Beginnings

February begins, and with it another year of my life. I have never made a big issue of my birthday, though it's always nice to have a birthday greeting or two. So today has just been an ordinary day. The past month has been a hard one, and I've rarely known quite as much in the way of coughs, colds and general queasiness as this winter has brought. In addition, I have been rather depressed to have had no response from the church hierarchy since my pleasant and, I thought at the time, constructive meeting with the archdeacon last autumn. The church has every right and some reason to be cautious at best as regards any future use of me as a minister. If there is no way back into priestly ministry then I would do my best to understand and accept this, though it would be hard to square with the strong sense I continue to have of God's claim upon me and his call to me. I would find it tough were I to be treated according to some formula or set of guidelines rather than as myself - it would feel rather untrue to the gospel principles and run counter to the sense I have of Christ's grace at work within me - but I am pledged to obedience and would be bound to keep to that. But not having heard anything . . . surely, at the very least, common courtesy and the duty of one Christian toward another should require that I receive an answer. No more on this for now.

Instead, a look outwards to what has been a sunny scene today for the most part, but very cold, and staying that way for now. The immediate threat of lots of snow seems to have receded, though, and as the evenings start to gradually open out, the trees to the back of us have been quite loud with birdsong. The male blackcap that arrived the day after the Great Garden Birdwatch continues to be a regular visitor, and is a pugnacious little chap, prepared even to chase the dominant local robin away. Today we have had two pairs of bullfinches, briefly; bullfinches pair for life I believe, and the partners in a pair have a strong bond that is revealed when they come to feed together, the male often standing guard while the female visits the feeder.

Snowdrops are brightly out in many places, and we are beginning to see primroses coming into flower in our hedgerows. The mahonia in our front garden, something of a lifeline for any bees stirred into wakefulness on mild winter days, has now all but finished. Not long, though, until the daffodils begin, and then, suddenly, it all starts over again!

Charles

A poem I'm working on. It may be finished; it's hard to tell . . .

He was sitting on that cracked stone bench beneath the black and broken ash

carefully sticking pins in a voodoo doll, and, as he did do,

chain-smoking his rizla speciality roll-ups of

found and collected tobacco cut with, I don’t know, perhaps the mugwort

we used to smoke experimentally at school.

I wonder if he remembers me from those days; he never speaks,

and nor do I, to my shame perhaps. Not far away

a few anxious starlings strutted and pecked, not caring

to come too close. As much as they part of the park wildlife,

he sucked on his creased and thin smoke, cursed at the grey and spitting sky, and

chose to dig in a pin with unusual fierceness, just as I happened by.

Was it just coincidence that a sudden pain shot through my spine?

And, if so, why the raised eyebrow and half smile, as I glanced across?

He is there on that bench every day, and his doll is always with him,

and the pins are carefully inserted. I wonder who that doll may be? Perhaps anyone who happens

to get too close. Like the starlings, I think it may be best

to keep my distance. Tomorrow, perhaps, I may choose a different path through the park,

and allow the thrust of the pin to be for someone else.

Funerals

I've attended two funerals in recent days in Anglican churches, taken by clergy who in both cases kept fairly closely to the standard funeral liturgy. Both services were well-taken, and with a real sense of empathy and pastoral support for the families and friends involved. Often when the standard service is used it can feel like an exercise in just getting from the beginning to the end; not so in either of these cases (nor, knowing the clergy involved, would I have expected it to be). We can often moan about "having to use the book", and I'd be lying if I didn't admit that these days it can be a breath of fresh air to start with a blank sheet of paper rather than a whole lot of words.  The truth is, though, that the C of E funeral liturgy actually contains a great deal of good stuff . . . as ever, it's how it's used, and the time taken in preparation and as the service progresses, that makes the difference. I think these families will have really felt cared for, nurtured and supported at this sad time for them.

Candlemas

I heard an interesting sermon that touched on the themes of Candlemas today (though the festival itself is a week away yet). What were at one time significant community occasions have now faded into all but insignificance, even within the Church. The great themes of recognition, salvation, and light are really still as important as ever; much modern worship trivialises them (one of the worship songs featured on tonight's "Songs of Praise" was truly awful, and others weren't much better - and this is said by someone who enjoys modern music. I just expect the modern music I sing in church to be at least as good, both lyrically and as a tune, as the music I choose to play in my car. The best is; but there's too much of the other . . . and most of the lyrics have no depth.

I remember organising a Candlemas gallery carol service at Minsterley, with musicians in our minstrel's gallery (normally closed off from the main body of the church by perspex screens, and choir singers below. We used, among others, a traditional Candlemas carol part of which was read out in today's sermon . . . about taking down the old Christmas greenery and putting up the new, greenery that looked forward to spring. Proper carols were songs of the people, set to the best dance tunes of the day, and balancing sincere faith with a subversive attitude toward the structures of the Church (and therefore, in those days, of society). Amen to both sides of that balance.

At the Arddleen Tabernacle plygain a week ago I sang Paul Wigmore's song "Light beyond shadow" to John Dankworth's lovely tune. Today's "Songs of Praise" opened with "Sing of the Lord's Goodness", another hymn with a good jazz feel to it (and a great descant, though that didn't feature today). Now that's what I call faith music . . . that and gallery carols, oh, and - well let's just say a hoorah for good music wherever and whatever it may be. We can do much better than we sometimes do, but it's clear that the devil doesn't have all the best tunes.

Gone From There

A poem I wrote some time ago, that I've looked out in response for a request for original writings on a WWII theme:

It was not a journey undertaken in comfort.  The grey and ancient train

was frequently halted, sometimes standing for hours

in the cold of some remote siding, never picking up speed

even when the line was clear.  There were no occasions

for conversation between passengers;  no eyes would meet,

and no faces would be remembered.

Though the papers, of course, were all correct.

Beyond the grimy windows the air was full of snow,

a white carpet on each station platform, lit by the swinging lamps;

here a sudden clanging bell,

there, briefly glimpsed, a bored boy soldier toying with his gun.

At this stage one did not dare consider the border

and the destination beyond.  It was still too soon

for the risk of believing.

One might pray for people and places left behind

while, as the wheels sang against the dark rails, it was

enough to be moving south;  enough to be gone from there.

January Trees (Haiku)

Black bare bones, they claw 

at the sky in quiet despair,

winter’s victims still.

Hymn for Unity

Some verses based on Psalm 133. The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began yesterday.

How beautiful a thing

when friends walk hand in hand,

and, unity our common tongue,

as sisters, brothers, stand.

It is the precious balm

anointing Aaron’s head,

the dews of Hermon fresh and sweet

upon Mount Zion shed.

Fulfil your promise, Lord:

your dews of blessing pour,

that we may serve you now as one,

and praise you evermore.

The Rose Remembered

A poem written for a funeral tomorrow :-

Happy were we to see this flower bright,

a rose in bloom, reflecting golden light

from glistening petals angled to the sun;

fresh beauty, with the morning’s dewdrops spun.

In time with evening mists all roses fade,

and though we’re sad to lose the show they’ve made,

the rose remembered in our heart still flowers,

and her sweet fragrance fills the silent hours.

Sunday Talk

A talk I'm giving this morning . . .

Since I ceased being a minister, I’ve still needed to earn a bob or two, and I’ve tried my hand at a number of things, some of which have involved fairly hard physical work. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it. Long ago, having just graduated but not having found a graduate job, I spent a few months working a sand-blasting machine in the production department of a factory making heavy electrical equipment.  It was heavy, tiring and - to be honest - rather boring work, after all, there isn’t much you can do to add interest to a job that involves blasting clean a succession of identical electric components. But, once I’d got to grips with the work, I quite enjoyed my time there, one of the few times in my life when I actually helped make something. As part of a production line I had to keep pace with the speed of the line. To begin with, at least, that was just a bit faster than the speed I could easily manage, but I got better and faster as time went on.

