Punctuality

I hate being late. In fact I'd go so far as to say that if I am late it would be a good idea to pray for the accident I'm involved in. In my last parish JJ once, apparently, invited a meeting to pray for my survival when I was half an hour late (actually I was stuck in unanticipated traffic outside Torquay in winter).

Last night was going well. It was my day off so I was feeling slightly bitter about going out to a church do, albeit the licensing of a much-respected and well-liked colleague. I had left enough time to chop a few vegetables for Liz's supper, get changed and check the email about the arrangements so I knew where to meet everyone.

Chopping the vegetables I also chopped my left thumb. Small incision but blood everywhere. Searched for first aid box. Gave short prayer of thanksgiving that we had not needed it in six months since we moved, followed by short prayer of 'So where the hell did we put it then?' Phoned Liz. Answer phone. Carried on searching. Held tissue over cut and got dressed. Couldn't do buttons up on shirt.

Liz phoned. Identified wardrobe in bedroom as place for first aid stuff. Found it. Fiddly plasters. Can't get them undone without my left thumb.

Leave a bit late (but still in good time) having finished vegetable chopping with care. Forget to check the email. Arrive at church car park. No-one there. Check Rectory. No-one there. Check in church. Ballet class.

Drive home to check time and meeting place. Mobile rings. Pull over. 'Are you getting the coach?' Discover correct car-park to meet in. Turn up Station Road. School event. Traffic chaos. Just 400 yards away when phone rings again. 'Where are you now?'

Arrive 10 minutes late. Last on the coach. Thankfully others who plan meticulously have built this delay into their timing.

Liz says her tea was lovely. Licensing was good. The lovely Keith put the plaster on my thumb. It's fine this morning. No sign of wound at all. Liz says this will have been good for my humility. How?

Cup Stacking

Or how about fifteen seconds of unbelievable dexterity in the realms of, er cup-stacking. It's very big in some parts of the world apparently. OK Denver. You will need to scroll down to the bottom of the article to the video link. Try and avoid going to the home page of the National Cup-stacking Association. You'll see things you hadn't oughta see etc.

Bunnies

They left me alone on a wet day off with nothing but the internet for company. The fools. I tried to avoid it. I drove to Clevedon. I drove on to Congresbury. I had a fine pub lunch and read the Guardian. I went shopping for food. I came home and decided to watch some TV programes I missed. The remote broke. Les choses est contre nous.

Which is why I followed a few links and found this site where cartoon bunnies re-enact famous movies in thirty seconds. Don't look at ones you haven't seen; serious plot spoiling going on. Sorry if this ruins your life or causes deadlines to be missed. No really.

Andy Mckee

And this clip, of Andy Mckee playing every square inch of a guitar in almost every possible way, just blew me away last night. Thanks again to Leamington JohnH for the link.

Igudesman and Joo

Friend of mine won't read any book I'm reading because 'You'll tell me all I need to know if it's any good.'

I'm not a great YouTube surfer because my friends are. Thanks for all who share delights. Leamington friend John sent me these this week and finally found time to give them attention.

Have you ever heard of Igudesman and Joo? Two superb musicians who focus on comedy whilst being brilliant. Sort of Flanders and Borge. Try these:

Rachmaninov had big hands

Riverdancing violinist

An operatic version of the Beatles' Ticket to Ride

Piano Lesson

Not the End of the World

Click on the link for a fuller review than my earlier post, on the BBC Collective site.

Not the End of the World

You have three days left to catch the Bristol Old Vic's remarkable portrayal of life aboard Noah's Ark. A flight of imagination turns five chapters of Genesis into an hour and a half of brilliant, physical theatre. There are births, deaths and marriages, treachery, demon possession, songs, stowaways and animal Gods. Never seen an actor do a realistic portrayal of a pregnant wildebeest using mallets? Get there. Tickets for tonight still available and maybe for the weekend too. The dove flies, the mink steals cubs and the rainbow totally rocks.

'A man's head is an incredibly small place to keep all the plans of God.'

Gambling

Loved the idea, the tail-end only of which I heard, on Today's Thought for the Day today that the Mayors of Blackpool and Manchester should play poker to see who gets the Super Casino.

Naturally, said the speaker, it would be laughed off, but if gambling is such a bad way to sort out a city's economy, why is it such a good way to sort out an individual's?

Changing

My first week in the new parish, May 1988. I had said the usual stuff about watching and listening and not making any major changes in the first six months. Then I heard them. Perhaps the worst music group I have ever heard in church. I chatted to a few of the older, wiser heads afterwards, thinking that this must be a bullet bitten early. 'Leave 'em' said Tom, a scouser who had found a new home in the north-east but whose accent betrayed his roots, 'they're getting better.'

I left 'em. They were young. They improved. Two years later, as Head of the Church Youth Fellowship's Association (CYFA) it was a privilege to invite them to lead worship at the CYFA National Training Weekend where they did well. They're all rich and famous (or ordained) now but that bit of advice, to leave something that was improving, stuck with me.

