My experience of Death

What is manifestly the case is that I am not dead (though readers of this blog may have the right to question that assertion). Through my work as a priest I am granted an almost unique place in the moment of the bereaved relatives' lives who have only just lost loved ones, or in the last moments of life for those who have gone before us. It is part of my job to listen as they describe the last moments, and part of my duty, as I see it, is to know how the 'end' was for the one now gone.

These encounters now number many dozen (and in many circumstances and under the auspices of many 'causes'), so I feel qualified to write this, and also in a position to make some observations about some of the frequent consistencies in the accounts that I hear. I place them here because these accounts, in their overwhelming similarity, are interesting - and I think that these words may even give comfort in future times.

1. Seeing the dead - now this may seem like an account taken from a film, but I am struck how often those who  are within hours of their own death seem to see, hear and communicate with long-dead relatives (at times, the 'other' is presumed, and in other cases, conversations between the person dying with "mother" etc are overheard). Very often, this is 'end of the bed' encounters where the dying person engages with those in proximity when the room seems otherwise empty. I am convinced that people do not pass into death alone, and it is through this particular phenomenon that I find my 'evidence'.

2. Choosing - I have listened to the stories of many deaths and a common thread seems to me that we choose when we go, even when we seem beyond consciousness. Accounts of people dying in the scarce moments when loved-ones leave the bedside; accounts of people finishing unfinished business with relatives - these and so many more tell me that whilst we may not choose the year or the month, we can choose the hour and the day. An aspect of this that surprised me was the need that some have had for specific permission to die. I have known people live out of duty when their bodies are struggling on, and in cases where death is the best outcome, not more life. I have had to 'grant permission' on a number of occasions, enabling that person to go with a sense that they are not being a nuisance or failing even. 

3. Being alone - in addition to the above, the overwhelming majority of those who have died have done so when they were alone (and in some cases when vigils of many days length is suspended for a quick visit for the loo or to get food). This often causes great anxiety for relatives who chastise themselves for abandoning someone at precisely the wrong moment. 

4. Peace - I have sat and listened to many people who are confronting their own imminent death. In most cases, a fear of the transition from life to death has been a source of fear and anxiety, with the inevitable questions about what may follow life. Even in cases where this has been most acute and the fears most pronounced, I have noticed that a sense of calm and peace descend upon those who are drawing to their end, before they lose consciousness. In short, the vast majority of the recently departed found a sense that 'everything will be alright' before their end.

These observations are from my own perspective, based on accounts of many families. I accept, freely, that there are many painful, difficult and tortuous deaths, and that I have been fortunate not to have witnessed or ministered to such situations. However, I also believe that the moment of death is, on the whole, gentle. I offer this for those who may be confronting their own death or that of someone close. 

An Eye for An Eye?

I was walking with my wife this morning, visiting a couple of shops when we happened past a news stand. One newspaper was emblazoned with the blood-covered face of a man whose eyes told the reader exactly what was to befall him. Another paper was emblazoned with his lifeless corpse. Those papers were two feet from the ground, being pondered by a passing child who was trying to fathom what the pictures meant.

Needless to say, the man in the pictures was one Mr. Gadaffi, the now dead former dictator of  Libya.

I am not a man given to fits of naivety or idealism, so I recognise that the man in those pictures was murderer, a slayer of children, a destroyer of families and a tyrant. He deserved justice in the face of the world and was answerable for the deaths of so many people around our world, including those who perished on our own shores.

Except that he didn't face justice.

The events of the last few months seem to me to have made killers of ordinary men (and women?). Plumbers and accountants have taken up arms (supplied by the enlightened West) and killed other people. It seems (even if the truth is not this simplistic) that we in the enlightened West let ordinary people do our dirty work for us while we stood on the sidelines and taunted (and threw a few jet fighters in for good measure). That is how it seems.

The newspapers that I saw this morning, and that were seen by a small child, tell us much about our own deepest instincts. We see injustice and we seek blood. We are delighting in a murder, an execution without hearing. That the man who was killed yesterday didn't' afford his victims that right does not mean that we are free of the responsibility to ensure that justice is done in a civilised way, that even Saddam Hussein received. Actually, it could easily be argued that Gaddafi got off lightly in his drain pipe. 

