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. 

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My New Favouritist Thing In the World for Today

While all of you have been sleeping and waking, working and playing, eating and drinking, fighting and loving - a process has been taking place that few people ever see. It is a thing that takes place in deepest darkest secret, emerging complete like a mysterious creation from another world.

Well, sort of.

Today I have been mostly building services - a sort of Liturgy Construction Site where the framework of our worship has taken form. 

And it is the most fun in the world, let me tell you (unless you happen to be my Sacristan [and he reads this] in which case it is a source of much concern).

With all services and liturgies, you could open up a book, start at the beginning and get to the end, doing as directed in a blind way until it becomes just another register entry. Alternatively, you can build a living thing, that has shades of light and dark, periods of noise and silence, spells of great pathos and emotion. And so it is that I have been putting together the big services that regale the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord. I have completed Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, and rather than having formed four distinct liturgies, have crafted one liturgy in four movements. 

Fashioning liturgy is a wonderful thing, and this is the first year I have done it on this scale (for, perhaps, obvious reasons). Until now, I have picked up the book or Order of Service and done what is said. This process gives a depth to that which I finding incredibly helpful. It's in little choreographic moments that so much can be achieved in these services that we all know and love (if we know and love them) - for example, matching the three points where the Cross on Good Friday enters the church to those where the Paschal Candle enters a day later. Another is the use of the Pangue Lingua and its tune - once on Maundy Thursday, and again in echo at the time of the Veneration on Good Friday. The use of bells and their discontinuation - all these things, small and apparently accidental, give so much flavour, so much more meaning. 

Finally, I get liturgy. It is orchestral. It isn't linear as it sometimes appears or is delivered, but a beautiful movement of events that rotate, rise and fall. Needless to say, this Easter will now mean even more to me than I ever thought it could - because I have been granted a rare opportunity to shape worship (not as frequent an event in the life of a Vicar as you might imagine)

Killing the Old PCC

Kum Ba Ya, M'lud

Fret not, I am not about to emerge as the next headline after One Direction have moved aside. I have not strolled into church with my Ouzi Nine Millimeetah and popped caps into asses. No, none of that.

But ... the Old Order is no more. A new dawn breaks over Whitton.

Those of you familiar with the Parochial Church Council as an entity will know that it is a gathering of the willing who gather periodically to be talked at, either by the Vicar or else the Treasurer, or else the wind-bag who always has an argument for every occasion. They are normally constituted by the faithful and willing who, when they are elected are bright-eyes and fluffy-tailed. By the end of their tenure, they are The Haunted - characterised my sallow-eyes and rictus grin. They will have given up many hours of useful life and devoted it to sitting in and among the Windbags (see above), then dutifully getting on with the task in hand - or put another way, everything that needs doing around the place. 

The level of work covered is very distinctive at such meetings. The wattage of the bulb for use over the Decani choir stalls, so that Old Mrs Miggins cataract isn't scorched; the pile gauge and weight of the carpet sample for the littlies to sit on so that their fragile derrieres are not assaulted by the curvature of medieval stone; the correct  brand of nasty powered-coffee for use after parish events with and without liturgy; the colour of the door knob to the parish office up the stairs that no-one can climb without crampons and a rope; oh, and the pre-payment and accrual basis of the accounts in the fiscal year to date (that only a graduate accountant can fathom). Get the idea?

Well, things they are a-changing. I have never enjoyed sit-in-circles PCCs where every minute detail of every irrelevancy is discussed to the Nth degree (by three people while the remaining fourteen lose the will to live). There is much to be learned by the models established by many school Governing Bodies. 

From now on, the members of my next PCC will all belong to a committee. There will be six committees that range across all of parish life (comms, finance, pastoral, hall, buildings and fabric, children and young people). They needn't run those committees, but be critical friends and communicators (in both directions of that). They will submit reports prior to PCC meetings so that we can read them and come armed to fewer meetings, not more. There will be no such person as a PCC member who does not exist on a committee. What would be the point? In the end, it won't be the onerous duty of a dozen or so press-ganged people to run the entire show; with smaller groups working in this way, half the parish will share the fun.

Mums With Hairy Legs

Fenton?