So I'm delighted to hear, from several people, that last night's annual parochial church meeting was the best it has been for some years. Not that it would be within my gift to fiddle with it anyway. Influence but not power. Let's try some.

The 'fears' expressed in my previous post. I said:

'Tonight will be my first Annual Parochial Church Meeting in Nailsea and I always look forward to them with a cocktail of emotions. Will people ask stupid questions? Will someone get cross about something silly? Will someone who loves the sound of their own voice speak for too long about something few of us are really bothered about? Will it be well chaired? Will there (gasp) need to be an election? Will it end before last orders (now that's a biggie)?'

Then someone commented (sadly anonymously, come out from behind the sofa, please) that, 'I think that most (if not all) of your fears were unfounded.'

To respond:

1. It was a cocktail of emotions, not just fears. Conflict is good. Resolving it sensibly is a joy. Emotion-free blandness is not success.

2. Did people ask stupid questions? No.

3. Did someone get cross about something silly? No.

4. Did someone speak for too long etc? Yes. Several people did. The cumulative effect of several people over-running is a two and a half hour meeting. Given that there was post-meeting business to be done as a consequence of decisons taken (dates to be fixed, appointments to be made) and it is incumbent upon staff to arrive in good time, it felt like three and a quarter hours to me. More introverted personality types (using the word in the technical sense of Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicators) such as my own (well it's borderline) will find it hard to cope with a meeting of more than two hours. In fact after that we will vote for almost anything that ends the meeting.

5. Was it well chaired? I think so. Spotting a well-chaired meeting is very difficult. Much harder than it seems. If, for instance, the chair has decided that leaving an organisation in temporary turmoil for long term benefits is necessary, then hitting that target would be success on the chair's terms but may feel badly chaired by those in attendance if they end up chucking furniture at each other. Likewise a meeting that was chaired to be non-controversial, or to avoid the heat of previous years' passion, might be well chaired but may feel boring to the punters, especially the new ones. This is not a criticism of the chair, with whom I would have taken things up personally if I had a problem. It is an observation that assessing the chair's skills is complex.

6. Did we need an election. No? Might have been good if too many people wanted to stand for office and the people decided.

7. Did it end before last orders? Yes.

I think my over-riding fear represented by my questions, if I had one, might have been that the meeting be a bit dull and I think it was. But for many that seems to be a successful outcome. We need to talk about our vision for church growth over the next five to ten. Desperately. I hope it generates some passion. As much passion as the modernising of our rooms or the repositioning of a banner.

Tonight

Tonight will be my first Annual Parochial Church Meeting in Nailsea and I always look forward to them with a cocktail of emotions. Will people ask stupid questions? Will someone get cross about something silly? Will someone who loves the sound of their own voice speak for too long about something few of us are really bothered about?

Will it be well chaired? Will there (gasp) need to be an election? Will it end before last orders (now that's a biggie)?

I think I ought to go to four more to be fair to the other four parishes (two benefices, do they have two or one meeting?) in the Local Ministry Group.

BB

BB is Big Blogger and is an imaginary friend who pops along every now and then and gives me a hard time or says things I dare not say.

BB where you bin?

Oh around St, around.

I thought you'd left me.

Course not. Just didn't think open-hearth surgery was a good thing in your early days in a new place. You know how you are with disclosure. Get carried away.

You mean heart not hearth?

You have a heart?

Fair point.

So. How's it going?

You know I don't really know. I feel settled, comfortable, at home and all that but also a little nervous that the only way forward, to grow this church, is for busy people to get busier.

But you always say that if you are going to do more as a busy person then you need to work out first what to do less of.

I say it in better English.

Git.

Fair point. But that would mean telling busy people that they should give up a lot of their extra-curicular activity for a bit and devote more time to the church.

Or?

Or simply have the church as a support group for busy people with other ministries.

Hmm. Dilemma.

Indeed.

I'll pop back next week and ask you how it went?

How what went?

The discussion.

What discussion?

The one this just started.

Cafe Create North

Cafe Create Leamington Spa has spawned. The first northern cafe has happened in Lancaster. Read about it here. Well done Mike and team. We welcome you.

Trouble is the website of the original cafe still says the next event is in January 2007. Have I failed to leave a team in place to continue the work for more than two cafes after my leaving? So disappointing. Or do they just need to remember to update their web-site, something I always had to nag about.

Ah well. Not my problem. Now, how about a southern branch?

Proverbs 6

Loved this insight from David Plotz at Slate Magazine's Blogging the Bible project:

'I must quote the following passage in full, because 1) it's great advice; and 2) if there is a God, He clearly wants you to know this:

There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family.

'Don't get too hung up on those dueling numbers—is it six or seven, Lord? Instead, let's talk about the first five abominations—eyes, tongue, hands, heart, feet. Isn't that a brilliant sequence? It reminds us that the physical is the moral. Again and again, Proverbs deploys images of the body to describe moral behavior. ("Let your eyes look directly forward"; "turn your foot away from evil"; etc.) Our age celebrates the supremacy of the mind—that morality and immorality are founded in thought. But I like the Proverbs model, which recognizes that it is the body that sins—the body does wrong and right, not some vague, uncorporeal mind.'

