a Yorkshireman again

A working party was called this morning to our hall in preparation for next weeks big parish dinner and tomorrows service. It was good to see the place being pollished up as twenty or so worked hard to upgrade from a building site to a church. It's a bit of a challenge as the heat is cut off so we are using portable halogen heaters.
Tonight it's off to Bradford to my mum's for a hearty tea that reminds me of childhood. She is the only person I know who can successfully pull off sausage,lasagne and baked beans.
This is followed by a trip to bradford university to hear a brass band concert that my son is playing in. Suddenly I feel like a Yorkshireman again!
Pass me my flat cap and recapture my whippet!

Drains

My days seem to be getting longer as I try to squeeze more in... It's taking its toll and I will try and get some time out tomorrow.
There was a lot of fun today as I went to visit a couple at Cragg who are giving thanks for their child. They are unusual even by our local standards as he is from London and she is from Kyoto, Japan though she came here to school when she was fifteen. The baby is very cute and very content gurgling on the carpet and periodically performing her latest trick: rolling over.
There is harder talk as dad explains his role in the global economy in the strategy department of the banking industry.
Their house is on the market and they might go back to Japan which is a pity as talent drains out of our community. Also a pity because this is the first time I have met them in five years they have lived in our community of 600 people.
Reversing this drain needs for us to create community and maybe Sunday will begin to do this for our family as they are introduced to their God and their community.

Unpredictable

We have hit our first major snag with our building project today.
I am not sure how it works but it goes something like…
our builder sub contracted a plumber who thought he could do the three boilers but despite thinking he could…
he couldn’t so that we now have no heating in the church or the hall.
He has “gone off” and our builders have now had to find another plumber or plumbers (not sure which) to finish the job.
Also the gas board were meant to send three different gas people: number one two three, but man two came before man one and therefore they couldn’t do the job!
I know have to handle the many people who understandably are upset about it.
They are not upset about the snag but rather the unpredicatability of it.
Funny thing, people can cope with change if they know it's coming.

Age

Another long day and a cold has made it a slightly foggy one. Spent the morning in school doing performance review of the head teacher. Am reminded of something Gervais Finn said on education that we spend too much time weighing the pig and not enough feeding it.
Afternoon saw me taking the funeral of a 97 year old man and left me reflecting on my life as less than half done! He was married to his second wife as long as I have been to Catherine although he didn’t meet her till he was in his seventies. Hard to imagine such a long innings.
Tonight the children made a birthday tea for Catherine who funnily enough is half the age of the man who died…
I probably shouldn’t reveal stuff like that!

Hate

A bad day, or a good one depending on how you look at it to go to the Race Hate Partnership at Calderdale. Today is hollocaust memorial day and one of the organisers locally has just told me that Muslims are boycottting the event because of Gaza. That the BNP are threatening to disrupt the service and that the police are reporting an increase in antisemitic graffiti.
What can we do...
"Report it to sort it and we will support it."
Not a bad strap line given by a rap poet today.
Hate crime - need to deal with the hate.
Where does hate come from?
Too easy to say difference causes it.
"We don't have a race problem because we are all white here."
Too easy to say it's poverty or background.
In the bible we are told that hate came in when Cain envied Able.
Doesn't help finding another cause.
How do we deal with envy?
An end to it all this happens when as an individual I chose not to hate, I chose not to envy.

Just a bit of fun

Into school today and one of the kids is full of an incident in which some poor lads pants were pulled down. How they laughed, but the adults present didn't with a shudder as we all recollect similar humiliations in our own childhood. Trying to explain to the kids that just because it's funny doesn't justify doing it.
I come away wondering how many are carrying the scars of these early assaults...
Not just childish pranks I think.
Hard to win the argument when similar humiliations occur on reality tv almost every day.

Todmorden

To todmorden to a celebration of the work of the churches in community. It was a very impressive affair which I was kind of compering and speaking at.
Over 200 people turned up with a brass band and a local gospel choir as we heard of all that people of faith have done.
I was launching a faithworks group in the hope that clustering these projects together we might be able to finally persuade Calderdale of the significance of the work being done.

