Music for Ascension to Pentecost

I spent Saturday morning at an excellent diocesan workshop on choosing music for worship...Well presented, lots of reminders of important things it's too easy to forget in the hurly burly of parish life, and some bright ideas and new resources. It confirmed me in my awful suspicion that the hymn book I'd thought of investing in at Church in the Valley was not, after all, the best one for the job - and that there really IS no perfect hymn book out there. With very limited funds, it's annoying that we can't find one book to do the whole job, but I'll just have to resign myself to life with a few extraneous sheets along the way even after AMNS has been consigned to the great hereafter.

However, I didn't start this post to whinge about hymn books but rather to share a treat. At one point, we were working in groups to pick 3 hymns for the following day, based on the Lectionary and working with one book (with all its limitations). My group was given the Morning Prayer readings, - with the result that I found it almost impossible to come up with any hymns at all, because all I could think of was this.
In my 6th form years I was a chorister at Eastbourne College, where each year there was an early Eucharist on Ascension Day - at which we sang this as the anthem. I had to catch the first train of the day, and it was exciting to be about when it seemed most of the world was still asleep. I'll never forget the journey across the Pevensey Levels, the mist rising slowly, just a few feet off the ground while above the sky was clear and blue...
I'd walk from the station through still deserted streets, to reach the school chapel where suddenly all was activity. This was one of the feasts where we used incense, I think...certainly there's a firm connection in my mind between the swirling morning mists on the marshes and clouds of incense as we processed in.
I guess the Mass setting would probably have been Darke in F, or maybe Wood in the Phryg....but I was living for the moment when, having received Communion, we'd sing the Elgar
We certainly didn't sound like this - but oh, what a piece!

Five Influences

A wee while ago, Erin tagged me for a meme that invited me to reflect on 5 people, living or dead, who have influenced me spiritually.
I've been pondering and wondering - the list is so much longer, clearly, than just 5 and it's really hard to narrow it down. In the end I've cheated, using groups of people along the way and it's still not perfect but for the moment these will have to do...In a month's time, no doubt other voices would seem louder.

1) In my early 20s fresh from the rarified ecclesiastical enviroment of Cambridge and Durham, where faith seemed above all a matter of beautiful liturgy and intellectual coherence, I found myself part of the choir at St John the Divine, Kennington. That whole church had a huge influence on me, - such that, when I'm asked to name my "forming church", it's always SJDK that tops the list, with its multi-cultural congregation, its real sense that life and worship belonged together and, above all the centrality of the Eucharist, the offering of everyone and everything to the God who redeems and transforms....

2) While I was at SJDK exciting things were happening at the daughter church of - Christ Church, North Brixton...Fr N, nominally a curate at SJDK, was in charge of this struggling daughter church. He had listened to God, listened to the community and allowed dreams to become reality as he lead the congregation in a series of wonderful projects, whose constant aim was to make the Kingdom real in a troubled and deprived inner-city parish. So the Community of Christ the Servant came into being and gradually transformative work began - a charity shop, drop-in centre, youth projects...Lives were changed, the church turned around and faith was real and visible for anyone with eyes to see.
Since then, I've always known that one day I would be given the chance to serve God in a struggling urban setting - and here I am. N, of course, would accept no responsibility if I told him. He has struggled enough when I've attempted to suggest that he was a formative influence in my vocation to ordained ministry...but the how as much as the what comes from those days in South London.

3) Before ever I got to Kennington, though, one long-dead Bishop awoke in me the knowledge that I was a person of faith, that I cared about God and the church. In my first term at Cambridge, I was given an essay on Lancelot Andrewes and from that, as I've blogged here came so much else. Andrewes made me stop to read and to reflect...His words enthralled me, and through them I connected afresh with the Word, full of grace and truth.

4) Much more recent - the priest who conducted our ordination retreat before my diaconal ordination has influenced me in ways I'm probably only half aware of...During those precious 4 days, he consistently modelled the priesthood we aspired to. He has been known to visit here, so I won't say more, except that I am abidingly grateful that, on the cusp before FabBishop arrived, and with him a new DDO, we were given the huge gift of a "home grown" retreat. It was remarkable, and so often in the small every-day crises of parish life I recall his words and am strengthened, comforted or challenged. It makes a difference, daily, to the sort of priest I try to be.

5) The many children of the churches where I've worked, worshipped and learned since I began this journey in ministry...most notably, perhaps, the Little Fishes of St M's. Their eyes are so clear, their instinct for the God-moments unwavering...Dillon, with his practical demonstration of the flood of divine love that pours over us at Baptism...Sam, determined that nobody should be excluded from the Kingdom feast, sharing his bread crumb by crumb with the prams full of sleeping babies...As so often, though officially I was there to minister to them, it was always I who received ministry.

"And we're back...."

