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CREATING COMMUNITIES OF WHOLENESS WITH CHRIST AT THE CENTRE
Blog Archives: April 2008 - March 2008 - February 2008 - January 2008 - December 2007 - November 2007 - October 2007 - September 2007 - August 2007 - July 2007 - June 2007 - May 2007 - April 2007 - March 2007 - February 2007 - January 2007 - December 2006 - November 2006 - October 2006 - September 2006
29 September 9:00pm
So much for a day off! Yesterday I finally abandoned my computer at midnight and then we were reunited at 6am this morning, and here I am back at 9pm! Just to reassure those who will tell me that I really must take a day off, it isn't always like this. And even today most of the day has been filled with shopping and coffee with Jane [we also saw a mammoth skull at the Water Park visitor center], with crashing out, making train tracks for the children, cleaning the house; and getting completely soaked while getting the children from school.
Its been a wonderful and hectic week. Beth's licensing as Community Vicar of North Swindon on Monday [at which she joined all CofE vicars in promising to use only those forms of worship as authorized by canon - whist we were using a liturgy that I had helped to write and had never even seen a canon, let alone been authorized by it]. But it was a great celebration and a great start to Beth's ministry.
We had another baptism preparation evening on Wednesday - twenty people, gathered to prepare for their children's or godchildren's baptism. What I do is basically ask them what they believe and especially Jesus' question to Peter 'Who do you say I am?' Its a amazing opportunity share faith and ask questions - as one of those said to me 'to play devil's advocate for God' if such a thing is possible. But perhaps that's what I do, at least in part. I hope that I also share my faith in Jesus.
And then we had the Diocesan Growth programme. An 'interesting' meeting with Bishop, Archdeacon and other clergy. And an brilliant Deanery Summit at which the programme was presented and discussed. We had numerous 'tigger' type presenters up on stage, and a some other great characters and opportunities to discuss and develop the programme. This diocese is so different from others in which I have worked. There's a real sense of vision and leadership from our Bishops and a sense of change throughout the diocese and at that Summit in Swindon. And I hope and pray that we can bring all of that to North Swindon.
That's what this week has been about, praying and discussing with Beth about where the parish is and what her role within it might be. Welcoming people who come to us for baptism and marriage and celebrating and sharing faith with them. And hearing again the vision of what can be ahead of us.
At Beth's licensing we had two readings. The first was Isaiah 35, the way through the wilderness and the transformation and flowering of the desert; and Matthew 28, the great commission of Jesus to his followers to make disciples of all nations. I pray that we can be a part of both the transformation of our community and the calling of disciples.
I now just need my knee to recover and I can start running again, rather than being tethered to my desk at dawn.
24 September 7.45pm
Its been a strange day - good services - or at least I enjoyed them and got good feedback from those there. But I was completely exhausted after them. I mentioned Anna, very briefly in my sermon this morning. Anna was the daughter of friends of mine, an amazing and very wonderful little girl who died during an operation on her heart in 1999. And as I spoke I realized that I was nearly crying. Its not something that often happens to me, and hardly ever when I'm up front.
And then this evening I was looking though our Baptism rota for this year. I've so far baptized forty babies and young children, we have another fifteen booked in for the rest of the year and I'll almost certainly get more requests. All that is great. But its depressing how few of them come to church before the service, let alone afterwards. There are promises that they make in the service, about their own faith and about how they will help their children to grow in faith - and I just can't see how those promises can be kept without being part of the church community. There are wonderful exceptions to this [you know who you are] but for the rest its a challenge to us [church] about how we communicate Jesus and prepare families for baptism, and for the families about how they honour their promises with integrity. Any ideas very welcome!
17 September 4.55pm
Dawn was incredibly beautiful this morning - the mist clinging to the fields, shrouding the Vale of Cricklade, the orange vermilion sun shooting rays into the sky and then rising in glory, and the light opaque and mysterious and - well the whole experience was beautiful. And in the midst of it all I was trying to beat my 36 minute record on my circuit! I got down to 34 minutes.
16 September 12.05am
My mind's working too fast to even consider sleep - a run seems a decent idea and may yet happen, but I need to write first.
Its crunch moment, there's always at least one - often times many more than one - but this is it, and Jesus says to Peter [and to us] 'Right now I don't care what everyone else says, thinks or believes, what about you? Who do you say I am?
I can then imagine two scenarios - the first is silence, a long, long emptiness - shuffling feet, twisting interlocking sweaty hands 'I don't know, how should I know, why are you putting me on the spot, I'm no way near ready for this.' And then, in, through, and perhaps out of the silence come words dragged up from the depths of Peter's soul, or spirit, or gut: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!' Perhaps the silence that followed that response was even longer. 'What have I said? What does it mean? Do I believe this, believe that I've just said it? Am I still standing?' And that's just Peter's response, what about the rest of the crowd?
