WILD AND HOWLING winds swirling around the College of the Resurrection in Mirfield made for a reflective, elemental sort of a night. I’m a bit ambivalent about strong wind generally, on the one hand slightly fearful of its power and a tad resentful about its uninvited imposition, and on the other sometimes willing simply to “let go, let fly” – and the encounter with raw nature brings a fleeting sense of oneness with the swirling. With life.
Morning prayer in a gloriously quiet monastic environment lends the soul an opportunity to hear “another voice” – and oh what blessings are to be heard in the silent voices within – whether Divine or divine. Whether Love or loved ones. Connecting. Connected. Silently. Here in this moment. And in eternity.
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak
Mary Oliver
Just pay attention Simon Robert. Only pay attention. The word of the angels is near. Breathe is the word. Breathe
THIS WORLD is full of angels. Messengers of God. And because they’re in this world, because they’re here, in the flesh, with you and me, they sometimes wonder, with us, “how can I live?” Sometimes, of course, they answer their own question, or have it answered for them, inwardly, by God. All angels, nevertheless, need and deserve encouragement and assurance from the people amongst whom they live, and move, and have their being.
Angels are very aware of this need, of this being dependent upon something, upon someone, beyond their immediate selves. That’s how they become angels. Knowing their own need, and sometimes barely able to see through the pain of that need (and – by the Grace of God – the gift of healing tears) they are able to recognise and respond to the (often silent) human cries in others. And I know an angel called Mary, who is an inspiration, and who finds “life and hope in all the shades of green of the trees …” (I hope you like red tulips too, Mary).
As I stand at the bus stop in the early morning, tears streaming down my face, and wondering how I can live, I call myself back to the present moment. “What in this moment can I feel and enjoy and be glad for?” God is encountered in the present moment, in all the sights, and smells and sounds, in each person we encounter and with whom we interact. I find life and hope in all the shades of green of the trees and in the white blossom unfurling amidst the leaves. I am alone in the world at this time. Me and the possibilities of the day ahead.
At work of course, life finds me. Here, in all my interactions with people, I find myself and all of us to be a part of something much greater than we are on our own. In the very solid, real world of bodies and poo and blood and sick, and tears and fears and confusion, of laughter and love and violence, of connection, I find my greatest sense of the mysterious. Work gives me life. Giving my empty self to everybody, I end each day full up to the brim. A day which has begun with wondering how I can live..,
A CLERGY QUIET DAY with Bishop Robert Atwell today. Time for reflection and contemplation. The “quiet waters” of the canal near Dunham Massey bridge were just the place to be … and the passing narrow boats spoke to me, not for the first time, of the rightness I recognise in “making progress slowly”; of Kosuke Koyama’s “Three Mile An Hour God”.
No-one was rushing around our local Hospice this evening either. Quiet waters fit the bill there, too. Everyone speaks of being able to hear the birdsong, clearly, indoors. Perhaps it’s the slowing of the pace of life there that causes most everyone I know to speak of it as a place of beauty, peace, and sometimes even joy in the very midst of sadness. And staffed, of course, everyone says, by “Angels” – messengers.
EVER CHANGING LIGHT at Ullswater is among the many reasons that the lake, its surrounding fells, the sky above and the depth beneath speak to me of life itself: beautiful, natural, glorious, sometimes choppy and precarious, sometimes bright and blue, sometimes grey and dull. Enormous, and thereby quietening. And quietened brought to further experience of peace in the depths of me. Beyond me and yet within me. Whole and a glimpse of the holy. Life. Health. Peace.
OUR CENTENARY ANGELS were due to take flight today – and Wendy Rudd’s peaceful Windsails will take up residence in our tower space from next Monday 10th October until mid-November, having most recently graced Gladstone’s Library. Church buildings make natural homes for art installations and here in Bramhall, with the beautiful Lantern Tower – added when the parish church was fifty years old – we are richly blessed with space to house all manner of suspended art. I’d always be delighted to hear from any artist who would like to discuss the possibility of temporary exhibition in this way. (Parish Office 0161 439 3989).
