The calm after the storm

Early morning, with a clear blue sky and sunshine stroking the tops of the trees that line the hill at the back of my friends' house. A big change from yesterday when the wind was gusting and the rain falling. It was a typical "wet Whitsun" Bank Holiday Monday.

The local Sainsbury's in Newhaven was heaving yesterday morning when I went in for essential supplies - Tarte au Citron, roast vegetable crisps, and a bottle of Raspberry and Wild Lavender presse - queues at the Checkouts 6 deep, and very narrow spaces in the car park outside. But I had to go, since even though I had been told that I didn't need to take anything to the lunch we were going to, one can't arrive empty-handed.

Needless to say, we didn't sit out in the garden and eat under the gazebo that was threatening to take to the skies and fly away over the South Downs. Instead we sat in the conservatory and nattered and ate and drank, though not neccessarily in that order. I probably had about three glasses of red wine too many, but they did complement the rather fine and ancient Brie and fragrant Dolcelatte.

So later on this morning I shall leave the salt air and rolling Downs and head back to the flat farmland of the Waveney river. I shall not drive down to Newhaven docks and jump on a Transmanche Ferry for France. (I didn't bring my passport with me!) I shan't even go into Brighton and ferret through the local postcards in the main Collector's shop. (The last time I looked my collection was better than theirs!) Instead I shall drive through the Cuilfail Tunnel into Lewes, head up to Royal Tunbridge Wells, and then onto the dreaded M25 for the Dartford Crossing. Once north of the Thames it's the long slog north-east through Essex and into Suffolk, and I usually take a break at Ipswich at the large Tesco's at Copdock. (Average coffee but the opportunity to buy supplies for supper.) Another hour after that and I should be back in "The Saints".

It's a busy mobile world. There are still a few people in the 11 Saintly parishes who have never travelled out of the area in which they were born. Perhaps it would do us who travel without much thought good to stop and look with new eyes where we actually are once in a while. We might hear that "still small voice" that speaks in the silence.

Listen to the pouring rain

One of my favourite songs from the great Jose Feliciano, and it always comes to mind when I sit, as I am tonight, listening to heavy rain thundering on the roof. I'm not at home tonight, but staying a couple of days with friends down on the south coast, and it's pouring, monsoon-like.

Growing up in Brighton I loved the south-westerly gales that would sweep in, the howling wind funneling up the sea-front streets making it difficult to stay upright, and the driving salt-tainted rain running down the windows of my flat, situated on the top floor of a three-storey terraced house overlooking the playing fields of Brighton College.

I just like extremes of weather, which is why I'm a Thunderstorm Observer for TORRO, and why climate change interests me. I will sit outside under the shelter of a porch and watch lightning. I will gaze out of the window watching the growing flood over the gravelled area in front of the village church that we've nicknamed "Brighton Beach". I will watch the clouds for evidence of tornado formation, and have seen the embryonic swirling that has about 20 minutes later produced a waterspout off Lowestoft.

So the rain continues to hammer on the roof tonight and gurgle loudly in the overflowing gutters ... just the sort of lullaby I like.

Study

Back in the early 1970’s, when I was at Teacher Training College in Northumberland, I had a poster on my wall that was very popular at the time.

The more I learn the more I know
The more I know the more I forget
The more I forget the less I know
So why learn??

It seemed then, and to an extent still seems now, to capture something of the dilemma of learning. Why do we continually push ourselves to learn more, be it about a specific subject in a formal setting, or just in the realms of life experience, such as travelling and seeing new sights? Clearly something in our nature is inquisitive. Something in our make-up wants to know the answer to, as Douglas Adams put it, “Life, the universe, and everything.”

Of course, if you’re a reader of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” you’ll know that the answer is 42. I always found it rather interesting that in the 1980 Alternative Service Book, paragraph 42 was The Lord’s Prayer. The answer to everything? The New Testament would have us believe so.

