Bayern munich FC

Real madrid FC

Giving and Keeping

As ever after a gathering of the deanery clergy, I am left with a few ponderances. This is a good thing, I think. Today we met in sumptuous surroundings, over a glorious meal in regal splendour for a gathering that, in part, was dedicated to a talk from the Church Urban Fund (there are almost certainly some interesting comparisons to be drawn between venue and content, but that is not for here). It has been a good morning, and it is always a joy to chew the fat with other priests and ministers. 

As part of the offering from Kerry of the CUF was the innate plea for dosh, for wonga, for some green, coin if you will. And so it was that we all went around our Anglican circle and said how well (or otherwise) we were doing. 

There were some who were doing sterling charitable work but weren't able to pay their own bills. This is laudable in the extreme but also begs the odd question. Does charity begin at home or not?

My parish is a charity and I bust my reverential buns to make sure that it has a lively income, well invested, appropriate Gift Aided - so that the ministry and purpose of this charity thrives. CUF is a charity and its officers do likewise for its ministry and purpose. Now - how would it be if the Church Urban Fund donated some of the money it is chasing hard from me and gave it to the favoured charity of the CEO, which could be for sake of example, Kalashnikov Anonymous. Would I be happy donating to KA myself? No. It asks the question, therefore, if a charity should donate. 

I believe very strongly that I have a responsibility to my parishioners and the diocese to pay our share of the responsibility. After all, they pay me and they house my family. Paying our 'share' is equivalent of paying the mortgage - it is something that you just must do. Would I, as a private individual, say to my bank - sorry I couldn't pay my mortgage last year, but I helped some puppies find homes. I doubt that would prevent foreclosure.

To be Christian is, by definition, to have a heart to serve. This creates an issue, a conflict therefore in our hearts. Do we serve, or are we the service?  Do we give to charity with  money we have raised charitably or do we receive it as a gift to enable the work we do? Do we donate to charity before we successfully pay all our bills? Do those who give money to us as churches expect that we can do without that money? Do we misrepresent ourselves when we say that we need the money, only then giving to another organisation that is often taking donations from our donors too?

So many question to which I don't have the answer. The only thing I am sure of though is that we must pay our way first - and then choose what to do with the surplus (a nice problem to have, and a source of aspiration for most of us).

Suffrage and the Church

I haven't been a priest for an awfully long time, and I have only been an incumbent for a very short time - but in the years I have existed within parish structures, I have been convinced of the cause of the gentle degradation of that noble body - the parochial church council.

I wrote a while ago about how, here, we will do things a little differently when the next session of the PCC begins. That was not all I believed needed adjustment for the Council to be effective in its work. The other factor, I believe, surrounds the right that the members of the electoral roll possess but rarely ever have a real chance to use - their vote. 

I am not talking of the pack animal arm-in-air type voting. I am referring to a meaningful election where everyone gets a chance to make a difference. The degradation of the valency of the parish council surrounds the following process:

• The PCC is overworked with the minutiae of parish life
• It becomes an unattractive proposition 
• Insufficient people stand for the vacancies at the next session
• To make up numbers arms are twisted
• Just enough people stand for election for the vacancies to be filled
• They get elected en bloc and very much en passant
• No-one remembered who was on the PCC if you ask them after the fact
• The PCC becomes detached from parish life
• ...and a cycle of insufficient nominations for vacancies perpetuates
• Start at the top

My feeling is that an election where, unfortunately, people may lose and not be elected is vital to the health of a PCC and in many ways to the parish. The reasons for this are simple - the people who have the vote are then caused to use it, and become an active part of the process rather than a passive member of the crowd. They get to exercise their responsibilities under that suffrage too. We had an election yesterday here, and yes, people were not elected. I bet that those who were at the meeting will be able to name the new PCC though - and that is a start in itself. 

