Synod

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

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

One year on...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...