Yet away from the more esoteric questioning, some of us are periodically driven to study for learning’s sake. Two years ago I did a home-study course on Interior Design, and gained the equivalent of another “A Level”. Now I’ve embarked on a 12-week OU course on “Writing Family History”. The time required is more intense than that asked for by the Design course, but it’s just as rewarding. Currently I’m working through how to interpret the bare bones of Census Records and Birth, Marriage and Death certificates. To a certain extent I know what the certificates contain since I complete Marriage documentation several times each year, and I’ve seen enough of the other two types to know what to look for. When it comes to the Census records though I’ve learnt about the different methods that were used to record the information since the first one was taken at the start of the 19th century, and what you can deduce from entries and omissions. It’s really quite interesting, and a bit challenging. And although this isn’t going to get me a qualification at the end, apart from 10 points towards a Degree, the reason I signed up for it, and paid the fee, was that I felt I needed a bit of a challenge that was outside of my sphere of work. I suppose it’s the equivalent of getting in the car and going out for a long drive to pastures new. And with three holiday days this week, I’ve been able to get down to it in a systematic fashion.

Whether I still feel like this when my first Assignment is due in a couple of weeks, we’ll see.

Must go - the sausage casserole is ready.

A time for meetings and a time for life

Some weeks since I posted to this Blog, and no excuse except that I’ve been busy. Post-Easter should be a time when things get easier, but with all the Annual Meetings to be held before the close of April, I was rarely at home in the evenings for the last fortnight of the month. Now these are all over for another 12 months, the pressure is off slightly, which is just as well as I have just begun a 12-week Open University course on “Writing Family History”. This is the first time I have studied with the OU, and I thought that a short course such as this would be a good introduction to their way of doing things and the commitment involved. I’ve managed to install the software required, have “logged on” to the OU course site, and made sure that I am able to successfully send my Assignments electronically. I’ve also looked in on the “Forum” as there are 5 “on-line” Tutorials that I should interact with, one every fortnight. I’m working my way through Block 1 of the material and am finding it quite interesting. If I complete it successfully I don’t get anything other than 10 points towards a Degree and the personal satisfaction of having kick-started my brain into studying mode again.

On the Benefice front, one of our churches is currently the target for thieves who are systematically stripping the lead from the nave roof. They have already paid us two visits and I suspect they will return again to this “soft target” which is somewhat isolated and with no over-looking neighbours. Not a lot we can do about this except leave it in the hands of the Lord and the local constabulary. Even if they are not brought to justice in the here and now, they will have to account for their actions at a later and final date. For us, it’s just a reminder that our buildings are but the outward visible sign of the invisible true church.

For a short time in the late 1970’s I attended a gathering known as “The Invisible Church” that met in Earl’s Court, London. At first sight it seemed a standard evangelical “free” church, and I enjoyed the worship times I managed to get to, but that little warning bells began to ring as the longer-term members started to talk about their pastor, Nelson. In conversation it was “Nelson says this”, and “Nelson says that we should…” Rarely were the phrases “The Gospel says …” or “Jesus told us that …” used. It became clear that Nelson was the final arbiter of what was said and thought for the members of this church, and so I left.

At the time I was working in Kilburn and commuting up and down from my flat in Brighton every day. I usually caught the 5.50 p.m. train from Victoria, but on the Tuesday evenings when I went across to the Invisible Church in Earl’s Court, I got the later train at around, as far as my memory serves, 10.15 p.m. This particular night in mid-December I was caught in conversation at the close of the church meeting, and consequently I was late arriving at Victoria. I ran onto the concourse to see my train just pulling out of the station, and I had to wait for the next one at just after 11.00 p.m. I got onto it and we set off down to the coast. About half-way through the hour-long journey the train stopped, and we sat there for about half-an-hour wondering what was causing the delay. Then the guard came through the compartments telling us that there had been an “incident” on the line ahead of us and that we would have to take an alternative route into Brighton. This extended journey took us to Lewes where we arrived at half-past midnight, to find a platform full of stranded travellers. They boarded our train and we got into Brighton station at about 1.10 a.m.

The next morning I woke to the news that a train from London had crashed at the Clayton tunnel, and there had been several fatalities in the front coaches. I realised that this was the train I had run for at Victoria, and missed. I usually sat in the front section of the train so that the walk down Brighton platform was shorter, and if I had caught that train I would have been involved in the accident.
Everything has its reason, and I look back on my fleeting involvement with the Invisible church with mixed feelings. If I hadn’t been going there in the first place, I would not have been catching the later train. But having gone, I could see there was a reason why I was delayed that particular evening. What this has done is not only give me a sense of the leading and provision of God’s care for us, but also it has taught me not to accept without question the underlying practices of any church, peripheral or mainstream.