Quality Counts

Harrogate did not disappoint with a visit to the brilliant tea shop Betty's for refreshment.
I don't know what makes it so special. I so suppose technically it's a chain... be it a short one of about four cafes. We had to queue for about half an hour and though the queue added to the sense of anticipation I don't think that made it special. The surroundings were beautiful but they are refurbishing at the moment there was quite a bit of building debry around.
No, what makes Betty's special is the quality of the service and the quality of the food.
Perfect coffee, decaff but tasty and rich...
Perfect cake, butter rich and tasty
Perfect service
Perfect hour spent in good company.
Quality is the easiest bit of the renaissance process for us to forget...
But as with Betty's it's what makes the good...
Great!

unconditional love

To Harrogate tonight for a short escape from the rigours of the last few weeks. After a sad little funeral of a man whose life has been blighted by alcohol. What was remarkable and very touching was the love of those around him. Friends and family who stuck with him through thick and thin.
It made me think we often talk about people's value in terms of what they've done... Or possibly who they've loved. This man's value was almost entirely wrapped up in who loved him. Maybe that was his purpose in life... to be loved unconditionally.

Enthusiasts

The budget meeting ended with us in the pub as we gradually turned from political animals into human beings.
The pub closes at 10 pm, a sign of the times.
Tonight I spent a jolly few hours at a regeneration workshop about companies. I met someone who has a project to grow food in Mytholmroyd. Like a couple of kids we swap our enthusiasm for our community and plot to take over the world...
Well not really, but as someone new to business and someone new to providing space to businesses, we can do...

errr....

business together.

budget night

To the budget meeting of the council tonight for our annual outbreak of politics. Politics only happens when money is involved in our council, the rest of the time we kind of get on with trying to make our community work better.
For an independent councillor like me, it is particularly baffling because the politics has begun before we get to the meeting and the budget has been fixed by one party but because of the rules we can't see the figures.
Are you lost, so am I...
I better concentrate harder.

Hope

I was moved to tears today by Barach Obama's speech. Don't worry I am generally a bit soppy. I think what moved me most was not the words that he used but the word. HOPE.
It's a tricky word as so much of what we call hope is actually wishes.
The hope he speaks of is not so much the stuff of dreams but the stuff of work. The kind of stuff that gets you up in the morning. The kind of thing that overcomes our natural tendency to despair.
St Paul siads that love hopes and that hope is the right respone to dificult situations. As people of faith we have much to learn from each other and give to the world about hope.

freedom

Turned out last night that the party was not a wake for Phil and Lisa's dream more like a freedom celebration. It turns out that their pub the Dusty was making money but that it was not enough to compensate them for their lack of quality of life. Work or life was their choice... they chose life.

presence

Went to a christians together service which are always a bit of a challenge: truly, fourteen people waiting for a meeting to end.
There were some references to world problems and a theme of reconciliation which was hard to criticise.
My mind is elsewhere with Phil and Lisa who run the Dusty Miller, or rather did run it. They transformed our community by their enterprise and hospitality. Now they have to finish, I suspect for financial reasons and they have invited me to a party... I will go to it when I finish here.
Nothing in tonight's service will comfort their pain but maybe the presence of people like me will be the comfort they need.
Presence is a present to others.
I wish I was more present in this service but I am already with Phil and Lisa in my mind.

Crunch

Finally a sleep in after many, many weeks of business. The morning papers,which I finally get to read, are full of the credit crunch and a bit depressing and a bit funny.
Depressing because no-one has an answer and funny as people come up with money Saving ideas.
This week the interior design is on Caravan chique! Clothes are all retro and recycled. Food is about stretching your budget further.
Somewhere, somehow you can't help feeling that a more serious conversation and a more dramatic change is needed.

real places real people

It's been a fun day following an annoying start as I bump into a council employee who is snidy about the new design of the square.which he thought both too modern, lots of lines and too old fashioned, traditional materials!
Then after prayer it was off to a cheerful rural deans gathering at the archdeacons house where we discussed clergy deployment. It's so easy to forget in strategic discussions that we are talking about real people and real communities.
I guess that goes for all strategic discussions.

Town Centre Gardener

Larger Churches consultation today, bringing together some of the bigger churches in our diocese. I guess a meeting that does what it says on the packet. We kind of sneak in there on the back of our multicongregations adding up to the “over 100” that constitutes a big church in our part of the world.
Robert Warren was speaking and as usual he gave us lots of portable stuff to go away and mull over . One of his gems was that churches are not organisations that need managing but rather organisms that need nurturing, vicars are not managers but rather gardeners or doctors or parents.
It did make me think about communities as well. We often talk about managing the community, we even have town centre managers but the reality a Town Centre Doctor or Gardener might be more appropriate.