Yesterday we had a wonderful Mothering Sunday (and once again, sorry for the wrong use of title - I blame my mothering). The whole day was a perfect reminder to pray for family life in all its array of colour, for the Blessed Virgin -  that beguiling teenager who gave herself away for the greater cause, the life of Mother Church in all her work of care and comfort, support and sustenance for the world at large. Flowers were duly distributed to all members of the congregation, without care for their status as parent or indeed gender. Mothering Sunday is a day for all, I think.

One of the great things about being a father to twins is that as a parent couple with two new babies, we both became single parents in tandem. In other words, we were called very often in the early days to one-on-one with a child while the other did the other. For one of the girls I did everything, and for the other, Mrs Acular did likewise. Despite the pressures that brought with it, it also presented a perfect opportunity for me as Dad to also be Mum - or put another way, to do everything, not just dip in and out to pick up the bits the other couldn't manage. I know several mates whose wives did or do the child-rearing while they did the bread-winning, bison-slaughtering and lawn-mowing - only to grasp a few minutes with junior at bath time.

This causes me, often, to think of parents who are left alone with children - through death, through separation, through many factors. More often than not, this arrangement is manifest in single-mums with their kids. Less often do we hear of fathers left to raise their children alone. 

The thing is, it just isn't the same. Arrangements for children (social, medical, educational, societal) are very mum-centric. I know the reasons why and I subscribe to them. However, being a dad with a kid (even if it is as a dad with kids just for the day while mum works) is tough at times. You only need try pitching up to a toddler group and you fast learn that as a testicular creature, you are in a tiny minority of (often) one. Even the toddler group in my last parish where I served as curate had me as the only male parent present. The school playground is another such place although to a lesser extent. You already know of my experiences trying to register my own children with a doctor surgery - "not without mum". Taking babies to clinics is much the same. I know why this is, and I accept it all - but neither is it easy.

And I am a man with a wife. I find it hard to comprehend how hard it must be to be a single-dad in this day and age. When toddler-groups are still familiarly known as "mother and toddler" groups, and many school networks find their genesis in NCT groups, it is easy to see that life doesn't easily provide for single dads without those men feeling like odd-ones out. The church is the same too, in part. The prayer and work for the maintenance of the family exists is whose Union? Not the Father's! 

Anyway, my reasons for writing this post (itself no more than a rumination typed) is not to judge the status quo, but to simply observe. I prayed for many facets more evidently presented in a normal Mothering Sunday, but overlooked to pray for those men who have to be mum too. For them I pray now. 

The Death of Prayerfulness

The world will not have failed to note that ++Rowan Williams, the 104th  Archbishop of Canterbury, is to release the poisoned chalice and do something else altogether more pleasant. For many of my own theological and ecclesiological persuasion this news is received with much sadness.

++Rowan, in the many little gobbets of opinion that now span the globe is already being regarded as woolly, detached and other-worldly. Put another way, he hasn't played to the press with snappy one-liners, has always remained a man of holiness and not a headline gatherer. Yes, he looks like a druid, and yes, his bonce is capped off with a barnet from another age, but so what?! I think that ordained people are, in some small way, meant to be other-worldly while ministering to the world in which they live. Are we not meant to embody the common perception of holiness in some small and meagre way? I believe that ++Rowan did and does. I doubt that he will become a back-seat complainer like his predecessor, and for that I thank the Lord, or become an irritating millstone around his successors neck. 

What perhaps saddens me most of all is that void he has now already created is become the cadaver-consuming feeding ground of the Campaigners. The pro-Bishops-with-Boobs are manoeuvering, as are the anti-Bishops-with-Boobs. The pro-Covenantalists and already twitching with the same eye-flickering rapidity with which the anti-Covenantalists are twitching. Pro-gay and anti-gay drum-thumpers alike are starting the blaze a trail for 'their man for the top'. and the Blogosphere ... I see flames even now as keyboards go overtime. 

Put another way, the campaigners are now working to overload so that the best man (and this time it can only be a man) gets the job? No - they want their victory and this change of Primate will seal the deal in minds of many of them. 

I wonder how much praying will be done as the process unfolds? And I mean proper praying and not "God, please give me what I want"  type of prayer. Sadly, my own cynicism compels me to believe that not as much as their should be. 

