One Virgin, A Sweaty Vicar and the Pursuit of Normal

From 'Cracked Virtue' - another closed blog

Before I start, an apology. Life and its various needs  means that I am scarcely finding time to be a half decent dad, let alone an engaging blogger. I apologise for neglecting you, ever thankful as I am for your continued support. 

Well, the title may have you wondering what is about to emerge before your eyes, but be assured it isn't what you think, so go and wash your minds out with soap and water. 

Several things have come to pass in the last week that have given me cause to consider a line in the sand. Allow me to list those things:

 - Exercise

 - Heat Magazine

 - A kid

There you go; rich blog fodder if there were any. The 'virgin' of the title is the new gymnasium I have joined (Virgin Active Torture Chamber, if you please). Having sold all three of my kidneys to afford to borrow their towels to wipe the sweat from my ontologically changed brow, I can now pootle down there and run a little, sling some iron about, row nowhere and contort my reverential body into to shapes that would amaze you. Do I wish to be some oiled Adonis? Am I the next Iron Man? I am a little overweight, wheezy in the cold, flabby in my cassock and fast approaching 40. What I am pursuing is not excellence - just normality. I am below that standard at the moment, and I will work hard to achieve normal weight and fitness. 

Last week, I languished in a school staff room, not waiting to not be Father Christmas, and taking advantage of the reading material of choice of our educators: Heat Magazine. Scored across the cover of that edition were the semi-clad forms of three Slebs (those younglings who are the love-children of And and Dec, Bruce Forsythe and Obergruppenfuhrer Cowell). That they were half dressed (or half undressed, depending on your perspective) wasn't what drew my eyes (honest), it was that they looked, well, normal. Their 'crime' was that they had stopped dieting. Hold the press, wait a cotton-picking minute, what they are guilty of is enjoying their chow and their penalty is to look, actually, altogether more attractive than Miss Skellington on the next page. Normal shaped women are accused of crimes to femininity these days - shame (and let's face it, normal sized women do more for the feminine curve than a walking rack of ribs). Just saying ...

Then the little lad. After not being Father Christmas at a Christmas Party at the school where I now help out, and after climbing out of the outfit that I wasn't wearing when I wasn't being Father Christmas, I passed a ten year old in the corridor. "I like you", he uttered in passing. "Why is that, fella?" was my interested reply. "You're normal". His mum died a thousand deaths as only the mother of an inveterate heretic could, and apologized for her boy. "No", said I, "his words are a gift to me". And then I cartwheeled home, cock-a-hoop that I had achieved that mystical status after a single assembly.

Normality to some is to be scorned. It speaks, often, of mediocrity and the average. The Gospel, of course, is not one of 'normal', but ministry and life seem often to put some of us behind that line, not ahead of it. Normal? I'll have that!

Here I am Lord; Neon Sign Lord

The next twenty-four hours will be, for my family, as significant as they can be. Tomorrow will be the Twins Aculae's first day at school, and also my Institution as the next Vicar of Ss Philip & James here in Whitton. 

As I write this, I am a former Assistant Curate and kids  pre-schoolers. Mrs Acular is a 'between jobs lawyer'. Tomorrow, we will all acquire new places in the world in which we live. I mention the missus because she, without any choice or say-so, takes on the mantle of "Vicar's Wife" - which brings with it expectations and projections not of her making and for which she received no training. Please remember her in your thoughts and prayers. 

To date, I have done all the stuff you have already known about in the months prior to now. Then I moved house and have been largely hidden away with the family as we come to terms with a new home. A few meetings have happened to give me a briefing of what may lay ahead - and then there is the Big Day (tomorrow 7.30pm). 

Now you might imagine that I favour being in the spot-light. Being a gob-on-a-stick might lead you to conclude that so being makes me fond of being the centre of attention. You'd be mistaken. I am happy getting on with getting on, and although I like to bask in whatever success I might precipitate, I prefer to do so from the sidelines, not in the middle where everyone can see me. I've surprised you, haven't I. The thing is, and my fragrant wife likes to remind me in song: "Here I Am Lord, Neon Sign Lord". We laugh and I inwardly shudder a little. 

Anyway, there is not a thing I can do about any of that except be grateful glad and thankful for every bit of it. Some much loved people are travelling great distances to share the moment with me tomorrow, and I can't wait to see them. I am blessed by some very faithful loving and wonderful friends. I shall miss the ones who can't be there, knowing that they would be had they not been tied up on a prior engagement. 

Then Thursday morning. That dear friends, is a very big matter which you will have to read about then. 

Please pray for this unworthy servant as he begins a new ministry. Pray too for my remarkable family who make all that I do possible. Pray for the people of the parish where I will serve, and those in the wider community. These are exciting times, and I just cannot wait to get going. 

How things change

I have opted to work away from the grumpy mood in which I find myself - precipitated by the 4.50am start at the hands of the blessed Jessica. Pity the wee scrap, for I am an utter bar-steward at that time of the day! The missus has naffed orf too, abandoning her post, leaving her husband to fend off the ankle-biters alone. 'A retreat ...', she says - who does she think she is? A retreat indeed. 

So, as the kids are in the limelight I thought I would share an observation that will cause me to be pink and fluffy. I might fail ... so be prepared!

The woman and me have been trawling around Aylesbury Vale looking for schools for the sprogs when they turn four in six odd years time. Given that I am a professional basher of the Bible, a church school seems favourite, so we have taken some in. Interesting stuff ....

When I was at school, which after all wasn't that long ago (certainly post-War), you were the pupil, the teacher the teacher, the playground grey and square, and the field full of poo.  Not today. In all the schools we visited, apart from the barbed wire and gun emplacements, we were greeted by Student Councils, a sixty-point Charter of Golden Rules, colour, vibrancy - and most importantly (to me), hope and opportunity for all. A drift through the playground saw asphalt combined with stimulating areas where kids can gather and chat, in one school a natural area surrounded by trees where mini-beasts could be observed au naturelle, in all of them a place to go and sit if you are hurt, another for when you are without a friend for the day and need company, and so on. In an age of preposterous health and safety legislation, there were things to climb on, run around and play with - and I wish that I was at school today.

This all said, and as I am grumpy at the moment, I must make a comment - about a couple of Church of England Schools that I visited (speaking as a chaplain to another where what I am about to highlight is not the case). When you claim to be a CofE school, don't be telling me within three minutes of my arrival for the tour that if I wanted to exempt my nipper from Christian assembly, that was ok. Wrong Headteacher I thought, ashamed of her school's faith-status I thought. The kids are not going there, not even over my rotting corpse! Another one, again CofE - a 2-inch tall crucifix on a dusty table in the corner of a cluttered hall a church school doesn't make! Enough said? 

Say what you like about the last Administration, but if the evidence of their time in office was made manifest in the schools that we saw, then they can't have been half as bad as the Daily Mail and Mrs Rushton of Lincs would have us believe. It feels to me that my children have a wonderfully hopeful future ahead of them. I do, I wish I were a kid now - I was crap at school, mainly because my learning style doesn't involve any level of listening! I want to be doing, experiencing, touching/feeling/tasting, hurting myself in the process if that was part of the deal - not reciting a rather strange phonetic alphabet (see below - that was how I was taught to read and rit, truly)