I couldn’t talk much to my workmates except at break times, it was far too noisy, but they weren’t a bad bunch of lads, and though we moaned about the job I think we were secretly quite proud that we could hold our own, keeping pace with the production line and playing our full part in the process.  Everyone seemed determined to do that job well, and not let the side down.  It was a hard working and loyal team, that disproved some of the negative things people sometimes say about the British worker.

I was glad of that loyalty, since I wasn’t much good at the job when I first started.  My first attempts mostly got sent back, with dire warnings about holding up the line.  Some of the others covered for me, and one guy very patiently worked alongside me till I’d properly got the hang of things. Theory and book learning can only get you so far; to really be able to do the job - whatever that job might be - you probably need someone to show you, and to work  alongside you while you learn by just having a go and trying to do it.  I was very glad that our section included some good natural teachers.
I remember from my schooldays that some teachers were miles better than others, even though presumably all my teachers had the appropriate qualifications. To be a good teacher, you need more than just the right certificates.

The recommended Gospel reading for today tells the story of Jesus and Nathaniel. Nathaniel was brought to Jesus by Philip, and he eventually became one of the Twelve; probably he was the same person as Bartholomew who gets a mention in the other Gospels. Nathaniel was looking for a teacher, a good teacher; he had questions he needed answers for; in other words, he was keen to be a disciple; a disciple is simply someone who listens and learns, who sits at the teacher’s feet and follows him along the way. Jesus had called Philip to be a disciple, and Philip was so excited he went straight away to find Nathaniel and tell him all about this great new teacher. Nathaniel, however, was not convinced.

Nathaniel knew that no good teacher would come from somewhere like Nazareth. Nazareth wasn’t a very pure place; it was in the north, in Galilee; here Jews lived alongside many non-Jews, and spoke more Greek than they did Aramaic or Hebrew. Galilee was a long way from the centre, a long hike from the Temple in Jerusalem. A teacher from Galilee couldn’t possibly have the right qualifications. How, despite himself, Nathaniel became convinced, we've heard in that reading from the end of chapter one in St John’s Gospel.

Jesus describes himself to Nathaniel as the ladder connecting earth and heaven, the one who will re-connect man and God. What makes him not just a good teacher but a great teacher, the best, is this: he sees deeply into the heart of us, he knows better than we do ourselves what makes us tick. And so he meets us where we are. We see this again and again in the stories of his encounters with people in the Gospels. We see it also in the experiences and the life stories of men and women who’ve offered themselves to follow him through the centuries.

This isn’t a man who stands high above us and lectures us; Jesus gets alongside us, and he is himself the message he gives us, he is himself our example to follow. And he calls people, all kinds of people. Look at those first twelve, and you might well ask - whay them? Why Nathaniel, or Philip? Why Peter and Andrew and James and John, or any of the others Jesus called?  For the most part these guys weren’t exactly high-fliers.  None of them was already a priest or preacher.  So why them, and why any of us, come to that?  I think another mark of the truly great teacher is that he will see things in us, possibilities and abilities, that we ourselves aren’t aware of. So what does Jesus look for in us, when he calls out and chooses disciples?  What is he looking for and expecting, from his Church?

A friend of mine is about to take up a new and fairly senior job in the Church. Knowing him, he’ll be asking some pretty serious questions of himself, as he prepares for his move.  And I know how eager he is for the prayers of others he prepares for the new ministry to which I'm sure Christ is calling him.  It's not a ministry he’s sought, in fact I think he’s spent most of his ministry doing his best to avoid any sort of promotion.  But I feel sure it’s a ministry he’s right for, and others have prayerfully seen that in him. Reflecting on that, I’m reminded that those first disciples of Jesus were called despite themselves;  and yet at the same time they were called because of themselves.

They weren't themselves the finished article, and if that’s what Jesus wanted he'd have been best looking elsewhere.  When we read the Gospels they don’t come across as the obvious best men for the job.  To be honest, there are times when they come across as a bit of a rabble, prone to arguing among themselves, and not always very bright at grasping what Jesus is really saying to them.

But they were enthusiastic and loyal; they were there when Jesus called, and they had the guts to say yes to him - and that's all Jesus needed of them.  Everything else could follow, so long as the starting point was right;  what Jesus wanted from those first disciples, and what Jesus wants from his Church today, are loyalty, enthusiasm and commitment - qualities he can build with.  Loyalty: loyalty to Jesus and to the message and mission with which he entrusts us;  and loyalty to one another in the work of mission we share. On the first day of this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, it’s good to remind ourselves that we need to be together, we need to be praying for one another, we need to work to help each other, to support one another, to teach one another, in Jesus’ name. We need to be, not this or that particular sort of Christian, but simply this: disciples, fully focused on our teacher and saviour Jesus, the ladder between earth and heaven, the one who reconnects us to the Father’s love.

Back to sandblasting. I wasn't a natural sandblaster, to be honest I probably wouldn't have got the job without my Dad pulling a string or two.  I think that over the time I was there I actually got quite good at it, but the only reason I got good was that I was part of a good team. Being a Christian disciple is much the same - it’s about being part of a good team, and it’s about helping to make that team work. I've always thought of Jesus as calling us to be both cared-for and carers, learners and instructors, sheep and shepherds.  Like the first disciples Jesus called we’re not the finished article, there’s always new stuff to learn. So we need to be humble and honest, and ready to receive the things we need if we’re to grow and learn and improve;  we need also to be caring and clear sighted, so we can see where other people need our support, help, teaching, guidance, correction.  Disciples belong to Jesus, but they also belong to one another.

One of the wisest things said to me about Church was said not by a teacher or a church leader, but by a young person in one of my confirmation classes:  she wrote, "Church is what happens when people say 'yes' to God."  All the other stuff is incidental, however much we may like it or be moved by it - the buildings, the traditions, the liturgies, the familiar prayers we say and the favourite hymns we sing, robes and pews and stained glass windows:  that's not why we're here.  God says yes to us by sending Jesus as his Messiah:  Church is people saying 'yes' back and following Jesus when he asks us to.  But we can only say 'yes' to Jesus when we’re also saying 'yes' to one another. And disciples who come to learn from Jesus learn how to be teachers themselves, or apostles, the word we use . . . people with things to say, with a message to take out to the world, with love to share and to put into action.

The more we do that, and the better we do that, seeking his help to do that, then the more the Church will grow to be what our Lord calls it and wants it to be - a community committed to mission, and looking for growth.  Of course, knowing what needs doing isn’t the same as knowing how to do it. I was quite clear right from the start about what was needed from me as a sandblaster, but I wasn’t quite so sure about how to do it, until I got some help and teaching. So how shall we do discipleship? Our starting point is being there for each other, and wanting to grow (though for the stick-in-the-muds among us that may carry a bit of a health warning, because things that grow are bound to change when they do so); and prayer has to be our first commitment before we rush into anything else.

I don’t know about you, but my first prayer as a disciple is much the same as maybe those first disciples like Philip and Nathaniel. Why me?  What use can I be?  Those are questions that seem to always recur in my experience:  but whenever I ask them I seem to hear Jesus saying to me: Why not?  Just say yes, and come.

A Winter Walk

My regular "nature notes" column :-

Early in the New Year I spent a clear frosty morning walking one of my favourite local routes: down across the fields below where we live to join the towpath of the Montgomery Canal, then along past Buttington Wharf towards Pool Quay, turning back along the main road and crossing to the stile opposite to join the Offa’s Dyke route across the fields back towards Buttington, then around the back of the new Smithfield before re-joining the canal towpath near the Rhallt and following it back into Welshpool.

It had been a cold night and everywhere sparkled with frost. The canal itself was mostly iced over, but the covering was fairly thin, and absent wherever there was significant water movement. A couple of moorhens paddled away from me as I walked on from Buttington Wharf, their white tail feathers flicking as they did so. Several blackbirds skidded across from my side of the canal to the other, where the trees rising up the bankside seemed alive with birdsong, mostly robins. A wren was prospecting among tangled stems and lead litter; this is a bird that suffers a lot if we have extended periods of hard weather. For the whole of my walk along this section of the canal, there were buzzards mewing overhead.

