Monday 21 June 2010

Broome, Ticks and Strawberries

Today started in the woods with the newly risen sun and the ticks [I found and destroyed four of the things in my legs and one in the dog]. The broome has past; I was out of the Kingscliffe for just two weeks while we were in Lyme and my ankle was bending in the wrong directions and already we're onto the foxgloves whilst the broome is in seed-pod and growing all over the paths. Yet not even the broome competes with the brambles [coming into flower] or the all dominant, pan-indigenous bracken which is now above chest height. The woods are coming to life faster infinately than my running; even the heather is coming into flower. It is a wonderful place, only a few miles long and less than a mile wide yet I did a five mile run there without re-tracing more than a few yards.


The day ended with delicious strawberries, the first from our garden [BTW there were more than two, but these were the only ones left uneaten by the girls by the time I had found the camera]. The tomatoes are coming into flower, the pumpkins are germinating and the rhubarb is as ever, producing more than we can eat.

Priest

Priestly Duties: a Poem by Stewart Henderson
What should a priest be?
All things to all
male, female and genderless

What should a priest be?
Reverent and relaxed
vibrant in youth
assured through the middle years
divine sage when ageing


What should a priest be?
Accessible and incorruptible
abstemious, yet full of celebration
informed but not threateningly so
and far above the passing soufflé of fashion
What should a priest be?
An authority on singleness
Solomon-like on the labyrinth of human sexuality
excellent with young marrieds, old marrieds,
were marrieds, never marrieds, shouldn’t have marrieds,
those who live together, those who live apart,
and those who don’t live anywhere
respectfully mindful of senior citizens and war veterans
familiar with the ravages of arthritis,
osteoporrosis, post natal depression, anorexia,
whooping cough and nits.

What should a priest be?
All round family person,
Counsellor, but not officially because of recent changes in legislation,
teacher, expositor, confessor, entertainer, juggler,
good with children, and possibly sea lions,
empathetic towards pressure groups.
What should a priest be?
On nodding terms with Freud, Jung, St John of The Cross,
The Scott Report, The Rave Culture, The Internet,
The Lottery, BSE and Anthea Turner,
pre modern, fairly modern, post modern,
and ideally secondary modern
if called to the inner city.
What should a priest be?
Charismatic, if needs must, but quietly so,
evangelical, and thoroughly
meditative, mystical but not New Age
liberal and so open to other voices
traditionalist, reformer and revolutionary
and hopefully not on medication
unless for an old sporting injury.
Note to congregations: If your priest actually fulfils
all of the above, and then enters the pulpit one Sunday
morning wearing nothing but a shower cap, a fez, and declares
“I’m the King and Queen of Venus, and we shall now sing
the next hymn in Latvian, take your partners, please”. -
let it pass – like you and I they too sew
the thin thread of humanity.
Remember Jesus in the Garden
- beside himself.
What does a priest do?
Mostly stays awake at Deanery synods
tries not to annoy the Bishop too much
visits hospices, administers comfort
conducts weddings, christenings,
not necessarily in that order,
takes funerals
consecrates the elderly to the grave
buries children, and babies
feels completely helpless beside
the swaying family of a suicide,
sometimes is murdered at night, alone.
What does a priest do?
Tries to colour in God
uses words to explain miracles
which is like teaching a centipede to sing
but even more difficult.
What does a priest do?
Answers the phone
when sometimes they’d rather not,
occasionally errs and strays into tabloid titillation
prays for Her Majesty’s Government
What does a priest do?
Tends the flock through time, oil and incense
would secretly like each PCC
to commence with a mud pie making contest
sometimes falls asleep when praying
yearns like us for heart rushing deliverance
What does a priest do?
Has rows with their family
wants to inhale Heaven
stares at bluebells
attempts to convey the mad love of God
would like to ice skate with crocodiles,
and hear the roses when they pray
How should a priest live?
How should we live?
As priests, transformed by the Priest
that death prised open
so that he could be our priest
martyred, diaphanous and matchless priest

What should a priest be?
What should a priest do?
How should a priest live?

Thursday 17 June 2010

1066

Hay fever isn't much fun, especially when your eyes explode, all of which is additionally complex when you are trying to type on the kids fancy new laptop [a very generous gift] on which all of the keys are one space to the left of those on my laptop so, given my instinctive choice I epi;f yi[e ;olr yjod [AKA I would type like this].

But when I do type properly I do occasionally make sense. Over the past few weeks I have been re-reading 'The Lord of the Rings' and '1066 and all that'. One quote particularly from 1066 described Edward the Confessor as 'the last English King ... since he was succeeded by waves of Norman Kings [French], Tudors [Welsh], Stuarts [Scottish], and Hanoverians [German], not to mention the memorable Dutch King-Williamanmary.'

Immigration came up again at the first televised hustings on the Labour Leadership candidates. I know that I tend not to do for the establishment but I was impressed with Diane Abbott. She defended both a strong and big state [to look out for the marginalised] and civil liberties [attempting to re-claim the an agenda which only she asknowleged that Labour had lost though its authoritarianism]. She is the only candidate who voted against the Iraq war and she was the only candidate with a sufficient sense of history to say that no foreign power had ever won a war in Afghanistan. She also defended the UK as a nation of immigrants.

I would never claim that '1066' is accurate history but in humour there is much truth; and if our Kings and Queens have been immigrants for so many years, so too have we, from the Roman invasion onwards. Why are we suddenly so scared, why do we persist in ignoring the lessons of history?

Thursday 10 June 2010

Selworthy Sands

It is the most spectacular of places; a mile of sand, visable from only a few places, exposed only at low tide and accessible only by a roped scramble [the rope has broken and been replaced and re-tied so many times that it's a miracle that it still holds anyone]. All of which I guess explains why Selworthy Sands is so often deserted. But for any who care enough to check out the tides and slide down the cliff and back up again, it is more than worth the effort.

I led a discussion on Sunday night which went from the greatest strenghts to the greatest weaknesses of the church; how we can be as Christ to our communities and the many times when we fail to do so. Mountains had been part of my remit for the discussion, but we didn't get there until the very end, when I felt that we desperately needed the clarity and grace than mountains can bring. Throughout the scriptures, from Ararat to Carmel, Sinai to the Mountain of the Transfiguration, we have seen and heard God on the mountains, in wind and fire and in the sound of sheer silence. So on Sunday night, from all of our seeking for the way to proclaim the gospel afresh in this generation, I brought us back to the mountains and we kept silence and listened.

Selworthy Sands is, to state the blindingly obvious, not a mountain. But it can offer the same clarity, the same peace, the same grace. It is a wonderful place to be still and pray, on Wednesday for a few short hours I was very glad to be there.

It is also a wonderful place to walk and swim. Although why the beach shelves so gently, when less than a mile west, on the other side of Hurlstone Point, it falls at 45 degrees on the Bosstington Beach shingle ridge is a mystery. What both Bossington and Selworthy do however share [and this should be stressed in any post] is a ferocious current. On Bossington it goes west, on Selworthy it goes east but in both cases you have to swim fast in the opposite direction in order to stay still and avoid the rocks. Be careful, but swimming there is still worth it, in spades.