A Right Carry On

 

A few nights ago my training supervisor and I met to discuss, among other things, what I might give up in order to make room for my studies. The college guidance suggests I 'put down the PCC', which has its appeal.

The PCC survived the discussion, but there were other tasks which it was a 'no brainer' to stop. They included managing the sound during services, and helping clean the church room.

It didn't last, for the very next day I was in conversation with our churchwarden and she mentioned that one of our Lavalier microphones was dead and I was drawn into what we should do. Likewise, at the end of our meeting I realised that we'd met towards the end of the day in the week when we usually - you guessed it - clean the church room, and I apologised to her about missing it before beginning to suggest alternative days.

My training supervisor grinned and said something to the effect of 'welcome to ministry', where being swept up in other people's calls on your time comes with the territory.

If being on the PCC readily survived the cull of duties, it is because although it does call too much upon my time - even without my studies - it is nevertheless a place wherein I feel able to work out my calling (to help others themselves called to ministry). Sometimes, that happens in the wielding of a mop, too.

Yet awhile, I can see it is going to be a struggle for me to keep an eye on where I'm heading, and not allow myself to be drawn towards other people's demands. Servant ministry is important to me, but not at the cost that no-one gets where they're supposed to be: living in the Kingdom.

La la la not listening la la la ...

Evidently, Abraham Lincoln was wont to write 'hot letters'; missives in which he would vent his spleen on paper and then stash the result away 'unseen and unsent'. There's probably a person-centred therapy term for that, but anyway it matches what I was doing at silly-o-clock this morning when I couldn't sleep.

What kept me tossing and turning was that now that I have returned to theological studies, in search of licensing in Reader Ministry, I find the stubborn streak in me 'chuntering on' about how I'm being forced to do a weekend's residential on the rural context for ministry. Given that my new diocese is largely rural, the requirement seems sound enough, except that ...

... I moved to this diocese from another even more deeply rural, and I'm training at my theological alma mater, so I suspect I know exactly which benefice I'll be bussed off to to experience a few hours of what passes for rural life in the college's view.

Tossing and turning, I rehearsed all the knowledge and experience I have gained in a ministry that has been entirely rural since I've been a country dweller for over 25 years. The litany went something like:

• milking cows on Christmas morning
• receiving gifts of trout and pheasant from parishioners
• keeping a communion service going until the celebrant could make the ten miles from his previous church
• keeping an axe in the boot for those times when fallen trees stopped me driving ten miles to my next church
• etc

All this I threw at my keyboard for an hour or so before going back to bed, where I slept the sleep of the just.

Almost.

On waking, I turned to my latest reading matter (beyond Reader training), which happens to be John Kiser's The Monks of Tibhirine, and I came upon the following passage.

‘In [Bernardo’s] dream, one monk was throttling another and saying, ‘Fool, you’re wasting your time in the Muslim world—go where you are needed and can grow. You’re a deadweight to the Order.’ … Christian recounted Bernardo’s response when he awoke from the dream he had had during his visit to Tibhirine. “You are here so your Cistercian way of life can be enriched by what you gain from the local culture. This process of inculturation does not happen without anxiety over losing one’s own monastic identity. To avoid being overcome by this fear, the community must deepen and strengthen its own monastic culture.” [Kiser:2003]

Whatever my anger (for which read ‘fear’) at repetition of the Rural Context weekend, I haven’t stopped learning. Perhaps, just perhaps, I will develop my townie inculturation of living in and ministering among (I almost said ‘to’!) those who are often themselves, as newcomers, fighting the opportunities for enrichment that moving to the countryside brings.

… Besides, it will be good to know I can leave the retired colonels back in Wiltshire’s plains and downs when I return to the Mendip-hugging orchards where the Welsh come to retire ... both of which are perhaps the sort of preconceptions about my fellow country bums that I could do with expunging by dint of some repeat training.

Giving with the one hand ...

 

In a former parish I found there was a tacit agreement that anyone doing verger duties would let their fees go to the church. It struck me as wrong that anyone should make assumptions about the financial situation of other people. Also, I argued at the time, would it not benefit the church rather more if people claimed their verger fees but then donated them back, duly gift-aided where possible?