When I was young (in my teens), the PCC of which I was a member was routinely formed in a contested election. It was, perhaps not by chance, a time of great growth in that parish. Oddly, growth seemed to diminish as the PCC seemed to stop being elected. This may be chance, but there is also a chance that it wasn't. Perhaps winning in an election was an attractive prize (it certainly felt good as a 17 year old), and maybe that sense of satisfaction was enough to get the parish 'heart' pumping - but whatever it was, it seemed to make a very considerable difference. 

Vernacular Venetian Ventures

Please forgive the radio silence of late, but it seems that the economy of God's most holy Kingdom and Mission  is contingent upon us have Annual General Meetings!

Oh, and we have been away.

So, here goes - the Vernacular Guide to three days in Venice. 

1. Arrive in Venice before lunch - eating is a good way of assimilating the cost of things, and an easy way to try out the language and not make too much a Muppet of oneself. If the weather is nice and you have previously resigned yourself to bankruptcy, arrive in style on a river taxi - a speed boat all of your very own. You will feel like the Duke of Earl and you don't have to attain proximity to the armpits of fellow travellers at this early stage. There is no better way to enter Venice the first time!

2. Spend all afternoon walking around every and anywhere. An early ascent up the Campanile is recommended as it will give you a chance to actually come to terms with the fact that you have stepped into a postcard. We didn't queue for long, and again, it is another opportunity to learn that the money you once had is soon to be taken from you like daylight robbery! Time it right and the bells will deafen you! It is also a lot chillier up there, so don't be a fruit-loop like me and cast aside the warmer garments!

3. Explore hither and yon - grab coffee and don't worry about grabbing a seat. Coffee is received on the hoof in Venice and you prop up a bar much like the stubbly geezers at my local. It is, though, good coffee and typically administered short and black. Take in the promenade in front of the Doge's Palace - to be standing before 'that view' is just a little weird at first. The streets that project from St Mark's Square are loaded with the finest boutiques and if, like me, you find masks a little disconcerting, be prepared for a full onslaught of a million of the buggers. Masks everywhere, including those dark ones with beaks. Actually, there are some wonderful things to admire - lots of glass, lots of art, some Dali stuff: browse at leisure. For me, it was no less good time than the paid-for tours - just meandering. 

4. Food - I am not made of money and neither is Mrs Acular, so we entered the food-chain lower down. There are lots and lots of places to eat, many selling very good fish dishes (I am told). I wanted to eat Italian food in Italy to plonked for lasagne and the like - it is really is a lot better than home. Expect to pay around £75-£100 per couple before any volume of booze, and don't forget that a meal in Europe is expected to be paced over a whole evening. Oh, and 'service' (12% for us) is not the tip. 

5. Day Two - an absolute must is a vaporetto ticket (a 12 hr one will suffice). The Vaporetto is the river-bus-boat-thing and a ticket will allow a hop-on hop-off endeavour. Just explore Venice and the Islands at leisure. Murano is worth a stop as it the island where the famous glass industry is based (oddly enough) - oh, and its church has a stunning brand new huge icon of Christ on the Cross. Needless to say, a schlep up and down the Grand Canal is a must. Again, you will enjoy that odd sense of being on a movie set or within an arty text-book again. Questions like: "am I really here looking at this?" will haunt you. Yes. You are. Lunch is cheap if you grab a bread roll and a coffee (take-away), and two such lunches will leave you change from a twenty. For dinner find a new restaurant, and as a rule of thumb (in any place you may care to visit in this world), if the menu is laminated and bears pictures of the dish, it is likely to be questionable. 

5a - Day Two if it is a Sunday - get into as many of the stunning churches as you can, but don't forget that they are mostly active and will have services going on. But they are probably the most beautiful edifices in the world, kept open all the time even with the metal-work on full display. No English fear of robbery there! Sadly, in my visit to many churches, only one church was locked: the Anglican one. 

