A final piece of colloquial richness from America. Asked about the experience of being a bishop, someone quoted the late President Lyndon Johnson – who said that the experience of being President was like being ‘a jackass caught in a hailstorm.’ So now you know.
Meanwhile, the world of Scotland is full of interest – particularly the very measured debate on sexuality in the Church of Scotland General Assembly.
But the thing with which I found myself most in sympathy was the piece by Giles Fraser in the Church Times. Having announced his departure from Putney, he reflects, ‘Soon I shall be on a list of vicars past’. And he muses on that permanent dissatisfaction which clergy have about what they achieve – particularly when they measure at the point of departure – and about where the permanent might be found in the midst of the impermanent.