Apologies for the break in transmission, but there has been more going on in my life over the past fortnight than any woman can rightly cope with. Definitely good in more than a few parts but wildly emotional and pretty time consuming too The mix of feelings in that last weekend at St M's put even the most extravagant Southern cocktail to shame...After the long night that was Maundy Thursday came the exhausted emptiness of Good Friday. I repeatedly had to stop myself from thinking "last time" thoughts as the complex blend of words and music that is the Holy Saturday Vigil wound its way around the pillars of the church. The Easter fire was kindled and the Resurrection proclaimed in all the ancient ageless beauty of the Exultet, then celebrated in a church full of children for the Easter Sunday Eucharist. Presiding there was a mixture of utter delight and deep sadness at imminent parting. It was always going to be an emotional experience, but nothing had prepared me for the gut wrenching intensity. Clearly one of the many effects of Ordination is to connect you far more closely with the congregation where you have served for even four short years, than even with the home church that nurtured your vocation through the previous 14. Tears flowed at the Communion rail and at the door...and at the same time I was trying hard to offer joyful Easter blessings and "Good to have you with us" as occasional visitors have every right to expect. I so didn't want to high-jack te day and the excitement of our First Communicants did much to balance my free-fall feelings, though I was completely undone when Junior Church presented me with some fabulous art-work, and 2 Little Fishes appeared with an album of the loveliest photos from the group. More lovely gifts followed in the afternoon, including, wonderfully, a 1st century Palestinian oil-lamp, which nestles delightfully in the hand. Incredible to think that I own something dating from the time of Christ...slightly soot-blackened from long-dead flames...to realise afresh that my ministry at St Mary's and beyond is part of a continuum stretching back to that group clustered around the table at the Last Supper. We come and go, but the light goes on shining. I tried, haltingly, to preach on that at Evensong, then more hugs, more tears, and hugs again and it was done. Church keys left on the vestry table, robes cleared from the cupboard, no longer an assistant curate but very nearly a priest-in--charge. That community has taught me so much, shown me great love and endless encouragement, been so generous with themselves as we have journeyed together.
"For all that has been, thanks.
For all that shall be, yes."

LLLL3

Today's directive was to
Invite your neighbours and friends to a pancake party.
I guess that was a bit easy - as we had a parish Pancake Party arranged already...at which friends and neighbours were undeniably present.
The evening suffered a tad from competitive partner syndrome, but Marcella's husband and mine had fun outsmarting each other while M and I giggled gently, and the final glasses of wine and tastes of chocolate were enjoyed too.
Marcella remarked that, unusually, this year Lent doesn't look quite long enough - and I have to say that as I contemplate those things which I have not done, and realise that I have only the weeks before Easter in which to achieve them, I couldn't agree more. Very very scary.

Earlier in the day I'd had a more productive look at the weeks ahead, via the Bishop's Quiet Day in the (rather frozen) Cathedral. This year the addresses were given by wonderful Vivienne Faull, who rather a long time ago was an unconscious participant in one of those occasions when God grabs you by the scruff of the neck and speaks slowly and clearly, so that even Kathryns cannot fail to understand. The occasion was the 1994 ordinations of the first women priests in Gloucester Cathedral, and Vivienne (then Chaplain at the Cathedral) was distributing Communion...I moved in line to her station, and as she gave me the host she looked at me and God said, quite unmistakeably
"That's where I want you next, Kathryn".
To sit in that same Cathedral and listen to her (very helpful) words today - conscious that I'm just 8 weeks away from my first responsibility post gave the whole thing a pleasing symmetry.
"Thy firmnesse drawes my circle just
and makes me end where I begunne".

Yesterday was full and happy. I left first thing to drive down to Sussex by the sea, where my honorary mum, the wonderful E was celebrating her 90th birthday together with her 3 children, J, T & S,- all of whom have been part of my life forever.
Though the actual birthday was on Thursday, there was still a hugely festive air to the holiday cottage where we gathered - J and her husband coming from Denmark, and earlier in the week D had visited from Dubai, as well as those of us who'd come from assorted corners of the UK. For me E has been a warm and constant presence, a source of love and encouragement at every stage. just after the 2nd world war, when my father contracted tuberculosis and found himself in a sanitorium next to E's husband T, an RAF pilot who had been one of the "few" in the Battle of Britain. When both men were discharged, they lost touch for a few years, bumping into each other by chance when Daddy needed a ladder to arrange a fundraising display, popped in to a nearby pub (in a small town a good 50 miles away from the sanitorium) to borrow one and found T working behind the bar. The friendship resumed instantly and when T2 was born, Daddy became his godfather, while we returned the compliment when J became my godmother in turn. Sadly tuberculosis claimed T's life before I was even born, but the families remained close, E caring for me and including me among her children during my own mother's frequent spells in hospital. Bringing up 3 children on a war widow's pension must have been so hard, but there was never a feeling of scarcity, of eking out resources - rather a joyous creativity as E showed us what could be done to create beauty from things that others would have discarded. I like to think that HG's penchant for "Charity Shop Chic" was learned from watching E, always quirkily elegant on less than a shoe string. I love that whole family so much. They've always been there...always welcomed me...always made me feel totally at home....and the loving connections continue for the next generation, as T2 is Hattie Gandhi's godfather.
Yesterday was,I think, the first time we've all been together since HG was very tiny.There were lots of "do you remember?" conversations, lots of comfortable silences, lots of sheer delight in each other's company. Since my generation had all grown up by the seaside, where else could be the right backdrop for our rejoicings? It was all very British - cold and windswept and wonderful...and after a few bracing moments (the only concession to E's age was that we didn't actually stride for a couple of miles along the beach) we took refuge in a nearby pub (where William Blake had a run in with the army once long before).
300 miles round trip and worth every second.

