Holiday

Just to let you know that I am having a few days off with the family - blog will recommence soon

High Church?

What do you suppose you do when you are on sabbatical? I suppose everyone is different so that is a silly question, but most of my days so far have been spent writing, thinking, walking and praying.

I have tended to start the day and end the day with prayer and it has been really good to have more time than usual to sit and chew over the scriptures. I just wish I had put more effort into my Greek, really, but there you go.

Then I tend to write, just allowing stuff that I have been chewing over for months, some of it for years, to get put down on paper. I have no idea if it is any good yet, or any use to anyone, but it is great to get it in some kind of order.

I also walk… and today my wanderings took me to what is reputed to be the highest monastery in Europe. It is, as you can see, beautiful, but it was also closed.

There was a mournful looking lady sitting on the bench outside, and the sight of her surrounded by such marvelous beauty, leaning against a church made me wonder at how we are so often cut off in our faith from those who are crying out.

The church is beautiful, but the message it was built to celebrate is more so. I pray for eyes to see where people are asking for it and wisdom to know how to best live it.

It's my pleasure

I am still reflecting on the culture shocks that I experienced when I went to America. On of them was the extent to which everything there is monetised. Every one is tipped for whatever service they render and, although it is very friendly and generous it is really marked. I felt as if I should tip someone who smiled at me on the street.

They are a really generous people, at least in my experience, but service is offered for recompense. So, for example, in my hotel room when I had to stay overnight at an airport I found the following note in my room

I must confess that I was sorely tempted to leave a note expressing my delight that I had been a source of pleasure and inviting Melanie to call by if she were ever in England and wanted to have some more pleasure cleaning for me because my house could always do with it. I didn’t, of course, because that would have been to miss the point, which is for here a cultural norm, that she was establishing relationship between me and someone who has done something for me, in order that I could then offer recompense because to do otherwise would be unthinkable.

There are some things in life, though, that we cannot pay for, and sometimes the question is simply whether we are willing to receive.

Common Tenure...

Sorry to get all serious on you, and change the tone of this blog for a one-off entry, but I have been pondering a change the Church of England is making and would be interested in your views. This forms part of a larger body of work, and we pick up mid-way through a larger discussion.

"For larger communities who are already in covenant the vows made by new members are essential as an entry point and as renewal of that covenant between extant members.

This is a vital dynamic because the covenant itself is rarely discussed; it is simply understood and inhabited. It is, however recognised and essential. There is a fascinating example of this being played out at the moment. As I write the Church of England is moving from a system of so-called ‘freehold’ for incumbents to that of ‘Common Tenure’ and it is profoundly unsettling for many parish clergy. Let me de-jargonise that sentence and explain why the issue is so intriguing in our current debate.

For centuries, to be honest I am not sure how long but at least since the reformation of the 17th Century, clergy of the church of England have been placed as ‘curates’ in parishes, that is given churches to lead and communities to care for, on the basis of having the freehold of that church. Today’s Vicars and Rectors (there used to be a difference between those terms but there isn’t any more) literally own the church(es) (but not their contents) and the vicarage/rectory of the parishes or benefice where they serve. We are not employed, we are paid a stipend, or living allowance which allows us to survive without other paid work while we live the life of Christ among those to whom we are sent.

Now, at one level, having this freehold means little in reality because we can’t sell any of the property but, importantly, neither can the bishop or the diocese. Nothing can be done to alter my church, legally speaking, without my signature on the contract, for I have the freehold. Where this does bear fruit is in my relationship with the senior staff of the diocese. The fact that clergy have freehold allows my bishop to be my pastor not my boss. He is the chief shepherd of the diocese not the managing director. Arguably the reason that most of the renewal movements within the Anglican church have been able to take place is because parish clergy have a degree of independence from bishops. So, for example, the Oxford Movement of the 19th century depended on the freedom of parish clergy to preach a message very much at odds with the establishment. So, too, the charismatic renewal of the 70’s and 80’s which was strongly out of step with much of the church has brought great refreshment, arguably to the entire church[1].

