The Queen, Shakespeare, Celebs, and the fact of impermanence

2016 is only four months old and is already proving to be a remarkable year, giving us lots to ponder. Not only have disruptive weather events experienced here in UK and elsewhere been cited as yet more proof if it were needed of climate change and the ground shifting - literally - under our feet; but also we have heard announcement after announcement of the death of well-loved figures from the worlds of entertainment.

On the 400th anniversary of the shuffling of William Shakespeare, (at this point my concentration exited stage left for several hours in a Shrine that I know)(As you were), all sorts of epithetical temptations befall the budding blogger. Shall I compare thee, life, to a Chinese take-away? Life is but an English summer's day, full of sunshine and warmth and signifying that hail is just around the corner (and has now arrived).

We should, by now, be well acquainted with impermanence, with the sheer precariousness of life on earth. (Indeed with the extraordinary unlikelihood of it ever happening in the first place.) We are getting through our species at an alarming rate and, what with Climate Change (apologies if you're a denier), we soon won't need to rely on nuclear weapons to snuff everything bar cockroaches out. However, we do have this malady of treating the shuffling off of our celebs, already too many to count on a hand or two, which is where I lose it,  as our major sad losses, sad losses though they truly are. What we are really mourning is our memories and our perception that Nobody Does It Better than them. Which, if true, would have had W. Shakespeare so in awe of G. Chaucer that he would have joined the Civil Service. There's a sort of permanence for you. 

The joyous occasion of Her Majesty the Queen's 90th Birthday is rightly to be celebrated for all sorts of reasons. She is a rock. But even rocks eventually slip below the waves, eroded. I, for one, think our Constitutional Monarchy is a great institution and has a lot of legs left in it, let alone three successors to the Queen lined up in succession. It's survived because it has adapted. That's the point of this blog, I think: continuity, adaptation, renewal all within the fact of impermanence.

I am betraying my simple-mindedness. For me this, the fact of impermanence, begs the cosmic question facing our apparently grown up era that sees no need for God. Where has the mighty thread of creativity in all the arts and sciences come from if not from the continuity of hope, enquiry and exploration that have joined up our thinking ever since cavemen first joined up the word 'boundaries' with 'let's push out the'? (Ed: source for this?). And what's the cause of creativity if not a Creator?

Maybe one of our celebs could tell us. If it's not too late.

The Present as Future, Future Now

Monday 28th April 2014

I'm trying to be in next Monday as I write on this one, Easter Monday. Next Monday I'll be just back from a four day working retreat called Cursillo, or to give it its full title, Cursillo de Christiandad (sp). - literally a short race through Christianity.  By then, I and another priest and fifteen lay Anglicans will have served a dozen pilgrims with an attempt to demonstrate the sheer loving-kindness of God. We will have worshipped him together in sundry ways, given and heard about fifteen talks about faith in him, and done a lot of laughing and some crying together. We aim to all grow closer to Christ through the weekend, and to have fresh impetus to go on serving him.

So I will be fairly spaced out next Monday.

But at least I'll be getting my feet done. I have an appointment with Stuart, our local NHS Chiropodist, or Podiatrist as they say these days. It's long overdue, as the hard skin on the balls of my feet is painful, but I'm grateful for the care that I'm given as a diabetic.

Then, Canada awaits. Canada in England, that is.  John and Eileen, who are English but live in Canada, come back to Blighty every year and spend two weeks or so in Teesdale, where I live. I think it may be three this year. We meet to eat and drink, share joy, love the Lord together, and John and I meet in TSOSB (The Shrine Of St Bruno) in my back garden for votive offerings.

So that's what I'll be thinking about on Monday 28th. I'll have been busy preparing for Cursillo last/this week, so may not have written any new poems. On the other hand I may have done, as part of preparation. It's a funny thing, the present as future, future now. You never know what hasn't happened, and what has happened isn't quite what will be. Or whatever.  Sometimes this living lark isn't very simple, is it.

Now I'm confused.

So as I was saying

, whatever that was.......

Does God like Caramel as much as I do? I'm writing to him via his PA, Rev Keef, to find out.

Meanwhile,  after decomposing in the winter, I am now composing poems again, composting in the garden,  and generally combobulating.

It's good to be alive! It's good not to be applying for jobs, as my job is not to have one. The Govmint told me so and generously said that I can do without Benefit after twenty seven years as I'm not fit for work. Yes, that's what they said. Because We're All In It Together.

I use the Food Bank of home. I get by. God provides. I was able to buy cigars for the first time in many months.

I feed my mind. It was very wasted. My Kindle app brings me much pleasure, except when I have to read very poor Theology because my pal asks me to.

I have loved reading The Eagle of Spinalonga, Jane Austen, Robert Harris, Brennan Manning, Dan Edwards, George Herbert, John Donne, Pru Phillipson.

Poetry has flowed this, that and the other way out of me.

I am inspired by Keef.  Well, is that really the right word?

I have preached, prayed, celebrated the Holy Mysteries, Glided at Durham Cathedral and Trained for Cursillo.

I shall stop now, because I can tell that Keef is going to Kanonise me. 