But I wonder what that child learned this morning? Why was that man covered in blood? Why is he dead? What happened? The man did wrong, very wrong and very often, so we let him get killed. We in the West, with our law and our justice systems, we stood back and let one more man die - we became bystanders in an act of murder.

And then we sold our newspapers with the money shot of his corpse.

I don't feel very civilised at all this morning. 

Blind Faith Can Kill You

As I half-watched the news the other evening, a piece caught my attention that woke me up and gave me cause to become angry. That news story can be found here. 

I am a priest, and as a priest I believe in a God who is made known in the created order, the miraculous and the unexpected. My eyes are open and so is my mind, but neither am I foolish about it. As part of this I believe in a God who pours his healing spirit into those in great need, and I am willing to believe that there are cases of cure from disease that are directly from God. The definition if miracles, however, is that they are not daily occurrences.

Someone very close to me has an expression: God will provide, but you have to do your own hustling. Put another way, God's healing spirit is poured into us by the gifts and skills of other humans more often than not - the talents of the pharmacologists, the vocation and gifts of those in the caring and medical professions, and sometimes simple time and faith by all concerned. I do not, in any way shape or form, believe in a God who, when some barmy cleric directs him, kills all known germs dead.  Were this the God we were talking about, we would surely be living in a utopia where babies do not die of cancer at two years old and wars never happen. 

Faith is the heart of all that Christians do. We proceed in faith through our every journey of life - be they good or the worst of journeys. What angers me is when a barmy cleric tells those whose faith is at breaking point in the context of a life limiting disease that God will reach down from a cloud and cure them. What that barmy cleric is saying is, with breathtaking arrogance, that he can cure people (perhaps he is his messiah). Then those poor people have died of the disease, and one barmy cleric has caused them to regard God as failed. 

To me this is the worst of spiritual abuse. Strong words yes, but when you tell a dying person to say a prayer, or to cavort with the signs of the Spirit, that they will not be dying - that actually, so much will they be healed that they can stop taking their tablets - that is the worst of abuses. People look to clerics for support and whether we like it or not, and whether we ourselves believe what we say or not - many people take our words as absolute. 

I pray for those who have succumbed to their symptoms because a cleric told them to stop taking medication. I pray for their families who are left to wonder where the lie or failure lay. I pray for the barmy cleric who is so devastatingly wrong that he is killing people with their love and with their faith. 

A Fool on Tape

Last Saturday, eminent theologian and all-round good chappesse (Dr Bex Lewis) collared me and placed a recording device under my nose. I am not that spontaneous, sadly - and the following minute of giggle-resisting press-worthy gold is the resultant product. 

Press to Listen

I am not sure whose tongue was more firmly in cheek - hers or mine (and not like that, you smutty person)!

Is Social Media a Prawn Cocktail?

This last weekend saw my inaugural voyage in the great ship The Christian New Media Conference. 

Now, you will either fall into two camps: those who went or would have been interested in so doing, or else those who have no idea what sort of conference that may be. If you are of the latter disposition, then think prayers and know that we were described as "geeks" with alarming frequency, added to which we were all sporting a dozen gadgets apiece, and you will get the idea. It was, basically, a gathering of bloggers, Tweeters, Facebookers and those who aspire to such levity.

One of my own concerns with social media as a 'world' is that it connects with tangible reality in the way that Kermit the Frog's legs and arms do - which is to say, they are never in the same shot at the same time. It is, without doubt, a part of reality as real people have real interactions. The matter and the fruits of social media are very real and for that I love it, embrace it and do all I can to compel others to come in.

Then we went and had our "Geeks Gathering" where I met three people (among many others), and to whom this post is warmly dedicated. They are three Christian ministers, who, alarmingly, seemed to be on the wavelength that I seem to exist on. It was the first time I had met them in my life, and I am glad that I did. Through social media, they are gentlemen with whom I had had various quantities of interaction through the gadget-mitigated world - but Saturday was the first time that I had ever actually met them.

