Moral Compass

Image courtesy of The Guardian

I am not normally one to jump on the super-hot topics in the news, but this one is perhaps the necessary exception. For those of you not from Britain, and therefore unfamiliar with the maelstrom unfolding here, please read the story here. 

In summary, it has become clear that a private detective hacked into the mobile phone mail-box of the murdered teenager, Milly Dowler - while she was still missing and before her body was discovered some months after her tragic disappearance. 

The technician at the centre of this revelation cited pressure and the expectations of the News of the World to produce results as his 'mitigation'. I grant you that he did apologise which is more than many do.

I wasn't always a priest, so know a little about the pressure of delivering results. I even acknowledge that most trades have their 'dark arts' (those ways we maximise on 'opportunities' in ways that are not necessarily recordable). In this I am a realist. I also know that a man would not have desecrated the agonies of a family searching for their missing child without the tacit approval of someone higher up the food chain. I do, though, find myself wondering how the mental processes took place. The technician at the centre of all of this, Glenn Mulcaire, must have made some choices. They will have revolved around that "all in day's work" thing, and as I am quite expecting to discover, to have been acts in line with an endemic moral failure of the newspaper concerned. 

The condemnations of Mr Mulcaire and his titian-be-curled boss are many and varied and I need not add to them, but I find myself wondering what else is ignored or tolerated in largely normal walks of life. I would gamble that most of us have been bystanders to a malpractice or two in our time (even the ones that seem minuscule by comparison); I know I have. I am normal and I have had to pay the bills, so of course I have. While we shake our heads in justifiable disgust at this greed-fuelled abuse of privacy, we may also wonder what has passed us by in the past, so that we all may not be bystanders in future.

I would contend that buying the News of the World newspaper is to condone and support the actions of Mr. Mulcaire and his employers, incidentally.

The Coming of Going

Yesterday, an insightful woman asked my what my inspiration was, quite uninvited. Here is my answer.

Yesterday was a day which I recognise as one that will take place with a regularity for which I should not be surprised. It was a day when the fragrant Mrs Acular and I sat before those who had had the the care of our children for the much of the last three years. Yesterday was their 'Report Day' as they start to make the transition from nursery to school.

Three years ago, we delivered to Aylesbury Day Nursery two nine-month old infants. They had just mastered crawling but not walking, could grasp and hold but not much more. They had yet to acquire their trademark curls or the spirit of partnership which characterises their existence. Then, two fairly immobile blobs spent their first day in 'The Setting' and yesterday we learned something of what the professionals think of our little girls. We sat in near-tearful amazement when we heard of their reasoning, creative and artistic skills. We reveled in their ability to count, to form recognisable letters, to problem-solve, to relate to others, to respond appropriately to strangers, to be warm tender human beings, and most importantly, in them being who they have grown into. Our babies are now little girls, inquisitive, vital, polite, generous, considerate and compassionate. I thank God for the life they have been able to lead so far. 

But things are going to change. Shortly, they will go to school and an entire phase of life changes. This mirrors that changes that are affecting their parents, as I bring to a conclusion something which has been as rich and forming as nursery life has been for them. Mrs Acular, sadly, has to bring something wonderful to an end - her present job. That things end is so hard, and part of all of us senses a slight resistance to the overwhelming changes that await us just around the corner. 

Wider afield, the world of social media is awash with those blessed with new ordained ministries, or the development of an existing one. I send my blessings and prayers to them - and a gentle reminder that they are some of the luckiest people alive. As a reader of this blog said elsewhere over the last few days, there is nothing that amplifies ones own sense of calling more than the affirmation of the callings of others through ordinations. 

So, my nursery days are drawing to their conclusion. There await some wonderful events where my family and I can say our 'goodbyes', and the hardest thing of all to contemplate - my last service in Aylesbury. I need to prepare a sermon for that and I am not sure quite where to start, or if I can ever hope to finish. So much to say, so little time. My wife and I chatted a little about how life is for me now when compared to life before ordination. The world is possible to me in a way that it never was before, and I know in absolute terms that I am doing what I am meant to be doing with my apportioned years. 