I’VE BEEN TOUCHED and delighted today by a little clutch of messages – electronic, verbal and paper, assuring me of thoughts and prayers for the life and ministry of our parish, under the patronage of St Michael and All Angels. There are angels all around us, some we don’t know, and some we-don’t-know-where, and some we probably wouldn’t recognise if we bumped into them. But there are also angels we know very well indeed. Messengers and friends … persons who carry the Word of God in the very breath of their lives, to and fro the people of God oe’r all the earth – as it is in heaven.
Thank you – to all who have prayed for me and for our parish today. Thank you to those who have been praying for my Dad and holding him, my mother and our family close to their hearts. Dad’s on the mend and hoping to be home in a trice. And thank you today to Bishop Nick Baines who has written of many an angel working in unsung circumstances for the advancement of that Kingdom that Archangel Michael seeks ever to defend.
FRANK BENNETT IS OUR CHIEF SIDESPERSON. He arrived in Church the other day and greeted me, as he very frequently does, with the words “what can I do?”. Frank’s entire life as a churchman arises from the fundamental question he asks of God. “How can I serve?”. And this morning he will have celebrated the fact that his wife was serving the gathered Church in the office of Reader, his daughter (our former Young Church leader) and son-in-law were away in Cambridge (at Ely Cathedral) spending time with other friends engaged in ministry, before Paul begins training for the priesthood at Mirfield in September.
One of Frank’s grandsons served alongside him as a sidesperson today. Another grandson read the Epistle. When I thanked one of these grandsons for the encouragement he and his brothers are providing for their parents, at what is a time of upheaval in their family life, his reply was “Thanks. But it’s time we stepped out of our comfort zones isn’t it? And with Dad you can see the call written on his face”. I honour Grandfather Frank and his whole family.
One of the signs of spiritual maturity in the life of any church is a steadily growing number of vocations to ministry – in its many and varied forms. Tonight I heard the Reverend Gill Newton – our local Methodist Superintendent Minister – tell a large gathering that “we Methodists believe in the ministry of the whole people of God.” It was good to hear the murmurs of approval and assent, for we Anglicans do, too. So it’s an especial joy when we see the fruits of God’s call in our very midst.
I’ve mentioned already that Paul Deakin’s off to Mirfield in September. Verger John Baker will, in the same month, be licensed as a pastoral assistant. Ralph Luxon and Sue Taylor are getting stuck into new ministries in the office of churchwarden. Yvonne Hope and Jill Elston have just completed a marvellous first year as Young Church leaders (aided warmly by a very substantial team of willing voluntary ministries). Bob Munn is serving a term as Chairman of our Diocesan Advisory Committee. Graham Knight, our Treasurer, asks how the ministry he offers might be of service to others beyond St Michael’s. PCC Secretary Ann Walker is interested in furthering the work of prayer and meditation. Tracy Ward has just been accepted on the Diocesan Foundations for Ministry Course, following in Verger John’s footsteps. Tricia Munn is overseeing Growth Action Planning. Administrator Janet Ketteringham continues to undergird and sustain all of our ministries every day of the week. Bryan Goodwin clipped the fearsomely difficult and unfriendly holly hedge at the vicarage. Dianne Goodwin acts as unpaid assistant verger. David and Maureen Want tend the church gardens assisted by a large team of helpers. Joanna Yeates folds pew sheets – every week of the year. Sexton John Hanlon will turn his hand to pretty much anything … the list of ministries numbers over 200 volunteers at St Michael’s alone so it rarely seems appropriate to single out particular individuals. And yet it also seems important to try to describe what’s happening sometimes.
Rachael Hunt, baptised only two years ago, already has an established pastoral ministry among us, at the age of just 17, with a special and hugely appreciated concern for older members of the church family particularly – and every member and non-members more generally. Rachael, who hopes to read Theology at University and eventually to become a priest, is well known in our local churches as she has a keen interest in ecumenism and in fostering respect and understanding between different religious traditions. Rachael invited me to hear her first ever sermon this morning. Delivered with only scant reference to her notes, I was spellbound. Rachael will be preaching for the benefit of all of us, as will ordinand Paul, in September.