Read the rest of his insights into proverbs here.

Goodnight

Off to bed early. Had root canal this afternoon. In a crowned tooth. I now have a gold crown with a white filling. Completely successful and pain free whilst in the dentist's chair. Flippin' sore now. Your sympathy and concern should be left in the comment box overnight to help me feel better in the morning.

Statistics

Dave Allen used to say that since one third of accidents were caused by drunk drivers this led to the conclusion that two thirds of accidents were caused by the sober who should get off the road and leave the drunks in peace. The clampdown on drunk drivers has led to a greater and greater proportion of accidents being caused by the sober.

As health and safety got its teeth into the residential holidays for teenagers programme I used to assist with, the analysis one year proved that more dangerous than mountains, rivers, caves and contact sports were cupboard doors.

Nationally this trend produced the rarely mentioned statistic one year that accident and emergency admissions were prompted by, in this order:

1. Slippers
2. Tea cosies
3. Stairs

If you see someone in slippers coming down the stairs with a pot of tea don't dial 999, call the undertaker.

Zoe Williams in the Guardian yesterday ranted about a government recommendation concerning alcohol and blue cheese restrictions for pregnant women. Read her whole piece here. She concluded:

'...factoring in the midwifery crisis in the NHS, the 21% rise in maternal deaths over the past three years, and the 17,000 women who have suffered harm on labour wards, the most dangerous thing you can do for yourself or your foetus before, during and after its delivery, is to take it anywhere near a hospital.'

This madness is coming at us from all angles at present. As a piece on the radio said yesterday, Sainsburys have banned Turkey Twizzlers but still sell cigarettes.

It seems to me that for every scare story there is an expert who will refute it or, at minimum say, 'Hang on a minute.' The skill of living today is the ability to pick the most likely expert or assess where the majority of experts concur and then to make your own decision as to whether that glass of Stilton wine is really an unjustifiable risk to your unborn child.

I smoked during my wife's first pregnancy. She drank. Last night we had dinner with the resultant 27 year old, six foot two, thirteen and a half stone statistical anomaly and his girlfriend. We just got lucky? I had given up smoking by the second pregnancy and my wife consumed less alcohol but my younger son ended up four inches shorter than his brother. What should I say to him?

Life. It's all about decisions. What's yours?

This is not my Church

This is where I heal my hurts. Faithless' Maxi Jazz knows how to work a crowd and, although in a show of hands a majority of the Birmingham NIA indicate this is their first Faithless show (where you been?) this crowd know how to be worked.

Looking down from the dizzy heights of row LL the huge moshing mass of ground floor humanity was a phenomenal sight, joining in the encouraged hand-raising of 'We come one.' This song is an anti-prejudice anthem par excellence but, unlike most churches, this is what now Bishop then College Principal Graham Cray once dubbed 'false community.'

This harmony of voices and bodies deny their prejudice but it has little or no effect on the behaviour of those queueing for the one thousand only copies of the live CD of the gig available ten minutes after the show. Neither is the car-park exit made much more harmonious.

This is a church where you join together with the band and move apart later. Who you worshipping eh? No sharing. No encounter with anyone except the band and those you came with unless your neighbour, as mine did, happens to ask you what the support band were like. No fruit.

Faithless do make the world a better place, but only for the duration of their gigs. The clue's in the name. Read my review of the gig here. And the support band here.

Crumble Song

Now listen, older readers. Bumped into this post from Phil Greig about the crumble song he used to sing at camp. I've added a comment taking the song back another twenty years to 1972 albeit to a different tune. Who can go further?

And who can date the change of tune from My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean to Land of Hope and Glory?

I was taught it (OK not alone but in a crowd) by a guy called David Morgan who was a youth leader at St Stephen's, Selly Park in the early 70s.

And by the way, the crumble was made of too much sugar on top of already too sweetened canned pie filling and, in the absence of fluoride in the water, was one of the contributing factors to my needing root canal tomorrow.

Baptism

The baptistry at Holy Trinity, Nailsea is set into the church floor. To develop it permission was granted to remove human remains. When the church was originally built many burials took place under the church floor until that was full. Then the church yard was used. So candidates being baptised by immersion are being sent down under the water and amongst the dead. They are in the only part of the under floor area of the church or graveyard that contains no bones. Fantastic symbolism.

It is with a great sense of mischief and rejoicing then that I will try on Sunday evening to avoid making any reference to the fact that the surname of two of those to be baptised is Boddy. I may fail. Sorry in advance.

Bishops and Lions

It is the source of some amusement in the Diocese right now that the Bishops' plan to celebrate the 1100th birthday of the diocese is being slightly hindered by the news that the boundary may well go through the lion enclosure at Longleat. Even if this isn't true the narrative demands at this point that we proceed as if it is.