Then I had an image of Jesus overturning the table of the money-changers.

People commonly believe that Mark 11:15-18 is heavily down on churches being used as market places, and look somewhat guiltily at a book stall behind the font as a sign of the evil god Mammon's presence. But the main thrust of this passage and its synoptic equivalents seems to say more about the church determining that Mosaic law on sacrificial offerings could only be met by purchasing ritually pure animals from the church itself, and then setting the exchange rates to be levied so as to avoid unclean coinage going into church coffers. Yet, and yet, Jesus in his well-known 'Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's' comment (Mark 12:17), had the church's cards well and truly marked by showing how easily his detractors were able to produce a 'forbidden' Roman coin in the temple precincts.

If we offer our two copper coins (Mark 12:42) in a gift-aid envelope, what we're actually doing is saying 'I want some of the tax I have paid on my income to go to this or that charity, up to the whole of my tax payments'. Which is to say, into this or that charity rather than the NHS, social housing, education, etc.

The gift-aid scheme was lobbied for not by average church-goers, RNLI supporters and so on but by rich companies and individuals seeking to game a host of tax-avoidance schemes. If we use gift-aid in our regular giving, I have the uneasy feeling that we are complicit in such schemes. We can scarcely complain about wholesale avoidance of income and corporate tax if we whittle away what's left.

I Walk the Line

It was a great delight this morning to walk the labyrinth at Sheldon, home of the Society of Mary and Martha and a retreat centre in Devon. The labyrinth here is a full-sized replica of the one at Chartres, with one special difference: this one is outside.

No faint-hearted pilgrims here; nor do you tussle with tourists and cathedral seating to be able to pray your way in and out of it. You do however have the weather, attendant puddles and wind-blown brash from the trees, as well as rabbit droppings to contend with: and why not?

I’m struggling to read my way into a tome about the enneagram at the moment [Beesing et al (1984), The Enneagram: a Journey of Self Discovery, Denville, NJ: Dimension Books Inc.]. It is a struggle because the authors have cast the nine ‘types’ of the enneagram as the result of compulsions, avoidance techniques; ‘sins’ even. I have previously written of Peter Drucker’s view that one develops best when concentrating on those things which one is good at, if they are identifiable, rather than those things one is not good at. The message of Beesing et al seems to run to the contrary: ‘no pain, no gain’.

My inclination is that Drucker has it right, and concentrating on sin is not helpful. Yet I am drawn to my experience of the puddles and the droppings on this morning’s pilgrimage around the Sheldon labyrinth. Our journey through life is seldom along a clear path.

This morning I did something quite different to my normal way of walking a labyrinth. Rather than gaze prayerfully at my feet, a habit I’ve developed largely in order to keep to the path, I kept my head up in order to feel part of the landscape. It gave me a strong sense of place, and lo: I did not stray from the path. Perhaps starting out from an awareness of sin can be of use, but maintaining an holistic perspective is desirable. We are, after all, not alone in our sinfulness; and salvation is at hand if we but look up and notice.

Marriages Made in Heaven

A few years ago, I bumped into a former colleague at an Open University study day. We had worked together at the Medical Research Council: she as a radiographer and I as a laboratory technician. She left to have a baby a few months before I resigned to do other things, and so I asked her if she had returned to work. She looked askance at me, and told me that she’d not been able to go back. We had worked together in the late 1970s, and at that time there had been no right for women to return to work after maternity ‘leave’.

I believe that 30-40 years from now, someone will meet a pensioner and ask why he never married, and be as surprised as I to recall or discover that back in the early 2010s gay marriage had not been possible until, like my former colleague, it was too late.

I believe that today’s vote in the House of Commons in favour of gay marriage is progress, though I know not everyone will see it as such. I have listened to a few arguments against today, scarcely a wide view, let alone a scientific survey, but along the lines of the ‘the definition of marriage cannot change’, and ‘it wasn’t in any manifesto and shouldn’t be debated as legislation’. These are relatively easy to dispense with (underlining my selective choice, no doubt). Definitions change all the time. I don’t believe that ‘goods and chattels’ now include wives; and if items not included in party manifestos were to be banned, then early day motions and a raft of other parliamentary processes would disappear, and our democratic process would be diminished with them.

