We’ve been to Dublin over the last 36 hours for the funeral of my Uncle Arthur.  As these things tend to be, it became something of a cultural and spiritual odyssey.

Let’s just say that Arthur was a major character .. he became a Catholic about two years ago and found a real sense of belonging in the local parish.  Having watched Father Ted on Channel 4 in the hotel last night [the Golden Cleric Award episode] I was well wound up for my meeting with Father Liam of St Laurence O’Toole Parish in Kilmacud, Dublin, this morning.  And very welcoming and hospitable he was – in a church into which the entire membership of the Scottish Episcopal Church would comfortably have fitted.  And this is what I said about Arthur.

But there’s more … three bookshelves of his diary which I took into safe keeping.  It goes back to 1950 and maybe earlier.  So what will I do when I retire?  Well maybe – just maybe – between the diaries, my grandfather’s sermons from his ordination in 1911 [which are in the Church of Ireland’s Library] and my own stuff, there might be a book.  There are a number of common threads.  Cats for a start.  Mrs Putt in Arthur’s childhood, the mighty Nipper and many others .. through to our own Cleopatra and many others before Poppy.  But the most interesting thread is the story of how the Protestant population in Ireland south and north managed – or failed to manage – the changes of identity and allegiance which the 20th century brought.  We’re 98 years from my grandfather’s ordination – I’ll not manage it for the centenary.  But if I’ve told you about it maybe I’ll have to get down and do it.

Sorry I seem to have been away for a little while.

My life has been rather bounded by Canon 4 and the process of electing bishops – two days last week in Glasgow and one day in Oban.  Wonderful drive to Oban this week.   Loch Earn turned a delicate shade of episcopal purple in honour of my passing – sunrise through the back window if it was possible to see through the back window.   The Passat and I surfed westwards on a wave of Scott Joplin, Bach and Gospel Music from the Brooklyn Tabernacle.

Interesting stuff of course.  But I’ve come to the conclusion that, as with appointments of Rectors to congregations, what matters is the willingness of the congregation or diocese to seek to discern their own vocation.  Everything else is follows from that.   I decided today that I must be dreaming about Canon 4 when I found myself reading a newspaper hoarding about episcopal elections at the end of the bridge in Perth.

So here we all are having a good time on The Wave – Stop Climate Chaos March – in Glasgow last Saturday.  Always good to be photographed with the Cardinal and the Moderator outside what looks like a Rangers-suppporting pub.

It was a remarkable event – it takes a lot of organisation to get 7000 people to turn out for a march on a wet Saturday in December – and it tells me that the people are well ahead of the politicians on this issue.

And looking at the photo, I have a feeling that this ‘Stop Chaos’ campaign rather suits me – like Henry’s Cat tidying up the jungle.  I could do ‘Stop Ecclesiastical Chaos .. ‘ and many others

It’s the snow that does it – gives you that feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world.  Like in Murder on the Orient Express.

So it was last night when we went up the glen and up and up above Blairgowrie for the AGM at Ballintuim.  It was snowing.  The satnav was struggling because the voice was set to English-Belfast  rather than English-Perthshire.

We sat down – most of  the congregation – around the table in the bothy.  It was Orient Express carriage-shaped and there was a blazing fire.  Dandy was on my left.  We discussed the tableau of photos on the wall – pictures of her mother jumping fences on a bull which she bought at Gloucester Agricultural Show in 1902 for 35 shillings.  There are times when I begin to think that all this is entirely unremarkable.

Thinking of bulls … as one does when the meeting gives itself to a discussion of maintenance issues at The Birks,  my mind sidled towards one of my all-time favourite funerals.  All clergy have favourite funerals.  It isn’t disrespectful – just rich.  Three of my – how shall we say – slightly more charming and eccentric parishioners and I sat in the funeral parlour in Portadown beside the open coffin of a friend.  She was not wearing the Davy Crockett hat with which she normally greeted me.  Above her head had been fixed a picture of random matadors with random bulls.  Her nephew stood up and began his tribute, ‘My Aunt was like a wounded bull….’  Too rich sometimes, I think.

