The R Word

A funny thing happened the other day. Something that hasn't happened in January for maybe 40 years. You may ponder. I'll tell you later.

I've been retired (that's the R word) for two weeks now. I've noticed a few weird things, such as finding myself reading a newspaper on the day of its publication. Ages since that happened. Also my head. I am normally thinking ahead. Pondering what needs to happen next, tomorrow and eventually. There is currently no eventually and little tomorrow in here. I've planned supper.

I was chatting to Gary the plumber this morning, back for his annual visit to fix the toilet in our family bathroom, a place that's a triumph of style over function. Told him how I didn't want to be the sort of person who complained about trivialities. 'What, writing strongly worded letters?' he said. Exactly. Not that. Please. Let me carry on caring about the fight to save liberal democracy and not if a Waitrose carrot deteriorated faster than usual.

A local friend has just won a long-standing battle to obtain funding and permission to have his house altered to take into account the degenerative disease he has. He doesn't need it now but will do soon and when he does he won't be able to cope with the disruption of the alterations. He told me, with a twinkle in his eye, 'I don't think they realised how much time I had on my hands.' Having an empty diary gets results, sometimes. Strongly worded letters are not totally irrelevant.

Another couple of locals, in retirement, became people of such repetitive regularity that they always did a walk on Thursday, the chores on Saturday morning and the shopping on can't remember but it was time-tabled. Thing is, I can see now how having some structure provides a week with routine. Flip-side is that if it is all routine and only routine the days, so I'm told, pass very quickly and before you notice you're routinely dead. By all means have some fixed points but don't get them stuffed and mounted. I will in future read on a Tuesday (the day in my working life most likely to have had some space for study) unless you have a better offer or there is an emergency. Likewise Fridays, a rest day for the last fifteen years or so, will continue to be a day free from jobs. Our bio-rhythms mandate it.

I am good at packing up and handing over, or at least I think I am. The process of thinking about who would do various jobs I used to do helped me stop thinking about them when I finished. How do I know that thing will not be forgotten? Because I remembered to pass it on to someone who is reliable. That's the best I could do. That said, I am surprised how little I have thought about my old duties. It helps that I have received no phone calls or emails (yet) asking 'What did you do with the...?'

So my first two weeks have been relaxing and the list of things to do is getting pruned. It is nice to be able to cut down on duties and jobs. I'm not quite like a colleague who told me he was going to make a New Year's resolution to ruthlessly eliminate hurry. I asked him why he couldn't eliminate hurry slowly. But I am slowly slowing down and looking forward to a couple of weeks holiday away coming up soon.

So. The thing that was weird. Another friend invited us to come for the weekend some time before Easter. And after taking a moment to enjoy the idea of going somewhere for the weekend I found myself asking a question the answer to which I would normally know at this time of year:

'When's Easter?' I honestly didn't know.

More when we get it.

Thought for the Day

As delivered this morning at BBC Radio Bristol:

I'm tired. You tired? Hands up who's tired?

I got a scratch on my car. My gym socks got into a red wash and are now a fetching pink. My job has got bigger while my time to do it stays the same.

Thanks for being there; it's good to have a moan, moan, moan.

In the Christian calendar it is Wednesday in Holy Week. Some people call it Holy Wednesday. It doesn't have a great press compared to Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday which many would recognise as days with special meaning.

But those who have given things up for Lent can see the finish line now. Four more days.

'It's a busy time for you,' says almost everyone I meet on the streets this time of year. I swear they think that after Easter I'll sit in front of the tele waiting for Christmas. If only.

Do I sound grumpy? Sorry. Moan, moan, moan.

Thing is that sometimes the annual cycle of celebrations doesn't quite fit with our own mood. I seem to be joined by the news stories - grumpy landlords, lame horses and even people voting against a businesses improvement district. What's the matter with everybody?

I wish I could search down the back of the sofa for a bit of positivity. But then I remember that the Christian story is unashamedly positive about the negative. A man willingly going to his death for others (like that brave gendarme this week). It is an inspiring story.

Jesus died willingly as an example and a gift to you and me of leadership and obedience. If the worst I have to do is wear pink socks to the gym I think I may have got off lightly.