The second scenario is faster. 'Who are you?' and the instant response: 'You're Jesus, 'course you are, you're the Son of the living God.' And then the terror comes. All the more intense because the words were spoken without thought of meaning or consequence. Terror that blinds and numbs and disconnects brain from body, from sense, from movement, terror that paralyses and sends us into shock.
And on top of all of this comes news of suffering and pain, torture and death. 'Who is this God? In God's name who are you?'
I often ask that question to people, 'Who is Jesus?' And responses are as varied as the questioner and the questioned.
But the image that's filling my mind now, dredged from the past and as vivid and distorted as anything that I can see in front of me right now, is of a young man sitting, standing, hunched into the wind, looking down from the Blockhouse to UCT and Mowbray and the Cape Flats and Table Bay and Robin Island and city of Cape Town as it fills the southern tip of the African continent and follows the coast line north and east. And then above is the mountain, Mowbray Ridge, Devils Peak, the Saddle and the Table itself. And its all that I can do to stand still and words, spoken and silent are ripped away from me. And the questions and questions and questions just continue coming. And the only answers are in the violence of the wind.
I heard Gavin Calver on Thursday night at the SYFC Youth Leaders meeting [I gate-crashed the youth leaders meeting because I didn't want to go the church leaders meeting on Friday - its my day off]. Gavin was astounding - he kept me awake, he was so good, and that was quite an achievement that evening. I should remember everything he said, I can't, but I can remember him asking how desperate we were to believe and see others believe? Is it just habit and comfort or are we driven, beyond reason and expectation, to see the transforming power of God?
My faith was forged and re-forged at the Blockhouse and at Cape Town Cathedral. And as I went into my own melting pot, I witnessed a tiny part of what was a whole country being forged and re-forged. That forging hasn't finished yet, it hasn't for me or for any of us. But I realized again, listening to Gavin, that I am desperate to believe and see others believe. And I still make loads of mistakes [what's new] and I still don't understand half or even quarter of it, but [and I promise the next entry won't be quite this intense!] I believe and want to live and share that. And its amazing and its transforming and its God.
9 September 06 9.30pm
48 miles, 27 churches and a wedding - all in today's Historic Churches Cycle Ride. And then back to cook tea, watch 'Maria?' with the children and put them to bed. It's been a good day. And while I've been cycling the lanes of Wiltshire and the highways and byways of Swindon I've been writing and re-writing my sermon for tomorrow and I've been remembering. Remembering five years ago when I first heard of the attack on the Twin Towers [they have capital letters now and everyone knows what towers they are]. We were in the middle of Freshers week at Newcastle University where I was Chaplain. Freshers week was [and probably is] manic and all consuming, seven twenty hour days followed by another fortnight that is only marginally quieter. It's full of wonderful conversations with new and returning students about faith and life and vocation, the past, present and future... And there are also some truly bizarre encounters like the one when [drunk with exhaustion] I introduced a new student to the Bible by encouraging him to read Psalm 88 - its the only one of all of the Psalms that ends as it began - with wrist slashing despair!
In the midst of all of this a colleague and friend phoned and asked if I'd heard the news. I responded 'yes' because, give of take, I always hear the news. But it took me a while to hear that in this instance News had a capital 'N' and that I hadn't heard it.
Nothing, I discovered could completely stop the chaotic and wonderful festival of Freshers week. But I never thought that silence would be possible in Freshers either, but it was - for three minutes not even a phone went off, as thousands of us stood and grieved.
The following Sunday I traveled down to London for the Baptism of my godson, Joshua. As well as being a Godparent I was also being a priest. I was baptising Joshua myself and preaching. How do we cope with, let alone understand, such life and death, destruction and creation, hope and fear?
I'll end this remembering by quoting what Archbishop Rowan Williams [who was in New York on 9.11] wrote as the Epilogue to his book 'Writing in the Dust'.
I called this reflection 'Writing in the Dust' for many reasons. The obvious one is the sheer physical recollection of that dense, grey atmosphere; the soft fall of ash and paper; the gritty eye-stinging wind. All that is written here begins in the dust of the streets that morning. And then writing in the dust is writing something that won't last, something exposed to dissolution; like the sand mandalas made by Tibetan monks for festivals, made to be broken up. This isn't a theology or a programme for action, but one person's attempt to find words to the grief and shock and loss on one moment. In the nature of things these words won't last, and I need to acknowledge and accept that, and hope only that they may help to take forward someone else's mourning. But lastly, another picture from the Gospel of John evoked for me by all of this, from the stray story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery that is preserved, rather improbably, in John 8. When the accusation is made, Jesus at first makes no reply but writes with his finger on the ground. What on earth is he doing? Commentators have had plenty of suggestions, but there is one meaning that seems to me obvious in the light of what I think we learned that morning. He hesitates. He does not draw a line, fix an interpretation, tell the woman who she is and what her fate should be. He allows a moment, a longish moment, in which people are given time to see themselves differently precisely because he refuses to make the sense they want. When he lifts his head there is both judgment and release. So this is writing in the dust, because it tries to hold that moment for a little longer, long enough for some of our demons to walk away.
