New Blog - Two Steps Forward

This week's featured blog is 

Two Steps Forward

It is the work of Rachel Firth, the about-to-be Vicar of St. Stephen's in Lindley, somewhere north of London. She is about to complete her curacy at Halifax Minster, and is new to this blogging lark.

I have got to know Rachel a little through the life I live through Twitter and her views are to the point, apposite and very calmly laid out. Posts of my own here have benefitted from her comments, and she is not afraid to wrestle with the issues plighting the blogosphere. Her perspective on matters is, to say the least, proving to be refreshing. 

A liturgist, a ++Rowan loyalist - perhaps you can see why I might choose to champion this blogger and her writing. She can even make a dalmatic look acceptable, and that alone makes her worth a punt. 

Please give her blog a try, follow it, and you will not be sorry - or your money back.

...and please keep your recommendations coming in.

I give my thanks to the excellent Rev Robb Sutherland, the Rocking Reverend, who recommended Rachel's blog to me. His well established blog [Changing Worship] is worth a read too, and a more decent geezer you will hard pressed to find. 

Social Media and The Church - A Critique

Hold on a moment Cloakey; what's this? Aren't you an author of the case in favour?

People in my position (which is to say a public minister of religion with a care to express a view to a wider audience) should always know where the failings are with those things that they would otherwise gladly extol. I will always write warmly about social media, especially blogging - but I would be acting in an imbalanced way if I were not to devote some time and effort reflecting on the weaknesses that exist within it, of which there are many. I don't think that there is a more effective way of undermining my own position than to ignore its pitfalls. I believe, too, that I have a basic duty to balance. 

I spoke in a recent post about how social media can work for a church, and how a gulf is broadening between those who are conversant with all of this, and those who are not. To be sure, social media is of profound value in attracting people to our doors and to the Gospel. Of that there is less and less doubt. Attracting people to the doors of our churches only deals with one section of our society however, and is in danger of ignoring that other section - the ones already within them. 

Accessibility - social media attracts and enters many people's lives in the space and time where they are. However, it is also as true to say that social media is a considerable obstacle to the majority of practicing Christians. If everyone reading this now thought honestly about the parish community of which they are part (if they are part), they would not perceive a population well blessed with the gadgets of our age or their means of communicating. Statistically, ours is a community of those of advanced years on average and of that number only single numbers of percents of them would, for example, have a Facebook account, let alone be able to do something with it. What is normal for our 'average' Christians (please forgive the term) are books, penned letters and telephone calls. How so many people can communicate meaningfully in 140 characters or less, Twitter-style, is a mystery to most of humankind, let alone my parish nonagenarians. In our quest to further the cause of social media, we need to be absolutely clear who is included and who is excluded by this development.

Infection - An important thing in my own missiological thinking, it is something with which we need to exercise care. Taking bloggers as an example, and as I have said before, among its joys are the freedom to write ones thoughts, engage in dialogue, and to learn new things through the widely acknowledged 'community' of blogging. That is great in the good times, but perilous in the bad. Blogs have, for many, a kind of mystique which is neither earned nor warranted. That it is written means that it must be true - or so some think. The danger is, that any whacko can write a blog (you are reading the words of one such person now). I am free, in absolute terms, to peddle any twaddle I like - dodgy notions, ropey theology, skewed personal prejudices, plain simple heresies. That I would do so wearing a dog-collar means that some could, and would, be seduced by my words. I see it in other places. Collusion in the blogger-reader-commenter relationship is considerable and in my opinion, dangerous. Infection is great when it the right virus that gets passed on. Social media at its least potent is a happy process of leaning on doors that are already ajar; preaching to the converted. 

Potential for harm - fortunately, in most civilised societies, it is still not acceptable to insult people to their faces simply for having a view different to our own. Name calling is still mostly found on the asphalt of school playgrounds. Invective is typically moderated by being in polite company who can challenge and moderate a good old rant. Except for social media. The playground for the passive-aggressive, the front-row seat for the name caller and the soap-box for the ranter - social media provides the 'behind the glass' phenomenon that allows civilised people to regress to a reduced base place! Only since I have ventured into the world of social media have I been insulted so aggressively, been called names that would shock most people, and witnessed the aggrandising withering of the perpetual victim (none of which would have ever happened had I been standing there with them, all 6' of me). This stuff I can handle. I know people who have also been subject to this stuff who could not, and were hurt by it. Social media allows a freedom that can promote growth and the best of encounters, but is also a gladiator's pit where the lions will, and do, bite hard. 

