Lenten array

We have violet frontals etc. for Lent in both Dunoon and Rothesay churches. With smaller churches, these are it for both Advent and Lent. This is absolutely fine, quite right.

But I do love the sparseness of Lenten Array, the unbleached linen look of the plain, drab lack of colour. It can be glorified up - Durham cathedral's new frontals with gold crown of thorns et al http://durhambroderers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/dedication-of-lenten-array.html are beautiful but could rather lack a plain, rough, sackcloth look. That is what Lent feels like, to me at any rate.

This year the altar in Dunoon is bare for Lent - this gives a slight problem in that it is ornately carved, hidden below slightly old and faded frontals. To go from bare to white and gold on Easter Day (still far away) can risk feeling like a step in a subdued direction. But more how that's being solved this year later.

The empty, harsh, slightly unforgiving nature of Lent occupies the churches for the next 40 liturgical days. The themes of wilderness, repentance, sinfulness and forgiveness (and more) will be picked out.

The ash that was imposed on some foreheads a few days ago has been washed off. The foreheads that failed to get it because of driving snow and wind have had it washed off by that weather before we ever even got there. Quite Lenten in itself, a snowy, stormy start to the season, the sparse Ash Wednesday service sparser still by failing to take place on Bute and only just scraping in there in Cowal.

So Lent begins. A long, hard journey. But one that is good to spend in good company.

Commuting...

The is a great deal of driving in ministry in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Not motorway stuff like I used to gobble up in my former occupations, going round and round the M25 to try and achieve escape velocity. The commuting up here is a mix of single track and double (not dual) carriageway roads. They twist and turn, and offer a few elusive places to overtake that slow car or truck. The wind blows trees over them, the snow lies across the middle of them. Water pools from overflowing burns and splashes up as you pass through them. It's actually rather good fun to drive on such varied and interesting roads. And, of course, you can stop and look out of the windows as you go. Sometimes it catches your breath, sometimes you just smile. And every once in a while you have to stop (safely) and take a photograph. This does not do justice to the smoothness of the water or the richness of the sunset over the Lenach and down to Bute. But you have to try and catch a sense of the God-given beauty that surrounds these places!

That would be an ecumenical matter...

I have been reflecting much on a service that took place in the Scottish Episcopal church on Bute on Sunday. I have hesitated to say much about it, because I find clerical fascination with how worship goes can be quite unflattering and ungracious, especially when read by others in the same line.

But it was a wonderful evening.

It was a 'slightly' choral evensong - sung versicles and responses, and a taize 'anthem'. With a smattering of hymns, of generally rousing genre. It was 1929, in form, lectionary etc. The officiant shewed up in choir dress. All that sort of stuff.

...and the delight?

We ran out of orders of service, almost by half. Bad planning, of course.

...I found myself wondering if I should have pushed the structural engineer from Ayr harder to get on and survey the balcony before we squeezed so many folk into it.

...and the responses were sung loudly by baptists, catholics, presbyterians, a salvationist (Major Nessie!) and our smattering of piskies, old and new members alike.

It was a gorgeous evening of ecumenical worship, with ALL the church leaders of bute, bar none, all there with big smiles on their faces.

Dare one say it? Yes, one dares: Praise the Lord!

Urban catwalk vs Bute chic

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...

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...)

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!

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...

A busy day in Cowal and Bute - sampled

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.

All roads lead to...

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).

The priest, the treasurer and the sparrow

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.

...a blog is born

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.