Thank you, E...Your birthday, like your birth, was a gift to all of us.

Lest we forget

This morning I presided at the Eucharist in a packed church. People who don't even come at Christmas chose to be with us this morning as we gathered, first at the War Memorial just across the road from the church and then brought our feelings of grief, of anger, of frustration and offered them to God for redemption and transformation.

I struggled, as I always do on Remembrance Sunday.
Of course I am hugely grateful to those who "for my tomorrow gave their today" and, because my father lived through both world wars and served in one of them, I have a very real sense of the immediacy of those conflicts. They are absolutely not long ago and far away. Boys who vied with Daddy for poll position in maths class, who shared his fascination with the sea and ships, who used to walk their dogs with him....ordinary boys with hopes, fears and dreams went to war and they never came home.
That is real and painful....something we cannot afford to forget.

But we need to remember reality, not to subscribe to a collective delusion of glorious heroism, to "the old lie, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori".
My father taught me that - and surely he had earned the right, along with his DSC "for courage", to challenge our annual act of commemoration.
He never forgot. He never made light of the cost of our freedom....but I know he would have been disturbed and even angry that we stood at the War Memorial today and sang a single verse of "I vow to thee, my country..."

War hurts. Always. There are no winners, no matter what the political outcome.

Lead us from death to life,
from falsehood to truth,
Lead us from despair to hope,
from fear to trust.
Lead us from hate to love,
from war to peace,
Let peace fill our beings,
our world and our universe.

Lord, in your mercy hear our prayer

St Francis’ Day today

Part of my personal calendar for as long as I can remember…

When I was a child, I used to try and arrange special treats for all my assorted pets, and any other animals I could lay my hands on, in honour of their patron saint.I would also wait hopefully for a treat or two to be directed my way, for St Francis' day is also the anniversary of my Baptism.
A baby born long after my parents had abandoned hope,-one who would, like any child, turn their lives and their world upside down .
They brought me joyfully to the church where they had married, to the priest who had married them 11 years before…and so I was baptised.

Years pass, and now when I stand at the font preparing to welcome a little one into the Church, to affirm our common identity in Christ, I often ask those present whether their own Baptism made a difference, whether the promises that were made on their behalf have been lived out to transform their lives.
But I also tell them something that I know directly to be true…that Baptism IS a Sacrament, that it works despite us…
That though on the day when they bring their child to the church, full of hopes, they have every intention of making those promises live…sometimes, with the best will in the world, life will get in the way.
I tell them that, actually, this is not the end of the world, that God honours our intentions, however imperfect their outworking in our lives.
Our Baptism service has parents and godparents answer questions about their intention to nurture the child in the faith with the response
“With the help of God I will”
and that’s what I believe in.
I believe in it,because I know that is how it worked for me.

Though my parents had the best of intentions, to worship together as a family, week on week, the reality was that my mother was so ill, for so much of my childhood that I can barely remember any times when our whole family went to church together. Instead, my father went quietly to the 8.00 Communion and it wasn’t till my singing committed me to the musical life of a faith community that my baptism began to be real to me within the congregation of God's faithful people.
So now, so many many years later, I stand as Canon Poole once stood holding me. Now it I who receive those little ones, I who pour water over their heads and baptise them in the name of Father, Son and Spirit…and I know that what was begun for me that day has made all the difference to what has come after…so I am thankful.

********************

When I saw the opening of the Common Worship Collect for today, I was sad for a moment that Ellen's service had happened already. Her life was most truly and beautifully modelled on the ideal it presents to us

O God, you ever delight to reveal yourself
to the child-like and lowly of heart.
Grant that, following the example of the blessed Francis
we may count the wisdom of this world as foolishness
and know only Jesus Christ, and him crucified,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

A thank you post

One of the great compensations for losing both my parents when I was just 18 (honestly, - there were some, I’m not just putting a brave face on things) was the number of friends who included me as extra members of their family, whose mums encouraged me to turn up for meals, to stay the night, or just hang around the place whenever I felt like it.

Some, of course, had been part of my life forever. E. has always been my honorary mother – a guaranteed source of love, understanding and encouragement through all the ups and downs of childhood and adolescence, and every bit as special to my children as well…
Then there was gentle L, whose son and I dated for a little while. L was one of life’s extrovert’s who knew only too well how long evenings can be when you come home to an empty flat.…For 2 summer vacs I spent at least 3 evenings most weeks at her home round the corner; she took huge delight in having someone to cook for, and together we would watch tv, do our nails or simply chat about nothing much….
Another was B., whose 2 daughters were among my closest friends at uni (one at Cambridge, the other when I moved to Durham for post grad work) – who opened her home to me for Christmas and made me feel hugely involved and included.

And there was Ellen.
I met Ellen’s daughter on my first day at Trinity, when we were being organised in alphabetical order for the freshers’ photo.
Two Ws, side by side…
Both reading English.
Both with few contacts in Cambridge.
Both ever so slightly out of our depths.

