Dances-with-Midges

A moment of space

2012-01-12T01:00:00.000-08:00

As I watch the winter sun bathing the houses across the Balgie Burn, visible this time of year through the naked lime trees, I feel the need to reflect. There is an inevitability of busyness, for me, about the business of ordained ministry. Things to do, people who need to be visited, tasks to be done about services, buildings and so forth. The large tonne bag of salt (not used so far this mild winter) winks reproachfully at me from the empty grit bins, the 'Building the Vision' folder hovering on the desk...

But I (as an activist) need to step back and reflect. I need to stop and pray. I need to make sure that I'm rooted in something more than a task list.

Last night, I was rushing off to do a house blessing (Eastern European annual custom, it turns out, which I think is a lovely thing to do again and again) and the car radio was only offering pretty awful or boring fare. I prodded the 'change source' button and a worship CD came on - Mary's commuting to Bute a lot now and must have popped it in for the radio black spots near Loch Striven.

It was a gentle, minor key, modern worship set. And it gently slowed me down, made me remember what this is supposed to be about.

But it's so important to have those reminders, those invitations to slow a little and smile, thank God for the buzz of it all, and reflect.

...and then crack on with it all, at full speed as ever!

When the wind blows...

2011-12-29T05:43:00.000-08:00

Frankie was playing with her monster dolls in the bay windows of the living room yesterday when she spotted, through the stormy gloom, that the trampoline was lifting off the ground by about two feet (how she knows imperial measurements at age ten I'm not sure...)

It was a rather stormy evening, so Mary and I rushed out into the night to discover that the large (16 feet) diameter trampoline had pulled free of its anchors and was starting to make a bid for freedom towards the sea. We wrestled it down, lashed new ropes to the still ground-bound anchors, tied a spare boat mooring rope from the frame to a cherry tree, stripped down the safety net and battened down our metaphorical hatches.

This morning, a little askew and looking slightly odd with a 3/4 inch rope sagging between it and the tree, it still safely there.

A lucky thing that Frankie spotted the beginning of the trouble brewing, otherwise it would probably now be about level with Stornoway, heading towards Iceland.

The church is still there too...

This Christmas...

2011-12-20T13:25:00.000-08:00

...will be my second one as the Episcopalian priest in Bute and Cowal (or Cowal and Bute depending on your perspective). It has been a full year - packed with more than I thought one could pack in.

The slight disappointment that there are no ferries to Bute on Christmas Day remains with me: I am unable to share the feast with my church-folk on the island. They now have a tradition of a carols and readings service on that day, which I am sure will be a wonderful time of worship. But I would like to be spending it with them. It was good to share the Christmas quiz with members and friends last week. It will be good to share worship with them tomorrow (St Thomas, tweaked by a day).

Christmas in Dunoon is falling into what seems to be usual pattern, but with some rather significant differences. We will be using a new thurible at midnight mass, and sadly the donor will not be able to swing it himself due to family commitments. But a new thurible will be a pleasure to use, as our prayers rise like incense... And the church in Dunoon is different to last Christmas.

There is the most enormous Christmas tree in the church - getting on for twenty feet high!

The east end windows have started to be treated to prevent damp damage. The chancel arch has been stripped of peeling paint and only leaks water when it's very rainy outside. The tower is still soggy, but we getting a better understanding of why. And all these fabric things are not weighing down the REAL church in Dunoon: the enthusiastic and positive people who make up the lively worshipping community at Holy Trinity.

Oh - and we got a lottery and Historic Scotland grant for nearly £250,000 to fix all that lot. That should help...

Skeletal trees

2011-12-12T00:30:00.000-08:00

Winter has stripped the leaves from the lime trees that surround the house, up on this hill, above the West Bay.

We can see other houses, and the sea (a bit better) - it all feels a bit less green-wrapped - it can almost feel a little claustrophobic in summertime, especially when the wind through the lime trees dominates the senses.

Winter stripping away the leaves, the cushioning barrier. Advent (thinking about John the Baptist last week) stripping away an old way of being.

The metaphor of our spiritual life and the seasonal shifts, here in an alien (to our Lord) northern Europe.

Works for me.

Deeply wa-a-a-iling...

2011-11-28T14:04:00.000-08:00

We have an Advent Evensong in Holy Trinity Dunoon this weekend. Musical talent is being imported in to assist with the choral elements, a piece has been written especially and we (nearly) have the order of service ready to roll.

A reflection on my input to the process? I am sufficiently musically inept (and our organist more than sufficiently not so!) to not try and risk too strong an input there.

So the liturgy is mine.

Prayer Book evensong - as it done. The bits missed out that one misses out, the bits added in that one adds in. Download of the text to get it all started.

But a process is needed - which is a variant of one I still find myself doing regularly.

Starting point: liturgy that I know pretty well

Working point: modified, massaged and changed to work for the particular service in question.

Pause

Check for Scottish Episcopalian variations (e.g. how does 1929 vary from 1928/1662/CWO2trad).

Go for it!

So Catholick becomes Catholic. An extra 'Let us pray' appears. Do they matter?

Well, yes, they do. Otherwise why does any of it matter?

What do clergy do on their day off?

2011-11-18T06:29:00.000-08:00

Hang gliding? Reading non-orthodox theology books? Lying in a sensory deprivation tank whilst whale-song is played through a set of noise cancelling earphones?

All sorts I suppose.

Today I took the guts out of eldest daughter's netbook, tried my best to solder the cracked power connection (I give a few days before it needs doing again - my soldering iron is getting on a bit, as am I) and checked the run of the screen feed cable for snags and cracks. It now seems to be working.

So what do clergy do on their day off? The same sorts of things that ordinary people do on their days off. Because we are just as ordinary as everyone.

At the going down of the sun

2011-11-09T12:23:00.000-08:00

This week many clergy will be involved in two remembrance services (or possibly more). Friday the 11th November (at 11am) is the increasingly popular 'literal' time of remembrance, the time of the armistice coming into effect at the end of the 'Great War' in 1918: the 'war to end all wars.'

Sunday is Remembrance Sunday, when similar acts of remembrance, parades, silences, services, wreath layings take place in towns, again at 11am.

I detect a considerable degree of ambivalence amongst clergy (and others) to remembrance. The wearing of white poppies flurried whilst I was at theological college. There is a heartfelt reluctance to engage with any romanticized image of war. It's all about peace, isn't it?

Where am I on it all? My short career as a regular serviceman was in the cold war. We trained for the end of the world, running about in suits and masks and pretending to plot the wind-blown course of mushroom clouds. We travelled about the world not being shot at, looking under our cars for Irish not Afghan bombs. It leaves you conscious of what has gone before, and what your successors (in a VERY different world) are doing now. I joined the armed forces, in part, through a fear of nuclear armageddon, and the thought-through response that maintaining detente would prevent that war. Others marched against nuclear weapons - fair enough. No-one knew that economic and political frailty in the east would close that stand-off down, and allow the world to boil up into what it is now.

The political context of participation in war is complex. I think that's a polite way of saying that it often stinks. Whether it's Blackadder's 'moving General Haig's drinks cabinet 6 inches closer to Berlin,' or regime change dressed up in UN Article 51 'anticipatory self defence' as in Iraq (and others?), the global political motivations for entering war can be rather murky.

But the personal experiences and sacrifices that individual men and women in these conflicts make are undoubtedly deeply moving and powerful testimony to much that is fine and noble in humanity. The irony of wasteful, destructive war and the broken beauty of humanity are a rich, intertwined theme in remembrance. Who really cares about European politics in the early 20th century? But we read Wilfred Owen and can be affected by distant memories of mechanical horror.

In a century, who will care about the 'War on Terror' or 'Al Qaeda' or the rest of it? But will they remember limbless young people rebuilding lives and coffins driven slowly through Wiltshire? Maybe.

So I will wear my poppy on my choir dress on the seafront at Bute as we say Binyon's Words and the Kohima epitaph. My fellow British Legion members will parade, some crying.

And we will remember them.

The danger of euphemism (as it were...)

2011-10-31T05:44:00.000-07:00

A close shave was had this morning.

The rectory rabbits (domesticated rather than wild) have reached a stage in their physiological development where they are a little problematic to each other. They are both male, one rather passive, the other much more active. And the active one has matured physically to the point where he is behaving inappropriately towards his passive companion. This is causing much stress and anxiety to the passive one. So the vets were called this morning. The above story explained (maturity, aggression, unwanted attention etc. all mentioned). So I requested that the rabbits, being old enough, were ready to be 'done.' (I'm pretty sure that's what I said)

Those two preceding paragraphs can be de-euphemised to: the male rabbits are now sexually mature and one is try to have sex with the other. They both need to be castrated.

To my surprise they said they could see them a little later that morning. I said, 'I assume I just drop them off and leave them with you while you do it?' Reply: Pause. 'You could do that if you wanted.'

The rabbits were duly caught, caged up and taken down.

For their appointment for euthanasia.

Fortunately, this error in translating euphemism came to light pretty quickly, a proper appointment for a whole day, a couple of days hence was made, and the whole episode was turned from a potential disaster to what we actually wanted.

The moral of the story - just ask for what you want, rather than tiptoing around the perceived euphemistic sensitivities of whoever you are dealing with.

But that could become rather uncomfortable in church life...

'Nice sermon, Rector,' becomes, 'That wasn't as boring as I thought it would be.'

'The beautiful sense of the numinous,' becomes, 'What a cold, old, damp building.'

and the list goes on...

The boats go dry...

2011-10-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

The seasons here in Argyll are marked by many things. The rains gets warmer or colder, and even eventually goes white and falls as snow. The leaves appear as buds, and grow (obliterating the sea views) and whistle with the wind. Then they go brown and fall (this year twice, with storms!) and have to be blown from the drive. The holidaymakers arrive in larger and lesser numbers. Caledonain MacBrayne change their timetables - the last ferry from Bute is suddenly an hour sooner.

But one seasonal barometer that I am rather drawn to is the sailing boats. They are in the water for the good weather, the spring and summer, but they come out every year for the autumn and winter. I believe yacht insurance requires this - but the sense of making a boat safe ashore before the autumn gales arrive and start tearing out moorings is a very practical aspect of seasonal life. I'm not a yachtsman at all - I am no expert on such things. My canal boat stays in the water for several years at a time. But she's made of thick steel, pitch coated, on inland water away from storms.

As the moorings in Port Bannatyne empty, you know that winter is finally on its way. Warmer clothes are needed, the heating needs a service, salt needs to be stockpiled. But the boats are just dry, not gone. Their owners will do all the jobs that the winter holds - fixing, painting, varnishing, preparing. Because come the spring the sea will beckon again.

There are many seasonal heartbeats - but the boats coming out is one of the best!

Most inconvenient...

2011-10-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

Molly the rectory collie has decided to reach puberty this week - so we have something like three weeks of walking her on a lead, fighting off overly-interested dogs and generally not being able to do 'the usual' when it comes to dog ownership. She spent a bring-and-share lunch today cooped up in the rabbit run in the garden. It is a very big rabbit run!

But development, whether human or canine, is not designed for our convenience.

It's designed to make us grow, gain experience, achieve new levels and types of maturity.

So I suppose that's a good thing.

But it is all a bit inconvenient.

Holiday over...

