Pictures of Ministry

This kind of conference is always interesting – bishops are by nature an interesting lot.  In a world of fairly narrow specialisms, they tend to be people who are interested in many things and only some of them esoteric.  The lists and organisation refer to geography – and have that rather sonorous ring of the stations at which a cross-country train calls or the advert in which Peter Ustinov used to read from Yellow Pages.  So we have Argyll, Barking, Birkenhead, Bolton, Buckingham….

I am sure that I was not the only one to smile this morning as the servants of the servants of God sang this verse of Isaac Watts:

High is the rank we now possess; And higher we shall rise; But what we later shall become; Is hid from mortal eyes.

Meanwhile I have been reading about the Cutty Sark.  I’ve always been interested in the great days of sail – reading the books of Alan Villiers and, of course, Hornblower.  One of the stories not reported today is that of the Captain/Master who would demand that yet more sail should be set as the clippers raced back from Australia.  It reached the point where he stood with a loaded revolver by the sheets/ropes – threatening to shoot the first person who slackened canvas.  Ah, the Pentecost wind filling the sails of the church?

2 comments

  1. servants of the servants of God

    I like that definition of Bishop. It sounds better than “the ones with the pointy hats” or some of the other terms I’ve heard used.

    Oh and speaking of the “servants of the servants of God” & I know it isn’t until next year, but will you be blogging Lambeth 08?

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