The friendship that began that day survives still. My beloved god daughter is M’s oldest child, while M’s husband stood god-father when the Dufflepud was baptised.There have been times when we’ve seen less of each other for a while, preoccupied with our own lives, our own concerns, but the ties are there. We’ve survived a good few crises together. She’s definitely on my short-list of people I would phone to help bury the body…And when I became friends with M. I was also adopted into her family.
Her parents were among the least assuming, most gentle people I’ve ever known.
Their small house in an unbeautiful town (which was nicely en route from Cambridge to St Leonards-on-Sea) was a real haven…
I first spent a holiday there when M . – who had wisely added touch-typing to her portfolio of marketable skills,- offered to type up my Part 1 dissertation. So for one week over Easter 1980 I was made welcome- and when I left I was told to return whenever I wanted.
So I did. Often.

Nobody ever made a special fuss – I was just included in the general blanket of care and kindness that was part of life there.
I never allowed to help round the house…”Mummy Watts” was very clear that nurturing her girls and their friends was her role.
Nurturing everyone, actually.
Ellen was someone who made a difference.
She was always collecting waifs and strays, stopping to be kind to little old ladies who were struggling with shopping, befriending the sad child on the edge of the playground in her years working at school.
She was a Deacon at her Baptist church, which had been her spiritual home from birth (and remained so even when she moved some distance away). Yesterday, someone said of her "Her life was her sermon" and certainly faith was woven into every aspect of life in that house…
We never talked about it (I would probably have described myself as an Anglican Agnostic if we had). We didn’t need to.
On my 21st birthday (the sort of date when my parents rather made their absence felt) there was a parcel, a copy of The Oxford Book of Children’s Verse, with love from E & D W (but to me they were always Mummy and Daddy Watts)…

One summer she had a detached retina, and was rushed to Moorfields Eye Hospital for surgery - where she shared a room with Gitel – an Orthodox Jew from the East End of London. Between those 2 women, of such different backgrounds and experience, a warm friendship grew – and it was a joy to visitors to come and be warmed by it in our turn. Ellen simply did not understand, did not recognise, why there might be any divisions, any discomfort engendered by their contrasting beliefs.


Yesterday I was back in that slightly run down little church, in a part of London where many colours and creeds have come together.
I was there to thank God.
I was there to listen to stories and memories of E, from her own community, the people who had known and loved her for a lifetime.
I was there to hear M speak bravely about the mother who gave and gave of herself to any and all who might need love, to share in the thankfulness and the resurrection joy through tears.
M described her mother as someone who “knew where she belonged and knew where she was going.”
Go well, then, Ellen, with every blessing on your arrival…and thank you for your mothering along the way.

.
When I was growing up, one of my very favourite people was Renate.
The daughter of Holocaust survivors, she was married to an antiquarian bookseller, had 4 bright and articulate children close to me in age, of whom I was somewhat in awe, and understood better than anyone else my constant, consuming need to read.
Whenever she visited (and this was an era when mothers at home dropped in on each other at least once a week) she brought something for me to borrow and her Christmas and birthday presents were always a joy and a delight.
But I wasn't sure about the cover of the book that she gave me when I turned eight.
It looked a bit strange - that child's face with the rings was just plain weird.
And the background, the everyday context of the opening chapter, needed a bit of translating..This was America and there were unfamiliar words and situations. Just what was liverwurst? And why did Charles Wallace have a surname as part of his Christian name? I'd never met that anywhere else before?
But Meg I recognised. Meg struggled. Meg didn't fit in. She loved and cared and got things wrong - but in the end her gifts were enough. I loved her straight away....
And I read the book again and again and again till the (still scary) paperback cover began to wear out.
To my surprise, I met some words from that book in church...and it began to dawn on me that there were other things going on, other themes interwoven into the fabric of what I had embraced as just a wonderful tale (and something quite unlike what I'd previously encountered as "Science fiction")
When I was sad or frightened, I would try to join in the song of those wonderful winged creatures...or imagine myelf rocked in the arms of Aunt Beast.
For a year or two, I must have re-read A Wrinkle in Time at least once each term....and I always emerged feeling safer, more at home in my own world.
But I had no idea that this writer whose name I couldn't pronounce had other books to her credit...It wasn't until a book warehouse sale when my own children were at primary school that I discovered that there was so much more to be read.
Today, in common with so many others, I'm mourning the death of Madeleine L'Engle - but more than that, I'm so grateful for her life and her writing.

Seperated Brethren?

In the wake of the latest papal pronouncement there have been many words written about the church of Rome and how she connects with the rest of us. (As an aside, it does seem sad that one whose very title as "pontiff" establishes him as a bridge- person, uniting the disparate, seems currently intent on making his bridge a lifted draw-bridge, separating the chosen from the rest- but that's by the way...) I’ve neither the inclination nor the qualifications to say much about it in terms of ecclesiology (using the word is the closest I propose to get) but reading a post by Kate started me off on my own trail of memories…