6. Day three - Tours day. There is a plethora of tours and other means by which the tourist industry of Venice will squeeze you dry. Our choice was between two short tours or a full-day one. The former combination set us back a hundred quid. The latter would have doubled that. In the end, we plonked for a visit of San Marco's Basilica and also of the Doge's Palace (the full day would have added a gondola ride, a tour of the Canal and some other bits and bobs). The Basilica is stunning inside and out, if you can overlook the fact that you are wedged cheek-by-jowel with loud teenage students, rude adults and pongy punters. It really is cattle-class, but it is the only way as every lens-wielding wannabe photographer in the whole of the whole world is also in there with you. You will guided towards the Pala D'Oro, a pretty altar frontal made of gold. It is, apparently, the highlight of the tour and those of you of a Christian disposition will notice that no-one bothers with the body of none other than St Mark of Gospel fame. I stood within feet of his relics the days before his feast day. I was the only one who venerated him or paid any attention to him - everyone else seemed more interested in the medieval frontal. Now - if you are reading this and think it is clever to take pictures in a church, over relics or during a service, know that you are a pratt. Enough Said. The second tour was to the Dodge Palace (as we quickly referred to it). Fascinating. You will stand before art that will blow your mind. Soak it up! Oh - if you like Salvador Dali (and I do, a lot), there is an exhibition in town of the genuine stuff. Visit it. 

6a - A Restaurant to try: we ambled aimlessly between hundreds of places, until we stumbled over a small and apparently modest affair, a jazz restaurant near Rialto Bridge (a bridge that, in itself, didn't do anything for me and I still find myself wondering what the fuss is all about). I am not a fan of jazz, or at least I wasn't until I went in there. The food was good, the service exemplary, the waiter entertaining and gracious (and he kept giving us free drinks), and it was the best evening we had (or have had for some time). Highly recommended: Bacaro Jazz Restaurant and cocktail bar (the limonicello with vodka was nice too)

7. Day Four: Go home - plan well as leaving Venice is either costly by taxi or time consuming by vaporetto. We opted for the latter in driving rain. To breakfast in Venice and lunch in London is a funny thing - but that is for another post. 

Manchester United Wallpapers

 

Logo Manchester United

Logo Manchester United

Logo Manchester United

Logo Manchester United

 Manchester United Wallpaper

  Manchester United Wallpaper

 Pemain Manchester United

  Pemain Manchester United - Wallpaper

George Carey Gets Lairy

Courtesy of paulvallely.com

Those of you who know me know well what I think of anything that smacks of passive-aggression. It is a scourge, a curse and a flim-flammery - the shadow in the blogosphere and the peril that threatens the very credibility of Christianity in this country. There is nothing worse than an individual or organisation licking its non-existent wounds and baying like a wounded puppy in the wake of injuries that just don't exist. 

I am a loyalist, as you know. I respect the place and persons of the episcopacy, and regard myself as duty-bound by my Orders to respect those in ecclesial authority. I am not one who comfortably launches invective at senior bishops! But I will make an exception ...

It is Easter. It is a time of joy, hopefulness, new life, bursts of new faith, and all-round rapturous happiness in the lives of us God-botherers. My church was full this Easter, literally. The God of the Resurrection is all mighty, all powerful, all loving, has the plan sorted, can be trusted, knows what He is doing, built things like mountains and stars and that, and on the whole is not going to be easily supplanted. Oh no - not one bit of it. 

And yet my Lord and sometime Archbishop of Canterbury perceives a threat to it all. From the secularists who seem to want it all their own way, apparently. George says 'no'. Once again, it seems that the entire Missio Dei hinges on whether some lovey wears her crucifix on the outside of her uniform rather than under it. It seems that God's entire universal purpose in the whole of Creation is threatened when people are stopped from unilaterally imposing their own theologies on others. Want to do something? Only if I agree with your moral fibre, sir! Then I will allow you. 