I feel better now. Thank you for being there.

Thought for the Day

As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol an hour ago:

One of the ideas most commonly used by members of the Christian community for their experience is that of a journey.

I am here. And I want to get there.

I was looking for something and I found it.

We have just celebrated Easter, the culmination of Jesus' journey and the promise of resurrection. A final destination if ever there was one.

It is true, of course, that at the time the Bible was written, journeys were complicated. The fastest you could get anywhere was on the back of an animal. A trip of ten miles needed planning. If it required walking then there and back took a day.

Today we can get Chinese food to take away and vaccines to cure illnesses - all in the seeming blink of an eye. Isn't it interesting that so many of our stories on the show this morning are about journeying? Taxis to get home from the railway station. Bus or rail links to the airport. And yet those we call 'travellers' find themselves with a bad reputation.

What can we conclude?

Well when I was a child I was impatient. 'Are we nearly there yet?' the rear-passenger chorus line.

When I was a young adult I thought I had arrived and knew everything.

Now I'm getting on I realise that I probably won't change the world but I can make a difference and I don't have to rush.

The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard was right when he said 'Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.'

Which is me finished and left with a day's journey to two school assemblies in an hour's time. Isn't progress great?

...you died and your life is hidden...

On Easter Sunday morning I preached, although I didn't write anything down, on the epistle.

I discussed what it means to say, post-Easter, that '...you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God...' an assertion Paul makes in Colossians 3:1-4.

It wasn't the greatest sermon I have ever prepared but I had enough to say on our setting our hearts on things above and waiting for him to appear.

The thing that caught me out, and thus book-ended this average sermon and helped lift it, was the version of the Bible in the pews. It was the New International Version, with which I have few problems, but with a sub-heading for the passage.

You can do theology until you're whatever colour in the face excessive theology turns you, but somewhere around line one of paragraph one of reformed Christian thought we might expect to read that the Gospel is a free gift, given by the grace of God. If you are not currently a member of my faith community then please do not feel you are being force-fed this; I simply ask you to accept that it is what we believe and it is orthodox. People went to the stake for the assertion that you cannot buy your way into heaven. Christian behaviour is a response to the Gospel not a cause of it.

So my question became this. How detached do you have to be from that mainstream Christian thought to think that  'Rules for Holy Living' is a good sub-heading for the passage? I am perfectly happy to accept that there are implications for my behaviour based on my beliefs. I am even content to identify with people who set themselves a voluntary code of practice and live under orders. But rules? Not today thank you.

Thought for the Day

As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol this morning. It was followed by much hilarity when presenter Emma called some vandals 'scrotes' and then asked round the studio if that was a BBC word or not. At which point newsreader Keith said it was the latest model from Ford and we all collapsed. Wasn't it an insult Fletch used on Porridge all those years ago?

Today is known as Maundy Thursday.

Jesus, eating the Passover with his friends the day before he died, washed their feet.

It was a humble act. That of a servant leader. Afterwards, speaking of what he had done, he is recorded as saying:

'A new command I give you. To love one another as I have loved you.'

The first word of that sentence in Latin is mandatum - many scholars think we get the word Maundy from that.

But where two or three scholars are gathered together there is often a bit of a barney. Others suggest that the name comes from a different Latin word mendicare - to beg. They say that the names of the money containers used by royalty to give alms to the poor on their way to mass this day, gave the day its name.

The great thing is that both acts are still emphasised. The Queen gives out Maundy money each year. Symbolic foot washing is still practised.

As Bristol considers the possibility of becoming free from corporate advertising we note that symbolic acts have power. Power to subvert and power to influence.

As do symbols. If I hold up a wooden cross there can be no doubt what I am alluding to. It is one of the greatest advertising symbols of all time.

But wouldn't it be great if a city, indeed a whole region, was to become known for its acts of generosity, humility and kindness?

Jesus said his disciples should be recognisable by their love, for one another and their neighbours. Well I'm a realist. It's not always that simple. But it may be a better advert for my love if I wash your feet rather than put up a poster.

Which Newspaper helps you understand chocolategate?