Community - Church is, and the Body of Christ is - community. Community, until the last two or three years, has been made up of people talking to and with other people, in proximity. Social media allows people at the opposite ends of the world to converse in real-time, and that is where it is at its best - but also friends and even married couples who have begun to rely on social media perhaps more than a chat over breakfast. I can, if I so chose, communicate with an entire world of people over an entire day - without speaking a word or moving from my seat. I have long been a supporter of 'e-churches' and was associated with i-church in its early days - yet I wondered how such a disparate gathering of eclectic folk (all wonderful, some still firm friends) could be regarded as community. It had a sense of the diaspora about it, yes, but also the feeling of a hidy-hole for the disaffected. Anything that stops people being in physical proximity with other people has the potential to erode communities if left unchecked. As a means of communicating with real-people, social media is priceless, but it needs to have a heart to galvanise people in the temporal arena too. In other words, social media should be a means, never the end. 

These are just some thoughts that, in the spirit of honestly and transparency, I express here. These thoughts have always been there and so you may be reassured that I am not having a change of heart. However, we are in the early days of social media, so it remains deliciously edgy and experimental at times. That is fine, until we use it as a potent tool among those who don't understand it. 

The Impossible Balance of Blogging

The Church Mouse

The Christian Blogosphere will be reeling from the news yesterday that The Church Mouse will be stepping back from the exercise wheel of blogging. Certainly, this news is received with great sadness by this blogger, and I send my warmest wishes to him after a very brave decision to take time out.

Since I started this game about 18 months ago, my behaviours have changed and so have those of others. I know a few people who have just ceased to write, others who have stopped blogging to the same extent in order to devote time to other things (+Alan Wilson being one such geezer), that some bloggers have become feverish in their daily turn-over, and that others have emerged new and fresh. The Blogosphere changes monthly, and even this foolish enterprise is not among those with the label 'established'.

I have noticed my own behaviours change too. At the start, I wrote a post every two or three days. At the end of last year I was a thrice-daily blogger, and the needs of job applications trimmed that to nearly once a week. The balance has landed currently with a post a day, and that feels about right for me. 

Life changes for bloggers as it does for everyone, though the allure of this pastime does not. Those unaccustomed to writing will not know the change of mindset that comes with this. We see something of interest and we seek to write about it. In fact, in those times when we cannot, bloggers get frustrated - trust me (one only need recall those occasions lately when Blogger has 'gone down' - bloggers started up new blogs rather than wait). Our family's needs change too. My children have lived a third of their life with a blogging dad and so that particular landscape has, by necessity, changed as well. Blogging is a constant appetite, but the rest of life ebbs and flows - and so we have a problems for fitting it all together. Sometimes it just doesn't.

And so we have our esteemed Mouse. In his notice, he made a short statement about withdrawing from this lark out of regard for family, and he has my respect and admiration for making what to the rest of the world may seen like the only choice. A great support to me, a balanced view in many debated, often copied always poorly, I wish him the very best, and his family. For the rest of us, the juggle continues - and if we honest, with a big mouse-hole left on Fridays when we all gather to see if we made the cut. 

I Don't Understand

Gender Labels - I don't understand why every single telly programme in Britain that involves real human beings (as distinct from slebs), involves a presenter who insists on calling everyone "guys". Not just on telly, oh no - but in restaurants, even fairly posh ones, my wife is referred to, en bloc with me, as a "guy". Why oh why "guys", guys? My wife is not a guy ... unless I missed something profound in GCSE Biology.

The Four Seasons - I don't understand why when ever someone decides that they can play the violin quite well, that they release another version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons more awful than the last. Some classical music wasn't built to be funked [careful spelling there] up and to sound like it is being played in hurry with a handsaw. Vanessa Mai, but Nigel Kennedy - you may not. Let us take our Lady Blunt Stradivariuses and play nice. 

Disclaimers - It is now a statistical fact that the statistical frame of reference has changed. No more can we be concerned with the amount of our life spent sleeping, queuing and sitting in the Throne of Contemplation. No, we have a new measure. That measure is delivered in the voice, no less, of Antandeck, that parted conjoined multiple birth of TV fame. I now know that approximately 83.556% of my life will be spent listening to the words "phones lines are now closed. Any calls made now will not count, but you may still be charged". I always knew this but only the eejits and residents of the borderlands of Muppetry did not, and so lost homes and satellite dishes occured as a result of mobile phone -TV interaction. Let them call - let us regard it as an idiot tax and save priceless years of our lives by the removal of this disclaimer. I can read the future, ladies and gentlemen. Somewhere, this very day, a window-licking sort will be undertaking an action that will result in Frightened PC UK sending out the following warning before every programme: "Please take your finger out of that plug socket. Any entry made now may not cause your death, but you are sure to be charged" 


Bloggers - when a blogger marries another blogger, what are their off-spring called? 