What the world needs is love, love, love. The Christianity in England that will die is a Christianity that imposes its rights before love. The Christianity that will die in England is the Christianity that says 'our way or the highway'. Christianity in England will die when our Gospel message is contingent on one soul wearing a piece of jewelry as a definitive sign of belief and fights tooth and nail when that company or organisation (who pays them a salary , but let's no quibble over details) chooses to disagree (as they do for all such baubles). Whining in public about how hard-done by we are is a sure fire way of saying that God and all God's enormities are somehow threatened by the whiles of Secularists and Dawkins type folk. It is the same, exactly the same, as a heavy-weight champion boxer complaining that a toddler just hurt him with a slap on the shins. 

Jesus Christ is Risen, Alleluia - and His church is as alive, vital and unapologetic as ever it was (save for a few individuals who know not how to pick their fights - who are making us look marginally stupid)

Real Madrid Wallpapers

Real Madrid Wallpaper

Logo Real Madrid

 Real Madrid Wallpaper

 Real Madrid 2012 Wallpaper

Logo Real Madrid Wallpaper

 Logo Real Madrid Wallpaper

Logo Real Madrid

Logo Real Madrid Wallpaper

 Real Madrid 2012 Wallpaper

 Real Madrid Wallpaper

Christ is Risen, Alleluia, Alleluia

Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing, choirs of angels!

Exult, all creation around God's throne!

Jesus Christ, our King, is risen!

Sound the trumpet of salvation!

Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor,

radiant in the brightness of your King!

Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!

Darkness vanishes for ever!

Rejoice, O Mother Church! Exult in glory!

The risen Savior shines upon you!

Let this place resound with joy,

echoing the mighty song of all God's people!

My dearest friends,

standing with me in this holy light,

join me in asking God for mercy,

that he may give his unworthy minister

grace to sing his Easter praises.

The Lord be with you.

And with your spirit.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them up to the Lord.

 Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right and just.

It is truly right

that with full hearts and minds and voices

we should praise the unseen God, the all-powerful Father,

and his only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

For Christ has ransomed us with his blood,

and paid for us the price of Adam's sin to our eternal Father!

This is our passover feast,

when Christ, the true Lamb, is slain,

whose blood consecrates the homes of all believers.

This is the night

when first you saved our ancestors:

you freed the people of Israel from their slavery

and led them dry-shod through the sea.

This is the night

when the pillar of fire destroyed the darkness of sin!

This is the night

when Christians everywhere,

washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement,

are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.

This is the night

when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death

and rose triumphant from the grave.

What good would life have been to us,

had Christ not come as our Redeemer?

Father, how wonderful your care for us!

How boundless your merciful love!

To ransom a slave you gave away your Son.

O happy fault,

O necessary sin of Adam,

which gained for us so great a Redeemer!

Most blessed of all nights,

chosen by God to see Christ rising from the dead!

Of this night scripture says:

"The night will be as clear as day:

it will become my light, my joy."

The power of this holy night dispels all evil,

washes guilt away, restores lost innocence,

brings mourners joy;

it casts out hatred, brings us peace,

and humbles earthly pride.

Night truly blessed when heaven is wedded to earth

and the world is reconciled with God!

Therefore, heavenly Father,

in the joy of this night,

receive our evening sacrifice of praise,

your Church's solemn offering.

Accept this Easter candle,

a flame divided but undimmed,

a pillar of fire that glows to the honor of God.

(For it is fed by the melting wax,

which the mother bee brought forth

to make this precious candle.)

Let it mingle with the lights of heaven

and continue bravely burning

to dispel the darkness of this night!

May the Morning Star which never sets

find this flame still burning:

Christ, that Morning Star,

who came back from the dead,

and shed his peaceful light on all the world,

your Son, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

Amen.

Concerning My Loathing of Stained Glass

Actually, I like stained-glass windows; just not stained-glass Christianity. 

The Passion is a time when the Mrs Alexanders of this world conspire to annoy  me. "There is a green hill far away without a city wall". I ask you - green? Jerusalem? Not the Jerusalem that I visited that was parched and arid. Green Hill? Hardly, love. 