And then we had supper which was sort of what we really came for.  Poirot did not make a cameo appearance on this occasion.  We enjoyed the company of friends.  We shuffled the Passat down the snowy glen again …

Lighting the first Advent Candle last Sunday during the Radio 4 Morning Service from our Cathedral in Perth.  It took two attempts with the match.  The Choir produced some wonderful music – you can listen to the Service here

The sermon is here

One of the things about moving house is the way you end up reading five year old copies of the News of the World as you wrap the china.  There is a timelessness to smut.

I don’t quite know why I ended up last week reading the Church Times of July and, in particular, its ‘How Bishops are viewed’ feature.  It seemed to me to be a rather strange piece – the options offered, for example, did not include ‘Leader of Mission’ and invited people to explore what I believe to be false oppositions such as, ‘The Church’s main building block is not diocese but parish’

Be that as it may, I was interested to find tucked away somewhere below the coffee mug stain this rather remarkable statement: ‘ … it is time to turn the deanery of 25 to 35 into a diocese.  We must leave behind all the expensive and irrelevant trappings …. and instead make the episcopal task more manageable and realistic so that practical demonstration may be given to the essential warmth and care of the episcopal shepherd who is meant to mirror the Good Shepherd himself’

So welcome to the Scottish Episcopal Church – and indeed to many other parts of the Anglican world.  I think there is a lot of truth in that.  As always, there is a Goldilocks principle in there.  Close enough to be a pastor but not unhelpfully close.  I don’t hear much concern from our clergy that my time may be a bit less directed towards the diocese … we need constantly to negotiate what is ‘just right’

We’ve had a great weekend – diocesan family and family family gathered round.  The last time the Bishop of St Andrews served as Primus was in 1907.  It might be a while till it happens again – so the diocese decided it was time for a gathering in the Cathedral.  We took the opportunity to focus on our life in mission as a diocese and the Casting the Net initiative.  The Cathedral looked wonderful and it was full.  There was great music.  My old friend Bishop Trevor Williams from the Diocese of Limerick came to preach.  We gathered up our family and it was great to see them.

It’s not always easy today to just ‘bring people together in the Cathedral’.  It sounds easy but it isn’t.  So when events give you the chance of doing it, it’s a wonderful thing.

And throughout the weekend, we’ve been dealing with subterranean rumblings from the septic tank again – well actually most of them.  It’s the water table, you see.  It’s too high and the tanks fill up with ground water and their electrical stuff drowns.  Fortunately Morna, one of our newer cast members here at Bogstead, seems to have allowed the rest of us to appoint her as ‘Aerator in Chief’.   She hasn’t been driving the JCB yet but I can see it coming.

Well some days are just like that.

I turned up in time and well-prepared for a meeting of our College of Bishops in the Synod Office in Edinburgh.  They were glad to see me.  Pity the meeting was in Perth.

And then Alison hit a speed bump – which should really be a slow-speed bump – in Livingston with such vigour that the sump grounded and all the oil ran out.  The warning lights all came on together while we were talking on the phone during my second trip of the day to Edinburgh.

Ah well ..

Not a bad week as weeks go.  By my standards, the diary was quite relaxed.  The faithful Passat and I [now 186000 miles – the Passat that is although the feeling is sometimes mutual] visited Grangemouth, Glenrothes, Kirriemuir and Oban.  It also needed a new tyre.  And I decided that the lights were a bit dim until I got out with the Johnson’s baby wipes which I carry everywhere …. and found that it was just the gunge.

My trip to Oban was interesting – Preliminary Meeting of the Electoral Synod for Argyll and the Isles.  My blogging friend Blethers will give you the blow by blow.

It’s an amazing drive – as are most journeys in Scotland.  I was busy at my usual game of trying to match the music on my MP3 Playlist to the places.  I was on Scott Joplin’s Elite Syncopations in Comrie – where a former German POW has left his money to the community.  Bach Motets on the way up Glen Ogle … brass bands in Crianlarich … ‘A safe stronghold’ in Tyndrum.  The scenery is amazing.  The mobile phone signal and Classic FM fade away.  We had a meeting in Oban – which Blethers will explain better than I could at the moment – and then I drove the 104 miles home again.

So welcome weekend.  I’ll be visiting our little congregation in Tayport.  Oh – and they built a new hall.