The Limits to Being a Dad (Again)

See also Absent Fathers

The endless round of re-organisation that accompanies a house move is, well, endless. Post needs re-directing, milk people cancelled and new ones hired, utilities cancelled and new ones started, address changing, the acquisition of endless rounds of goods that fit the new house rendering boxes of curtains ill-fitting, painting, cleaning, settling the kids, finding the nearest chippie (I speak of restaurants not trades-people - though please don't disregard the latter either), and so on. The Tinternet is a great boon in these days as we can do much from the sofa in the new lounge. The world is, we have discovered, almost entirely remote controlled.

But not all of it.

As responsible parents to gawjuss kids it is requisite and necessary as well for the mind as for the soul to register the little darlings with a doctor's surgery. I am not worried for myself as I am never ever ill, ever - but needs must when sprogs go splat! To the doctors we all toddled. Of course we had to find proof that we have been actual humans for all of the months that we have breathed air, proved our address, proved our last address and the eight prior to that, offered DNA samples, retina scans, fingerprints and psychometric profiling. With all this information lovingly gathered, we went about our business. 

Me - I was registered in a trice. Excellent. Not Mrs Acular though - she has nothing with her name on it at the same time as our new address. We can sort of understand that. We might be international terrorists (and she looks pretty dodgy it has to be said), but we pleaded our case. Nope. She may not register (but a letter from the bank would help our cause). 

Well, let's do the kids. We have all we need for them, and we are here all together. 

This is where I learned much about our world in 2011, and especially those bits I do not understand or like. The (very nice, incredibly helpful, and a little awkward about what she was about to say) receptionist told us that they couldn't register the kids until the mother was registered ... "in case there are any problems". Let me repeat the scenario: I was there in person, with my wife, already known to be the 'vicar' (not that that makes any substantial difference save perhaps for the fact that I carry a CRB and am professionally nice), with my children and as a member of a family clearly and manifestly working as a unit to do a job together. Mrs Acular and I appeared to be on civil terms, the kids on my lap illustrated that I wasn't a fruit-loop (in their eyes).

But no - they may not receive the care of a doctor until mum was registered. Didn't I feel like the child-beating village pervert all of a sudden! I can only guess that because a small handful of male deviants abuse children that all men are relegated to the place of designated driver in the legal lives of their children. Aren't mothers also found guilty of mistreating their children? Perhaps I just dreamed that. 

Lesson #1: Being a loving Dad to two adoring children is not sufficient any more. 

Not happy. Not happy one little bit.

The Curse of Social Media

I am at this little fringe gathering - I think that they call it Greenbelt or something, surrounded by the finest looking bunch of Christians that I have ever seen, many augmented by a plethora of parish specific hoodies. I have been helping out with a Social Media Surgery - or in other words, helping those who feel so called to launch into this world in which I seem to inhabit.

But, dear readers, it is cursed.

I have written before about how we gather 'friends' and indeed 'followers' like some latter-day Jesus. It is part of the deal and to be honest, we actually don't know any of them in any temporal sense.

This is ok. We expect that. We know it to be the case.

Then some geezer strolls up and goes "Hello David, I am Jobby from Twitter". I had never seen this bloke before. Funny looking actually. The sad thing is that I sensed that they were thinking the same of me. Farv David? Surely not this loon! So, the dance of the Twitter Followers began. We exchanged pleasantries. Good'o!

The thing is, on Twitter, you rarely use your name (apart from the helpful author of this blog) and to compound this we rarely use a picture of ourselves (apart from the helpful author of this blog). So Jobby waddles up and is a complete stranger until the subject is finally broached ...

"Remind me where I know you from"

"I am @weirdlunaticaxekiller from Twitter. One of your friends"

Then all the pieces fall into place. In a world where we only know people increasingly by social-media nickname, we never get to really learn anyone's name. Still, we giggled about it for a whole .... moment.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Park St,Cheltenham,United Kingdom

House, Home & Office

May I introduce our lovely new home. Featured on the front page of the parish website for some time, I thought I would expand its cyber-fame.