And it was good. I venture to say that it was better. We had lunch together and a couple of beers apiece and we sorted out the world. It was a truly wonderful time - so it begs a question. In the great meal of life, is social media a good hearty starter? Nothing beats that 'face to face' stuff for me, the main course - and I doubt I could have engaged with those people from Saturday over a month of Sundays on Twitter and cover the ground that we did in an hour behind a pint! 

Social Media is one tool among many, in the various modes it exists, to bring people into contact with others. To be fair, I may not have been sat anywhere with anyone on Saturday without it, so from that point of view, I am endlessly grateful to my social-media life. I will always wonder though, if in the end, we are always called to move on to the main course and be with people, in proximity, like wot we used to. 

I want to thank the wonderful people with whom I spent time of Saturday, the lads and others who didn't bother joining us for lunch and everyone else who tolerated my tomfoolery, modest rages and all those other little facets of 'me' that emerge in lecture theatres. I was delighted to have met you!

Couldn't Have Put it Better

This has been doing the rounds, and as a thing to behold is remarkable. So much so, in fact, that it warrants greater airing - so here it is. 

With thanks to Facebook's very own Clive Hillman, from whom I pilfered it! (And with apologies to the ladies over at Watch for the exclusive language, unless of course Mr. Lama really did only mean the male of the species)

Children and Theological Whittling

The difficult events of the last twenty-four hours (and no, I am not referring to last night's PCC meeting, which was good) have left a pall of awkwardness over la Famille d'Aculaire. Me and the missus are feeling sad, and the very visible grief response from the girls is now turning into something altogether more tricky. 

As a priest, some would call me a theologian. Certainly, it was the excuse I used for being rubbish at practical things like decorating, but as for the truth of the matter, the jury is still out. 

Then the loss of the Blessed Stimpy (the Vatican beatified her this morning) precipitated the questions that children ask. They are the questions are that, without any doubt, are deeper than any I have seen or read or have been asked by any adult. They are the questions that expose me not as a theologian, but as something of a fraudulent, clumsy heretic. 

Daddy, how did Stimpy go to Heaven? Did she have to go in a plane?

No love, God took that special part of her that made her Stimpy and took it and is looking after it 

What does it look like?

You can't see it, but you know it is there. It's a bit like the wind, sweetheart. You can't see it but you know it there because the leaves move about. 

Will Stimpy see Dante (our old bunny) in Heaven?

I am not sure. What do you think? I think that they will be playing together with Charlie (Mavis's dog who died a year ago). I hope so too. 

But who will feed Stimpy in Heaven?

Stimpy won't need food like we need food, because she won't be hungry - just really happy all of the time. 

Why did Stimpy have to die?

We all have to die, baby. It is part of being alive, and in the end we go to Heaven.  

Will I see Stimpy when I go to Heaven?

Of course. I think she might be waiting for you like she does when you come home from school. 

...and so it goes. This happens in schools too (the 'what you mean that God calls you to be a Vicar?' type of questions). They are deep and insightful questions, whose answers are important and will be meaningful to those who ask them. It also tells me more about the quality of spirituality that children have - and to be honest, it is breathtakingly deep. It also presses in me the niggling suspicion that we as adults do not receive the spirituality and implicit theology of children half as much as we should. I would go so far as to say that in an ideal world, it should not be the priest or minister who preaches, but a young child who is given the chance to say what they think. How much more would we learn as disciples. 

It is not that adults are incapable of asking those sort of questions - more that they have lost the ability to express themselves so purely and wonderfully (and fearfully at times).

Goodbye Little Mate

Highs and lows; peaks and troughs - that is life. 

Our little cat Stimpy died this morning. She had been flagging since the house move and never recovered from the upheaval of yet another new home. We acquired her from the Cat's Protection League fourteen years ago, a manky scrat of a thing with a lump missing from her ear and a nasty mouth infection that gave her grim breath. She had been feral, spayed too young and remained a timid small thing. She fled in fear of anyone except Mrs Acular and I (she never fully warmed to the Twins). She had next to no voice so her 'meows' were a little less than you might expect. Never a crossed claw and never once angry or aggressive, she was a cat who loved the garden and being outside. Well, I say that - we have witnessed her seeing off huge tomcats who dared to stray too close. Then she was a lunatic, and violent too. 