As I approached the meeting with the main road, a pair of mute swans glided out of the marshy pools opposite and proceeded along the canal in the Welshpool direction. These swans may be mute by name, but though they are certainly a good deal quieter than our winter whooper and Bewick’s swans, they’re not completely silent, and the cob, or male, hissed at me as they paddled past.

The first field I crossed was crisped by the frost and easy walking. Sheep stood and watched me go by. A few crows were among them, pecking at the cold ground or perhaps looking for insect life among the sheep muck. The path gets quite close to the river bank in places. Water birds paddling noisily away downriver were probably goosanders, large sawbilled ducks, though I couldn’t be sure; they moved like them. There were mallard about too, and heron lurched across but didn’t land.

It was a Monday and the market was busy, with the auctioneer in full flow and big trucks standing ready to ferry the animals to such places as Longtown. The path around the back of the market is gravelled but leads into a small area of rough grassland dotted with dead heads of thistles. Finches and tits were active in the overgrown hedge, and there was a noisy crowd of fieldfares in the field on the other side of the railway. I had to climb the gate, which was locked, and waited for ages to cross the busy main road and head back into town. I hadn’t expected to see much more on that last section of my walk, so I was delighted to encounter a busy band of long-tailed tits flitting through bushes on the far side soon after I’d got back onto the towpath, and a pair of goldcrests - really tiny birds - inspecting the branches of an old hawthorn tree near the back of W.R. Davies’ garage. A very enjoyable winter walk.

Extremism

Once again, a letter in my newspaper this morning insists that religion is the cause of pretty much all the world's violence, evil and war. This is untrue and should not go unchallenged. The issue is not religion but extremism, and it would be wrong and dangerous to focus on any one particular area in which extremist forces are at work rather than on that central issue of extremism itself. Extremism in religion is certainly a very real and current danger, but extremism in politics, extremism in culturally or tribally diverse areas, extremism linked to personality cults, extremism fuelled by the gaps between rich and poor, between powerful and powerless, between those who judge unjustly and those who are judged against . . . here is the real problem. Religion becomes an extremist force when those sorts of gaps leave people believing they are denied rights, freedoms, privileges, wealth, that ought to be theirs. Focus on one place where extremists are at work and you miss the point: extremism happens when things are unfair and unequal, and always will, whatever labels get attached to it.

On Morality and Religion

Morality can be defined as "Choosing to do what is right, regardless of what you are told." So if your religion requires you to do what you are told regardless of what is right, then that religion has ceased to be moral and to merit our respect.

The Christian believer may ask, of course,  how we can know for sure what is right, unless God tells us. We have a conscience, but though helpful it is not a sufficient guide (as may be seen from the fact that there is much disagreement over what is moral and what isn't). Israel's history was rarely darker than that time when "everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25). Rather, "fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man" (Ecclesiastes 12:13). Morality is choosing to do what is right, but what is right is whatever God tells us to do. 

As a committed Christian, for the most part I feel bound to affirm the truth of that statement. Nevertheless, the sad truth is that many evil acts are perpetuated by individuals, groups and organisations who claim the authority of God for what they do. It's clear that, for the believer, God cannot be placed under a higher authority called "morality" - he is himself the source of morality - but there are many voices working on us that would claim to represent God, and scripture itself can be misused and distorted. Radical Islam is one manifestation of this, but only one; churches, and the Church, capital C, have been guilty in their time of acting in ways that do damage and harm to others, and it's hard for me to see that as anything but immoral. I suppose I'm wanting to say that religion and faith are different things, even though, ideally, they coincide?

I think I'm also saying that the Christian should be using as his or her moral reference not the mores of society around, not the words of scripture, not even their own conscience, good guide though that may be, but the person and life and teachings of Jesus, and particularly those two central statements: "Love one another, as I have loved you" and "Let the greatest among you be as the servant of all."

Je Suis Charlie

I am appalled, as many will be, at the news from France today, and attack on the principle of free speech that almost all Europeans will, I am sure, hold dear. Satire is uncomfortable, unpredictable, and sometimes offensive or puerile, but it is part of the process of truth-telling that this blog also seeks to uphold. Therefore . . .

Resolutions

Time again for some New Year thoughts. Many people I know are having a dry January - that's definitely not for me (but then again, I'm not a big drinker, so what would be the point?). I don't do New Year resolutions to start on New Year's Day itself; there's too much Christmas food left in the house for one thing, and this year NYD was still four days away from the "normality restart" on Monday 5th tomorrow. Best to be realistic, and aim to start any serious resolutions then!

But this year, nothing too grand. I do need to eat more sensibly, and I do need to make sure my diary includes "Ann and me" time (and also "taking the Mums out somewhere interesting" time). My existing rule of life covers most other things, for example reading, study and prayer. Sometime this month or early next I shall be sitting down with Nick, my spiritual director, to have a serious look at that. Ideally, resolutions and rules of life should be stretching but doable. There's no point in aiming so high you always fail, that only leads to depression and giving up; equally, where's the gain in aiming so low that keeping the rule is easy - that won't change me for the better, but it might make me smug and self-satisfied which would be a change for the worse.

But resolutions and rules should also be appropriate: what are the things in me that need changing, and what's the best way to make that change happen? - that needs to be my starting point. Some of last year's resolutions may no longer be appropriate, even those I haven't managed to keep up with, And my rule of life, many seasons old by now, may not quite fit properly with my present responsibilities and life style.  There is work to be done, but that work is worthwhile.

Epiphany

Some words for this weekend . . .

Every year has its significant anniversaries - for example, one of the many special ones this year will be the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, signed at Runnymede in 1215. It’s also 200 years since Waterloo, 150 years since the abolition of slavery in the United States, and 25 years since the release of Nelson Mandela from prison on Robben Island. All these anniversaries seem to me to connect to the theme of human freedom: Magna Carta began the slow process towards suffrage and democracy in this country, Waterloo brought to an end the imperialist aspirations of Napoleon Bonaparte, and, well, I hardly need to comment on the ending of slavery. The slave trade had in fact ended more than fifty years earlier, and at least by 1865 it was no longer true that thousands of people (in fact, millions in total) were being taken across the ocean from one continent to another, and from freedom into complete ownership, to be bought and sold like any other possession. But those who were slaves, and their children and grandchildren, remained slaves, until the Civil War, and Lincoln, and Gettysburg.

Some years ago I spent time researching the slave trade, and one of the things that surprised and disturbed me was that to begin with, the Church saw no reason to oppose the trade. Of course, there are slaves in the Bible.  The mission Society I used to work for had at one time itself owned slaves, in Barbados, having inherited them with an estate there.  It did understand that bringing education and Christian faith to slaves was something it should be doing, but it didn’t see that that should mean they ceased to be slaves. Indeed, it was argued that they would become better and more obedient slaves if they became Christians. Doesn’t Paul tell slaves that they should in all things obey their masters? But in fact educating slaves and teaching them the faith would begin the process that would in time be bound to lead to their liberation.

I thought to mention that this morning because I think it's relevant to the theme of Epiphany. Throughout the ages of Christian history, and particularly in the great mission campaigns of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, people did what they did because the Gospel message must be shared across every kind of human boundary: national, cultural, linguistic - even the boundary between freedom and slavery.

And yet Jesus was born and raised a Jew, and for his disciples he called fellow Jews;  he taught in Jewish places, in the synagogues and the temple.  And though he was critical of some of his fellow Jews, the Pharisees for example, he never spoke against the faith itself, only the ways in which the faith was being distorted or misused. The prophecy which states that the Messiah should be born in Bethlehem also says that he is to 'rule over Israel', and when wise men came from the east following their reading of the stars, the question they asked was 'Where is he who has been born King of the Jews?'

