On a hill far away...

The cross from the small empty bell flèche on the west end of Holy Trinity church in Dunoon.  The scaffolding required for repointing and roof repairs gave us unique access, and the serendipity of the day, the angle and snapping with the iPad gave the image above.  I feel it symbolises a lot of useful stuff about this church community.

It was made by a now unknown man in 1850 or so, and fitted to the original church.  The lines, back when Queen Victoria was still pretty young, would have been fine and ornate. He took his time to create the fine cross, even though it would always be high, high above the heads of anyone who would ever see it.  It was made with care, and left to the elements.

Just over 40 years later it moved, when the church was extended.  The west wall was moved further west by maybe 30 feet or so to make more room for worshippers.  The flèche and the cross moved with the wall.  It will have been pretty much still as good as new, I suspect, after 40 summers and winters in Argyll.  Maybe the edges were starting to blunt a little, but still recognisable.

Now, another 120 years or so later, we are back up to have a look.  Others have been up in the meantime, roofers and masons, leaving their initials or names carved in mortar or the softer stone of the flèche itself.  But the 160 years haven't been kind to our nameless mason's labour of love. The wind, rain and salty spray have eroded the stone, changing the fine details to blurred, irregular lines.  The overall shape is still there, it is still a finial cross on a gothic revival building, and from the ground probably still looks pretty much the same as it always has. But up close...

But the backdrop to the cross is striking.  The town of Dunoon, ever changing, the 'capital of Cowal' lies below and far from the cross: but still visible.  The blue sky and clouds behind the cross capture the beauty of Argyll, the land and seascape.  And the green of the lime trees, planted about the same time as the cross was carved, that has grown and deepened, just as the cross has faded and eroded.

Are our church communities faded and eroded like the finial cross?  The intentions of the founders of churches and their communities were based on strong views about worship and history and the place of Christianity (in their preferred style) in the life of the nation.  Decades of capitalism, consumerism and apathy have attacked the certainty of the Victorian church revivalists.  Secularism (which I don't see as a rival to faith or Christianity, just a context for it) have blunted the certainty of the edges of the beliefs that our forebears carried with them.  

But the shape of the cross is still there.  In fact, it has probably been nudged closer to the sort of shape that a rough wooden cross beam, on a tree or beam of some sort, would have had.  The blurry lines of the worn stone are moving towards a better image of a Roman instrument of execution.  The sharp edged, ornate institution is long gone.  The worn image of the cross seems attractive, we are drawn towards its solidity and the memories that it holds.  And an image of a cross, rooted in history, created in care and accepted by new generation after new generation: that still sits far above the bustle of ordinary life, looking down on God's beloved people in the world.

BVM

Our fourth year in ministry in Argyll and The Isles is picking up speed. This week we kept the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on two different days in the peninsula and on the island.  I have a clear, clear memory associated with this feast, abbreviated to 'BVM', as the first 'official' feast that we kept at Cuddesdon theological college, pre any term starting but as the waifs and strays of ordinands and their families gathered together wondering what was going to happen to them.  Morning prayer in the chapel (the second one at that Oxford college, and presumably now superseded by the King chapel) was a rather home grown affair and we tried to behave like 'proper' vicars, I recall.

Now eight years on (a short time by any standard, but a time) I wonder how those folk are exploring the same wondering about what will happen.  I keep up with a few, and a few more float past on Facebook.  One or two from about that time are no longer in ministry, most are now incumbents scattered around England and Wales and Mexico and elsewhere.  But what will happen?

Will people be shown a way of meeting God?

Will it be about people flourishing and being shown how much they are loved?

Will it break down barriers and prejudice?

Will it show people how much that man, from 2000 years ago and today, really, really matters.

I wonder what will happen?

Glottal stops were all the rage when 'e were a lad...

The rain falls in straight dense lines outside the early morning window, obscuring the soaking foliage of the lime trees.  August in Argyll. At least the midges will be grounded.

No blogging in July, a holiday month but a busy month.

And I'm glad that the rain was not this Argyll monsoon two days ago, as some of the Swift side of the family gathered in St Helens, Lancashire, to bury my father's ashes in a family plot in the catholic graveyard in Sutton.  The priest who celebrated the requiem mass said in his reflection,

"He went from Scotland to heaven via Sutton."

The bald simplicity of that was rather shocking, and wasn't something that I would find myself ever saying in that sort of context, but then I'm not a catholic priest.  On a facetious level, a Scot would also observe that such a theologically distilled journey was also a very long detour to get back so close to home, etc. etc.