But she was our cat. She was part of our family. She was loved and she loved back, in her own way. I tend to spend my free evenings horizontal on my settee, and the normal place for Stimpson T. Catte was on my chest with her quiet purr that was barely audible. She liked to head-butt me into submission, so I had no real choice about my chest passenger. Only my chest - no-one else's, ever. 

And now she is gone, our little cat. And it is horrible. 

The Flight of the Haggis

With thanks to Laura Sykes for prodding me in the ribs with this erstwhile project, I am delighted to feature a blog written by one of my longest standing online muckers...

Winsome, Lose Some

The work of Fr Richard Haggis, this blog is in the hands of a lyrical writer who has a very clear grasp of the realities of the world and the church. Put another way, he is a cynic, but does is in a most beautifully crafted way. 

Seriously though, Richard is a joy to read (even in those encounters on social media) and I advocate his thoughtful work to the rest of you. He knows a little of the vagueries of the Church of England, but has never lost his pastoral heart. I have neglected our association for far too long, so I am glad to have an opportunity to do something to mend that!

The Jewels of Ministry

A Note to God

Every once in a while, in good times and in bad, the Good Lord presents moments that shine brighter than any light. I am delighted that today provided one such moment for me.

Just as I started preparing lunch for the family, I received a call from a lady who had taken the number from the church notice-board by the road (that she managed to read it was a miracle in and of itself). She and her husband were celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary, and as they had been married in Ss Philip & James, could they pop by and visit the church as they were in the area?

Yes, of course, said I. When? This afternoon is fine. See ya then! 

They were with me in the church for the first time since they were married, took some pictures, commented on the changes (of which there were few apparently), and reminisced about their wedding day and the guests. Then Vicar Boy had an idea, one that I presented to them tentatively. They agreed

... and so we had a spontaneous Service for the Renewal of Marriage Vows (as I had the right book to hand). Irrespective of whose idea it was, it was a truly magical moment that made a couple older than my own birth parents newly weds all over again, and acted that way too. If this is parish ministry, then it is the best of things. 

Baptism - Freely Given or Undervalued?

There is a debate raging, in my head at least, concerning the administration of Baptism. It is a debate that has murmured under the surface of a few conversations that I have been part of or privy too in recent years, and never with any sort of resolution.

Argument 1 - We want all people to be disciples of Christ, so of course we must baptize all those who seek it

Argument 2 - If someone asks for their child to be baptized, it would be bad form, rude even, to deny them that which they seek

Argument 3 - Seeds sown now may yield fruit later

... and so on! These are the arguments given by those who think that baptism should be freely granted to all who ask, and fair enough. They are valid views.

I have always wrestled with a sense that baptism seems too readily granted. Someone pops by the Vicarage or church, asks for baptism, gets it and then more often than not they vanish from whence they came. That might be as a result of poor follow-up pastoral care; it might be because that is the very nature of the beast; it might be that people seek baptism (and this debate is more to do with children presented as candidates by their parents and guardians) because it is "what you do". The simple fact is that baptism is less to do with initiation into the worshipping life of the church than other factors.

My instinct is to ask enquirers "and why so you want your child to be baptized?". Part of me fears the answer, but if I administer baptism without a concern for that, what implicit message am I delivering? That baptism doesn't really matter so go ahead, let's book a date. Indeed, the liturgists in their zeal to offer choice have created the Great Euphemism - the Thanksgiving for the Birth of a Child order of service which, although never intended to be, has become 'Baptism Lite' so that we don't frighten people away with all the religious hocus-pocus.

Part of me thinks that if our faith is of life changing and affirming value to us as believers, we should administer its initiation scrupulously. Part of me still thinks that if faith is like that we should cast it far and wide (and hope some of it sticks?). Where does giving something freely become the administration of something that has no value? One is generous, one is insulting (to God, to believers and to those who really do value baptism). If I am honest, part of me thinks that baptism should be first step of a renewed pattern of behaviour that revolves around the community of which the baptized have just become member. Part of me thinks that if I took that view I might struggle for baptisms!

Thoughts, please ... 