All of these wonderful people, and many more, seen and unseen, upfront and quietly in the background, leading public prayer and praying at home, have a passion for Gospel. Good News for a world in need of good news in a million different situations. (Eleven and a half million starving situations in East Africa). And as I pray for them, each and every day, I thank God for the miracle in our midst of a host of “angels and archangels”, on earth as it is in heaven, who are responding to the Divine call with the hallowed words “How Can I Serve?”. God is good and no word that comes from the Divine mouth ever returns to its Source unused or unheard. The Church today is not the same as it was. The Church today is not the Church it will be. But tonight I offer heartfelt thanks to God for the Church – and the many-membered Body of Christ that constitutes the Church – that is.
How Can I Serve? …
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ENJOY A MOMENT WATCHING with angels: press F11 for full screen and click on the photo. Join us for Midnight Mass on Friday at 11pm if you can: www.bramhallcofe.org
The Right Reverend Dr Peter Robert Forster
40th Lord Bishop of Chester
100 YEARS AFTER ITS CONSECRATION by the 33rd Lord Bishop of Chester, The Right Reverend Francis John Jayne DD, St Michael & All Angels Bramhall welcomed the present Bishop of Chester, Dr Peter Forster, as President and Preacher at a Centenary Eucharist. A large assembly, many of whom hadn’t left last evening’s Celebration Dinner Dance at Adlington Hall until “carriages at midnight” were, nonetheless, perfectly turned out in time to assemble once again (some of them for breakfast in the parish hall) in our beautifully reordered and gloriously decorated parish church. Some of our contemporary angels are a dab hand in the kitchen, and others make floral decorations fit for cathedrals.
Bishop Peter had recently acquired a SatNav, he said, whilst wondering how Bishop Jayne had travelled from Chester to Bramhall 100 years ago. “Florence” the bishop’s SatNav (named after she of The Magic Roundabout who, bless her, never seemed to know quite which way she was going!) had largely been of help to him, though sometimes he really did know better than she did. Florence isn’t too good with one-way streets, apparently. Anyway, the point of some very apposite and amusing reflections about journeying was chiefly that patience is a virtue most necessary when we’re travelling somewhere. Patient waiting is sometimes required in order to be sure about where we’re going, and patience is required, too, in the travelling to get there. The same applies to anything we set out to achieve. Anything we hope for. Patience is required as we work for the day when “the Lion shall lie down with the Lamb”.
I’m left with the heartening thought that if we work hard at it over the coming 100 years we Christians might get better, with our bishop, at knowing where the “one way streets” and the “dead ends” are. Florence the SatNav, in company with many other would-be guides, can be of enormous help, without a shadow-of-a-doubt. But there are times when her – and their – assertiveness needs at least to be questioned! Edges of cliffs and the deep blue sea are images that spring readily to mind. And I’m reminded too, fresh from waving Bishop Peter off on his car journey back to Chester, and fresh from wondering how Bishop Jayne got here a century ago, of those earlier travellers “from the East” who fell down and did worship, silent and awestruck and patient … 2000 years ago. We’ve been celebrating 100 years for the whole of the past year. Now for a season wherein the noise might be stilled a little, that we might hear the angels sing.
The videos in this blog are great FULL SCREEN. Click the four arrows button before you click PLAY …
TIME TO GET OUT THE FACULTY APPLICATION FORMS AGAIN! – we don’t have pews in my parish church, but (what do you think?) I reckon we’ll have to dispose of the chairs! Our Growth Action Planning is bringing me to my knees every day. And on every occasion I implore “what are we here for?” – a question addressed first and foremost to the Fount and Source of my life (and of ALL life) – and then echoed dozens of times in my daily encounters with other human beings – some of them churchpeople, many of them not. Some of them women, some men, some teenagers and young children. Some gay, some straight. Some “rich” and “powerful”, some “poor” and “without hope”.
Each and every day I encounter what Richard Holloway calls simply DOUBTS AND LOVES. Each and every day I encounter people who can make neither head nor tail of a Church in / of England that preaches “All are welcome” in the same space and with the same breath put to use in keeping huge tranches of the population either out or “in their proper place”. (Maggi Dawn, among others, has posted observations about the two clerical gentlemen who have recently been in the headlines for their enthusiam for the Scriptural text “Women submit to your husbands” – that have been described variously as “hilarious” and “tragic”. I’m hard pressed to see the “hilarious” myself.)