Chief among my thoughts following the vote, however, is one that I believe relates to a major argument against gay marriage. Despite what people have said on the matter, I don’t believe that my own marriage has been devalued by today’s decision. The promises my wife and I made before God are still ours and still extant and still important to who we are as two-joined-as-one. No man can put that asunder.

All Talk

It was the opinion of one commentator a few years back that I revealed too much of myself in my preaching. This is an issue worth looking at, since I hope not so much to wear my heart on my sleeve as to reflect my encounters with the living God. The former could disenfranchise a congregation, or give gossips ammunition: the latter, which is to say my own encounters with God, ought according to David Day (A Preaching Workbook) give hope to others through the authenticity it adds to my hermeneutics.

It has long been my view that my clergy colleagues are denied through their workload the chance to join with rather than lead their congregations. One hopes that they are more rigorous in their daily devotions than many of us, but in the end congregational worship is a boon to one’s own spiritual nurture. Here it is that the surprising nature of the Gospel, and the call to confession, contrition, and contribution, can be experienced to the full.

A less obvious reason for me until now has been that the pew is simply a great position to learn from as a preacher. To physically inhabit the same space as a congregation, to suffer the same numb backside or cold draft that they do, but also to hear Scripture dissected differently and to experience someone else’s gift of rhetoric, is all very useful.

This weekend I went to church as a worship leader from the perspective of someone wanting to know more about the congregation by worshipping with them. It turned out that I learned more of myself and my preaching style because of the privilege of hearing an ordained colleague.

Which is to say, on some level her sermon worked on me and I heard God moving me to action. She preached on Candlemas being a turning point in the church year, and it became for me a turning point in my leading of worship.

I still don’t know, I haven’t concluded either way, whether I reveal too much of myself in my preaching, yet I do feel God’s presence with me as he equips me to prepare and to deliver them. My hope is that the warm words of support I get from my listeners is because God speaks to them too, for in that lies the possibility of the Kingdom here on Earth.

Déjà vu

Mary came up to me at the end of a service to ask “Why do we need to love ourselves?” Now there’s a loaded question, steeped in overtones of ‘I’m having difficulty loving myself’, so mentally I took a deep breath and then had a stab at answering her.

I began this blog in the exilic state, 4 years ago, of having been turned down for ordination by my bishop of the time. I have of late been re-visiting the issue, but yesterday my Diocesan Director of Ordinands (DDO) sat with me to impart the news that the decision still stands. No-one has been convinced of any reason to change it.

At the heart of the decision is the lack of conviction in others that I can … well … elucidate? (no) … describe? (sort of) … enunciate? (spit it out, man, spit it out!) … verbalize? (almost there: c’mon) … to whatever it is my call to ordained ministry. I am unable to explain persuasively to others what it is that I feel God is calling me to, and why. You see the problem.

I am reminded, though perhaps it is a false memory, that the protagonist in Douglas Adams’s book Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is socially inept. When insulted by someone, he comes back with a cracking retort … about 4 hours later when tucked up in bed in his fleecy pyjamas. My memory of Douglas Adams’s art and literacy is perhaps flawed, but I am left with self-recognition of the character.

I am surrounded by loving support at this time, though that is a state I have enjoyed for a very long while. It therefore pains me to see how others are affected by my afflictions, among whom I include those who have had to rake up the past to consider how they arrived at the recommendation they did. They feel that all the evidence – or rather, the lack of it – shows that the system has worked well which has protected both someone who might be ordained, and a potential flock, from a wrong move.

In reporting to me how fully and sensitively the matter has been looked at, my DDO used the phrase ‘nebulous’ in relation to my efforts at describing my calling. It is a word I’m familiar with, being right in there in the Ed Psych’s report into my dyslexia. I have, I was told at that time, a somewhat nebulous problem with organization. That is, I find it difficult to martial ideas to a coherent argument or plan of action. I know and somehow instinctively understand more than I am able to say: so when asked something important, I incline to panic. How very frustrating, my Ed Psych told me, I must find it to have such an intellect and yet not be able to convey its machinations.