From the age of 7, I was one of a handful of Anglicans in an RC Convent school, kept very aware of my second-class faith status. Like all the other girls, I was slightly afraid of the older nuns, who had strange names (Sister St Edmund, Sister Dominic) and wore traditional habits. Clearly they had no hair, but did they even have legs…or did they actually move on casters? I was seriously curious.
On the other hand, I adored the younger sisters, - specially Sister Stephanie, who was always laughing, and who shared my passion for animals. Her charges included Billy the Convent Cat (whose markings echoed the nuns’ habits, right down to a wimple under his chin), Jason the dog, an ever increasing family of guinea pigs (whose offspring were popular purchases at the annual Mission Sale) and any number of damaged birds. Together with my friends, I’d ask special permission to visit the higgledy-piggledy encampment of hutches and hen-runs behind the hedge near Our Lady’s grotto, certain that to be a nun would be the passport to a limitless family of pets and sisters (both equally attractive to an only child). I think, too, I was attracted by the genuine joy that seemed to surround Sister Stephanie. When she sang and played her guitar in chapel, her whole being was there in the music, and I recognised that she was focussed on something wonderful beyond my imaginings.

But, though I was fascinated by statues and holy pictures, and carried around my rosary like all my RC friends, looking on wistfully as they made their First Communions in full bridal splendour, I wasn’t really ripe for conversion. Aunty A, the Belfast Catholic who lived next door to us would tease my mother by referring to us as “Separated brethren” but I knew that, like Sister Theresa my form teacher and Sister St Francis who taught me French, she prayed regularly that we might recognise our errors and join the True Church.
Even then, I found that vaguely disturbing.
Of course, I didn’t want to go to hell….and there were enough stories of souls in torment to give me a very clear picture of what that might entail….but I liked my own church, where the incense and vestments were far more awe-inspiring than the guitars and Kum-bay-ah of the Convent chapel. If I’d been 10 years older, and grown up before Vatican 2, I might have seen things differently, but the reformed liturgy of the late 60s just didn’t hit the spot for me. I needed full liturgical drama, Mozart and mystery.

But one thing I’ve never forgotten from those First Friday Masses, squashed uncomfortably into the lower school pews, to the south of the altar.
“The Mass is ended. Go in peace” the priest would direct us, before departing himself, an imposing figure flanked by servers.
But the nuns sang on, so for a few minutes at least we went nowhere. Instead I would watch, week after week, as the vestry door opened and Father X, stripped of his gorgeous vestments, and now a pedestrian figure in clerical black, came quietly back into the chapel to kneel in a back pew.
Nobody ever told me what was happening, but I somehow knew that he was thanking God for the miracle he had just been a part of, and praying for grace and strength before he left that place…

At the end of the Eucharist now, I say a quick prayer with choristers and servers, and then head straight to the west door for the weekly ritual of handshakes, hugs and greetings which seems integral to maintaining our community. As an extrovert I love that, of course, but I know I miss out on something. The danger of plunging immediately into relationships at the porch is that I might just be seduced into thinking it’s all about me, and the wonder of the Eucharist is too easily overlaid by the joys and concerns I encounter straight afterwards. Of course, they too are part of the worship...but so is the pause, the recognition that something amazing has happened, the time aside to say thank you.

It's Fathers' Day

and also the 29th anniversary of my father's death. Back in 1978, he died on a Saturday, and Fathers' Day was the following day. Somehow, that particular celebration has never loomed large in our family consciousness since then.
I've blogged about my father here so often that I don't want to add more this year, but simply to say that I'm glad the blog allows me a space to remember and be thankful. And I am. So very thankful.

This year I'm also grateful to J, because from now on 17th June won't just be "the day Daddy died" but also "the day that J became a Canon".
Losing both parents before I was an adult means that there are all sorts of bits of my life that I can't share with them, so many people I'd have loved them to know. Whenever my children achieve something particularly whizzy, I mind that I can't phone my parents to crow.
Whenever my children are struggling and I long to fix unfixable things, I want to turn to my father- who never had to deal with a daughter growing into situations beyond his control....so that, for me, he remains forever the solution to all my teenage problems.

And on days like today, I just wish that my parents could meet and enjoy some of the people I'm blessed to count as friends. I still don't know what my rather traditional father would have made of my ordination (though he had the courage to outrage his lifelong conservative family by voting first Socialist and then Liberal, so perhaps all would have been well). I like to think he would have approved once the first shock had worn off. And I hope that today he has been cheering J as she gave me something quite different to think about on what has for too long been a rather regretful day.

After J's party, I spent an hour with a woman in hospital for whom today was also a significant anniversary. As we talked about love and loss, about death and resurrection hope I was so conscious of the way our stories weave into God's bigger picture...and for a few moments, I almost glimpsed it.
This is the most amazing calling. From Cathedral to party, to hospital bed, to wild youth group celebrations "We want to see Jesus lifted high"
and all that is part of who I am and what I do.
No wonder I'm thankful!

When the day of Pentecost had come the people of St Mary’s were all gathered together in one place and suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire church where they were gathered and……

So began the sermon I preached this morning, to a slightly half-hearted congregation in a half full church (Bank Holiday weekend and the start of half-term, - we shouldn't have expected anything else really) , with rain and general mizzle going on outside. And as too often, I emerged from our celebration of this wonderful feast feeling bedraggled and disappointed.
No drama for us!
No tongues of flame, not even any speaking in tongues...
I know that St M's, and its curate, are part of the anything-but-charismatic end of the C of E, but wouldn't it be lovely if the Holy Spirit would sweep us off our feet and surprise us, even so?

