COTA trip

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A number of you have asked me whether my Seattle trip which I blogged about here is going ahead.

Apologies for not saying earlier. The trip is happening, the flights are booked, I have my ESTA authorisation and am getting excited at the thought of sharing with the COTA community in January. I fly to Seattle on Jan 13 and will land at Heathrow on Feb 4th. All I can say is ‘cooooolm and big big BIG thank yous to all the people that have helped this to happen – you are stars!!

It’s not that far away timewise as Christmas will speed things along …. I’ll say more as we get closer, and no doubt a lot more on my return!

more on women bishops

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Maggi points to some petitions supporting women bishops. You can sign these if you, like me, want to see this happen as soon as possible, and as equal bishops with the other bishops that already hold office – rather than the ridiculous idea thought up by someone who though it acceptable to have women bishops on a different (lesser!!) level than men bishops. A bishop is a bishop, male or female, is equal in the sight of God and as soon as people get to grips with that then the better for us all!

Anyway to sign go click a link below depending on who you are:
you will sign something like: ‘we ….support having women as bishops on the same basis as men are bishops and we urge the Revision Committee to prepare the draft legislation with a code of practice, as requested by General Synod in July 2008, in time for General Synod in February 2010.’

For women clergy sign here

For men clergy sign here

For the laity (male or female!!!) sign here

I guess this is a good place as ny to answer those people who have shown surprise that I have not commented on this offer from the Roman Catholic church. I guess I have not commented because, to be frank, I’m not really that interested. If people wish to leave a church that embraces diversity and welcomes discussion and join one where one person is allowed to make all decisions unchallenged then so be it.

The reason I mention it here is because it is my honest hope that this will enable General Synod to go back to its original decision which agreed women bishops without alternative arrangements. The pope has made this offer to help out those who oppose the move … so I don’t wish to be insensitive but can we please move on now to what the overwhelming majority of Synod voted on after due though, discussion and prayer.

I look forward to our first woman bishop … be great of it was in Rochester!!! Shame it won’t be 😦

running like sparks through the stubble

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This morning I was on the rota to lead matins t 8.00am and the Eucharist which follows at 8.30. Today, being All Souls day, meant the Eucharist included a ‘commemoration of the faithful departed’. For the last week or so the cathedral has had a book of remembrance available for people to write the names of loved ones that have died. Today was an opportunity for people to remember them as I read out each of the names after the Eucharist.

This type of service was a first for me (a year and a bit into cathedral/a bit more traditional life and I thought I would have stopped saying that!), and something that I thought would be another privilege to be involved in. I was particularly struck by the first reading which was from the Wisdom of Solomon in the Apocrypha.

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.
In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be a disaster,
and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace.
For though in the sight of others they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality.
Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good,
because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;
like gold in the furnace he tried them,
and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them.
In the time of their visitation they will shine forth,
and will run like sparks through the stubble.
They will govern nations and rule over peoples,
and the Lord will reign over them forever.
Those who trust in him will understand truth,
and the faithful will abide with him in love,
because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones,
and he watches over his elect.

I found the words particularly helpful as I remembered those I know that have died and love the language of ‘running like sparks through the stubble’. I am not sure I entirely understand this; what does ‘the time of their visitation’ mean? To me, this does not speak of death, but speaks of energy, creativity and is quite evocative in its vibrant imagery. This has challenged me today in my theology of how I view the ‘saints departed’ and widens my understanding of ‘joining with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven’ which we say quite often in Anglican Eucharistic prayers.

it’s what I do!

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Its been a while since I have spoken about my travels and my pioneering stuff. I am conscious, too, that a few people have joined me on this journey via the blog over the last few months and read from a distance but join while not fully knowing or grasping what I think is going on or what we are trying to achieve.