Se also Baptism Boosters

Exit Strategy

In church life, or more specifically in that eight minute slot of time after the main Sunday Service before we fall behind the next cup of Fairly Traded Tepid brown fluid, many transactions take place. Sometimes those transactions are about the sale of the Parish Staple - the raffle ticket (where you are apt to win some Parish Lavender Smellies). Other times those transactions revolve around the Post Mortem of The Parish Microphone and Its Vagueries. 

Early spring sees a new, intense, purposeful transaction: it is the 'Will You Stand for Election at the next APCMPCPMCPM [the big annual church meeting] - there is a vacancy for X, Y or Z'.

When I was younger (hard to imagine that I was younger than I am now, but it is a fact that mother didn't give birth to a 6' hard man of God), I used to be on a PCC, and when I approached that momentous time, had to go through (wait for it, I am not going to lie here) an election. The first time I sought a place on a PCC, in excess of thirty people put themselves forward for election, submitted little biographies (I had no idea so many people in church life could claim time as Sidespeople), and the tension was amazing at Results Time. Sod X Factor - PCC elections were far more tense. I digress.

Among those elections, from time time, were those for Officer Roles in the Parish (warden, secretary, treasurer - that sort of thing). To be there they had either worked a long time to impress the right people, were there through merit, or simply weren't as fast as the Vicar when he came calling (let it not go un-noticed that pre-APMCMMPDMPMCCMP Vicars are like the rutting stags in Bushy Park that are currently hounding the tourists at the moment - "we must find our next Officers for the circle-of-life to keep turning"). Candidates are pursued, persuaded, elected, enthroned, sworn in before  Archdeacons and set to work running the show while the Vicar takes the glory services. Oh yes, it is true! And so the Tenure begins.

But all good things come to an end, and here we have a problem in the church. Eventually the need arises for the once-hunted willing volunteer to lay down the chattels of their Office and withdraw from it and its appurtenances. Personal experience (professionally and non-professionally speaking) has taught me two things:

1. That it is or can be very painful to make that withdrawal if you have assumed significant authority2. "Church" and "Succession Planning" are rarely things that you will ever see in the same sentence (barring the ironic or negative)

I know people who have felt a great pain, or anticipate it, when they stop or are about to stop doing what they do. I am not sure that Mother Church has ever cottoned on to that fact, simply because that pain is lost or obscured by the next season of the Vicar Rut. I think it revolves around personal validation and all that - that once someone was 'Somebody', but then after elections, feel like 'Nobody'.

Then we have the great Vicar Rut. Mother Church rarely thinks ahead because we tend towards the Great Lurch (from one circumstance to the next). I am already guilty because I have no earthly idea who my next Treasurer or Warden is going to be (I could blame the 'being new' thing, but it won't cut it for long). I should know, and in the next cycle, should know at least a year in advance and have that candidate working towards the role in some other constructive way (yes I know they are elected, but I am in the real world here). 

I will ponder the solutions to these perennial problems, together with every cleric who has a duty to a PCC. However, what we need to learn very quickly is that those who held the keys once, don't automatically sign with joyous relief when we wrest them from their reluctant clasp!

On Not Letting Blogging Eclipse my Faith

I was looking down the list of esteemed bloggers that grace the side of my own posts. I am glad that they are there, and they are there because I chose them deliberately. 

In the same twenty-four hour period, two things happened. The first was that it dawned on me that I hadn't added to that number (or subtracted as it is right to do from time to time when blogs fall fallow). The second was the discovery of a blog that made a considerable impact on me, and caused me to notice something that has been been missing (save for a couple of salient exceptions) from the "notes" that comprise the "chord" of my blogroll! 

The very nature of blogging in the present is that it tends to err towards response to issues and situations that come up in the world. Some are more adversarial or didactic than others, while some lean in the direction of self-counselling. That is a very nature of the beast. What seems to be lacking more and more, in my opinion, is a blog that attends to the spiritual dimension in a more conspicuous way. When discovering such a blog, only then do I realise what I am missing. 

The blog in question is iBenedictines. I found my way to this site after its author, Digitalnun, "followed" me on Twitter. I read it and found peace. Simple. I realised very quickly that an instinct that I once had (and caused me to start the now fallow and wholly spiritual Flight Diaries) is that blogging is an increasingly un-spiritual affair (save for the motivation of its writers, of which I offer no criticism in that regard). My own blog is a case in point - and if you trawl for overtly spiritual posts, you would be hard pressed to find many.

