Around the World in Ninetyish Days

Size Matters

2011-04-05T15:26:00.000-07:00

Tonight I have been to Bishop’s council where we have been discussing the joining of three dioceses: Bradford, Ripon and Leeds and Wakefield. It’s a very emotive subject, in other words in some ways everybody loses and so everybody is equally unhappy about it.

I must say that it was being discussed in quite a grown up way with a lot of humour and good grace. As if to emphasise the problems our diocese has in order to have this meeting of an hour and a half I had to go on a hour and a half journey.

There was an interesting discussion as to whether we ought to be turning three diocese into one or whether it would be better to have six diocese. It was pointed out that just as the rest of the world was abandoning mega organisations the church was discovering them.

Is small beautiful? In terms of effectiveness probably yes.

Is big beautiful? In terms of finances probably yes.

So what we need is a big organisation for finances and a small one for effectiveness.

Hmmmn.

It turns out that size does matter after all.

Anyone fancy medium sized?

I'm moving!

2009-09-24T14:06:00.000-07:00

For those of you who keep asking why I am not blogging the waiting is over.

But you will have to retune to www.enterprisejames.blogspot.com

Easier to type and on a slightly different topic.

I hope you enjoy.

James

turning pink

2009-06-24T02:43:00.000-07:00

My son having finished his exams and begun to turn from white to pinkish as he is exposed to the elements again. Watching him go through exams brings back that sickening feeling I had when I did mine...
The prayer I prayed, "lord don't teach me a lesson this time"
The deals I made... "one more page and then another polo mint."
But above all that sense of guilt that there must be something more I should have done.
I guess that still drives me now.
In the meantime the boy has a new suit, shirt and tie and is about to get his hair cut... Ready to face that other nightmare of my youth... Dances.

I must try and hide my fear on his behalf, after all I met his mum at a school dance. Who knows what could change tonight?
Maybe just another opportunity to turn a bit more pink!

The value of sleep

2009-06-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

The end of another overwhelming week sends me back to the blog and try and make some sense of it all. The highlight of the week is the progression of the hall project and the arrival of the lighting posts on the square. They are very big! When you chose these things they are three centimetres tall and in a catalogue. They arrive five metres tall and nearly as big as the hall. There are a forest of them too, I think there may be some noisy discussion about them… well at least they make the trees look small.
The depth of the week came when I took a funeral of a young man who had ended his own life. Thursday lunchtime saw hundreds of people of all ages packed the church as all of us felt the weight of what had happened. There was no anger, there was little despair, there was a lot of love. We listened to his friends, we heard his music and we found comfort in the passage from Romans that tells us… “nothing can separate us from the love of God” not even I declared what we do to ourselves or what is done to us.
By three o’clock I was home and turning grey, by the time Catherine was home I was despatched to bed to sleep for twelve hours. The exhaustion came from sheer emotion and trying to carry a community in it’s grief.
A better day today, it's amazing what sleep can do. Talking of which it's time for bed.

learning

2009-06-05T12:36:00.000-07:00

It's been a complex few weeks as what I predicted at the AGM has begun to happen. Tiny cracks and fissures begin to open up as project fatigue begins to bite.
It's because, I think people have forgotten how bad things were before we started but are niggled by the fact that it's not perfect yet.
There's an argument that this is the period of the churches history... Caught between the now of Jesus coming and the not yet of his return to finish the job.
I am reminded of what Desmond Tutu said when asked what Nelson Mandela had achieved in his long imprisonment... "he learnt to forgive."
I hope that we are learning that too.

Consultation

2009-05-24T15:33:00.000-07:00

I have had a cough/cold now for over a week and so I am still punctuating everything I say with a… cough. It’s half term which give me opportunity to catch up on a few missed days off.

There was quite a bit of discussion this morning at church about the three sculptures that have been submitted for the square. Two are a bit phallic and one is a bit boring seemed to be the verdict but they haven’t seen the full set of documents yet nor met the sculptors so hopefully there’s time yet. The biggest criticism is that they are not very Christian or more precisely they are not explicit enough in their symbolism.

This is a hard one… is St Paul’s Cathedral explicitly Christian? A church tower, a spire a Celtic cross which many claim is pagan in origin.

“We don’t want to have to explain it to people” someone said.

It’s going to be an interesting few weeks as we “consult” which is the latest euphemism for having a friendly row!

Doing our best

2009-05-14T06:13:00.000-07:00

It has been a week of meetings trying to hold everything together.
It takes a lot of energy to do this. Much of this work would be greatly helped by everyone involved assuming that everyone else involved was actually trying to do their best.
We are trained to be suspicious of each other by the media, by our culture, and sadly by our experience of being let down. It's part of the Christian discipline to forgive and begin again and one which I will continue to have to practice.

Niggles

2009-05-10T12:44:00.000-07:00

A niggly kind of day...
The heating is off for its summer holiday and those who have cast a clout even though May is not out are complaining at the cold in church.
"why are there not double sinks in the kitchen?"
"because we have a dishwasher."
This is afternoon things improve with youth group spending a cheerful couple of hours planning a prayer space upstairs in the new hall.
Then off to visit my son Ben in hospital, a bit sore and a lot miserable at a post operative infection raging through his body. At the end of the visit he is able to walk us to the lift and give us big hugs. Once again I am struck by the way in which the sick care for the well.
Now I am back at church enjoying a concert by really good amateurs and reflecting on the beauty of the church and valuing space and stillness in a mad busy day.
I have just won a coffee cake in a raffle, life is improving!

Democracy Matters

2009-04-30T10:49:00.000-07:00

To Huddersfield to hear David Steele, a great old political warhorse. "Education is the key to propper democracy" being one of his key themes. Each country has to find it's own way of doing democracy. It made me think about Yemen and whether there could be a tribal way of doing democracy... In this country real democracy could do with being as localised as possible. Where town villages and cites still have meaning and force in people's lives then they should be the places where decisions are made.
As we become a less mobile population we might need to return to the concept of the parish.
Top quote for the evening belongs to Harold Wilson in whose name the lecture took place.
“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.”

Benchmark

2009-04-22T05:26:00.000-07:00

A weeks holiday in Cornwall and it's back to work with a bump and flurry of activity centred on the hall project.
The square is beginning to take place and I am currently sat on one of the new benches in the sunshine drinking ginger beer and wondering if life gets any better.
This morning we have been with the finance people from Yorkshire Forward thinking we may need to do the hard sell on what remains of the project... As it turns out unnecessarily as it turns out what has so far been achieved sells itself.
The next big task, as well as finishing is to learn how to make this work. Like people moving from a pushbike to a Ferrari it's going to be hard to raise our game, but our journey so far encourages me to be hopeful.

An Inconvenient Truth

2009-04-10T11:53:00.000-07:00

Holy Week is never easy for christians , not for what you might expect although it is a month of Sundays.
Okay a week of Sundays!
Rather because it makes us face up to two aweful truths, our sin and what it cost Jesus to deal with it.
What's hard for me is not so much the dying but the suffering of Jesus...
It goes on and on like a car crash in slow motion with us helpless spectator.
It's Friday but Sundays coming!

Code of Silence

2009-04-09T07:04:00.000-07:00

I am destined to blog while waiting... Today I am in Nathan's barbers with a queue of seven slighlty reluctant men. There's no coffee, no flowers just a slightly foggy goldfish bowl and a rare collection of car magasines.
We sit in silence and try not to catch one another's eye. Forty minutes have passed already and nobody has yet to break the code of silence.
My phone goes and I have to answer... Catherine is in a café but I am holding my ground.

leaving

2009-04-04T10:01:00.000-07:00

Much rejoicing and hard work today as we move my son and his wife out of our house into their new home. It's very exciting as dismantle a balcony and bring a sofa in through the window... Risk assessments were made but so long as it was me up a ladder the removal men were happy!
A first home, even a rented one is an important step, and although they have done this once already to their flat in London the house seems especially exciting.
Makes me think about the numerous people for whom the crunch means this is an impossible dream.
The bible has no formula for a wedding but that someone leaves their family and cleaves to their wife.
Today feels like a proper leaving and a lovely thing too!

Finished

2009-04-03T03:24:00.000-07:00

My thoughts in yesterday's blog became this magasine article today.
Wh oknows what they might become next!