But then I remembered a very uncomfortable period in my teens. The Christian Union at school had been gripped by pentecostal fervour and it seemed that everyone in the entire school was speaking in tongues, except me. Earnest 6th formers laid hands on me again and again and again, and I waited excitedly for the amazing gift that I was certain was just around the corner.
Only it wasn't. As the term went on, the 6th formers began to weary of me. They decided that there must be some huge block that was preventing the Holy Spirit from getting through and I began to feel guilty. What had I done that made me so uniquely awful that the Holy Spirit would have no truck with me?

And then (for the first time, I think) God spoke to me - quite clearly. It was, as I remember, on the bus home from school on one wet and windy Friday. I was laden with a cello and the meal I had cooked in Home Ec., as well as the additional burden of feeling outcast and despondent when from nowhere God said
"I have given you the gifts that you need for the work I want you to do. Stop longing for the gifts of others and rejoice in being yourself"

Funny how hard it is to learn that one!
I was 14 at the time, but clearly I'm a distressingly slow learner.



Happy Birthday, everyone!

John Donne, Poet and Priest

I was in my last year at school, preparing for A levels, when we began work on the "Metaphysical Poets". Some people found them dull, quaint or obscure, but I loved them from the first moment that I read

Goe, and catche a falling starre,
Get with child a mandrake roote,
Tell me, where all past yeares are,
Or who cleft the Divels foot,
Teach me to heare Mermaides singing,
Or to keep off envies stinging,
And find What winde
Serves to advance an honest minde.

Something in the writing of these self-consciously "clever" men roused a response in me that was quite different from any other poetry at that point. Later, theirs was to become "my" period, in which I immersed myself in both undergraduate and post-grad years, so that I was no longer deterred by obscurities but recognised the realities to which the words pointed.
George Lukas talks of the metaphysicals "looking beyond the palpable" and "attempting to erase one's own image from the mirror in front so that it should reflect the not-now and not-here" - which sounds rather sacramental and priestly from here...so maybe there was another dimension in their appeal to me even then..

Certainly, one of my first and most treasured experiences of God's love came to me while reading John Donne's "Hymne to God the Father" on the day that my own father died. I blogged about it 2 years ago, but only included one verse of the poem. So today, when the Anglican Church gives thanks for the life and work of John Donne, I want to share with you the whole thing. Reading that last verse takes me straight to the railway carriage near Pevensey Bay where God met and held me and promised that all would be well.

A Hymne To God The Father John Donne

Wilt thou forgive that sinne where I begunne,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sinne; through which I runne,
And do run still: though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

Wilt thou forgive that sinne which I have wonne
Others to sinne? and, made my sinne their doore?
Wilt thou forgive that sinne which I did shunne
A yeare, or two: but wallowed in, a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

I have a sinne of feare, that when I have spunne
My last thred, I shall perish on the shore;
But sweare by thy selfe, that at my death thy sonne
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, Thou hast done,
I feare no more.

The Tory Party at Prayer

A long and strange day, in which I drove with LCM and M-i-L to a memorial service some 100 miles away . We went in tribute to one of the dearest men, a gentleman in the truest sense of the word. Like my late FiL, he was endlessly kind, courteous and delightfully self-deprecating, one of the most fully-human men I've known - but he had also had a distinguished career as a soldier and was much decorated as a result. I've always struggled to square the circle of enthusiastic soldiering with deep faith and shining humanity, and today's service only added to my confusion. He had planned it down to the last detail, and it was utterly in keeping with the setting and the congregation. The chapel was filled to overflowing with rank on rank of pink and prosperous men in covert coats, with matching wives in smart tweeds,- as clearly a uniform as anything worn on the parade ground. A regimental chaplain prayed in bracing style, we sang "Onward Christian Soldiers" with huge gusto ( a measure of my affection for G is that I was prepared to sing it at all) , heard readings from St John (Authorised Version, of course) Bunyan and "Watership Down" and listened to two accounts of G's life and times. It was all perfectly fitting,- but so far away from the man whose gentle humour was one of the first pleasures of meeting LCM's family and friends when we got engaged.

For his sake, and that of his widow (whom I also love dearly) I curbed my impulse to leap onto a chair and start singing "The Red Flag". Politics, religion, sport,- we were fine on two-thirds of them. G and his wife were hugely supportive of my ordination, .and equally understanding when our children regaled them with horsey triumphs and disasters. Thankfully, we never approached the issue of politics,- though he was such a dear, I'm sure he'd have extricated himself from the situation before we had a chance to disagree. I'm so glad to have known him, - and grateful for the reminder that it's never good to judge by appearances.
Go well, G.

"Thanks for the memory..."

This afternoon I’ve been sitting with a member of our congregation who won’t be here much longer.He was diagnosed with leukaemia a year ago, but kept remarkably well until the past two weeks…Now it’s obvious there will be no recovery.
He’s calm and, I think, pretty comfortable, and his family are at his side, his wife anxious about the next few hours, but determined to be there for him right to the end. We went outside briefly for some fresh air, and she told me how hard it was for her, adding
“But I know you’ve been here…”

And then I remembered.