2011-10-14T12:16:00.000-07:00

A ragged end to a week's holiday, as we return and the answering machine and e-mails and lovely folk popping round seep back into life.
A week on a narrowboat, with a little sailing and a lot of just being, is a good holiday. Having no identity other than a person who's on a narrowboat. Or in the cinema. Or at the theatre. Or in the shops. All good things to be.
What did we do?
Sailing to Auchinstarry, to pump out and fill up, with a canalman who used to be broker in the city.
Sailing to Stockingfield Junction in Glasgow, through a pretty deprived area of the city (ah - I have story about that that I must re-tell here on day...).
Meeting eleven hired narrowboats with Swiss canal-buffs all 'doing' the Scottish canals.
Rekindling the children's dislike of clowns - and hopefully letting them glimpse what mime and performance art can actually do (ah - I must blog about minimalist performance art and liturgy sometime)
And coming back, ready for more - including tomorrow's baptism (ah - I must blog about baptism and witchcraft, when it feels right).
(and ah - I must change back the answering machine)
A good holiday!

Panorama

2011-10-02T06:39:00.000-07:00

The view from a 20 minute walk up the hill - the Clyde Approaches past Cloch Point, looking up to Kilcreggan, Gourock and the Clyde itself.

A little minehunter is pootling down the river, dodging between the ferries and sailing boats.

...and the midges have started to go back to sleep for the autumn!

Standing up for yourself...

2011-09-30T13:49:00.000-07:00

I turned away a funeral this week.

Well, I tried pretty hard to make it work - someone who was 'Church of England' (a thing maybe only admitted after death in the West of Scotland, or maybe very shortly before...) had shuffled off this mortal coil and wanted the 'right' funeral. So an Episcopalian priest was requested. We don't have a parochial system as such in our Anglican Province - canonical areas I suppose sum it up. The chap hadn't come to see us in life, but in death he was in 'my patch'...

The day was no good for me - not an unusual occurrence. My local retired colleague was away that day. My colleagues over the water in Greenock and Port Glasgow otherwise engaged. And at that point I ran out of Episcopalian ministers who were sensibly close.

Other days - no good for the family. Other options - church rather than crem - no good for the family.

Well, I hope the Church of Scotland funeral that the family get is OK for them - I'm sure it will be. The minister who has taken it on needs another funeral like a hole in the head, IMHO.

Questions for me - how important are funeral ministries for random people who decide they want something Anglican in a country where that's not the establishment?
Is it good to be importing into Scotland the English - the C of E will 'do' us when we die - that I lived with during my curacy, and I see my C of S colleagues doing for ordinary non-church going Scots?
Do we drop everything and mess up established community building activities (in my case a eucharist, and set of social & business meetings on 'my' island) to meet such a demand?

I very nearly started to cancel a regular service and shift meetings and plan complicated multiple ferry journeys, until I suddenly thought - no - this is not a priority.

But I am sorry for my C of S colleague who has to take on yet another funeral service. I wonder if ATBAB will be before or after Crimond...

The smell of yesteryear!

2011-09-23T08:51:00.001-07:00

Smells can be so evocative – I’m sure I read somewhere or other that the parts of the memory that recall smells are about the most easily stimulated. The smell of tobacco that a parent smoked (a pipe tobacco in my case) or fresh flowers, or fragrant incense – they can all take us back instantly to a distant time and place, and leave the conscious mind fighting to understand why such a strong emotional response may have taken place.

I was taken aback today by just a smell-experience moment. The prosaic business of changing the handles on the doors of the cloakroom and cupboard in the rectory had finally reached the top of the ‘to-do’ list. The whole area has been very damp, so everything was in quite a sorry state. The handles were well and truly rusted on to the metal parts of the doors. So I cut them off, to let me put the new ones on.

The smell of the hot Bakelite as I sawed through the shafts of the door handles was an acrid, pungent smell, which transported me back thirty years or so – to when I was a keen young air cadet, eager to explore the exciting world of aviation, history, tradition and light blue uniforms. Climbing into the cockpits of Spitfires, or Vulcans, or Ansons. or Hunters or even Chipmunks – the propeller and jet planes of the 40s and 50s – one was engulfed in a world of battered leather seats, glove-polished control columns, white on black Smiths dials, inviting looking levels wrapped around each other to drive motors or raise wheels, black and yellow striped handles to eject or bale out, Perspex canopies with a view of the sky but none of the ground in front of you – and most of all, a smell of hot, electric Bakelite. The slightly rancid, ozone smell of that wonder material, the stuff of choice for everything before thermoplastics were developed, has remained lodged in a little corner of my brain.

The emotion of the memories? One of excitement, adventure, trepidation at the unknown. Now I live in a world where I have been a member of the RAF, and that is long, long past (twenty-one years, in a few weeks’ time) – and I have been many other things which are also past. But I loved that little thrill that was brought back, by the simple fluke of removing some ancient, rubbished relics of rectors past!

Riots...

2011-08-15T14:15:00.000-07:00

Riots.

An inevitable way for a disempowered population to physically scream their rejection of the oppressive and unjust structures that are preventing them achieving happiness/productivity? The stuff of Marxist revolution in the 1970s, and of punk bands and civil disobedience?

Or (in 2011): dead-eyed, mob-like and opportunistic.

Liberation theology spilled out of the former - Christ as proto-Marxist, armed priests, Gutierrez, Moltmann getting a drubbing for being white and affluent. Exciting stuff, that has morphed into Christian Aid (Life before death), Tear Fund and all sorts of muscular amillenial Christian movements.

What will spill out of the latter? National Service returns (todays press)? What?? Really?? Other movements and initiatives to mend 'broken Britain'? Tough love and bigger batons?

What liberation theology might spill out of last week? I found myself preaching on Bute about God's love for ALL humanity - even rioters and politicians - but without an answer about how to make it work. God loves us all - but how can the lives be transformed, the caring, mutually supporting communities (dare one call them churches) be grown and nurtured to embrace and heal a broken society. Why should the vilified ones, whoever they are, even care?

One can see why the old 'end-times' - 'God will fix it' card is tempting.

How did I end, to my lovely small church on a riot-free Scottish island?

"That," I said, "is where WE come in."

Urban catwalk vs Bute chic

2011-08-11T12:42:00.000-07:00

In Glasgow, Wellington, and his horse whose name I forget (Copenhagen, Wikipedia tells me), are decorated with that item of urban style - a traffic cone! With some physical challenge, usually alcoholically propelled, this has become so much the norm that photos like the one below (from rabbie.net) are more common than ones without a cone!

Carol Walker captures a similar fate for Lord Kelvin - is there any statue in Glasgow that avoids an orange fluorescent bunnet? She thinks not!

It even spreads to Perth - the mainland trend for statue decoration... xmarksthescot.com picks this one out, but fails to name it! (It's David Annand's sculpture with Willie Soutar's poem Nae Day Sae Dark engraved inside the ring)

But Bute has a different style for one of its stalwart citizens: Alexander Bannatyne Stewart, owner of Ascog Hall and "...at the time of his death Convener of the County of Bute, and took great interest in all things affecting the island. He was Commodore of the Bute Aquatic Club, and Flag Officer of the Royal Northern Yacht Club, whose regattas in Rothesay Bay generally terminated with magnificent displays of fireworks from Mr. Stewart's steam yacht." Quite a gentleman!

Today, he is mostly wearing a seagull...

Starter for ten...

2011-07-31T08:54:00.000-07:00

We had the first St Paul's Rothesay quiz night yesterday, in the church hall round the corner from the church. I'm not sure that the vestry was convinced that it was a particularly good idea, but they unreservedly worked like Trojans (who I assume work hard) to cater and layout and support the event.

It went well.

The hall was packed out - the single window in the hall that hasn't been painted shut was open, and paper plates pressed into service as fans. The (newly-installed) stairlift in the hall was much admired but not used, even as few people teetered past it with their sticks and assistants in tow. The food was devoured, carry-outs of varying degrees of alcoholical content consumed, much buzz.

And the questions were posed, and answered, with varying degrees of hilarity, objection, studious engagement and so forth. I was the Bamber Gascoigne for the evening, which after nearly three hours of shouting down a microphone, presented challenges for a non-husky Eartha-Kitt-esque sermon delivery in the morning.

And was it all worth it? I guess some money was raised for church funds - a raffle and the modest entry-fee. But more importantly, we met with our community in our little hall, doing something that was enjoyable, non-serious, but definitely, most definitely a church event. One could almost stretch the point towards the sharing of fellowship and food, freely given, with the morning's pericope of the feeding of the five thousand.

There are many, many forms of evangelism. I believe last night was just another form.

(and a blessing of a civil marriage has appeared from the midst of the questions, answers, buzz and laughter...)

Offices? Occasionally...

2011-07-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

I try and avoid blogging too much about specific ministry - all too personal and real - but this week had two wonderfully contrasting activities. The jargon 'occasional offices' doesn't do justice to baptisms, weddings or (as in this case) funerals. And as a clerge in England, where you do loads of funerals, mainly for people you've never met, I would try and not go on about them. Get a few C of E vicars together and they start swapping funeral stories...

But up here, in the SEC (my bit anyway) it's different.

So this week, with two funerals, is unusual for me now. But the contrasts are worth reflecting upon.

Both services for people I've known, both died from cancer, both a little on the young-ish side.

Funeral 1: Down south. A colleague and friend from a few years ago, with shared experience of ship designing. I last saw him maybe seven or eight years ago. The comedy moment! The hearse lost a tyre on the way to the crem, which (from what the widow said) then went on fire! (the tyre, not the crem) Moving on swiftly. Standing room only in the crem for the 30 minute slot (20 minute service) - standard timings for my curacy. A busy time at the crem, they said - 11 services in the place that day. The deceased lived about 15 minutes from the crem, the reception was a similar distance away (in his lodge). I used a Scottish liturgy (give or take) and we sang hymns and listened to poems and Enya.

Funeral 2: Up here. A member of the small, now dormant, dependent congregation. I last saw her two weeks before, just before I went on holiday, a week before she died. Family only - four adults and 2 children aged 6 and 8. Changed most of the words in my little book to ones that are easier to understand (and not just for the kids!). Also a busy time at the crem, they said - a funeral every day that week! The journey was about 90 minutes each way: up the 'Rest-and-be-Thankful' and down Loch Lomondside from Dunoon to the crem. I went in the hearse and had a good chat there and back with the undertakers. The hearse did not go on fire. No idea how long the crem slot was - all day, I suppose - but we were in and out in 15 minutes. No music at all - just as the family wanted it.

And overall - the same sense of loss, of hope, of saying goodbye as electrically-operated curtains whirred closed. The sense (for me) of knowing the faces that were lying still in the coffins, and wondering if the gospel had been adequately preached.

And now - the second wedding of the week tomorrow. I wonder what will happen there...

Crumbs, it's late and busy...

2011-07-17T16:49:00.000-07:00

Where have the last few weeks gone?
Some holiday, some busy time.
Back to an incredibly busy time indeed - I thought the SEC didn't have so many funerals and weddings as we did south of the border.
But this week is the exception.
An incredibly rich week, a week with connections and contacts with many lives.
A week with God?
Maybe?

Synod

2011-06-14T06:35:00.000-07:00

It's now nearly one week PS - post-synod - and I am trying to grab a spot from the busyness to reflect.
The General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church (my first one) was a most interesting experience. As a newcomer to the Synod (and as an ordained person, the province) there was much to observe.
Many people knew each other incredibly well - almost clubbily well. Is that a good thing? Yes and no, I suspect.
The issues discussed had a slight feel of being the continuing processing of well-established positions and inevitable unfolding of pre-assumed outcomes. What do I mean by that? A feeling of a church that is (or has been) rather homogeneous in ecclesiology and outlook - so has some rather foregone conclusions. The homogeneous features appear to be things like 'liberal' and 'catholic' and 'sacramental' and 'rational'.
I also sensed (largely based on a three minute conversation with one delegate at the very end) that this is changing, and some slightly broader perspectives are creeping in.
Overall, I sensed some confusion over being 'Anglican' (at a provincial synod this appears to be a self-defining feature), 'Episcopalian' (a brand that means different things to different people) and 'Scottish' (again, a brand that has many facets). I came to the personal conclusion that we are a church, in our own right, and that label is large enough to contain all of the above.
Did we change things for the better? I'm not sure. Did we change things for the worse? Probably not. Did we grapple with the real issues of survival and even flourishing as a church?