Out of the Ordinary – Finished!
I wish I had a pound for every time someone asked me when the work at Mytholmroyd would be finished. It sounds such an easy question but it is actually very hard to answer. Of course with any building projects you have deadlines and builder’s promises but it is never an exact science. If I had another five pound for every time someone asked me if or when we were going to start work on the church in Cragg Vale I would be very rich indeed. The answer to both is that I don’t know, but also in a way I am not that bothered.
Generally speaking I don’t like finishing things, preferring the ongoing story rather than the complete one. I think that’s why when it comes to novels I like to read ones that are part of a series, so that after you have invested a great deal of effort in getting to know a character you are able to continue the relationship in the next book. My son, an avid reader, is always really sad when he finishes a book that he won’t continue the friendship with the characters he has met. Maybe that’s the attraction of soap operas, we never have to say goodbye.
It’s the run up to Easter and one thing has struck me this year about the words of Jesus on the cross. At the very end he says: “It is finished” and then he dies. Scholars have debated for ages about what he meant. The obvious understanding would be that his life is finished. However he doesn’t say “I am finished!” but “it is finished.” The consensus now is that Jesus was saying that he has finished the job he came to do.
Earlier in John’s Gospel we read the very familiar words that outline Jesus’ mission: “
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. John 3:16-17 (KJV)
Jesus came to save the world and the cross was the means by which he did it. Somehow he took the punishment, which because of our sin was meant to be ours, on himself: replacing us at the last minute because of his love.
Like all the best stories although the work was done the story continued with the resurrection. The work and the story continue in us as we find our way to Jesus and experience that new life for ourselves.
“It is finished!” the last words of the story of our salvation but not the last words of our relationship with God through Jesus.
I hope that you find you place in God’s story this Easter time and that you remain, like me, a work in progress.

finishing

2009-04-02T07:35:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I sat still as day molded into night into sleep and back again.
I am sat in a café waiting for Catherine to finish work so that I can take her home. We are down to one car which takes some organising. It's been an interesting morning with a small group of Rural Deans who on the whole are a positive bunch but like everyone else are capable of joining the chorus of "Nobody knows the trouble I see."
The first draft of the book is printed and there for anyone to see. I haven't had the courage to show it to anyone yet though I have pointed at it!
Finishing things is hard...
Everything except blogs!

Passion

2009-03-26T15:36:00.001-07:00

Back to what I know and do best today with a combination of storytelling, project encouragement, and healing rifts around my two parishes. I always forget that when I am a bit fed up visiting people cheers me up… people are what I am passionate about… so being with people reconnects me with my vocation.
Yesterday I was talking with a group of clergy about passion when someone became very upset. I think what pushed the button was thinking about passions, clearly many of those present felt that what they were passionate about as clergy had been blocked out by the other things they were being asked to do.
Today I talked to a brilliant teacher who felt that they were being forced out of working with the children that they loved in order to deal with all the other stuff thrown at them by their job.
Are we destined to lose the bit of the job we love in order to do the job we get paid for?
I hope not… today I was able to be the working, passionate priest out and about helping people.
No wonder I feel better.

Betraying the other woman

2009-03-23T05:02:00.000-07:00

Still trying to shake off Sunday... Mothers's Day, Mothering Sunday on which I was inflicted with that disaster for vicars a loss of my voice.
I ended up oscilating between Barry White and Barry Humphries!
Comedy voices appart it was the first "significant" Sunday in ages since the sabbatical when I have been not present at one of my churches. It felt a bit weird to get up late and only visit one of the two communities I hang out with. How people cope when they have a multiplicity of congregations cope I don't know.
Catherine always reckons that Cragg is my other woman... I missed her yesterday and so next week I'll need to take flowers.

Friendship

2009-03-19T08:47:00.000-07:00

To Halifax and Calderdale Council's health scrutiny committee with a friend of mine who is transgender. She has had a hard journey to find out who she is and I have been a distant support as best I could. It is a journey that I wouldn't recommend to anyone, in all departments it's a painful journey.
What Clare has needed has been friendship... Or as they call them "people who give unconditional positive regard."
It's been hard for me not to wade in with an unhelpful prophetic voise in what has been a pastoral situation.
As I sat with a slightly mottley and yet heroic collection of humanity I allowed myself a moment of reflection of how this would appear to others only to stop myself. What others will think is always the wrong question. The right question is always what's right.

leadership

2009-03-17T02:48:00.000-07:00

It's been an interesting evening with PCC at Cragg with lots of positive talk about stuff and plans for the future. With it came a discussion about pastoral support which got a bit personal.
It brought up an age old problem of those in leadership... To what extent does your competency make others incompetent? If a church has a gifted evangelist does that mean others stop sharing their faith? If a community has an effective project champion does that mean that nobody else need drive it forward? I always thought that effective leadership was that which lead by example... You model by good example and people do as you do and not just as you say.
Paul writes of Jesus that he emptied himself taking the form of a servant. Deliberately Jesus chooses to be less so that we might be more. He chose to leave his people so that we might grow up and with the help of the Holy Spirit change the world.
Today I am on a train running away to Manchester to see a film about superhumans...that should bring me back down to earth.

1970's revisited

2009-03-14T04:05:00.000-07:00

A historic meeting of Catholics and Anglicans in wakefield draws together a great crowd looking at each other and realising that we are alike.
It seems very important in this week when we have seen violence in Ireland again. Is it just me or have we just leapt back fo the 1970s?
We have a recession.
We have violence in Ireland.
There is even talk of opening the mines in South Yorkshire!

Not the same because we meet today in wakefield Catholics and Anglicans.
We build or business centre in our church.
Both communities in Ireland are not rising to the call to arms.
As the bishop said:"We are not strangers but friends."

Roller Coaster

2009-03-13T16:42:00.000-07:00

It's Friday night and as catherine sleeps soundly I finally get time to reflect on a week which has included several top level meetings and in my day job a funeral today of someone who took their own life.
Many years ago, another time, another lifetime really I can remember getting fed up with the sheer effort of living. I went to a talk, the speaker said: "if you don't want your life give it to someone else."
For me it was a start of a roller coaster life that saw me in the centre of Manchester, working with students and coming to Mytholmroyd.
I am still working out the consequences of 'giving my life away.'

Dancing on buses

2009-03-04T07:13:00.000-08:00

I am on the bouncy bus to halifax with the slight smell of exhaust fumes on the back seat compensated by being able to look at everybody. It's snowing! Thw bus is a collection of the young and old with me probably the only one on board travelling the old fashioned way with cash. I've never been one for the upstairs of buses probably a remnant from when that was a shortcut to nicitine addiction.
It's been a calmer day so far, with a great deal of fun chosing hymns with my organist Denis this morning.
"Donald won't like that one!" he says.
I reply that as far as I know we're not trying to please Donald!
Set me to contemplating who we are trying to please with our worship.
Is God really sat in heaven like a cosmic simon cowell.
"oh, I like that one" God says as we burst into Thine be the glory.
I like the idea of worship being like a dance. We make a stumbling kind of a move and God ever the expert dancer is able through their skill to make us look good.
I suddenly have a vision of the people on the bus as sitting like wallflowers round the room while God and I take the floor.
So to the wall flowers around the edge... I wish I had the guts to ask
Come and join us in the dance.

Two days in one

2009-03-03T17:06:00.000-08:00

I have just finished two days work in one day. It didn't happen intentially I just left the house this morning at 8.30 to Scout Road School to look around the new extension now everybody's settled into it. It already looks like home to the children and staff and its friendly learning buzz and creative clutter was quite infectious.
Back to home to print off papers and off to lead clergy chapter in a cheerful lunchtme meeting looking at our plans for the restructuring of the deanery.
An important pastoral one to one was followed by a 4.00p.m. Chairing of a meeting with British Waterways and a few excited people to talk about the linear park based on the canal.
6.00p.m. I snatch 25 minutes for the loo and a ready meal from the local shop then the handover meeting for the new church treasurer.
8.00 p.m. pastoral chat about life the universe and children then a pick up and return home for 10.30p.m.
An hour picking up e-mails and making phone calls before bath and now bed.
Fifteen hours leaves me energised and busy headed and prayerful as I review the day and pray for those I met.