Do you read a newspaper? It was quite a straightforward question at my ministry selection conference in 1979. One of the lay interviewers (the retired British Ambassador to Canada) asked it. I gave a true answer, which at that stage was the Daily Mail. That had been the paper I grew up with and, at the tender age of 24, I had never bothered to change. On Sundays my Dad had bought three papers - the Express, Times and Mirror and he spent Sunday mornings smoking and reading. I read the sports pages. Some of the guys I worked with bought the Sun or Mirror and I felt happily superior to them. The Times was for management.

Oh how things have changed. Politically and culturally I woke up. After ordination I changed to The Times, then The Independent shortly after its launch. In the mid 90s I became a Guardian reader but struggled to keep up given the amount of online material also coming my way. I embraced the iPaper and still do but tend to buy a Saturday Guardian or Sunday Observer. On Gozo for two weeks a year I read the Telegraph as the others take too long to arrive or sell out early. 

But to return to that selection conference question. Yes I read the iPaper and weekly Guardian but almost never on the day of publication, which, at minimum, gives me a good handle on their ability to prophesy. For daily news there is the BBC news app, a C of E media feed, a daily edigest and of course my Twitter feed with several news sites followed.

One of the skills required today is the ability to edit your input stream. For satisfactory balance you must not allow it to consist entirely of people with whom you agree.

But sometimes the entire stream goes bonkers, such as today when the whole of the UK internet seems to be discussing whether the National Trust had edited Easter out of chocolate and whether that mattered much. The Archbishop of York seems to have got it wrong, the C of E comms people have had to issue clarifying comments, the Prime Minister has got involved (which shows how trivial it is for she never has an immediate comment to make on serious issues) and Peter Ormerod, usually a beacon of sanity in a daft world, has managed to upset almost everybody by being right.

Watch and learn my friends. Watch and learn. And if being interviewed for the ordained ministry pitch your answer to the media question at a level the interviewer will understand. So sit by them at breakfast if you can.

Tomorrow. Is selling nails on Good Friday blasphemous?

Thought for the Day

As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol this morning:

Palm Sunday is the commemoration of the waving of palm branches as Jesus entered Jerusalem. My Nailsea church has its birthday on Palm Sunday. Founded on that day in 1989 we always count the festival as our anniversary. Last Sunday we were 27. 

We had baptisms and a party. It was a good day.

The week we are in now, in most western Christian churches, is known as Holy Week. It includes three special days:

On Maundy Thursday we recall Jesus' last supper with his disciples.

On Good Friday we mark his death. Hot cross buns don't capture the severity.

On Easter Sunday we have surprising and exciting news to ponder. Almost unbelievable. Chocolate eggs fall a little short of the level of celebration required.

But real events are no respecters of festivals. So people die on happy days and are born on sad ones. Yesterday as ministers, myself included, prepared material to tell the story of victory over death, some people who got up early to catch planes or trains ended their lives in waiting areas. Hard to call that a good Tuesday. 

The humdrum of our lives is full of good and bad. No disabled access. Bad. Great actor visits Bristol. Good. Animal cruelty on the increase. Bad. School students multiply £10 many-fold. Good.

This week Christians celebrate the remarkable triumph of good over evil. The bad things which happened to Jesus the preacher are not the end of his story.

Evil, however horrible it is to those who suffer, will not have the last word. For we recite the tale of one man who suffered and we ask:

Didn't he used to be dead?

Easter and Mark

I have an idea which I have shared briefly with a few people. It is this:

Mark's Gospel has sixteen chapters. A person of average ability, reading it to themselves, would probably be able to do it in about an hour.

Some of you are very good at images, particularly photographic. How about if we showed a slide transition of thirty-two images, two per chapter while people were reading? Thirty seconds each transition.

How about If we collated these images by asking for anyone to submit photos for consideration and releasing copyright for those so chosen?

How about if we then invited anyone to use the set with their own local music backing in Holy Week 2016?

Comments, assistance and further ideas welcome but I hope this may be achievable without a lot of people having to do a lot of work. It would be crowd-sourced.