The whole occasion was quite striking.  I have never been to St Helens before, even though this was the place of my father's childhood and adolescence, and he always had a rosy, soft focus perspective of the eighteen years that he spent there, eighteen years that ended with his departure for university (nearby, in Manchester) and also the death of his mother and his entry into orphanhood.

Well, now he has joined Charles and Sarah Swift, both dead in their fifties in the fifties.

Even that was complicated.  I suppose I have developed a clergy antenna for 'things-that-could-wrong-at-funerals' and it was twitching like mad as I arrived. After the Scottish party had had dinner with my aunt and uncle, I slipped over to the graveyard to make sure all was well.  We had a muckle big wooden casket, about a foot long, which, it transpired, my mother and sister really, really wanted to have buried.  I had rather supposed that we would get away with infusing ashes into the grave, pouring them from the urn into a hole.  I was used to a fair sized hole for this pouring process.  But if the casket was to go in, it might well have to be a bit deeper.

In Lancashire, or in Sutton anyway, it seems that a hole about the size of a tin of beans is sufficient for the resting place of the cremated faithful.  Quick call to the priest, then a quick call to B&Q for a shovel, and I dug out a hole in the iron-hard urban earth to take the casket.  A couple of inches deeper in the morning (thanks to George my brother-in-law) and it looked OK.  All rather Father Mackenzie from the Beatles track 'Eleanor Rigby', I walked away from the grave wiping the dirt from my hands.

All went well, the thurible was swung a little, the asperge did its thing. The priest coped with no questions or preparation beforehand whatsoever with great aplomb and style.  The slight oddity of Scottish cords attached to the casket was rather useful, as the family members were able to lower the casket into the rather deep hole with grace and no scrabbling on the ground.

We then retired to Widnes for Marks and Spencer sausage rolls and cups of strong tea.

And it was mercifully dry, in Lancashire, returning a man to his home.

Dr Bernard Christopher Swift, Chevalier de l'Order des Palmes Academique, Requiescat in pace.

Viral vicars and the gospel...

A Twitter friend of mine is the lady vicar who led the flash mob at a wedding last week. 

http://youtu.be/SZDQ3daF33I

It is all going rather viral now, with the Guardian and other reporting on it.

And even some of my clergy colleagues condemning it for being irreverent, and not appropriate within a liturgy.  Thankfully, the ones that I've spotted with this sort of line have only very recently been ordained so I suppose know no better. They will hopefully grow up to distinguish between their own preferences and propositional statements on 'right' and 'wrong.'

There is also a great big slice of clergy anxiety about it all.  "But <I> couldn't do that...!" is what it seems to be about.

Each of us has to minister in a way that fits us, our shape, our spirituality, our personality type.  Kate Bottley is and extrovert who likes to dance, evidently. Others are not.  She can declare love and blessing and the grace of the gospel by the delight that she gave others at that church wedding. Others have to try and do it their way, with the people that they come across and working with their own selves.

Where does this blog post go? I don't dance at weddings: never been asked, probably never will.  But joy, laughter, putting people at their ease, making it their day as well following liturgy: all those things feel important as we proclaim a gospel of love, redemption and life lived in fullness

General Synod reflections...

The speaker at last night's General Synod dinner was Professor Tom Devine.  The name rang a bell for me, but in my ignorance I must confess I didn't know that much about him.  A Scottish historian, leading academic, that sort of stuff. (Image from forargyll.com)

He spoke last night as a Scottish Roman Catholic, in the wake of the events of the past few months and years.  Not a comfortable place to be starting from.  He was upbeat about his church, and as a historian seemed to have good historical reason for so doing.  He ended by saying that future "was not his field" which neatly sidestepped the crisis that their leadership, who lack an empowered laity and have some rather horrendous systemic issues, must now face.

The thing that I heard was the change in what it is to be a Scottish catholic, from the tribal basis of even as recently as the 1960s.  The working class discriminated group that were Scottish (/Irish) Catholics at the start of the 1960s have now become leaders of Scotland.  Judges, politicians, leaders of industry (but less so the financial sectors...) all are now occupied as easily by Catholics as by anyone else.  The influx of English firms/organisations, and English Catholics (of which my parents were two) changed all that.  It doesn't now matter.  

My take: maybe religion doesn't now matter, so who cares about the denomination/faith/tribal loyalty of people? It does matter in many places still - the tribal loyalties of the old times are still present in Scotland.  Episcopalianism doesn't quite fit neatly into it.