It was 28 years ago today that I woke to a silent flat.
The painfully laboured breathing from my mother’s room had stopped.
Was she sleeping peacefully, after struggling through the previous day?
From this sleep, there would be no wakening.
The six months that separated her death from that of my father had been indescribably hard for her. Just 18, I knew nothing of the processes of grief, was absorbed in my own life, my own needs. I was fuelled by the selfish survival instincts of the very young,- intent on fulfilling our family dream, that I should win a place at Cambridge, sing in that chapel, conquer the world….
I came home from school at weekends to piles of unopened post, to red bills spilling over the kitchen table and I didn’t understand.
I was impatient…anxious to move her on to some semblance of normality.
But for her, nothing was normal. Nothing could ever be normal again.

So, once she knew that our dreams were on their way to coming true, she turned her face to the wall.
She’d been ill all through my childhood. There was no reason why that chest infection, rather than any other, should finally have provided an escape route…but that day in January, with snow on the ground and the rubbish of the winter of discontent piling up on our streets, she found an exit strategy.

I was an only child, and so many people worried that I would be lost, unable to cope with my overnight precipitation into adult independence.
It felt heartless to explain that things were actually easier now, that I no longer felt torn in two, forced to choose again and again between the windows onto a new world that beckoned me and the need to stay beside Mummy in the darkness that was all she could cope with.
Gentle, self effacing, with an inimitable way with words, Mummy spent so much of my life in and out of hospital…
Tempting, if pointless, to wonder how things would have been if she’d escaped the rheumatic fever that she suffered at some point during her childhood in China. There were impossibly glamorous photos of her about the place, (none of which, of course, I can find today: she'd hate my posting this, the one picture I can lay my hands on) and she and Daddy loved to tell stories of their young married days, and the fun they had during their 11 year wait for my arrival.


They were always ridiculously, delightfully in love…
Little notes by the sink, a couple of chocolates left on the bedside table, flowers bought on impulse…Every day they basked in complete contentment in each other’s company, and their love warmed everyone with whom they had contact.

It wouldn’t have been reasonable to expect Mummy to linger long in a world without Daddy, and I guess that she knew, too, that I’d not be free to live the dreams we’d all dreamed together if she’d stayed on, in her brokenness.
I'm always conscious that I talk about her less than about my father. He, after all, was the “prime carer”, the rock on which our family life was built.
But for him, she was the sun, the moon and stars, always young, always beautiful.

When I was very young, little more than 2 years old, I had a run of bad dreams, and Daddy would carry me around my room, rocking me and singing old Jerome Kern songs, which were somehow always expressions of his feelings for Joyce, the woman with whom he shared his life for just short of 30 years.
Laughably sentimental, until I remember the look on his face as he sang

“And when I told them how beautiful you are,
They didn't believe me. They didn't believe me!
Your lips, your eyes, your cheeks, your hair,
Are in a class beyond compare,
You're the lovliest girl that one could see!
And when I tell them, And I cert'nly am goin' to tell them,
That I'm the man whose wife one day you'll be.
They'll never believe me. They'll never believe me.
That from this great big world you've chosen me!.

That sense of incredulous delight in each other lasted until the day he died...
Small wonder that she felt herself lost here without him.
That final Oxbridge term at school I wrote essays on Shakespeare's Cleopatra, and briefly glimpsed the route my mother was taking. She would surely have giggled gently at my comparison of a banker's wife in St Leonard's-on-Sea with a great tragic heroine, but I know, too, she would have recognised the feelings

Noblest of men, woo't die?
Hast thou no care of me? shall I abide
In this dull world, which in thy absence is
No better than a sty?--O, see, my women,
The crown o' the earth doth melt.--My lord!--
O, wither'd is the garland of the war,
The soldier's pole is fallen: young boys and girls
Are level now with men: the odds is gone,
And there is nothing left remarkable
Beneath the visiting moon.

Growing up as part of a relationship like that was a huge privilege. Thanks to my parents, I've never doubted for a moment that Love is the foundation of everything.
I tried to share that certainty beside the hospital bed this afternoon.

A measure of accountability

(being an ironic title for a post being written while I fail to get on with tomorrow's sermon)

WonderfulVicar and I went to a CME training session this morning for Incumbents and Curates, which among other things considered the way the training partnership works (or doesnt) and how a working agreement may help in addressing tricky issues en route.

We have, imho, quite a good working agreement and what's more it is a fairly accurate reflection of the reality of our lives...but one thing which the morning highlighted for me was that while we are both very good at recognising and admitting our weaknesses to one another (they tend to be similar, as we're alike in our aproach to most things) we are both utterly hopeless at actually doing anything about them.

So, for example, I regularly agonise over blurry boundaries between time on-line that might help my personal/ministerial development and time on-line that is pure self-indulgence...
or I lament my inability to make good use of the odd half hours here and there that are such a feature of the working day....
or the appalling backlog in accounts and expenses, and the state of the study floor.
I chunter about the number of books I have on the go, that I never actually finish or reflect on.
I groan about the reactive nature of so much of my ministry, and wonder what happened to the determination to be visionary and strategic.
And there it rests.

But, honestly, that's not OK at all.