So, @Goannatree (the lady from Twitter who asked what had inspired me yesterday), my girls and the grace and excitement with which they are facing their transition - that is my inspiration. It's all in a day's work for them, this life-changing change stuff. I don't want to leave one place and yet I can't wait to start in another. It's a funny old time and so little of it makes sense on an emotional level. 

Following in His Footsteps

What do you think?

If it is good enough for the Archbishop of Canterbury, then it is good enough for me.

AMiE, AMiE, Give Me Your Answer, Do!

"All who believed were together and had all things in common" (Acts 2: 44)

"God is love, and those who live in love live God, and God lives in them" (1 John 4:16)

Togetherness and love are what the Church of God has in common with every normal family in all their shades. The Church family has Christ as its head, we have our Mother in the perfectly sublime Mary, and we are children, together, of the same Heavenly Father. 

The problem is that Christians in many circles have given up being together. They have stopped negotiating their differences, listening, talking, or even trying to understand. The enemy, in the minds of many Christians is not without, it is within. In so many ways, grace has become so thin that where someone is different or hold a different view, that they are considered opponents. 

The Church of England is still reeling from the wanderings of some Anglo-Catholics, who have taken entire parish communities with them, leaving behind some of the most appalling messes. Far better to conveniently overlook the whole transubstantiation thing because it is but a trifling next to the weightier issue of grubby women. People speak of integrity - I just see people refusing to play by rules that they don't subscribe to, and taking the ball with them in many cases. 

Now we have the crew at the other end of the ecclesial spectrum. Not only have they found a friendly archbishop (the nearest was in Kenya, apparently), but they have presumed to call themselves 'Anglican Mission in England' [AMiE]. Forgive me, but how dare they? Their intention is, by all accounts, to teach the rest of us flawed CofE types what we should be doing. This is, of course, wrapped around the whole 'women thing' is another family member to go it alone. Mine, too, is an Anglican Mission in England - and like FinF, have taken a statement that applies to all Christians and made it their own in the context of their choosing (and not mine).  

I am peeved by all of this. I am saddened that we have got to a stage, in a multi-communicative age, when communication is all but gone. This feels exactly how it would if one of my children, whom I lovingly raise and feed, love and nurture - came up to me and told me that because we are having salad for tea that they are going to find another Dad (but won't be moving out, because it is their room, and would I mind still paying for the heat and light). In a normal domestic family, this would be regarded as appalling behaviour, a grotesque dis-respect.

So why is it appropriate behaviour in a church setting? 

If it is, then I ought to let you all know that I have an emotional and theological issue with the music of Patrick Appleford. I am going to find me an archbishop (Archbishop Frosty Inuit, he'll do), and give myself a cracking good name: Society To Undermine Patrick's Irritating Dirges (or alternatively the Association for the Restoration of Sung Expressions of Spirituality)  - an organisation that will presume to tell the rest of you lot what to do and how you should jolly well do it. Sorted. 

I don't really have an issue with Patrick Appleford's music, not completely.

And The Truth Shall Set You Free

Those of you who know me well enough will know that I am broadly governed by gadgets. I have a desktop sat atop my desk, a palm top gracing my palm, an iTouch which very frequently I touch and a Blackcurrant, which is black. I covet an iPad and will eventually have a paddy if iDont Get1. 

Anyway, the thing is this - every once in a while, the yield of my gadgeteering life catches me up, and through the medium of the binary output, the good Lord sends me his wishes and intentions. 

Next week sees the regular and most excellent event that is the deanery chapter - a gathering of the Anglican clergy of Aylesbury and its surrounding areas. We meet, we talk, we chuckle, we leave: end of. Well, this is in the diary for this week. I say diary - actually, I mean Outlook, that noblest of Microsoft's inventions, the prince of organisers. 