Some have indeed said that any bishop unable to walk safely through a den of lions should not really be in the post anyway. We need more Bishops Daniel. Maybe it would be a use for Paul Daniels? It would be a better interview technique would it not? 'Before we proceed with the questions we'd like to take you on a short walk around the diocese.' Excuse me. For a moment there, in a flight of fancy, I imagined that bishops were interviewed.

Still, being the big chief gives you the power to delegate so the Diocesan Missioner and the Diocesan Secretary have been given the task of investigating the exact position of the Diocesan boundary between now and the walk. So far they have only been lost in a ditch once, and a relatively wild-cat free place it turned out to be, if a little muddy. Wouldn't the Diocesan Surveyor have been a useful member of the team? I only ask.

The Diocese of Bath and Wells was formed when Sherbourne (must check spelling) Diocese was divided into three (Salisbury, Exeter, B&W) 1098 years ago. I once worked in a church founded in 883 (St Mary and St Cuthbert, Chester-le-Street) but an administrative structure that dates back to pre-Norman times is a survivor and no mistake.

Perhaps we should have all the Salisbury clergy and the B&W clergy face each other across the bounds in a 'come and have a go if you think you're hard enough' way. I'd be delighted to bring up the rear.

Good morning.

Local Life

I don't know exactly why but I sort of suspected that such a white, middle-class suburban environment as this might be hiding some pretty nasty racism. Last night at the bar I heard a Scottish accent announce, loudly and unashamedly to his neighbour (but so that everyone else could hear his opinion) that, 'I don't mind the Indians 'cos they work hard but I can't stand the Pakis.'

I tried to make my look in his direction as contemptuous as possible without tripping into threatening. I don't have the physique or the attitude to do threatening in any meaningful way so it would only ever lead to a beating.

The guys at the bar then, gleefully, chose to misunderstand (deliberately) the use of the word 'girlfriend' by the Russian woman who works at the pub. She was describing a friend who is female. They were enjoying the lesbian undertones. Pint of Sussex pulled I left the gathering. Must return alone soon.

I realise that I have spent insufficient time alone in the pub. It is almost impossible to make new relationships in a pub if you go in with company. I wonder how long it will take?

A pub I used to go to had the expression 'You're only a stranger here once' on the wall. Someone had removed the word 'once'.

Stop the Traffik

I love this one minute short about slavery. Click here to play. May be useful over the next weekend's commemorations.

More on Eggs

Read in the Guardian at the weekend that describing something good in parts as a curate's egg is quite wrong. Apparently the original 1895 Punch cartoon had the Bishop saying, 'Mr Jones, your egg is rotten.' The curate replied that on the contrary parts of it were quite good. The joke is that an egg can't be part rotten, so a curate's egg should not be something good in parts but something ruined by parts of it being bad. Now how many curate's eggs can we think of?

Hydrogen Sulphide

Heaven preserve us from a chemistry lesson by St (O Level grade 7 = fail) but listen here. I remember an experiment at school to make hydrogen sulphide and being told that the resulting gas had the distinctive aroma of rotten eggs. Sometimes Birmingham industry in the 1960s and 70s produced such an odour but lord only knows what they were doing. I remember the early catalytic converters on cars. When you stopped at the traffic lights that smell could be noticed no er, smelled, that's it.

Thing is I had never smelled a rotten egg. When I smell hydrogen sulphide I think that must be what rotten eggs smell like but I've never experienced it coming from an egg or eggs. Until this morning. Cracking my egg for poaching into the boiling water a black heart and grey liquid plopped into the pan and the smell was unmistakably science lab 1969.

Fifty one and three quarter years and I've never had a bad egg. Today was my first. What misfortune have you avoided?

Wall of Words

Rather than email to all my alleged friends and a few others who got stuck in my email addresss book I thought I'd post this. The challenge, wordy mates, is to find a word that nobody else has posted yet. I chose offscourings which is an old word for dregs (left at the bottom of a scraped barrel). Can you match that?

'On 1st March 2007, Openreach challenged the nation to build a mile of words to unlock their £50,000 donation to I CAN, the charity that helps children communicate. We did it! Now we need your help to go the 'extra mile' for children who struggle to communicate. There are great new prizes to be won too! It costs nothing to add your favourite word and you also get the chance to win one of 10 Becker multimedia SatNav systems (terms and conditions apply). Help to build a brighter future for children. Visit Wallofwords. Thanks and good luck!

An Unofficial Position

I had this idea for a story back in 1999, polished it in the pub in Bentham with the help of people such as Ewan, Chris, John and Bob, and beer such as Landlord. I finished it later and submitted it to the BBC where it was rejected after several months despite being loved by the producer who read it. I read it at Cafe Create once but now, with the help of the writers' group I have just joined, have trimmed 300 words out of the beginning and it is almost sharp. Enjoy.

There was a newcomer in church. The Reverend Graham Gray was flabbergasted. There was no lych-gate poster at St John’s saying, ‘Push off’, but there may as well have been. The service was ‘Family Worship’, although until today the youngest member of the congregation had been in her sixties. The only gesture to ‘family’ was that the woman still came to church with her mother.