But Farv, I hear you cry, this is just the way the world is. These causes are important and the right choice of archbishop is important to those causes and those involved in their direction. Don't get me wrong; I am not naive and I know that Primates have much power to do good or ill. People will judge the next man on his record as they do this one - but I hope and pray (fervently, earnestly and often) that every single Christian will pray for an archbishop that will, first and foremost, lead us as a Church towards a more Christ-like life where divisions are attended to with grace on all sides and those whose aspirations are dashed by the choices we are all called to make will still feel that our wonderful Church of England can still be their home and haven of prayer. 

For my part, I pray thankfully for ++Rowan's ministry as our Shepherd. I can't imagine the cost to him and family life (knowing how much a mere priest sacrifices for his/her ministry), but I give thanks that we have been led by a man of conspicuous prayfulness and outwardly, at least, unlimited faithfulness. 

Well, That Was Jolly!

Part of my ministry is teaching. Today I taught Christians how to express themselves creatively. It didn't involve liturgy (hard to comprehend, I know), and it didn't involve prayer as we know it. This act of blessed creativity brought with it a panoply, nay a plethora of Epiphany moments  in the context of the our discussion about the relative merits of arachnids. 

It is fair to say that there was outer and inner cursing. There was modesty and self-reproach. There was some appetite to mechanise. There was considerable example setting, and yes - even the questions about the merit of the creativity in focus were heard.

But we made 200 Palm Crosses and God will see that they are good. 

I was taught how to make a Palm Cross when I was a sprog and I have even had the opportunity to teach the kids to do it (which they managed, remarkably quickly I might add). But a dozen Christians sat together in the beautiful spring sunlight that floods through our Victorian stained-glass, chatted and fashioned these little worship-devices. 

Yes, you can pay through the nose and buy them in pre-made. They look the business, all uniform, all neat and tidy. Ours have character and ours now have a far greater meaning to us. They are the work of our hands, some not as nimble as others. 

To me, moments like these are a precious gift. They are an opportunity to put aside a couple of hours with a purpose and with others (so as not to feel guilty for stopping). They are moments when people who might otherwise have sat alone at home have now sat with friends in their church when only a year ago it was firmly bolted shut. They all learned something new, and the glee that they expressed when they 'got it' was a joy to behold. I now have a dozen flock-members who can (and should) teach others this noble art next year. Saturday is posy-making for Mothering Sunday (you will notice that I got it right that time). Coming together to be and do - perfect. 

Pre-made palm crosses? Why would you!

And the pictures are amusing too, but that is a matter for us - not you!

Struggling for Stability

Sometimes you get weeks when things are busy and then there are weeks like the one I am having at present. It would be fair to say that I am working to absolute capacity this week, simply due to an un-plannable convergence of several factors - largely to do with the Occasional Offices and the needs of Lent and the imminent Passion.

As I sat in London traffic, a few days ago, bang below the landing flight-path to Heathrow, I watched a vast Boeing 747. It was a windy day - the sort you get when weather is fast approaching. It was blustery, so the pedestrians walking up and down West Hounslow's shopping streets were being buffeted all over the place.

And so was the plane. The first thing I noticed as the 600,000lb lump of aluminium descended was that despite appearing to be progressing gracefully in a very straight line (as they all seem to do when they descend), it was in fact flying at a rather odd angle into the wind. It was, to a lesser extent, flying sideways. The next thing I noticed is that as the people on the High Street were being jostled, so was this jet. As it approached my position, the effects of the wind upon it became more noticeable. It was being knocked all over the place. The wing on one side suddenly lifted and the plane made a perceptible slide to the other side. It corrected and the next salvo of invisible air came upon it. In every way, the plane was struggling just to maintain that air of graceful line-drawing to the ground.

As I sat in the car my first reaction was "I know how you feel, plane". The job of ministry is characterised by being very unpredictable. One week has the sense of being "quiet", with time to read and ponder. An hour later and the customary scan of the answer-machine, and a week of abject chaos ensues. In many ways, I have to be seen to be dignified and maintaining course. I don't think that the people of the parish need to be troubled with my wrestling with time and duty - that is not the relationship we have. When the fingertips have the feeling of losing grip in the crumbling edges, I have to look for all the world like I am stood on granite. 

To be sure I am not complaining - simply observing.  There are weeks like this, and all matters squeezed into each one is a privilege. It is just nice to know that at times I am not the only one ... as if I ever was!




