Author: David

Very interesting to find how anxious the Glenalmond College community was on Tuesday – when I was there for the whole morning for a meeting of the Committee of Council [see ‘What do you do all day?’ No 125] – because of the screening on BBC2 Scotland of the first of three ‘fly on the wall’ documentaries about the school.  Why was I there?  Because Glenalmond College is episcopalian in its foundation – and in daily chapel – and I’m written into the Constitution.  Well, I could easily digress into significant issues like the £24000 fees – given that my most recent school involvement in Northern Ireland was as Chair of Governors at Killicomaine Junior High School.  But I think that the key thing about the Glenalmonds of this world is the quality of what the staff give to the pupils – and I suspect that sometimes the parents may not quite see that.  But it was there in the programme – Charlie the housemaster, for example

I spent an evening last year with one of the staff and a group of senior students discussing ‘the social or moral issue of my choice’.  So we tackled human sexuality.  It was a good evening.  I listened to the staff member who was with us – just one of the extra things he does – gently teaching them how to discuss and debate – ‘Why are you saying that – what is your evidence for that statement – what do you mean when you say ??’  Beyond price in training for life.  I do that for free.  Any school that asks.

Just time to see the programme before heading for the sleeper and a meeting in London – a day which included also Peterborough and Cambridge.  Today we celebrate my mother’s birthday and her three children are all going to be in the same place at the same time. 

Quite a weekend it was.  Various friends to stay at various times in Blogstead’s guest wing .. a hospital visit in Edinburgh .. Sunday morning in Forfar.

And the highlight?  Well of course you’ll be thinking of Christine’s Ordination to the Priesthood in All Saints, St Andrews, on Sunday afternoon.  I’ve really got beyond those ‘long way from Portadown’ thoughts which used to afflict me in such moments.  Now I just stand or sit in the midst as my Chaplain directs while waves of pageantry, colour, incense and music swirl around me.  It really was the sort of event which Piskie church does well.   There were some awesome moments – particularly moments of silence.   As long as I have a minder muttering ‘Hat on – hat off’ I’m just fine.

But – sorry Christine – it wasn’t the highlight.  Even the Ordination Service was surpassed by the Cathedral Chapter’s ‘do’ at Blogstead to mark Janice Cameron’s retirement.  Well – you can mark Janice’s retirement.  Whether she’ll take any notice is a different question.  But it did give us an opportunity to move beyond the simple pleasures of our usual Beetle Drive to test-drive the new St Andrews Monopoly [in the shops now £16.99 – 3 for the price of 2].  Here one can light upon Coupar Angus, pass quickly on to Ballintuim, sell Elie and Pittenweem, build the new toilets at Doune – or end up in Jail [now known as the SinBin]  Hours of fun for the whole church family.

I’m watching with great interest the reports of how Obama is gathering together his team.  Nothing more interesting than the management of change, it seems to me.  And, of course, you find it all in the church as well.

I still believe that the problem is usually not a lack of ideas – more a lack of rigour in carrying them out.  Hence it seems absolutely right that Obama should have appointed Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff – a man with a fearsome reputation for pushing along an agenda.  In church circles, the Archdeacon [in the SEC – the Dean] is traditionally the Enforcer – delivering the bad news on behalf of the bishop so that the bishop can subsequently arrive and say he didn’t really mean it.

To digress for a moment, I think that the church does have lots of ideas – but they tend to be a bit floaty – passions rather than policy.  So that we talk a lot but rather less happens.

Meanwhile, having hired an Enforcer, Obama is showing signs of wanting to be collaborative and bi-partisan at the policy level by talking with Hillary Clinton and John McCain – which seems brave.  I hope he’ll be able to sustain it because it seems absolutely the right way to go.

I’ve spent this evening at Paddy’s Institution – new Rector in the Strathearn Group of congregations. That means Crieff, Comrie and Lochearnhead. If you don’t know this part of the world, it’s visual perfection and the people are nice as well.

By my reckoning, it’s more than a year since I first met the Vacancy Committee. We had all sorts of difficulties which I won’t bore you with. I know that I attended a meeting some time ago which they said was their 14th. And yet out of it all .. in that extraordinary way which is the church at its best .. nothing quite turns out as you expected but it’s probably the better for it. They bought a Rectory and that wasn’t easy either. They expected to have to borrow lots of money and then a quiet generosity in the congregations kicked in and they didn’t have to borrow lots of money.

So there we are. Paddy’s tucked up in a nice, easy-to-heat modern Rectory. She’ll hit the ground running tomorrow. And I still have one or two problems to sort out elsewhere. But sufficient unto the day, etc.

Remembrance Day today – so here is another thought for BBC Radio Scotland.  A dreadful morning to be picking my way across the Sidlaw Hills from Blogstead to Dundee.  If only I was paid as much as Jonathan Ross for doing it.

Always something new in the SEC.  ‘Have you seen the doll?’ they asked yesterday in Alloa.  And there it was – a fully computerised racially-non-specific doll.  This is the programme which gives teenage girls electronic babies to look after in an effort to curb teenage pregnancies.  This really was something new – if you know the SEC, you will understand that our fertility profile tends to be a bit Abraham and Sarah-ish.  ‘So how has your baby been?’ I asked.  ‘Oh just up twice during the night’ was the reply.