Fasting

2009-03-02T08:40:00.000-08:00

Sat waiting for my sons music lesson to start and finish. Feeling a bit brighter and therefore bloggy after a few days of darkness. The beginning of Lent is always a bit hard as you switch into the new discipline.
I am trying something new with a stab at fasting. I always felt in the past that fasting was the Violet Elizabeth approach to prayer. If God doesn't give you what you want you'll scream and scream and make youself sick. Of course it's not that but rather something which frees you to think and pray...
Mostly I am thinking about
Food!
Not really: So far so good.
only problem is you're not supposed to tell anyone.Try refusing Lunch without saying why!

Men

2009-02-28T12:59:00.000-08:00

Catherine was away for a christian women's conference today in Harrogate. One of the men said to me yesterday "perhaps we should have organised something for the men?" Everybody agreed but then we all smiled knowing full well it wouldn't happen.
Not sure why men are so bad at building friendships but it must be something to do with our lack of enthusiasm for organising them.
Maybe when we create our new square it will give us an excuse to get together...
No, I am not convinced either.

water

2009-02-25T14:19:00.000-08:00

We are having water problems as the pipes burst and the nice big hole that is waiting for our concrete foundations transforms itself into an outdoor swimming pool... Again. It's the fourth time this week and it's starting to get a bit scary for finishing at the end of March.
I can't remember who said that what affected politics most was events but the same goes for projects as well.
It is impossible to plan for crises but the best teams, and ours is pretty good rise to the occasion.

The word is that we can pour the concrete this week...

Sunday

2009-02-22T16:30:00.000-08:00

Today has been a funny day... Sunday's usually are.
Church found us finally back in the church after our waterworks crisis which is still not completely over.
Then lunch with a lovely couple to discuss their marriage,they seem really happy and as friends it's nice to see them grow in love.
Then on to the end of a lady's 52 year marriage with her husband's death.
I am always amazed to hear people's work path.
Navy at 17 leaving Mytholmroyd for the tail end of war with Japan.
Metropolitan police at 22 where he had to grow a moustache because he looked too young.
At 24 he was sent to a convalescent home to recover from TB he had contracted from tramps and "other low life."
At 26 and with only.one lung he was sent back north "back to his native air" on doctor's recommendation.
At 27 he trained as a bookeeper, going on to be the finance director of a local large firm.
I wonder what some of our local finance sector would make of this man's ability to switch career.
I wonder what I would have done with his disabilities.
His final act of generosity was to leave his body to science... We need a few more like him.

crunched

2009-02-19T13:18:00.000-08:00

After the trauma of yesterday's funeral a day out today to Hull to do a risk assessment for my wife's school visit to the Deep. The Deep is a regeneration project and a very beautiful modern building.
As a project it appears to be a great success as they were queuing around the car park.
We decided to go to the café and shop as it would have cost us £27 for three of us! But still it was very good!
On the way back we called into Beverley... A proper market town although a little credit crunched. so shut woolworths, shut viyella and numeerous other chains shut.
It made me glad that Hebden Bridge has independent shops.

sitting on the porch waiting for spring

2009-02-17T12:39:00.000-08:00

I am sat outside someone's house having arrived early for a meeting. It's been a tough week, although it shouldn't be as it's half term and technically quieter. It's preparing for my aunt's funeral that is really taking it out of me.
I have just come away from a meeting of Royd Regeneration one of the companies I am invovled in. It has been mostly good news tonight or at least glimmers of hope.
It feels very spring like as I listen to the bell ringers practising and the sound of returning geese flying by.
It feels very spring like as projects start to grow.
We are ready for a change.

Faith Led Regeneration Honoured by Prime Ministerial Visit

2009-02-12T13:00:00.000-08:00

The news is full of the third sector as the government promises to give more money to help with the recession hit charities. On the governments website there is a lovely video from Bromley by Bow centre at which the initiative is announced in the following way:
Liam Byrne, Minister for the Cabinet Office, said:
“We’ve doubled government help to charities, voluntary group and social enterprises from £5.5 billion to over £11 billion. That means these vital groups face the downturn with unprecedented strength.
“The best of the British spirit is the way we pull together when times are tough. And its Britain’s charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises that so often make that happen.
“We’ve been monitoring daily what’s happening to donations and demands for new services, and with incredible support from the sector we’re launching a lazer-targeted package of help with tens of millions extra for charities providing employment advice, mental health and family support services in the most deprived areas of England and Wales, plus millions extra to help those out of work start volunteering.”
“Britain can beat this downturn. Just like we’ve beaten everything else this world has thrown at us in the decades gone by. But we’ll win by pulling together. Not by facing the storm alone”.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/news/news_stories/090209_real_help.aspx

It’s a lovely promise, but what a shame that at no point is it mentioned in any new report that Bromley By Bowe is a faith led community enterprise, set up by United Reformed Minister Andrew Mawson, now Lord Mawson. The contribution of faith to regeneration once again lost in the phrase Third Sector.
I spotted Lord Mawson in the back of the photos, smiling I think at yet another government initiative launched at Bromley by Bowe and ignoring its principals and origin.
Does it matter?
Probably not, but it would be a tremendous encouragement to those of us who have glimpsed a vision of Faith led Renaissance and started to build if we had a star to look at.

2009-02-12T12:53:00.000-08:00

My last night in York and 15000 words are the cause of a celebratory visit to evensong and Bettys where the pianist plays New York, New York with no irony as the snow falls. It has been another great adventure and like all the rest it has taught me something about me.
I like writing. It might be rubbish but it's my rubbish!
I met with Margi who is a proper writer and a proper friend, the kind who knows you better than you do.
"Go home and forget it for two weeks " she advises.
David my learning mentor wants to look at it but it's my newborn baby and it doesn't know how to walk yet. Besides I don't have his e-mail with me. So for now it is mine only and for now my audience is found, my audience is me!

TLA'S

2009-02-10T07:46:00.000-08:00

A day out today to touch base with Yorkshire Forward and Regeneration at a conference which was held five minutes walk from the Nunnery. Two hundred people involved in town teams throughout Yorkshire. Common themes throughout Yorkshire are the need for practical support, and some help in talking to local authorities who are over fond of TLA'S.

Three letter acronyms!

The plot thickens

2009-02-09T13:50:00.000-08:00

Turns out the agatha Christie character I met earlier is in fact Sister Agatha! Tonight she helped me find a warmer sitting room and a more comfortable toilet. You don't get this kind of service at a travel lodge.

Murder Mystery

2009-02-09T05:36:00.000-08:00

Is it a sign of the times or the time that for the first time ever I have just walked into Bettys for a cup of coffee and a cake as a reward for another thousand words this morning. Bettys always has a queue, it's part of the experience. I'm not sure I like this lightening service...
Bar Convent is proving to be an ideal place to work although I am not sure why. The room I am in has a kind of benign sensory deprivation as I sit on the bed and work on the "bigger" table man handled into the room last night by probably the poshest housekeeper I have ever met. She had a wonderful Agatha Christie Miss Marple Quality that makes me feel I might be the silent witness in some evolving mystery. Who are the Koreans they are having "so much trouble with" are they beginning to disappear or is it just my imagination... and the biggest mystery of all: where have all the customers in the queue at Bettys gone?
Now you know why I came out for a walk!

Wrong turn, write place

2009-02-08T15:54:00.000-08:00

The day began with a flurry of activity as Sunday usually does. More flurry this time as once again we are in the hall. It was very jolly as it turned out and I felt lifted by being surrounded by this fine beautiful group of people. I hardly had time to recover, no snooze today, before it's on the train to snowy York.
Due to a fault of my map reading, I turned right not left I went round in a circle to the Bar Convent, taking twenty five minutes to get to the convent. I arrived looking like a snowman, and dripped my way into the hospiality of the convent which wrapped me like a great blanket.
Two hours later I am ready for bed and, with 500 words already, ready to write.

