We continue to struggle with the consequences of financial melt-down.  It takes time but it makes its presence felt absolutely everywhere eventually.

I was interested to see Andreas Whittam Smith’s article in the Independent yesterday.

He’s calling the beginning of the end of the crisis.  Not a financial or economic judgement.  More a spiritual discernment.  He describes a series of business conversations which were characterised by a new realism.  He says that ‘the people round the table had resolutely confronted the end of their dreams and their own worst fears’  These things are as old as time.  It’s pride, arrogance, selfishness, wilful blindness, greed ….

The end of hubris.  Masters of the Universe tamed.  People who said that economic cycles no longer applied …   People who said that markets were a perfect system of self-regulation.  And all that stuff.  Allen Stanford.  Over.  Prodigals heading home.

It’s going to be difficult for the church.  We don’t have cushions or safety nets.  So we will end up having to decide what is really important for us.  So far as I am concerned, that is clergy ministering in congregations.  Everything else is secondary to that.

I’ve always had an eye to the progress of the Extreme Ironing fad – first encountered on the coast road south of Capetown when a VW Beetle came towards us with somebody on the roof hard at work on the collar and cuffs.

I’ve just confided to my Facebook Profile that I am travelling backwards up the East Coast Main Line at 125 mph. At last I’ve managed to connect to National Express’s wifi – not the fastest but at least you don’t lose it in the wide open spaces. The new broadband dongles should make it possible to undertake some fairly extreme blogging – so there’s a challenge.

I can never decide whether it’s better to do as I have been doing – carry on with my email and other stuff as if I was at home. Or make a virtue of necessity and read a book I wouldn’t have ‘time’ to read if I wasn’t travelling.

Since my retreat with the Benedictines, I have continued to ponder the issues of leadership and authority in the life of the church.  What I like is the way in which Benedict describes the kind of person the abbot should become if he is to exercise a good authority.  And to be loved more than feared – presumably because fear is the enemy of truth and without truth in relationships you have very little.

Meanwhile Anne Tomlinson – knowing my admiration for O’Bama – has send me an article from the Scotsman in which Joseph Nye discusses his exercise of power

It’s about soft power – ability to attract and enthuse – and hard power – organisational skill. But what makes Obama special, I think, is the flexibility and contextual intelligence with which he deploys his leadership abilities.

In the church, we put a premium on things like vision and passion.  And so we should – eyes fixed heavenward, etc.  But along the way, I think we need to deploy an extraordinary range of skills – rigour in pushing forward, firmness about boundaries, genuine responsiveness to the feelings of others, pragmatism, intelligence about situations and their potential, spiritual and scriptural rootedness….

Which brings us back to the abbot – a wily old bird, no doubt.  But a very complete human being.

I think I’ll let Benedict speak for himself today ..

Let the Abbot strive to be loved more than to be feared.

The Abbot should not be restless or worried, nor extreme or stubborn,  nor jealous nor overly suspicious, because then he will never have peace.

He should be far-seeing and thoughtful, discerning and moderate.

At last managed to get my few remaining hairs cut.  As usual – in my favourite place in George Street – the level of chat was in inverse proportion to the amount of hair.  Today’s topics ranged over Darwin, creationism, sectarianism, child protection and many others.  It’s bracing.

Meanwhile Morag has reminded me of the strong performance management culture which has put pressure on bank staff – not the fat felines but the people behind the counter in the local branch.  Time was when working in a bank was about getting to know people and helping them.   Then it became a series of sales targets which needed to be met.

Now why does that sound familiar?  Maybe because, when I started out in full time ministry in 1976, it was mainly about pastoring a community, getting to know people, holding together the community of faith.  The idea that the bishop might come down from Head Office with some bright new plan for growth would have been unexpected and unwelcome.  So here we are.  Caught in our own net, as it were.

Yes it’s bonus time in the Scottish Episcopal Church.  And as in the world of banking, so in the church – everybody wins.  We work on a complicated measurement of prayers said, e mails sent, Vestries chaired, visits done, funerals conducted, sermons preached …. But whatever the measurement, we expect to get our bonuses.