As an aside, I have been amused to note that my ditty last week about One Direction has now been viewed in excess of 70,000 times. Such is the unpredictable Interweb!

Get it Right, Farv

It is my sad duty to report, dear readers, that I caused consternation nay upset within the ranks of none less than the Mother's Union. This is a precarious place for a Vicar to be as it is widely known that the Mother's Union wields more real authority in the church than Opus Dei. The Mum's Onion here is a lovely group of the lovely, and to wound them wounds me. 

But I can read your mind. What did Farv do that was so heinous? Surely the incumbent didn't take Mary Sumner's name in vain. Surely the priest didn't propose the formation of a Father's Union? None of the above, friends; none of the above. I just did what I have always done.

I referred to March 18th as Mother's Day and not as Mothering Sunday (Heaven forfend that I should have ventured down the 'Refreshment Sunday' route). No, this was my transgression and during the Lent Course did my folly unfold. I was told. Straight. 

It did raise an interesting debate-ette actually (a debate between the one speaking and the silence of my inner-monologue). I could see her point too, in truth. 

It was claimed, very graciously I must add, that the name Mother's Day diminishes the day in a way that Mothering Sunday does not. That Mothering Sunday speaks of the ministry of all women, be they blessed with children or otherwise. That Mothering Sunday sanctifies the work of motherhood embodied by, yes, Mother Church. The extension of the argument was that "Mother's Day" is a term of the commercialized as "Father's Day" is - a ploy to sell overpriced Daffs and naff cards for Muvva. They are all very valid comments and I don't have an argument against any - and neither do I seek any. 

This post is not really about the essence of debate that exists within the heart of this - but more an observation how the change in language has an impact on others. I didn't want anything to cause aggravation; quite the opposite as I value all that Mothering Sunday stands for - but how easily some things can founder on the detail. 

I won't have a word said against my ladies either - they are lovely. 

By The Holy Innocents we Shall be Brought Low

It seems that the only time that you hear about priests in the press these days, they have been arrested for something or have outraged someone. Sadly, it seems to be the case that when priests are in the news following their arrest, that it is for alleged offences against children. 

Sadly, two priests known to me personally were in the news yesterday. They were two priests who ministered in the town where I grew up, and whose ministries had some contact with my own growth and development as a Christian. I cannot say whether or not they are guilty of the allegations made against them, but I pray for all concerned. Neither is this the first time. I have known several priests who have been subject to similar allegation and investigation, and to date the ones that I know have all been cleared of any wrong-doing. The fact is, that if a priest is hauled public, it seems to be for transgressions (alleged or actual) against children. 

I don't believe that the priesthood is the preferred life for those who would act wrongly against children. I accept too that a priest abusing that trust is a very exciting headline for the world who would seek to see us as other-world oddities. I do wonder, though, if there is any such thing as spiritual warfare (and I can offer no real view either way), that the powers of darkness seem to do most of their damage to Christian priests and their ministry through children and young people - by temptation and transgression, or by false allegation many years later. 

The first thing I would say is that if you are reading this and engaged in anything that could haunt you in several decades time, to stop and put matters right now by whatever appropriate means. The second thing is to say that it is becoming harder and harder to work with children because there is an increasing fear of what will be claimed when we are old men and women. Needless to say, those who were cleared of allegations were still left with their ministries (very publicly)  in tatters and their life much the same. I sometime genuinely fear that being a caring human being (priest or not), and one who will offer comfort at a range closer than ten feet, will leave me open to allegation later. 

My last word, though, should be to remember those children who have faced abuse in their lives - be that from priests or anyone else. Whatever happens to priests who are in fact guilty is nothing when compared to the damage, hurt and betrayal experienced and felt by the children. Prayers for them should be our loudest in all of this. 

The fact is, I would prefer it that the Devil used something else (you know, embezzlement or something like that) to knacker priests - not little children. 

One Direction and the Priesthood

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you One Direction, a floppy-haired boyette-band of boys who share two common distinctions: the first is that as solo artists they failed to win a singing contest and as a put-together Cowellesque boyette-band, they failed to win a singing contest. Still, lickle ickle girls like them and they do have floppy doppy hair, so that is alright. 