Surprises

2009-02-07T15:52:00.000-08:00

Life has it's surprises. Death has them too.
Yesterday morning my Aunty Babs was crossing the road when a driver bumped into her, a low impact, which normally would have led to a paiful time in hospital...
But as she fell... She banged her head so it was to ICU she went. Like the man I had visited before, as I visited her last night she would come round soon.
This morning they switched off her life support and she died.
Shock doesn't express how I feel... Derailed is more like it. In the midst of life there it is... A reminder that 'we are but grass, the wind blows over it and it is gone and its place remembers it no more. But the merciful goodness of the Lord endures.'
I will miss my Aunty Babs.

Audience

2009-02-05T03:52:00.000-08:00

I am on the train to Leeds and the snow is beautiful. It's been a frantic morning with Angels crammed into the church café for warmth. It was very jolly as we sang: " the wise man built his house on the rock and the foolish man built his house on snow." Contextual bible translation!
In a amongst a site meeting is happening in a cold vast hall with the red glow of the psychological heaters... It's a bit fraught but we are getting there as is my train which makes speedy progree to a meeting Rhona at Yorkshire Forward.
I am hoping to clear up what or rather to whom I am writing. Knowing your audience is meant to be the key question when you write... But I have at least three groups in mind: people of faith, people in regeneration, politicians, and of course I am probably writing for my mum!
Whatever, I know I ned to get it out of my system and the energy of that itch that must be scratched will I hope make it happen.

Conversations

2009-02-04T16:17:00.000-08:00

Spent two hours today talking to someone from the diocese about Fraser Teal, my sabbatical. It was helpful as when you explain to someone else you kind of explain to yourself.
I now understand that I have had three life changing people encounters: Sheikh Noah in Yemen, Lyn Arnold in Australia and John Arnold in Michigan.
I have also realised I have three "big ideas" Partnership, planning through, and building capacity. Other issues include the origins of the loss of Confidence in UK faith communities. Suspicion by district councils of churches. Theological reasons for engagement.
There is more ! But I need a few more conversations!

Changed

2009-02-03T15:36:00.000-08:00

I am sat watching a program about comic relief that is talking about how sending actors to places throughout the world has changed their life.
It resonates with the many experiences I have had this last year.
The goodness I have seen in the lives of faithful people.
The tremendous hospitality of ordinary people.
The tremendous uselessness of what passes for government in a lot of places
And the inadequacy of what we are doing here, right now.
And also the tremendous stuff done by a few
And the bright possibilities of changing the world beginning with Mytholmroyd.
Hmmn, still haven’t got it out of my system.

Scary

2009-02-02T14:57:00.000-08:00

I have just done a scary thing.
It wasn’t going for a walk with Catherine in the snow in the dark that was quite delightful actually. It was fun to watch the snow flakes chasing each other around the lamposts adn to slide along in your wellies and boots.
No the scary thing was booking some time away from the parish to write. Next week I am going to spend Sunday to Friday in York working on my publication. It’s a big leap of faith for me in so many ways… almost as much at the trips abroad.
The thing is that after this amazing year I am a sponge full of stuff that I hope could help others and which if I don’t get it out of my system I will always regret. So I am going to Bar Convent and I hope I can work.
But I don't know if I can become a writing machine.
Every walk of a thousand miles…
Every work of a thousand pages (?) begins with just one word…

Any how one things for certain it will answer once and for all the nagging question in many people's minds adn in mine lately:
Could I,
should I
write?

Older Generation

2009-02-01T14:33:00.000-08:00

Sunday and we are decamped into the hall which has large space heater halogen lamps provided by our builders. They emit a warm orange glow, which is meant to make you warm... By the end of the service nobody is quite sure if the warming effect is psychological or real. I discover three old ladies and an elderly gentlenan sat in the coldest part of the building giggling over their cups of tea.
"Why don't you come into the warmth?"
"We went through the war."
As I walk away laughing I hear them laughing back... "young people today, no stamina!"

a Yorkshireman again

2009-01-31T11:54:00.000-08:00

A working party was called this morning to our hall in preparation for next weeks big parish dinner and tomorrows service. It was good to see the place being pollished up as twenty or so worked hard to upgrade from a building site to a church. It's a bit of a challenge as the heat is cut off so we are using portable halogen heaters.
Tonight it's off to Bradford to my mum's for a hearty tea that reminds me of childhood. She is the only person I know who can successfully pull off sausage,lasagne and baked beans.
This is followed by a trip to bradford university to hear a brass band concert that my son is playing in. Suddenly I feel like a Yorkshireman again!
Pass me my flat cap and recapture my whippet!

Drains

2009-01-30T16:03:00.000-08:00

My days seem to be getting longer as I try to squeeze more in... It's taking its toll and I will try and get some time out tomorrow.
There was a lot of fun today as I went to visit a couple at Cragg who are giving thanks for their child. They are unusual even by our local standards as he is from London and she is from Kyoto, Japan though she came here to school when she was fifteen. The baby is very cute and very content gurgling on the carpet and periodically performing her latest trick: rolling over.
There is harder talk as dad explains his role in the global economy in the strategy department of the banking industry.
Their house is on the market and they might go back to Japan which is a pity as talent drains out of our community. Also a pity because this is the first time I have met them in five years they have lived in our community of 600 people.
Reversing this drain needs for us to create community and maybe Sunday will begin to do this for our family as they are introduced to their God and their community.

Unpredictable

2009-01-29T14:49:00.000-08:00

We have hit our first major snag with our building project today.
I am not sure how it works but it goes something like…
our builder sub contracted a plumber who thought he could do the three boilers but despite thinking he could…
he couldn’t so that we now have no heating in the church or the hall.
He has “gone off” and our builders have now had to find another plumber or plumbers (not sure which) to finish the job.
Also the gas board were meant to send three different gas people: number one two three, but man two came before man one and therefore they couldn’t do the job!
I know have to handle the many people who understandably are upset about it.
They are not upset about the snag but rather the unpredicatability of it.
Funny thing, people can cope with change if they know it's coming.

Age

2009-01-28T15:44:00.000-08:00

Another long day and a cold has made it a slightly foggy one. Spent the morning in school doing performance review of the head teacher. Am reminded of something Gervais Finn said on education that we spend too much time weighing the pig and not enough feeding it.
Afternoon saw me taking the funeral of a 97 year old man and left me reflecting on my life as less than half done! He was married to his second wife as long as I have been to Catherine although he didn’t meet her till he was in his seventies. Hard to imagine such a long innings.
Tonight the children made a birthday tea for Catherine who funnily enough is half the age of the man who died…
I probably shouldn’t reveal stuff like that!

Hate

2009-01-27T05:21:00.000-08:00

A bad day, or a good one depending on how you look at it to go to the Race Hate Partnership at Calderdale. Today is hollocaust memorial day and one of the organisers locally has just told me that Muslims are boycottting the event because of Gaza. That the BNP are threatening to disrupt the service and that the police are reporting an increase in antisemitic graffiti.
What can we do...
"Report it to sort it and we will support it."
Not a bad strap line given by a rap poet today.
Hate crime - need to deal with the hate.
Where does hate come from?
Too easy to say difference causes it.
"We don't have a race problem because we are all white here."
Too easy to say it's poverty or background.
In the bible we are told that hate came in when Cain envied Able.
Doesn't help finding another cause.
How do we deal with envy?
An end to it all this happens when as an individual I chose not to hate, I chose not to envy.

Just a bit of fun

2009-01-26T16:02:00.000-08:00

Into school today and one of the kids is full of an incident in which some poor lads pants were pulled down. How they laughed, but the adults present didn't with a shudder as we all recollect similar humiliations in our own childhood. Trying to explain to the kids that just because it's funny doesn't justify doing it.
I come away wondering how many are carrying the scars of these early assaults...
Not just childish pranks I think.
Hard to win the argument when similar humiliations occur on reality tv almost every day.

Todmorden

2009-01-25T15:03:00.000-08:00

To todmorden to a celebration of the work of the churches in community. It was a very impressive affair which I was kind of compering and speaking at.
Over 200 people turned up with a brass band and a local gospel choir as we heard of all that people of faith have done.
I was launching a faithworks group in the hope that clustering these projects together we might be able to finally persuade Calderdale of the significance of the work being done.