A ministry issue attaches to this problem. If I cannot describe why it is I feel that there is a tonsure-shaped hole in my ministry, a gap where a collar seems right, then how might I deal with matters of deep theological and practical pastoral concern raised by a parishioner?

Which brings me back to Mary and her softly put, slightly apprehensive, question: “Why do we need to love ourselves?” I find myself affirmed that people like Mary hear God speaking to them when I lead worship; glad that they find me approachable regarding their struggles; surprised that I can after all begin an ‘ad hoc’ dialogue on themes such as authentic love for others being present only when we can love ourselves; aware of the un-asked question that needs to be given time to emerge; and finally that I actually, substantially, care.

It is right that someone unable to articulate – thank you, Sara: that’s the word! – a sense of calling should be treated with caution when they persist in seeking ordination. I have, when all is said and done, struggled for many years with that very issue: why me, God? And thus we come to a rising tide of anger, no – frustration, within me which is fuelled not by the decision that I should not be ordained, but by my growing suspicion that perhaps the church – that is to say, people like Mary and I – has gaps in its ability to help ordinary people articulate their fears, faith, or feelings. It seems to me damningly to indict the system: a system that rightly strives to avoid ‘priming’ me with model answers to questions of discernment, but seems utterly unable to perceive that my real need is to be equipped to articulate those unspoken thoughts upon which ministry and other decisions might be based.

I have the feeling that Mary might benefit from joining the right sort of house or Lent group (she and I both). By the grace of God perhaps I may have a part in helping her to seek and acknowledge the forgiveness that seems thus far to have eluded her. But I find above all that I am deeply distressed that I have brought myself to be forbidden from entering into that sacramental ministry by which I might absolve her in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.

I stand at the foot of the cross. And I feel, God forgive me, the weight of a hammer in my hand. I have failed my Lord, yet still he loves me. His love endures for ever. If I can persuade you of nothing else, trust me in this.

About this Blog

Are you as confused as I am about how we are meant to engage with God in this thoroughly secular world, this ‘rebellious house’?

The things I hear about, read about, think about, and occasionally preach about, scream out for theological engagement – talking about God – for talking about God is what Christians are meant to do.
Since I’m crammed full of ignorance, this blog is one way I reach out to find who God wants me to be, and what he wants me to do about it. It is my way of being seen to prepare for exile (Ezekiel 12:4).

Perhaps you too are as bemused, befuddled, and bewildered as I am. Join me for the ride!

Tweet Tweet




Temptation is just a tweet away ...


What do you think of the idea of a member of a congregation using social media during a service? Specifically, how would you feel if someone was composing tweets during a funeral?

A few days ago I heard someone say they had done just that. Part of me was appalled, and part of me was excited. The part that was appalled was thinking of issues such as ‘privacy’, ‘courtesy’, ‘taste’, ‘concentration’, ‘engagement’ and related issues that argue against sharing the contents of divine worship as it happens. The other part of me was reflecting positively on ‘accessibility’, ‘normalization’ (which is to say, that worship should be just as acceptable a topic for live chat as any other on social media), and that old chestnut ‘evangelization’.

The context for this revelation was a debate at Greenbelt 2012 called ‘Finding Your Own Digital Paradise’. The talk touched on a number of topics, from multimedia worship to multiple online profiles, the latter being held in some contempt as ‘not being oneself’.

I begged to disagree, since I believe that multiple accounts are a courtesy to those styled ‘followers’ in this online age. It is not a case of having a split personality, or of wishing to hide one’s ‘true self’, whatever that is. But this blog which I style An Exiles Baggage contains content which readers of my three other blogs may have little interest in, for example, and the same goes for my two Twitter accounts. Together with my (sole) Facebook profile, I deliberately limit the topics or genre of my communications through these identities so as to form channels which from a follower’s perspective are relatively free of noise. And noise is something we get a lot of in the digital age but with which we seem unwilling to learn how to deal.

