On Being Self-Centred

This post isn't going to take the direction you might think - and I know what you think because like all men, I can read minds (we have to, you know).

I had a pastoral encounter yesterday where a statement was made that all priests will have heard aplenty from good people who themselves are having a bad time of it:

"Anyway, I am being selfish; this is nothing compared to what some people have to deal with..."

I won't cite yesterday's example as the person concerned may well read this, but another recent example was as I sat beside a man as he lay dying. He had just been informed that his aggressive form cancer was in-operable, and all this a mere two weeks after he lost his life's love and wife of 50-odd years. He was afraid of what lay ahead of him, how the 'end' would be, whether in fact all this religious stuff could be trusted when the chips were down, how his heart broke anew every day for his best girl ... and so on. Then he paused and said that which I mentioned above - "...but anyway, I am just being selfish. There are people who have far more to deal with than I do".

I laughed gently and told him that a little self-centred thought was perfectly acceptable and normal, and that what he was facing and had faced was significant. I pointed out that we all have cross to bear, and for each of us it is heavy. This was his cross, and that it was ok to attend to it and not worry about the crosses that others bear, not that day anyway.

I think that it is a Christian disposition to fear and abhor being self-centred. Even in the gravely acute circumstances that my friend found himself in, he thought himself selfish to worry about it. It is a tendency that, when genuine (and not stated to affect a collusory response) is a sad thing and as a priest, I will make sure that people attend to their own crosses. I believe that God would support me in this. It is ok to bewail one's sad circumstances, to talk about it - and in fact, I think to avoid that is probably more damaging. After all, priests themselves are counselled to be self-centred as a professional 'best practice' when seeking spiritual-direction.

My friend died this weekend. May he rest in the peace of Christ.

The All-New 'Marks of a Healthy Church'

Some time ago, a helpful individual published a document that stated the 'Seven Mark of a Healthy Church' - the ecclesial vital-signs if you will! It was a good document but I am now going to exercise some real audacity and offer a revised list, based on my own modest experience! Sit back, dear reader, for I am about to solve all ills!

This list is easy to write, in truth - because it is a list of those ways that the church seems to be corporately failing to meet its mandate to the world at large! I am in a presumptuous mood, am I not!

1. A healthy church is a listening church: instead of making so much noise, either in a Palestrina or a Matt Redperson kind of way, it could usefully 'let God in'. Silence in church? Yes, let's be radical!

2. A healthy church is a listening church: instead of becoming pre-occupied with its own be-fluffed navel, the church could usefully listen to its own people - the regulars, the loving Christian people who turn up do 'do' their Christianity. Look in or look out? It is probably an '80/20' thing, in favour of 'out'. 

3. A healthy church is a listening church: I wonder how many Christian leaders have engaged with an atheist, a dis-affected former member, a secularist, or just a good old cynic - engaged them in conversation without fear of a melting stare and shrivelling skin? An open atheist is a very useful tool to a Christian, not because they are right, but because they can see clearly where we may be going wrong.

4. A healthy church is a listening church: Churches could usefully ask what people want for themselves, their own lives and the lives of their families before telling them that they have the solution to all their ills. Making disciples is not about a red-hot sales job, (or gentle threat) but about infecting someone with the world-changing virus of the Gospel. God has the answers, not us Christians - but we have the chance to live those answers by example. 

5. A healthy church is a listening church: Where is the actual real proper genuine voice of God in the life of the church in question? It seems that God never changes and that some communities recieve the same commentary from The Almighty over generations. Now, I expect to communicate with my 3 year-olds differently in 20 years time - and I am mere mortal man (believe it or not). Do we allow God to be God, or do we try to cause God to conform?

6. A healthy church is a listening church: Does every member of every church community know the name of every other member? Or their job? Or their story? Be honest now .... 

7. A healthy church is a listening church: If the voice of the world is a many-voiced choir in full harmony, why do often fail to hear its song? Fair Trade, yes. But what about the voice from the chappy who had to give up his business because churches and morally minded organisations bought all their stuff from businesses that sell Fair Trade, and he only went and sold home-grown! Does one vote for anyone's place a bishop stop a child dying of hunger this night? Does an agreeable stance on an Anglican Covenant provide a blanket for the countless people freezing in doorways at this very minute? Does this battle or that about how good the Vicar is  mean that one more teenage girl  won't give up herself to prostitution in the hours while we sleep today?

We are a wonderful church, full of love, full of hope, full of potential, full of God. As my daughters learn all about senses we need to tune some of ours back, and today is the turn of hearing. We are almost deafened by the white noise of our own little private concerns to such an extent that the cries of God and the cries of humanity are in danger of being drowned out. All of this is within our grasp ... alleluia!