Quality Counts

2009-01-24T11:06:00.000-08:00

Harrogate did not disappoint with a visit to the brilliant tea shop Betty's for refreshment.
I don't know what makes it so special. I so suppose technically it's a chain... be it a short one of about four cafes. We had to queue for about half an hour and though the queue added to the sense of anticipation I don't think that made it special. The surroundings were beautiful but they are refurbishing at the moment there was quite a bit of building debry around.
No, what makes Betty's special is the quality of the service and the quality of the food.
Perfect coffee, decaff but tasty and rich...
Perfect cake, butter rich and tasty
Perfect service
Perfect hour spent in good company.
Quality is the easiest bit of the renaissance process for us to forget...
But as with Betty's it's what makes the good...
Great!

unconditional love

2009-01-23T14:57:00.000-08:00

To Harrogate tonight for a short escape from the rigours of the last few weeks. After a sad little funeral of a man whose life has been blighted by alcohol. What was remarkable and very touching was the love of those around him. Friends and family who stuck with him through thick and thin.
It made me think we often talk about people's value in terms of what they've done... Or possibly who they've loved. This man's value was almost entirely wrapped up in who loved him. Maybe that was his purpose in life... to be loved unconditionally.

Enthusiasts

2009-01-22T14:42:00.000-08:00

The budget meeting ended with us in the pub as we gradually turned from political animals into human beings.
The pub closes at 10 pm, a sign of the times.
Tonight I spent a jolly few hours at a regeneration workshop about companies. I met someone who has a project to grow food in Mytholmroyd. Like a couple of kids we swap our enthusiasm for our community and plot to take over the world...
Well not really, but as someone new to business and someone new to providing space to businesses, we can do...

errr....

business together.

budget night

2009-01-21T12:01:00.000-08:00

To the budget meeting of the council tonight for our annual outbreak of politics. Politics only happens when money is involved in our council, the rest of the time we kind of get on with trying to make our community work better.
For an independent councillor like me, it is particularly baffling because the politics has begun before we get to the meeting and the budget has been fixed by one party but because of the rules we can't see the figures.
Are you lost, so am I...
I better concentrate harder.

Hope

2009-01-20T11:12:00.000-08:00

I was moved to tears today by Barach Obama's speech. Don't worry I am generally a bit soppy. I think what moved me most was not the words that he used but the word. HOPE.
It's a tricky word as so much of what we call hope is actually wishes.
The hope he speaks of is not so much the stuff of dreams but the stuff of work. The kind of stuff that gets you up in the morning. The kind of thing that overcomes our natural tendency to despair.
St Paul siads that love hopes and that hope is the right respone to dificult situations. As people of faith we have much to learn from each other and give to the world about hope.

freedom

2009-01-19T00:50:00.000-08:00

Turned out last night that the party was not a wake for Phil and Lisa's dream more like a freedom celebration. It turns out that their pub the Dusty was making money but that it was not enough to compensate them for their lack of quality of life. Work or life was their choice... they chose life.

presence

2009-01-18T11:58:00.000-08:00

Went to a christians together service which are always a bit of a challenge: truly, fourteen people waiting for a meeting to end.
There were some references to world problems and a theme of reconciliation which was hard to criticise.
My mind is elsewhere with Phil and Lisa who run the Dusty Miller, or rather did run it. They transformed our community by their enterprise and hospitality. Now they have to finish, I suspect for financial reasons and they have invited me to a party... I will go to it when I finish here.
Nothing in tonight's service will comfort their pain but maybe the presence of people like me will be the comfort they need.
Presence is a present to others.
I wish I was more present in this service but I am already with Phil and Lisa in my mind.

Crunch

2009-01-17T11:42:00.000-08:00

Finally a sleep in after many, many weeks of business. The morning papers,which I finally get to read, are full of the credit crunch and a bit depressing and a bit funny.
Depressing because no-one has an answer and funny as people come up with money Saving ideas.
This week the interior design is on Caravan chique! Clothes are all retro and recycled. Food is about stretching your budget further.
Somewhere, somehow you can't help feeling that a more serious conversation and a more dramatic change is needed.

real places real people

2009-01-16T13:58:00.000-08:00

It's been a fun day following an annoying start as I bump into a council employee who is snidy about the new design of the square.which he thought both too modern, lots of lines and too old fashioned, traditional materials!
Then after prayer it was off to a cheerful rural deans gathering at the archdeacons house where we discussed clergy deployment. It's so easy to forget in strategic discussions that we are talking about real people and real communities.
I guess that goes for all strategic discussions.

Town Centre Gardener

2009-01-14T14:16:00.001-08:00

Larger Churches consultation today, bringing together some of the bigger churches in our diocese. I guess a meeting that does what it says on the packet. We kind of sneak in there on the back of our multicongregations adding up to the “over 100” that constitutes a big church in our part of the world.
Robert Warren was speaking and as usual he gave us lots of portable stuff to go away and mull over . One of his gems was that churches are not organisations that need managing but rather organisms that need nurturing, vicars are not managers but rather gardeners or doctors or parents.
It did make me think about communities as well. We often talk about managing the community, we even have town centre managers but the reality a Town Centre Doctor or Gardener might be more appropriate.

Partners

2009-01-13T15:11:00.000-08:00

Today a meeting of the UCVR steering group a celebration of all that's going on in regeneration in the valley... quite encouraging really.
It's what's known as a partnership meeting and we all sat round a big table ad shared the good news. We're all on first name terms now, connected because of the journey we have taken togther.
It's taken five years to make a partnership... it would tale very little to break it but we're still here.

Reject.

2009-01-12T14:39:00.000-08:00

She was very angry... at 13 she has been rejected by her natural parents, at war with her adoptive parents and now in trouble with her foster parents... she thinks she will hide for a bit.
Mind you she has been in a fight with another girl over not a lot really and so the school has given her an exclusion order. But because she is at risk she is excluded in attendance, which I don't understand logically but understand pastorally.
I really like the girl, for all her troubles, she sings and dances and smiles and talks non stop and will be a beautiful woman, if she survives.
I pray tonight she will, the world needs more troubled survivors.

Migration

2009-01-11T08:29:00.001-08:00

To Durham and back yesterday to take Rebecca my daughter back to university. It's almost becoming a second home to us. We can even navigate around without the SATNAV.
It's funny seeing her there it really is her other home. She even canvassed their in the last election.
We passed lots of others on the road making the same journey which made me wonder how many other people are of two fixed abodes? Who migrate between places at different times of the year. It's a very common thing. One lady at my church spends six months in Florida and Six months in britain... guess which months! She is fully part of both commuities.
Place is such a big part of who we are it's easy to foget that for others places is their identity. Maybe we shold be a bit less hard on those transient B & B ers as we call them who live their working in the big city and sleep and eat breakfast in the cottages on our hill sides. The challenge is to how we can make a community with those part time members of it.

Scenery

2009-01-09T16:16:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while I am reminded that the scenery that surrounds me is not a painting but a living community. Tonight we had a lovely meal at a couple newly joined our church and living in a half completed barn convertion.
Coming back down the hill proved to be even more exciting than the intrepid journey up there as out of the frosty mist emerged first a herd of cows and in particular a large cow in the middle of the track.
I knew enough about cows not to peep the horn, so I flashed the lights.... No reaction
I edged the car closer the cow stood it's ground...
I moved closer still... the cow eyed me closer still.
If it could have put its hands on its hips in defiance it would have.
I edged even closer and began to wonder if it had third party insurance if it sat on my bonnet.
Then... Victory!
Slowly but surely it edged to one side.
Vicar one, cow nil... Result.
The cows were there because someone had put some hay out for them another part of this living scenery.

Public Art

2009-01-08T14:58:00.000-08:00

We got onto the vexed question of public art today for the square. It’s quite exciting really we have a considerable amount of money put aside in the scheme to create something for the plinth in the middle of the new town square. As a market square we all decided a market cross would be the best idea… but a market cross for the 21st century.
Ooh!
None of us is very sure of what this is but that’s what you need an artist for.
I still like the idea that came up at one meeting to the effect where someone suggested we should have art work so outrageous that everyone talks about that and ignores what else we are doing!

Ever since I heard this I keep walking past public art and wondering whether that’s why it was put there.