Accepting that I am what I am, and I write as I write, I am not proposing a substantive change in the style or content of this (nearly) award winning act of near perfection. Rather, like all good journals and magazines, I am going to add a few more blogs whose eyes are altogether more fixed on the face of Christ rather than the outpourings of the world's media. We need all of it, but we need all of it! Well, I certainly need a valuable boost to my Spiritual Blog Quotient, even if you don't!

Thank you to Digitalnun and the Sisters in West Oxfordshire for teaching me a lesson about need. To the rest of you (who may not have found iBenedictines) - follow and read earnestly. You will be glad you did. 

One Less Innovator

It is with considerable sadness that I learned of the death of Steve Jobs, the former head of Apple - and the mind behind iPods, iPhones, iPads and other things.

It is fair to say that the world didn't need any of them, but sometimes the work of a true inventor is a joy to behold. A company that didn't make phones stole an entire market from those that did. He invented a breed of computer that no-one thought they needed and now can't live without. How rarely do we see a person, a leader, a dreamer, such as this. 

For me, my own lifestyle owes much to this man. For over a decade I have held one of his products close to me. Yes, just gadgets, but gadgets that add to my personal experience of life - by adding music that I love so much, imagery, and so much else. 

Yes, people starve and people die at the hands of others - and so this man's products are essentially toys for people with money, but that doesn't diminish his impact on so many of us who use his ideas to form our world in some small part.  I am not mourning the Godfather of the Gadget, but I am mourning am innovator, and any true innovator is a wonderful example of the God given potential that humankind has at its fingertips. One need only think of the King James Bible ...

May he rest in peace. It is fair to say he probably has an App for that too. 

Taking the Hit

Sometimes life, The Universe and Everything conspires to make a point. This week started with a difficult few moments for me, which in turn have been informed by two very helpful blogs posts.

The first I read was from the wonderful Ray "I am not a Man" Barnes about 'turning the other cheek', which in turn was born of a post by Jonathan Haggar along similar lines. Both posts are worth a read - one from a lay person, one from a priest who has a very clear interest in this particular thought process!

I had a difficult experience on Sunday. It wasn't difficult because some faithful people were rude to me (alright, perhaps in part). It was difficult because I felt unable to 'fight-back'.

By style, I am not one who takes poor behaviour directed at me well. I am apt to fire back with both barrels, and in the past, I have employed a cruel streak that I have in cutting retorts and the like. I learned all this in retailing, and rarely did customers get away with being rude to me (less so if they stated that the customer is always right, which of course they are not). I developed an armory of the sort of come-backs that stand-up comedians might use more, and coupled with a fairly pronounced frown and a 'look' that can whither, meant that I fought back adequately in those situations. 

Then I got myself ordained. Now let me tell you - it doesn't change our emotional make-up. We are who were were before, only more so. What moderates our behaviour is the projections of others of how a minister should behave. Vicars are 'not meant to be rude', so we try not to be. Sometimes, it feels like having our arms tied behind our backs, and it is hard at times. However, I also recognise that by projection or not, the Vicar really can't say "so piss off then". Naughty. 

So we take the hit. Sunday was my first hit, and it was horrid (and saying "well, it wasn't my fault" isn't acceptable either, I believe - mostly because a gracious Vicar should not enter into buck-passing). Curates are blessed because we are not placed in that position (if we have a good trainer, as I did). Incumbents really do become un-defended by virtue of their role, because as leader-members of God is Love Plc, we have to lead by example. I am now thirty years before retirement. A lot of hits will wing their way in my general direction in that time - because I am human and I am flawed and do get things wrong, because people have a funny view that they have a right to be more direct with the clergy than others it seems, because we must rise above it, because in part it is our job. 

Let it not pass by our attention, however, that my post now makes three that talk of aggression and needless rudeness by Christians to other Christians - just saying. 

Father Shylock: Vicar

No, I am not a Mafia cash collector - but I am no less a pain to have on your Fundraising Committee. 

Actually, I am harder nosed than a Mafia cash collector.