Plug pulling

2011-06-08T08:06:00.000-07:00

What happens at the hydro station when someone pulls the plug on Loch Tarsan!

One year on...

2011-06-04T14:50:00.000-07:00

Blink - and two weeks has passed!

How does it feel to be at the actual anniversary of starting my ministry here?

I almost didn't notice that it had come, even having spotted it further away in May.

Ministry busyness, some extraordinary happenings, some awful things and wonderful people, and wonderful things too!

That's been the last year, too, now that I reflect upon it!

Anniversaries...

2011-05-21T14:54:00.000-07:00

A year today I pulled up outside the Rectory in Dunoon. I was in a people carrier loaded to the gunwhales, with a trailer loaded to its gunwhales. I had just driven from Gloucester to Dunoon via Arrochar and the Rest-and-be-thankful.

It was very early in the morning, on the 21st of May.

We had just moved from England to Scotland, from the Church of England to the Scottish Episcopal Church. It's still a few days more until the anniversary of my licensing up here, but it's good to have a few days to reflect on the first year of ministry in a new place.

And its still a new place, with people to learn about, new ways of doing and being and a different culture and context. And that's from me, born and brought up in Scotland, living here until I was 32. It's all very different. Religion is different to religion in England. Being an Episcopalian is not the same as being an Anglican (although to nail either of those is beyond the best minds in the land). And to make either of those grow and flourish and zing - well, there's a challenge for us all.

So a few reflections will follow over the next little while on being one year in.

All at sea...

2011-05-14T01:22:00.000-07:00

At last, after nearly a year on the west coast, I managed (with son) to get afloat in something not driven by a diesel engine (well, not all the time) - we went sailing!

Gordon (a serious, many decade experienced sailor) was the skipper, and Pete and I were, well, ballast.

Not so much wind about - a squall or two got us up to a little bit of speed between Cumbrae and Bute - but the sense of water fizzing below the hull and the angle of the world aboard Tantina II were exhilarating!

Do you think we will get hooked? Maybe not, but it was great to be one of those little white triangle flying up and down the approaches, rather than just looking out at them!

Coming up for air...

2011-05-01T00:42:00.000-07:00

Quite a lively last couple of weeks - Holy Week and Easter, of course, which is rather an intense time, especially the first year in new churches. Mary was getting to the end of her duties as a team leader in the census - lots of miles, forms, admin. And our new business venture, a small self-catering flat, had (has, as I write) our first guests come to stay.

All very intense, and an interesting counter-balance with each one drawing attention away from the others. I'm never one to completely disappear below the surface during Holy Week (too many years in the real, uncaring world to let myself be quite so self-indulgent, maybe?), but it was an interesting experience to multi-task so strongly.

The Lord Almighty grant us a quiet night and a perfect end...

2011-04-17T13:16:00.000-07:00

The wisdom of offering a sung compline as the short ecumenical act of worship on Bute has been knitting my brows somewhat. But I offered it, at the ministers' meeting (once known as the fraternal) and some were keen. So we did it. With a short introduction to what compline actually is. And to how the four lined clefs with square blobs work as musical notation. And we did it. So I remain with brow slightly furrowed, wondering in which direction the boundaries of ecumenical understanding have been pushed. But it certainly flushed out the Anglicans who now go to the Church of Scotland but remember (fondly it seems) choral evensong. Not the same animal, but from a nearby stable. So we wait, brow a little tense, to see what feedback drifts over from the island...

Lent - but Easter Experienced!

2011-03-30T14:06:00.000-07:00

The last two days (well, last few weeks) have been an odd mixture of the start of Lent and ramping up for a local schools project - Experience Easter!

People from local churches took a set of stations into Dunoon Grammar School for the first year to experience interactively the Holy Week and Easter story. I've done it quite a few times down south, generally in primary rather than secondary schools - so this was a challenge to get it running in a new context, in a secondary school and in much shorter, packaged periods.

I'm sure I'll blog or reflect more on the event itself, the press coverage, the start of an ecumenical flavour in pulling it together, the plans for repeats in the future (and other similar projects for other seasons). But for tonight, I want to record one of the most profound incidents.

When we came in just before 9 this morning to start the second day, the gym was in complete darkness, except for the light inside the empty tomb. I was surprised, as I thought we had switched it off the night before. But it was busy, things are easily overlooked.

In the mid morning break, one of the school cleaners popped in, and apologised for having switched the light on - when they came into the gym early in the morning they had felt the urge to switch the light on inside Jesus' empty tomb, and to spend a quite ten minutes or so, surrounded by the Holy Week stations, just quietly reflecting.

The flows of people around us and our churches, and the ways that ripples set out in ways that we can anticipate - these never cease to amaze me.

Priestly rest...

2011-03-27T07:54:00.000-07:00

After a busy day of peripatetic priestliness...

Spring!

2011-03-27T07:46:00.001-07:00

It has been quite a distraction over the past few weeks, all the busyness, tweeting, buying a flat - all rather a lot. And while it was happening - spring arrived! The rhododendron in front of the rectory in Dunoon has burst into magenta bloom (briefly confused by some snow and ice) but now a spectacular display of vibrant colour (even matching the Lenten violet of the vestments). The little bunches of daffodils have emerged from the turf and and started to show their heads. The birdsong is so rich that you can almost feel it as you step outside the house. A few yards away, the church is even starting to dry out a little after the winter - the long weeks and months of chasing leaks and pushing contractors and trying to get things stable seem easier as it gets lighter and brighter. The late spring project? To start and sort the peeling paintwork inside the chancel - in a way that will last and make fabric sense. We have a plan, we have funding, we will (hopefully) soon have the necessary permissions. Over the Kyles, there is a similar sense of spring. The visitors have started to appear, and there is a shiny new board to greet them and tell them that we are here. Quotes are flowing in to solve the various problems around the buildings, people are in good spirits! I suppose the only thing to be done is to change the picture on this blog from a snowy one to a spring-like one!

2011-03-11T00:25:00.001-08:00

I'm having another go on Twitter, having let it lie fallow for rather a long time.

Tweet tweet. Broadcast boring, if one's not careful.

andyswift39, if you are interested.

Synod 2011 for Argyll & The Isles

2011-03-03T12:47:00.000-08:00

Just returned from my first diocesan synod in Argyll and The Isles. My impressions?

As a new arrival in the diocese, I tried to approach with no strong expectations one way or another. The new bishop, only a few weeks into his episcopate, was always going to bring a fascinating twist to the sense of the synod, but as for the rest of us?

A pre-Synod day on building a vision was hard work, but creatively done. Did we hear any new hopes or fears? Probably not too many - the challenges we face as a widely distributed church in the 21st century are well known. The opportunities that ministry offers in a breath-takingly beautiful place, a thin place, a rooted place are wide and varied.

+Kevin managed to remember to constitute synod at the eucharist that evening, and the dining and dancing flowed on smoothly from there.

The business of synod was brisk - finance, the progression of canonical change, diocesan review of provincial initiatives. The financial story was improving very greatly (although, as at the local level, still a way to go!). Canonical change seemed largely uneventful and largely not relevant to this diocese: no licenced posts held by over seventy-year olds. The provincial gender audit was of interest: more women than men worship, a universal truth it seems. More men than women lead - a statistic that I believe time will even for the clerical side of the balance: less than 20 years of female priests, several hundred (in the modern era) of male!

A good debate on the rural report: there is tangible and relevant hope for ministry in the rural swathes of Scotland. But how to embrace this opportunity? We had plenty of tales of successful initiatives and positive encounters.

Elections, reports, all the usual business of a synod. But all done in good spirits and with a positive, optimistic sense.

The post-synod day - a clergy day - was very interesting too. The clergy do not have the answers on where the diocese will go, but are the ordained 'specialists' in some areas (oh, the debates one can have on that title!). The conclusions from this morning? There are opportunities for mission and growth, and we all need trained and formed to seize these opportunities. And we all need trained and formed to grow a vision that will lead us there.

Tired but feeling positive, we departed for our far flung yet beautiful corners of the world!

A fresh, bright day at Holy Trinity Dunoon...

2011-02-08T09:39:00.000-08:00

...and look who's coming to church!

A shiny red cherry picker, especially brought in to get a plumber up onto the church tower to patch holes in the leadwork around the roof. Hopefully that will stop the water cascading inside the bellchamber and down into the rest of the tower!

Later that day, the picker-driver returns to the car park, job done - and frozen solid by the stiff winds at the top of the tower, right up above the Clyde. Some photos of the tower top should follow, once the contractor e-mails them.

Now to wait for the next rain to test the repairs. Shouldn't have long to wait in Argyll!

Bishop Kevin, Argyll and The Isles

2011-02-04T13:12:00.000-08:00

Captions?

Today Dean Kevin Pearson was consecrated as the 10th modern (since 1847) Bishop of Argyll and The Isles. It was a day filled with much laughter, greeting of old friends, making of new friends (important for me, in only the beginning of the 9th month since my arrival as priest in this diocese) and the pomp and ceremony of a liturgical consecration and installation.

People dressed as abbots waved sticks about, bishops from here, there and everywhere waved their hands about. Incense wafted liberally. Elspeth (see above) smiled a lot. Processions processed and receptions received.

Was the Holy Spirit wrapped into it all? I believe so, very much so.

Exciting times ahead - in the short term another trip up to Oban tomorrow for Mary, kids and I for a diocesan eucharist-cum-'+Kevin's'-celebration-in-one-of-his-cathedrals. We can play 'spot-the-pot-hole' - first to one thousand wins the prize: to choose the make of the new tyres!

I may even wear my kilt - it is the Argyll and The Isles after all!

A busy day in Cowal and Bute - sampled

2011-02-02T12:51:00.000-08:00

Words & phrases to sum up today...

Wet weather - very wet weather - chance to spot leaks in the tower roof - lots of leaks, easily spotted. Easily fixed? Hmm.

Deliberate (little) holes in the chancel wall - better news than hoped for on redecoration.

Busy (relatively) eucharist on Bute.

Possible ecumenical wedding in the summer - hmm.

Smoky (literally) eucharist in Dunoon.

Worrying about hospices being closed - and agreeing to do something (small) about it.

Sermon on looking for God in the ordinary at Candlemas. Keeping our eyes open.

Burns vs Paul...?

2011-01-25T11:12:00.001-08:00

25th January - the conflation of Burns' Night with the feast of the conversion of St Paul.

I idly ponder who would be the dominant force?

Burns is a strong character, with his hatred of religious hypocrisy (Holy Willie's Prayer), his love of women that brought him to the penitent's 'cutty stool' in Tarbolton Kirk, and his potent mixture of socialism, nationalism and penchant for begging letters. His eyes glowed when he was excited, according to the encounter with a youthful Walter Scott (I was paying attention to the 'Immortal Memory' at Innellan Burns' Supper last week!). Burns is regarded as a leading light in the new Scottish establishment that grew out of the post-Culloden Hanoverian ravages, culminating in Scott's re-manufactured vision of a tartan Scotland that even captured the sartorial delight and support of later Hanoverians. The birthday of Rabbie Burns, celebrated today, started something significant and lasting.