At this moment the church is implementing a change, allegedly imposed upon us from the European Union via the British government, from freehold to ‘Common Tenure’ whereby we will hold in common the possessions of the church. Now at one level, again, this matters little. All I really mind about is the freedom to do the work of the Kingdom in the place where I am sent. However this change does alter the relationship we have with the ‘senior staff’, itself an interesting phrase, of the diocese. We now have terms of service and professional reviews. Our bishops and archdeacons become our supervisors and reviewers. We, at least at one level, lose a pastor and gain a boss.

I don’t know how this will work in practice, but I share some of the dis-ease felt by my fellow clergy. We are all supposed to be receiving a letter inviting us to relinquish our freehold but few, if any, of us intend to do so. What is the source of the dis-ease? It is not that I distrust my bishops, in fact the reverse is true.

What is happening is that the covenant into which I was ordained and within which I made vows is being altered. I am part of a covenant people and the nature of that community is being, literally, rewritten without my desire or consent at the behest of those beyond the covenant community and this feels like a violation.

I have never, at one level, explicitly entered covenant with the wider church, but at another level I have very clearly done so. I have made vows in the presence of bishops, clergy, and the wider gathered community, and on the basis of those vows and the will of the church I have been ordained and entered service. We are in covenant and that covenant holds, nurtures, and releases me into ministry. I recognise it instinctively when the covenant is altered or ignored."

[1] See John Finney’s Grove Booklet, R25, Renewal as a laboratory for change, Grove, Cambridge, 2006, ISBN 1851746293 

Let's go outside?

I got a shock yesterday, although not as big a shock as I could have got, I suppose. I was out for a walk looking for an old castle and on the way down, having found it, I saw a path which headed in the direction of the monastery. I thought it worth a try and headed down it, noticing the sign for a toilet as I did so. I thought there might be a portacabin or something as we were in the middle of nowhere, but what I did not expect to find was this…

Literally beside a footpath, which it turns out goes nowhere, was this contraption, comprising, I surmise, a composting loo.

I suppose that it serves a purpose, but you would have to have a certain confidence to use it. We all need to go at times, but doing so in public is not the most appealing of thoughts.

I guess there is a parallel here with confession… for the other cubicle I saw yesterday was when I went into the village in the church for a nosey peek. I have never really liked the idea of confession to a priest, for a variety of reasons, but high among them is the idea of getting rid of my spiritual waste in public.

I do wonder, though, how good my logic is on this one. I am not advocating public loos or, indeed, a high view of 'priesthood', but there are times spiritually when I suspect our desire for privacy has more to do with vanity than decency.

The absence of 'tu'

I noticed this morning that there is a missing word from my French vocabulary. I remember learning it at school and thinking how strange it was. 

Here there is no simple ‘you’. There is ‘vous’ for most people and for groups of people, the ‘y’all’ type sentences as my Greek tutor in Durham used to say. There is also ‘tu’ which is the intimate ‘you’ used of those to whom you are close, children, spouses and close friends.

As I chatted with the verbose nuns this morning I noticed that, even though I call them ‘my sister’ and they call me ‘my father’ (hmmmm!) they are ‘vous’ to me and I am ‘vous’ to them. A world without ‘tu’ is a lonely place, and I don’t think this is just because yesterday was the feast day of ‘Martyr Valentinus the Presbyter and those with him at Rome’. 

This place, however, is not completely without ‘tu’. For in French you pray to the ‘Tu’ in Heaven.

There is something profound and precious here which we would do well to ponder in this day whether with friends or alone… for there is one closer than a brother who calls us to (or should that be ‘tu’) Him today.

Notre Père qui es aux cieux,

que ton Nom soit sanctifié,

que ton règne vienne,

que ta volonté soit faite

sur la terre comme au ciel.

Donne-nous aujourd'hui notre pain de ce jour.

Pardonne-nous nos offenses,

comme nous pardonnons aussi à ceux qui nous ont offensés.

Et ne nous soumets pas à la tentation,

mais délivre-nous du mal.

Car c’est à Toi qu’appartiennent

le règne, la puissance et la gloire,

pour les siècles des siècles.

Amen.

Switzerland is dirty!

Just thinking back over last week’s travelling, I realise that Switzerland was one of the biggest surprises of the trip.