Some rural communities occupy very beautiful villages. Names such as on-the-wold or in-the-vale, upper this or lesser that clearly raise the expectations of the visitor. Some. Then there is Chim. Chim is a decaying village. City dwellers have not yet colonised it – nobody has had the guts to go first.

The sleepy churchyard surrounds a dozy church. Members of the regular congregation of ten (including organist and vicar) are not avidly reading church growth manuals. Everyone who might be interested in churchgoing has been visited and each in turn has declined the invitation.

Graham chatted to the newcomer who gave his name as Maurice Richardson - a researcher into village customs. Graham had no inclination as to what customs he might find in Chim apart from excessive inter-marrying in the nineteen forties. It had no fête, no fayre, no beating of the bounds, no village green and no maypole. Chim was destitute in interesting features.

The following Wednesday evening, as Graham drew into the village and parked outside the shop he noticed, and heard, activity coming from the pub car-park. In a dying village it is almost inevitable that the pub will be on the way out too. The George had managed to keep going by attracting some real ale fanatics to its single, well-kept, hand-pumped guest beer.

The music coming from the car-park was the very distinctive music which accompanies English country dancing. The occasional ringing of bells and clash of sticks betrayed that the dancing was Morris.

Graham hated Morris dancing. He had once closed down a church country-dancing group and destroyed an accordion in a fit of rage. He saw devilry and evil at the heart of such an apparently innocent pastime. He argued for the demonic origins of the movement, quoting sixteenth century apologists who called it , ‘The Devil’s Dance.’ And Mr Richardson the researcher, turned out to be the chief instigator of the noise. Maurice the morris-dancer. He was teaching the craft to a new group.

And so later they had a row. Maurice defended the dancing as part of England’s cultural heritage. Voices were raised, tempers engaged and at the end of a visit when a gentle clerical welcome to the Christian community was planned a threat was issued that Maurice keep his stupid, childish, dancing games well away from the church.

Maurice Richardson was not a vindictive man, but neither was he a push-over. Aware that the Reverend Gray spent little time in the village he persuaded his dancers to practice in the churchyard on warm, summer evenings. Some of the villagers would wander over and watch, sitting on grave stones, and then retire to the George for a drink or two. There were probably more people in and around the church that summer than there had been for many years; there were certainly more people in the George. The troop improved and soon had a repertoire of three or four dances.

It took several weeks before a Graham visit coincided with a churchyard practice. He was affronted and outraged. He had made his feelings abundantly clear and he demanded Maurice stay behind for a talk in the church. As the trainee dancers, apprentice musicians and followers drifted across to the pub, voices were raised in the church. Fingers were pointed. Prodding and poking took place. Just as everything seemed it could escalate no further, Graham snapped. A life-time of stupid people doing stupid things, from which Graham had hoped ordination would liberate him, came bearing heavily down upon him once more. The weight of a thousand people’s annoying lives were suddenly represented by this one man standing before him in a white shirt and trousers with red sashes round his arms and legs and who jingled as he moved.

There were two ceremonial swords on the wall of the church south aisle – a gift from an ex-army, Parish Council chairman. Graham grabbed one and swung it. He intended to have the impact of a mace-seizing politician. He didn’t really expect to do any harm. He wanted to show Maurice flippin’ dancer what he was like when riled.

But the sword was longer than expected, sharper and certainly heavier. As he swung it in Maurice’s direction he lost his grip. The entry and exit wounds met and Maurice’s head bounced once on the second pew from the back and rolled under the recently upgraded heating system. The rest of his body simply gave up doing anything useful and, after a short delay, fell to the floor.

Graham was stunned. Clearly not as stunned as Maurice, but stunned enough. He ran to the church door and locked himself in.

Graham didn’t really plan to cover up his crime, but he gradually tumbled to the possibility that a stranger might not be missed for a while. There would be no suspicions if he re-opened a grave. He embarked on several hours of meticulous scrubbing and cleaning – in fact if anything would arouse the suspicions of the people of Chim it would be a church interior thoroughly cleaned for the first time in many years. Having cleaned up the blood Graham went to some trouble to redistribute the dust and dirt.

After three hours Maurice Richardson was contained in a very large plastic holdall which had spent its previous thirty years keeping the dust off altar frontals.

Graham moved the body to the crypt. He was aware that the funeral, for which he had been in the village visiting, would involve a grave in the churchyard. He reckoned it would be easy enough to put an extra body in. Two nights later Graham drove back into Chim and found the grave – a family plot – which the sexton had just re-opened. He dug it a little deeper, down to the collapsed lid of the previous coffin, and Mr Richardson became a grave-crasher. Graham covered him lightly and to all intents and purposes the hole looked as the grave-digger had left it.

Next day at the funeral he committed two bodies to the ground, muttering Maurice Richardson’s name under his breath following that of the genuine holder of the grave-rights.