General Synod or Specific Synod

Before I start, I just wanted to share this picture - it made me smile (it is from a General Synod gathering)

'Jesus was crucified like this, fool - not tazered on the leg!'

~~~~

There is much prattle around at the moment surrounding the General Synod elections that loom ominously like the leaden skies above my bonce at this very moment. Read Les's Bog for an amusing take on the campaigns of those who seek election. As she beat me to it, I thought I would address this seriously, so hold on to your toupees!

During the course of this week, I have met with many people in various pastoral encounters. Some were draawing to the end of their life, some wanted me to baptise their children, others were grieving the loss of a loved one, others will shortly be married or their marriage blessed. Some were children. One was a little boy with ants in his pants but a mind like a razor; another was four and new to school; yet another was having a hard time. I met many people by chance wandering through life as I do - and then I wondered what they would all make of the questions that those who seek election to the General Synod place as key to their electioneering. 

They wouldn't give a toss, me thinks. 

This Synod is rallying polarised interests; do you do or do you don't be-Mitre a woman? do you do or do you don't do Common Tenure (eh?); do you do or do you don't do Anglican Covenant (say what?); do you do or do you don't do gays (excuse me?), and so on. The candidates seem (with a couple of notable exceptions) to be from one of two camps - rabid traditional (in its hijacked form) or rabid evangelical [exc Mark Chapman, my friend, who couldn't do rabid even with shaving foam]. In short - one end or the other in terms of candidate vying on matters to one end or the other.

This is tickety-boo if you are on the inside of the church - and let's face it, in a world of such need for the love of loving people, that really isn't enough of us. Yes, they are all matters that matter and they should all be attended to - but where is the rest of it. I would have been happy if just one candidate stood up and said

'...all I want is to preserve the spiritual interests of little Johnny, old Mrs Miggins and the bloke who comes to church every week but doesn't know why...' 

There seems very little 'general' about Synod these days - rather, we see a rallying cry for specifics. The fact is, those who seek to stand on such bodies are arguably the worst people to be on those bodies [I lean on the word 'arguably' as many good people are on the GS]. We are missing whole days, months and years, and when we have ironed out the fine detail, our churches will be emtpy, our faith the sport of eccentrics, and the country not being ministered to by those called by God to do so (in other words, all the baptised) - but hey, all our redundant priests will know their terms of service, and our empty collapsing churches can have whatever bishop they want.

The Example of the Cross

I am almost in the market for a job! The little curate has a little while left to cook before *ping* - post of first responsibility. Put another way, I watch for vacancies on websites, in Jezebel's Trumpet, in the eavedropped conversations of others - so that I know what is out there when the time is right for the Vernacular Curate to be let loose on the unsuspecting world. 

I saw such a vacancy yesterday which I will not name, but which made me shudder to the very core. 

Let me remind you that I am one of your Anglo-Catholic types who wears a black shirt and that odd little strip of white plastic (or starched silk when I can afford it). I like anything 'Eucharist', I know how to wear a biretta, know what a maniple is all about, am not afraid of the threat to my masculinity that wearing a little lace might bring, can articulate the differences between a Romanzier and Dearmerite and parp incense from some furrible or other. Yes, dear reader, I am one such type of bloke!

Well, I saw a vacancy for a post: it wanted Jesus but the improved liturgically sound version. It wanted Nelson Mandela in a biretta; it sought Mthr Teresa but didnt want the oestrogen or the breasts; it aimed way beyond perfection; it wanted the Archbishop of Canterbury plus a little more experience in church leadership. In other words - it was a normal advert for a Rector, Anglo-Carflic style. So I ventured to its website, as you do in such instances. Listen to this (cut and paste from its Homepage):

To find out more about Forward in Faith and to find 'safe' parishes in your area please follow the links below

The history of S. ****  has led to a strong identification over many years with the catholic tradition in the Church of England. The church occupies part of the currently uneasy territory between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church and longs for reconciliation between them. We believe that the Church of England needs catholic witness and understanding to fulfil its mission as a national church, and S. ****  sees its role as an upholder of what is sometimes mockingly called the traditionalist' faith, believed by all at all times. 

Is it me? I am from a stable like this, but I look and I wonder what kind of disease ridden beasts this church offers safety from - oh yes, wimmin - in all their grotesque menstruating filthiness - or so they would leave you thinking. 'Safe'? Is there a woman-zapper on the door; a hormone-sniffing hound in the pews; a skirt alert posted in the porch? They base this on biblical principals like so many people do when they want to exclude and marginalise normal God-fearing Christians. 