I had always imagined that it was a country which was highly efficient, ruthlessly functional, extremely polite, and utterly spotless. My experience was that it was very few of those things. I entered or left the country four times and only had my passport checked once and that very cursorily. I wandered for hours looking for someone to point me in the right direction for trains which had no signage to indicate where they might be going and ended up having to guess. I sat behind some giggling Swiss girls all the way across the Atlantic and came to the weary conclusion that they were no different to any other teenagers.

However the biggest surprise of all was that the country just felt grubby. Far from being able to eat your dinner off a toilet floor, not that I would have wanted to try that, the stations and restaurants and airport all just felt tired, like a home that is past its best and is no longer being invested in.

Now, I don’t want to start an international incident, that was just how it seemed to me. It has made me reflect on how the reality does not always live up to the reputation. It’s true of countries and of organisations, and it is true of people. I suppose that we sometimes feel that we can’t control our image and so we just leave it and focus on who we are, and that is good I think. However there are times when we buy into the modern myth of ‘spin’; that if we can boost our image people will not notice the reality, at least for the time being. This, surely, cannot be the way of Christ?

Shhhhh!

This place is so noisy!


I have come to another monastery, except it isn't really a monastery in the same sense as other ones I have been to. It's more of a retreat house with a missional order of nun-ish types living here, and boy do they chatter.


It is, in part, I suppose, that I am a bit of an oddity. An English Anglican Priest is not the normal guest they have. They are very friendly and it's nice enough to take part, but not what I had expected. It's just difficult to get a thought in edgeways.


I guess that is what I am noticing. I have come here to think and pray, and that process is disturbed every time I leave my room by the restlessness of conversation.


It makes me realise what we don't often have. Peace is spiritual, but it is also more than that. It is deeply precious. 

I'll be your friend...

Last week I had the enormous delight of meeting up with one of my closest friends from years ago whom I have somehow not seen for ten years. You know how it happens, and yet at the same time it is not clear how it happens.

Anyway, it was a delight to meet up and the time passed all too quickly.

It has set me thinking, though, about what friendship is. Specifically: is it something rooted in the self, in the other, or in the relationship, and can we generalise?

I am quite convinced, you see, that most of what we call friendship is nothing of the sort, really. It is mere aquaintance and familiarity. Many ‘friends’ are simply the people who happen to be in the same place or places that we are. Facebook illustrates this perfectly, where the 4,567 people whose names you know on-line are all ‘friends’ when many of them are nowhere near that close. There’s nothing wrong with this, in fact there is an awful lot right with it. We are called to love those around us, and that is expressed most commonly in everyday friendliness and freindship.

Real friends, though, are not merely people we know. They are those we would travel to see, whose children we would care for, or whose preferences are a delight rather than a burden to us. They are those to whom we have a lasting allegiance and for whom that is mutual. There is affection and mutuality in the relationship, but as soon as we try to pin it down, at least as soon as I try to pin it down, it slips away as a concept.

To return to my question, though, where does this reside? Is a friend a friend just because you decide they are? Or is there something about the two of you that would mean you were friends whatever? To what extent are two friends who have not met for years still friends? What happens to the friendship in the periods of absence?

These are big questions, but the truth is the experience of friendship is profound and life-shaping. They are picked up after times away, remoulded with changes of circumstance, and sustained through the turbulent patterns of life.

Of this I am sure; it works because God created us with friendship in mind: with each other, but also, of course, with Him.

What's the rush?

A few days on the road and thus away from quiet and wifi, not that the two are usually coterminous, have led to a break in blogging and a thousand jumbling tumbling thoughts. Sitting here, though, perched on the edge of a French valley somewhere above the Rhone, brings one to the forefront of my mind.

I noticed it when I sat in ‘Wendy’s’, one of the countless chains of US burger joints my favourite of which must have been ‘Five Guys’ not least for the name. Anyway as I sat in Wendy’s eating square burgers (“At Wendy’s square means not cutting corners”!) with my luggage checked-in and my clothes back on post security-screening and at least two hours before my plane went I noticed I was hurrying.