Graham Gray thought he had a Christian conscience but discovered, as he hot-wired Maurice Richardson’s Vauxhall Astra Estate and drove it into the city to dump it, that it was without depth of conviction. He felt equally comfortable as he emptied a flat of the recently deceased’s possessions and took them to the nearest charity shop. He slept soundly and nobody said anything. Over the next few weeks he heard one or two people wondering aloud where ‘that nice Mr Richardson’ had got to, but when asked to comment he simply expressed the opinion that such researchers probably moved on fairly regularly. He got away with it completely.

Summer came and went and the autumn witnessed no renewal at Chim Parish Church, no police inquiries and no more dancing either. It was a night-time in October and Graham Gray was dropping off to sleep. The phone rang.

‘The churchyard vicar, the churchyard.’ Graham recognised the voice of Betty, his Church Warden from Chim. He froze. What had she found?

‘What is it?’ he asked as calmly as he could. ‘A ghost? Really?’ Relieved that it was the sort of thing that merely needed reassurance and an explanation of the harsh shadows of moonlight he felt confident he could deal with the matter. He drove over, grateful that no bottle of wine had accompanied his quiet night in.

By the time he arrived at Chim there was no ghost, only a dispersing group of villagers, chattering animatedly.

‘What did you see?’ Graham asked a small group of women.

‘A dancer,’ they told him, all talking at once, ‘a dancer with no head.’ The colour drained from Graham’s face. It was dark. No-one noticed. Returning to his bed an hour later he fell asleep with his head in his hands, which, considering the plight of his ghost, had to be considered a luxury.

The following day the local newspapers and regional TV news crews were at the churchyard setting up. Rarely had they had a ghost story attested by so many witnesses and they wanted quotes, pictures and, if possible, live reportage. Maurice didn’t disappoint them. At midnight he performed a brief handkerchief dance in the moonlight and then vanished. Of course although all the reporters saw it with their own eyes the photos and films showed nothing. Corporeal non-compliance.

Graham spent much of the rest of that year ministering in Chim. Suddenly the village had a tourist attraction. The George got a second guest ale in. The two bedrooms in the pub were regularly booked for overnight stays. Remarkably the church grew as some people from the fringe of the community chose to attend worship. Within three months attendance had doubled and a small store Graham had set up in the church sold a booklet about the ghost and some inappropriate trinkets. Of course the booklet dated the myth of the dancing ghost back several generations because when Graham talked to the villagers about it many of them swore they could recall being told the story by their parents.

And so the income grew, the congregation grew, the village grew and all this came to the attention of the church hierarchy. Soon the Archdeacon was persuading Graham to look at another hopeless case in the Diocese – this time a run-down inner-city parish. He accepted. In fact pretty soon he was thinking of assassination as a generally well-rounded church growth strategy. That and fire – many congregations needed freeing from outmoded buildings and a diocesan arsonist might well help. It would have to be an unofficial position.

Retreat

One of the (many) privileges of professional ministry is retreat time. We are encouraged to take some time out for thinking/reading/praying at regular intervals. I prefer to take two half-retreats a year and so will be doing that this week. Lots to ponder as you will have seen if you visited Trendleblog at all.

This particular time I will be focusing on reading as I feel a little underfed on that front just now.

Anglicanism

The service I attended in the last two hours began with the line, 'We sing hymn Number 6 omitting verses 5 and 6.' Now that's a proper Anglican introduction, better even than:

The Lord be with you
Ay up he's started

and

There's something the matter with this microphone
And also with you

and

Lift up your hearts
And up yours

Writers' Meet

I have, over the last ten years, attended a number of night classes and creative writers' groups. They have, almost without exception, been worthwhile. There was an introduction to comedy writing in Coventry which was very funny but probably not for the reasons intended by the tutor. We spent two weeks trying to recreate Hancock's Half-Hour before dissolving due to insufficient numbers and none of us being called Tony.

It was a writers' group that polished the short story A Day at the Cemetry for me to get it to broadcast standard and I've always been grateful for that.

Yesterday I joined the local group which meets at Clevedon. Bit light on the old chairing front which meant I had to stand back from filling a leadership vacuum at a very early stage. 'Get back from the edge, I said get back from the edge you don't want to run this group...' There were ten of us round the table and during the two hours there were between one and five conversations going on at any one time despite no instructions ever being issued to 'talk to your neighbour for a minute'.

And for 40p I had a cup of something loosely based on the idea of coffee but obviously not put together by anyone who had come across the original recipe. I did finish it but the residue at the bottom of the plastic cup stuck to plastic a little like a free CD adheres to a magazine. I think it may have been liquified Post-it notes.

But I met some fine people, several of whom come from over my side of the M5 so it even counts as making pastoral contacts. One guy has a column in Psychic News. Never saw that coming.

I provided useful information on matters of theology (stop sniggering) as there were questions about rainbows, Wesley hymns and the confession. Sample dialogue:

'It's in Genesis 9.'
'I never got that far.'

