The smell of yesteryear!

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...

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

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...)

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?

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?