If this were Room 101, I would surely consign Stained-Glass Christianity to that deep pit. Why? Because all glass should be clear or frosted? No. Because it depicts a story in a manifestly sanitized way. 

Windows depicting the events on the Golgotha are a pertinent case in point. You have your cross, all neat and clean. you have your Jesus, all fair and wind-swept - almost dashing. His face is clean, his natty little head-piece set to a jaunty angle. He is often depicted in neat baggy Speedos, wrapped around a muscular, six-pack enhanced physique. It must be that between Gethsemane and Gabbatha, Jesus popped over for an hour at the weights at Gold's Gym. 

The Christmas images are the same. Mary is often a pretty woman in her late twenties, in robes more expensive than Bill Gates could afford. Jesus is always a plumpling, clean and as Caucasian a child as ever there was. The manger is a twee little magazine rack full of my guinea-pig's straw bedding, the donkeys have floppy eyelashes and the moo-cows seem to smile.

It

Was

Not

Like

That

I know that argument for this is artistry, or that the alternative would have wounded sensibilities. Sensibilities Schmensibilities. Artistry Schmartistry. Stained-Glass Shamed Glass.

Now, as a thing to have in ones church I like these windows a great deal, just not the way that they clean up the act, purify the filth, sooth away the agonies, wash the linen, beautify the traumatized. Little wonder people don't 'get' Good Friday let alone a snotty dribble-covered manger stone. If people could be allowed to learn of the horrors implicit in our Gospel stories, they might just start to get the extent and depth of the whole thing. 

"There is a green hill far away ..."

No there bloody well isn't.

And So it Begins

Time to write during the course of this year has been scarce, and even more so as we step closer to the events of the Triduum.

The Lenten journey is epic, if done with any sense of purpose, and brings with it a renewal in the understanding that we have in the stories of our Scripture. Without a good Lent, there is a very real danger that the events we recollect in the days to come will be little more than fancy legends.

Palm Sunday explodes into a Lenten backdrop and having been denuded of our 'Alleluias' of late, find the arrived of our 'Hosannas' to be thrilling. Processing in all the garb and pomp around the church grounds may seem like an eccentricity to a passer-by, but to us who have walked Lent, it truly is a festival day. Barmy we may appear with our floppy palm branches, but joyous we certainly are. Changed too, if the faces on the crowd were anything to go by last Sunday lunchtime.

Today I have wrestled with sermons, devotions, liturgies and paper. Maundy Thursday has arrived, and despite being a feast of celebration, brings with it the roll of clouds on the horizon. We know that we will enter the church in White and Gold, but we try hard not to think about the desecration that will follow. Anyone who experiences the brutality of the Stripping of the Altar in out liturgy will have found it hard not to feel what is happening, as real in our day as in Jesus'. Only for mere moments in a whole year do we find a chance to sit, one-to-one, with Jesus. The perfume of flowers, the semi twilight of candlelight, the near silence of a church in watchful prayer - a sensory treasure if any existed. A pure moment in a faith journey. 

Good Friday is always a funny one. We are left with so little after the robbery of Maundy Thursday, yet we find the most meaning in lots of ways. We are forced, as worshipers, to cope without the beauty and the 'things' of our faith's practice. We are called to look on the agony of one man, almost certainly younger than any of us, as his body is smashed before our eyes. My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Father, why have you left me here to die? For those of us who will lay face down on ground, there is a sense that would be better if we were spared having to get up and proceed. The hardest thing, for the onlooker, is the lack of reverence. We are a processional people, a well-behaved gathering - yet we leave in disarray, in chaos - as the church doors are bolted fast and we are left with nowhere to go. 

Darkness gives way to light on Holy Saturday. The darkness of death is conquered by the nullifying light of new life. A tiny spark of light on beeswax announces the Resurrection of our Saviour. The light pours across the church and the lullaby of the Exsultet is sung, pronouncing the arrival, finally, of Easter. Light explodes over the entire gathering and life is restored. The journey to new light is complete, accomplished. Dreams have come true. 

