Month: January 2009

Those who thought Northern Ireland is ‘problem solved’ will have had an unpleasant surprise this week.  The publication of the Eames/Bradley Report on the legacy of the Troubles made the proposal that all victims of the Troubles – both victims of violence and perpetrators of violence – might receive a ‘recognition payment’.  It certainly lifted the sticking plaster and allowed us to see the bad stuff underneath.

Winston Churchill’s words came back:

“Then came the Great War: Every institution, almost, in the world was strained. Great Empires have been overturned. The whole map of Europe has been changed. The position of countries has been violently altered. The modes of thought of men, the whole outlook on affairs, the grouping of parties, all have encountered violent and tremendous changes in the deluge of the world.

“But as the deluge subsides and the waters fall short, we see the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again. The integrity of their quarrel is one of the few institutions that has been unaltered in the cataclysm which has swept the world.”

Northern Ireland has moved on.  There is a pragmatic political settlement which is holding together.  But as somebody there said to me last week, it is a place which is still ‘bound’.  Political leadership may support accommodation – but I don’t see much leadership which seems interested in much more than that.  When you look at South Africa, you can see that spiritual and political leadership did work together – ArchbishopTutu and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, for example.  Maybe the outcry about the Eames/Bradley report is precisely because of the clash of values which happens when people attempt to deal with the deeper issues.

I think Susan Howatch’s church novels talked about ‘flicking the switch’ – the idea that one can plunge into some spiritual realm just like that.  Well it isn’t just like that.  Three days with the Benedictines in Rostrevor.  It takes one day to begin to get yourself calmed down.  Another day of reasonable calm.  And then the ‘stuff’ begins to gather around you again.  But how could it be otherwise?

But it was great and I’ll tell you a bit more about it as we go.

Speaking of ‘flicking the switch’, Mr Easyjet said that we were sitting on the tarmac in Belfast with ‘just a slight technical problem which we hope to resolve very soon.’  Visions of him sitting surrounded by red warning lights .. or Canada Geese flying by.  Dublin accent.  Warm, friendly and reassuring – but maybe not quite that Sully calming effect.

Passing through Belfast today  – Hillhall Presybterian Church’s Wayside Pulpit catches the eye as always.  ‘All God wants for Christmas is U’  I think I prefer ‘Use sun-block.  Don’t block out the Son’

So it’s off on retreat for a couple of days tomorrow with the Benedictines at Rostrevor.   They see themselves as engaged in the mission of ‘spiritual ecumenism’ and they have been both vigorous and successful in forging strong ecumenical relationships.  We’re in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and I’ll be preaching at their Eucharist on Sunday.

Some distance, I think, from Ulrika’s triumph in the Big Brother House.  I’m looking forward to the silence and to the Gregorian Chant which seems to belong in the silence without crowding it.

It must be a wonderful thing to be able to engender such hope in people.  Scary on the delivery front – but wonderful.

I’m continuing to read ‘Dreams from my Father’

Wonderful phrases.  ‘The family … preferred a straight-backed form of Methodism that valued reason over passion and temperance over both.’

Most extraordinary of all is the reflection on what is akin to vocation.  He comes to terms with a way of being black which leaves behind the easy path to victimhood.   He constructs a way of assessing the various influences in his life: ‘I can see that my choices were never truly mine alone – and that is how it should be, that to assert otherwise is to chase after a sorry sort of freedom.’

Best of all, he can imagine that it might have been otherwise: ‘…. allowing my ambitions to travel a narrower, more personal course, so that in the end I might have taken my friend Ike’s advice and given myself over to stocks and bonds and the pull of respectability’

To reflect on your life and be able dispassionately to recognise that it might easily have turned out differently ..  that seems to suggest a considerable maturity which is able to hold in tension the serious intent and the ‘almost chance’ in life.

I think that, when I am exploring vocation with people, it’s that sort of personal insight that I am looking for.  So I’m off on retreat next week to do a bit of the same kind of rooting around in my own vocation.

You must be tired listening to me suggesting that I have the best Sunday morning journeys of any bishop in the Anglican Communion.  But .. through Crieff and Comrie … along Loch Earn with snow on the mountains around Lochearnhead … up Glen Ogle .. down to Killin where the Falls of Dochart were at their spectacular best.

I find the soul of the SEC in places like this – fragile and warm little churches tucked away in beautiful places – keeping a flame of sacramental worship alive.  They probably remind me of childhood experiences of rural Church of Ireland churches in Co Cork.  My grandmother wearing her hat – but not her coat – singing loudly and playing the organ while some stout-hearted member of the congregation pumped.

Our Tin Tab at Killin may have all sorts of structural and other problems which you would rather not know about.  But it is warm and friendly and it shares its warmth with the Roman Catholics after we have headed off for lunch.  Which today was the entire congregation of 19 gathered around Angus and Jill’s hospitable table.  And then back up Glen Ogle in the snow.

Tough but somebody, etc., etc.

Simon Calder says in today’s Independent, ‘This miracle will make flying safer’   He is for ever saying how safe flying is – safer than the journey to the airport.  But we will all now pay greater attention to the safety stuff.  And we’ll hope that somebody like calm, cool and mega-experienced Sully is at the helm.

Blogstead folk – apart from Poppy who is not welcome on Easyjet – fly more than we should.  I find my reactions to it interesting.  Most of the time, familiarity makes me fairly relaxed.  But I have days when I am not relaxed about it – not just that winter Ryanair flight back from Dublin with Kenny Rathband and David Campbell when we all had the ‘too young to die’ feeling.  Just days when there is no particular reason other than mood.

I always listen to the safety announcement with at least half an ear because it seems to be tempting fate not to.  I do not read or do Sodukus during take-off or landing although I may pretend to.  I require the Captain to have a clipped Biggles-type voice – Sully almost certainly has a very relaxed American delivery.

My only other requirements are to know that the Captain is content, capable and has not had a row with his wife during the past 24 hours.  Above all, I need to know that his competence is matched by a lack of imagination and whimsy.  If I was a pilot, I would always be sitting at the end of the runway wondering, ‘What if this thing doesn’t take off?’  Useless.  I wouldn’t last a week.  But maybe the saintly Sully would find my job a bit of a pain as well.

Goodness – Thursday evening already.  The week has gone in a whirl.  Mainly because of the Clergy Conference.  And then there is all the other stuff which keeps coming anyway.

It was a good conference – exploring liturgy and worship.  I was interested to be told recently by someone – who remembered the SEC in childhood as ‘conservative catholic’ in practice and doctrine – how much it has changed.  One of our clergy described it to me in my early stages as ‘warm catholic’.

Those conversations do tie in with the way in which we seem to be searching for – or developing – a style of worship.  I first met it at the General Synod Service 2008 – very congregational, very alive, very reflective of the world church.  Stuart Muir of St Paul’s Cathedral, Dundee, was in charge of the music at Synod and he was with us for our Clergy Conference.  The reaction of our clergy was remarkably positive.  This is good music but you don’t have to be a cathedral to do it – very good quality material and absolutely rooted in the liturgy.  There is hope.

Great to have a visit on Sunday from Bishop Enoch Kayeeye of Congo.  Enoch is a missionary bishop from Uganda.  Alison and I met him and his wife, Phoebe, at Lambeth so all roads lead to Blogstead ..   Actually he is on a marathon trip round the UK and has been with us at our Clergy Conference this week in Kinross.  So how has it been going?  Pretty well actually.  We’ve been doing liturgy and we really got into the singing – and dancing – this evening.  So I am expecting great changes when I vist some of our congregations in the next few months.