We read to each other and there was good, bad and the Queen. This one could run and run.

Trendleblog

Trendlewood Church now has a blog. Hopefully it will enable us all at this end of the Nailsea God-worshipping commuity to have a good, continuing and open discussion about, well, everything. No idea how this will work out, who it will upset or what the fruit will be but the only way to find out is to do it so it's done.

Why not pop in and say hi?

St

A few words about St. Not an alter-ego but a little more complex than a nickname.

When email came out it seemed good to have a signature. Lots of people where I worked then developed really contrived signatures which basically told everyone how much work they did. Or at least told everyone how much time these people spent working on their signatures when they should have been working.

I began signing my emails simply with two letters but, by using St, it could either be read as short for Steve or my initials (not counting my first initial which is J and stands for James).

This presented the sort of people who have problems with things like this with problems. Becky started calling me St (pronouncing it stu like the begining of study or stutter). Liz started calling me Ste (Stee) which I liked but only when she did it. Bob used Sieve but that was a misprint. Occasionally people say 'Saint' which is wrong except when Dave does it because it is full of irony then as it is he who is that.

By the way don't call me Stephen unless you are my Grandma or Aunty Brenda (or anyone from my time in the north-east where abbreviating a name without permission was seen as an insult) or trying to annoy me.

St is a sort of virtual me I think. Me online. Not really capable of being put into spoken words but less poncey than Prince's squiggle.

I think St and Steve coexist in the same spacetime and have a strange symbiotic relationship. Which makes the fact that both of us are a Gemini quite weird don't you think?

What you called?

CEN February 2007

February. Good news. Pay day comes three days sooner than usual. Bad news. Monthly deadlines do likewise. As I embark on the surfing I sacrificially do on behalf of Church of England Newspaper readers, here is last month's offering:

February 2007

Welcome to Lent. Fancy a new take on giving up? Go to The Big Cold Turkey and sample their free downloads before buying a cool light blue wristband with clip-on trophies for 5, 10, 21 and 42 days of abstinence from whatever it is you decide not to do. Alternatively go with Christian Aid’s idea of giving up giving up and giving instead. Details on the Count Your Blessings section of their web-site. Want to know a bit about Lent? Why thus called? Why 40 days? The Ayiti. This spells out the cost of life. You take decisions on behalf of a poor family in Haiti and try to keep them alive. It’s difficult to master but great as a learning tool. Youth groups will love it. Getting some of my virtual family to live for four years was a genuine cause of joy and a wake-up call too.

Thinking of travelling? How about checking out if anyone you know is going where you’re going? OK this is probably not the behaviour of the Church of England Newspaper reading demographic (all trying to avoid people?), but your children? They may well be back-pack-gap-yearing. Telling them about Where Are You Now? will establish how cool you are if you do so before they discover it.

Think that last paragraph was a bit clumsy? Maybe I should have taken it to GrammarStation for help or downloaded free software from ZDNet which checks for phrase or word repetition. No guarantees here. Readers advice on grammar software appreciated.

If you think the TV drama Party Animals can’t possibly be true then get the insider’s view on life in the Houses of Parliament by visiting the blog of senior parliamentary assistant Kerron Cross - The Voice of the Delectable Left. It’s visual, infatuated with looks and full of less-than-useful links. Premier League time-wasting.

What do the clergy think? I’ve been writing my own on-line journal for nearly four years now and have been able to host discussions I would never have otherwise been involved in, from the size of a reasonable CD collection to the nature of evil. There are loads of others. I find an interesting take on life from so many clergy blogs. You find the words ramblings and musings quite a lot. Hmmm.

Finking Out Loud is updated in spurts and then goes quiet for days but is always likely to make you fink, smile or both. Good in Parts is a log of learning on the job. Vulnerable and visual.

Why don’t seaside vicars look out to sea in the morning? Because then they’d have nothing to do in the afternoon. Elizaphanian looks out to sea, often photographs it and, I hope, has a sense of humour or I’m in trouble. Rev Ruth is also coastal but looks inland too.

Still striving for that elusive halo... is a lovely title for a blogful from a priest, wife and mother. Gadget Vicar is a busy site with lots going on. Made me feel determined to redesign my own blog. ‘Squallen from Celtic days refracted though Black-country-wised and wizened forebears. Thames flowing in grandsired veins. God Christfully inspirited this mud: a husband; a father; a priest. ENTP.’ If this floats your boat you have to go to Nouslife. Now. Watch out for pop-ups.

Hiding behind these convoluted titles are real deacons and priests. Visit to find out who they are. Maggie Dawn doesn’t hide and does update every day. Bishop blogs? Bishop of Bristol, Mike Hill, runs one which he began following a well-reported road accident. Starts many conversations. Thinking Aloud is equally episcopal.

Hub sites are places which have links to many other sites. To keep up with new developments in alternative worship Moot is a good hub. I got from there to an online Labyrinth, some Pomomusings and The Alternative Hymnal which is a commentary on contemporary songs from a worship perspective and a place I will be dropping into lots.