The amount of work that we all put in at this time of year is a fit reminder of the real significance of the events that lay ahead. This isn't just another Triduum, it is the Triduum. It is our Triduum. 

And may the betrayed, crucified and Risen Lord bless us all.

All In A Vicar's Day

The following letter is fictitious (although the real one is very much expected), and reflects a real event in recent days.

Dear Mr Vicar

I am writing to you because I am disgusted by an incident that took place outside my house last week. 

Imagine my surprise when I left my house only to find a large black vehicle parked in the road at the front of my property. I am given to understand that it's occupants were inside your building being religious, or something. Living directly outside a church, I would have expected far more considerate behaviour, and I especially chose a house nearest the front gate because it is the most picturesque view of the church. It doesn't harm the house prices around here either, but that is not the point. 

I can only write in exasperation to express to you the profound inconvenience and deep distress that your appalling lack of consideration caused me; I had to drive eighteen feet out of my way to visit my dear old mother, and that. Don't let that fact that my drive was not obstructed diminish my sense of great distress. That the aggressive man (who, even on a warm and sunny day, chose to wear a black suit - so clearly odd) told me to be grateful that my dear old mother was still alive only adds to my pain.

I will, of course, be taking this case to the European Court of Human Rights. How dare you use your front gate to carry in dead bodies. How dare you allow those cars to stop there while they do so; it's not like its a space dedicated to deliveries, and that. This is simply not the behaviour I expect from a church. 

Enclosed are the photographs that I took. It is a pity that so many of the bystanders looked so gloomy, even tearful, on such a warm and sunny day. They were clearly strange, because they were wearing black. However, they did move aside for me as I took my pictures - including the one of that pretty cabinet you were having delivered. 

I await your response, and offer of compensation for the trauma suffered by me last week. I was always happier when your building was locked and only used by those nice people with their own keys.

Yours in a paddy

Juanita  Fleschov de Preest

Please Don't Panic (Much)

I mostly have me a fum

News is emerging of a possible faith shortage over the critical Easter Season. Reports suggest that priests are preparing for industrial action over plans to make them go to church on Easter Day - a day that the law prohibits most businesses from opening. 

In an effort to assuage the growing sense of concern over possible faith shortages, the Prime Minister, Mr Lord David of Cameron said

"If there's an opportunity to top up your prayers if a strike is potentially on the way, then it's a sensible thing if you're able to do that," 

In an effort to be helpful, lesser known politician Maud Francis commented, that in order to avert a possible situation of shortage in faith that we keep

I mostly have me five fums

"a little Bible in the garage as well"

Commenting outside St. Paul's Cathedral following Humanist Morning Prayers with Vigil and Exposition of the Dawkins Relic, one such Humanist Norbert Wedontbelieve accused Messrs Cameron and Francis of causing a faith panic and driving people in Churches. One woman is said to have been converted to Christianity as she placed a Bible in the garage. 

Meanwhile, Lambeth Palace are preparing to redecorate.

Rediscovering Facebook

The one thing that is hard about public ministry as a stipendary priest is that, by definition, we work away from where we grew up and away from circles of friends that we have built over time. It is easier for me in some ways because Mrs Acular and I have been relatively nomadic for over the last decade or so, so friends tend always to be at a distance, geographically speaking. 

This is another way of saying that in the wake of priest's lives is a litany of names of friends long neglected and rarely seen. 

Today I sat for half an hour waiting for the fruits of my loins to learn not to drown.They are achieving this well and so I can withdraw from the Pool of Drowning safe in the knowledge that they will once again prevail. However, half an hour is insufficient time for anything other than idle daydreaming over a caffeine infusion of one sort or another.