I tried to slow down, but only to limited effect. There was something about the transitory nature of the airport fast-food joints which engendered hurry. Other passengers were rushing hither and thither and it urged me on. The constant chivvy-ing of the announcements on the tanoy quickened the beat to which I was unwittingly dancing. I was in a rush.

There are certain illnesses, I believe, that once you have been infected with them reduce your ability to withstand a further attack. Thus you are ill, you recover, but the same condition can strike with little warning.

As I have reflected, I have come to recognise that I am sick with hurry. I only need a hint of it around me and I am struck down afresh. I rush, sometimes just for the sake of rushing, but don’t notice because the pace of life is such that rushing is the norm anyway.

Maybe that’s my task for this week. To slow down… to notice… to be… and to listen.

I've been walking on water!

No, honestly, I have!

I was invited by a charismatic friend of mine, so we met up at the allotted time and place and off we went… walking over the surface of the water. And now I am back, a little damp in places, but alive and well to tell the tale.

To explain: I was asked if I wanted to go ‘snow-shoeing’. I figured it was worth a try, and off we went, suited and booted, and it was fantastic; a great way to explore the Canadian snowy wilderness. Where in shoes you would sink up to your waist in snow, with shoe-shoes you rest on the surface.

Why do I make the point about it being ‘walking on water’? Because it seems to me a good  picture of the way we engage when we hear of God doing something that is beyond our understanding. We have a choice. 

At one level you can know that I was walking on snow in special shoes, understand how I was ‘walking on water’ and let it go as a different part of normality.

On the other hand, we can notice the difference in being in a country where the ‘back yard’ is 60 acres and covered in several feet of snow for half the year. Here, in this nation, snow-shoeing is normal and anyone can do it. Jesus brings a new Kingdom, and in that place things are often different. The normal is strange, at first, to us… but it is a world we were created to inhabit.

Whoops!

I have just got myself well and truly grilled by the US border police (or whatever they are called). I turned up with my British accent in an American hire care and my Canadian passport, but without the papers that went with the car, at a tiny border crossing between two tiny towns in the South East of Canada.

In the end everything was fine, you will be glad to know, but I spent an uncomfortable few minutes with some burly looking men in uniform.

I suppose that living in the European Union has made me very relaxed about moving from country to country, but here you cross a river and the time changes and you face US security checks. 

Boundaries are funny things, aren’t they. Often we don’t notice when we cross them, but they matter. Moreover we often cannot tell why they lie where they do. I was looking at a map of the US during an interminable flight and marvelling at the straight line divisions between many states. You would never find that between English counties or parishes. Someone, somewhere, somewhen has agonised over them, though, and placed them where they are for some reason.

I sometimes look back at the writings of spiritual giants from former generations and try to envisage our world through their eyes. I wonder what they would rejoice in, and what they would weep over. I wonder, in this specific case, what boundaries they strove to establish we would simply trample on. I wonder where they would encourage us to establish new check points of our own.

Feeling cool?

I got into Maine at gone eleven last night after nine hours of travel. The warmth of South Carolina gave way to sub-zero temperatures and a foot of snow. Aeroplanes were being de-iced before take-off, which was a new thing for me.

Anyway, I walked to the hotel, dumped my bag and slumped on my bed… and realised there was a terrible drone going on all the time which was not just the echo of the aeroplanes’ engines knocking around my head.

2.7 seconds of investigating lead me to the air-conditioning unit. It was almost midnight, several degrees below freezing and this wretched thing was blasting cold air into my room.

It got turned off.

That’s probably a terrible thing in America, but I don’t need it.

I wonder how much I have going on in life which is there simply because someone, somewhere, has said it should be?

I don’t know, but I think the ‘off switch’ might be one of the most precious things we could learn to use. Talking of which, I’m going to sign off now...

I wonder if I ought to turn it back on before I go?

The same, but on a different planet

Here’s where I have been for the last couple of days. It’s a golf resort just outside Myrtle Beach in South Carolina in the USA, although the bizarre reality of modern life means that it is actually just outside the door of a series of metal boxes which I sat in for several hours so I have no idea where it was really… however that is what they told me.

