Dear All,

Its strange how things come together to make you think (but then again, maybe its the hand of Gof somehow chipping the ball into the mental net, so to speak!

This month has seen a few things happen, which maybe at first glance don’t appear related, but then have come together to make me think: Bishop Ian’s death, Carolyn’s ordination, our visit to the corporation of the sons of the clergy, and a couple of overheard chance remarks have really got me thinking and lead me down a train of thoughts ….. I started with: Who are the clergy? What are bishops priests and deacons? I mean I don’t want to do myself out of a job, but  the more thought of the expectations and descips  the more I wondered if some kind of super hero was needed! And then I looked at myself and the one very obvious thing I really did know was that the closest I ever get to being superman, is on one of those bad mornings when I roll out of bed, and somehow manage to get my underpants onto the outside of my trousers……. Now there’s an image to frighten small children and furry animals!

The one think I know is that we are not called to omni-competence. In my case it would be more like omni-in-competence and I am truly sorry for the times I may have let you down or failed any of you due my inabilities or defects, but the one thing that does give me hope, is the sense that I do feel God has called me to this role, and I hope, if he has called me , he will also give me the strength and wisdom needed, to be it. Afterall left to my own devices I can not begin to contemplate the likely mess!

But you see is where I think the key lies, clergy, are ordinary people, warts and all, called by God, out of their comfortable existence, and called to comfort, and challenge a church community, not just in their actions, but in their beings reminding us that we are not just ourselves, or an insular group, concerned only with ourselves and effecting only ourselves. But wherever we meet, we are The One Church expressed locally. Bishop Ian’s funeral ended with a  quote from John Donne, including the phrase, ‘no man is an island’. Donne used this phrase to mean that we can not live isolated  and alone, how we act, how we live, what we say and do and be (and I guess also in what we don’t do or say or be) effects others as we are effected by others. (Butterflies in Beijing!) We can not exist in  isolation, indeed we are not made or wired that way…… I would argue that the God of Love in whose image we are made has made us to love (possibly the Darwinians amongst us would argue that social condition is an evolutionary benefit….. I suspect it amounts to the same thing). We need that being together, it reminders that we are not alone, there is more to us than us! Indeed sometimes the very answer we strive for is not found by us on our own… in fact we can not find it on our own…… no matter how tempting it is to come inside, shut the doors and leave the world to its own devises (believe me when I say that in recent months I know exactly how that feels)…. But somehow the answer is exactly in the opposite way we expect to find,, left on our own we can stew and fester but are limted by the very fact that we are only we.  The true liberation, the true answer lies when we do open ourselves up to find allow others to effct us, and recongise our own effect on others. We are made that way….lets embrace it.

And going back to the initial question, its not just us as individuals who are like this, communities and churches can act in that way too… I overheard a churchwarden (I hasten to say not from our benefice!!) say ‘We do our own thing, we don’t effect others and they don’t effct us’ ….. no man is an island  as John Donne said, we all have an effect for good or bad, and it is only by cooperation we grow…. My hope is that we clergy are a help to that cooperation, within God plan,  we are of a community but not always part of it…… I really hope we can be of service!

As always, with my love and prayers

Fr. John