Today I sat with my Gadget of Choice and pawed over the Facebook thing, and did something that I have never done before. I opened up my 'Friends' page and scanned down the list. On iPad, the pictures are big (rather that diddly little thumbnail shots) so I was able to see faces as opposed to blurry figures of people that looked vaguely familiar. It was a wonderful thing to have done.

The Facebook detractors would say that we gather 'Friends' from among those who we really have no connection, have never met and would never want to. I am one such detractor. I have claimed, on this blog, that we only really know a fraction of the plethora of folk we claim as Friends on Facebook - that the rest are a kind of statistical stocking filler. I think I was wrong in that assertion.

As I looked down the long list, I saw many faces. They are the faces of people I have either grown up with, people I have worked with, people I have sat behind a pint with, people who I love, people who I respect, people who knew me when I was a boy, as a man, as a retailer, as a theological student, as a worshipping Christian, as a blogger, people I have known all of my life and people who (although I may not have met them at all in person) are those with whom I have connected and remain so. In short, everyone on my Friends list is someone significant to me, someone who has a meaning in the context of my unworthy existence.

As I fast approach my 40th birthday (noting the many of my school friends who have already passed that great and momentous occasion), I often wonder 'where it all went'. I have a wonderful family, beautiful wife and kids, the work I was born to do, a wonderful context in which to do that work - and a Facebook Friends list. If I wondered 'where it all went', I needn't have worried. It isn't about the moments always, but about those faces and the encounters we have shared. 

Disposable Laity

Someone very close to me wrote a blog post recently about the fact that she is, after six years, laying down her role as Churchwarden. If you want an interesting perspective on life in church, please read Doorkeeper's post here. It is a simple post, expressed well and offers a side to parish life that many experience. 

The nice thing about being "the Vicar" is that (Common Tenure allowing) we can hover around in a parish like a bad smell for decades. Because we feel called to? No; because we enjoy it and it works for us or our families to stay. Let there be no illusion there. We stay for us most of the time.

In a well run parish, this is broadly where it ends, unless the small matter of a wage or salary is brought to bear - but again, very often those people stay not because of calling, but because of economic reasons. It is our wonderful laity who step forward to do jobs around church who are called to it. They are there through that calling, with any luck take some pleasure from it, but in all cases do it in the context of their freely given spare time. This is the case for the lovely person who might polish a brass every month, who serves at the Altar on a rota-approved basis, or the kindly person who simply prays for the parish and her life. It is the same for Churchwardens too. 

Churchwardens, in most parishes I think, have a tenure. That is to say that they can hold office for a given period of time, having then to relinquish it and give to the next person. This is a good thing on many levels as we all know of Wardens who were in post six or seven years after they were clinically dead. Accounts of Warden who gripped steadfast to their staffs for decades are not uncommon, and rarely accounts filled with glee and happiness. 

So, dear reader, we have members of our wonderful laity who give their time freely, as a result of their sense of God's calling who - in the end - have to stop that work and give it away. Many have no choice at all in that, including Wardens. 

Reading Doorkeeper's account is helpful because it reminds people like me that such transitions are not painless. When you give your all to something, it is difficult to stop if those years have been good (as they were in Doorkeeper's case). What do they do afterwards? How do they re-integrate back into parish life in a revised way after a period of holding much authority? How do they fill the many hours that they previously gave, not to the parish in question, but to God? Vicar's (myself included) preside over these moments, and I will do so this session with a Warden of my own who ran her own Interregnum. Doorkeeper's post is a timely reminder that it isn't just puffed-up priests who hurt when the job stops or has to change. We forget that to our peril and to the pain and cost to our vital lay volunteers. 

Windows 7 Wallpapers | HD

Windows 7 Wallpaper | HD

 Windows 7 Wallpaper

 Windows 7 Wallpaper

 Windows 7 Wallpaper

 Windows 7 Wallpaper

 Windows 7 Wallpaper

 Windows 7 Wallpaper

 Windows 7 Wallpaper

 Windows 7 Wallpaper