I was there to be part of a men’s weekend for an Anglican church from slightly further down the coast.

It was a fantastic weekend, really. It’s been the Superbowl in the US this weekend, so the flavour was dominated by that, but it’s fun to see people get excited about something, even if you have no real idea why on earth they don’t just play Rugby.

What I also noticed, though, was the marked difference to the venue for our men’s weekend. We go to a 12^th century priory (now a diocesan outdoor centre - http://www.marrickpriory.co.uk/about/history/foundation.html) where we sleep in dormitories. Here we were in a small village with bathrooms ensuite to the bathrooms.

Both are good, but I do wonder what our American brethren would think to Marrick.

I mention it because I notice a terrible tendency in the human heart to get used to the luxury of what we have and begin to take it as a minimum standard. It might be true of the luxury of the States, it is certainly true of some of the assumptions I make and sometimes I need to think a little more clearly.

Where's your citizenship?

Well I managed to confuse the officials, and that’s official.

By an accident of birth; actually can birth be accidental, now I think of it that’s a very strange phrase… however, because I was born abroad I have dual citizenship. Thus I have two passports, and on some trips it is easier to use both. So I turned up at the airports and got my baggage checked and they stuck a sticker on one passport, and then at security, and because I was flying to the States it was smoother to travel on the other passport so I presented it. However there was no sticker and there was great consternation that I had got thus far without a check. Second passport presented, much holding of both and swivelling of head between the two, and all was well.

It has been making me think about citizenship though.

I have the passport of my country of birth. I am a full citizen. I have all the rights of any other citizen. I can come and go, get consular support, and do whatever else a citizen is entitled to do. However I exercise no responsibility or duty beyond paying for a passport occasionally. I pay no taxes, I don’t vote (although I guess I could), I have never served in the military or worked in any serious capacity to serve the nation. In what sense am I really a citizen? Certainly my fellow compatriots, when I meet them, smile ruefully when I brandish my passport and share their benefits.

It’s an obvious point, but the spiritual dynamic is one upon which I have reflected in the small hours amply afforded by jet lag. As Christians we also have a dual citizenship, and we are very keen on the benefits this brings. I am not sure, however, that we are always so diligent when it comes to the responsibilities and duties.

A surprising perspective

Now then: I’ll tell you another thing that has surprised me in my brief stay with our American cousins. Yesterday when Jack and the stranger (I must stop calling them that, they both have real names) picked me up we hopped in Kurtz, the stranger’s car and drove to the resort and the conversation too an astonishing twist.

We’ll come back to that in a bit, but first a red herring. Kurtz is the first ‘Kurtz’ I have ever met, and he doesn’t look like a ‘Kurtz’ at all. He is neither the young fitness freak with a tan and bulging biceps nor the Bovarian hulk that I had imagined when I got e-mails from him. It is odd how names bring pre-conceptions with them which usually prove to be false. I find it most disconcerting when I meet people with whom I have had lengthy correspondence by letter, phone or e-mail because they never look like I had pictured them.

Anyway, the conversation: we sat in this large American MPV and zoomed quietly and comfortably along a highway and discussed ecology. There was the predictable amazement and the price of ‘gas’ in the UK, but the general line was that the West had made, and would be making, all sorts of effort to save the planet but the problem was the developing and oil-rich nations who burned the stuff as if there was no tomorrow. We then lamented the lack of public transport, particularly trains, in the US.

Now this sparked two diverging reactions in me. I am, firstly, really pleased that it is an issue here. We too often see the US as blasé to the point of irresponsibility when it comes to green issues, but here were people who cared.

Secondly I did wonder how the rest of the world would feel about our conversation… and that made me wonder how future generations would look at me. “I’m sorry, son, I did what I could to lesson my impact on the planet.” Will that do, I wonder?

Watch or go?

Well I am here, although ‘here’ is a different ‘here’ to the ‘here’ to which I referred last time I said I was ‘here’ in this blog.

Now if that hasn’t confused you then your name must be “Sir Humphrey”, I guess; apologies, my mind is still somewhere in 30,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean.

