Candlemas haze

Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. Ps 141.2

Not just a grainy phone photograph: actually the gentle fug of the Candlemas incense drifting across the spotlight above the sanctuary of Holy Trinity Dunoon. Mac's new thurible (in memory of his parents) had worked beautifully.

The paint-free chancel arch is also lurking in the residual smoke - that wonderful 'Early English Gothic' building has seen quite a bit of smoke about its rafters over the years.

And will for many years to come!

A moment of space

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...

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...

...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

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...

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?

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.