Which brings me back to the idea of tweeting from a service. For some, including the minister, this may feel intrusive. That someone may appear focused not on the main activity at hand, but on tapping at their smart phone or tablet screen, could be distracting to others. But in a different workshop I took part in at Greenbelt, I joined an exercise in creative writing during which very loud music was played. The point of that exercise, which was something of a struggle, was that unless we can teach ourselves to write under adverse conditions, we are not worthy of the title ‘writer’.

As with creative writing, so too with church. If we struggle to engage with God in the relative peace of services of worship, tweeting, farting, or noisy children notwithstanding, then how will we ever hold on to the mantle of Jesus with which we try to clothe ourselves in the bustling secular world? It is surely not the back-pew tweeter that is the problem, but our own lack of focus as Christians.

Looking for God

In Psalm 105 verse 4 we read “Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually” (NRSV). In the context of that psalm,’ seeking the Lord’s presence’ amounts to looking at his wondrous works and recognizing all that he has bestowed on us in creation.

From the blessings of a loving family, a warm dry home, and situated in lush countryside, it is perhaps not so difficult to recognize the Lord’s presence as to stop ourselves becoming contemptuous of the familiar.

There is however more than one way in which to seek the Lord’s presence, and perhaps Matthew 25 vv35-36 expresses it elliptically. The Lord is to be found in the naked, the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the imprisoned and the stranger.

We may find it difficult to seek our powerful God among the weak and destitute, in the ‘other’. Yet He is God of all, not just a chosen few. Jesus was after all born to a young woman barely into her teens and in the humblest of situations: in an animal house, where his crib was a food box. Dressed in swathing bands, he was naked in the sense of too poor for the rich clothing we might have expected for him. He was among strangers and was soon to be exiled to avoid Herod’s slaughter. Such was the condition of his birth, and such is the condition in which we find him still.

Finding the Lord in the least of his subjects, our responsibility and our duty is clear. It is not that in order to save ourselves we must offer alms to the poor: it is that in looking after these we offer them a glimpse of His glory reflected in our compassion for them. ‘Compassion’: that gut-twisting feeling that enough is enough and we must be the change we want to see. In such acts of ministry we begin to help others to perceive the Lord’s strength and to wish to join us in seeking him continually in a blessèd unending cycle of building His kingdom on earth.

Seek his presence continually.

Choices, choices

I don't like coffee, but I understand that sometimes people who do so suffer an overabundance of the bean. I don't mean addiction; I mean when you ask for a coffee and get offered cappuccino, americano, latte and so on. You choose latte and are offered skinny or full-fat. You choose full-fat and are offered 'sprinkles'. Suddenly the choices overwhelm, and you explode into "Just give me a b****y coffee!"

I'm writing this at Greenbelt, where there is a superabundance of theology, of dogma, of worship, of talks, and of causes to sign up to or protest against. I fail in my attempt to get into a talk on new monasticism and find myself instead, irony of ironies, going to get my iPhone charged.

And I wonder: "Am I missing out because of the choices that baffle and bewilder?
Yet in the background I hear the infectious beat of Rend Collective Experiment on the main stage. I catch phrases from the talk I'm missing but will be able to catch on mp3. A 'flash mob' has just burst into 'Amazing Love' right next to me. And I find myself inspired by the artistic efforts of unsung volunteers to sign-post the venues around me.
Inspired. Look up the root of that word, and look up the Greek for Holy Spirit.
No choice. Good choice.

Stand Up for Jesus

John the Baptist's vocation in the wilderness, that place where human frailty is laid bare, is the vocation of all Christians in these troubled times. We are surrounded by doubters and scoffers, and perhaps we lack the rhetorical skills to argue for our faith.

Yet we all possess choice in how we respond to our personal form of wilderness. We can each of us choose how to relate to those around us. In this lies the ability to put forward the Christian viewpoint to its fullest measure: that we love each other as ourselves, and that we love the Lord our God with all that we are.

The Word of life which was from the beginning we proclaim to you (from 1 John 1).

Steps to Heaven

I heard yesterday of a man who wasn’t sure he wanted to go to heaven. In heaven, the man thought, he’d get to know everything, and wouldn’t that be boring.