However, as far as I know I am in a golfing resort in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I say as far as I know because, in reality, I could be almost anywhere. I got in and out of a series of metal tubes with sticky-out bits and finally turned up in an Airport called “Myrtle Beach” where I was met by a complete stranger and someone I have spent the grand total of twenty-four hours of my life with before now. The stranger and Jack Bauer then bundled me into a car and here we in the poshest hotel apartment I have ever known.

And yet, as I tiptoe around this palace of a suite in the early morning, trying not to wake my two fellow occupants, for whom it is 5.30am (for the Bauer, a Canadian) and 6.30am (for the stranger, an American) whilst for me it is half past midday because I am still running on European time, I can’t even find a tea bag, let alone a plastic pot of UHT milk or three out-of-date complimentary custard creams.

Anyway, I have been thinking about faith. I realised that I had no idea where I was headed when they asked us to fill out a customs form on the plane, including a requirement to fill in the address where we where staying in the US. I didn’t know what to put, so put a description which saw me through customs mainly, I think, because I came in on my Canadian passport. Canadians are welcomed in the US. We go through the US passport and entry lanes and I was just greeted like a long-lost friend. There is far more apparent trust, faith in each other’s systems, than there appears to be intergovernmentally when you come into the US on a British passport. 

Moreover, despite my realisation of the trust I was placing in Jack and the stranger, they were there, waiting for me and all has worked out well. I am looking forward to all that this week has to hold as I meet up with American and Canadian Christians. We share faith in Christ and I am sure it will be a rich time, however it would not have happened without some very human steps of faith. Perhaps that is always the way?

Sitting in Newark, New Jersey yesterday afternoon, waiting for one of the planes, my mind flashed back to when I was a child and my grandmother used to take us on trips out with two of my cousins. We used to love going to the roof-top viewing area at Heathrow, and I think Nan did too. She never went on an aeroplane in her life, but watching was somehow exciting.

There are times in life when the decision to stop watching and get on board can feel really human, but matters far more than we will ever realise.

Burgers and Skype

MacDonalds have a clever thing going you know. I thought it was nice of them when they introduced WiFi in their restaurants in the UK, but a bit of a waste of money.

However, for the second time in 3 days I am sitting in a foreign Macky D's using the computer. Why? Beucase nuns don't need the internet and I do. On both occasions I have wandered around looking for an open WiFi that I can use, and singularly failed. I thought the FON network was supposed to be almost ubiquitous, but not in remote rural France, or indeed Geneva city centre, so it seems.


So I went to MacDonalds. Now the women, well woman and girl, in my life would tell you that I wouldn't take much persuasion to do that, but actually I was looking for something more authentic to eat. However the internet won out, because I wanted to Skype the family. It is simply wonderful to be able to see them as well as speak to them.


It doesn't matter what the quality of the food is, Maccky D's are selling relationship time. And that is always a winner.


I have been writing on covenant today. We were created for it. Made for love (in its fullest sense). Relationships matter and being away from them makes you realise how much. It's true with people, and it's true with God... not that you ever have to be away from Him, thank goodness. 

Cleaner habits

Oh dear, I think I’ve made a bit of a hash of things. I needed to do a bit of washing because I am off to the States tomorrow and the idea of carting dirty socks half way around the world seems a bit strange.

All seemed well as there is a washing machine in a room next to the kitchen here. The nuns are very nice and I was sure they would let me use it, but I couldn’t find anyone. I had a look at the thing and discovered to my dismay that it was not plumbed in. It looked the part, but was not connected either to power or water. (There’s a metaphor for life, and indeed faith, if we were looking for one.)

Anyway I was on a mission now, and I am not averse to a bit of handwashing. So I ran a sink of water and did my washing. Then I took it all to the shower and rinsed it all off and rung it out as best I could.

And then I realised I had to get it dry. That is easier said than done in a chilly monastery with radiators the size of postage stamps and no laundry room available to strange English clergy who are spotted leaving the shower with wet underwear.

So I am sat in my room surrounded by damp clothing praying that it all gets dry before I have to pack it up for the flight tomorrow.

It is odd, the things that drive us to prayer, isn’t it? Would that more did, more quickly (and I could do with a bit of wind and fire (or at least warmth) too, please).