Social media and the gospel... #thatoldchestnut

I wonder how many times those words have been typed as people submit their topic for a MPhil/PhD/thesis/magazine article etc. etc. etc.

We seem to feel that social media and getting the Christian message over must be important in some way or other.  I share that view. I tweet. I blip. I (occasionally) update my Facebook status. I blog.

Twitter is probably the most fertile area for this sort of thing. I'm convinced the power of the 140 character message will grow and grow.  It is punchy, wide reaching, linkable and effective. It can challenge regimes, point out tasteless products and gather and influence public opinion. It's great. It's not coincidence that eveyr product, every TV programme, every magazine has a #hashtag and a @username

How do Christians tweet?

There are 'vicarbots' who post snippets of scripture to uplift and challenge.  They are usually unfollowed pretty fast.  There are trendy/sharp Christian tweeters, always making witty asides and observations.  There are tired and faithful Christians sharing their journey.  And many, many more.

Does any of it proclaim the gospel? I suppose (vicarbots aside, despite what they think) is does.  There are men, women and children sharing their journeys, mutually supporting each other and generally trying to work out what it means to be a person of faith in the 21st century.  Life goes on in Twitter, just as it does in RL: and Christian life is just the same.

I'm off for some corporate church comms meetings in Edinburgh next week.  I've only been to one so far, and the overriding concern at that one about Twitter was how to prevent the (corporate) church being taken to court for something this is tweeted by a clergyperson.  That is a rather underwhelming take on engaging with the world of social media: pre-emptive damage limitation. Oh well.

So I will go on tweeting (I try, usually vainly, to be amusing and show that stuff is happening). But I will also visit, I will meet, I will drink cups of tea and try to live a sustainable and balanced life as a human being, a priest and a person who follows and has been transformed by Jesus Christ...

@midgedancer

Branding, products and facing the celestial CEO

My Very Reverend colleague at Glasgow St Mary's Cathedral has blogged on some religious identity data from the 2011 census: read it here.

This is fascinating stuff, especially on the overall trends in Christian/religious identity and in the specifics of identifcation (or rather non-identification) with the Scottish Episcopal Church.  The six different lines (you made up your own category here) that seem to contain the Anglicans resident in Scotland are (in numerical order):

Church of England            66717

Episcopalian                     21289

Scottish Episcopal Church  8048

Anglican                             4490

Church of Ireland               2020

Church in Wales                  453

By far the largest of these was Church of England: which does not exist in a separate form in Scotland and has not since 1986 when St Silas in Glasgow joined the Scottish Episcopal Church.  The 'Episcopalian' and 'Scottish Episcopal Church' lines probably add up to something like the 'actual' SEC church membership, give or take a few thousand. Kelvin has a much better researched take on it, but essentially the English Anglicans in Scotland don't stampede into the pews of the Anglican province in Scotland.

And why would they?

The Church of England is a much, much broader church than the SEC, with a strong evangelical wing, a catholic wing, a large progressive/moderate rump and all the rest of it.  Why would an English evangelical go along to a service which looks like a catholic mass? Or why would a moderate, middle-of-the-road Anglican travel an extra 15 or 20 country miles to find an SEC church when a good welcome and an active Christian community might be there on their doorstep, in one of the Churches of Scotland? (although their stats are alarming in the census - from scientific observation it would appear that the Church of Scotland is in danger of creating a religion-free Scotland!)  The same issue applies to anyone who might wonder about wandering in and meeting us.

The issue of branding really, really matters. But so does the issue of what the product is like, once the brand has brought someone in through the door.  And that is where we will find ourselves working hard to understand what we are today.  A snapshot, from a recent-ish conversation with a person (who goes to no church) in my patch.

Her: "What does 'Scottish Episcopal Church' mean?

Me: 'Well, 'Episcopal' means that we have bishops, and are one of historical churches in Scotland, dating back to...'

Her: *glazes over*

Me: 'We are a church that thinks all people are valued by God, regardless of gender, race, sexuality.'

Her: 'I might come to that.'

Me: 'You would be welcome.'

She's been a couple of times, to a midweek: She looked like she found it all rather odd. But I wonder what she really found...

Advent beginnings...

Today was our third Advent Sunday in Cowal and Bute - they seem to be passing with alarming rapidity!

The split of charges struck me strongly today.  Both Dunoon and Rothesay had their worship, one a sung eucharist, the other mattins (or morning prayer, not sure which was chosen).  One I led the worshippers, celebrated the eucharist, preached, shared fellowship and the pains and joys of the congegation.  The other was led by another member of the worship team, some miles away over the sea.  I have no idea who came, or what they sang, or what it felt like.  I know the gist of the sermon (I e-mailed some copy) but otherwise, it was unknown.

A helpful email came, saying that things had been OK. But otherwise, one half of my ministry has started a new year without me knowing much about it.