Paul is just as strong, with his fervour and zeal to eradicate the unorthodox new movement that was contaminating his Pharisaic Judaism - he stood and held the coats as Stephen was stoned to death after giving a powerful sermon. And Paul was just as fervent and zealous after his conversion (on the road to Damascus, we hear, in Acts) to spread the word that this new movement was the new covenant, the grace-filled, faith-dependent means to be renewed with God. His writings (authentic, disputed and under his name) give the feeling that it would be a bit of pain to be stuck with him in a lift for terribly long. He would rather make his point known - and the answer, regardless of the question, would be Jesus (not a squirrel). His conversion, celebrated today, was a hard one.

So, who would be better...?

In homage to that radical commentator on matters of media and culture, Harry Hill: there is only one way to decide this sort of thing...

Hole + Ice = made it (just)

2011-01-18T12:48:00.000-08:00

There is a beautiful scientific principle by why the presence of pot holes on country roads makes it easier to get a grip on them whilst driving on black ice!

A good morning in Tighnabruaich, coffee sharing and raising funds for Macmillan Cancer Care! But nearly didn't make it, skating rink and all!

(Yet) another post about the King James Bible...

2011-01-06T01:15:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot of varied blog traffic on the KJV 400th anniversary, most of it guardedly hostile to the language of the translation, or the sexuality of King James IV/I, or the associated fundamentalism (the King James was good enough for Jesus so it's good enough for me) etc.

I am rather taken with the KJV, personally, and that's coming from someone who grew up in the post Vatican II catholic tradition, with never a glimpse of the KJV, other than the possible appropriation of elements (e.g. the doxology-free 'Our Father' in the English translated mass). Why am I taken with it? Someone lent me Nicholson's 'Power and Glory', an account of the process and context by which this bible was created.

It was created as a sort of settlement between the evangelicals (who wanted the Calvinist Geneva bible) and the more traditional-catholic-friendly wing of the English church (who had the not very good Bishops' Bible as an anti-Geneva prop). The scholarship applied to the KJV was seen as the leading work of its time (although it was basically a Church of England inside job).

When I was living near Bristol there was a big tower on a nearby hill - the Tyndale monument. William Tyndale was a 16th century Enlgish reformer who translated the New and Old Testaments into English and was executed, near Brussels, for heresy in 1536. Four years later Henry VIII authorised the publication of bibles in English, all based on Tyndale's work. The Bishop's Bible (the English base for the KJV) was developed from the Great Bible, which was developed from Tyndale's work. All a bit tortuous, maybe, but the fact remains that people were willing to die to hear the bible translated into their own language - in the 16th/17th century, Jacobean English. By the time of the KJV the worst of the religious persecution was passing (but it was not entirely gone...) but the memories of burnings were fresh.

The KJV is a wonderful example of scripture engaging with the culture of its time, to allow it to come alive and speak directly, of God, to the people. We continue to do this today - whether one prefers the REB, the RSV (my personal favourite for sermon preparation), the NIV, TNIV, NRSV, Message, Word on the Street - the list goes on and on, paraphrases and translations, each with its own particular style and context.

The KJV is a wonderful piece of prose - the iambic pentameters flow beautifully to attuned ears - but for me it matters because of what it represents. It represents humanity's desire to refresh and rediscover what the scriptures have to say to each new generation, at any cost. We forget the price that people of faith have paid over the centuries to hear and understand those inspired words.

Twas Christmas eve...

2010-12-24T05:00:00.000-08:00

The preparations are nearly there, just a few final tweaks and we should be ready to ease from December the 24th to December the 25th.

It has been interesting to reflect upon thinking about two churches and three congregations at this time. It can be all to easy to focus upon the church building that I see outside the windows every day, the one that is only 100 yards away.

The church that is nearly 30 miles away by road and sea has also been preparing, putting up trees, decorating the pew-ends, adjusting the (non-eucharistic) service for Christmas morning. I will be with them at St Paul's on Boxing/St Stephen's Day, once the Calmac ferries start up again after the Christmas break.

The church community that is 25 miles away by road are doing their own individual thing - next year will be a time of extra events and developed services, pastoral visiting and future planning. The snow had largely cut them off for quite a while. St Martin's will be in my prayers this Christmas.

But the church building next door? Servers (all four of them for midnight) are rehearsed, thurible technique brushed up, lighting sequence and subtleties thought about, gospel acclamations dug out and practised, hot beverage production offered and accepted. Decorations, the real tree, the crib, the stands - all have been beautifully arranged, and preserved in the deep freeze that is Holy Trinity. The frontals have been changed (which may change itself next year).

It's nearly ready to go.

Now something is still to be done. What is it again? I'm sure there is something...

Oh yes - a sermon might be appropriate!

We will now sing hymn number 366 in Ancient and Modern Revised Standard 1983

2010-12-10T02:32:00.000-08:00

The new steel beams have been fitted into Holy Trinity's tower, after a wait of over a year! The new structures, with galvanised RSJs, bolted doubler plates on flanges and shear webs and cemented in support pads in the walls, should hold the weight of the bell frame, bells, pigeons and occasional climbing rector (or others!).

This should be the first stage of the project that will restore the tower's gutters, remove the end of the wood rot, replace the linings, frames etc. and generally make the space back into one that we can actually use.

Given the arctic conditions we have had this week, it is a fantastic milestone for the fabric project. Well done to all!

A prayer for deer-whistling II - just when you thought it was safe to drive to Bute...

2010-12-09T14:13:00.000-08:00

I have lost the deer whistle from one of our cars. I am pretty sure it came off when I hit a (very suicidally stupid) pheasant the other day. Oh well, it didn't say 'Pheasant Whistle' on the packet...

While shepherds washed their socks by night...

2010-12-09T14:10:00.000-08:00

...a warm welcome?

2010-12-06T10:10:00.000-08:00

A snowy day in Cowal and Bute - the photograph was taken the Sunday before last (thanks Liz!) but nicely sums up the weather that has (finally) come to bite us in our little maritime mini-climate.

The children made it to school - just - and I dodged the speeding/skidding 4x4s that were being driven as if it were a dry summer's day. There is something about being wrapped in a couple of tons of car that makes people feel nice and safe. Nice and slowly, gentle braking and I got home. The drive was impossible - the car wouldn't even park at the foot of the hill - it just slid down with handbrake on from stationary.

A heavy afternoon clearing and treating it all, then a run for more salt for the morning, to keep it clear after the promised -9 degrees overnight. Plans are in disarray: a trip to Edinburgh later this week cancelled, time in Rothesay over the next two days in jeopardy, meetings having to be shifted and shuffled about.

But under all the snow, the church is still there - just as the pisky pubsign is still there. Congregation friends are looking out for each other, contact is being maintained with the frail ones, those short of food being supplied. Worship may be disrupted, but the body of Christ is still functioning well, in many tiny acts of kindness and concern.

Two perspectives

2010-11-27T11:11:00.000-08:00

The evening of the day before the First Sunday of Advent is an 'official' title for this evening. Advent is almost upon us... How is the world preparing?

Above is (part) of the decoration on MV Saturn, the Calmac ferry that plies between Dunoon and Gourock whilst MV Jupiter, the summer boat, has its annual maintenance period.

There are two perspectives on this tableau.

1) One could be negative - it's only the 27th of November, not even into Advent. The infant Jesus and the wise men are already there (getting a bit particular now). The hoover, ramp and cleaning signs are an interesting complement to the nativity.

2) One could be positive - this is a visual retelling of the Christmas story in a secular, public place. It has been squeezed in where it could be all too easy to have nothing. It has been placed in a busy, living, untidy context where all is not neat and sterile and aesthetically pleasing. Someone has cared enough to do it.

How can we be anything but positive? The God-child has appeared in a modern stable - a place where respectable church-goers might tut a little, and people would not expect anything profound to occur. The God-child has appeared where and when not expected. The God-child has appeared where people can see him, respond to him, wonder about him.

I dread to think how many free child crossings between Dunoon and Gourock that Jesus will have had by the time Epiphany comes.

Practical progress...

2010-11-25T07:01:00.000-08:00

Scaffolding has appeared in the tower at Holy Trinity Dunoon, the first stage of the process to replace the rotten steel beams that hold up the bell chamber and to allow safe access and repair to gutters, damp and internals.

It will be a big job, and the work on the beams has been over a year in coming, whilst the damp etc. has always been there.

It is exciting that things will start to move, and we are grateful for the grants, donations and fantastic fundraising that has allowed us to proceed. We still have a long way to go, but every journey starts with a first step (if that isn't too much of a cliché).

Oh - did I mention that the new sign at the bottom of the drive in Dunoon has appeared too? It's just a refresh of the old one, with the midweek service times, website and phone number added and a contemporary rather than gothic font. Not a big deal, but another forward step in church profile terms. The new sign for St Paul's in Rothesay is in the pipeline, along with some heating developments. It feels good to be progressing in these practical areas!

Scottish Spirituality

2010-11-19T05:40:00.000-08:00

This week we celebrated St Margaret of Scotland's day (a home communion on the day, eucharist on Bute the day after, eucharist in Dunoon the day after that - rural dispersed ministry!)

This particular saint's day has set me thinking about the nature of Scottish spirituality, as opposed to British, celtic, western or other forms of spirituality. Trying to define spirituality per se is a risky business, as it becomes very, very hard to define boundaries between spiritual, cultural, contextual (if that is different to cultural), traditional etc. etc.

But it is an interesting subject, for an Anglican priest, trained in England, brought up in Scotland and now returned home to an episcopal church, pejoratively referred to as 'The English Church' by many. And it IS an 'English' church*, compared to the Church of Scotland or the Irish-rooted catholic church. The history of the episcopal church is wrapped together with English government and church politics. Our liturgy is recognisably Anglican, while peculiarly Scottish.

Where to go with all this? I have spotted some work by Ian Bradley at St Andrew's (I await a book or two via Amazon) and some activity in the Scottish Baptist College, which looks a wee bit like nationalistic spirituality rather than Scottish, but that's from a cursory glance. There are yards of books on celtic spirituality, Iona and so forth. Future posts about what all that stuff looks like. I also note with great interest the primus of my own denomination blogging about an interest in the Scottish Episcopal spirituality that preceded the English dominated Oxford movement (well, really Cambridge Camden Society driven) revival in Scotland. The Oxford movement was really about authority in the English/Irish state churches, Cambridge drove the liturgical changes that are associated with the revival. I digress.

But what about ordinary, everyday, SNP-government lead, supermarket-shopping, soap-opera-watching Scottish spirituality? The nation that produced Hume must have some defining sense of the spiritual. Following Hume's empirical lead, I can share my own observations from my short time back north of the border. St Margaret is a useful aide memoire.

She was eminently practical, working for the well-being of the subjects of her nation, establishing education, charitable support, even a ferry to let people get to the capital city, Dunfermline. She is regarded as a philanthropist in a time when royal power was absolute and often self-serving. But she was also prayerful and pious, founding churches and monasteries. She reformed the church of her time. She exemplified a balance of the practical and the pious, a balance of maintaining tradition and reforming for the good of all.

That seems a good starting point for a contemporary Scottish spirituality. It must be practically rooted, because as a nation we stand for little or no nonsense (with the possible exception of the design of the Scottish Parliament). Words without actions will not impress a Scot or an incomer hardy enough to settle here. We are also inclined to change that which needs changing - hence why Scots led most of the technological and philosophical innovations that created the modern world (challenge that!). But we are also a people who can connect to God in a profound and deep way, finding divinity in the beauty of the landscape, the wonder of natural life, the excitement of the arts, the sacramental encounter of God in everyday things. Like bread and wine.

I'll leave it there - and I'm sure people of other ethnic/national roots might argue that the above applies to their own characteristics. To be honest, the real search here may be to discern what it is to be Scottish in the first place.

*I am ever conscious of the very large proportion of folk from south of the border that form part of our congregations, as well as the 18th century settlements with the English establishment that allowed this Scottish protestant church to be free. As well as the English driven worship innovation in the 19th century. And so on. Added 23 Nov 2010.