Writer's block

Strange thing, writing: you flow, you stop. Deadlines may apply but not in many cases. Some of us do not have editors to cajole, love, threaten or otherwise move us into working.

Writer's block. Now that is something.

I have months of inability to compose (poetry). Usually because my psyche is decomposing. That is, my mind is gripped fast by anxiety and depression. Worse, the legacy of guilt which Evangelical Legalism and the Protestant Work Ethic strapped onto my soul and dug deep into it not long after I accepted the unconditional love for me in Christ and began my journey of discipleship. I had nothing to lose but my liberation, in some ways, in those years. The scars persist.

Recently God brought to my mind other psychological events: the fall-out of a pastoral intervention when I was a Vicar. There was a crisis in my church involving a man whose behaviour was abusive and tyrannical and, due to the fear he inspired in others, had garnered to himself key positions of lay leadership. His wife came to see me (and my wife)  in the dead of night while he slept, saying she would leave him due to his abuse and neglect. I said I would call next day and tell him to resign and out his house in order. By the time I got there they were equally in denial and vitriolically aggressive to me.

I did sack him, but he took his time to hand over his jobs. In the end the church was liberated into fresh growth, but as they frequently attacked me in public and I felt unable to disclose confidentialities, I went downhill, eventually into breakdown and out of ministry.

One night of sleeplessness, several months into illness, I wrote down a phrase which buzzed round my mind. Like tissues out of a box, words kept coming which formed my first poem.

Twenty five years on my poetry still flows - and stops. So much depends on where I am on the illness cycle as well as other contingent factors. But the fresh water rule applies: allow water in and water will flow out.

I am at the moment in a highly productive phase of poetry, and I thank God for all that I am learning as I write. It gives the lie to a joke a son once made, that you have to be dead to be a poet. My vocation is to be priest/poet, a pastor and theologian who uses words to explore beyond words. I agree with the saying that poetry is saying more in less, though earlier generations were prolix at times.

I offer you these reflections because they are flowing out of me, and I need to read them.

Thoughts on being a Cathedral Chaplain

I've been away from it, on Crete in blazing sunshine and welcome heat. Jane and I saw Knossos and the museum but were often content to laze around the swimming pool and 'be', and read. (Jane unfortunately had a virus for three days which knocked on the head a five hour walk in Samaria Gorge).

I read the whole of A Place of Greater Safety, Hilary Mantel's wonderful novel about Desmoulins, Danton and Robespierre. I also re-read (backwards!) Fr Dumitru Staniloae's first of six volumes of Dogmatics, The Experience of God, and learnt much to my blessing.

So I've been away from Chaplaining for a short while. This is a good thing. I'm so looking forward to being back. I always think that a Chaplain, when (s)he is there is God's person for the task. But so what? God has other people too. It doesn't matter who is there so long as someone is who is going about the task, being on pilgrimage, and not too full of self.

Chaplaining is an -ing as well as a -cy. It is service in motion. You need to expect to be changed by it, and come back again and again to be refreshed as well as to serve. You need to expect the unexpected each time, the serious, the funny, the sorrowful, the uplifting, the (let's face it) boring, the   alerting of spiritual antennae, the willingness to love right through the day.

For me, starting at the Feretory and often continuing round different stations is vital. I know that others have their own important places within the Church. But we must be on pilgrimage, whether it's on our own or in the company of others who happen to be there. The Vergers, Stewards, Guides, Bedespeople (have I forgotten anyone? Oh the Canons Residentiary and the Celebrants) are all your ministers as well as people to serve. I learn so much too from the ad hoc conversation, no matter what depth it is at.

I've been Chaplaining for very nearly twenty five years, and am still practising. The Church continues to amaze me, and come up with new revelations. Visitors, Pilgrims, Congregants likewise.

I'm writing this because I need to read it and remind myself of what a blessing and privilege it is to serve God and his people in this way.

On Those Who Stand In The Way

16^th December 2012

On Those Who Stand In The Way

They were the brave,

they were the few

who held up the skies

in fast and frail craft

while evil carved across Europe.

Falling, falling, the survivors now,

but always remembered.

They were the brave,

they were the few

who spoke up for victims and

sheltered and saved them

from hate’s discriminating atrocity.

Falling, falling, the survivors now,

but always remembered.

They are the brave,

they are the few

who stand in harm’s way

to shelter and save the innocent

from abuse and pain and brutality.

Fallen, fallen, the heroes now,

but always remembered.

In liberty’s chaos and freedom’s choices,

who are the brave, who are the few?

Are we not all the many,

to speak up for justice

voices for goodness in a bedlam of shouting?

Rise, rise, be heroes now

and always remembered.

Advent Reflection

13^th December 2012

Advent Reflection

The purpose is not the stress

of the ever more demanding holiday,

but the straining,

the straining of the sense

of waiting, watching, expecting:

all the senses alerted

and put on notice,

looking out,

staring into night for the first glimpse of dawn.

So,

like a man sucking at a dry pipe

before it is filled and lit and savoured,

I am waiting and preparing,

taking steps to be ready

yearning with longing for the eternal,

a hallowed nostalgia

for the already here but partially recognized,

familiar in the handed down knowledge of mystery.

I’m staring into night for the first glimpse of dawn.