That was the year, that was

This time a year ago, the house was full to bursting with creativity as my gorgeous daughter hosted the annual party for her group of friends who met first in their teens at Kilve Court...Their bond is so strong that it has survived assorted marriages, a separation or two, some time living on different continents...these are very much the founder members of my Weasley clan, the extra kids who have become such an important part of my life in the past decade - and it was delightful to spend New Year's Eve together. We talked, among much else, of my exciting plans for 2020. A sabbatical. A big birthday (which was to feature an enormous party for everyone I loved but had never dared to mix together). A once in a lifetime safari, and we decided that even though it wouldn't really be our turn to host again so soon, it might be worth spending New Year in Coventry in 2020 as we plunged into the excitement of our year as City of Culture. Oh goodness. We couldn't have known but our plans, our ideas were so wildly out. As someone who really HATES making plans, it had been a challenge to orchestrate the sabbatical, but by January this year the main blocks of time were in place, the writing goals established and I started counting down the days. I was tired. VERY tired. 16 years in ministry and some major life changes will do that to you. It was definitely time for the break of some kind. But first - there were three months to emjoy...Theatre - "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" - a wonderful night of springtime hope after the endless days of "always winter, never Christmas" Music - a perfect evening of flawless singing from The Sixteen, performing Acis and Galatea at St Mary's Warwick The Blake Exhibition - bringing so much joy as February brought the first signs of spring... By now there were anxious rumblings about the new virus that was spreading across China...but China is a long way from Coventry. I defiantly ordered a takeaway for Chinese New Year, realising that some of my neighbours were choosing to stay away from our local restaurant in case the new virus might be transmitted via a prawn chow mein... So, our next exhibition was rather less relaxed - but I'm oh so glad I got to it. When I was a child, most of my friends went to see the big Tutankhamun exhibition which took England by storm - but it arrived in the same year that my mother had major heart surgery, so that kind of outing waa just not possible...We had tickets for 6th March and took more care than usual not to spend too much time in close proximity to others. By now the news from Italy was frankly terrifying and it felt as if we were standing at the top of a very high mountain, knowing that there was only one way down, and it was step and very very dangerous... I cried as I said goodbye to my son and his partner at the end of that day. "We'll be up for Easter" they said, cheerfully - but by then it really didn't seem likely. The unthinkable happened: Public worship was suspended. On that last Sunday as I communidated the elderly cathedral congregation it was so hard not to listen to the voice that said "You'll not see them again this side of glory"... An extraordinary week, with the cathedral open for private prayer and used as almost never before...so many visitors dropping in to be quiet, to cry, to light candles and to join with fervour in the hourly prayers I led, which felt, somehow, as if they might just be the most significant thing I had done in ministry. A last drive along the A14, carrying part of my recent delivery of "Who Gives a Crap" loo-rolls and a 5k bag of pasta from my Brexit cupboard, a walk across an almost deserted Cambridge and a final picnic in the Botanic Gardens, trying to stockpile hugs and smiles to last for a good 12 weeks (in my innocence, I guessed that would surely be long enough...) Then came the day when I left the office to take a funeral, feeling pretty certain that I wouldn't be back. I took some of the essential books from my desk, grabbed a cassock alb as it didn't seem wise to wear a cassock when we were told to wash everything we'd worn in public on a hot wash the moment we got home...and that was it. That night the Prime Minister made his announcement "You MUST stay at home". Stay Home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives" and I, who had always believed myself an off-the-scale extrovert, found myself suddenly home alone. And, do you know what, that part was absolutely fine! Of COURSE I missed friends and family...The inability to hug those I love most was a regular physical ache and I would wake up with my cheeks wet with tears as another round of good-byes had filled my dreams...but that spring was so beautiful, and the stillness such a gift. The daily walk, shaped by what Libby the elderly retriever could manage, was nonetheless a positive joy. War Memorial Park took on the feeling of real countryside as the hawthornes bloomed and the birds sang and sang and sang. And, after the utter dread that had gripped me when I assumed that I would not be allowed to celebrate the Eucharist as a single person alone...the special permission given by the bishops was such a glorious gift and my house was transformed by "Dining Room Church", where I found myself connecting with people I'd never met, who became the most faithful of daily congregations...and Christ was present in them, and in Scripture and in bread and wine as surely in the aweinspiring grandeur of the Cathedral. Holy Week and Easter cemented this and the days passed gently, as I learned new ways of being a priest to a dispersed community, while at the same time trying not to pick up all the