House meet Readers

Readers meet House

That's that sorted then.

And what a lovely house it is. It has all we need plus thirty rooms that we can count as surplus (or where I can count my surplices, who knows), a wonderful mature garden with large trees and concomitant squirrels. We have presocratic Rhododendrons, a superfluity of lavender and much Christmas fodder in the form of re-planted trees and a significant sting of emergent holly. We have two foxes (those with fluffy tails, boys) and a significant flutter of wood pigeons. The two wild green parakeets are a mystery to us and out-yell Boeing 747s, but they add to the ambiance.

But this pile isn't simply home. To Mrs Acular and the Twins Aculae, it is - but to me it is the office, as it is to the parish administrator. In the last house, it was more home than office, as I didn't 'have people round', and we were miles from the church (all by plan - I am a welcoming host). This house will be where I receive guests, entertain visitors, hold meetings - and the usual scripting of sermons and all that. There has to be a boundary set, for the preservation and protection of all concerned, and then there is the invisible boundary that I have to set that means that I am not always at work (or never at work if I am a lazy sod). In this, I journey along a new road.

Yes, having tied accommodation is a joy, honour and privilege. We are incredibly fortunate and considerably blessed by it. At Theological College the tell us to 'work' a number of sessions a day, but not all. Some clergy abide by this fastidiously, others (read 'me') do not. The failing is on my part, as I am a self-confessed workaholic; though it is easy with work such as mine as it is so darned good.

Clocking off, for want of a better term, is hard. I can retire from the study and pad across the newly carpeted hallway to fashion a meal for la Famille d'Aculaire, but then I am only ten feet away from The Harridan Emailer and the Siren Telephone. They carry on unremittingly, and we clerics are endlessly lured to their bidding. Days off to date have been grand as the kids have been home, but from now on, they will be at school. Wife might even find herself a job, so my day off may mean me sitting at home with nothing but Harridan and Siren - to wit, no day off (much). It can be a problem.

Advice for clergy is to bugger awf on days and weeks off. To undertake a Staycation is to maintain a de facto Stayatworkation. So, we have to escape home which feels odd at times. This boundary setting permeates much of what we do. We want to be gracious and willing hosts all the while preserving safe space. We want and need to relax but our diligence means that very often the danger is we carry on until the job is done (which it never is). Danger!

For now, before 'work' starts, I will enjoy the new Cloake Castle. God Bless this house and all who dwell in and visit it. 

An Altogether New View

Well, the eagle has landed - figuratively speaking. 

This is my first post from a new desk in a new house in a new town in a new part of the world. From my new desk in a new house in a new town in a new part of the world I also have a new view of a new street - a view that is absolutely nothing like the view represented in the image supplied. 

The boxes are nearly all emptied and flattened. The twins are safely installed in new bedrooms. The gerbils still gnaw loo-roll cores. The cats are back to soiling cat-litter. All in the world is good. We are blessed with a lovely house which much more space even than the house we have just vacated, though even now we feel like we have run out of space to empty the remaining boxes. 

Stress levels have been high. The first few days have been characterised by skin-stripping arguments, invective, bile and a sense that we may have lost a sense of 'normal' forever. Gladly, that sense is fast abating as routines re-build, old habits of play resume and the kids remove their self-applied red horns. If us adults have found it all a bit much, we must remember that the Twins Aculae must have had it all the worse. Peace begins to reign over the (now) sunny idyll that is Whitton.

I have placed my new desk in such a way as means I can look out of the window of my study. In the last house, this was of little advantage as the window looked out over a fence and a marauding Russian Vine. From my desk I can see who is at the front door, who is driving or walking along the road, which planes are landing at Heathrow; if I turn and look out of the window behind my chair (this is a 'two-windows-one-patio-door' study) I can see the garden (and the twins playing) and the church in-between the large trees that grace my glebe. The profound differences that mark curacy from incumbency are made manifest to me in the change of view I now have.