Every day I encounter fellow Christians who are staggering along the road beneath the weight of the millstones around their necks. “I don’t believe in closing churches” I hear a church leader cry. Lucky old you I shout back. I DO believe in closing dead ones. I DO believe in a gospel that shouts from the rooftops “stop living the lie”. 500 seater mausoleums are choking the life blood out of the dozen people who sit in so many of them for a not altogether very inviting hour a week, the people who are pouring their ever decreasing resources straight down the drain of the temple’s voracious appetite … with not a soul willing to challenge the idolatry involved … and a “gospel” that’s so much more to do with who needs to be kept out than with those who ought to be encouraged to “get in”.
I’m haunted, still, by the cruel irony of the sight and sound of the Lambeth Bishops assembled in our beloved Mother Church in England, heartily singing “All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place” – either not knowing, or having “just forgotten for a moment”, or (surely not) having chosen to ignore, the plain truth of that day: that some were not welcome, some were not welcome, some were not welcome in that place.
God help me! I’d love to see every church building in the land packed to capacity, filled with a thankful people, of every race and creed and colour and gender, gathered to give praise to our life-giving, life-enhancing, compassionate, forgiving, welcoming Creator. And that kind of growth doesn’t arise out of box ticking exercises. That kind of growth doesn’t start with an interest in numbers. That kind of growth doesn’t arise out of “evangelical” proclamations of a “good news” that’s actually bad news for many people, and that in plain sight. That kind of growth doesn’t arise out of the kind of barking preaching that insists that people must “opt in”.
That kind of growth arises when women and children and men have been helped (by countless gifts and means – churchy and unchurchy) to understand that GOD has “opted in” FOR THEM. God has breathed life into the very dust out of which every atom in the Universe comes into being. And still breathes it. That kind of growth arises of out “two or three (or maybe – “in Christ” an apostolic 12) gathered together in my name” … knowing that they’ve one heck of a lot in their numbers-saturated lives to be thankful for.
Now I guess I’ve no choice but to submit a faculty application for getting shut of our (perhaps 500 and frequently sat-upon) chairs. And I wouldn’t be overly hopeful of having one granted. But I can at least ask “please stop asking me to manage my church” … though I’m NOT completely thick, and I believe that with customary clarity Nick Baines makes the point about false dichotomies very well indeed …
There are some in the church who wish to divide the words ‘pastoral’ and ‘managerial’. Apparently, Tom Butler is a managerial bishop – and some have accused me of being the same. Well, I see it as a compliment in one sense. Why? Because the dichotomy between ‘pastoral’ and ‘managerial’ is a false one – and a dangerous one. What some people mean by ‘pastoral’ (when asking for it in a bishop) is someone who won’t challenge, who is malleable and won’t interfere too much. But pastoral care begins with getting the administration, communication and ‘business’ right: how do you respect someone who says they care for you pastorally when they then double-book you, fail to reply to letters or emails and don’t do what they promise to do?
A bishop is called to be an accountable steward of the resources of people and stuff/things. He is not called primarily to be ‘nice’ or popular. If niceness and popularity follow, then that is fine; but episcopal leadership and ministry are not good for people who want to be everybody’s friend. The alternative to good management of the resources God gives us is, presumably, bad management. Can anybody show me how bad management equates to good pastoral care?
… but really: I feel less called to manage “my” church and more to love her. That’s why I owe a profound debt of gratitude to Fr Roger Clarke, one of the finest parish priests in our diocese, who sent me a link to these stunning videos from St Gregory’s in San Francisco. Perhaps you’ll notice the lack of chairs in the worship space. Perhaps you’ll understand the lack of them, and hopefully sense EUCHARIST going on. Holy Communion. Church growth, with action, and planning.
My wife and I are of one mind: tonight we just sang “Are you going to San Francisco?”. As soon as possible became our shared refrain. As soon as possible. And by the way, we understand now why San Francisco’s Cathedral is called simply and prophetically “Grace”. With all my heart: thanks for the lifeline, brother.
The videos in this blog are great FULL SCREEN. Click the four arrows button before you click PLAY …
| All Now Mysterious