This curacy is a precious time in which to develop skills and habits that will sustain me when I'm out in the Big Bad World on my own....and I can't afford to leave so much rubbish lying around the place.
So for starters, WonderfulVicar and I are going to keep a record of what we actually do with our time in the 2 weeks leading up to Christmas. He maintains that I will be pleasantly surprised at how much I actually achieve. I'm less certain of the outcome, but am glad to have a mechanism in place to keep me thinking.
We're also going to read a book and diary in a slot to discuss it EVERY MONTH.
I suggested too that he forbid me to preside at the Eucharist until I've submitted my expenses for the past 5 months...I don't think he took me seriously, -but the rest of you could perhaps rattle sabres at me in a menacing way from time to time.

This is my 3rd year, after all. Gloucester curates are expected to move on sometime during their 4th year,- which gives me till July 08 at the most. In other words, the spectre of incumbency is beginning to loom and while there is much I'm looking forward to, I have a pretty good sense of the gaps in my knowledge and the shortcomings in myself. Time to address them, as far as possible. If anyone fancies asking awkward questions as to my progress once in a while, I'd (probably) appreciate them!

Ummmm

Thanks for your responses to my JAFFA club dilemma...To my surprise (and pleasure) M's mum appeared to collect this afternoon, so I asked for a quick word and explained what I planned to do next week. Pleasure was, however, rapidly replaced by near panic, as the situation is
even more complicated than the school had suggested. There is indeed a strong Jewish connection but the mum describes herself as "Christian, but we don't do all the stuff that the church has added...like the festivals, because they are pagan anyway".
I asked where her boundaries lay in terms of acceptable teaching for her daughter, and we now have a coffee date lined up for Friday to explore more fully. All was entirely amicable, but I'm actually rather unnerved by the whole thing, and fearful that I'll say something crass and unhelpful or, in my anxiety to keep the channels open, bend over backwards so far that I end up gazing at the stars.
A few prayers for wisdom wouldn't go amiss, if anyone has time.

Am I being unreasonable?

I've been sharing the leadership of an after-school club at the local (non church) primary school off and on for a couple of years, taking it over more fully this year when a teacher retired , and relaunching it with a slightly snappier name chosen by the children to replace the original cringeworthy "Christian Club".
It is, I repeat, a voluntary after school club, with an expressly Christian agenda. For the record, the name the children chose was JAFFA kids (Jesus A Friend For All),- so it's hard to think we've been unduly sly or stealthy in our approach.
So what am I to make of a parent who has contacted the school to say that her daughter enjoys the club and is keen to continue attending, but as they are Jewish she does hope that I won't be focussing on Christmas in our activities as term draws to a close? Her child is a sweetheart and a real asset to the group, - but it does seem a complete nonsense for me to reorganise the programme and lose one of a limited number of opportunities to remind the children that Christmas is about more than just presents. Tomorrow, I'll try and do something about light and darkness that will be applicable to Hannukah as well, I hope (suggestions very welcome)...but for the final session of the term, I'm anxious to steer their thoughts to the baby in the manger . I hate to be awkward, but I am a Christian priest trying to help the children to celebrate a Christian festival. Surely that's not too much to ask?

I can see it will be an ongoing problem....There's lots I can do during "Ordinary Time" by way of exploring the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures, and some work on social justice issues would be great too, but what price Easter without the cross and the empty tomb? And why send your child to a Christian club if you don't wish her to hear any part of the Christian message? I'm very happy to have her there,- as I say, she's a sweetie. I'm just asking...

We interrupt this series...

of post-India reflections to report on the sheer madness of Advent Sunday at Charlton Kings.
I loved presiding at the 10.00 - can't think of a better way of reconnecting with the congregation here, and the Advent Carol service last night was blissful too...Standing in the darkened church listening to the Palestrina Matin Responsary produced the annual goose-pimples, and Wachet Auf made me believe that maybe, despite my most Scroogelike inclinations, Christmas might be worth looking forward to.
However, I discovered rather late in the day that in their eagerness to make me feel needed, my colleagues had left the Christingle service for me to sort as I saw fit. My confidence in this strange annual rite was not at its highest level, after I had tried to explain the concept to my Indian friends, in a conversation that reminded me mostly of the Bob Newhart sketch about Walter Raleigh and tobacco ("then you put it in your mouth and set fire to it???!") ...
"You take an orange and stick sweets in it..."
"You WHAT?!?!?!"
Somehow, the whole thing felt increasingly fatuous, before ever we got the stage of building a human Christingle (thanks, D) and (oh deary dear) singing "Shine Jesus, shine" but the crowds leaving the church at the end of the service seemed to have enjoyed themselves, and there were lots of comments today about the atmosphere and the "Ahhh" factor of small children by candlelight. I guess I'll just have to accept that I've left a part of myself back in Karnataka, and adjust to the novel feeling of half-wishing I was somewhere else even as I rejoice in being with my friends and family once more.

Meanwhile, if you are one of the three people who saw me this morning pushing a supermarket trolley (complete with wonky steering, of course) laden with Christingles through the streets of Charlton Kings en route to the playgroup and didn't fall about laughing, I'm deeply grateful.
The rest of you can form a committee to plan next year's service, OK?