The knowledge we have or aspire to in our lives is perhaps a red herring. Take one of the pieces of knowledge that passed me by as a bachelor and is of no use to me as a happily married man: the finger of the hand upon which a wedding band is worn in western society. I’d have to Google it to find out, but what then would I do with my new-found knowledge?

When a Sadducee asks Jesus about the man who’s six brothers each in turn marry his childless widow, and wonders who in heaven is married to whom, the reply is that no-one in heaven is married or given in marriage. It’s an activity irrelevant to the kingdom of heaven, so the question has no bearing on the truth of resurrection.

I’ve just watched a TV interview with a couple whose son died possibly as a result of mismanagement in the hospital to which he was admitted after a road accident. They wanted, as so many grieving parents, spouses, siblings and friends have wanted before, some ‘answers’. My fear is that no answer they get will have relevance to their relationship with their child now or in the time which is to come: a relationship in which they preserve his bedroom as it was in his life. For no-one in a position to give them answers in the medical or managerial circumstances of their son’s death is in a position to know the questions that underlie their grief, their 'un-knowing'. The One who might is God of the living, not of the dead, and his only answer in this age is to try to wrap them in love and thereby to chance rejection.

The 'love that will not let me go' is not a clinging desperate and somewhat forlorn love that we might have in our loss of someone dear to us, but rather a blessed assurance and hope that is bestowed on us even when we are lost to He who holds us dear. Such assurance and hope can only have relevance in the sureness and certainty of resurrection.

Avoiding the Void

When I first started college, a number of us were taken aside by one of the staff and told about one of our fellow students. She was, it seems, terrified of stairs. Since the college’s one lift was prone to be out of order, this was a problem.

Those of us let in on the issue were advised that if we should happen across her near the stair well, we should engage her in conversation. Doing so would enable her to move gently up or down the stairs. If we placed her between us and the walls she could overcome her fear for the time taken to get to the floor she needed.

Now I describe myself as a pretty poor conversationalist. Indeed perhaps conversation is to me my terrifying staircase, and I often feel sorry for the poor stranger sat next to me at a dinner party. Yet given a purpose, such as helping a fellow creature get through a difficulty of their own, I seem to be able to cope. Perhaps purpose is what I need to have walk between me and the chasm of chit-chat.

At any rate, how wonderful it seems to me that our weaknesses may be enablers for others. That surely should help us to recognize the many ways we may go forth to love and serve the Lord in the name of Christ, Amen.

Rock the baby

Pulpit abuse can come all too readily, and so here is the sermon I'd like to give but am unlikely ever to have the right or opportunity, since for some people it would be just too close to home.

"Reverend Pringle was rector of the small rural benefice of Little Snoring, and he had but two parishes in his cure. These were St Martin the Little, and its neighbour St Edmund the King.

"Now despite their names, there was on the face of things hardly anything to distinguish between these two churches. Both had the same small number of church members, and both the same attendance levels. Both had (just about) working PCCs who struggled but always managed to pay their parish share in full and on time. Indeed it is scarcely worth mentioning the only difference on paper, which was that worship at St Martin the Little was predominantly, though not exclusively, Book of Common Prayer in traditional language. At St Edmund the King's, however, they had decided years ago to use modern language Common Worship services of the Word.

"One day, Reverend Pringle's rural idyll was smashed by the ringing of his telephone. It was Bishop Pugh of Soddemall, who got straight to the point. 'Pringle, you've known for years that two church buildings and all their services are just not sustainable. You've got until the end of the week to make your choice, and then we're going to implement it'.

"Pringle was horrified. As I've said, on paper there was little to choose between the two parishes. He took himself off to his study, where perhaps some prayerful Bible reflection might help.

"Pringle's mind then fell upon the story of Solomon's decision in the case of two women both of whom claimed a baby as their own. That seemingly macabre but very intelligent suggestion of Solomon, that the baby be sliced in half, was boon to the false mother who would gladly have half a baby than none at all, but aweful to the true mother who realized that half a baby could never be nurtured and grow and hopefully bear fruit of its own womb.

"Then Reverend Pringle reflected on a curious thing. Whenever he had a team service at St Martin's, it was well attended by members of both churches. Yet whenever the team service was held at St Edmund's, the members of St Martin's church were noticeable by their absence: until that is they darkened Pringle's door to suggest, huffily, that they were sure they could have found someone to lead a service at their own church if they'd been allowed.