Like or not, churches need cash like I need haemoglobin. I wish I didn't need it, but I would not get far without it and its benefits. Churches are, I am given to understand, temples of prayer and devotion to God who no more wish to have to chase shekels than I do to eat my greens and keep my red stuff red. 

"God will provide" will not keep a church open - sadly. 

In a number of parishes where I have been involved, I have found myself as the Shylock character. I am from a background in sales, and know how turn over cash. More often than not, it is no harder than simply making a case and asking. 

And here I am in a new place who have done remarkably well at raising no small amounts of wonga, and actually seemed to have been more successful by dint of a lack of Vicar. It is to the credit of a modest team of those who simply agreed to help. The reason why this is something of a revelation to me is that it is the first of the parishes that I have worked with for some time that have taken an even remotely commercial view to raising funds. That I will ask them to be greedier and altogether more demanding may come as a shock to some, maybe not.

There are probably two ways of fundraising. The first is to send an annual invoice for a thousand quid to the willing people of the congregation, shut the doors, and get a poor turnover. The other is to give value to that donation and spread it over a period of time. This is before you shake the tin at grant makers and the filthy rich. There is a danger, when in the mindset of purely fundraising (in times of major projects etc), that we under-sell the need to get hard cash. There can be a confusion with 'social event' and 'fundraiser' - both are vital in churches, and that you over price social activity or under price fundraising events. Equally, under selling the value of an event can easily undervalue the event, if you know what I mean. 

What I think I am saying, is that churches that don't have international nurture courses need to think creatively and greedily about filling the coffers. Euphemism, diffidence, coyness or simple blindness to need - they all hamper the bank-balance. 

Ask, and ye shall receive! 

What About The Rest of the Week

It is a known fact that God only works on Sundays. This is the reason why most churches only open on Sundays and why most attendees to those places of worship only do their religion on a Sunday.

It is also a known fact that a life of faith only really needs an hour a week as a booster, and that for the other days of the week, worshipping folk need not concern themselves with the God of Sundays. To best work around this, churches are closed from noon on Sundays until 7.48am on the following Sunday - time enough for the God of Sundays to be looked at, prodded and poked, sung about, and prayed to. This is also the reason why the sallow-eyed Dog-Collar folk only come out on one day of the week, in line with a carefully prepared rota to lead the prodding and the poking of the God of Sundays. 

That today is Monday need not worry you. The God of Sundays is on his day off, playing golf and attending to a little decorating. In any case, we are unlikely to visit the church, so that its doors are closed is of little consequence. Why would you open a church on a Monday anyway? What has the week-day life of those who worship the God of Sundays have to do with anything?

Parody or not, this is how it is in many places I think. Some of you will find this harsh or uncharitable, but I think in the end you will accept that I am right! In my own edifice, through no fault of anyone, and with a care to protect the goods and chattels of the parish and spare the organisation needless heating bills, it has fallen into a habit of closure or a habit of using 'secular' rooms instead of the church itself. I estimate that the church here is open no more than three hours a week - which is quite a lot more than most. It is an unfortunate symbol of the mindset of church life, that it is open for you on Sundays, but closed when you are not being religious. 

We have two issues, that can both help the other. If we are Christians all week, why don't we pop into the church and visit it on other days of the week, be it the one we normally attend or the one near where we work. There might not be a service on, but in most cases God can be found in the perfect beauty of the silence in a still church. The other issue is in the opening of our church buildings. Yes, it costs money to heat and light, and you may even need people to be there to look after the place when scallywags come knocking - but I firmly believe that a church has a duty to be open for as many hours of the days as it can possibly manage. Those who value our sacred spaces on weekdays may even help towards the cost of keeping them open, if we but asked them. Also, an open church is a church that takes people seriously on days other than Sundays - acknowledging their need for sustenance in the course of a working week. 

Push hard enough, and you may even find an ordained person in there sometimes, when they are not on the Rota!

Ricky Gervais Finds Religion

I would like to thank my Honourable Friend from Husborne Crawley for bringing this to my attention. It is a matter of considerable celebration for me and should be for all men and women of faith.

Ricky Gervais has found religion (and I don't refer to the long observed Messiah Complex of his). 