It’s easy to take potshots at bankers at the moment.  Some will protest that they have met their targets – their bit of the bank is profitable – so why should they not receive their due?  But they disregard the fact that they are part of a corporate whole which has been bailed out by the taxpayer.  I know that many of the people who receive bonuses – not the mega-millions – rely on that as part of their pay just to deal with the mortgage or the car loan.  I am mindful too of bank staff who have been rewarded with bank shares which are now almost worthless.  There have been many losers – within the banks as well as without

And yet I have long believed that some choices carry us into the realm of something close to spirituality – even tho’ they are not identifiably religious choices.  The victim – victim of violence or wronged spouse or whatever – is entitled to anger and revenge but chooses to set that aside.  That brave choosing becomes the start of the painful path towards the forgiveness and healing which will ultimately set all parties free.  And the choice about bonuses is a bit like that.  ‘Entitled’ is a big word – it may have moral or contractual dimensions.  The question is whether it is ‘right’ for those, who have already benefitted beyond the dreams of many,  to set aside that to which they feel that they are ‘entitled’.  Because down that road might lie the birth of a more communitarian, less acquisitive and less envious culture.

Whatever you think about Tony Blair, he’s an amazing politician.  Every European leader is aiming to be the first to visit the O’Bama White House – and there he is at the National Prayer Breakfast – the one whom the Portadown Orangemen used to call Mr Blur.  I defend to the last my right to have faith-shaped political views, but I can’t really cope with politicians ‘doing God’

Meanwhile back to the Special Relationship – which I tend to believe is a load of wistful rubbish.  The significant relationship of course is the Irish-American one – have you heard the Corrigan Brothers song, ‘There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama’?

But of course it’s not as simple as that.  I’ve just signed up to be member No 30021 of the Fans of Sully Sullenberger on Facebook.  Did you listen to the cockpit voice recorder – ‘Are you able to return to La Guardia?’  ‘Unable’  Wonderful – so clipped.  So Biggles.   And then there was the film of the homecoming.  His wife introduces him as ‘the man who makes my cup of tea in the morning.’  And the man himself says, ‘We were just doing the job we were trained to do.’  Fantastic.  So understated.  So British. The special relationship lives!

I shall practise being similarly monosyllabic at the endless church meetings.  Sully had them all safely landed in the Hudson before an SEC meeting would have got through the apologies.

Well this was an important day.  Our newly-enlarged Standing Committee met for the first time.  More members still to be added.  We approved the Job Descriptions for three part time Development Workers – one for congregational development; one for ministry training; one for children and young people.

That’s a big commitment to mission and growth for a small diocese to make – all part of our Casting the Net programme.  We’re trying to run fast enough to keep up with the expectations.  There is hope.

Great.  Meetings cancelled – one done by Skype which perhaps teaches us something.  We’re not snowed in but just enough to make people reluctant to travel.  And why not?  Some of the people coming to the Casting the Net Policy Group meeting tonight would have been driving nearly 40 miles each way.

Meanwhile – did you hear the interview with the people whose hobby is to ‘spot’ all the Eddie Stobart lorries?  Apparently they all have girls’ names – the lorries, that is.

Wonderful word.  ‘Just follow me into church’ said Bro Mark-Ephrem ‘and we’ll incline before the altar.’  Last time I went on retreat with the Benedictines in Rostrevor, I reported that I became fascinated by the way in which they reverenced the altar – it seemed to me to sum up the whole of ‘a life consecrated’.  It’s a long slow bend from the waist.  And the use of ‘incline’ reminded me that that all of the brothers were professed at Bec in Normandy – so we were thinking in liturgical French.

If you want to know what I said at their Eucharist, it’s here

Meanwhile, I pondered the resonances – ‘Incline our hearts to keep this law’ and ‘Incline thine ear’  Very Anglican.

And as I pondered, I watched Brother Mark-Ephrem censing the altar.  None of that energetic swinging.  More a gentle inclining of the thurible … in and around the chalice and paten … inclining ever so gently almost into the candle flame.  Not at all in the area of ‘nice bit of chalice work there, Ted’  Just something surprisingly and intensely moving.  I still don’t know why.