So we know where Jesus belongs, in time and place and culture.  Why then didn’t he stay there?  It’s not the birth of Jesus but his death that brought his disciples to say 'What this man has done is good news for all the world.' But still, we read in the Gospel of Matthew that soon after the birth of Jesus men came from the east - sometimes we call them kings, or else magi, wise men. But anyway, they were not Jews. When he is first born Jesus is revealed to shepherds on the hills, maybe not the expected audience for angels, but Jews of a kind at least. Jewish scribes at Herod’s court knew that something was going to happen in Bethlehem, even if they didn’t know quite what or when. But the Messiah is revealed also to strangers  outside the faith and away to the east, and in this we’re given a sign that the new thing God is doing will change not just the history of the Jews but the destiny of the world.

And this is confirmed in the symbols the strangers present: gold, frankincense and myrrh.  Gold is obvious enough - the child is a king, and gold is a king's coinage. He has kingly authority and power, and the right to rule the nations, even though his route to a throne is very different from the one Herod might have expected him to take.  Frankincense is also fair enough, for there’s something priestly about kingship, which is why monarchs are anointed when they’re crowned. Kings like priests stand between the people and God, and between God and the people, and their role is to be a bridge.  One word for priest is pontifex, literally bridge builder or bridge maker.  Jesus will rebuild the bridges we’ve broken, as the greatest of all high priests.

But for me a chill falls across the proceedings when the myrrh is unwrapped. In my home church choir long ago we used to sing the verses of ‘We Three Kings’ as solos, and this was always my verse, and never an easy thing, because myrrh is costly and special, but it’s the stuff of death.  'He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,' wrote St Paul. For Jesus, this was the only true way to be a king and a priest. He would not grab at status or power, but would let it go.  The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that this man is both the perfect priest, and the perfect sacrifice.  He is the only one worthy to make the offering, and he is the only one worthy to be offered, for the sins of the people: the Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep - who dies that we might live.

These symbols have power and resonance in every culture;  but myrrh especially expresses what crosses human boundaries: a self-giving love to break into every heart;  and the God who places no limits on love, and who loves even the most wayward of his children.

And wherever it may be, and whatever it may look like I believe the Church that bears this child's name should be presenting gold, frankincense and myrrh.  The gold of our own kingship: Jesus shares his royal authority with us, the secret of his throne.  'Let the one who would be greatest among you become the servant of all.'  Wherever the Church is a servant Church it is claiming and expressing the kingship of Christ.

The frankincense of our shared priesthood:  every Christian is called to speak of God to the world, and to speak for the world to God: in other words, to preach and to pray.  And this is the work of the priest;  Peter says we are a kingdom of priests.

And myrrh? Myrrh tells of the way we are joined to the death of Christ in our baptism, dying with him so that we may also rise with him, so that we may share in his risen life and in the new wine of his Holy Spirit.  There has to be a dying, a laying down of the old things, for the rebirth to happen that is Christ in us.  'Lord, you only will I serve;  you are Lord of all my life.'  We never do manage this, always keeping something back, but where the Church is really striving to be filled with the Spirit of Christ, where it’s trying to empty away its own desire for status or standing, then it offers a witness to the death of Christ, and to his risen life.

And the wonderful thing is that the Church is doing all these things in all kinds of places, in African places and Asian places and South American places.  In Sierra Leone, as the Church plays its part in combating ebola. On the streets of Calcutta or Manila, where Christian workers provide shelter and support for the homeless. In the shanty towns of Peru and Brazil where base Christian communities of the very poorest are opposing drugs and crime and supporting families.

Another special anniversary this year is that it’s 150 years since the foundation of the Salvation Army, which brought onto the streets of our land and indeed the streets of much of the world a new Christian force for good, reaching out in Christ’s name to those whose plight was and is most desperate, those who are often overlooked, those whom other people just walk past. Why? Because these are people Jesus cares for, people he wouldn’t have walked past; these are people for whom he died.

The wise men were right to identify the birth of this new king as a very special birth, and to make the journey they made to lay gifts before the child. For the love of this child can transform every human heart, he is God's gift in love to the world he never can stop loving. There is much in our world today that is unfair and nasty and spoilt; it would be easy to give up on hope and to expect very little from life. But we know as Christians that God loves us, and loves our world, even as we are, even as it is, in all its ugliness; we know too that he loves it too much to leave it that way. The love born in Bethlehem still shines, even in the very darkest places, and thank God it does, and thank God for the lives his Son continues to inspire and transform.  May our hearts too receive the love of the Christ child, and may our lives too transmit it and proclaim it in the world.

Feelgood

A thought occurred to me as I sat watching a feelgood TV programme with a happy ending the other day. Such programmes are called feelgood because that's how most people find them; it leaves them feeling good. Most people in my experience are touched and even tearful when they see or read about acts of kindness, and things turning out well for folk who've been through hard times. Most people genuinely hope for and enjoy happy endings, and feel cheated when that doesn't happen. I'm sure it isn't just me; so how is it that the vast majority of us whose instinct is for goodness and kindness and peace are so often seduced by the vicious and heartless minority that get off on division and cruelty and conflict? In fact we often pour a measure of scorn on the "happy ending", and persuade ourselves that this sort of programme is at best a guilty pleasure. Someone once pointed out to me as though it were an unanswerable fact of life that TV drama should reflect the gritty truth that the world is a sad place and often devoid of happy endings. Why? Might not TV drama be better reflecting our hopes and dreams and aspirations, and maybe real life might find its way to reflecting that?

Christmas Carols

I've enjoyed singing this Christmas, despite at one time feeling completely unprepared and unpractised. Where did all the time go?  Five carol concerts and the same number of carol services later, plus a bit of less formal singing in residential homes and the like, later (and with something of a Christmas cold to finish off), I'm pretty much all sung out. I've learnt a few new ones, and some of those will become favourites, I think, and I've revisited many of the old ones.

Of course, carol singing has become a very choral affair. Watching as I did the carols from King's this year, I was struck by the way in which every congregational carol now has to end with a descant that seemed in that particular case to completely lose the thread of the original tune. The descants seemed to have been specially written - I didn't recognise them, and I think that if we're going to have descants at all, we should use them sparingly, and maybe stick to some of the ones that have become traditional and well-liked, and with good reason. Sorry, Mr Cleobury; the rest of it was nice.

My grandpa hated descants, and some of that must have rubbed off. Fancying I knew a bit about carols, I did one of those little quizzes that turn up on Facebook, and scored fifteen out of fifteen, which pleased me, but at the same time I was annoyed, because several of the questions were in fact about secular Christmas songs, including a couple I'd never heard, so my maximum score was a bit fortuitous. The theme of the quiz was "well-loved carols", and I'm sad that the definition of "carol" has got so much diluted. "White Christmas", love it or hate it, is not a carol.

Strictly speaking, "O Come All Ye Faithful" and "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" (and many more) are not carols either, but Christmas hymns, written by known hands, and designed to be sung in church service. Carols were really a form of folk music, and they belong on the streets rather than in churches and cathedrals, sung by the village waits around the houses. They represent the people taking back the Christian story otherwise possessed by priests and prelates, and making that story their own. We have no idea who wrote the most ancient carols; some hymns did become carols, however: "While Shepherds Watched" is one such: written as a hymn, it was taken by the local waits and set to local tunes; we sang it this year to the Yorkshire tune more familiarly sung as "Ilkley Moor Bah't Hat".

Carols were holy words set to traditional dance tunes, so real carols have a good solid dance beat to them. In England as in the plygain tradition of Wales, different bands would have their own carols, and very much their own tunes . . . though of course the best ones might well be poached by other bands and so spread about the place. It occurs to me that songs by Slade, Wizzard and others might well have more of the carol about them, in one sense, than some of the Christmas hymns, being very much "of the people" . . . but of course, the essence of the carol is that it is a faith song, even if sung to what was originally a secular tune.

But the point I'd want to make is that, while I've hugely enjoyed singing choral carols this year, and I think our audiences have enjoyed hearing us, I'd hate to lose that vital ingredient of the "real" carol - that it's a song of the people with something of a subversive element to it, Christian faith sung in the ordinary tongue, and not the exclusive preserve of prelates or even of choirs.

I Saw A Light

I saw a light low in the sky, through leafless winter trees,

that called me forward, drew me on, that sent me to my knees.