The under girding philosophy of what I am feeling called to do may be found in a short article that I have called ‘the dream’. This can be accessed in the right hand bar of the blog or by clicking here. The dream is then added to in an article I wrote here for Fresh Expressions. A little while ago I wrote a prayer letter (too long ago and so I will be writing a new one soon) which shows some of the reality of what I am involved in. If you are interested in that as well you can read that here.

Essentially those articles talk a lot about the exciting things and the privilege I genuinely feel of the stuff that I am fortunate to experience and be part of. I have a tendency, however, to play down the tough side of the role that accompanies those who have a task of ‘creating church’ with nothing and no one to start ‘creating’ even to the extent of not knowing where to create either. Some have suggested I put those thoughts and what I think I may have learned into a book – maybe one day I shall think about that.

There are a number of ways of attempting to build church and a number involve church planting. While that is a model that produces church it is not a model that I am trying to use or follow in my ministry. I rate the model (please don’t think I don’t!) but it is not a model I feel called to use. Church planting, per se, produces plants which are very similar to what we have already. They may be new hybrids, but the agricultural terminology gives the clue that what grows in a plant will be similar to the place from where the seed has come from.

I guess I am attempting to create a different expression, something that does not exist here in the area already and so there is not really anything to draw seed from. Rather than planting and growing in the way of a church plant I have the words of Bono more in mind in the U2 song ‘Walk On’, particularly the words:

You’re packing a suitcase for a place
None of us has been
A place that has to be believed
To be seen

And love
It’s not the easy thing
The only baggage
That you can bring
Not the easy thing

I’m on a journey, with others, to a new place, where none of us have ever been and a place that has to be believed to be seen! So, when I am out and about I am searching with my suitcase for people who might want to join me on this journey. I’m not out to coerce, to convert or to force people in to a model of something that already exists. I am searching for fellow travelers who search for that new place. What I am finding is that God is starting to bring me into contact with these people because God, it seems, is working in the lives of these people and its clear that church, as it currently exists, just ain’t gonna work for them. Is this fresh expression of church, is it emerging church, is it neither or both … I don’t know and actually not sure I care at this point in time.

I do find it interesting, though, that some people I have come into contact with have been reconnected to church in the cathedral expression and while I did not expect people I met ‘out there’ to start attending the cathedral regularly just shows that God is working in may different ways and at many different levels in peoples lives. I guess that’s why I search and observe rather than seek to convert – if I just go out and ‘do what I do’ it’s up to God to organise the rest.

OPM in Rochester

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I’m obviously a bit behind the times in just realising that I am one the monthly stories over at Emerging church info.

If you don’t know – this gives a good account of what I am up to … although there have been some developments since the story was written back in May. I’ll write more when I feel the time is right.

and i walked in to the darkness

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I visited the Tate Modern today particularly to experience the latest installation in the Turbine hall, Miroslaw Balka’s ‘How it is.’ It’s worth a visit and while there I wrote some words:

and i walked in to the darkness
boldly going
where half the Tate Modern had been before
sinisterly drawing on my vulnerability
summoned
allured
inhaled
into its cavernous ebony abdomen

sitting apart,
all ears to my impenetrable surroundings.
the anxious hubbub of others discovering a path
strangers finding their way
tentative echoes
nervous laughter
uneasy questions

and then
the memories of past mortals
pulped into morbid carriages and containers
dreaming of freedom
until their realisation of horror

where are they taking me?
what is going to happen?
a total historical darkness
stretching beyond the temporary
assaulting the blindness of our minds

blindness we are content with?
the alternative requiring us
TO ACT!

the only survival, the only meaning

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A friend at work lent me a book recently called The Bridge of San Luis Rey.

It’s a short book (127 pages) written by Thornton Wilder in 1927 and I have read it in more or less one sitting (bar eucharist and evensong) yesterday. It’s an amazing little book and the synopsis on the back cover tells you all you need to know before you read:

‘An ancient bridge collapses over a gorge in Peru, hurling five people into the abyss. It seems a meaningless human tragedy. But one witness, a Franciscan monk, believes the deaths might not be as random as they appear. Convinced that the disaster is a punishment sent from Heaven, the monk sets out to discover all he can about the travellers. The five strangers were connected in some way, he thinks. There must be a purpose behind their deaths. But are their lost lives the result of sin? … Or of love?’