No, no, no, no and no!

This is probably a church-shattering thing I am about to say, but we need to contextualise the Bible in how it deals with people. St. Paul tagged along with the murder of Jews but I doubt a word of chastisement has ever been uttered from a pulpit - because he saw the light. The nativity shepherds were a little lower than scumbags in NT times - then the biggy: it was kind of normal to crucify in Bible times. I have never read or heard a clear condemnation of crucifixion, just lots of platitudes about how horrid it might have been. Yes, cross-born murder was quite normal at the very same time that women were being cast to the fringes. We cannot take one without the other. You cannot uphold an anti-female stance 'cos the Bible tell me so' without introducing the state sanctioned murder of criminals and itinerant preachers at the same time. 

The Cross upon which our Lord died is the very reason why we have to learn from the Bible, not recite  and live it verbatim. 

Needless to say, I shan't be applying - I know which Bishop is mine.  

That is My Job

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

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

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

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

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

What Can I Say II?

Parenthood brings many joys and many challenges. The former outweighs the latter in such measure that the challenges themselves become a privilege. 

One such challenge is questioning - the persistent type you would expect from a reasonably bright 3-yr old. I am not referring to the litany of 'whys' that pour down like so many raindrops during the course of day - no, this is serious stuff, life changing stuff - and I am not referring only to them and their lives!

Some time ago, in a period that now numbers in months, a much loved parishioner lost her much adored dog. The kids were scared of the dog, as seems to be their wont. It was a big labrador, old and doddery - though nonetheless a wonderful hound to have around. Sadly, the dog died but at the end of a long and apparently happy life. 

Without prompt some weeks after that event, one of my daughters asked me if Charlie was 'coming back alive'. I wasn't even aware that she knew that Charlie had died. I told her no, that when we die, we go somewhere else very special. 'Where has Charlie gone, daddy?'; 'doggy heaven darling'. Then the 'why' and the 'how'. Then the matter went quiet.

A month later, completely out of the blue: 'Is Charlie in heaven daddy?' 'Yes, baby, why?', I replied? 'Will he be on his own?' 'No, love, his friends will be there and he will probably be playing there now'. I explained that old and poorly dogs are more like young bouncy puppies when they go to heaven. 'Why did Charlie die?', she asked as she coloured in a penguin on her book. 'Charlie died because he was old and very tired, and so he needed to have a long rest'. 

The subject dropped again, as quickly as it arose - until this weekend. The same questions, without any sense of upset, though large measures of genuine concern, poured forth as I drove us around Yorkshire. 'Is Charlie sad, daddy?' she asked completely out of the blue. 'Why do ask that, love?' I followed. 'He will miss Mavis, won't he?' 'Yes, I think so, but he was very tired and old and his legs were poorly and he needed his rest, so he is feeling much better now'. 

This round ended simply: 'Charlie has a big juicy bone in heaven doesn't he?' 'The biggest bone he has ever seen', I replied.

Once again, a three-year-old hit my theology 'reset button'.

Behind The Glass

I saw an advert on the telly the other day. As with most adverts, I can't tell you what it was for, but I remember the essence of the message.

Broadly, the advert in question created a scene of a typical busy walkway where people passed one another, presumably on their way to work etc. They weren't acting normally, however. They were aggressive and violent, abusive and rude: uneccessarily so, caricaturishly so. It was a scene of normal people acting obnoxiously. 

It alluded to the way many people behave when they are driving in their cars, the old road-rage thing. We are all guilty. Well, I am! It is that sense that we have a free hand to say or do things that we perhaps wouln't concieve of doing in person with the person concerned - and all because we are sitting in our cars. I am altogether more impatient when I am driving, even when I am not in a hurry. I do shout more, and I mostly remember to close my window first. Sometimes, I even remember that I am wearing a collar, but have been a couple of times when I have forgotten! Not good ...

The same thing happens with emails and telephone conversations. In my 'last life' in retail, people would talk to me like I was snail ooze, abusive and nasty at times. My wife recieves emails that are like that from others in her profession  which are along the same lines. Once, I had had enough, and a man who had threatened to hit me with a baseball bat once was invited into my store to do just that. He came in with said bat but seeing I was a frowning fairly broad grumpy six-foot man, and he was a tubby little oaf, he suddenly became the model of reconciliation. In the end he apologised, I told him it was fine, and the issues were resolved (like it was my fault the carpet fitters were all snowed in, I ask you!). Another person once offered me the benefit of their wisdom (their sign language was very compelling) behind their steering wheel - until I stopped and got out of my car to ask for clarification. There wasn't one - only an 'well, I was only saying....' type of comment. 

