Thought for the Day

Apologies for minimalist posting here recently. Got a bit swamped in admin if I'm honest. I can do a brilliant job of the day to day admin of ministry unless some family admin intervenes, on top of which bleaugh for the last three days. Anyway, managed to squeak out a TFTD at BBC Radio Bristol this morning and here it is:

The Bible is big on remembering. A theme of the Hebrew scriptures, what Christians call the Old Testament, is the assumption that if things have gone badly people must have neglected the Law. And vice versa.

In a shorter piece called 'History Lesson' the poet Steve Turner wrote:

History repeats itself.

Has to.

No-one listens.

This week we move clumsily from one piece of recall:

Remember, remember the 5th of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot

To another:

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them

Are we listening to history?

My Dad joined the RAF in 1941 aged 17. He could fly before he could drive. He flew Wellington bombers and Dakota passenger transporters. His emotional relationship with Remembrance Sunday was complicated. I never sussed it. My family didn't do conversations about feelings.

I reckon he missed his mates who died, dealt with the trauma of war by forgetting and forced himself to watch the wreath-laying service from the Cenotaph every year. He behaved disrespectfully to any wreath-layers who hadn't served as he did. And he had no time for anyone who voiced the idea that they were showing more respect than others.

I wonder what he would have made of the recent tendency to make art of poppy installations.

Strangely, it has become my job to try to articulate the complex emotions of remembrance. What is the lesson of history that we need to learn? Before we even think about telling someone off for not wearing a poppy let us take time to be silent.

In fact two minutes quiet to stop and think might be a great way to respond to anything we disagree with.

Being Ronald Blythe with a Plastic Bag Brain

I set an alarm on Sunday but am always up before it sounds. I carry it downstairs and find my glasses to disable it. Otherwise I can never be sure that the single press has been hard enough to turn it off and I can't see the icon without assistance.

I make fresh coffee using a stove pot and while it is brewing print off my service order for the morning service.

There is a brown and white cat in the garden. I walk towards the conservatory window and, once eye-balled, the creature shoots back under the fence aware of how unwelcome it is. Two pleasantly plump wood pigeons appear and perch on the stone bird-bath. I have their backs.

I take the coffee back up to bed and finish yesterday's Guardian.

It is Remembrance Sunday. A church that meets in a school has no war memorials on which to lay wreaths. We have a normal service, communion as it is the second Sunday of the month, and we take the two minutes silence at 11.00 whenever we have reached in the service. We allow it to interrupt our flow. Today it falls between two worship songs and feels entirely appropriate. Our congregation often grows on this Sunday to include renegades from other churches with a more formal approach to the day. I recall my father's tears and turning off the TV. He hated remembering.

I have a cold, an inflamed ganglion and a bad mouth ulcer. Any one of them would be annoying but as a trio they are making me miserable. It helps me to run a service with a sombre atmosphere. An ordinand preaches. She does well and I communicate mal de vie perfectly.

Children join us at The Peace and we use our own little liturgy and break bread together. The kids enjoy participating and grabbing a grape instead of alcohol. For us it is all about inclusivity not maturity. Two thirds or more of our eighty strong congregation stay for coffee and some delicious home-made biscuits which have appeared out of the blue. Next week we are offering breakfast before church.

That's me done for the day. Sunday is not my busiest day of the week nor should it be for anyone missional in 2013. I sit in the conservatory keeping the throat lubricated, pausing from time to time to hurl stones at the fence just above the cat encroachment area.

I ponder the words of Ghostpoet:

I am here
Standing by the window
Maybe I'm just shallow?
Wonder where you are

The ghosts of clergy past tut magnificently.

What Shall We Burn?

Flags? Qur'ans? Bibles? Guys? Burning stuff can cause mixed emotions.

A teenager got into trouble this week for posting on Facebook a picture he took of a poppy being burned. I don't get it. The people who gave their lives for freedom made that sacrifice so we could let idiots post pictures of themselves being stupid. It's a free country. If someone is offensive we ignore them or disagree with them. I don't think we want poppy burning to be deemed an incitement-type offence. We should remember them, but it is not that we must.

I have trouble with offending people over poppies. I was once accused of being grossly offensive for wearing a white PPU poppy alongside my red one.

My Dad hated poppies and all the '...creeps who turned out to march but had never seen friends die next to them.' He preferred to switch the TV off on Remembrance Sunday.

I have begun to hate the early-poppy-wearing season that starts on the last Sunday of October and the (here's a joke) fascists who take you to task if you don't wear one.

Anyway it occurred to me that sometime in the next couple of months I shall probably be burning some palm crosses and making my oil-enriched potion for ashing. Now how would it be if I posted a picture of the cross-burning, normally a private ceremony?

I remind everyone that it is not in my gift to offend you. That gives me too much power. Offence is something you choose to take. You don't have to.