Remembrance

2010-11-16T01:10:00.000-08:00

A slightly late post on remembrance.

November 1981 is the first year that I can remember taking part in a Remembrance Sunday parade of some nature. We obviously didn't do much in the Church of the Holy Family in Dunblane, or maybe I didn't notice if something was done. 1981, newly uniformed as a member of the ATC, shiny black shoes with slippery soles, a new short haircut and a parade over the cobbles of Stirling's old town.

I remember the cold, the pain in the ears, the marching, the bugles, some talking at various bits.

The years passed, more Remembrance Sundays, ATC, RAF, a war or two (without much personal involvement). Lots of marching, carrying flags, lots of hearing 'They shall not grow old...' Then civilian life.

Now I am back into processing, rather than marching, but participating in the acts of remembrance in their religious context. I have mixed feelings about my own military service: mainly because I left it early, at my own volition, to pursue other life directions. Was that the right thing to do? At 18 years old I signed up to serve until I was 38! A change of heart at 22 and a move to the Admiralty - at the time it seemed like a cataclysmic change of direction, with hindsight a subtle change of emphasis within the departments of the Ministry of Defence. But I have regrets about having left my military career so early. Was it honourable to have done so?

So when I stand and listen to Binyon's Words and the last post, as I watch the old soldiers march past with their berets and memories, I am unsure whether I am one of them or not. I still know my service number off by heart (that never goes). I have no medals. I studied the ethics of war with fascination, how they have evolved over the centuries. I imagine the hardships of the trenches and the motivation that makes young men and women stand up and take part in such things.

The world has come quite full circle in the regard for those who serve - we quite non-critically laud those who are killed or wounded in the conflicts of today (fought in an asymmetric concept under an 'anticipatory' self-defence within Article 51 of the United Nations charter). And it is right to empathise with the pain and suffering that war brings to all. A media war may gloss over the political context, but the human cost remains visible and real. Just as a human dying on the cross is visible and real.

We will remember them.

That's what freeing ports are for...

2010-11-12T02:18:00.000-08:00

The weather is getting more exciting now that the autumn equinox is past and winter is approaching. Calmac ferries were off for most of yesterday, but the Western Ferries kept going through the south-westerlies.

The ferries go backwards (from the cars' perspective) while they head into the waves, then spin around half-way across the Clyde to go with the waves up to Hunters' Quay and in.

It was even rather exciting getting on and off the ferry. It was a very high tide, with the waves rolling across the front in Dunoon, and the boats and pontoons on and off the ferry were shifting a great deal as you drove on and off. Front wheels ashore and aft wheels aboard was very interesting for the moment it happened. It makes it all seem much less routine than usual! Between that and a black-icy commute to Bute earlier this week, this part of Scotland has some excitement to normal living that one doesn't get down south or in the big city.

And the freeing ports (the little holes in the gunwhales and strakes on the ferries) nicely let the Clyde back out of the ship to where it belongs. Glad to see they still work.

A prayer for deer-whistling?

2010-10-29T03:10:00.001-07:00

Latest gadget acquired for living in the wild west of Scotland: deer whistles for the cars (£5 on ebay)

The item in question is a small plastic whistle (well, a pair of whistles) which you stick onto the front grille of the car. The idea is that once you go above about 30 or 40 miles per hour, it emits a whistle pitched to annoy deer (and other furry road-kill-in-waiting) and they dodge off the road before you drive into them. It was recommended by a lady clippie on the Colintraive-Rhubodach ferry who wrote off a car recently driving into a stag. So, a heart-felt recommendation.

When the whistles came, I tried blowing through them and they - wait for it - emitted a whistle! I was a little worried how irritating this might be whilst driving, and what if you had a cat or a dog in the car? Would they be driven into a frenzy by the sound?

I installed them onto the cars' grilles (as shown above) and duly set off to Bute, speed varying from 20mph to (a wee bit over) 60 mph (allegedly). No whistling sound to be heard above the engine/road/wind noise. That was fine - no annoyance from the whistles.

But wait! Are they working at all? Blowing them with your mouth is a concentrated wind, directed straight into the whistle. Hoping that general air flow on the front of the car will cause the same or a similar effect? I started watching birds and animals to see if they behaved oddly as I drove past. The pheasants (collective IQ minus 30) dodged away - but they always do. I started to wonder if these things work at all, had I fitted them properly, what was it all about.

So I found myself reflecting on other things like that. Like prayer. Does it work? When we do it, as we ask for something for ourselves or others, do we look and see if it happens. If a desired outcome happens (the deer dodges away) is it the prayer, or was it going to happen anyway? Putting a deer whistle on a car can give a sense of security through having taken action - one feels better. Is prayer just as subjective - it makes us feel better? Or does it objectively change things around us/with us and God?

Of course, prayer is a dialogue with God, a way of growing our mutual relationship and encounter with our creator - and there is so much more to prayer than asking for things. But it is still good to just DO it, rather than to analyse in minute detail what it is we think we are doing.

As Ali said to me, 'After I fitted the deer whistle, I started seeing fewer and fewer deer by the road.' We can take the advice of those who have walked before us and walk alongside us. A praying way of life is a Christian way of life that works - just ask anyone who is living that way of life.

And I will continue to assume that it is better to have a deer whistle on your car than to not have one!

Autumn encounter of the furry kind...

2010-10-16T11:55:00.000-07:00

I should be finishing thoughts for my talks in the services tomorrow (they are getting nicely distilled after plenty of reflection) but I will circle a little longer by blogging!

We met a red friend with tufty ears and a bushy tale on a walk through Bishop's Glen this afternoon. It's the first red squirrel we've seen for months. Now that the leaves are thinning out and the colours of the trees turning nice and rusty, it's a bit easier to see the wildlife around us, rather than just hearing the scuffling and scrabbling. One thing dies off, but a new insight is obtained on the world. Sounds suspiciously like the basis for a theological reflection!

It was very bold little fellow (I instinctively thought of it as a 'he', for no good reason whatsoever other than that he was showing off as he leapt from tree to tree). He stopped close enough for our rather basic little digitial camera to zoom in on him and get a quick shot. It actually gave him red-eye, which I photo-shopped out, which I think means he was looking straight at us as we were looking at him. Very confident!

A delightful encounter in Argyll. We must sort out some food for birds/squirrels now that it's getting colder.

A tale of two launches - part 2...

2010-10-11T14:03:00.000-07:00

The second blogged launch on waters around Glasgow - the launching into the Clyde of the sixth and last of the Type 45 destroyers, Duncan. She'll become HMS Duncan in a couple of years once she goes into service.

It was only the second launch I've been to - the last was St Albans in 1999 (I reckon), the last of the Type 23 frigates. I didn't work on the design of those - I was still at school when they did the Type 23 Duke Class.

It was a beautiful day, clear blue skies and warm sunshine - always a bonus in a Scottish October! The date was the anniversay of Admiral Duncan's naval victory over the Dutch at Camperdown. Fair enough. The ship looked rather stark, I felt, a feature of this new design-style for warships.
There was a short service, lead by the chaplain of the fleet in his preaching bands and choir dress, the singing of 'For those in peril on the sea', some prayers. The crowd joined in slightly self-consciously and erratically with both the hymn and the Lord's Prayer. The prayer-book language naval prayer didn't get a look in with the ordinary punters!

The 'God-bit' over, lady something or other (apparently Mrs Marie Ibbotson, wife of the first Sea Lord!) crashed the champagne, pretended to push the bow, and off she (the ship) slid into the Clyde. Balloons flew and fireworks fountained - unfortunately the two crossed over and many of the balloons were shredded by the roman candles! I'm sure the symbolism was unintended: the fireworks were mounted around the missile silos, a system designed to shoot down large numbers of incoming aircraft and hostile missiles.

They have even made the Type 45 logo politically correct since I left - it used to be the ship with a missile blowing up a target - a subtle change and now it's a lovely round sun!

I met a few ex-colleagues at the shipyard, which I wasn't expecting, to be honest. They've all moved on to other things, but still in naval circles. They all knew that I am now 'a vicar', but not that we are up in Dunoon. It was rather unsettling, going back so vigorously into one's past. One of them even said they'd had some mail for me the other week, down in the HQ in Bristol.

Moving on, and in quite such a radical way, from shipbuilding executive to Anglican priest, has been quite a rollercoaster ride. The ethics of the industry in which I spent nearly 15 years are fascinating, and they are complex ethics, knitting together defence, weapons, foreign policy, national and international economics and social engineering in shipbuilding and other industrial regions. I can hardly claim a pacifist platform, with military service followed by a naval engineering career, but I can claim a nuanced take on the issues involved. Must all Christians be pacifists? I would suggest that Jesus was a pacifist, in the sense that we use today, but it doesn't follow that we all should be the same. Jesus was lots of things...

The Scottish Episcopal church has taken a stance against all nuclear weapons. That's not an area that I have ever encountered, other than some time in RAF Germany in the later cold war, before submarines had taken it all over. There are some interesting debates to be had about that war - the cold one - and how it was not fought and won.

But today was almost all about the future - the Type 45s were designed to be able to do nice gentle humanitarian errands, as well as shredding incoming missiles or aircraft. And the politics rumbles on - in the sheds behind us were looming blocks of aircraft carrier structure, well advanced in construction. Loss of jobs? Economic prudence? Unilateral reduction of armed forces? Who knows what the next few months and years may hold for my former colleagues?

A new bishop for Argyll and The Isles

2010-10-06T09:23:00.000-07:00

A very exciting day. I was celebrating the eucharist at St Paul's Rothesay as the college of bishops met at Cumbrae to elect a new bishop for our diocese. Once the eucharist was over, I checked my silenced mobile phone for new - several missed calls and texts were listed. The news:

The Very Rev'd Kevin Pearson, rector of St Michael and All Saints, Edinburgh, Dean od Edinburgh, Provincial Director of Ordinands - was named as the new bishop-elect.

I have never met Kevin, being relatively new to the SEC, but I have heard of him.

We will be praying for him and Elspeth in the weeks and months to come, along with the members of his church in Edinburgh. Change is always painful.

But we will be looking forward to a new chapter in our beautiful diocese on the western fringes of this land. It has been a strange time for me, arriving in a very small diocese without even a bishop. But you can easily get used to operating in isolation, which is not how churches work best and flourish. I wonder which way he will wish to take us...?

But I remain excited!

The news today

Reflections of a single parent...

2010-10-04T02:03:00.000-07:00

Mary has been abroad for a week now, with her mother. Today is the first anniversay of the death of John, her father, and it is very appropriate that she is with her mother in Jerusalem, where he died 12 months ago. It is hard to be far away when they are obviously in pain, but this is part of their process of coping with the uncopable.

Meanwhile, back in blighty, the Swifts are living as a single parent family. Mary did it enough times when I used to globe-trot for a living, but it's less usual for me. The rules all change: less stringent requirements on fruit and veg consumption, more flexibility on bedtimes (well, it is the October break), much higher likelihood that things will be forgotten about and have to be fixed later. The PE kit made it on the days it had to, but that's more to do with the children remembering it themselves. But it is hard, carrying the burden of the children & all their lives and activities (and relationships, parties, new wants) without someone to share it.

And the same period has had the first funeral to come in since I came to Scotland, as well as personal crisis for a new friend, not a church goer. Oh - and an old work colleague with a terminal diagnosis looking for a future funeral. Oh - and all the usual business of church, services, planning, (minor) conflict, anxieties.

I have had much discussion with single clergy friends about the pressures of life and ministry and having a partner. That partner can be a safety relief valve, a person who can share the strain. That's maybe a better way of being. But the downside is the pressure that sharing a relationship or a family with ministry brings. A single priest can be a committed (or as detached) as they wish to be - it's just about them, without school parent evenings or parallel careers.