So, that which is in Outlook is declared unto me in a given format - and those of you familiar with the fine estate of the Bill Gates' Empire will know that the entry on my desktop is:

0945 - 1130 Deanery Chapter

A little later I revisited the calendar entry, for fear of forgetting where on Earth I might need to go. The thing about Aylesbury and its Vale is that is very flat, except for one little tuffet upon which rests a little village called Brill. Brill is a nice place full of lovely people and worthy of note, more especially for its Rector than anything else. So, I entered the venue into the calendar entry - just to remind me when I leave the house late as often I do (the curse of blogging - when you gotta, you just haveta).

Quelle domage - bad news. I can't go to the Deanery Chapter because something else has transpired which needs me more. Sorry, Aylesbury clerics - you are going to have to cope without me this time. However, scrupulous records need to be kept, to I returned to my desk-top desktop and amended my calendar entry. The thing is, I don't like to delete things in case I still need to remember that they are or were going to happen. I may wish to pray for the event, or even re-engage with it if plans change yet more. Rather than hit 'delete', I might add 'Cancelled' or 'Not Going' to the Outlook Calendar entry, as appropriate, and so that is what I did. Imagine my surprise when Outlook took this train of events and pieced them all together, for the entry in my calendar now reads:

0945 - 1130 Deanery Chapter - NOT GOING  (Brill)

What might the Lord be telling me?

What is a Blog?

Given that today is the middle day of the year and that the evenings are starting to close in, it seems a good time to review what it is we bloggers do - blog. 

This is hard on the heels of a brief dialogue held elsewhere in the comments box on a previous post where Jonathan and I exchanged ideas very briefly.

We spun over the issue of what a blog is, whether mine or his is such a thing and how they sit in  the current manifestation of the blogosphere. I have been thinking over this issue among the many others that crowd my tiny mind, and wondered if he is right to posit that blogs, in the 'pure' form are journals or diaries. 

Most Christian blogs are strings of pearls, each comprising many distinct and separate posts about many and varied subjects. Yes, some blogs have an axe to grind or a pre-occupation, but that is perhaps to be expected. Some blogs root their posts very clearly in the needs and psyche of the blogger whereas other rarely speak of the writer at all (which is not to say that they don't tell of the writer, for they are different things entirely). This blog, for example, is one such string. Rarely (if at all) will you ever find two posts side to side that are on the same topic. This is partly because my mind doesn't work that way, and partly because I favour the unpredictable 'product' of such a blog myself. Frankly, I tire of blogs that batter on about single topics - but that is just me.

Jonathan is, I think right, in that blogs were truer to their fuller name - 'weblogs' when they were personal journals. They have been around since Jesus was a lad, and started life as early electronic bulletin boards. Since the late '90s they have evolved into and from online diaries into their present manifestation, as described above. It is claimed that there are 158million live blogs - and I am guessing that in style terms, they cover just about everything. I think that this variety is less important than the other motivation that is made manifest in blogs - statistics. 

Some bloggers do not ever speak of statistics. Some bloggers will claim that they are unimportant but will never waste an opportunity to mention their expanded array, and others are conspicuously statistically minded. As with church life, those of the different denominations (in terms of stats) are marginally suspicious of those who are different. The no-stats brigade regard the stats-crew as obsessed by exposure and numbers,   that they play to the popular audience, for example. It appears to be the case that long-term bloggers are less gripped by the numbers, and that is perhaps because in the early days [years] of blogging, bloggers remain marginally unsure of their effect. I am certainly of that disposition. Am I right? Am I wrong? Who knows - except that bloggers who bang on about numbers lots and lots are tedious - another personal view. 

So, what is a blog. Yes, once it was a diary, or a bulletin board. Today, it is just about anything that slaps the name above it. Purists will not be convinced, and the recent additions to the blogosphere will not care. In the end, the difference between the blogs is a great joy. For me, a diary blog would not float my boat unless the person writing it was significant to me in one way or another. 

What is a blog? What is the place of stats counters? Are bloggers too fixated on readers, followers and page-hits? Does it matter? Thoughts please ...

Hap Happity Birthday, to Me - Pure Blogging Gold

The use of Our Lord in this compilation is purely illustrative and not a statement by this Blogger that he is fact Jesus.