Partners

Today a meeting of the UCVR steering group a celebration of all that's going on in regeneration in the valley... quite encouraging really.
It's what's known as a partnership meeting and we all sat round a big table ad shared the good news. We're all on first name terms now, connected because of the journey we have taken togther.
It's taken five years to make a partnership... it would tale very little to break it but we're still here.

Reject.

She was very angry... at 13 she has been rejected by her natural parents, at war with her adoptive parents and now in trouble with her foster parents... she thinks she will hide for a bit.
Mind you she has been in a fight with another girl over not a lot really and so the school has given her an exclusion order. But because she is at risk she is excluded in attendance, which I don't understand logically but understand pastorally.
I really like the girl, for all her troubles, she sings and dances and smiles and talks non stop and will be a beautiful woman, if she survives.
I pray tonight she will, the world needs more troubled survivors.

Migration

To Durham and back yesterday to take Rebecca my daughter back to university. It's almost becoming a second home to us. We can even navigate around without the SATNAV.
It's funny seeing her there it really is her other home. She even canvassed their in the last election.
We passed lots of others on the road making the same journey which made me wonder how many other people are of two fixed abodes? Who migrate between places at different times of the year. It's a very common thing. One lady at my church spends six months in Florida and Six months in britain... guess which months! She is fully part of both commuities.
Place is such a big part of who we are it's easy to foget that for others places is their identity. Maybe we shold be a bit less hard on those transient B & B ers as we call them who live their working in the big city and sleep and eat breakfast in the cottages on our hill sides. The challenge is to how we can make a community with those part time members of it.

Scenery

Every once in a while I am reminded that the scenery that surrounds me is not a painting but a living community. Tonight we had a lovely meal at a couple newly joined our church and living in a half completed barn convertion.
Coming back down the hill proved to be even more exciting than the intrepid journey up there as out of the frosty mist emerged first a herd of cows and in particular a large cow in the middle of the track.
I knew enough about cows not to peep the horn, so I flashed the lights.... No reaction
I edged the car closer the cow stood it's ground...
I moved closer still... the cow eyed me closer still.
If it could have put its hands on its hips in defiance it would have.
I edged even closer and began to wonder if it had third party insurance if it sat on my bonnet.
Then... Victory!
Slowly but surely it edged to one side.
Vicar one, cow nil... Result.
The cows were there because someone had put some hay out for them another part of this living scenery.

Public Art

We got onto the vexed question of public art today for the square. It’s quite exciting really we have a considerable amount of money put aside in the scheme to create something for the plinth in the middle of the new town square. As a market square we all decided a market cross would be the best idea… but a market cross for the 21st century.
Ooh!
None of us is very sure of what this is but that’s what you need an artist for.
I still like the idea that came up at one meeting to the effect where someone suggested we should have art work so outrageous that everyone talks about that and ignores what else we are doing!

Ever since I heard this I keep walking past public art and wondering whether that’s why it was put there.

Applause

It’s always the simplest questions that get under our cultural radar and penetrate to the heart of something important.
Like when my four year old asked me when I was at theological college: “Where is God?” I approached my doctrine lecturer who said that was a hard one and over the years I have realised that much of what we think about heaven is not theological but cultural. It’s full of clouds and angels with harps because the Greek heaven was full of these things and we are still essentially a post Greek culture. The bible sees heaven as a city, built by God, with open gates to all point of the compass as a sign of welcome.
Yesterday a good friend asked me why we don’t applaud at funerals. I wasn’t sure but I suspect somewhere deep and culturally funerals are really times for sadness, which is right but also a weird kind of embarrassment because we have failed through our faith, or our intelligence to keep this person alive. Maybe there is a deeper feeling that good people didn’t ought to die and therefore applauding at the funeral, acknowledging that this was a good person, challenges our notions of fairness. If they were good enough to get applause, why weren’t they good enough to live longer?
The bible again is quite clear that our time on earth is fixed by God but is not dependent on our goodness or badness, for all life no matter how short is God’s gift and grace.
Today I conducted the funeral of a youngish father with two small children in front of me. Thinking about what my friend had said about applause I asked the congregation to applaud the diseased so that his children would have something tangible to remember from the service, something that would lodge in their memory to remind them just how much he was loved by others.
It was very moving to see the smiles on their face at this tribute to one of God’s creatures. There might be more applause at future funerals I think.