We are called, all of us, to be what God would have us be. And we are called as we are: single, partnered, with or without family, psychologically wired as we are and become. The authentic ministry that we live and do is defined, in part, by this context. And when it all gets too much, and we break - is that when we fail to be authentic, we try and live up to too many other people's expectations?

Oh - and on the subject of sorting all this stuff out did I mention Frankie's new rabbit?

A tale of two launches - part 1...

2010-09-19T05:23:00.001-07:00

The first launch, on Friday, was the return of NB Dalriada to the clear-ish waters of the Forth and Clyde Canal. The shot above is the 'before' one - before she was pressure-washed, scraped, sanded and blacked with four coats of Intertuf 16 bitumastic hull paint! Living on her for three days or so in the week, at an angle of 16 degrees from the horizontal, was interesting. You fall faster as you walk towards the stern, and climb as you walk forwards! The engine would overheat after two hours running with radiator immersed in air rather than canal water, but that's long enough to top up the batteries so the basic systems will work.

Four coats on, looking rather neat and tidy, three days for the whole thing to fully cure, and she was ready to go back in on Friday. Mary came and crewed for me, once the kids were dropped off at school. Tommy (from the Forth and Clyde Canal Society - stars all!) winched us back into the cut, we dropped a line around the upwind bollard and Mary part held, part paid-out as we turned her against the wind so we were pointing back up the cut towards Kirkintilloch and the marina. The wind was a little interesting getting back into the marina, but we slid gently back in beside NB Twizzle and tied up with barely a scuff on the new blacked paintwork.

All in all, a satisfactory process. The frustration (or enjoyment if you like that sort of thing) is repeating the whole blacking process again in two or three years' time. Dalriada has been out of the water twice in 2010 - this time, to be blacked, and when she came out to come north (see further down this blog). Boats don't much like being out of the water. Land is not the true environment for them!

The second launch - in about 3 weeks' time - we will be popping along to Govan to see Duncan, the sixth (and probably last) Type 45 destroyer be launched. A slightly different scale of event - and she will have needed a little more then 20 litres of hull paint to black her boot topping! But I'm sure she's ready to take to her natural environment too!

Duncan at Govan

... life in the matrix?

2010-09-03T02:47:00.000-07:00

Getting Mary connected with her own netbook seemed like a really good idea. Partitioning the Outlook accounts so the 'family' one only goes to her machine (duly backed up when I get round to it on the external hard drive) seems logical. Making sure the shared folders work (give or take) across the mixed Vista/XP network seems OK. It's all part of the evolution of our family network (I didn't think I'd be typing that a few years ago), as the ancient (i.e. 5 year old) laptop won't even run with Ubuntu...

But is it so good when we are sat together on my day off, putting off the jobs we should be doing, tapping at our keyboards within a couple of feet of each other? We are not e-communicating with each other, or Skyping across the same room (must get Skype fully set up!), but the image to the beholder would be one that is alarmingly technologically separated!

But is it so separated? With a network of friends scattered thinly over the world and thickly over the United Kingdom, real human relationships can be maintained or even intensified through the lens of technological relationship. I have met others who have found (and I have personally experienced) the intensity of virtual-only friendship, the blurring of the boundary of posted knowledge and face-to-face encounters. And (as I feel duty bound to do) I must reflect on the presence of God in these 'non-places.' Wherever people meet, share their lives, feel pain, ask the big questions - God is there to be encountered. Sacred places easily include internet-based space.

...and I still smile at an online debate on sacramentalism online - does the bread and wine get consecrated on a table in Australia if the president says the words in a study in Oxford, but both worshippers are present in a chat room hosted in ... who knows where?

All roads lead to...

2010-08-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

I must confess that the above image has been slightly Photoshopped for effect - it is 7 miles if you turn left and 8 if you turn right, but the gist of a signpost with no apparent distinguishing function was too hard to resist. Well, Bute is an island, and Kilchattan Bay is pretty much the bottom bit.

A good day today of getting to know people, scattered over a rather wide area of the Scottish countryside. Lives are filled wtih joy and pain, good experiences and bad experiences. We all look very hard for the signs of where we are supposed to go, what we are supposed to do. I would never be able to be Calvinist enough to accept that all is set, all the signposts point to our pre-determined Rothesay and the only question is how many miles and when we'll get there. But there is a little bit of me that feels that most signposts DO point to Rothesay, and as we make our freewilled choice to belong, believe and generally accept a life that God wishes for us, we have to make a pretty bad fist of it to accidentally take the road to Kilchattan Bay (which is the finger of the signpost that is pointing out of the picture - and which will now be dropped as a metaphor before the good residents of Kilchattan Bay decide that symbolism of damnation/etc./etc. is not appropriate for their beautiful village).

I went left, and was rewarded with amazing views of Arran, as well as reaching my chosen destination (which was, indeed, Rothesay).

Glen 10 & authorised liturgy

2010-08-14T12:40:00.000-07:00

I picked up Elly from her first provincial youth camp (in a denomination where 'provincial' is not a pejorative term, as it seems to be down south). The camp was at Glenalmond school in Perthshire, under the leadership of a bishop and with about 60 delegates and 20 leaders - how about those ratios!

This is early days for us in the Scottish Episcopal Church, but 'Glen 10', from the final worship and slide show I saw, plus conversation with Elly in the three hours it took to get home, fill me with interest and hope!

The whole youth thing was done brilliantly - how many events have a day time sign-up activity for the youth to choose that is 'sleeping'? Cooked breakfasts and iPod fests abounded. But there was also unashamed engagement with the daily office, with eucharistic theology and liturgy. The essence seems to be meeting people where they are, but maintaining the distinctiveness of SEC worship. That flies in the face of much of the 'Fresh Expressions' work down down south, where form is a flexible as context.

But it makes it a realistic (if you are a pisky this is what you get) and integrity-laden approach. I wonder how this will evolve as the years go by? I wonder how engaged and missional we are in non-episcopalian contexts (and where we lose the essence of what we are)? I wonder how easily one can remain eucharistic and sacramental without letting go of the controls of authorised liturgy? I wonder why I'm asking so many rhetorical questions?

East is east and west is west

2010-08-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

Freshly returned from holidaying afloat on NB Dalriada (NB = narrowboat - official designation for a 6'9" wide canal craft!) with a good, relaxing time had by all.

The journey started at Kirkintilloch, Dalriada's home base, nicely situated at the mid-pointish of the top pound of the Forth and Clyde canal (pound is the bit between locks - top pound is the flat on the top!) The top pound goes as far as Spiers Wharf and Maryhill Locks in Glasgow, so we basically started a few miles from Glasgow.

Destination: Falkirk Wheel - which is a spectacular feat of engineering, and, on a windy day, a fantastic opportunity to get your boat blown embarrassingly off course in a busy basin with hundreds of Japanese tourists photographing it. We avoided the embarrassment this time - not too windy, and wriggled into the wheel!

The view from the top!

We then journeyed the 32 miles to Edinburgh - right into the heart of the city. Plenty of braid weed (which ties up your propeller and stops the boat going or steering), and fun and games having diesel pumped into the boat and certain waste fluid products pumped out of the boat - these things can never be done quite when and where you want. Plenty of interest in Dalriada - she still says that she comes from Gloucester, which is quite a haul at 3mph from the Union Canal.

Now Edinburgh - where do we start...? Mary and I met here as students nearly 25 years ago. We know the place pretty well. Even some of the more 'interesting' bits that we sailed through have strong memories (Wester Hailes...)
asically, we love Edinburgh a lot, and it was wonderful to be there. But after the boat passes through and we disturb the water, or we visit the castle, or have a pizza at Mamma's in the Grassmarket, a little later there's no trace of our visit. We are all transient visitors.

So I loved this permanent footprint that the Union Canal builders left behind them in 1821, on the sides of bridge 61, just before you go back into the Falkirk Tunnel.

The left hand face is looking towards Edinburgh - smiling! The right hand face is looking towards Glasgow - grimace. Or is it that you pass the grimace as you go towards Edinburgh, but are greeted by a smile as you return to Glasgow. Hmmm. Take your pick of the preference for east and west.

But I still tend to read the Scotsman rather than the Herald. A dangerous admission for a clergyman in Argyll???

Twa corbies? No, only one, but a significant one!

2010-07-17T05:04:00.000-07:00

It can be quite unsettling, as one gets to know a new community and the awkward corners emerge. Not church related (although a fellow follower of the way here in Dunoon blogged about it as my first inkling of the issue)

The 'Jim Crow' rock on the shore at Kirn, just north of Dunoon, seems to be both a harmless and well known attraction (as 96% of local people apparently said in an online poll at the local paper) and a sinister call to a bygone age of racism and segregation, the 'Jim Crow' laws of racial segregation in the USA. 'This Fragile Tent's blog post on the subject gives plenty of context and background, and I don't think I have a lot to add to his insightful piece, but I can add a newcomer's perspective. When I drove past the rock on Thursday (four days after someone had greyed out the offensive racist paint), this is the sight one can now see.

As reported in the Dunoon Observer and Argyllshire Standard, the caricature (if that is what it is) has reappeared, just as it was before. The sense of local pride in a landmark, which is all that I had assumed it was until the blog and press coverage this week, has restored the image, over the KLF inspired grey.

How should a Christian respond? If it is rooted in the US history, it feels not too different to historical scars one can find everywhere. Black Boy Hill in Bristol, a city built on slaves, tobacco and such, is an example. Robertson's jam logos are another. But the rock has been like that since the early 1900s, long before US sailors, with their own history and context, were present in the Holy Loch (and we are now long after they've gone). There is another rock, a few miles down the A77 coast road on the other side of the water, down past Ayr, that has 'Jesus Died for You' painted on it, and has for several decades. That gets painted out and repainted on a fairly regular basis. One person's offensive statement...

It is part of the narrative of this place - and a slightly confusing one. I continue to explore the many narratives, inside and outside of the church buildings.

Impressions...

2010-07-13T11:06:00.000-07:00

Impressions galore.

An indolent seal lolling on a rock on the beach at Innellan, gawping lazily at folk stopping to take his picture. Some more circumspect colleagues on rocks a little further offshore, silhouettes rather than photogenic tourist traps.

Deer sniffing around the trailers and bins. Toads sneaking into the porch while Jenny has her late-night hobble around the grounds before she settles to bed. A particularly puffed-up toad that I scooped up in a shoe and returned to the rain outside. I don't think two toads constitutes a plague, so the Mosaic plague-log for our time in Dunoon remains at midges (biting gnats, I would suggest) and rain (not quite full biblical grade hail, but not a bad substitute). The Kyles at Colintraive have yet to run red with blood, even if the northerly-ish wind on Sunday threatened the safe transit of Dunoon travellers to Rothesay!

More people to get to know! Lots of cups of tea and bits of cake. Lots of walks around Bishop's Glen to try and wear off the cups of tea and bits of cake.

A rather empty echo where a 'central diocese' would usually be, down south at any rate. It's summertime, we are in a vacancy and I have a feeling we're not in Kansas, Toto! Still, much time to get to know the people further afield.

Good impressions.

The priest, the treasurer and the sparrow

2010-07-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

The last day of school term, children now broken up and celebrating their freedom. A few of them lurking cheerfully on the steps of the church, down on the front. They smile hello as I step through them.

I'm waiting in the church to have a business-like meeting with the treasurer, about the treasure I suppose. I'm fiddling with the amp that gave us an a cappella eucharist the other week (mass setting and all!)

