Gravestones

The sun is shining again and there is definitely spring in the air and in everyone's step. A day for the outdoors, spending an hour this morning talking planning with the nice man from the Diocese about what we could do with the land between the church and the hall. We want to remove a wall and shuffle some gravestones to create a nice place to sit and to link the church and hall together. We had originally planned to build a link building but then we realised you don't need a physical link you can join together with greenery and paviture, horizontal architecture as I have learned to call it.
Followed this formal meeting with an informal wander with three of the young women from our church and Ferdinand who is oneish and wise. He managed to find every puddle and every muddy patch and had a wonderful time as we explored the church's land. It's wonderful to imagine to Ferdinand playing along the riverbank we reopen, walking in the park we create with his girlfriend, pushing his child in a pram, walking along the riverside with his grandchildren to feed the ducks, and maybe even joining other friends and family amongst the beautiful gravestones.
Lunch in the High School is followed by a rather solemn Evening Prayer with Howard in the next door parish in which we talk about life not being complete without pain. Pain being a motivator for the London marathon he is taking part in in two weeks time.
Evening and it was policies and buildings at School Governors and great excitement as our £1,000,000 project takes shape and they're on target for an early finish... ready for Ferdinand to come to the school in two years time.
I wonder if he realises all these people doing stuff for his future... probably not, more interested in jumping in puddles!

Low Sunday

To Todmorden today on Low Sunday as it's called, although it was not that low. St Mary's is an interesting church at the centre of a town on the Yorkshire border. It has experienced considerable renewal, and today had a congregation of well over a hundred people of all kinds. It has also spent a considerable amount of time and effort renewing the physical environment around the church. In addition it runs a counselling centre that is open to everyone.
What is baffling is that they are not directly involved in the Town Team. They are one of the reasons I am looking into the faith & regeneration question. Talking this morning it would appear that they are not engaged because they are not invited. I need to look into it more I think.

Open

Mission Statements are funny things, lots of peopple claim to have one but when you ask what it is they say "It's in a file somewhere." I am very fond of the traditional ones: "To boldly go where no man has gone before." or "Beanz Meanz Heinz." The point is that unless you can remember them, or say them in a simple way they are not worth having. they need to be part of the property that you can carry out of a situation when everything else collapses.
I was reminded of my mission statement today on a visit to huddersfield, where i used to be University Chaplain and was involved in the regeneration of the centre. it was whilst doing some work with one of the Huddersfield churches I found the perfect one word mission staement. I have kept that one word mission statement and used for my churches here, it is the word: "Open." I'll preach on it tomorrow at Todmorden. Working out how we can be a faithful faith community but also and open one has been the journey we have been on for the last ten years in this area.
It's amazing how one word could encompass so much of what we are and where we have gone.
An open faith, open to God and open to others, open for business and open to the community. Open to change and open to renaissance, we have therefore change and been reborn.

Seeing further than the span of one life...

Find myself tonight a little thoughtful as I have visited a dying friend. She wanted to tell me that she wasn't afraid, but she didn't need to it was clear in her eyes. I think I was a bit afraid though at the thought of having to cope with those who are coping with losing her. It's funny how the dying often take on this role of caring for the living. She certainly did as she made me a coffee, got me some cake and asked about everything that was happening in my life. The only thing that saddened her was that she wouldn't be there to see the end of some of the stories around her, not least her grandchildren growing, but at least she was there to see them start.
It's a million miles from regenration issues but maybe not, because this business of doing something for a future that you wont see fully realised is at the heart of many of our projects. Like Capability Brown the Landscape gardener we plant trees that someone else will sit under, we shape hills that will take centuries to truly become green and we create spaces that future generations will campaign to preserve! But if we are generous in our work we will also be passing on our acheivements and oru wisdom to those who follow.
We are five years into a twenty five year project which God willing I will see complete when I am just going into retirement. There's a thought perhaps I will be able to sit on one of the riverside benches and admire the end of what we begun.

Noisy Desperation

I don't know why it is but when you talk about a fight at a funeral people tend to smile. It's as though we recognise that someone has broken a rule, that we all know, a taboo, that funerals are not places to have a fight. They are places where people in great solemnity remember and give thanks... except that's not what we are left with when someone dies, is it... we are left with real, raw anger, just beneath the surface.
So it was today when I conducted the funeral of a lady in her fifties, a nice lady by all accounts, a loving slightly crackers rock to those who knew her. Those who knew her proceded to fall appart in front of me, crying, talking, sobbing and finally fighting each other, outside the church, inside the car, and at the crematorium.
My instinct was to tell them to behave and try and restore the peace, which is what we attempted and largely succeeded to do, but part of me wanted to rant along with them at the shock of their situation and the scandal of lives in tatters.
It makes me ponder the lives of those around me who to quote I think Bernard Levin: "...are leading lives of quiet and sometimes noisy desperation."
We are no where nearer making a community until we are able to share our depair, our desperation and our hopes and fears, however messy and noisy that feels to those who watch, or take funerals for that matter.

Passionate Meetings

Anger is a diffcult emotion to cope with especially in groups, but I think in the end it is essential in committees. It is some kind of wierd ideal in our culture that people remain calm and quiet, in other cultures, or other countries they talk about passion. Maybe it's not our culture that values the quiet but one part of our culture that does it. Why we need it in committees is that otherwise no-one knows whether people care. Our passions are great drivers and in a quiet committee no-one knows, no-one drives and many committtees need drivers.
I'm ranting about this because it was home with a bump today as I went to council. It was a great meeting, and on occasions passions flared but itfinished with everyone in the pub, celebrating the work done and the passions aired.
Not bad for twenty mostly middle aged people on a Wet Wednesday night in Hebden Bridge.

Tidal City

Into Cambridge today. Checking into the hotel and sleeping means that we enter the city at five. It's a weird time in cities, a bit deserted after the shift of city workers goes home and before the city entertainment and thrill seekers arrive. Everyone in the restaurant is in a relaxed post work, pre party mood. It may be a twenty four hour city but that doesn't mean it's continuous, there's a kind of tidal flow.
I noticed the churches were for prayer services to catch the passing flotsam like nets on the seashore.
One annoyance why do english hotels charge so much for internet access, in other places I've visited it's free.