But why are these new princes of disposable muzak adorning this hard hitting theological publication (pah)? 

While I was with the family on our little holiday last week, it came to pass that this conglomeration of the pre-pubescent actually won something - a Brit award. And good for them - truly. They are committed to doing something, they haven't gone Cocozza and they seem to add to the world, not detract. Well done them (I have to take this view now because I fear that their faces will the ones that will adorn my daughter's Anaglypta very soon).

I confess, though, that as I recieved this news from the Brit Awards, I nearly inhaled my Mocha and pebble-dashed the wife's face with it. Why? Because they are a product of the skill of others. They are given a song written by a gifted song-writer that they sing into a computer that filters it for quality - a computer in the hands of a gifted producer who spews the end result into a beautifully well-oiled marketting machine. That song will have been accompanied by qualified and gifted musicians who went to school and college and everything. The song in question is funky and annoyingly catchy - I don't like it one bit, but I was hardly going to - and now a prize-winner. In short, the wife and I concluded that One Direction were not much more than the processing mechanism for the good work of others - a little like a floppy doppy Pentium chip. 

As I supped my very large (and woefully expensive) Mocha, having railed at the news that Pentium Pop had won a prize, I considered how much different One Direction are to your average everyday priest Vicar type bod. Are we not, in some ways, be-collared processors of all that our members offer to God? Unlike a colleague who actually describes himself in terms of being The Big Voice in his community, I regard the role of Vicar to not be the star. I set the scene, conduct the orchestra, move a flock around and sling some hay around the place. What I am not is the virtuoso violinist, or the gifted chef - more the maitre d'. My job is to ensure that everyone else shines - and when it is I who do that first and foremost, it is then that I am getting it wrong. 

Unlike One Direction, I will not receive a Brit for being Vicar - any more than I would with my singing. However, we like them are not stand-alone stars - we are where we are by virtue of the skills and gifts of so many more people, and very often despite our own shortcomings. 

And I would look even dafter than I do now with a hairdo like that! 

Fighting for People over Theology

The world of the Church of England is peppered with great collisions of people, all fighting for a particular corner. Last week I recieved not one, but two questionnaires spammed to me by a Vicar himself a member of the Evangelical Alliance (who are not right set on the issue of 'gay marriage' [sic]). It would be fair to say that they really don't like the idea at all, not one little bit, no. 

Fine. A view is a view and an opinion is an opinion. I have several. 

Flit across to the next table and you will find good people becoming quite narky about a document. It is becoming increasingly important where you stand (or sit) on this issue, and which fancy website you will subscribe to. Many of these people are Vicars. 

On the next table, there is yet another scuffle concerning the consecration of ladies as bishops - and that debate is causing much aggro between people of the two opposing sides. In some ways, you are in or you can sod off - from either side of the proverbial coin. Many of those involved in that debate are Vicars. 

Last year, the whole lady-issue caused many people to re-evaluate their basic sacramental theology in a knee-jerk reaction to breasts in cassocks and change teams. Many of them were Vicars (or bishops), and did what to my mind was a terrible thing, and ripped entire parishes from top to bottom as they did their little flit with half the congregation (sod the remaining lot - they didn't agree with us anyway). 

Once again I say - we all have opinions. We have a right to them and we are free to express them to a level appropriate to our context. But this is where my concern comes to light. When we were ordained, did we agree to fight for causes over people, or were we called and ordained to minister to people despite the causes and opinions that they hold? Were we called to feed all the sheep, or just the ones whose wool we prefer? Before anyone tells me that the differing views of others doesn't mean that they love them any less, let them hold their tongue before they fork it. They may well be telling a porky-pie, if we are deeply and truly honest. 

I sort of wonder whether priests/ministers are not called to rise above all this stuff, just a little, and put personal opinion aside in favour of service. I am sure that in Downton Abbey Mr Carson wouldn't enjoy all the meals he is called to serve - but it is his job to put the food on the table. He is entitled to his view, and to express it - in the right place. Needless to say, he would be ill-advised to refuse to serve it. 

My job, I believe, is to he there for anyone and everyone as they have need for my service. If I am too busy locking thuribles or NIVs with other clergy, I would fail in that. My job is to pray for the debate, that God's will be done - not to pick up a stone and throw it. 

Just saying.