Curacy, for me, was a blend of working hard and then retreating the anonymous house to be 'normal', to spend time with the family and to shut out the world of the ministry to a certain extent. Getting that blend right was important, but the closed view from the old study window now reminds me of the express limits that existed in that form of ministry. Incumbency will, by definition, be different. I will be more visible to the world and the world more visible to me. I have to have an eye on family life while having a different kind of eye on parish life. Somewhere in there needs to be some 'me' time (and I opt to do that in the garden or kitchen these days). From my vantage point I see the world (and can close it out if I choose), am surrounded by Scriptures and gadgets, can see the kids and the church in the same glance. I feel like I am at home now. 

So far, we have been blessed by the card-sending of the card senders, thew wine-leaving of the wine-leavers, and have received a very wise document from a very wise man that describes and annotates the local facilities (read 'pubs'). A very wise man indeed (not least because he reads this drivel)! In short, we are in, and are settling. Some rooms will get curtains sometime, and others might be painted away from their current pink-all-over state. All in good time. 

Signing Off

Well, one house is a mess and the other is now clean. One house will soon be empty and another quickly filled. Mrs Acular's tempers are frayed, and mine are languishing behind an accelerating headache. I have spent the afternoon battling more bloody spiders (all the while leaving the cleaners to deal with dessicated frogs [don't ask]) - all of which means that it is about time to sign off from Aylesbury. 

Oddly, this is the second time that I have had cause to bid farewell to this town. The first was as a result of starting my theological training, the second as a result of its fruit. 

It has been a good place. It has served my family well. Aylesbury College Day Nursery will always be an establishment accorded much credit for how our children have grown and developed. I cannot understate how much of a positive influence on their existence it and its staff have been. We delivered two tearful toddlers and received two intelligent, inquisitive, sociable and morally aware little girls equipped to begin their formal education. I can never thank them enough.

It has been a good place. I have ministered to many of its families in the best and worst of times. I take them all with me in my heart. Aylesbury is blessed with amazing people, all wanting the best for themselves and their families and able to trust us practitioners to help with the momentous events that mark all our lives. The young people of this town are so full of life too, and Aylesbury grants them such richness of opportunity. Many have gathered in the church where it has been my joy to witness them minister to the town in their own special ways. 

It has been a good place. Its worshipping communities have such an expansive heart for the Gospel. Yes, it is ecclesially polarised, but the witness of Christ in Aylesbury yields much fruit in terms of outreach to those less blessed by circumstance. I have watched the homeless community find literal and figurative warmth during the coldest of months, as a result of the love of Aylesbury's Christians. 

I close this post, the last of well over 400 written from this desk. It will be the last I write here, and the last of anything - I need to dismantle this computer before I sleep. I leave a present that has treated me well and has allowed me the chance to flourish into a ministry for which I was born. As for tomorrow, I will worry about that when it arrives. 

God bless you, Aylesbury. Thank you. 

Goodbye. 

You Know You Are Tired When ...

This morning, I had need to visit the tip (dump, place to discard ones unwanted detritus). So, I loaded the car with a whole manner of bags and dead things turned on my music and drove off. Excellent. It was not yet 9am, so a productive day was in the offing. 

Well, the thing is, the music got too loud even for my grunt-like tastes, so I turned it down. The windows of the car were open for two reasons - first, because it is muggy and warm, and the second being the irrational sense that if I have brought a spider in with me, it will cast itself out of the window and not climb on me. With the windows open, vile obnoxious heavy metal is perhaps a little much when it spews forth from  passing car, and I am a decent sort of man. So I turned the music down, as any nice person would.