collective fear that was flooding into every corner of life online, to compound our own anxiety. It was, mostly, pretty much OK. I didn't transform the garden or learn Russian. I didn't even read The Brothers Karamazov as I'd hoped. I did read more poetry than I had for years, sustained by words chosen sparingly but with such care. I found myself praying the rosary with a dogged determination, reflecting that Our Lady had to live through those mysteries from a purely human perspective, that her "pondering" may well have included a measure of anxious bafflement along the way. And I cuddled my dogs and zoomed with colleagues, friends and family and no, it wasn't the same, it wasn't as good as actually being together - but you know, it was SOMETHING! My 60th birthday, like my sabbatical, was subject to some drastic rearrangement - but so many people were concerned that it might be a hard day to spend alone that I felt overwhelmed with love through the whole day, and beyond, as I mourned the death of two cats just 12 weeks apart. With horizons shrunk to the domestic, it seemed unthinkable that I might survive more than a week or two in a catless house - and so the two Babes from the Wood, Sorrel and Bramble, feral kittens rescued with their mother from Walsall Woods were passed on to me, just a couple of days after their rescue. The early weeks with them were hard. I had tripped at work and torn a ligament, making movement really painful and almost impossible - so I couldnt sit on the floor and engage with them at a safe height. For weeks I barely saw them except at meal times, though they were soon ready to eat from my hand...but gradually, gradually they became braver. They became my project, and I was able to give them the time and patience that I would never have managed in a normal year. As lockdown eased there came the possiblity of hugs and snuggles with my Cambridge family, a support bubble that remains the most glorious gift - a tiny glimpse of normality and of actual human contact to sustain through the depressing news that lockdown had not got the virus under control, that there had been too many people ready to return to normal too fast. There were precious days with my London children - exploring the Cathedral of Trees near St Albans, consoling ourselves for the lost safari with a day at Woburn Safari Park, walking and talking along the Thames near Richmond. There was even a mini Greenbelt, when for the first time all year there was laughter and conversation and even singing in the house, and a bottle of wine we had been saving for something special was opened and enjoyed. Again, reserves were built up, sufficient for the autumn and winter when as infection rates soared, restrictions were tightened anda fresh lock-down was announced, just as I fell victim to the virus myself. I barely noticed this second lock-down, to be honest. Though I was by no means seriously ill, November passed in a kind of sleepy half-life, in which days blurred as I snoozed on the sofa with a kitten or two curled up in my lap and the dogs close by. I emerged in time for Advent - but an Advent without singing turned out to be unimaginably hard. The words we proclaimed were still true - but it was so much more difficult to feel their reality without the music Ithat gave them life and beauty. And Christmas was even harder A lifetime of singing, decades of candle-lit carols at home as much as church, and now - silence. Of course it was wonderful to awake on Christmas morning when Miss E arrived in my bed for a snuggle even before she went downstairs to retrieve her stocking. It was joyous to have the house filled with excited giggles and triumphant squeals, to enjoy M's teetering first steps and the snuggly delight of sharing The Mousehole Cat and Christmas at Exeter Street with Miss E. It was all very lovely and happy - but really not quite Christmas with only 2 services, no Midnight Mass, and no moment of starlit wonder on the way home. Now, with some relief, we change our calendars and embrace a new year. It's arbitrary, of course. Neither the virus nor the weather is aware that we've passed a man-made boundary, and are looking for a new narrative with hope that is close to desperation. But 2020 was not all loss, though I am horribly aware of those families for whom things fell out very differently. 2020 reminded me more than I would ever have chosen that we are not in control, not the brave, self-reliant species we might wish to be. I was confronted in a new way with my own vulnerability and the vulernability of humanity. But it taught me, too, that I have so much that I need here in myself and in my life at home, that home is a place of contentment, even when it doesnt contain the people I love most, whom I would have always beside me. It prompted me to considerthe fact of mortality without fear, as I exulted in the wonders of that long and perfect spring, knowing that spring would continue, its wonders be cherished and celebrated long after I have ceased to be. That realisation was, and remains,oddly consoling. I am very weary, like almost everyone I know, particularly clergy who feel themselves responsible for the well-being of their communities as much in emotional and even physical as spiritual terms. I'm wrung out by the ups and downs of a coronacoaster that has turned us all upside down again and again and I will be heartily glad when the vaccine has changed our status so much that we can go about without fear, can hug and be hugged, decide to do something without wading through the labyrinths of risk-assessment. I have high hopes of 2021 - but no plans. I was always plan-resistant - and thanks to 2020 I think I'll stay that way.