Currently I am suspicious of the recent consecrations of hundreds of bishops in Nigeria, and the intention of that church to send 120 bishops to the next Lambeth conference. This will mean that their particular take on scriptural interpretation and human sexuality will be out of proportion to the voices of those who accept human difference as part and parcel of what it means to be human.

We’ll wait and see.

Back to normality

The frenzy of Holy Week and Easter Day is now over and done, and now it's time for a more considered appraisal of how it all went. I think that clergy view such major celebrations differently from how congregations perceive them. From my point of view I attempt to provide a sequence of services throughout the week that culminate in the traditional liturgies, but for those in the parishes who tend not to move out of their own parochial settings, they see them as simply "we have such and such a service this week". So there is minimal attendance at most of the Holy Week liturgies since they are "not held in our church". The numbers at the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday Compline services can be counted on one hand. Just the officiant and a churchwarden at one church. The Maundy Thursday evening communion - a major feast - saw just 7 people. Good Friday was variable - 7 at the Stations of the Cross, but reasonable numbers at the second and third services, a "free hour" and BCP Evensong respectively. The Easter Ceremonies on Holy Saturday saw about a dozen for the new fire, paschal candle and renewal of baptismal vows liturgies. Yet today, Easter Sunday, saw 40+ at the BCP Holy Communion, and 30+ at the Common Worship Eucharist. This evening's first trial of a "Stations of the Resurrection" attracted just 6 to walk the "Via Lucis".

So over this next week I shall reflect on all this and consider what it is that people want from their Holy Week experience, and what I believe that I, as the parish priest, should be offering.

Calling or Climbing?

The clocks leap forward an hour tonight and we enter British Summer Time. Note that the Empire is alive and well in our time-keeping. No "Daylight Saving Time" for Britannia, but good old BRITISH Summer Time. Pity our poor Colonial cousins with their bland Eastern Standard Time and the like.

And "in the good ol' summer time" I can step back a bit from the rant. So what if the pension plans are changing? I never started out on this ministerial path seeking financial security in work or retirement. If that had been my goal I would have stayed in secular employment. It was my choice to follow the Call as I perceived it, and as the Church ratified it. I could have walked away.

Some years ago, when seeking a move to a new post, I applied for a Team Vicar vacancy down on the north Devon coast. It was a superbly beautiful area, and the churches and people were very pleasant. Having waited for two hours whilst the Interviewing panel made their deliberations the Rector came out and told me that I had been unsuccessful. The reason given was that the panel did not think that becoming a Team Vicar after I had been “caretaking” an urban Team during a vacancy for the past two years was enough of a “step up the ladder”. They had failed to grasp that I have never sought to ascend any “ladder” of preferment. In contrast to some I trained with, who clearly had their sights set on reaching higher levels (one from my own Tutor Group is now an Archdeacon), I see myself as working in a parish setting until I retire. And then enjoying some freedom of offering assistance to a church without all the administration. Maybe one result of the pension changes is that since I no longer have to work to 69 to gain full entitlement, I am freed to retire earlier if I so wish.

That’s if I live that long, since that may not be in the plan …..

Oh yes, it's Spring ....

.... and everything in the garden's lovely.



Well, it is, actually.

So perhaps I ought to live in the garden .....

as a gnome ...

A job for life? (Hysterical laughter)

When I started my theological training I remember my Director of Ordinands saying to me, "You'll have a job for life, and the church will look after you to the end." This was just before they shafted me over the loss of my home. I was asked if I could find accommodation for the holidays whilst I was studying, and I said that I could go back to my parents. The deal was, if you give up securing your own future to work in the church, the church will provide for your future. Consequently I moved out of my little, comfortable, flat, put my belongings into storage, and for the next two years lived a nomadic lifestyle either in College "digs" or back in the parental nest. It wasn't until a couple of years later that I learnt that if I had said "No" to the question about holiday accommodation, the church would have paid the rental on my flat whilst I was in training. It still rankles.

Then as my second licensed post came to an end in 1996 I found myself still in the process of making applications for a new one. The Bishop refused to extend my licence, and I ended up down at the Employment Exchange drawing the "dole". They didn't have a category for an Anglican clergyman, so I had to be registered as a "Methodist minister". Well, I'm all for ecumenicalism. But so much for the promise of "a job for life!".