"And so it was that the Reverend Pringle, Rector of Little Snoring, knew that one of his two churches was a clear and rightful mother with every wish to see the Kingdom of God nurtured and grow and bear fruit. He picked up the phone, ready to give his decision to Bishop Pugh.

"Now allegory is a fragile thing. If you believe that my little story is a barbed attack on this church, you have one easy means of discrediting it. All you need to do is imagine yourself in the story, with Reverend Pringle asking you when it was that you last attended a team service. Think carefully on what your answer means to the verity of this sorrowful tale".

Let's hear it for the team ...

I should have seen it coming, but didn't until I was already falling on my face. I had just arrived to help with some admin work when the client's rep asked me if I was on the team. "No", I replied: "I'm just temping."

I stood dumbstruck at my own stupidity. The one thing I had been frightened of doing was to somehow damage the good name of my friend's business, and here I was distancing myself from it.

Yet the upshot of that boob was to make me believe that from that moment on, actually I WAS on the team. Each candidate I met and greeted I did so firmly of the opinion that I had a job to do and do it to the best of my ability.

Now this friend and I had spoken only a week or two earlier of how neither of us is a confident networker or socializer. I'd told her how in a room full of strangers I'll gravitate to the one person I know, or find the food, at a loss how else to behave. Yet in my temporary role of 'meeter and greeter' for her client's job applicants, I donned the mantle of the role with ease. Rather than being a fumbling dullard with no conversation, I was asking them about their journey, their comfort, and helping them prepare for their interviews.

Oh how I need to do this as a Christian: to somehow understand my role and to be a credit to my Lord and my Saviour, bringing people to his Kingdom.

A Little Bit of Bread ...

A congregation have, despite having heard me preach, been kind enough to ask me back again. I'm not so full of myself as to overlook the possibility that in an interregnum and with dwindling numbers of ordained and lay preachers I'm simply better than nothing. Accordingly, I've turned to Mark Tanner's book How to Write a Good Sermon for guidance as to how I might improve.

Tanner says that only a disciple can preach, and the first thing he says he means by this is that I must live my faith. Put another way, he is saying 'practice what you preach' else, he warns, you are not a preacher but a commentator, an observer, or a critic. And as he says "we have enough of those already".

I know what he means. I have said on a number of occasions over the last year or so that it is some time since I've heard a Yellowhammer locally. Rory McGrath in his Great Bearded Tit is scornful of the mnemonic attached to this bird, but for me it's 'a-little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheese' is very helpful as an identifier. And indeed it must be a good few years since I've heard that call along the local hedgerows.

Except that by holding forth on the subject I am falling into the human trait of implying that of course I am a fount of naturalist knowledge, a twitcher par excellence and whose opinion is worthy of note. The truth is plainer: I haven't delighted in the countryside around me to the extent that I would place myself where I might actually hear a Yellowhammer.

Today I walked up the escarpment overlooking our village, and sat and watched and listened. I heard no Yellowhammers, but since the Daffodils too are late out, perhaps that is not unusual only half-way through March.

As I sat reflecting, I recalled a meeting last week in which someone took a 'pop' at civil servants. Being an ex-civil servant I felt my hackles rise, but I kept my counsel and thought about times when perhaps I too have let slip a judgemental comment and unwittingly caused offence.

Jesus told us to love God and to love each other as ourselves. If we take exception to everything unthinkingly blurted out, perhaps even blogged, we dig ourselves a deep furrow from which it is hard to escape. Still less to enjoy God's bounty as it sings to us from the hedgerows.

Hush my Mouth

How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land (Ps 137.4)? I pray regularly "O Lord, open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise" in Morning Prayer. Yet how often do I succeed in that simple aim, that whenever I speak (or write) I should reflect God's glory? For that, I believe, is what this simple verse and response is about.

It is 3 years since my bishop accepted me for training for the priesthood, but ringing in my ears as I met him that Candlemas morning were the closing words of the Communion liturgy I'd just participated in. In particular it was on my mind that even had he said no that day, "go in peace to love and serve the Lord" was quite 'heavy' enough, let alone any 'special' requirement of the priesthood.

