell you why: because Woman is mighty even enough to defeat the grace and love of none other than 

...God. 

She touches the matter of communion, and even the power of the Holy Spirit is neutralised by Woman. With her frightening Woman Ray and her alarming Female Photon she will break the connection that holds God and his church together - whatever she touches becomes Godless. The world may only be safe in the hands of none less than Man, the conduit of all the mighty universe-forming powers of God. 

Can Man save the day from Woman? 

Will God be vanquished by this scourge of the known Galaxy?

...tune in next week for 'The Ludicrous Opinions of Some Christians' to find out. If you missed this week's thrilling episode, it will shown again on the Sacramental Assurance Player

[This is a work of irony, by the way - before you comment that I am a 'traditionalist']