Applause

2009-01-07T15:19:00.000-08:00

It’s always the simplest questions that get under our cultural radar and penetrate to the heart of something important.
Like when my four year old asked me when I was at theological college: “Where is God?” I approached my doctrine lecturer who said that was a hard one and over the years I have realised that much of what we think about heaven is not theological but cultural. It’s full of clouds and angels with harps because the Greek heaven was full of these things and we are still essentially a post Greek culture. The bible sees heaven as a city, built by God, with open gates to all point of the compass as a sign of welcome.
Yesterday a good friend asked me why we don’t applaud at funerals. I wasn’t sure but I suspect somewhere deep and culturally funerals are really times for sadness, which is right but also a weird kind of embarrassment because we have failed through our faith, or our intelligence to keep this person alive. Maybe there is a deeper feeling that good people didn’t ought to die and therefore applauding at the funeral, acknowledging that this was a good person, challenges our notions of fairness. If they were good enough to get applause, why weren’t they good enough to live longer?
The bible again is quite clear that our time on earth is fixed by God but is not dependent on our goodness or badness, for all life no matter how short is God’s gift and grace.
Today I conducted the funeral of a youngish father with two small children in front of me. Thinking about what my friend had said about applause I asked the congregation to applaud the diseased so that his children would have something tangible to remember from the service, something that would lodge in their memory to remind them just how much he was loved by others.
It was very moving to see the smiles on their face at this tribute to one of God’s creatures. There might be more applause at future funerals I think.

Famous last words

2009-01-06T16:45:00.001-08:00

Late to bed as I finish off the paperwork for tomorrow's funeral. Bit of a shock when I discover that I am on the radio tomorrow morning. Never sure how you prepare for this, I have been caught out before by radio people who say that they want to talk to you about topic A and actually live on air they ask about topic Z!
Anyhow I don't get too perturbed because it's an internet station which I have never heard of... So it really doesn't matter what I say, does it?
Famous last words!

Twelfth Night

2009-01-05T15:44:00.000-08:00

There is a duality in my life and work between brain and emotional work that is sometimes a bit unnerving. Take today: I spent a considerable part of the day composing a sermon for the funeral of Nora Nelson tomorrow. Nora was a lovely lady who I knew very well and so I particularly wanted to encapsulate her as she was, a very special lady. all of this safely going on in my head and on my computer.
Tonight it was more of the emotional stuff, heading to the hospital first to see my oldest son who is having a minor procedure then on to see the man in intensive care again. I was surprised how much both visits got to me, something to do with the incredible vulnerability on display… which touched at my vulnerability, unable to fix things, only able to trust.
Tomorrow will have it’s own ups and downs but today has left me a bit ragged.
In addition to this we have taken the decorations down which always makes me a bit sad. so it feels like we are back to once again the depths of winter. The chill of it seems a bit more intense tonight...

Sabbath

2009-01-04T16:06:00.001-08:00

Sundays are rarely a day of rest for clergy and their families but usually involve at least one visit to "work." Any more than one and I am in danger of making my children "churched out!" which is their phrase for an overdose of religion.
Whilst not the best candidate for day of rest Sundays usually allow one indulgence: the afternoon snooze. Today I had a particularly good one that began with a houseful but ended with just the family left.
The snooze is a great gift from my dad, who without even the drop of a hat could take a quick nap pretty much anywhere.
Wouldn't britain be a better place if we all had an afternoon snooze... An hour of rest even if you don't get an day of it.

Held in the balance

2009-01-03T13:50:00.000-08:00

Funeral visits this morning, a bit of shock to the system as you walk out of the tinseliness of Christmas into the cold realities of life and death. Except they're not that cold as the great mystery when someone dies is there is this wonderful dam burst of the love from those who knew the deceased.
More of a cold shock when I am called out to visit someone taken suddenly ill and now unconcious in the intensive care unit.
"What did you do?" my wife asked when I returned home.
"The usual."
To hold a hand, to stroke a forehead, to say a prayer and to mark with a cross.
All together commending someone into God's care, who holds their life in the balance.
The truth of course being that for those who believe that's where we always are... whether we acknowledge it or not.

Adventures with my SatNav

2009-01-02T15:19:00.000-08:00

Today we drove over to Boundary Mill to try and find some bargains. We know the way the way there all too well but decided for fun to leave the Satnav on. All the way it kept tantelisingly pointing up small lanes which we managed to resist being directed up.
On the way home a certain giddiness came over my wife and I, due to the lateness of the hour or the sheer joy of shopping without whinging children and so we decided to follow the SatNav. I have no idea which way we went but given that we started off in completely the opposite direction to that which we would have gone and arrived back home from the North when we had left towards the West we had an exciting adventure in the dark, that was neither illegal, immoral and it didn't make us fat!
Given my usually default position these days of grumpiness it was kind of exhilirating, not least because you were completely in someone or something else's control.
Just a brief glimpse then of the attraction of cults and facist regimes?
Probably not as there was not so much pain involved, more like the attraction of the fair ground where for a few risky moments you put take your life out of your own hands.
That self control that we all love to think we have is almost certainly an illusion but at least with the SatNav you can switch it off.

Back Again

2009-01-01T10:25:00.000-08:00

So I have been off blog for a couple of weeks and the truth is the Christmas Wave has meant that I have just about managing to hold my head above water, and today after going to bed at 3.00 a.m. I have managed to sit still for long enough to write this blog.
It's been funny not writing the blog, a conversation interrupted really and a discovery, from the number of people who have commented on the fact that I have stopped blogging that people are reading it.
Sad news just now of the death another of my flock at Cragg means that next week I will probably conduct three funerals in this parish of 600 people, quite significant really, all ways round, not least in that they were all lovely people.
John Donne's no man is an island, which calls for us all to consider that when the bell tolls it tolls for us is particularly poignant for this little communities, where we can't afford to lose people.
So another prayer for another bereaved family and after the briefest of respites the vocation makes its call back to work.

2008-12-15T11:00:00.000-08:00

I found the man I was looking for and he looks well... safe in the local hospice.
Hospices are an interesting places, proper partnerships between church, charity and government. I wonder why we can't do the same in other parts of our national life? Maybe we can learn from the hospices or is it that care for the dying is seen as such an obvious good for us all to agree on.

for the want of a space the business was lost.

2008-12-13T16:19:00.000-08:00

So today was "break the back of the christmas shopping day" in our valley which meant that although the weather was lousy everybody was out in their cars. This in turn meant that although we went to Hebden Bridge to begin shopping and "shop local" we were unable to find a parking space and so went to Halifax. I guess we might have spent a few hundred pounds in Hebden so for the want of a car parking space...
Parking is such an emotive issue, if we provided enoguh parking for peak weekends like this no doubt ruin the town.
And yet...
Plenty of parking in Halifax though because we stayed 13 minutes over four hours it cost not £3.50 but £10.00.
Next time we may be tempted to shop on line.

hide and seek

2008-12-11T15:40:00.000-08:00

A frustrating day trying to find a man in hospital. Two days ago I wait to the hospice because they said he was there. He wasn't so I went to Calder Royal hospital, he wasn't there, they said he was at Huddersfleld Royal so today I went there, of course I rang first. He wasn't there.
I discovered he is at the hospice!
Perhaps tomorrow I'll Find him!

a Light Burden

2008-12-10T16:37:00.000-08:00

It’s been a day or two without blogging as work has been a bit unreportable. Not so much secret or confidential but that area of my work which is comes under the cloak of my vocation.
Needless to say it has also been a bit knackering but as is often the way God with a smile threw a gospel reading in the lectionary today: “Come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my burden on you for it easy…” or words to that effect.
Too right was my response, it doesn’t feel like it is light.
The reason what I carry isn’t light is probably that it has little to do with what Jesus wants me to carry I guess.
I am not sure what it is yet… this light burden I am meant to carry, but I have been looking for it all my life!

Prayer works when e-mail fails!

2008-12-07T15:17:00.001-08:00

She just e-mailed me!

Technology

2008-12-07T15:12:00.000-08:00

I’m getting a bit nervous about e-mails. Tonight I got a very grumpy e-mail which asked why I hadn’t replied to an e-mail I hadn’t got. Even talking about this is complicated; I don’t think that last sentence makes sense!
The problem is that we have come to rely on this technology and when it doesn’t work, or stuff gets lost we are prone to blame the sender and not the machine… which I suppose most often is the most sensible thing to do. However when you know that you are in the right it’s frustrating.
Anyhow I have sent an apology, but now I am worried they won’t get that either!
I would ring the person up but I don't have a number.
Perhaps we could arrange to meet... but I don't know here she lives!
I might try praying...