Only when I turned the knob, the volume remained at the 7000 decibels that it was currently enjoying. I turned the volume button again - nothing. The next song was due any moment and to the best of my failing knowledge, had some rude words (like such music does from time to time) and as a familiar face, really needed the din to not be detected by the lovely folk of Aylesbury. But the volume would not turn down.

So I whacked the button to silence Mr Zombie before his next phase of invective - but to no avail. He had possessed my stereo for it didn't fall silent. Not good; not good at all. So, I hurriedly pulled over so I could sort this issue out. Add to this the ever present stress of advancing spiders, and you might imagine that I was in a little bit of a tizzy.

Well, push the button as I might, over and over, the bawling American bawled and the Axe-wielding geezer wielded on. The music would not stop. The lights did as I wanted when the buttons were pressed - they flicked on and they flicked off. So what was I doing wrong? I bent down to look at the fuses to see if an issue existed there, but they all look alike to me, so I abandoned that notion. I turned off the engine and removed the key - still no silence. I began the curse this four-piece rock combo.

What to do? The key was out of the ignition, the button on the stereo refused to work, the caterwauling crooner was getting more and more irate and his lyrics reflected that fact. The spiders were coming, and I needed to get the car back so that Mrs Acular and Twins Aculae could toddle off and see friends. I was going to make them late ... 

Until it occurred to me that I was wearing my iPod and the music was courtesy of my nice earphones.  

Books and Chapters

Well, the time has come. I am trying to fashion a sermon which is very important to me because it is conceivably the last one that I will preach in Aylesbury. I am working on my last draft and contemplating its delivery, which I can be sure will be a shaky affair. We'll see.

This time next week I will be a resident in Whitton. The lorry will probably be emptied by now and I will be left with a boxed-up existence and how to make it fit a new life and house. This week has been characterised by the clumsy daubing of paint on walls (and upon my person), the fitting of the first carpet that I have ever had to pay for and that interesting moment of being in one's new home alone for the first time. To date, we have had to rely on the kindness of the Whitton Clan to let us in, so we have always been on our 'best behaviour'. Yesterday, I poked around my new house properly for the first time, feeling rather naughty. For the first time I considered the wonder of the airing cupboard and pondered the accouterments that had gathered in the garage. Then I did that funny thing that I do whenever I move house (I have done that lots and lots) - and that is to lay on the lounge floor arms and legs out-stretched starfish fashion, looking up at the ceiling. Yes, I know. 

Sunday will be a momentous occasion. The district churches have cancelled all their services so that we can have a Team Eucharist at St. Mary's. That is jolly nice of them, as it means that many of them will be put to considerable inconvenience to get to church (though that said, some will get a lie in). The church will be fairly well full, which in August is no small feat. I will be surrounded by an amazing group of people, all of whom share a characteristic in common - that they really have no idea how wonderful they are.

I feared my first ever sermon - but only half as much as I fear my last in this ministry. I could preach for days on end and not cover all that I wish I could say. Yes, those words would include the odd warning, but delivered that they may have life and have it abundantly. We'll see.

So, in this book that is The Ministry of One David M Cloake, a chapter draws to its conclusion. It has been a happy chapter, blessed and rich in experience and opportunity. I have walked alongside some remarkable people, some of whom have shared their last steps on earth with me. I have celebrated the new life of baptisms and the love-stories of marriages. I have been guided my a man whom I delight in now being able to call my friend, and not simply 'boss'. I have been supported by a wife of such overflowing grace and generosity that I would need more lifetimes to return it - and then there have been the Twins Aculae. Could a man be any more blessed than me? 

I am not sure what more I can say. I might not be able to post much in the next few days, hence this slightly premature post. I will 'sign off' when I prepare to leave this place. Please pray for my family - this is never just about me, after all. 

Once; Only Once, and Once for All

Today, as I painted walls, my Inbox became home to a couple of emails which, very graciously, thanked me for a funeral that I officiated at earlier this week. I never expect such notes, but would be lying if I didn't claim delight in receiving them. It is the same week when I received a very nice card thanking me for a baptism that I performed. Again, it was unexpected, unsolicited and wonderful. 