Now there's a revision of pension arrangements underway. From the time of my ordination in 1984 I have been aware that the church required 37 years of service to get the full pension. I knew that if I worked to the age of 69 I would just scrape in under the 70 years obligatory retirement level and get my full pension. But things are changing. The proposals are going forward that 40 years of service are required for a full pension. So I'm cut out of it. I shall never get the full entitlement as the goal posts have been moved. And what rubs salt into the wound is that the letter that accompanied this bit of news came with a response sheet since they wished to "consult" all the clergy before it went to General Synod. "Consult" be buggered. Their minds are made up, and this is nothing more than a political move so that they can say that we have been asked about the changes, and I said so on my reply form. What a waste of time, energy, effort and paper.

And then there's the lack of having any sort of stake in the housing market ....

Time for a very large Bacardi and coke.

Early spring

The last few days have been absolutely glorious! Warm sunshine, trees bursting into blossom, primroses, crocus and daffodils all coming out, and the windows open to let the fresh air of 2007 blow through the house.



And now all is set to change this coming week, with weather predictions of cold arctic gusts and wintry showers. It will be a shock to nature and to us, and just as I put away my thermals!

Revelation 6: 12 (b)

Well, you try taking a picture of the moon with a normal camera .... but tonight's total lunar eclipse has been quite a sight.

Travel the world

create your own visited countries map

This is a fun site - you customise it with the countries you have visited. I'm a definite European, with the exception of my one excursion onto the African continent.

Okay, I've calmed down now ...

... mainly due to the excellent thinking about the situation on today's posting on this blog.

http://emberdays.blogspot.com/

I'm still annoyed, but part of my annoyance is with myself and the ease with which I demonised the debate about which I heard a 15 second news report.

Lent might be a time to develop a more mature outlook.

Removing the speck and missing the beam

What a jolly communique from Dar-es-Salam. The congregated bishops in their collective wisdom have decided that there be a moratorium on the election and consecration of any more gay bishops (just as well it's not retrospective or half of the historic succession would have been barred!) and there be no more blessings of same-sex unions.

Now that we've disenfranchised all the gay people from expressing their faith in our churches, who's next? Shall we bar all who have been divorced? Let's shut out all who are separated. Why not get rid of those who are still single after, let's say, the age of 28. Surely if they were normal they'd be married by then and procreating according to the purposes revealed in Genesis.

Wait a minute! I've an even better idea. At a time when we're all beating our breasts and apologising for our historic actions over slavery, let's close the door to all those with a skin colour other than pink. After all, the church used to firmly declare that they had no souls anyway.

What a bunch of .....

I am seething at the news that 7 Anglican bishops have refused to take communion with the Presiding Bishop of ECUSA at the Anglican Conference in Tanzania. They seem to have forgotten just who it is that invites them to the Supper. It makes me ashamed to be part of the Anglican Communion. The sooner it falls apart, the better.

Lenten discipline of assassination

This morning I had a go at culling some of my books. I started on the Bibles on shelf seven of one of the two stacks of shelves in my study (each has 8 shelves), and twenty minutes later I was half-way along that same shelf and not a single volume had been discarded. Instead I had browsed, and read a section from a Ferrar Fenton 1906 translation of the Bible that was given to me many years ago in Brighton by two elderly ladies who were aunts of a friend of mine. Dolce and Nen were not church people, but they clearly thought that this book was something I should have, and they inscribed their gift on the front flyleaf.

I have numerous Bible translations, and this one by Ferrar Fenton is one I hardly ever pick up. Yet this morning I got engrossed in the tale from the First book of Kings of Solomon’s coming to power, and how he got rid of all those who were a danger to his throne. I hadn’t realised it before, but his right-hand man, Beniah-ben-Jhoiadah, was nothing less than a professional assassin. First of all he is sent to kill Adoniah, then he slays Joab as he clings to the altar in the Temple for sanctuary, and two years later, he is sent to dispatch Shemai, and thus, says the text “the kingship was secured to the hand of Solomon.”