I knelt then, hardly dared to move, not sure what I had seen;

and as the world grew dark around, looked where the light had been.

A flake or two of snow fell, soft and cold upon my face;

the breeze had dropped away to leave a stillness in the place

which felt serene and holy, like the half-forgotten past,

like childhood dreams that seem so real, then fade and do not last.

Another world I nearly touched, an almost opened door,

the briefest glimpse of glory, then the sky grew dark once more.

A light once shone when angels sang to shepherds in a field,

and in the east a rising star brought tidings long concealed

to men who studied astral charts in some exotic land,

and sent them searching for a king across a waste of sand.

One week to go till Christmas Day, as from my knees I rose

to make for home and fireside, and to the love of those

who are the lights that light my life, I knew this to be true,

that God whose angel spoke to shepherds calls to me and you,

and though the world's grown dark and cold, and full of sin and pain,

the light of love will never die, the day will dawn again.

The child once born in Bethlehem, and hailed with angel song

would as a man bear on a cross the weight of worldly wrong.

But Christ once laid in manger bed and nestled round with hay

seeks to be born within our hearts, to lead us in his way,

that we may light the darkened world with love and Christian cheer

not only at this holy feast, but through the coming year,

and on till love triumphant is the light that fills the sky,

when comes again the man who on the cross was pleased to die.

Do not be afraid . . .

Some words for use on Advent IV :-

Do not be afraid, for you have found favour with God.  Here’s one version of the words spoken by the angel Gabriel to Mary, in the reading set for this morning’s Gospel, from St Luke, chapter one, and I’d like us to reflect on those words for a moment: do not be afraid, for you have found favour with God.

Now I’d say Mary had some cause to be afraid. It’s not every day you get spoken to by an angel! Personally, I’m not convinced that Gabriel needed to appear before her with his robes dazzling white and with wings of burnished gold. To my mind that might be unnecessary and even counter-productive for messenger angels, so I’ve always thought of Gabriel as likely to turn up in ordinary clothes, off the street, rather than in celestial splendour. But even then, for a young woman of good character to be spoken to out of the blue by a stranger of the opposite sex would have been scary; and the message he then gave her was of course scarier still, by some way.

The angel goes on to say: God’s been gracious to you, or God has looked favourably upon you, or, in the translation I opted for, you have found favour with God. The very first thing the angel said to Mary, and the cause therefore of her fear, was this: “Greetings, most favoured one.” And I think I might well be knocked off balance, myself, if someone I didn’t know came up and addressed me in those terms.

What might it mean, to find favour with God? We may choose to curry favour with our superiors, with people who have some kind of power or influence over us. Currying favour is a big element in office politics: to my mind it usually has more to do with looking good than actually being good. Does it work? trying to get into the boss’s good books by bringing the best biscuits in, by being obsequious, sucking up? Surely a good boss would see through that, and expect something more.

One thing we can say for sure is that Mary wasn’t one to curry favour with God; there was no false or showy piety in her, designed to attract his attention and impress him. I’ve got to admit that from time to time I’ve come across people whose all-too-obvious piety and enthusiastic religiosity I’ve tended to find, sorry to say, rather wearing, and maybe God has too, I suppose. Though are such people currying favour with God, or just looking to impress those around them? Jesus came across a few folk like that: remember the “look at me” attitude of the Pharisee who stood up to pray in the temple? I have a shrewd suspicion Jesus will have based that story on someone he’d really seen.

But maybe that’s been me as well, from time to time, taking pride in the outward show of my performance as a minister, while neglecting the inward purity of the heart? Anyway, Mary didn’t curry favour, but she did find favour. God’s not fooled by outward show, he sees into the heart. He’d seen into Mary’s heart and found there a simplicity of faith and an obedience of spirit that asked for nothing, but offered so much. At the end of his visit to her, Mary said to the angel, “I am God’s servant; let it be as you wish.” But God had known that of her already, God had seen that response already written in her heart.

Mary’s yes to God places her as the first among saints. She is the one whose simplicity and obedience sets the standard to which all Christian folk should aspire. She was a woman from a different place and language and culture than us, so I should probably be cautious about putting words into her mouth, but I can’t help but think that she herself might well have said, “I’m nothing special.” And maybe that’s just the point.

We’re all saints; that’s really just the Biblical word for people who serve God. And when he looks for saints God isn’t searching out superheroes; he makes his saints out of people like us, people who are nothing special, just trying our hardest to be good and doing our best to follow Jesus. People who are not currying favour, but trying to live lives of simple service. Someone once said that when we give God anything less than first place in our lives then we give him no place. He should be number one on our list: being a Christian is a full time job, and a whole self commitment. Nowhere is that more true than in the story we’ve heard today, and the angel’s message to Mary.

But it needs to be true for us too. Of course Mary is special. She is singled out to be the God-bearer, to be the mother of God’s only begotten Son, in whom dwells all the creative majesty of the godhead, even as he suckles at her breasts. God needed a very special person for that task, and he chose Mary, and for a long moment or two as Gabriel gave her the message, God’s great work of salvation depended on her “yes” to him. In response to that awesome story, the Church has rightly wanted to make much of Mary, but that can sometimes mean we place her so high above us that she’s almost out of our reach.

And that, I think, is not a good thing. Of course, Mary is special, but at the same time Mary is also ordinary. She is one of us. Plucked from obscurity, to coin a phrase. And while God’s call to her was unique, that doesn’t mean God isn’t  calling you and me with just as much of a personal intent, with something to do for him that’s special to you, special to me. He’s hoping that we too say “yes” to that call, and “yes” to the favour he seeks to bestow upon us. To us too he says, “Do not be afraid,” for he won’t lay upon us more than we can do.

Rosie's Emporium

[There is a shop with this name in Shrewsbury, and several more around the world, I'll be bound. These lines do not seek to describe any of them, being inspired by no more than the name.]

In the windows of Rosie's Emporium
white lights are sparkling on coloured beads of glass;
against her dark ebony cabinets, bright china pieces,
rainbow drapes of cloth, jewelled pendants
shine out to beckon across the green. I walk across,
watching my breath cloud in the early evening air.
I have no money to spend,
and no space in my life for trifles and baubles,
yet tonight I cannot help but stop,
and gaze awhile, and dream.

Sunday Talk - A Prophetic Church

An optimist is a person who, when walking through a tunnel, rejoices to see the light at the other end.  A pessimist sees the same light, but believes it to be the light of an oncoming train.  An optimist has no need for hope, because everything is bound to turn out fine.  A pessimist sees no point in hope, because we all doomed anyway.

Neither optimism nor pessimism is appropriate within a prophetic church.  But hope is.  True prophets aren't optimists or pessimists, but realists.  Their job is to tell it like it is.  As we read through the story of Israel in the Old Testament we can see how important the prophets were.  They see through the mist that obscures our vision so that we foolishly think everything's all right, and they tell us the truth that maybe we don’t want to hear.  But it's not a hopeless case, for there is a God in heaven, and prophets speak for him.  And with his words they tell us how things have to change, how we have to change our course, if we are to avoid disaster. 

As we travel through this season of Advent we share the delight of the people as they discover a new prophet in Israel.  He is John, the prophet who baptizes. Baptism was the outward sign of inward change.  Now Jews didn't need to be baptized, for to be born a Jew meant you were already chosen and special.  But John changed the rules, saying to the people that their heritage didn't count any more. They'd lost their birth relationship with God, because they'd veered off course, and lost touch with God's law and with God's justice. It’s time to turn back, it’s time to change. And the outward washing in the Jordan river signalled an inward washing of the heart and the soul, through which those who were no longer God's people chose to be God's people again.

But John also told those who came out to hear him that he was not the one, that he was simply the forerunner, the one who was to prepare the way.  Someone is coming after me, he told them, and he is indeed already among you, who is so much greater than I that I'm not even worthy to unfasten his sandal strap. And to prepare the way, John calls the people back to the standards of justice and righteousness that the great prophets have always demanded. They must make themselves ready; the Lord is near. Like the great prophets of old, John calls for justice, telling those who come to him that they must live together in a way that reflects the love of God.  