The story looks at each of the five characters who were on the bridge, all the while asking what connects these people and why this has happened. Thornton Wilder said that he was posing a question: “Is there a direction and meaning in lives beyond the individual’s own will?” It seems to me that he was challenging the all too common ‘over judgmental’ view of God that sees God as a schoolmaster looking to catch people out and dish out punishment for every and all sin. He was, I think, challenging the view of God that causes people to blame God when bad things happen to them whether that be a flat car battery in the morning or a hurricane that flattens their house. It challenges the pettiness that many seem to think God exists in – a God that says ‘I don’t like what you just did, so I’m going to do this nasty thing to you!’

That is not the God of love that I have a relationship with!

This wonderful little book challenges us to really ask what life is about and what is important. The final words of the book cause me to ponder and reflect:

‘…soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for awhile and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.’

This little book has been an amazing read – why not go find it!

amazing eucharist

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Another interesting day today at the cathedral. It was an opportunity for me to preside at the cathedral Eucharist and while I always smile at myself as pioneer minister in procession behind a massive choir, dressed in chasuble and having to sing solo as the opening three lines of the Eucharistic prayer – I cannot help but see what a massive privilege I have.

The privilege is not just in the fact that I am doing this in a cathedral, although that in itself is pretty special, but that I am involved like this at all. As I pray on behalf of the people present and serve and/or pray for people I find the whole of this worship very very special. I get to certain parts of the liturgy and people have remarked how I break out into a big grin or smile – but I have to say how can one say
‘therefore WITH angels and archangels and with ALL the company of heaven we proclaim your great and glorious name’ or
‘and LOOKING FOR HIS COMING IN GLORY we celebrate …’ or
‘we thank you for counting us worthy to STAND IN YOUR PRESENCE AND SERVE YOU‘
without smiling or getting excited about what we are saying, what we are claiming and what I totlly believe to be true.

Sometimes I think it is easy for the words to become familiar, or for the celebration itself to be so common to us that we forget what is actually happening and what we are remembering.

This is about journey, interaction and transformation with THE living God. A living God who chooses to reveal himself, amongst other ways, through the Eucharist. That is something to be pretty amazed about!

Question Time

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I was going to write about last nights question time but Ben has written excellently here and expressed very well on his blog here what I thought of the program.

I have the same sentiment Ben expresses here ‘I feel my faith has been violated by the hatred of this man.’

seite and dickens

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I caught up with some students from SEITE today as I have agreed to be a mission placement for first years who are going to work with us and our ‘mission’ over the Dickens Christmas Festival in December. I think this will be a good experience for these ordinands and will also be an opportunity for us to learn from their approach to mission as well.

This year we are looking at a theme of pause. As part of our mission we hope to encourage people to pause and consider what Christmas is all about. I am looking for a few people to be characters from the Christmas story who will share their experience of the first Christmas in 5 minute slots throughout the day. Some of these will make the statement ‘this was the son of God!’ while others will ask the question ‘this was the son of God?’ I think this could be a good way of engaging with our visitors throughout the weekend.

We are also going to take the Benedictine tradition of asking ‘what is it that you have come for?’ and seeing how we can respond to that. Many come to light candles and so we are thinking of a book of remembrance, or a pause book, for people to write or draw their thoughts. People also seem to come to be listened to or to ask for prayer. This year we will be able to offer both in the lady chapel and by the High Altar, along with prayer for healing and anointing should people wish to have it.

We are also registered with the Get In the Picture campaign, which I think will be another great way to engage with the thousands of people who visit the cathedral over the weekend.

I’m quite looking forward to the experience again – just need to get on and write those character scripts! oh … and if you’d like to offer to get involved in any way, why not look me up for a chat.