Charity Begins at Home - I am all for charity and being philanthropic. If I had the cash, I would be that way too. However, we recently learned that Dave is giving away another £800million for vaccines to kids in other countries. Great. Except that this exceeds that amounts given by almost every one else put together, apparently. This in the same week when 30,000 of our war heroes, former nurses and doctors, people's granddads and grandmas, people's aging mothers and fathers are risking homelessness from their care homes because the cash is running out ... at the very time when they reluctantly ask society to help them after a life of service (and tax payments), and apologise for being a burden. Balance, people; balance!  

It's this heat - makes me grumpy (except for the nuptial bloggers, that is nice)

The Business of Church

During my short foray across the surface of this Rock, I have encountered churches where my simple inner comment has been of the order: "If this were a business, I would have had to close you down". 

First things first - church life is not business life; let me be clear. Neither do I think that it should be. However, it has struck me on a number of occasions that parish life, especially in the financial sense, even falls short of the basic disciplines that we as householders apply even to our own homes. At home, we know what our bills are going to be, they are prioritised in times of difficulty, and we know what is left (or what is the amount left to find in those cases where we are short). My Nan and her generation did all this in their heads ('reckoning up', as she referred to it), and before the advent of the Direct-Debit generation, put cash in piles for the bills. It was that considered and that mechanical - but the bills got paid. 

As Christians, we all share the responsibility for the house of God. Many Christians elect Councils to do that work for them but the responsibility never leaves them. In my own household, my wife deals with the finances - but that doesn't mean I have to stop caring or knowing what she is up to (or indeed, to be willing and able to jump in if a problem ever arises). The mandate from Christ to Christians to be generous stewards of the Church in our age is clear and there is no doubt that we should all play our part. As one fine cleric once put it, the parish has all the money that it needs, but that it is simply still in our pockets. 

How many churches, especially in the present financial climate, are in deficit? Big church and small alike, many are experiencing considerable shortfalls and there have been some common causes, in my modest opinion.

1. Churches are afraid to ask for money, even of those people who are willing to give it - it is treated like an unsavoury practice, akin to begging almost
2. Often the expenditure is not fully controlled - which to say, tested for best value, appropriateness or return
3. We don't properly thank people for the money that they do give
4. We under-utilize that greatest of modern charitable miracles - Gift Aid
5. We under value our church life, financially speaking.
6. Too many cash-campaigns are rooted in a kind of guilt (if you don't give, then ...), which means that the practice across the board becomes perceived as a sort of emotional blackmail

During my time plodding around parochial mechanisms, I have seen the extremes. I know of one loyal Christian who re-mortgaged her home because her church was in peril, and at the other end I know of Christians who have thrown a pocket of coppers into the collection bag before hopping back into the forty-grand motor. 

I am not writing this as any kind of judgement, but rather the observation of a problem (perhaps even the naming of the elephant). Christians are people of faith, and very often God does provide, but at what point do we expect God pay our gas and electricity bills? Christians, in many circles, are quite coy about cash. I have listened to at least two gatherings in the past trying to cobble together a begging letter - letter by committee. They would have made good Monty Python sketches. Churches have lived through difficult financial times on many occasions over many centuries, but I fear that in our generation, we will see the closure of more temples because faith in manna from heaven replaced the need for a robust and honest budget.  

The Extra-Ordinary Value of The Ordinary

For those of you familiar with the language of Thomas Cranmer, this is not a post extolling the virtues of bishops, though let me state plain here and now, I have no issues with the consecrated Order. 

No this is a post about liturgy delivery.

I have had a part in two services so far today, as the rest of this part of the world melts in the heat of the day. The first was a funky fusion of an All-Age Patronal Festival, the second a baptism where we welcomed a church full of guests and strangers. Both felt like good services, and I certainly enjoyed them - as too did the punters. At both, someone came to me and commended my style of delivery - along the lines of 'you make it so ordinary'.

To begin with, I received them as cutting worlds of insult and what self-respecting Angry-Carflick wouldn't, but after some reflection over my steak-and-kidney pudding lunch, thought perhaps they were meant as compliments. 