The Lord loves justice. So says John, and so say all the prophets - men like Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah. 

And we're inclined to agree.  Indeed, we demand justice!  Again and again the voice of the people, or at any rate that voice as distilled by the tabloid headlines, is raised to demand justice, as we consider the things that are wrong in the world around us - shoddy standards, rising crime, unfairness, especially when it's about other people getting more than we think they deserve.  But the justice we demand can begin to present in a negative way, so that it starts to look a lot like revenge, our desire to return a punch in exchange for the punch received.  That sort of justice can be found in scripture, when we read about 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth'. But it isn’t the justice John proclaimed, nor is it what Isaiah and the other prophets meant when they talked about justice.

We need justice.  Justice is essential to an ordered society, as any lawyer will tell you. So we measure out a justice that is by necessity disinterested, whose symbol is the blind goddess whose statue stands above the entrance to the court, carrying in her hands the scales to weigh the evidence and reach an impartial decision.  We need to be sure the justice we measure is fair. I think we can take some pride in the standard of justice we have in the UK - for the most part, anyway. But even the best run courts of law, though they may be incorruptible and fair, do not deliver not the justice proclaimed by God's prophets.

For prophetic justice can be neither negative nor neutral. It must always be a positive thing: it must involve what David Sheppard the former Bishop of Liverpool called a 'bias to the poor', so that it brings good news to the oppressed, healing for the broken hearted, prisoners set free. These are the things Isaiah proclaims, these are the things that Jesus will say have come true in him.  And the same positive bias towards those in need should be the mark of the prophetic Church that calls for God’s justice today.

In the Old Testament Isaiah paints a picture of a new spring of God's mercy in which righteousness and justice, will spring up in all the earth, and will be seen in every nation.  Righteousness is a word that can I suppose conjure up something that is stuffy and formal, maybe all to do with rituals and rites, just as justice is easily thought of as an impartial and impersonal process of law. But when the prophets speak of these things they’re speaking about how we should be praising the Lord, and they're speaking about the active presence of the Lord within and among his people.

To be genuinely prophetic the Church will be keeping in good balance, I would say, three facets of the jewel we call active faith:  and they are worship, fellowship, and mission.  That balance is important: we may have wonderful worship but if our fellowship is poor that's not enough;  but then again, great fellowship without a sense of outreach to or responsibility for the world beyond our walls is also not enough.  So I want to go on to say a little bit about each of these things: worship, fellowship, and mission.

Our worship at all times and especially as we approach this great feast of the nativity, must be founded on a sense of wonder.  When we worship we are placing ourselves in the presence of God, and God is always more than we can imagine. In worship we praise the God  the prophets knew and served, and whose call changed their lives: prophets who had been confronted by the awesome power of God's presence, the searing challenge of his word, and who knew God was not to be controlled. Prophets who spoke hard words to the sort of religious folk who acted and worshipped as though they could tell God what to do, as though they'd got God snug and safe within their pocket. 

Our worship together expresses our fellowship, our oneness in Christ. In fellowship we are disciples and apostles, people who learn together, and who are entrusted with work to do together.  Having said that, these days we can struggle just to keep the show on the road, to maintain our churches and their ministry.  Sometimes we can feel as though money and parish shares and things are all we ever talk about in our committees and synods.  Well, those things do need to be talked about, and taken very seriously, because we do need to stay in business; the world needs us to stay in business. We must always remember, though, that we’re in business for the world, for the world that is God's world and greatly loved by him, and not for ourselves.  The prophets of old spoke against the sort of cultic religion that exists for its own sake, that makes of itself a cosy religious huddle that’s self-interested and inward looking.  We’re not here to be like that, comfortable and safe. We're not here to recall past glories or even to nurture present friendships - we are church in this place because God has work for us to do.

And that work is mission. Mission that’s about God's demand for justice and righteousness, mission that reflects in decisive and loving action the prophetic manifesto of our Lord.  True mission isn’t really a matter of knocking on doors and standing on soap boxes, though there may be times when both those things are needed. Mission certainly isn't about bullying or shaming people into faith. Genuine mission is what happens when we see with the eyes of the prophets, and with the eyes of our Lord; when we recognise our neighbour's need, and know that it's our concern.  Above all, mission is an expression of our hope in the Lord, and it seeks to restore hope to the world around us. So the marks of mission are the hand that lifts the broken man, the arm that comforts the bereaved woman, the words that reassure the frightened child.  And like John the Baptist, what we do in mission is to prepare the way: to make the rough ways smooth, for the God who longs for righteousness and praise to spring up in all the world, before all nations, and even here, down our own streets.

Time for a Change

When I started out, this was going to be a serious poem examining the need for spiritual refreshment. I'm not sure what went wrong . . .

I've been letting things slide, she said,

drifting into the spiritual red,

I've been spending so much that I never put back,

I've been letting things slide, she said.

So it’s time for a change, she said,

time to sort out the stuff in my head,

time to shake myself up, get my life back on track,

yes it’s time for a change, she said.

There’s so much I've been told, she said,

that’s confirmed in the books that I've read:

how the spirit grows sinful and sullen and slack,

that’s the truth I've been told, she said.

I shall make a retreat, she said,

find a place where my soul can be fed,

in the stillness and peace find the purpose I lack;

Yes, I’ll need a retreat, she said.

But I think, on my own, she said,

you can sort out your own life instead,

and if you could be gone by the time I get back,

I’ll be best on my own, she said.

So I thought about all she said,

and considered the options ahead;

She's gone off to the nuns, I've been given the sack -

and that's just about all she said.

Beards

I recently had to collect some medicines from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for my daughter, who had had an operation elsewhere and was thus unable to collect them herself but needed them fairly urgently.  My daughter told me the nurse would meet me by the main doors, so that I could just pull into the short wait there and avoid parking charges. In fact I had parked in a retail park a short distance away, done a bit of shopping, and then walked down to the hospital, and arriving there early enough to buy something to eat before collecting the medicines.

I made my way back towards the main door, and spotted the nurse straight away, holding the medicines in a small carrier bag. I was pleased, since my daughter's only guidance was that "she'll be wearing a blue dress" - not all that helpful in a hospital full of nurses wearing blue dresses. She also identified me, which she hadn't particularly expected to do, since my daughter's advice to her was that "he has a white beard." Or so the nurse told me.

I hadn't thought of myself as having a white beard, though happy to admit that my beard does contain some white hairs. On looking at myself this morning, though, I have to admit that there are not many hairs there that are not white. My daughter had worried that the nurse might be looking for something Santa Claus-ish, which my beard, being short and carefully trimmed, is not. I have nothing against the big bushy sort of beard, and often feel I'd like to have one. Several of my friends do, maybe not quite in the Santa mode, but certainly rougher and bushier than mine.

I use an electric shaver on those parts of my face I don't want to be covered in fungus, and a couple of weeks back it literally fell apart in my hand. I've had it for a while, and it's travelled to several continents with me, so I suppose it doesn't owe me much. I ordered a new one from Amazon, and meanwhile settled down to the idle pleasure of not having to shave even a part of my face every morning. I even began to persuade myself that I might not need a new shaver, and that I might begin to resemble the bushier of my friends.

Alas, the sort of beard that seems to look all right on them just looks like an old rug loosely attached to my face. And I find that I really hate my neck being hairy. And it began to itch something terrible, as folks round here might say. When the postman duly arrived, some days later than I'd hoped, bearing a parcel from Amazon, I was more than ready to open and use its contents. I wouldn't want to remove my beard altogether - after all, I've had it since I was just turned eighteen, and I flatter myself that it does quite suit me - but it's more than worth the effort to keep it neat.

Gates

I've spoken before about my love of gates. I often photograph them - the one in the header picture above is on Arnside Knott, by the way, a lovely bit of south Cumbria, overlooking Morecambe Bay, and well worth a visit. I'm not sure quite what it is about gates I so love; in part it's simply that often they are rather rough and ready, like that one, made and installed by someone local, then weathered through the years.