And he is also guilty of an infraction of the Trades Description Act.

Why? Let me explain. Were he an atheist, as his chest proclaims, he would have no business on the cover of The New Humanist magazine. Furthermore, were he still amusing (like the old days of the Eleven O'Clock Show when he was still funny) he wouldn't need to resort to a poor impersonation act. Had he researched in a professional manner, he would have discovered that denim emerged in around 1853, nearly two thousand years after the man he is impersonating. Also, I think that is re-working of Jesus of Nazareth is wholly too camp, and nowhere in the Bible does it suggest that the Palestinian carpenter had a collection of Scissor Sister albums. So, given that he has fallen on hard times and has to busk as a poor impressionist, I shall light a candle and pray earnestly for him and those who depend on him for their daily needs. 

Back to my contention about his place as an atheist on the cover of New Humanist (what happened to the old humanists, did they die of boredom - I wonder what they said when they got to heaven?) Look at the cover. Look at it. These people claim to have no belief in a god and have no time for religious faith - or so you would think. This cover is obsessed with it. In fact, it is a little known fact that Humanists are more concerned about God and Jesus than I am, and I am professional God botherer. Were he an atheist as he claims, he would be no more interested in Jesus than I in Ben 10. I have never appeared on a cover looking like a homoerotic Ben 10. 

The thing is, as a Christian, my time is devoted to God and all that proceeds from that encounter. Same for the Humanists - if only they were honest enough to say so. True atheists, like the ones I know, are generous hearted, open minded people who have made a choice. Then they got on with their lives. 

Yes, Mr Gervais, you have the right to offend us. Only you failed. I haven't laughed at you this much in twenty years. No, I am wrong - now am I laughing at you; I used to laugh with you quite a lot.

Disingenuous Church?

I once read a story about a businessman who, down on his luck decided to do something pro-active to save his business. He was in particular danger of losing his business, then his home, and very probably his wife and family if all went as he had foreseen. He owned a company that supplied car tyres.

His solution was, during the night, to slash the tyres of some cars in his neighbourhood. The car owners would make a claim with their insurers and  the man's tyre-replacing business would become the nominated repairer. In short, he enhanced the need for his services. In the end, he got greedy, got caught and got himself slung in Stir for seven hundred million years, lost his business, his home, his wife and kids, his freedom and his dignity. It is naughty, so the Judge proclaimed, to create a need that only you can meet. 

That is an extreme example of something that troubles me in my Christian life. I read something during the week that triggered this in my mind:

It's the power of the love of Jesus Christ, the love that conquers sin and wipes out shame ... [Hybels, 2002]

Bill Hybels is right, of course. But then I think of the Church and how we are in terms of the lives of those around us. We scamper about 'saving' people, after having judged them ourselves as 'unsaved'. We forgive the sins of people whom we judge to be sinful. The "shame" that we are called to wipe away is the "shame" that we identify - and there are times when the Church can appear like the scrawny little kid who sneers from behind the school-bully. 

The church is, in many ways, a very judgmental organisation (with never fully sits right with God is Love Plc). I remember, in my undergraduate days, being told by some Smiler in the Christian Union that sex before marriage was a sin and that I (and the assembled throng) should feel jolly wretched if we had submitted to that urge. Maybe we had and maybe we hadn't, but I think all of us felt lower than a snake's belly. Do this, you are bad. Do that, you are wrong. Do the other and you are wretched. Do something else and you will, my dear friend, burn for an eternity with the fiery Imps of Hades. Why, cos we say so (or at least that is what we interpret the Bible as saying). But don't worry, meagre sinful worm - we can wipe your shame away; you know, the shame we just gave you. 

If only those who are without sin cast the first stone (those are Jesus' words), then why are we a church so hell-bent on labelling the world as sinful and providing the nominated cure? Are not sinful ourselves? If we are not careful, a pragmatic world will cotton on to the fact that if they bypass faith altogether, the measure of their sinfulness vanishes and they will never need darken our doorsteps again. I seem to remember Jesus distancing himself from the judgmental attitudes of his Disciples. 

Maybe we should stop saving a world that God saved already - and worry about how we might be worthy of that life-changing Grace. Charity, after all, begins at home.