The Gospel in Three Limericks

Wrote this years ago but don't think it has ever been shared.

There was an old feller called God
Who found it exceedingly odd
That each generation
Of every nation
Should tread where they shouldn't have trod

Not wanting to count it all loss
(And seeing how he was the boss)
He sent to earth Jesus
To try and appease us
But we nailed him onto a cross

Three days later the people were led
To a place were some witnesses said
They'd a story to tell -
The deceased looked quite well
And not in the slightest bit dead.

Special Easter Greeting

Courtesy of the Campaign for Real Liturgy ©, here is the Easter all-age opening we used at Trendlewood Church:

Leader: Alleluia. Christ is risen.
All: You say that every year.

Leader: You're supposed to say 'He is risen indeed, alleluia'.
All: No-one says 'alleluia' these days. You're so out of touch.

Leader: So what do you want to say?
All: Jesus is alive. Yeah!

Leader: Really?
All: No. We're not that trendy.

Leader: Big up to Jesus init?
All: Now you're being silly.

Leader: OK, you're in charge.
All: Let's just start with a moment of quiet.

Leader: OK.
All. Shhh!

It led into a very good, and well-observed time of silence. The Campaign for Real Liturgy is delighted to have its material stolen, adapted and unacknowledged. Which pretty much makes the whole © thing a waste of time eh?

Good Friday

If it is true that the cross makes a difference to everybody and everything then the 'last-hour' gathering we have enjoyed at Holy Trinity, Nailsea these last few years has been an amazing opportunity for me to curate (I think that is the right word) a worship activity. Here, juxtaposing old words and new music, we allow ourselves to be trapped in watching and waiting with only our thoughts for company. Across the reaches of time we hear a voice asking those of us who are unhappy in the silence, or with the choice of music, whether we could not watch and pray with him for just an hour.

And so this year we listened to:

Beginnings by Junip
Dream of the Rood by Erland and the Carnival
After the Ordeal by Genesis

All bookended by one of Eno's wonderful ambient soundscapes and with Josh Howard's knack for finding appropriate visuals to lift everything.

Numbers have fallen off dramatically this year, perhaps because we have another opportunity for alternative worship in the evening and a 'proper' meditation at 9.00 a.m. and so it may be the case that a new breath of life is needed into this next year.

If this has been my last one, it's been a privilege.

Thought for the Day

After a brief chat about facial hair, as you do, and insults from Steve le Fevre about my salt and pepper stubble, here is the script for today's Thought for the Day from BBC Radio Bristol this morning:

Hey Steve. Looking for a thrill? Or for you is it a quiet life you seek? Ready for anything or quietly complacent?

Some people seem to live their lives looking for the next rush caused by excitement. Surfing on the Severn Bore. Water-sliding down Park Street. Getting into roller derbies as we heard on the show yesterday. Or sneaking around by night doing street art.

There are clearly some, but is the BBC Radio Bristol area full of adrenaline junkies?

In my day job as a parish priest I meet a lot of people who have worked to make their lives less exciting. They now know what is coming towards them and are glad to have security about it. They have eliminated uncertainty from their future, or so they think. I'm not so sure.

What about you? Risk averse or seeker of kicks?

In Holy Week we remember a journey taken by a man on a donkey straight into the power-structures of old Jerusalem. It wasn't thrill-seeking although tables were tipped and crowds were shouting. Maundy Thursday tomorrow is the story of how Jesus struggled with the inevitability of talking his way to his death. And the decision he eventually made to accept it. Jesus didn't dice with death. He died.

How about us? Crowd surfers or comfortable sitters; we have no idea what is round the next corner. We either don't want to be excited at all or we want to be just shocked enough to get a buzz. We love surviving a thrill, a scare, a ride, a bungee jump. But we don't want to die. Just flirt with death a bit.

But for what, or who, would you lay down your life?

Good Friday Music

Here are the four pieces of music I used for Good Friday yesterday in case anyone wants to follow up, purchase or download.

Big Blogger

BB
Right, let's get this straight. Jesus is dead.

WWA
No.

BB
What do you mean no? We celebrated his death yesterday.