I wonder why we do that. We all do. We are altogether stronger behind the glass. It happens in church life too. The relative 'safety' of a church community means that people feel able to do and say things that outside, they just wouldn't. Learning from this, and in my own level of guilt, I will try to deal with people behind glass in the way I would do so without it.

Man Boobs

A funny thing happened on Saturday.

I was taking part in a sponsored bike ride, sharing a tandem as I was with The Mayor of Aylesbury, the excellent Cllr Graham Webster. We pootled here and we pootled there. Indeed, my little Curate Bum thinks I pootled everywhere, but in the end we clocked up around 25 of yer English miles. 

Well, the thing is this. We arrived at a little country church and dismounted our tendem of torture, and just as we did so, a bride and groom emerged from their wedding ceremony, freshly spliced and glowing in the floaty light of their love, and all that. 

As part of the requirements for this sponsored ride, I had to jot my name on a list in each church, thus proving my progress around Buckinghamshire. I was be-collared for the event too - in anticipation of the Mayor pitching up as a tart - which he reneged on, the lightweight. 

Anyway, as I wandered down the path, amid the throng of well-wishers from said Nuptials, someone stopped me.

"That was a wonderful service Vicar; thank you so much, I really enjoyed it. You did a lovely service"

It happens, so I let it pass. The old fella must have been sat at the back, unable to see the vicar who had clearly made such an impression. Anyway, I meandered into the lovely little church where the folks were clearing away after the most lavish wedding ever seen ever, and then I spied the vicar in question who had made such a lasting impression on that one punter that he felt called to thank me for what he thought I had done. An eminent priest indeed, much admired by us newer clergy, a much loved pastor and leader...

...called Tina.

Metal Head

The place of 'Heavy Metal' music in the lives of Christians has crept up the agenda a little more recently - though I doubt it will ever overtake the Papal visit. 

For many, Heavy Metal is the work of one Mr Lou C. Ferr, and in truth, its symbology does little to dissuade that viewed. It is often a genre of music that appears to be followed by the oily and lank-haired breeds who seek comfort from their leather jimmie-jams and and spider-web tats cast artfully across their acne-scarred visages. They wear jeans which are so tight they promote herniae; their ankles seem to be of a magnetic order that they can only exist poles apart, thus causing the legs of the 'Metal Head' to be forces to a perpetual inverse 'v', with each legged concluded as it is by scuffed boots with more buckles and straps that a clergy away-day!

'Bloody Noise', my dad called it. 'Awful Racket', Mrs Acular says. 'Why are they shouting', the Twins Aculae enquire. But they are mistaken, all of them.

For those of you unfamiliar with the breed, 'Heavy Metal' is something of a British invention, spawned of the likes of Ozzie Osbourne and Tony Iommi that then spread to America and brought to genesis the likes of Metallica and then onto splintered genres [Nu-Metal, Death Metal, Glam etc] which all have their own sound. In essence, these bands comprise one or more electric guitars, bass, drums (often double-pedalled for machine gun speed), and a lead singer who growls. Put another way, Metallists are musicians, often classically trained in their instrument, but nonetheless experts. Their music attends to subject matters that the fluffy popsters tend to avoid. 

I have, I think, all the albums of Metallica and many of their tracks deal with a struggle with God and the pain that some human activity can bring to being. The lyrics often speak of struggling on in the face of the odds - and very often the struggle with evil. There are some very noble songs. Another group I like to listen to, System of a Down (since disbanded, sadly), write songs about justice and the horror of war and its machinery. 

In short, these are musicians who deal with some of the spectres that live in all of us. I love classical music and with that I find this to be very compatible. Yes, the genre is loud and often angry, and it is often sweary and growly - but if you can get under the facade you can hear some poignant sentiments. Give me a moment of Metal music to a lifetime of plastic pap that Mr Cowell engenders. I would rather a moment of 'The Judas Kiss' than a year of 'My Baby-boo Is My Cootchy Coo' - bleh!

Not in My Back Yard

Once upon a time, if someone asked you a question, one of the first responses would have been:

'What can I do for you?'

In 2010, it seems that this statement is changed, archived, redundant. We appear, at certain times, to be an increasingly inhospitable world where the urge to resist or destroy overides any instinct to encourage and create. 