I seem blessed with a gift to take the extra-ordinary beauty of our liturgy and mould to the gathering. It is tiring, as I have commented before, but better my exhaustion that the boredom of guests and new acquaintances. At the baptism, as I launched into the first lines as written on the wipe-clean card, I pondered on how many had ever been in a church, let alone taken part in a service. I resolved that that number was very small. I am quite comfortable with having a little fin with our guests, even to the extent of pulling their legs, but I think the best tool that I have (maybe even the only one, who knows) is to be just ordinary. 

It is easy to become lofty and take on the vicar-voice of Dick Emery but I think that, acoustics allowing, an ordinary tone and deportment in gatherings like that does so much good. Sadly for one of the Godfathers, his mobile went off mid-anointing and rather than tutting and making the gathered throng feel like they had pooed on my bed, I made light of it. In fact, I pulled the geezer's leg and that did much to diffuse the implicit tension that accompanies unfamiliar crowds. 

Talking in the ordinary, having a little fun where appropriate, humour in its place, warmth towards the children, warmth with the adults there under duress, sympathy with their discomfort  - these things mean that I can take the Holiness of what I am there to do for God and them, and do it well. No-one would ever quibble about the quality of my liturgy (I don't think), but I deliver it humanly and I hope, with generosity for the newcomer, the young, and the un-believer. 

Some would chase de-loused and un-washed (or something like that) men around with a butterfly net to get them into church. Just treat them as equals and every one else. Treat like as you find them. I believe very strongly in the extra-ordinary value of the ordinary in liturgy, in that it is the means of communicating the most profound Grace and Holiness in most situations. 

Just saying...

A Liturgy For the Ordering Of Studies and Other Rooms of Labour

Something a little light-hearted for the weekend. Written at the suggestion of Revd John Bridge - so blame him. 

A Liturgy For the Ordering Of Studies and Other Rooms of Labour

¶                The Gathering

                  The president greets the people using these or other suitable words

                         In the name of Christ, we welcome you.
                        We have been called out of messiness into God’s marvellous tidiness.
                        Grace and peace, and a keen supply of black sacks be with you

All              All                and also with you

The need for the order of Lord has been poured into our hearts,
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us in our places of toil and cogitation:
we dwell in him and he lives in us, when we allow him space amid the mess.

Give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name:

All                make known his deeds among the piles of paper.

Sing to God, sing praises to his name:

All                and speak of all his marvellous flat surfaces.

Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God almighty:

All                who was and is and is to come, but only in a tidy realm.

The Collect

Silence may be kept.

Heavenly Father,
you granted your people studies to weigh the merits of our earthly ministries. Anoint our studies and rooms of work with the same Holy Spirit,
that we who share your Son’s suffering and victory
may conquer the miscellany of books, paper, poor translations and USB cables;
through Jesus Christ, your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

All                Amen.

¶                 The Liturgy of the Word

                    First Reading

                              Deuteronomy 23: 12-14

                    Second Reading

                              Roman 14: 14

Gospel Reading

Alleluia, alleluia.
You, child, shall be called the prophet of the Ordered Temples of Labour
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways.
Alleluia.

When the Gospel is announced the reader says

Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew.

All                Glory to you, O Lord.

Matthew 5: 48 [DC Version 2011]

Your study therefore must be tidied, as your heavenly Father’s study is tidy.

At the end

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

All                Praise to you, O Christ.

Sermon – The Rt. Revd Kim O’Naggy, Bishop of Stoppit and Tidyup in the Diocese of Blacksax

¶                 Prayer

God the Father, your will for all people is tidiness and feng shui.

All                We praise and bless you, Lord.

God the Son, you came that we might have life,
and might have it more tidily.

All                We praise and bless you, Lord.

God the Holy Spirit, you make our studies
     the temple of your orderly presence.

All                We praise and bless you, Lord.

Holy Trinity, one God, in you we re-arrange and move and have our dusting.

All                We praise and bless you, Lord.

Lord, grant your healing restoration to all who are imperilled by piles of books and paper, injured or disabled by collapsing files and ring-binders,
that they may be made whole in tidiness and neatness.

All                Hear us, Lord of life.

Grant to all who are messy, the disordered and slum-lords
a knowledge of your will and an awareness of your way of sorting out rooms.

All                Hear us, Lord of life.

Grant to all who advise those who are trying to tidy
wisdom and skill, sympathy and patience and tea in due season.

All                Hear us, Lord of life.

Let us pray.

A period of silence follows.

