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.

The Birth Pangs of A Baby Church

With thanks to garretthoffman of You Tube

Happy Birthday Church. Many Happy Returns

HapHappity Birthday: Honk Honk Beep Beep*

Beat upon the timbrels, toot your kazoos, for today is a significant day for The Vernacular Curate. Let joy be unconfined, bring forth your effervescent gaity, for today is the Birthday of This Blog. Yes, my dear wearied Reader, you have tolerated this gubbins for a whole year.

This is where it all began, without imagery, and frankly - with a really dreary title. Still, it is best to set the standard high for such odd ventures as this.

I am not going to launch forth with reader numbers - I did that a while ago, and also because the support I have recieved for this little expression of my inner mentalist has far exceeded anything that I dared hope or pray for. This pile of slugpellets has been read in over 600 cities around the world and I have begun to discover that some of my own thoughts have been quoted elsewhere. I am bowled away by that, more especially because I have tried to be myself and with that be fairly raw.

I have learned a considerable amount about a lot of things while doing this. I know I look at the world differently - not in the sense that I seek material, but more that I reflect about the world around me more. I question things to a greater level, and I question myself in a similar way. The questions still exist about this being a meaningful medium for a priest (or anyone else for that matter) to communicate - but until they are clarified, I will persist (or until I get a 'nil' day of readers). I still don't really know if this is helpful of grossly narcissistic, and I still write this as a man who really rather dislikes talking about himself. Perhaps the humour is the disguise. This thing has bought me into contact with some stunning people whose presence is a great joy to me.

Anyway, the bottom line is that this is still enjoyable. Were it not, I'd be long gone because life is too short and I am no Prophet whose message must be heard. A lot of you read this, not sporadically, but very regularly and again, I thank you for walking this little journey with me. What you have learned about me I have learned about myself at the same pace. I find your support incredibly humbling - something that I think priests need at times (even to the extent of knowing that our spelling is apalling).

So, the next year: I will carry this on, and all the while thinking about the transition from curacy to (I hope, at the moment) an incumbency. My children will start school, we may move house, town and maybe even end of the country. So many changes ahead - and then this thing. Will I blog after curacy? That question remains unanswered, partly because I recognise the secure womb of protection that being a curate enjoys. Would I be able to blog this way as an incumbent? I am not sure. I hope so, but the jury will remain out for some months yet. So many questions, so few answers - so much to hope for. 

Thank you, all of you. May God (or whatever Guiding Light calls you on) bless you and those you love.

*title courtesy of Ren & Stimpy - my ffffffffffffffffavourite

Guilty as Charged

It went and happened - I got 'Curatitis', a condition identified by ++Michael Ramsey in the Sixties where a Curate becomes a little jealous of another. It only went and happened to me; and 'where?' you might ask ...

...here!

I was reading Lesley's blog post today in an increasing grump about the exposure her efforts recieve compared to mine (like it matters!?). Her latest post surrounded the event of her birthday, and in that post, she offers a number of lists (read her here). I will be the first to confess that I am deeply envious of her blog successes, and indeed of her intellectual and spiritual depths, and recognise that I have become a little competitive about it (after all, what she stands a chance of achieving in the latter list on her post would look preposterous on any that I could write). Anyway, with all this said, I felt it important to place that confession here for safe keeping and take some counsel! 

Blogging is an odd thing and it often creates apparitions and spectres. What I am guilty of is counting what I do not have and overlooking the riches that I do have. That is now to be corrected.

Entirely by chance, my birthday follows Lesley's by a day - for it is my 'turn' tomorrow (I shall be 38). I have no lists for you, I am afraid, save for wanting to be the best person I can be and for my family to be happy and healthy, and for my flock to draw closer to God (a handsome list nonetheless) - and I have a past that shall remain a matter of privacy not because it is alarming, but because it is quite the opposite! What I think is important for me to place here is a simple 'thank you'.

There are a number of you who read this drivel, reliably and regularly, and I thank you all for spending a moment with me in my thoughts. The presence of each of you is noted, recognised and appreciated. Without readers, this and every blog would be utterly pointless and probably grotesquely self-serving. I consider it an honour and a privilege to have an opportunity to express myself in a form hitherto unknown to me; one where I can work it out as I go along. This blog and those of you who read it are a gift to me that I do not take for granted - and be sure, I write nothing purely to entertain. What you see is what you get is what and who I am in that moment. So thank you ... 

...and for the record, Lesley is a close personal and ministerial friend, and I am in awe of what she writes. I don't always agree with what she writes (it would be dull if I did), but I am delighted to share space with her to the modest extent that I do.

Trust a Man to Get it Wrong

Today is a day of mixed emotion for me. On one hand, me ma is enjoying a 'Birthday of Note' (I can't tell you which one, of course, but it starts with a '6' and ends in a '0'). On the other hand, it is the anniversary of the old man's untimely demise. So it is a funny day ... funny peculiar, not funny 'ha ha'.

The thing about having a Blogette such as this, is that in the Early Days (sounding like a pension plan all of a sudden - 'pension', get it?) I am coming up against hitherto untapped events - family stuff, good or ill, things that I have not reflected on in this way - beware dear Reader, I am about to set off on another.

I wrote a little something about the Old Gal a while ago on Mother's Day and declared my admiration for Mrs Brady Old Lady. Well, today is her birthday, and she too of course, has to ally the pleasure of that with the pain of the fact that Dad cocked up big time, and fell off his twig on that day of all days. 'Silly old sod' I said then, and 'Silly old sod' I say now. Only a bloke could could die on his wife's birthday ... silly old sod.

The thing about my old man is that he was a most excellent fella. Built in the image of none less that Humpty Dumpty, he did the rather brave thing and married my freshly be-widowed mother when she had three ankle-biters and he was fast approached his retirement. Yes, that's right - there was a spectacular age gap between mum and dad, thirty-one whole British years. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth from his own family (dad was freshly be-widowed at the same time as mum - it gets complicated, but his daughter was of a similar age to mum, and her son was my age - keep up). Still, despite all, they remained married for well over 25 years, mostly happily - and dad helped raise a young family when he should have been having late-life crises and fits of the dribbles. He was a grumpy bastard, a red socialist who made Scargill look like a LibDem. He was a Colour Sargeant formerly of the Royal Engineers, so had a very very very loud shouting voice (which, from one who looked like a wheeble, was at times amusing).

But he was kind, insightful, funny, wise and in his own way, beautiful. He was conspicuously proud of us even when we made a mess of things. But he had a wonderful sense of how to be silly - an art lost to so many people. There is nothing better at times than just to be silly. Even into my late twenties and until he died, I could walk up to him, given him a big kiss and hug, and reverse his hair on his head so the ones that covered his baldy-slap fell forward - then I would walk away laughing. He didn't mind. We would then argue simply for the pleasure of arguing. 

I didn't see him for a whole fortnight before he died so suddenly that night. I was still a retailer and was based in Swindon at that time, so visits were less frequent. That hurts, that still winds me, and that still makes me feel ashamed. I could not have asked for a better Dad, and I can't believe my luck that I had the dad I had. The old bastard has, however, let me down. He promised that when I got nice furniture of my own that he would come to my house and jump on it like I did to his. Well, mate, it's here and ready. If you came back just one more time, I'd let you smash it to firewood. Then I'd mess your hair up again, just because I could.

May you rest in the peace that you so richly deserve and with the God that you kept so close to you. If you had met my girls they would have loved you too, and had you lived long enough to see me ordained, you'd have known that so much of my joy was down to you and your prayers for me. Take care, mate, God Bless.

But dying on mum's birthday ....... silly old sod.