We tend to have this image of Solomon as a ruler who governed with wisdom and tolerance, not only because we’re told that he prayed for the gift of wisdom, and the Lord granted it, but also because of the story of his judgement in the case of the two women who were arguing over the parentage of a baby. Maybe what we tend to forget is that the threat he uses to bring about the resolution of this case, the slicing of the baby in half, would not have had the desired result had he not had some reputation for being ruthless. Like all the rulers of his age, and since, when he came to power he carried out a cull of his enemies. Like Hitler with his “Night of the Long Knives” in June 1934 when he purged the SA of its leadership, Solomon systematically removed those who could raise rebellion against him.

My own attempt at a cull was a dismal failure. I have so many books and I need to thin them out, but every time I pick up one and look at it I think, “That may be useful, I’d better keep it”, no matter that I haven’t referred to it once in over 20 years of full-time ministry. I need to be more ruthless. Perhaps it should be my Lenten discipline to dispose of one book every day. That would get rid of 40 volumes, and it would be a start.

Lack of heat

I had already decided that the theme of this posting was going to be about the lack of heating in our ancient rural churches before I read my colleague’s blog about the loss of his central heating in his clerical abode on Long Island. He makes the point about how we are now so used to living in heated homes that a loss such as this is seen as a crisis by some. Well, they should try coming over to the “old country” and worshipping in the churches in this Benefice.

In the two churches where I celebrated the Eucharist this morning, the breath from the sparse congregation plumed out of their mouths like smoke as they sang the hymns. One, having removed its ineffective bar heaters high on the nave walls, has just underpew heaters, and in the other the boiler has broken down and there are only ancient heaters under six or so pews.

I suggested that people brought blankets or hot-water bottles with them, but “We couldn’t do that” was the general response. My reply was “Why not?” If you know it’s going to be cold then why not prepare for it? It wouldn’t bother me if people sat there wrapped up if they were warm. How on earth did our worshipping forefathers manage in the “Little Ice-age” of the 18th century? There may have been stoves in some of the churches, and this old photograph of the church at Ilketshall St. Margaret shows such a contraption with the chimney going out of one of the south windows. But equally, some of the churches would have been without any sort of heating, yet the congregations (and clergy) survived.

It seems that we’re breeding church-goers who expect these ancient buildings to have the same level of warmth and comfort as their hothouse double-glazed hermetically-sealed homes. I think they're going to remain very disappointed ..... but, as my clerical comrade-in-arms says, probably much more healthy.

L'hiver sont arrive

But the Lord was not in the wind

Well, we didn’t get blown away this last week, but it was rough. No damage to the house or trees, but all around there are signs of the fierceness of the wind. One of the Scots Pine trees in the churchyard at Ilketshall St. John was snapped off about 9ft above the ground, the falling trunk missing the church and all the gravestones. Large branches off the same trees at St. Cross South Elmham, again falling onto the grass. Some tiles dislodged on the porch and chancel roof at Ilketshall St. Lawrence, which we were able to replace once it had all calmed down. A tree down in St. James South Elmham and another in All Saints SE. Large trees down at Flixton across the driveway to the Old Rectory and church car parking area. Tiles off roofs in Bungay, and lots of debris on the narrow lanes, which made driving a bit dodgy.

Although the power stayed on during the storm, we had two lengthy cuts yesterday, and I rummaged in the garage and got out the small camping gas stove to boil water, and, as darkness fell, an oil lamp which supplemented the candles in the lounge. That’s one thing a Vicarage doesn’t run out of – candles.

Today, Sunday, has been calmer, though the temperature is now dropping and the forecast is for possible snow showers on Wednesday as the wind shifts to the north-east. That is when we usually get some snow as it blows down the North Sea from Scandinavia and hits land on the East Anglian “bump”.

So winter hasn’t finished with us yet even though the snowdrops are coming out already. They might get a shock! But at least the hosepipe ban has been lifted ......

BBC news picture of Brighton's Palace Pier

Constable or Turner?

The wind is howling again, but the open expanses of Suffolk do allow some rather spectacular views of the scudding clouds.
Is it a John Constable sky, or a one more suited to J W M Turner with his rainstorms and winds?

Hot chocolate

It's amazing how far chocolate powder will spread if you drop a full carton of "Grand Poulain" onto the kitchen worktop and the lid flies off .....

Perhaps someone's trying to tell me something ...

chocolate ... ...

diet ... ...

but it's been a stormy old day and I want some comfort ...

*slurp*