All Christians have such a burden, though some perhaps bear it light even before they appreciate how Christ's death loosens it for them.I despair on hearing some so-called Christians bickering about others, especially their priests. The nagging thoughts that cross my mind are, firstly, how badly do I too fare in treating others with respect? Secondly, since I am slow to challenge others who behave so badly, what might I do to bring about that unity of discipleship Jesus sought for the benefit of the world (John 17.21, 23)?

Projection

From time to time someone is kind enough to compliment me on my singing. On some such occasions it crosses my mind that they haven't actually heard me, but then I'm usually thinking of solo performance whereas they perhaps are more generally referring to, say, congregational or possibly pub singing. At any rate, just before Christmas I decided that I needed to not just call myself a singer but to do all the things that might support this apparent gift. So far I've not been very good at a daily practice regime, but I have done reasonably well at breathing exercises. In a book by Gloria Rusch (The Professional Singer's Handbook) I found an exercise based on the work of E. Herbert-Caesari with respect to building lung capacity and breath control. These are foundational to good singing, but now that I'm no longer a brass musician (itself a good way of improving both), they need attention.

Currently, three times a day for 5 minutes at a time I inhale for 8 seconds, hold my breath for 8 seconds, then exhale for 8 seconds then repeat. My target is, by increasing each part of the breath by 2 seconds a week, to reach 20 seconds.

This morning I found myself in mid-exercise thinking how similar to Daily Prayer this whole exercise is. Principally I had in mind the discipline. I haven't managed 3 breathing exercises every day since starting. Indeed some days I haven't done one. As with the exercises, so with my prayer which has been somewhat fitful of late.

To some people a disciplined prayer life might be anathema, but my experience is that more regular I am with my prayer life the more capable I am of extempore prayer as needed through the day.

This morning's New Testament reading was Matthew 21:18-32, including the parable of the 2 sons asked to go and work in their father's vineyard. A commentary I read afterwards somewhat confusingly described the activities of the 2 sons in reverse order (so the first-mentioned in the Bible was referred to secondly, and as the 'second' son, in the commentary).

I found this irksome and to me a sign of an ill-disciplined approach to theology. Then I recalled the suspicion I had the last time I led Evening Prayer that I'd given absolution: an error I'm quick to notice in others, but evidently not in myself. Perhaps like the second son (in the Bible's order of events), I'm quick to espouse but slow to act.

May God grant me the persistence to use all the gifts he bestows on me, and not to just talk about them.

Littorally Speaking

I tend to take things literally. If you meet me and ask how I am, you won't get a polite 'fine, thank you' but the low-down on my current state of social physical or mental health.

The other day I received an email that had me going - I just HAD to reply. The originator of it was gracious when replying to my rant in pointing out that he had liberally spread his email with irony and sarcasm, and so trying to dig myself out of the hole I suggested that at least I don't make the mistake of taking the Bible too literally. His reply was that at times we ought indeed to read the Bible so.

I wonder if that stands for the liturgy too? What I have in mind is Holy Communion.

I had the privilege yesterday of hearing the words of consecration given over the additional wine poured because I had run out while assisting (a miracle!). I don't believe in transubstantiation, so when I'm handing someone the chalice and saying 'the blood of Christ, shed for you' or some variation I am not in my mind handing my Saviour's blood around.

However I do find it a joyful act. I smile, if only inwardly, as I take part in the act. It is for me a sacrament of love, shared with people I may not know but with whom I have come together in representation of Jesus' last meal. And it represents the great gift given freely, which just makes my humble part in it so much more fantastic.

So too the Peace which precedes the sharing of the bread and wine. It is for me rather more than a quick shake of the hands and move on quickly. If I happen to have found myself thinking rather poorly of someone and they are in the congregation, then for me their's is the first and most important peace to share. Further, the down side of serving at Communion is that I seldom get to share the Peace with everyone before I have to join the priest in preparing the elements.

Love is ever present in Holy Communion. And God is Love. So maybe transubstantiation is literally true after all.