WWA
We wouldn't have celebrated his death if he'd been dead. We would have forgotten him. We celebrated because he's alive.

BB
Really? Wasn't that a bit rude? Does he mind?

WWA
We never really think about how he feels. It's all about how we feel.

BB
Are you sure? Won't that comment upset a lot of fine, upstanding Christian people?

WWA
Have you read this blog before?

BB
Good point.

WWA
Can I ask a question?

BB
Sure, but you know the rules.

WWA
If you are only a part of my subconscious does that mean my subconscious is not a follower of Jesus?

BB
Good point.

WWA
It was a question.

BB
Sorry. Good question.

WWA
And?

BB
You think, subconsciously, that the church's year can do more harm than good?

WWA
I do? I do? I do.

Good Friday Playlist

Want to listen to something that will connect with the deep, deep feeling following you around today that this is the day something really important happened? Try this playlist:

Peace by Los Lobos
Is it Like Today by World Party
I Can't Stand the Rain by Ann Peebles
Solid Air by John Martyn
Pink Bullets by the Shins (starts with a brief advert)
Liquid by Jars of Clay (with a Good Friday video)
The King Will Come by Wishbone Ash
Converted by the Alabama 3

Lateral Thinking Solutions

A woman parks her car outside a hotel and loses £2000. How come?

Playing Monopoly.

A man lives on the twelfth floor of a block of flats. Every morning he takes the lift down and leaves the building. In the evening, he gets into the lift, and, if there is someone else in the lift -- or if it was raining that day -- he goes back to his floor directly. Otherwise, he goes to the tenth floor and walks up two flights of stairs to his flat. Why?

He's short and can't reach the button. When it's wet he uses his umbrella.

Two men enter a bar. They are served identical drinks. One lives; the other dies.

There is poison in the ice cube. The guy who drinks slowly, dies.

There are two pieces of coal in a field full of daisies. How did they get there?

Snowman.

A man drives down the road at 29 miles per hour. Three cars pass him going at 35 miles per hour, but he gets stopped by a police officer and is given a ticket. Why?

Wrong way down a one-way street.

A man leaves a full hotel, goes to his car, honks the horn, and returns. Why?

He wakes in the night to get something from his car but forgets which is his room. His wife is deaf. He honks the horn and then goes back to the only room where a light is not turned on.

One of Charlotte's dearest loved ones binds her to a chair, but she doesn't mind. Why not?

She's three; it's a car seat.

A woman marries 20 men in one year. Why hasn't she been arrested?

She's a vicar.

A man is going to hospital with a fractured skull. He is accompanied on the journey by a badly bruised woman with an empty bucket. Why?

Jack and Jill from the nursery rhyme.

A woman presses number 7 and a man goes berserk. Why?

Don't change channels during a penalty shoot-out.

A bag of good nails is found on a rubbish heap. Why?

Romans crucified Jesus on a rubbish heap.

Lateral Thinking

Today at Trendlewood we will be trying to solve some lateral thinking puzzles:

A woman parks her car outside a hotel and loses £2000. How come?

A man lives on the twelfth floor of a block of flats. Every morning he takes the lift down and leaves the building. In the evening, he gets into the lift, and, if there is someone else in the lift -- or if it was raining that day -- he goes back to his floor directly. Otherwise, he goes to the tenth floor and walks up two flights of stairs to his flat. Why?

Two men enter a bar. They are served identical drinks. One lives; the other dies.

There are two pieces of coal in a field full of daisies. How did they get there?

A man drives down the road at 29 miles per hour. Three cars pass him going at 35 miles per hour, but he gets stopped by a police officer and is given a ticket. Why?

A man leaves a full hotel, goes to his car, honks the horn, and returns. Why?

One of Charlotte's dearest loved ones binds her to a chair, but she doesn't mind. Why not?

A woman marries 20 men in one year. Why hasn't she been arrested?

A man is going to hospital with a fractured skull. He is accompanied on the journey by a badly bruised woman with an empty bucket. Why?

A woman presses number 7 and a man goes berserk. Why?

A bag of good nails is found on a rubbish heap. Why?

Happy Easter everybody.