The doors are wide open (I always like to leave church doors wide open) and I love the snippets of conversation and comment that float in. "Where are you, Kenny?" from a mobile conversation. "What's in there?" and "Is there anybody living in there?" the comments on the usually closed doors. No time for debate on the real presence and the slightly dodgy reserving practice.

But the highlight, and lowlight, is the sparrow. He or she has got in somehow. S/He would quite like to get out. He is flying up and down the nave, resting on the sanctuary light chain, then back to the windows above the cracked gallery (some treasure needed there.) She seems to be able to see out of the coloured glass windows, and wants back out. I stand like a slightly foolish Francis impersonator, with my hand out, making encouraging noises. He looks like he might. But she doesn't. For a while it's me, the sparrow and God. None of us seems too upset about it.

The treasurer joins me, with scones. We both try to encourage the reluctant worshipper out. But decide that leaving scones is more likely to succeed. But he, or she (the sparrow that is, not the treasurer), vanishes, probably back through the hole that she, or he, came in (more treasure there, no doubt).

We have a useful meeting. But I can remember more about the snatches of conversation from Victoria Street and the worry and enjoyment of getting to know our little sparrow. It seems obvious: treasure and business matters. The people passing and an accidental bird matter more.

Cognitive dissonance and the tooth fairy...

2010-07-04T16:07:00.000-07:00

Frances (8) has lost her tooth at last! Hurray! It has been hanging on in there for weeks!

Peter (11) is annoyed, as F has now lost more than him. But he will avoid the orthodontics (is that a word?) that F will have to undergo in the next 10 years. He has a big mouth, hers is far too small. Never mind, she will probably have the most perfect white smile as an adult.

But the real source of P's annoyance? The lack of funded tooth-fairy-income. Now I am pretty much 100% sure that they both know the deal. You lose a tooth, it goes under the pillow. You get some money (if the parents remember...) But F's demands have become more complex. She wrote a note, properly spelled and everything. She wanted the money. And to keep the tooth (so just what is in this for the 'fairy'?).

And the latest sting, announced by my wife as she went to bed? F wants fairy dust, like her friends in Gloucester. This is apparently glitter of some kind. Which we don't have. 'Bless' those Gloucester parents. You know who you are. 'Fairy dust'!! I ask you!

'Say there's been a strike in the fairy-dust mine,' says wife, as she goes to bed, leaving me to compose a note of dubious integrity before the whole fairy dust issue was even raised.

Solution? Dash the 8 year-old fantasy? Ignore the issue? Buy some glitter (at midnight in Dunoon?)

No - a spattering of a rather cedar-ish incense from my personal stash of liturgical combustibles. A note (in registrar's ink) accepting the no-tooth-keep-the-cash-here's-some-nice-smelly-dust narrative, and the deed is done.

Oh, happy sociology of rituals!

Hidden not too far below the surface...

2010-06-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

The stories hidden behind the apparently normal appearance of things...

Church life is a powerful mix of liturgical gathering, and relationship building and support between times! The gathered members worship together, and bring all that makes them unique to the table (quite literally in a sacramentally focused church like ours!)

A first glance and meeting with anyone looks straightforward enough - but the privilege of actually getting to know people, what God is doing in their lives, and their own personal history - that is so much part of priesthood in a congregation.

The photograph above captures some of the sense of this. I had seen it quite a few times in passing in our (very few) weeks here in Dunoon. The angel is a grave monument, tucked away by one of the large lime trees between the Rectory and the church. I can't say I knew it well, but I had spotted the laurel wreath - the victor's wreath, ready for one that had completed the race, I suppose - good old St Paul! But one of the previous rectors, chatting to our children, told them the angel's secret. Can you spot it?

Another hidden story - and a predictable little disappointment! We gained access to the cellar of the Rectory, to store some wet-resistant property. It is a gloriously dark and dank space, with non-lit areas moving off under the recesses of the house, filled with bedrock and bits of house! The cellar has a single bare bulb to illuminate the space, after a fashion. I, being environmentally and financially responsible, always remember to put the bulb off before I lock the door.

...but the bulb had been on the past few times I had gone down there! Very strange. Add to this the hidden story that someone told my wife at the licensing service: 'They had a lot of trouble with hauntings in the house, but I think it's fixed...'

Hmm. I met a bit of this in my curacy, and always approached with an open pastoral mind. Mental health issues, unresolved grief and other pastoral issues, and maybe, just maybe a tiny smidge of possibility - all wrapped together in the oddest way. I have blessed and celebrated in a house before, under guidelines etc. etc. ...

So here - the cellar is below the specific room the person was talking about. So - an experiment in the paranormal! I make sure the bulb is off (really, really sure). And leave it for ages (with a teenager in the house and all the rest of it.) And it stayed off. I am just bad at remembering to switch the bulb off. Disappointment, but only as expected.

But the delightful angel still has 11 fingers (or 9 fingers and 2 thumbs for any anatomical pedants out there...)

A lot can happen in eight or nine days...

2010-06-13T08:54:00.000-07:00

So much to reflect upon after the past few days. My first 'official' week in Cowal and Bute has been varied and full - yet also embryonic and not-yet-engaged! In nine days I've visited Rothesay four times, Tighnabruaich once and done all sorts in Dunoon. The General Synod has happened (which I don't (yet) go to) with representation from one of our congregations.

The Kyles of Bute - the weekly commute!

I've presided/celebrated four times, all blue book (1982) liturgy. Which of course is all new to me, having trained and ministered south of the border! It is familiar, from Clarkston days, but still requires attention for the differences (spot the missing filoque clause, etc.!)

Being where I am, there is not a particularly strong Episcopalian presence close to me. I think Roy, in Lochgilphead, is probably my nearest diocesan neighbour. Drew in Greenock (who I have still to meet in the flesh) may be the closest geographically, over the water! The local Church of Scotland ministers and Roman priests seem to be a friendly bunch, both on Bute and in Dunoon. There seems to be comfortable blurring around the edges of where some of the brothers and sisters of this part of the world socialise and attend.

Vestry meetings are looming, and the changed priorities of the churches from waiting for a new priest to whatever their new priorities will be. Money and people, I suspect, will be an area of interest.

The family are settling in - Peter with a date for the leavers' dance, Elly with her first sleepover and 'hang-about' down the town. Jack the cat has probably made the biggest impact on the neighbours, establishing his turf with a nearby tom-cat (current score Jack 1 - Tomcat 0) and with some of the smaller residents. He is a hunter by nature, and clearly believes in the 'catch-it, skin-it, eat-it' school of relationships. Except for the skinning bit of it. And the tails. Which he leaves. Anyway, the current score there is Jack 2 - rabbits 0. Not quite sure I approve of that, but a creature's nature is what God gave it (the gist of my sermon this morning).

... it begins

2010-06-07T09:59:00.000-07:00

It is a privileged feeling, to be at the start of something. I was present at the birth of all three of my children (although I nearly missed Peter as I was parking the car at the hospital and he wasn't for hanging about), and to see them growing up into the strong individuals that they are becoming is wonderful. There are times it seems a real challenge, and they don’t want to know, and they seem to be a million miles away from us. But it remains a wonderful privilege to be their parents, to care for them, to give them a safe place to grow and become themselves.

The metaphor of raising children is not a particularly good one for church congregations. Members of a church are not little helpless bundles of humanity, wriggling about with no ability to make decisions or look after themselves. Members of a church also cannot be sent to their rooms in disgrace if they throw their weight about. No, the metaphor of child-rearing is not very good for the people of a church.

But the day before yesterday my ministry in Cowal and Bute was born, as Bishop Mark of Moray, Ross and Caithness licensed me to the charges of Holy Trinity Dunoon, with St Martin’s Tighnabruaich and St Paul’s Rothesay. The metaphor works for this new charge. My ministry here is like a new child! It is new, unformed, not really able to do much yet, but is full of potential. The privilege that I feel today is to be present at the birth of something that will grow, develop, change and eventually become something (hopefully) full, rich and, always, for the glory of God!

So, as I sit at my desk, looking out at the marvellous trees of Holy Trinity Dunoon’s site (which block the view of the sea!), and I glance over the still-cluttered, just-moved-in desk (Bible, brand-new 1982 blue book with propers and RCL, packaged headphones for Skype, congregation lists, phone message pad, paten I found in a cupboard and a set of Jesus pencil toppers), I am excited at the future. The congregations and I will form this ministry (helped by the boss, of course), but I am quite overwhelmed by the privilege of what is beginning here!

Connectivity...

2010-05-13T08:27:00.000-07:00

It is fascinating when connections appear. We are in the process of saying many goodbyes in Gloucester as we prepare to finish in St Catharine's parish and also a chaplaincy ministry that I've done for nearly three years. Goodbyes are difficult, even knowing that friendships will continue as ministry moves on.

But the connection? The staff for whom I was chaplain made a lovely presentation of various bits and bobs - including a book of images of Dunoon and Cowal (but not Bute - which is equally part of the future!). The book is super, even as I reflected on the fact that I will have those images live in front of me in just over a week. It is also a very useful local history book, a good way of reading into Cowal and that element of where we are going.

In the section on Kirn, there are photographs of some Clyde shipping. These include a tall ship and cruise liner, both seen off the coast at Kirn. The third image, to show something a bit stranger, was a ship's bow on a barge, being towed by a tug up the Clyde. This last one was, of course, a Type 45 'Daring' class destroyer bow. I can't say that I designed it - that was done by one of my junior naval architect colleagues, along with VT hydrodynamicists on the T45 PCO in 2000-01 or so, but I worked on so many aspects of the form, the layout, the content, the detailed integration of the internal and external systems that I can honestly say that I know it very, very well indeed. Even seven or eight years on, I feel that I invested a lot of myself in this lump of metal (and the other bits that weld together to form the finished product). And it finds its way into a book of images that define Cowal.

There can often be a tension between our personal histories and futures. The story of a warship-designer turned Anglican priest is an interesting one (I think, anyway), and one that demands some rigour in the ethical sub-texts. I plan to go and see Duncan, ship 06, when she is launched in October 2010, and explore some of those tensions of pride, history and ethics in more detail.

Cinema theologica...

2010-05-08T02:59:00.000-07:00

Some of my colleagues at college (oxymoron? tautology...) were heavily into theology of the cinema, so today I find myself in a suitable position to engage with this powerful and vivid approach to culturally relevant insights into a living gospel.

As part of our process of moving, we took the children to see a gritty and biting expose of post-modern consumer excess and environmentally incompetent human over-development. The makers of this film pulled no punches in their attempts to demonstrate that the delicate balance of the eco-system, God's beloved creation (my sub-text, not theirs), is all too easily disrupted by the shallow, inward-looking nature of human greed. The nature of humanity, as Paul constantly draws us towards, is driven by self-love and arrogance. The sinful nature of human dealings with the natural order, as we might find in Thomas' Summa Theologica, is played out in a series of venal transactions. The film-makers drew the line at human exploitation of intimacy (I think that's what Americans call it), but that was to maintain the PG certificate.

How did the children relate to such a profound and challenging exploration of the broken, sinful nature of humanity? They liked the bits with the skunks...

Would I recommend 'Furry Vengeance' for a general screening of theological scholars? Put it this way - I hope the children will have forgotten how much they liked it before the DVD comes out, so they don't want to buy it...

Reduce-reuse-recycle...

2010-04-30T06:04:00.000-07:00

It's been a week or so of renewal rather than refuse (in the civic amenity site sense!) Things have required to be renewed - in order of severity, a rocking horse, a television, two pairs of black oxford shoes and my work briefcase. The rocking horse was a long-term project, put off for nearly a decade but needing work after 40 years. The shoes, not quite so long - they have only been gracing my feet for about seven years, and had just got worn out. The bag - about four years, and a simple split seam. The television? About three years old and no picture!