I’ve archived last month’s stuff and all previous columns on my blog, Mustard Seed Shavings. Leave a comment there or email me with feedback. Now I must get back to Haiti.

St

A youthworker's Tale

Three years down the line and my first book is now being remaindered due to low sales. Selling 800 or so of the 3000 print run wasn't enough so Scripture Union have flogged the old stock off cheap and it will soon be appearing heavily discounted. Ah well.

Still, I have managed to purchase 200 copies even dirtier cheaper so will soon be making them available at £2 each which is a two-thirds discount from the original £5.99. Have a word if you want one.

Wit

I think, mindful of the many demands the church co-ordinator was facing last week prior to the wedding we all attended on Saturday, (happy day, thanks everyone) the groom, tongue in cheek, sent her the following email. I reproduce it entirely with her reply just so you know that this is why I love my friends. The wit is not dependent on getting a larger audience but I think it deserves it:

Dear J,

I know this might be out of your jurisdiction, and I know you are a bit busy, but I was wondering if you could please fix the following for us on Saturday:

Can the loo rolls in the ladies please be changed so as to match the mother's corsages - we really don't want them to clash. Attention to detail and all that.

There is some graffitti in the vicinity of the church - 'KAYA', 'Villa' and "Dunc loves Debs"; since no one at the wedding will be called KAYA, Debs or Duncan, can you please change this to read "J Loves G", "Come on the 'Loo (after Waterloo Rugby Club) and B****** (J's family dog).

We thought it might be worth seeing if we could replicate the Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" stage set for during the bit where we are at the registery - do you think we could ask R / G / ME to set up a laser show, smoke cannons, inflatable pigs and for a large scale model aircraft to come from the back of the church and crash at the front in a pyrotechnic extravaganza. We would hope to finish the performance with a large glitter ball descending from the church ceiling with several multi-coloured spot lights reflecting off it?

One more thing; can you recommend anyone to act as stage dancer, a bit like Bez from the "Happy Mondays," to perform with the musicians during the gig?

We also notice the ducks, swans and geese in the park tend to fly out as and when they feel like it; do you think you could have a quiet word with the relevant people (the local vet, the park authorites, God, Ben Fogle, Bill Oddie etc.) and see if they can either be chained to the railings or even better, taught to fly in formation, like the Red Arrows for instance, that would be spectacular for the photos.

The river is running a bit high and is an unpleasant browny sludge colour - could you please have the level lowered, the flow a bit less torrid and if it's possible to have the water returned to it's usual bluey / clear state then that would be great.

Finally we also note that there has been a lack of elephants using the elephant walk across from the park, could you use your extensive network and see if anyone has got an elephant, or hippo, lying around that might be available to wash themselves in the river like they used to do back in Victorian times? As a side thought, it can't be much fun having an elephant as a family pet as they tend to take up too much space, perhaps in this day and age we could genetically modify them to the size of a cocker spaniel, how cool would that be?

Many thanks in advance, G


Dear Mr D (jnr) (this joke loses something in anonymity - ed)

Delighted to be able to be of assistance to you. Recent cuts to the church budget demand the following modifications, of which I hope you will approve:

Loo rolls –
Unfortunately, Tesco value loo roll only comes in one shade, known as ‘slightly dodgy grey’. Fortunately, the children’s groups have an ample supply of wax crayons which I will place in the toilet. Guests may select a colour to complement their outfit and colour each sheet in themselves before they use it. Nothing like being involved to make your guests feel special.

Graffiti –
The ‘Lillington Crew’ are on the case with their bottle of tip-pex. However, at last viewing, ‘J loves G’ had become something distinctly vulgar. Still, the best I could do on a budget.

Dark side of the moon set –
I am sure you’ll agree that last year’s set from the ‘Seaside Rock’ will make a most agreeable alternative. Lifeguards Chas and Dave will perform the rumba for your special entertainment, including a specially choreographed move involving an inflatable dolphin.

Genetically modified elephants –
Sorry, this is the Church of England, we don’t believe in genetics. However, this being the sixth day of the week, I’ll ask God if he can create one for you.

With sincere best wishes

JB
Master of Co-ordination

How fast?

How fast can you decorate a toilet, sorry guest cloakroom? Before you answer have a think. How fast can you do it to the standards of a professional visual merchandiser?

I did ceiling, walls and satinwood (not gloss hate gloss nasty stuff) in three hours this morning, took a break for lunch and a quick once round the gym and then repeated the whole bangshoot in two hours 45 this afternoon.

Reacquainted myself with the Bravery plus second Franz Ferdinand (not convinced), Amy Winehouse latest (weird, my Gran would have liked this), Zero 7's 'The Garden' and the second Delays album.

Apparently I should have done a second coat on the radiator and painted a bit further along the pipes too but that is a pleasing result.

What a fine way to spend a bonus day's holiday. Now up to Leamington for Jane and Graham's wedding (preach and accompany Ben singing like an angel) via Godstuff and CPAS pals. Until Sunday then.