We’re doing a lot of thinking about vocational discernment at present.  Is this not a useful principle which we could apply?  We could give the person who is exploring vocation an electronic congregation to live with for a while.  It would telephone at all sorts of odd times to complain about this and that – about the graveyard and the church being cold.  It would be overwhelmingly friendly for a while and then go all funny.  It would sing hymns too slowly.  It would have a sort of soap opera life of tensions and misunderstandings.  In short it would be delightfully and overwhelmingly human.  I do miss parish ministry – a bit. . sometimes.

Long-standing readers will know that, even though I have little hair, I like to take the measure of a community by having a haircut.  You may remember my encounter with a very camp curly-haired Cape-coloured crimper in Capetown.  Well I’ve never found the right hairdresser in Perth until now – it’s in George Street, just up from the hotel.  It has a kind of outer court with a big old-fashioned cash register.  Inside, it’s a bit chappish with lots of chat and some Piskie connections.  I was asked if I knew ‘hairy duke’.

Meanwhile euphoria continues.  Yes I know he’s black.  But just to hear the US government speak in sentences will be enough for me for a while.  So even as I celebrate the triumph of the rational over the irrational, I also ponder the need to embrace the unconventional against the conventional.

Dominic Lawson in yesterdays Independent responded to the attacks on the banks for not instantly passing on the interest rate cut like this, ‘When the entire political class is united on a single issue, you can be sure that it is largely mistaken: the more conventional is the wisdom, the more certain it is to be based on ignorance or mere fashion.’

Which is in some measure the reason why we are in this mess.  I like the idea that the best investment policy is simply to do the opposite of what everybody else is doing – sell when they buy and buy when they sell.  Because of course what inflates a bubble is precisely the desire of [almost] everybody to join in.  And the ones who join in last are the ones who get hurt the most.

Which brings us of course to the dangerous notion that the church – which presents itself as the most conventional body on earth, as it were – should actually be the most unconventional, counter-intuitive and faithful.

A great night.  I have to confess that I lasted only until about 2.30 am.   But it seemed clear enough by then and I was finding the capacity of David Dimbleby and the BBC to make even this seem stodgy more than I could stay awake for.

So Blogstead Episcopi woke up to a changed world.  And of course those of us old enough to be rooted in Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ can’t help seeing this as the fulfilment of that dream.  But I find myself just as glad to see a sensitive thinker and a world class wordsmith – whatever his colour –  at the centre of government.

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world – our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down – we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security – we support you. And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright – tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.

I found myself feeling great admiration for John McCain in his speech – utterly free of self-pity and rancour.  If he had fought the election with the same grace and strength, he would have been formidable indeed

Senator Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country. I applaud him for it, and offer him my sincere sympathy that his beloved grandmother did not live to see this day. Though our faith assures us she is at rest in the presence of her creator and so very proud of the good man she helped raise.

Senator Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain.

These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.

I urge all Americans … I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

 

Slipped in another Thought for the Day for the BBC this morning. Couldn’t resist Obama and the American election. But of course I should really have been talking about Donald Trump and his dune-destroying golf resort. I listened to the First Minister talking about the jobs which will flow and I wondered whether it could really be so. Aren’t many of them likely to be the catering industry pattern of seasonal, low paid and temporary?

Meanwhile we are settling down for a long night here at Blogstead. My Chaplain mentioned almost wistfully that he found strong-minded women of faith like Sarah Palin ‘very, very foxy.’ But he’s out on his own there. I am impervious to her charms, her glasses and her moose-shooting abilities. To be [relatively] serious for a moment .. it seems to me that all American politicians sit well to the right of the political spectrum on which we live. Meaning that Obama is roughly where or to the right of where the Cameroons are. So Blogstead’s support for Obama has more to do with support for rationalists over against irrationalists. Or do I just not understand it?

Well we got home late last night – even though they had simply closed the road which links Cairnryan to Blogstead. It was ‘turn right only’ as we came off the ferry. Amazing. Poppy was a bit ‘travelled out’ and was not amused.

Glad to be home as well. This morning was one of those perfect Sunday mornings as we headed for Dunkeld – snow on all the hills around us; morning sun on the Beech Hedge at Meikelour; partridges on the road near Caputh; wisps of mist over the Tay;

view of blue water through Telford’s Bridge at Dunkeld. And when we got to Birnham, we had Confirmation with Eucharist, the new lighting in the church and a community in good heart.

But of course you’ll be wanting to know how Fin and Emma’s Civil Partnership in Belfast went. Well it was grand. We’re part of the older generation now. So we witter on about how things are and where the last 25 years went to and how none of us has changed a bit We watch the younger generation making its commitments in hope and trust. To be honest, on that very human level matters of sexuality are not the first things one thinks about.

It reminded me of our family visit to the Baghdad Cafe in the Castro area of San Francisco in 1996. The children were younger and we allowed the Rough Guide to help us search for a good value restaurant – not knowing that Castro is the centre of the gay community in San Francisco. Fascinating. But what I remember is how sort of ordinary it all was. Some of the dressing was a little surprising – but it had a very ordinary, comfortable, domestic sort of feel to it. And, in the best sense, that’s how it was with Fin and Emma – and, of course, Alex. And we wish them all the very best.