O Lord our God, accept the fervent prayers of your people;
in the multitude of your mercies look with compassion
     upon the untidy and all who turn to you for alphabetised shelves;
for you are gracious, O lover of dust free spaces,
and to you we give Mr Sheen, a duster, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
now and for ever.

All                Amen.

Tidying and Making Tidy

Polish for polishing is brought before the president.

Our cleaning is in the name of the Lord

All                who has made heaven and earth.

Blessed be the name of the Lord:

All                now and for ever. Amen.

Blessed are you, sovereign God, gentle and merciful,
creator of heaven and earth.
Your Word brought tidiness out of chaos,
and daily your Spirit renews the face of our studies.

When we turned away from you in sin,
your anointed Son took our nature and entered our mess
to bring  a sense of order to those in slovenly discontent.
He broke the power of unkempt ways and set us free from dust and cobwebs
that we might become partakers of his shining new tidiness.

His apostles rendered order in the face of messy disorder in your name,
bringing cleanliness and space to messy places.
By your grace renewed each day
you continue the gifts of tidiness in our studies
that your people may not have their letters and papers lost for ever.
By the power of your Spirit may your blessing rest
on those who are polishing with sprays in your name;
may they be made tidy in desk, shelf and floor.

Hear the prayer we offer for all your people.
Remember in your mercy those for whom we pray:
direct the slovenly, raise the files, strengthen the broken shelves
and enfold in your love the fearful and those who have no dusters of bin bags.

In the fullness of time complete your gracious work.
Reconcile all things in Christ and make them clean,
that we may be restored in your image, renewed in your love,
and serve you as sons and daughters in our tidy studies.

Through your anointed Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord,
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit
we lift our voices of thanks and praise:

All                Blessed be God, our order and our cleanness,
now and for ever. Amen.

The laying on of hands is administered to the scattered articles, using these or other suitable words

In the name of God and trusting in his might alone,
receive Christ’s tidying touch to make you tidy.

May Christ bring you cleanliness and order
of desk, shelf and floor,
deliver you from every random pile of paper and scatterings of computer paraphernalia,
and give you his tidiness.

All                Amen.

Polishing may be administered. The minister says

Desk, I polish you in the name of God who gives you a lustrous sheen.
Receive Christ’s removal of coffee rings and discarded staples.

May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
grant you the riches of visibility,
his freshness and his non-stickiness.

All                Amen.

¶                 The Sending Out

God who said: ‘Let tidiness reign out of untidiness’

All                has caused bags of detritus to depart from us
to give the light of the polished surface of the glory of God

All                revealed in the clean surfaces and dust-free books about Jesus Christ.
We have this treasure in our little rooms, about ten-feet square

All                to show that the ministry of ministers can minister to the ministered.

The Peace and Dismissal

God has made us tidy in Christ.
He has set his dusters beside us
and, as a can of Pledge for what is to come,
has given the Spirit to dwell in our cells of contemplation.
The peace of the Lord be always with you.

All                and also with you.

A minister says

Dismissal

Go in the tidiness of Christ, and take those bags out to the bin when you go.

All                Thanks be to God.

Copyright acknowledgement (where not already indicated above):

Some material included in this service is ridiculous: ©  1276 National Council of the Untidy Study Wranglers

Initial dialogue ©  Rt Revd Dr Bill N Benn

Some material included in this service not copyright: ©  The Vernacular Curate 2011

Rubric: Silence may be kept ©  The Archbishops' Council 2005, which is just stupid

Gospel Acclamation (Tidyeth of the Manse) ©  The Archbishops' Council

Some material included in this service is tongue-in-cheek: ©  The Rt Revd Dr David M Cloake (never to be)

Life After Church Life

As I watched The Apprentice this week, I pondered the 'old order' of contestant who had to render themselves unemployed from their hitherto sparkling careers so that they stood a fighting chance of hopping into bed (in the business sense) with Sir Lord Alan Amstrad. They had clearly devoted the entirety of their (albeit short) working lives to climbing the greasy pole from the great heights of which they yielded to the greater possibilities of a hundred-grand and a job in Srallan's mail room. Even though the contestants were often of the Higher Order of Buffoons and The Attitude Enhanced, they had made substantial sacrifices to be contestants in this must-see abuse-a-thon. 

Then all but one 'Got Sacked' (sic), unto the oblivion known only to the failed contestants of Reality Telly World.  I have no theology of purgatory, but I imagine it to be a little like that - full of the nameless chumps who failed to win the public vote or please Srallan. 