But then, gates of all sorts are symbols of possibility. The chance is offered to get beyond the wall or fence or hedge that might otherwise be a barrier, and to see what's beyond. A wicket gate of course allows you to see through it, and therefore invites you into what lies beyond; of course, there are also tall solid gates that are designed to form part of the barrier, and I don't like them so much.

The act of passing through a gate - and, of course, of closing that gate behind you - speaks of the necessity at times of decisively taking a step forward in life, of saying, "I have moved on from there." It's not quite a matter of burning bridges; after all, the gate is still there, and the path through it. And my past remains part of me, part of what forms me, as I travel forward. Once the decision is made to pass through the gate, however, rather than just looking through and wondering, even if it's not quite a matter of "no turning back", the course I have set is an onward one, my declared intention to engage with what is new.

Anyway, here is another of the wonderfully rustic gates on Arnside Knott, this one looking out over to the long railway bridge that takes the train from Arnside to Grange over Sands, across the River Kent.

Star

A sky without stars,
a road with no signs,
with no shape to it all.

And he bears the scars
of my failed designs,
my stumble and fall.

Why do I still stand?
What right I to live?
What right I to be free?

The deep marks in his hand,
what it cost to forgive,
what it cost to save me.

At the moment I fell,
I was met by his love,
I was saved by his grace.

So ring out, sanctus bell,
ring on earth, ring above:
see, how bright is his face,

bright with love all divine,
as he now breaks the bread,
as the new wine is poured.

And a new star will shine,
shine to quicken the dead,
and lead us to our Lord.

Crazy

Started writing my Christmas cards, and putting together our annual round robin. Much scorn is poured on round robin Christmas letters, but they seem to me a very useful and sensible way of keeping in touch and doing some simple updating. It doesn't have to be about little Chardonnay's exam results, Tarquin's gap year in South Africa or their parents' new Mercedes . . .

Anyway, while writing I was inspired to ring an old friend, and it is fair to say that no amount of carefully composed round robins can replace a good conversation, whether phoned, Skyped or face to face. Trouble is, I just won't have time to ring everyone!  During the course of our catching up my friend expressed her unhappiness that, following my resignation more or less four years ago, I am still not licensed as a priest; well, there's good reason why I remain in limbo, and, while my present situation is at times uncomfortable and frustrating, mostly I find myself able to accept it as the necessary discipline of the Church. At the same time I am not entirely convinced of my fitness for (this) service - though I feel very strongly that God continues to call me to priestly ministry, and that were I to resign my orders, something I have often considered, it would be contrary to that call.

What does make me sad, however, is that letters to my bishop have remained unanswered, over a period now of many months. I've not inundated him with correspondence, we're talking here of two letters, but they were I thought significant letters which demanded acknowledgement if not considered reply. Would he treat letters from a fellow bishop or other senior cleric with the same disdain? Is he afraid, I wonder, to write back in terms he feels might upset or anger me? Or is he genuinely unable to decide what to do about me? It's never very pleasant to be told 'No' when you've been hoping for the answer 'Yes'. It's frustrating to be told 'I don't feel able to make a decision as yet', when you yourself feel that decision is overdue. But it is crushingly sad not to be told anything, to feel as I do completely airbrushed out. It is an immense weight upon me, and enough to keep me awake for a good part of most nights.

More than that, it seems crazy. I have been I think in many ways a very good and able priest, and the call is still there, for all my efforts, now and in past years, to stop my ears to it. The time may not be right to restore my licence, but the time must certainly be more than right to begin thinking seriously - with me - about how to rehabilitate me as a minister, and to help me work through my own fears and uncertainties and remaining demons . . . partly for my sake and as a pastoral principle and duty, but also for the simple and straightforward reason that the Church needs all the ministers it can get, so why leave a potentially good and able one as a wasted and wasting asset?  In these days when bishops are appointed more to be CEO's than chief pastors, that last reason remains valid, I feel.

January Birdsong

Nature notes for the month to come . . .

I’m not sure quite when we can expect to see the first snowdrops, but very often they begin to peep through in January, as a reminder that spring is making its first feeble inroads into winter. But really, spring is still a distance away - so when on a mild but still morning in December I ventured out just about as the sun was thinking about rising, I was surprised to hear something of a dawn chorus from the wood behind our house.

Robins and thrushes do sing through the winter, and most of the voices I heard that morning were theirs. Having said that, pretty much as soon as the daylight begins to increase in length, the hormones of our garden birds will be working to get them ready for the breeding season ahead. Light-detecting cells in the brains of our birds will have registered the changing daylength, so that resident birds begin to think about pairing up. Given suitable conditions, they may begin to nest well, thus stealing a march on their summer visitor rivals.

And the dawn chorus will be one of ths early signs of this. More and more bird song can be heard as we travel through January, till by the month’s end, there’s something of a chorus. That’s a sure sign of the changing season, for the birds will be beginning to sing properly, claiming territory and challenging rivals.

The most territorial of our garden birds, robins and wrens for example, ill be among the first to let rip, but they’ll be joined by blue tits and particularly great tits as we get into the month, especially if we get a few fine days. On warmer days dunnocks will join them - the dunnock has a weak but quite sweet song, uttered in short phrases as it moves from perch to perch.

Song thrushes and blackbirds will have been singing, off and on, for a while, though maybe it will be the skirmishes between male blackbirds that are most obvious. Once the blackbirds are singing seriously, though, there’s no finer sound. Where we are, for some reason, we get very few starlings, which is a shame, because I do enjoy their songs, which involve some quite strange sounds and fair amount of mimicry. TV aerials are a favourite vantage point.

But none of them will have much time to do this. In fact, early birdsong and good garden feeding are closely connected. The short and cold days requite birds to spend most of their time finding enough food; the easier we make that, the more chance they have to sing. Every day a small bird must find enough food to lay down fat reserves for the night to come - starvation is always just around the corner. Tiny birds like goldcrests and wrens need to spend every moment of daylight feeding, and blue tits and siskins will need to feed for perhaps nine-tenths of each day. Mortality rates can be huge when hard winter weather strikes. So our help with food really can help to bring spring in a little early!

Predestination

A favourite limerick of mine, of which I was reminded today . . .

There was a young man who said "Damn!
It is borne in upon me I am
an engine that moves
in predestinate grooves;
I'm not even a bus, I'm a tram."

Maurice E. Hare (1886-1967)

A Quote . . .

. . . I came across that speaks to me and challenges me. Although it's not exactly where I am, the last sentence rings more than a few bells:

“To be bitter is to attribute intent and personality to the formless, infinite, unchanging and unchangeable void. We drift on a chartless, resistless sea. Let us sing when we can, and forget the rest.”

(H.P. Lovecraft)

Sunday Talk

Prepared for tomorrow . . .

I had a day working in Shrewsbury last Wednesday, and as it was a bit quiet for a while I started to think about what I might say to you this morning. Our office is on the Frankwell island as you go in to Shrewsbury, and looking out onto the island there seemed an endless flow of cars heading into town and out again. It was a bright morning, with a clear blue sky, but cold with the grass on the island frosted over. People hurrying by were all well muffled up. Among them were a noisy group of small children who hurried by with their mums to the nursery and playgroup just a little further down the road. They were excited, and I gathered that something Christmassy was happening today, perhaps their nativity play. My grandson Alex’s nativity play happened on Friday, so maybe nurseries and playgroups get their plays in early, to avoid clashes with what older siblings will be doing at school.

I couldn’t help but think how Christmas things seem to happen earlier and earlier, so the season of Advent has all but vanished. My C of E background means I’m quite hooked on the Christian year with its seasons and holy days, and I thought back to how Advent being kept when I was small. Both at church and at home, it was quite un-Christmassy as I recall. It was a time of expectation and anticipation and for getting ready, but the tinsel and glitter didn’t get hung up till Christmas Eve. In church we had our Advent ring, with a candle for each Sunday, and I’ll tell you a story about that in a bit.