Building community

2008-12-06T14:09:00.000-08:00

Santa came today and along with him lots of children who sat on his knee and duly were impressed as he gave them a present. Also there today was our Careforce worker Emily, dressed as a fairy.
We have been having a gap year worker here now for a number of years and I am always amazed at these young people who are willing to give up a year of their lives to work in a northern community like ours, learning how to build community, learning how to be a fairy!
My hope is that having learnt to do this here they will continue to do this throughout their lives.

The News at Eleven

2008-12-04T15:03:00.000-08:00

The Carol Service is finished and I'm a bit tired too.
Catherine has lost her voice and is getting my attention by snapping her fingers.
Ben nearly slipped under a bus in Leeds today.
Rebecca's phone is broken.
Joseph has been given "C" grade targets again at school despite his record breaking exam results.
It still hasn't snowed here.
Thus ends the 11 0'clock news here at the vicarage.

Tatoos

2008-12-03T15:37:00.000-08:00

A hard day as I try to organise the Carol Service, which is difficult because it seems so far away. The snow on the hills is an inspiration making the whole place look like a Christmas Card.
Tonight the reality of council and back to reality as I find myself in a weak distracted moment voting for a tatoo parlour! It is in Hebden so I suppose it's all right.
I can see the headline in the Bridge Times: "vicar votes for tatoo parlour - shock horror."

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

2008-12-02T15:08:00.000-08:00

Today it snowed!
But because this is Mytholmroyd it disappeared almost as soon as it appeared.
So no sledging, only sludging and the children and my wife had to go to school.
Somebody said to me rather disheartedly as we walked like penguins along the road:
“We don’t do snow here, really do we?”
In all senses of her words she was correct…
more’s the pity.

I'm not sure which season Yorkshire does do, probably Autumn.

When it comes to the crunch

2008-12-01T06:21:00.000-08:00

So it's now monday and as usual I have just been into Calder High to do Crunch.
Crunch like many things I do is a bit eccentric. Begun ten years ago when the then Head of the High School was concerned about the christian children at the school asked us to set up a group to support them. Every Monday lunchtime we went into Calder High to meet Christian School kids and their friends. It didn't take long until the Christian children stopped coming but their friends didn't stop coming.
Today a dozen or so children gather to talk about life, the universe and everything and every monday have lunch with the vicar and his friends!
Things never quite turn out how we plan...
Sometimes they're better!

Christingle

2008-11-30T16:10:00.000-08:00

Sunday...
Need I say more...

Well actually a little bit as 120 people gathered to take part in that sixties invention, the christingle. Everybody who comes considers it to be something which has always happened but it is a fairly new invention. There's a lot of things which are in the 2000 year old history of the church quite new.
Harvest festivals were invented in the 1890's,
carol services in the 1920's,
holy communion... well at least that's 2000 yers old but up to 50 years ago it usually only happened once a month. Children coming up for a blessing, that's a seventies phenomena I think.
I wonder what we do now as novelty in church which everyone in time people will never be able to remember a time without it?
My vote goes to the practice of lighting votive candles in the church of England... Which only began to be universal when IKEA opened.
Which funnily enough coincided with the discovery of global warming...
Makes you think.

Unsung heroes

2008-11-29T15:26:00.000-08:00

Today we had an open day at my school… understand that it’s mine only in the sense that I am the chair of the governors. The remarkable thing about the open day is that this year we have been spending one and a half million of government money transforming a Victorian school into an Elizabethan one. We are nearly finished but not quite so it was an open day but not an opening day.
It was great to show people what we had been doing and I slipped around the place fairly anonymously, known to staff and students but not the many parents and friends who were thronging.
It made me think of all those people who must have sat in committees for the schools I attended, unbeknown to me, unthanked by me, till now.
Thank you, whoever you are, without your work I would never been able today to stand in the background and watch the new school work.

Culture

2008-11-28T11:46:00.000-08:00

Just been through the year in song with our amateur dramatic's group. I guess the audience must have numbered seventy or eighty with a cast and crew of about twenty.
It was lovely and probably represents local culture as much as the Ted Hughes Festival. Some of our festival events had much smaller audiences and certainly smaller casts. We are forced to chose which we appreciate as culture, why not all of it.
It saddens me that we are so poor as a nation at celebrating and owning what's ours, a rainbows culture: high... Middle... Low?
Who cares... People pleasing themselves and others.
Someone once said that the Church of England is dying of good taste... So could our nation...

Shopping

2008-11-27T10:45:00.000-08:00

An exciting morning at a site meeting in the square. We were looking at catalogues to decide what kind of lights we might have.
It's funny to think that all the lamp posts throughout the country began life in a catalogue. Somehow you don't imagine that anybody shopped for these things, they just grew!

Stones

2008-11-25T14:36:00.000-08:00

I was standing this afternoon with one of our flat capped church members admiring the builders work as they laid the first bit of the town square.
"Lovely isn't it?"
"It's concrete vicar..."
"Not it's not it's stone..."
"concrete."
"It says "stone" on the packet over there..."
Long pause...
"You can tell by the variation in the colour."
Long pause.
"Cheap rubbish then is it vicar?!"

Oh well never mind.

Goodness

2008-11-24T14:44:00.000-08:00

Today was Ralph’s funeral, a significant event for our community as witnessed by the turn out of 157 people… Clive my churchwarden counted them. Ralph is one of those people who in my ministry at St Michaels has always been there. He was big in our amateur dramatics society although he never had a starring role, never really had a part that put him in the spotlight except only for the briefest of moments. He never really had a career as such, taking bit parts in the Thornber Chicken Empire, a local family decorating company and only slightly more notably in Rentokill as the community rat catcher. His impact was almost entirely because of his character: He was a really nice man, friendly, cheerful and capable of a gentle banter with almost everyone he met, including as it happens… me.
We mourn Ralph as those privileged to have seen something common but no less valuable for that,
...goodness.

No worries

2008-11-22T11:05:00.000-08:00

I am sat here tonight feeling

rested

energised

and not very stressed

and ready for tomorrow.

Funny what a good night’s sleep and a day off makes to you.

It makes me wonder how many people around me in our community are not having time off.
When we get the enterprise centre and town square up and running as well as encouraging activity maybe we need to find ways to help people to take time out.

Funny Day

2008-11-21T14:46:00.000-08:00

A funny day with lots of disconnected bits.
Beginning with prayer with Emily…
Following with lunch and a fairly complex talk from the bishop the gist of which is that we are losing clergy…
Then two hours with the 5-11’s at the Mix…
A try out of our new curry place in the village…
Then a night in the office…
Ready for…
Bed
Tomorrow is a day off well earned, I guess

Ooh and on the return from the bishop a prophetic bus sign

“Reduce your Revs and save CO2”
I hope the bishop didn’t see it

Boulders

2008-11-20T14:28:00.000-08:00

Somebody once said when I first came to Mytholmroyd:
"We get a lot of weather here vicar."
We certainly do often having all four seasons at once.
Anyhoe I was impressed by Dougie Mansfield's enterprise today.
Dougie is our local bike and shoe shop owner, an interesting combination.
Anyhow he gets my vote for entrepeneur of the week for today he had hung a sledge outside his shop with the sign... "It's forecast snow!" I called in to talk ot him about a bike festival in the village but didn't have the heart to ask if had sold any sledges yet. I suspect most Yorkshire Folk will believe it when they see it.
Which is one of the reason why regeneration here is so difficult.
"We don't want it till we have had had it!"
Still the hole is making progress and the town square is growing...

The builders on the other side of our church informed me today that there was a boulder!
I am not sure what they want me to do about it.
The bible says that if we have faith we can move mountains but it doesn't mention anything about boulders!