It is hard, to try and split yourself between communities, and to try as hard as possible to be fully present in whichever one one is in.  The careful use of language, titles, addresses and phone numbers seems important.  I greatly value the forbearance that both charges have to my absences, increasingly so now that I have wider responsibilities.  They imply that they don't notice. I think that's good.  But it is hard, when you would dearly love to fully belong to each community.

I wonder if the theological reflection from this is something about the nature of God incarnate (for which we now have our Advent wait.)  God, fully present and focused on every community and every individual in those communities.  Yet an infinite God with the scope to be present in every community, with every person. God can do it, with perfection.

But mere humans, even those trying their best, must muddle through as best as possible.

Tomorrow awaits, the second day of Advent, and a journey to try and be present with five communities elsewhere in our diocese, to help them with their future.

God be with us all.

...what *is* happening?

Someone asked me today, 'What is going on in your church at the moment?'

The question rather stopped me in my tracks.  It is frantically busy right now, with lots and lots of stuff to get done.  Some of it might even be important, just possibly.  But it's useful to be stopped in our tracks every once in a while to ask the question.  In the good old 'Seven Habits' terms, it's taking time to sharpen the saw.

So what is happening?

There is stuff to do with buildings, there is stuff to do with events, there is stuff to do with planning activities and worship in the future, there is stuff to do with people and what they are doing, what they want to do and what they will actually do.  There is stuff from well away that is good and stuff from well away that is toxic.  There are demands, there are gifts, there are plans, successes, failures. People, ideas, animals, time to be consumed.

Lots of stuff.  Plenty to keep everybody busy.

But I read a salutory lesson in an old friend's blog last week: Vicars that don't pray.  There is a real danger in all this busyness that the one thing that actually matters gets squeezed out.  And all those things that are going on only really matter if God is being paid attention to somewhere in the middle of it.  We are not a heritage preservation society, we are not a minor IT firm, we are not an entertainment provider, we are not a social club, we are not a counselling organisation, we are not a slightly posh group of cross-dressing men.

We are a church.

A church might end up looking a bit like all those things, which is fine - absolutely perfect.  But a church is Christ's body on earth, and a place for encounter with God.  It is a living community, in our case managing to be busy, but with God at its heart.

What is going in the church at the moment?

Lots of stuff.

What should be going on?

*shouts* "Timbe-e-e-e-e-er!"

The forestry up above the reservoir near where we live is being harvested.  I guess it must be 25 or 30 years since the trees were planted, by the size of the trunks, so this very slow-growing cash crop has taken a generation to be ready to be felled.  I was walking the dog there the other day when I saw one of the logging machines (not quite what's in the photo above) and just stopped and watched.  The machine has an amazing head on its arm, which cuts the tree where it stands.  The jaws hold the trunk while it's stripped of bark and branches and cut into 10-ish foot long sections.  All in a few seconds, leaving a post-apocalyptic wasteland on the hillside.  The operation and the machine has a menacing, primeval sensation to it.  It was mesmerising and slightly scary  to watch this machine at work, picking 18 inch diameter trees as if they were blades of grass and processing them into cut logs in a few well-designed hydraulic strokes. It would have taken individual men, even with chainsaws, days to do what this machine can do in a just a few hours, driven by a man using his fingertips to drive the hydraulic devices.  

Reflecting on this, as I tore myself away to finish Molly's walk, humanity is unique in the way that we, with technology, control our environment.  This first hit me many years ago when I was becoming a ship designer, and I learned that the design of a vessel is dominated by the waves that hit it.  The waves, millions of them, will destroy the ship, eventually, as the steel cracks like an enormous paperclip.  The trick is to correctly design the life of the steel and scrap the ship before this happens - humanity wins by designing the technology correctly.  The same feels true of the logging machine: the trees grow and are harvested impressively by the somewhat menacing machine - humanity wins!  Trees and other plants will grow up in the harvested wasteland, but humans, by controlling the environment, have taken over this environment.

I guess there's a post about ABUSE of the environment here, but today I'm more interested in human creativity and determination.  No other species controls the environment to the extent that humanity does.  As a person of faith, looking at the divinity in this, humanity has been given this creativity and ability to adapt and control and go beyond natural limitations. We live in hostile parts of the world, and even in space. Is this the human echo of the divine creativity that Genesis attempts to describe?  Created in God's own image: is God the ultimate environmental engineer, devising schemes and systems that allow life to flourish and grow? Devising the life itself (and the Higgs-Boson particle that lets it all exist...)?  A post on intelligent design doesn't really interest me: proof of God is not something I seek.

But a sense of awe at a God who has equipped humanity with creativity, drive and the ability to harness, control and exist in the universe.  That sounds like something worth exploring...

Standing up for yourself...

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...

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...)

Offices? Occasionally...

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...

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?

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.

Synod 2011 for Argyll & The Isles

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 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.

Twas Christmas eve...

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

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!

While shepherds washed their socks by night...

...a warm welcome?

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.

Practical progress...

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

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.

Reflections of a single parent...

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?