The most notable case this week was the abhorrent case of Mr Terry Jones (he calls himself 'Pastor', but I don't recognise his right), a minister of a small baptist church in America. Upon the impending anniversary of 9/11, a day in history when pure hatred killed the innocent, rather than having  day of prayer for the witnesses, he guided his flock to another place of hatred. 'Burn the Koran Day', proclaimed his website and church. Words fail me (and that takes some doing). Arguably the most toxic and inflammatory act of the year, had it gone ahead, Mr Jones would not have just offended the religion blamed for 9/11, but every Muslim in the world, and also every person who hold scripture as special and sacred. Potentially, the act he proposed could have resulted in a greater mortality, and would certainly have been considerably injurious to innocent people. Hate responding to Hate - the sum of that can only be 'hate'.

We also have a case in New York where an Islamic Cultural Centre is being built in proximity to Ground Zero, much to the resistance of so many. I can understand the concerns of those who are protesting, but it is (a perhaps inevitable) emotional reaction, not a thought-out one. Once upon a time, one Mr A Hitler authorised the killing of millions, and he once started to train as a priest. Does that mean, by implication, that churches should not be built anywhere near the homes of Jewish people? Of course not, because the actions of Mr Hitler were not the fault of Christians, any more than the action of 9/11 were the fault of ordinary Muslims. If we start to make normal, ordinary, run-of-the-mill people pay for the crimes of an extreme minority, it is our very civilisation that suffers. I will be making all the people from Yorkshire pay the price for the Ripper next, and that would be absurd.

We need to learn how to allow things to heal. They heal only when we let them, and by our efforts. Territorialism creates little islands of isolated individuals - we need, I think, to return to that old saying, wherever it is from:

'Love thy neighbour as thyself'

Another Summer Gone

It seems like eight minutes ago it was June. Now it is September, the '60' numberplates are being drizzled on, the temperatures have started to slide down, my flowers have gone to seed, it is dark before the end of Eastenders (and even darker for the end of Peggy, but that's another story), kids wander to school with that gloomy look of those taunted all holiday by the school-wear ads, teachers have the look of the harassed and us clerics put away our Bermuda Cassocks and plow on for Christmas.

CBeebies have arbitarily moved us to Autumn (they have little songs about what season it might be for the little nippers to listen to, and now we hearing the autumn song). 

It is about this exact moment that I have to give myself a slap and 'have a word with myself' for fear that if I don't, I will slide down the perilous precipice into seasonal affective disorder. Oh, but it is hard. This morning, it is grey and misty, cool and damp. I seem to be ministering to matters-death more than matters-life. I know I have it in me resist this, but I can't find it this morning.

This morning, I am glum. I am glum, but I will work on it. I have no choice.

I Am Doloris Van Cartier

Not really - that would be preposterous. 

It was my joy and delight to see the musical 'Sister Act' at the London Palladium last night. We went with two good friends to see this stage-remake musical of the 1992 Whoopi Goldberg film [she was meant to star as Mother Superior, but she had lost her mother a couple of days earlier - prayers for Miss Goldberg aplenty]. I am not much of a one for musicals, but Mrs Acular is, and when she is happy so am I - but this was an amazing production. Quite unlike some musicals I have seen (and didn't enjoy), this one featured a long succession of really well produced songs that just thumped to the beat without exception. 

When I am in the presence of creativity, I often inexplicably become creative. Last night was another example. I sat and I ponder the possibily of writing a musical of the life of St. Peter. I would set in the context of English comtemporary street-culture; the events in the life of Peter could be translated easily into such a context, with moments such as 'I Will Follow You', 'Do You Love Me', 'I Do Not Know Him' all set to a rock score and choreographed with an edgy street-dance support. This enterprise would be called The Rock - sorted; send me my quids Lord Lloyd Webber.

The real musical I saw yesterday tells the tale of a lounge singer who witnesses a murder at the hands of her boyfriend. She is hidden away in a convent for 'witness protection', and during her stay turns a group of closeted Sisters from an choir of the queazy into a Gospel Troupe Extraordinare. She not only transforms their musical fortunes, but attracts new worshippers, raises money pay for a crumbling inner-city church, and finds her own soul at the same time. The set was amazing - a 20' high statue of Our Lady, robes made by a genuine clerical-outfitters. The context I could understand and relate to.

It struck me as I sat there loving this thing - that there was something of the familiar about all of this. The reasons that brought me into a life of faith are very different, but I feel at times as that character felt (and have reported in this blog ad nausiam) - it's the square peg round hole thing. That all said, it was a joy to watch a tale unfold where the differences are the catalyst for good change, not a forceful wrench away from what is normal!