Seasons

2008-11-19T10:34:00.000-08:00

A day or two without blogs because I thought it would be boring to say: “too busy for blogs!”
Part of the busyness is the building work on the Parish Hall which is exhausting in many ways, not least the fact that I am never quite sure I am going to get there. I am also calming worrying fears.
Part of the busyness is self inflicted as I attempt to get on top of a backlog of paper work.
Part of the busyness is trying to get round some of our people because to be honest this grey weather is crushing. We are seasonal people and that feeling of “always winter and never Christmas” is particularly bad this week.
It’s a funny thing this seasonal thing… we are creatures of our climate and should react to them with the activities we take on.
So let’s have parties in winter, holidays in summer, and cleaning in spring and eating in Autumn.

Oh….. we already do
Funny that, isn’t it?

talents

2008-11-16T15:00:00.000-08:00

Nancy was preaching on the parable of the talents the punchline was those who use their talents get more, those who don't get them taken away.
If you do a good job you get more to do.
If you were to do regeneration that way it would be more like the NGO method and less like the british way.
Hmm it makes you think.

Trains

2008-11-15T11:14:00.000-08:00

Leaves on the line, stolen cables, that means that trains are half an hour late arriving back allow my wife to say with her eyes: "I told you so..."
She is not a train person but I am!
I like the uncertainty of arrival but the certainty of a warm place to sit.

Ego trip or ego tourist

2008-11-14T12:58:00.000-08:00

"I want to write a book"
"Why, there are so many!"
Thus ended my last attempt at producing something to send out to an unsuspecting world!
Consigned in my mind along with the PhD to the file marked "ego trip."

Now I have someone on my shoulder deconstructing that and telling me that my whole Fraser Teal thing has been an ego trip in that it has been about me developing.
"What's wrong with that?"

What is wrong with that? It is a peculiarly british thing that makes personal development a sin...
That says: "Who do you think you are?"
I think I am a child of God,
I know that I am valuable,
I know that I know things,
I know that I want to help others,
I know that I can,
I know that I should...
Write.

I want write a book
I will grow through the process
I might help others grow too.

A flourishing day!

No excuses

Flourish

2008-11-13T11:52:00.000-08:00

Joining with 150 plus clergy and miniters from our diocese to learn more about old testament.
In the middle of this the teacher, who was very good, said it was our role as Christians to "Helping others to flourish..."
I like this because it chimes with the Abrahamic idea of blessed so that we might bless.
I think it might be fun if it were a motto for Yorkshire Forward too.

Consultations

2008-11-12T01:32:00.000-08:00

Last night's meeting seemed to go well in that we began a conversation about the shape of ministry in our Deanery.
Through various bits of my complex lives I have had chance to think about how things change. Too often we say "let's consult people about this." only to find that what we mean is to tell them about what we think so that they can agree.
Somebody once said that management was a series of conversations that need to be had.
Perhaps rather than consultants we need conversationalists. or even better hosts who arrange the space and the time in which conversations can take place.

Turkeys

2008-11-11T10:28:00.001-08:00

Deanery Synod tonight and we have to discuss the possibility of losing stipendiary clergy. Our diocese is in an interesting place, we have more priests than we ever have... But many of them are self supporting, volunteers. They are wonderful people, sacrificially giving up their time to help others.
It sounds like a brilliant idea but volunteers are not so biddable, not so flexible, and can't do funerals on a Monday morning!
So tonight we begin a journey into strange new world. For me as a stipendiary vicar it may well be as one of my colleagues said a case of turkeys voting for christmas.

Remembrance Day

2008-11-09T15:16:00.000-08:00

It was remembrance day and so I preached ot hundreds about gettiing angry. I thought you might like to read it.

Anger: Matthew 5:1-12

1When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
3‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’

Introduction – Red heads of the world unite
I am beginning to get a bit sickened off with all the anti red haired propaganda in the media.There are even anti-ginger web sitesWhat the world doesn’t realize is that red heads are taking over.
Everywhere you go you will see them
So I say: “Red Heads of the World unite you have nothing to lose but your temper!”
I love being a red head because it gives me an excuse to have a bad temper.

But Losing your temper is seen as a really bad thing, getting angry worse but I want to suggest today that getting angry is precisely what God wants us to do.

How we do it and what we do it about is the key thing.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

When you are young like these cubs and scouts people always want to work out what you want to be when you grow up.
Just for a change sometimes I ask adults the same question, you get some very interesting answers.

My Daughter always used to say “Rich and powerful”
Bigger seems to be the best answer

One of the ways to decide is to think about what you love.
If you love football become a footballer.
If you love meetings become a politician.
If you love candles become a vicar, that kind of a thing.

We talk about love as though it’s the only motivator in changing the world.
People even sing, sometimes Love changes everything.
The reality is that love is not always the best motivator.

Much stronger is the question “what makes you angry?”

Unfortunately for most of us it’s random small things.

The pauses on the X-factor
Crazy Frog
Wobbly wheels on supermarket trolleys
St Michael’s Car Park
The Ted Hughes Festival

These are not real anger these are just grumpy and there is a difference.
Grumpy is really a collective whinge…
A whingefest is not going to change the world.

Anger on the other hand might.
Jesus said:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

Angry about what? - Righteousness

Righteousness.

That everything should be put right.

That there should be peace
That there should be justice
That we should be at ease with ourselves.
A rightness in the world.

We live in dangerous times – people are looking for someone to blame not somewhere to find answers
Our times are very like the times between the wars.
Two things came out of the 1930’s
· For some their anger turned to hatred with the rise of Fascism and the hatred of the Jews amongst others and 70 years ago today that angry burned into hatred and on 7th November 1938 exploded in what became known as Kristalnacht…
· For others it lead to the beginnings of the welfare state

Anger is a great motivator if it leads us to want to change the world.

I am a vicar partly because the church made me angry when I was a teenagerI am still trying to change it so that it won’t make me angry!
My dad said that I would grow out of this enthusiastic phase
I am still waiting…
So is he…

Passion will change the world as much as love.
Bring me my bow of burning gold
Bring me my arrows of desire
Bring me my spear, oh clouds unfold
Bring me my chariot of fire.
I will not cease from mental fight
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem On England’s green and pleasant land.

Conclusion

I am moving seamlessly from being an Angry young men to being a Grumpy old man - t-shirt
We were made to be angry but not about trivial stuff.
We were made to be angry when things aren’t right…
When the dead are forgotten and their causes despised.

We were made to be angry so that we would do something about it…
We were made to be angry about the stuff that people do
We were meant to try to change things and then not to hate.

Today we remember those who cared enough, who were angry enough to give up their lives for their friends, for their country, for an idea
Many of them were angry and that motivated them to do something about it.

What are you angry about?

Shouldn’t it be something that is worth getting angry about

Moving from anger to action not Hate

Encounter

2008-11-08T07:11:00.001-08:00

I am sitting in the library at Ripon Cathedral enjoying the stillness and finishing of my sermon for tomorrow.
There is a beautiful silence surrounding me like an energetic duvet and I suspect if I allow myself a few minutes more I might even meet with God.
This morning we have had a close encounter with the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire. Amongst the many wise things he said was the need to create casual meeting places and the way in which the church used to be and could create opportunities for this happen. I like the idea of the church as a meeting place in a community.
I guess the most profound meeting that takes place, while meet with each other we also meet with God.

Beware Organising at Work

2008-11-07T16:22:00.000-08:00

To Ripon tonight and a gathering of the Bishop’s Council, a select bunch and a kind of think tank for the bishop. Tonight we listened to Martin Wainwright who I think is the Northern Editor of the Guardian who rambled in a very Anglican way around lots of topics throwing out pearls before swine who gobbled them up eagerly.
One thing he said set me thinking, it was about organised religion, which he kind of winced about. “When religions organise then humanity is let into the divine and then it starts to go wrong.”
I wonder if you could have religion without organisation?
Religion is all about the business of organising people’s spiritual lives…
or religion is all about the business of collecting together people who want to express their spirituality in community which involves organisation…
or religion is all about changing the world on the basis of principles which is also involves organisation
Hmmm, whichever way you look at it we end up with an organisation
Perhaps the trick is to acknowledge that, embrace it even , we need to organise, to be organised
Whilst embracing organising we do so with care, knowing that’s where the danger might be.
So perhaps our slogan might be: Organising, handle with care.
It's a bit of a worry because tomorrow we are having a discussion about Transforming Communities and how we might organise it!