Someone said to me the other day, “By the time we get to Christmas Day, I’m fed up to the back teeth with Christmas.” But visiting my son-in-law’s home city of Krakow near the end of January 2012, I was surprised to find Christmas lights still burning, and a beautiful nativity tableau in the main square of the old city. Kris explained to me that they’d stay till Candlemas, 2nd February, 40 days after Christmas Day.

Of course, Poland’s a more overtly religious country than the UK, where we probably haven’t kept the forty days of Christmas since medieval times. But these days the story of the birth of Jesus gets crowded out by all the tinsel and glitter and blatant commercialism. This year there’s been some fuss in the media about so-called nativity plays in schools and nurseries that don’t necessarily even include the birth of Jesus, and where children are as likely to be dressed up as present day celebrities, or, in one instance I heard of, meerkats, as shepherds or wise men or angels.

I was going to tell you about the Advent candles at the church I attended as a child. They were rather grand, set in a giant ring of winter greenery that was suspended by four strings from the roof of the church above the choir stalls. A very tall set of steps, and a great deal of nerve, was needed to light them, one for the first Sunday, two for the second, and so on. By the time you got to the fourth Sunday in Advent, the first candle would have burned rather low, and on this particular year, at the very end of morning service on the last Sunday before Christmas, the flame from the first Sunday’s candle caught the tinder dry holly and ivy around it.

The greenery duly flared up in quite a spectacular way, and burnt through the two strings on one side of the ring, sending the whole thing, now well ablaze, swinging down on its remaining strings, straight across the stalls where a moment before the choir had been happily singing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” We watched, awestruck, from the doorway into the choir vestry. One of our basses, Mr Bunce, remarked in a deadpan voice, “That was quite spectacular. We must make sure we do it every year.” That was in fact the last year we ever suspended an Advent candle ring from the church roof.

It occurs to me though that there are lots of one-off Christmas things that have turned into annual traditions; more and more stuff gets added into the Christmas mix. “I love to hear the traditional Christmas songs,” said someone to me the other day, “they get me into the Christmas mood.” She wasn’t talking about “O Come All Ye Faithful”, but about songs that I’m sure you know only too well by Slade and Wizzard. She said it just to annoy me, but there’s more than a sliver of truth there even so, traditional carols have to fight it out these days with Bing Crosby and Mariah Carey and the latest X-Factor winner.

And every year has its Christmas “must-have” that trendy parents anxiously track down and snap up before, horror of horrors, they’re all sold out. Looking into Toys R Us the other day it’s clear that this year the “Frozen” franchise is doing big business. This is a Disney franchise of which I know nothing, but my 4 year old grand-daughter knows everything, having moved on from Peppa Pig to be fixated on princesses.

So how do we as Christians hold the line and get the message over, when baby Jesus and the meaning of his birth gets lost among the secular Christmas razzamatazz? Here are some statistics I found on a website: “Just 12 per cent of adults know the nativity story, and more than one-third of children don’t know whose birthday it is. Meanwhile, 51 per cent of people now say the birth of Jesus is irrelevant to their Christmas.” The website concerned was “Christmas Starts With Christ”, and you’ll know something about this annual campaign if you happened to watch “Songs of Praise” last Sunday. Christmas Begins with Christ is a poster and event campaign that aims to restore the balance and turn back the secular tide at Christmas time.

I think this year the message seems better and clearer than perhaps its been in some past years. It focuses in part on some of the things people don’t enjoy: the queues, the getting into debt, and on, for example, the “trolley wars” that broke out in Tesco stores on so-called ‘Black Friday’. Does Christmas begin here? - it asks; no, Christmas begins with Christ. I hope the message gets through.

There’ve always been midwinter festivals, there were already midwinter festivals before Jesus was born. The days are short, the nights are cold, people get frightened by the darkness, and everyone needs a bit of cheering up. But until people discover what a clerical friend of mine persists in calling “the reason for the season” all the light and sound and eating and drinking adds up to nothing more than whistling in the dark. Christmas begins with Christ, and not with any of the other stuff.

Let me get back for a moment, though, to the disappearing season of Advent. Advent isn’t really about waiting for the baby Jesus. That’s not the theme of any of our readings this morning, not even the first one from the prophecy of Isaiah.  Their common theme is comfort and salvation, and linked to that is the inevitable theme of judgement. John the Baptist didn’t proclaim the birth of Jesus, because by then Jesus had grown up and become a man. The writer of 2 Peter (probably not Peter himself, but someone writing with his authority) wasn’t writing about the birth of Christ but his second coming, and the day of judgement. Be glad it hasn’t happened yet, he tells his readers, for that means you’ve still time to set things right and to share the good news with others. Isaiah wrote about the rescue of Israel from their slavery in Babylon, but his words speak of God’s constant desire for the liberation of his people, enslaved not by his doing but their own.

“God helps those who help themselves.” There’s a well-known phrase which when properly understood is quite true. Until we take the first step on our journey of faith we remain apart from God, but once we take that first small step, say that first feeble prayer, give that first unworthy gift, God will meet us in our endeavours, and bless us and make from our small offering more than we could think possible.

And here for me is the heart of the Advent message. This is a season in which we can reopen the door we’ve closed, shine up the prayers that have gone rusty, turn our getting and hoarding up back into giving. Put simply, Advent is our preparation not so much for Christmas as for discipleship. For all the efforts of the Christmas begins with Christ campaign, what counts is what folk see their local churches doing and what they find there when they go to them. The modern secular Christmas is all glossy on the outside, but how much of any value or substance is there inside? We may well be disappointed when we get past the outer packaging. But it’s the same for us in the Church; the message we offer stands or falls not by how well its packaged, but what there really is inside: the quality of our discipleship.

Christmas begins with Christ. Shepherds in fields abiding saw angels in the sky, and heard from them the good news of a child born to save his people. But they believed not when they heard the angels but when they went down to Bethlehem and actually found the child, there in the stable, just as had been promised. Mission is the vital life blood of the Church: we need to be telling people about Jesus, and no more so than now; but then they need to be able to test out the truth of what we say. They need to find him living in us, present among us, reflected in the quality of our fellowship and the generosity of our love.

So perhaps we shouldn’t panic too much in the face of the commercialisation of Christmas, just hold our collective nerve and stick to the things we should be good at. I think we might aim to be a bit more resistant than we sometimes are to the secular insistence on getting the whole of Christmas done and dusted and out of the way by the morning of Christmas Day. That may be the agenda of the media and the high street, but it doesn’t have to be ours. And I think we do well to make space in the pre-Christmas bustle for Advent to still happen, and to take seriously its big themes of the quality of our witness and discipleship, of the good news of salvation and of a God who does not abandon us, but alongside that the reality of judgement and the fact that we must answer for ourselves. And now and always, churches should simply concentrate on being what they are called to be - places of refuge and of discipling - of prayerful faith, heartfelt praise and open-handed generosity. Christmas is empty without Christ, and there are many people who feel that emptiness, and long for meaning and purpose and answers and call. When people like that come looking for Jesus, they need to be able to find him here, where we are, and in what we do; and because they see him reflected in us, to know him to be real and his love to be true.

And the good news of Advent is that we need only to take the first step. He will meet us and transform us, and make us his.

Another Music Quote

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”

Albert Einstein

On Music (Quote)

Music is not certain or solid or real. It operates solely through our heads and our bodies. It contains doubt and uncertainty, it exudes sadness and longing. It radiates into us, or floats past us. It is not really under our control. Composers are merely carriers, drawing water from a gigantic well to come parched and needy tribe, stranded far away from their natural homeland. When they first taste the water, the tribespeople think they can see their old country, hear their lost children playing, feel the old breeze on their faces. After that first heavenly sip they feel sure they will be able to find their way back home. But soon the cup is empty and they are standing once again in their new, empty surroundings, thirsting for more.

Howard Goodall

Love

In times of darkness and of light,
in times of sorrow and of joy,
may love be ever at the heart of all we do.
May our trust be in its permanence and power,
to give our lives purpose and meaning,
to form friendships and to build communities,
and to comfort and encourage our hearts,
for when we know love, we glimpse what is eternal.