From 'Writing in the Dust' Copyright 2002 Rowan Williams. Hodder and Stoughton, London.
4 September 06 7.45pm
Just got a letter from Sheila in Cape Town. There was a time when Sheila seemed to know just about every Bishop in South Africa and a considerable way beyond. She'd been to college with them, then she'd had them in her youth groups or ordination reading groups, she'd served on commissions with them or had visited their dioceses as part of her work with the Mothers Union. Sheila [as you may have guessed] is a very amazing woman.
But her letter describes the consecration of Raphael Hess as the first Bishop of the new Diocese of Saldahna [an amazingly beautiful part of the Western Cape - a coast line that goes on for ever up the line of the African Continent until you get Namaqualand, semi desert, except for spring when the desert really does blossom - daisies and mesembrianthemums, red and gold, purple and white - astounding!].
To get back to Bishop Raphael - Sheila does know him but it wasn't him but his Father who was in Sheila's youth group in the late 1940's!
2 September 06 8pm
Just got the children to bed - despite a distinct tendency on their part to walk into door frames rather than though them!
Its been a hectic week - fifteen hour days and not much sleep in between - but that's what you get I guess for taking a month off.
France was wonderful - doing nothing in the middle of Normandy for the most part. There was though one morning when I realised that we were out of bread and decided to cycle the 8km down to the village. The bike was ancient and sounded more like a tractor than a glider as I went down the hill - I'd forgotten quite how long and steep it was! I got to the boulangerie and managed a conversation in French and came out with my deux pain feeling chuffed. I got back onto my bike and set off feeling remarkably French. Then I remembered that all the French cyclists I'd seen had been clad in lycra and riding racing bikes - and my bike was registered to the Somerset Constabulary - and I can't even remember when that ceased to exist and I certainly wasn't wearing lycra. And then, to top it all, I realised that I was was cycling on the wrong side of the road!
I'll write up Greenbelt next time.
2 September 06 3.30pm
Just finished a Wedding [Mark and Laura] with the rain holding off long enough and the wind blowing the leaves around like confetti. I love weddings - the promises that the couple make still stun me - they are so enormous and wonderful.
Its been a while since I've been blogging because nearly a month's holiday made me forget the passwords - but I'm back on now and I'll bring you up to speed in due course.
31. July 2006.
And its here, at last, it's taken even longer than the my first week as chaplain at Newcastle University when it took me a whole week to work out how to get an outside line from my office - but then websites and front page etc are rather more complicated than working out that you need to press 9! I'm incredibly grateful to Toni who created this site and to Peter who helped me work out how to edit it. If anyone else wants to come on board and show this technophobe how to create hyperlinks etc you'd be very welcome!
I've been six months in the parish and I can't remember a time when I've enjoyed six months of work/ministry more. I've had and continue to have a sense that I'm in the place that God want me to be and that I, and all of us, are part of the creation and transformation of the community. Not all of that is easy, change rarely is. But its exciting and divine and very, very good.
I also can't remember a time when I've been more ready for a holiday! Which is about to happen, so I'll be back in late August, to update you and look forward to Greenbelt. And if you don't know what that is go to www.greenbelt.org.uk
But despite everything that happened at work I still think that the best thing this year was walking up Snowdon with Anna [6] and Adam [then 4 and the youngest on the mountain]. It was an amazing day of sun and snow. It trumps everything else because it bring so many of my vocations together [mountains, God and family - in no particular order]. Like many people, in the Bible and since, I encounter God very vividly on mountains and I love them. It was great to see the children climbing with me and loving it [they also loved the sweets that I used for bribery!] See Anna and Adam here.
I've now got to work out a peak that Alice [3] can climb as she relentlessly said 'But I'm bigger!' The obvious one is Cnicht and the time will be October half term when we're up in Snowdonia again.
BLOGGERS NOTE
You'll notice in this blog that I use clauses and sub clauses and square brackets and lots of other grammatical aberrations! Also that I can't spell. Jane sometimes compares my sentence structure to St Paul, going on and on and on... I'm afraid that you're going to have to live with it. I try to edit it all out when I'm writing for print, but I'm going to indulge myself here.