Good Friday Music

This afternoon's music was:

Liquid by Jars of Clay

Hear it again here with a Good Friday video.

Vordhosbn by Aphex Twin

Hear the original version here; Leila Arab's rhythm-free remix is not available on YouTube.

Twenty three by Fourtet

Here it again here with a nice home-made video.

Attendance at this service has risen every year since I started doing it in 2007. Over 100 for the first time today. Thanks for coming.

Good?

With the smell of passover bread on the breeze, today there are nails in the air. It's a curious mixture of death and life. We celebrate the one who used to be dead. We stack models of the atonement - death conquered, evil defeated, sin overcome, suffering shared, service demonstrated - and bring them in to land until we realise there is nothing that the cross didn't do. All our hopes have arrived.

How strange that Christians fall out over what the cross achieved. Stupidity is the only weapon of mass destruction I fear.

Also, what a crazy-mixed up world is the church's year. Striving for a pattern we can forget Jesus is alive on Good Friday and have to keep him dead until the chocolate is unwrapped. Then on Sunday we can over-celebrate, forgetting that others have still lost their dead.

This side of the heavenly tear-wiping ceremony St John anticipated, I believe that wandering around in awe-struck confusion amongst the crowds is the best way to live Holy Week. Many of the people have no idea what has happened to them, in them, with them; for them.

I never send Easter cards. No way could I commercialise this. A member of my family, who sticks up for the absence of God most times we meet, always sends me one. It's all I can do not to rip it up.

Have this as my Easter greeting. Ponder if you dare.

Hello Again

Now then. Where are you? Ah, there. Jolly good. Have you been waiting long? So sorry to have kept you but, the thing is, whenever I've had anything like an idea for a post for the last couple of months my first instinct has been to see if it will make my book script fizz.

For those who have been a bit bored by my constant references to it I apologise sincerely. It's a bit like having a... no it isn't but it feels like I gave birth yesterday without the gore. Today I don't have a baby; just the beauty of not having to do anything between appointments.

Every spare moment for the last month I've been tweaking the text and now it is in the hands of Naomi at BRF. I'll have to wait and see what she, and her panel of readers, think.

Today it was a joy to spend a bit of time planning something else. If you have not been before, tomorrow afternoon's Good Friday hour is a chance to meditate on the death of Jesus with readings, prayers and music. I usually choose music that will not all please all the people. If you like it is a chance to allow the discomfort of listening to something you don't enjoy to disturb you a little. I like the idea of being disturbed in meditation during an hour at the cross. I may sing too; very disturbing. It is worship with your ears; there is no participation. The numbers attending have risen every year since I started doing it in 2007.

I have had some nice feedback on the Easter Journey as people visit shop windows in Nailsea. The art isn't cutting edge installation but it is thought provoking. My prize for the best window will go to Nailsea Bookshop. A special mention for the huge table-setting of stones-to-bread in Homestyle but it is one of Mrs Mustard's shops and families of the judge can't win the prize. I aslo liked the crutches leaning against a stile in Let's Walk. Photos to follow.

I just had a call from a mother who told me her kids think I'm awesome. Shucks, that's nice. That's two people this week who have been specifically impressed before you even get to the funeral I did on Monday at three hours notice due to colleague illness. The Good Friday service may balance that out, based on the letter of complaint last year that the Holy Spirit left the building during one of the pieces of music.

I suspect that if the Holy Spirit needs a break tomorrow the music will not be the reason.

I think I might read something again. I am enjoying Brian McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy which I am reading with my now-on-maternity-leave curate colleague. I am staring at:

Church Marketing 101 by Richard L. Reising

But I think I have reached the point where so many people have told me to read What's So Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey that I need to find out what the fuss is about. Last time I succumbed I read The Shack which was very disappointing.

I also bought The End of the Party last week, Andrew Rawnsley's 'Rise and Fall of New Labour'. Not sure they've completely fallen yet. The opposition is unconvincing.

My sister tells me the chattering classes are all chattering again about The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It is much referenced by commentators on Thatcher's selfish generation but I may leave it until the holidays.

Time to slow down for Easter. I love being able to say that.