I am not writing this as a preface to a post where I tell you all that I am good at Occasional Offices. As I ponder ministry in the light of a very imminent move, it strikes me once again the particular privilege of what we hold in our hands for brief moments.

Life is full of uncertainties. How we live, how that life is manifest in the context of disease or misfortune, success or good luck all go to show that there are a few certainties. We will only have one funeral. We will only have one baptism (if that is the route of our lives). In the most hopeful of circumstances, we will only have one marriage. In the life of a Christian, these are events where they will coincide with a priest - who have but one go at getting it right. 

I 'do' many funerals, a fair number of baptisms and a good few weddings. There is a very real danger of letting them all become the same, habit-formed and routine. When one has four funerals in one week, it is hard to make them distinctive and unique, save for the choices of music. Computer technology helps with this, as I have a pallet of liturgical resources which means I enjoy variety and so does the ceremony and its guests. The danger is also in the mindset. I might have a distinct service in my folder, but I could be in easy peril of turning the deceased into 'just another dead person who needs a nice send off'. I hope I have not fallen into this trap in funerals, or its like in weddings or baptisms - but I still have 30 years for that to potentially happen. 

The paths of priests and people criss-cross in funny ways, but when they coincide, we have a profound opportunity to do good. I wonder if it is not the greatest joy of our ministry, that we can take these 'once only' moments and make them special. That is my perspective at least. I believe too that if we miss a trick when these moments come around that we do immeasurable damage to the people monetarily in our care. We may not get to hear about it, quite possibly, but we may have cost them their faith in our faith. 

I think that the greatest successes of my ministry here in Aylesbury has been in these unique moments. They had the potential of being my greatest undoing too, but I hope not this time around. However, I have to be clear to remind myself every once in a while that what I am entrusted with is so precious that it makes gold and diamonds look like hemp sacking. One 'hello', one 'goodbye' - that is what we are granted as humans, and so we as ministers (as I do accept that other ministers as well as priests share this wonderful ministry) must never for a moment take that part of our job for granted, or take it lightly. 

Why I Have Stopped Going to Church

It is a funny thing, being ordained. Well, it isn't funny at all; it's a serious business, but it is a funny old thing. The process of being called by God to ordained ministry (the only ministry that I can speak of - other ministries are available) goes a little like this:

 - Born

 - Go to church with the family

 - Grow a little 

 - Grow a lot 

 - Be born again (if that is your thing)

 - Feel the gentle constancy of God's call

 - Say "yes"

 - Jump through many hundreds of discernment hoops

 - Train

 - Put on the collar after a jolly old time with the Bishop and the Holy Spirit

 - Stop going to church

Simple. 

But you see up there in the list - the whole going to church thing, well that halts at about the same moment that the professional church provision begins. Providing and facilitating 'church' is not about 'going'. I accept that this probably sound ridiculous, but it is a fact. The Eucharist, for me and others with whom I have discussed this, is about managing little arrangements to enable the prayer and praise of God's People to go as it should. As a priest, I either preside or I worship - the two rarely overlap.

I know that some of you still are not convinced. Some of you may be mildly irritated by my words given that we have the perfect excuse to be doing the whole church thing all the time. Part of the calling to priesthood is to approach God with the 'people on our hearts' (Michael Ramsay's idea from "The Christian Priest Today") and to approach the people with God on our hearts. This connects with Bill Countryman's idea that priests exist on the "border of the Holy" - all of which is short hand that tells us that our church, our nourishment and spiritual edification, is to be found away from the community to which we are called to minister. Sometimes, this is a hard thing for new priests to grasp - as there are times, believe me, when we don't feel like we have had a moment with God for weeks or months - a moment with God for ourselves, that is. We are called to have that space elsewhere. If anyone feels called to priesthood to be closer to God, then I would suggest that their wires are crossed.