But I was struck by my personal response to Tom's talk.  My father was a university professor. His father was a shipwright on the Mersey.  He was part of a social revolution that turned merit into a factor in where one could aspire to be, rather than class or tribalism.  He was a catholic, although became disillusioned with tired rhetoric from out of touch men in black who seemed more interested in maintaining a self-satisfied status quo that transforming themselves or others (at least that's what I think happened, when he walked away some years before his death). But he worshipped the ground that John Henry Newman walked upon, and the energy of the Jesuits who educated him (with no sinister undertones).

My own swim - from the Rome side of the Tiber, changing into the Tweed as I came back north, confuses me with where I am with my own Catholicism, which is still part of what defines me.  You can take the boy out of the Catholic Church, but you can't take... Etc. etc.

I think my late father would have enjoyed discussing Tom's talk with me, and seen himself in some of this revolution where being a catholic is no longer an obstacle to progress in Scotland, as Scottish structures and society have changed.

But it seems that celebrating the fact that religion is less relevant (the negative way of reading this revolution in the last 40 years) is very uncomfortable for 'professional religious people.'  How do we make ourselves relevant to a Scotland that doesn't see religion or denominations as relevant or meaningful matters. How do we proclaim a gospel in a post-sectarian society?

General Synod 2013

I write this as I'm travelling back from the annual General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church.  This is about two and one half days of time gathered in Edinburgh, with representatives coming from the furthest corners of the country (/province) to debate the issues, rules, structures and way forward for the Anglican church in Scotland.

This was my third synod in the three years since I came back home to Scotland.

And I would have to be honest that the papers, when I received them, did not fill me with excitement.  There were no decisions to be taken, it felt, that would drastically affect the life of our church, its mission or its members.  There was a lot of business, and papers and processes on the table that were about things of great importance.  But not a lot was going to be decided and moved on.

Now, as I sit on the train to Glasgow, near to several of my colleagues, it has been a very important synod.  But because of what was NOT done at it.

The issues that face us as a 21st century Christian presence in Scotland are many and varied, but some of the most critical must be numerical (and financial) decline, engaging with the state's moves to equalise marriage and, to be frank, working out who and what we actually are.  These matters were the context of the discussions, whether it was reflecting in how we train leaders (which needs to change, but has much history and baggage), how we encourage mission at national, diocesan and local level (which could be seen in terms of money grudgingly trickling down) or how we discuss sexuality issues ( which it seems optimistic that any process could be convergent) but no decisions of a material nature were taken.

I suspect that a certain head of steam will now build up in the members of the synod, at least those who are activists and wish to see change.  And this, I suspect, will force some of these issues to the point of quicker decision that the viscous processes that we seemed in danger of adopting in the days just gone by.

Prayerful, careful, listening. Careful, loving reconciliation. Walking alongside other Christians in our and other provinces (and other denominations). These are all essential to our life as a church.  But a positive, focused, decisive and confident church that has the courage to make decisions and become relevant in the 21st century.  That is what I believe we need to be.

Time...

A day or two spent afloat on the narrowboat Dalriada is a time to relax and reflect.

The busyness of life for us as a family seems to be a constant, and has rather felt like this since long before service as a church leader. There seems to be so much to do and so little time to do it, whether it's juggling work, family and other commitments. It felt the same when I was working in corporate environments, in the civil service, wherever.

Are we allowed to do nothing, to relax and 'waste' time? I rather feel it is essential that this is exactly what we do. To regard time as such a precious commodity that it cannot be wasted, must always be applied to a useful purpose, is rooted in a rather strong Protestant work ethic. Time is a gift from God, and it must as such be used seriously and purposefully. I recall reading Karl Weber on just this sort of matter, how modern capitalism (and its child, consumerism, that Weber had yet to meet) with a regard for growth as an inherent virtue and workers being subservient to their work, is a distortion of a theology that took this idea of time as God's gift, and also that success in the use of this time is a sign of God's grace.

This idea is deeply rooted in our society, and even consumerism with its subtly crafted calls to individual worth to ensure massive sales of mass produced goods, is a development rather than a deviation from this model of time and worth. Work hard and reward yourself, because you and your success are worth it. God does not figure highly in this, not anymore, although there is some prosperity gospel proclamation in the bigger, shinier churches (who are obviously favoured by God, otherwise why be big and shiny?)

So back to time off, away relaxing. Not as a reward for using time well, because we have been successful or otherwise. Time off to be human, to enjoy simple things, to listen to birdsong and see the wind rippling the waters of the canal, is just as much a good use of God's gift of life and time as is earnest, focused, hard work.

Jesus came that all would have life in all its fullness. And that fullness is in peace, time as family, time to just relax and 'be.'