Famous last words

Late to bed as I finish off the paperwork for tomorrow's funeral. Bit of a shock when I discover that I am on the radio tomorrow morning. Never sure how you prepare for this, I have been caught out before by radio people who say that they want to talk to you about topic A and actually live on air they ask about topic Z!
Anyhow I don't get too perturbed because it's an internet station which I have never heard of... So it really doesn't matter what I say, does it?
Famous last words!

Twelfth Night

There is a duality in my life and work between brain and emotional work that is sometimes a bit unnerving. Take today: I spent a considerable part of the day composing a sermon for the funeral of Nora Nelson tomorrow. Nora was a lovely lady who I knew very well and so I particularly wanted to encapsulate her as she was, a very special lady. all of this safely going on in my head and on my computer.
Tonight it was more of the emotional stuff, heading to the hospital first to see my oldest son who is having a minor procedure then on to see the man in intensive care again. I was surprised how much both visits got to me, something to do with the incredible vulnerability on display… which touched at my vulnerability, unable to fix things, only able to trust.
Tomorrow will have it’s own ups and downs but today has left me a bit ragged.
In addition to this we have taken the decorations down which always makes me a bit sad. so it feels like we are back to once again the depths of winter. The chill of it seems a bit more intense tonight...

Sabbath

Sundays are rarely a day of rest for clergy and their families but usually involve at least one visit to "work." Any more than one and I am in danger of making my children "churched out!" which is their phrase for an overdose of religion.
Whilst not the best candidate for day of rest Sundays usually allow one indulgence: the afternoon snooze. Today I had a particularly good one that began with a houseful but ended with just the family left.
The snooze is a great gift from my dad, who without even the drop of a hat could take a quick nap pretty much anywhere.
Wouldn't britain be a better place if we all had an afternoon snooze... An hour of rest even if you don't get an day of it.

Held in the balance

Funeral visits this morning, a bit of shock to the system as you walk out of the tinseliness of Christmas into the cold realities of life and death. Except they're not that cold as the great mystery when someone dies is there is this wonderful dam burst of the love from those who knew the deceased.
More of a cold shock when I am called out to visit someone taken suddenly ill and now unconcious in the intensive care unit.
"What did you do?" my wife asked when I returned home.
"The usual."
To hold a hand, to stroke a forehead, to say a prayer and to mark with a cross.
All together commending someone into God's care, who holds their life in the balance.
The truth of course being that for those who believe that's where we always are... whether we acknowledge it or not.

Adventures with my SatNav

Today we drove over to Boundary Mill to try and find some bargains. We know the way the way there all too well but decided for fun to leave the Satnav on. All the way it kept tantelisingly pointing up small lanes which we managed to resist being directed up.
On the way home a certain giddiness came over my wife and I, due to the lateness of the hour or the sheer joy of shopping without whinging children and so we decided to follow the SatNav. I have no idea which way we went but given that we started off in completely the opposite direction to that which we would have gone and arrived back home from the North when we had left towards the West we had an exciting adventure in the dark, that was neither illegal, immoral and it didn't make us fat!
Given my usually default position these days of grumpiness it was kind of exhilirating, not least because you were completely in someone or something else's control.
Just a brief glimpse then of the attraction of cults and facist regimes?
Probably not as there was not so much pain involved, more like the attraction of the fair ground where for a few risky moments you put take your life out of your own hands.
That self control that we all love to think we have is almost certainly an illusion but at least with the SatNav you can switch it off.

Back Again

So I have been off blog for a couple of weeks and the truth is the Christmas Wave has meant that I have just about managing to hold my head above water, and today after going to bed at 3.00 a.m. I have managed to sit still for long enough to write this blog.
It's been funny not writing the blog, a conversation interrupted really and a discovery, from the number of people who have commented on the fact that I have stopped blogging that people are reading it.
Sad news just now of the death another of my flock at Cragg means that next week I will probably conduct three funerals in this parish of 600 people, quite significant really, all ways round, not least in that they were all lovely people.
John Donne's no man is an island, which calls for us all to consider that when the bell tolls it tolls for us is particularly poignant for this little communities, where we can't afford to lose people.
So another prayer for another bereaved family and after the briefest of respites the vocation makes its call back to work.