At this point a good consumer pops them in their car and takes them off to the rubbish dump (aka civic amenity site) to dispose of them, then goes and buys replacement models to maintain the profit margins of the companies that depend on continual growth for an economy to be considered successful. Oh dear, I'm sure there's a Christmas sermon somewhere there...

So, my response (in part fuelled by a slightly parsimonious attitude to life)? The rocking horse has been restored to its former glory for a couple of hundred pounds. The TV has been re-pictured by a man with a soldering iron for a bit less than that. Dean at the shoe bar has soled and heeled both pairs of shoes for less than a new pair, and he threw in stitching up the bag for a couple of quid! So, all has been restored, is usuable, it has cost a lot less than new, but the corporate might of Britain must weep for their lost sales of new products! All has been restored to new from old!

Sidetrack to that: two meetings this week on what churches need to do to be healthy. One was about money, the other mission. The two are very closely linked. The words that came up again and again: vision, confidence, renewal. Taking the old, which is probably quite wonderful, like all my broken things, and making it into something new, something filled with new life. That newly restored, renewed, relivened thing must have vision, and must be confident in itself. The flavour of this process can vary massively - from evangelical to catholic, from small to large, from traditional to utterly contemporary. But the answer: confidence in the gospel and a bold vision for what church should be. The result is an attractive, lively, joyful group of people. And a by-product of this is often growth, money, projects...

So, a week or two of renewal rather than refuse: thinking about renewal. And my vision? Those shoes still doing me in another seven years, the bag in another four, the television in three, Dobbin the rocking horse in 40 years. And the church...as long as you like!

A blog not about narrowboats...

2010-04-20T03:03:00.001-07:00

To avoid the risk of this blog getting a bit monochromatic about 58' long metal boats, I offer a reflection on last Sunday's worship.

The rota excluded me from services (the delights of a parish with non-stip and retired clergy, plus regular lay-lead services) - we had returned from Scotland the night before so Peter could play football on Sunday against Swindon Village Bowmen (the challenge seeming to be to score as many goals as possible, bless the poor lads of SVB), so I could choose where to worship.

In this occasional situation I have often popped the ten minute bicycle ride down to Gloucester Cathedral for the 8am BCP - but I felt frisky this week - and opted for the short run up to Tewkesbury Abbey, for the 11am Sung Eucharist!

Wonderful bells, smells, dalmatics and the rest! My pal Steve, a contemporary from college, was the deacon, and the incumbent and his wife the president and sub-deacon/preacher. To sum it up? It was unselfconsciously good anglo-catholic worship - even the slightly contentious phrasing after the offertory and the Hail Mary in the intercessions felt gentle and actually there for worshipful reasons.

My hidden agenda - to see some really polished eastwards-facing eucharistic presidency - was well addressed. They had microphones, so no real issues with sound projection, but the elevations, the pace, the delivery was all very smooth and elegant. It was good to chat with a couple from Thornbury who are regulars, and with the clergy team who I know well (except for the pres). A good day out...

I was puzzled by those hardened souls who had come especially for this service, but held handkerchiefs over their noses for the gospel to stop the incense from attacking them. To borrow from Coppola - I love the smell of incense in the morning.

Final negative thought - i would personally draw the line at chanting the entire gospel. Steve has a lovely tenor voice, but that didn't do it for me!

So, as a mock mystery worshipper - an excellent 9/10 for Tewkesbury!

Stop-press - Volcanic Ash Cloud Fails to Stop Narrowboat Movements

2010-04-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

By Our Scottish Correspondant. The journey of NB Dalriada from Gloucestershire to Kirkintilloch has been successfully completed despite the threat of volcanic ash in the diesel air intakes of the 17.8m long inland waterways vessel. The skipper, Andrew Swift, said, 'We were rather concerned that the Icelandic ash cloud might disrupt the diesel's performance on the tidal River Carron, a critical part of the journey if a trip out to sea via the Forth Estuary was to be avoided. We ignored all specialist advice and went for it, and suffered no permanent damage other than to the whisky supplies on board.'

The journey of this six-year old Pinder-built barge required a fully-integrated transportation strategy, with water, crane, lorry, car, bicycle & train all being used for different phases of the movements. Whilst swinging the 16 tonne vessel in the air near a yacht on blocks, crane operator Barry was heard to say, '@#%X me, that was close! I'm glad my insurance is paid up.'

NB Dalriada will now remain in newly completed Southbank Marina in the up-and-coming area of Kirkintilloch. This base is in close proximity to Glasgow, the Clyde coast, Falkirk and the Union Canal to Edinburgh. Crew and visitors alike can enjoy the local flora and fauna and rides on the extraordinary Falkirk Wheel.

Dalriada on the cusp...

2010-04-12T03:42:00.000-07:00

Two bright yellow packing crates, a pack of packing tissue and a roll of bubble wrap - enough for the movement of a nearly 60' narrowboat from the south-west of England to central Scotland? It seems slightly sparse packing materials, but all we are packing is china and glass inside Dalriada as she goes northwards.

Plans maturing - two boats (I hear this morning) and coming out of the water on Wednesday morning first thing, at Sharpness Marine (that would be Paul). Nice and early, so Tuckey's have a good day to drive (that would be Barry). The next morning, assuming all has gone well on the way up the road, weeds and greenery waving in the M6 slipstream, Dalriada will arrive at Forth & Clyde services at Grangemouth, to be craned onto blocks (that would be Stevie).

When the tide is right (and what that might be remains a bit of an arcane mystery, best known to the local British Waterways RIB drivers and licence issuers (that would be Donald and Sandy)), we will go in off the blocks and be ready to head up the Carron.

Now, doing that is a little exciting - the Carron is less scary than the Severn, but the Severn can be very scary! A running river with the tide running too, a shallow bit with a low bridge, and turn into some pontoons at the mouth of the sea lock with wind and water playing with the rather underpowered narrowboat (that has no bowthruster, of course). Now the experienced if slight mad chap from the previous post (that would be Tim) and his sidekick (that would be Ron) aren't able to help us, so we will be a bit on our own and in the hands of the standby BW chap that day (that would be Iain).

Oh - and the whole thing has been arranged by the nice lady from Tuckey's (that would be Monica).

We seem to be in a lot of other people's hands on this one...

Good Friday thoughts...

2010-04-02T13:02:00.000-07:00

Such a mixture of things at this point in Holy Week.

Lots of trying to pull things together, trying to work out if the services and activities are working for other people, if the visiting archdeacon and bishop will be happy with their visits, whether the congregations will be happy with their visits, what people will turn up that we haven't seen before, running off the service sheets, the children suddenly being on holiday, the funeral suddenly coming in over the Easter weekend, the other funeral going a little high maintenance.

In the middle of it all - a still, small space to reflect on the cross, on the death of the God-made-man. On the willing sacrifice - 'hands that flung stars into space, to cruel nails surrendered' - an echo from the Maunday Thursday eucharist in Gloucester cathedral. Is it hard to find time to be a follower when leading a church? Not really - that feels too precious a place to take, a place that makes it all about 'me', not all about 'us'.

To keep Holy Week holy? I've enjoyed one or two blogposts about the difficulty of 'doing Holy Week' when all about us don't care that anything is different. The empty space of forlorn church buildings after the Maunday Thursday stripping, the sparse, minor key starkness of Good Friday worship. The deadness of Holy Saturday (or Easter Eve, or the Saturday of Holy Week - whatever urge you feel to call it!). That stays with me from childhood - Roman Catholic crocodiles through Dunblane, to and from the church, dusty streets, God being dead, for that little while.

It is Holy - even though I felt a little qualm at putting up the slightly cheesy banner (both text and yellow colour) after the Good Friday congregation had departed in silence - the banner inviting people to church on Easter Day - come and hunt your Easter Eggs! It is all muddled - life goes on. But surely it went on below the empty, bloodstained crosses? The disciples were empty and bereft - but not Jerusalem. The process goes around and around, every year, every two thousand years.

Damascus road experiences...

2010-03-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

Good acclimatisation for future west coast living today. Leadership/team-building exercises in the rain in the Forest of Dean. I'm sure someone has muddled up membership of the Church of England and the Parachute Regiment. Never mind, it was an entertaining if potentially pointless set of exercises.

I did get that single blinding insight, of course, as one always does at these sorts of things. I am, by nature, a person who leaps into action full of ideas and directions for how the team should achieve the goals. Over the years, this has been tempered a little into facilitation, gathering other views, enabling team members to participate etc. etc. etc., but essentially I still like to jump in and say, 'So based on all that stuff - this is what we are doing - RUN - JUMP - GO THIS WAY...' etc.

However: Putting a set of blacked-out goggles on me during an exercise and I was as quiet as... well something that is really quiet. Very docile, lead around by the lovely lady who was my partner in the exercise - very obedient. Now, if they could bottle and sell that effect on mouthy people like me, they would make an absolute fortune.

The insight? I still love telling people what to do (in a very affirming, collaborative sort of way) - and you would probably have to poke my eyes out to change that... Ho hum.

Apply liberally for immediate relief...

2010-03-17T02:29:00.000-07:00

A chat with 'Ron' who is actually called Tim - and a great relief. He is very happy to furnish with a (possibly monosyllabic) canal-type person who knows which of the arches of the Carron bridges to aim for and will have the correct vocabulary of grunts and mutters to communicate with the sea lock people and onwards. All that is dreadfully unfair, as they are all very nice, chatty people who will be very helpful.

Tim did then go on to talk about taking narrowboats up the Forth to Stirling (mooring at the boating club on Riverside) and even the future possibility of a link to Loch Lomond from the Forth & Clyde Canal. Better half (BH) blanched at hearing my end of this conversation, and expressed a desire for Tim to accompany me on such ventures whilst she sipped gin on the side of the canal/raging river/stormy loch. And to think I spent £80 on a life jacket for her!

Generally, much relief that knowledge is available and willing to get us into the system up at the Scottish end of Dalriada's journey to her nominal home!

Speed bonnie boat like a bird on the wing

2010-03-17T01:12:00.000-07:00

Some discussion on the dates for Dalriada's transportation to Scotland. Plan A - May 4th out the water - feels a bit close to the moving date proper. Plan B (under development) - the week after Easter week - would work better.

Plans are very fluid - reflects the state of life at the moment as the Gloucester end begins to be melted down and the Cowal & Bute end remains hypothetical.

For the boat, the key (we hope) is someone called 'Ron' who knows all about getting boats into the tidal Carron and up to the Falkirk Wheel basin. 'Ron's are worth their weight in gold!

Bungee-minister

2010-03-10T07:23:00.000-08:00

First secondary school assembly! Even now, that my leaving has been announced (date tbc) and I am going to leave curacy behind, firsts can still appear. Not that that should be a surprise, of course.

The place: Christ College, West Cheltenham
The cast: Year 9 (just after lunch)
The subject: Talking with God

Majority show of hands and heckles that one cannot have a conversation with God. No response to their own views on where to pray.

Their response to 6 minute potted This-Is-Andrew-Swift-and-his-journey-from-there-to-here-involving-conversations-God. Not too much - as far as one could see. The seeds are scattered, the bungee-minister twangs back out of the context, probably never to return.

The staff liked the panoramic view of Dunoon and the Clyde...

...a blog is born

2010-03-07T11:06:00.000-08:00

It's been a couple of years since I blogged, but today seems a good day to start again.

Announcement made in Gloucester, Cowal and Bute that I will be the next priest for the charges of Holy Trinity, Dunoon, St Martin's, Tighnabruaich and St Paul's Rothesay.

We will be travelling northwards in the early summer (detailed date to be confirmed). An exciting new life awaits, with many challenges and many delights, no doubt.