There are similarities between these people and that very rare breed of people, among whom I now know several individuals, who are now no longer employed by the Church. These friends to whom I refer are ordained priests who are now not ministering in the Church of England for different reasons. Bloggers will be very familiar with one such priest, and his agonies.  

I write as one who is blessed with ecclesial employment and a rosy future, and as one who knows only too well that I cannot and must not ever take it for granted. Life happens, things happen and sometime priests are cast out of their ministries. Yes, there are many people who lose their jobs, many for no fault of their own, but the difference for priests in the Church of England at least, is that the consequences are perhaps far worse. In the first instance, and without exception, we have all given up something to take on a ministry. Most have set aside former (lucrative) careers, moved families through training and curacy who too have had to make very substantial sacrifices for the ministry at the centre of it all. We do that with our eyes open and mindful that we are called to do this. 

But what happens when it goes wrong? This is Petertide and hopes in many ride high for a glorious future and a life's ministry in God's vineyard, and so they should. But what happens when it goes wrong? Priests not only lose a job for which they sacrificed everything, they lose a home, and not just them, but their families too. Some (and a very small 'some') of us have other homes, but most don't. What does seem lacking in the system is a way to help such priests whose ecclesial demise range from acts of human stupidity, to unfortunate place at the wrong time to good old disillusionment. It happens because we are human, and whatever the rights or wrongs of the cause of the separation, I would argue that their exists a need on the part of the Church to do something affirmative for this small number of smashed up individuals. I know priests who have risked homelessness (an their families) because the fit or the timing of their ministry wasn't optimum. I judge no-one, neither church nor cleric, but pray for those on the wrong side of a line that few priests ever conceive of. I can only imagine that it is the absolute worst place on Earth. 

Walking

I am consumed by the modern-day malaise that is exclusive use of the car. I drive here, I drive there, I drive everywhere.

Some of you are already clawing at your monitors in paroxisms that as a vicar I must live next door to the church - but that is not the case here. I live about twenty minutes away of a walk - which I very rarely do. 

Yesterday saw the family opt for a meander into town. Mrs Acular was on a mission to obtain frilly girliefied flip-flops for the Twins Aculae and so it was my job to grunt some sort of noise of assent, smile, and toddle along with the posse of Cloakettes. And so it was, ladies and gentleman, that Fat Curate Cloake hauled his bulk off of the Acular Sofa and in a style befitting Jabba the Hutt, and slithered into the metropolis on shoe-buying duties. 

The thing is, I love walking. I have walked the West Highland Way twice, Ben Lomond twice and Ben Nevis in a respectable 2hrs 40mins - and used to walk everywhere (largely because I didn't pass my driving test until the fifth go), and when not in clericals look like a refugee from Millets.  A walking holiday, for me, is where it's at. Yes, I prefer to glide, but what fool wouldn't, but in ordinary time, a walk is a great thing. But I forget ...

Yesterday, walking at the pace that a couple of four-year olds employ meant that I became familiar with every leaf on every bush and its concomitant flower. The kids have a considerable appetite to know not just about every thing, but everything. Daisies, dandelions, discarded condom packets, feathers, leaves alive and dead, conker trees, clouds, rose bushes in gardens and the colour of the front doors that shared those spaces, that slightly awkward moment when they happened past a slightly soggy magazine page of some young lady showing us exactly where her babies emerge from, some berries, a kitten, yet more leaves, buttercups, stones, even smaller stones, gravel, grit, sand, dust - and all before we got half way to town. That in itself is a joy - and as I have said before here, the world through the eyes of children is a potent and beautiful one. Even litter, when looked at with fascinated eyes, is a story and a conversation with a little one. 

I also readily forget how walking is like effervescent water. While the legs do the work, my head was firing off a million thoughts. I thought of four blog posts in the half mile I walked, pondered the move, the family's place in all of that and my duties to them, a sermon in formation for Sunday - and so on. Or else I could have climbed into the car and listened to half a track of my favourite CD and been there in a fraction of the time. Walking is a great thing in and of itself, but as a spiritual discipline I cannot commend it more highly.

I have no doubt that some of you will be militant ramblers and that my words are some form of grotesque confession. I am, sadly, not alone. How many of us, I wonder, drive more and walk less - even those walkable journeys which may commit you to more time that you just don't have enough of? So much did I enjoy my walk that instead of the exciting bus ride back home that the ladies were taking (we don't expect them to walk both ways just yet), I chose to walk home at the atomic-speed that I always walk when left to my own devices. I beat the bus, and I thought a millions thinks that would have never been thought in a million years otherwise. Wonderful!