Happy St Andrew's Day!

This is my favourite picture from my Sabbatical and on St Andrew's Day it seems appropriate as it comes from Scotland, and the Isle of Harris.

The question is, what is the building in the middle of this picture?

The answer is obvious.  It is a bus shelter.  And it is easy to imagine on this windswept moor that shelter would be very important.  Life-saving might be nearer the truth given the (understandable) infrequency of the W13.  Three hours wait?

Isn't that a sheep waiting for a bus?  But no, of course not.  Sheep, even in Harris, don't wait for buses.  The sheep is in the wrong place.

On reflection, though, I imagine that over a year this construction has many more sheep in it than people.  It may have been put here as a bus stop, and look like a bus stop but it is really mostly about sheep.

And when the lifelong fisherman from Galilee whose name was Andrew (and whose day today is) began to follow Jesus he looked and sounded like a fisherman, and looked like he should have been a fisherman, but the Lord told him 'from now on you will be a fisherman of people'.  Or to put it another way, from now on you are going to be all about sheep.

Sabbatical Picture No 12 The power of powerless women

By the North Sea on a Northumberland hill stands the Victorian memorial of Grace Darling.  Her story ( you can read it by clicking here) was one of Victorian England's most famous and only added to by her untimely death not long afterwards.  Grace was a very devoted Christian.  It is easy to assume that all Victorian young women were but that is simply not true.

It is equally easy to assume that in 21st Century England no young women are likely to be very interested in God, and certainly not with any concept of him being a living, helping friend.  That theory is blown aside in the Church whose graveyard contains Graces memorial and where her life is still celebrated.  Here is a page from the book where visitors can leave their prayers . . .

Sabbatical Picture No 11 Eucharistic Lipstick

I thought I'd attend General Synod (yes, the Church of England General Synod) on my Sabbatical.  I was in Yorkshire, it was in Yorkshire, so why not? After all, I am never going to have the Ecumenical credentials to go along as the Baptist Union observer (if they have one) and this blog entry will help to demonstrate why.

So there I was, seeing what was gripping the Established Church.  It turned out to be whether liturgical resources should be created for transgender people to renew their commitment in their new gender identity.  Except it became clear fairly quickly that this was no such pastoral-litugical discussion but a power struggle between the wings of the Church.

On Sunday morning the Synod were special guests of York Minster and even though I am no fan of hierarchy the interesting prospect of a Eucharist led by the Archbishop of York with the Archbishop of Canterbury as the preacher was too hierarchical to resist.

On the plus side there were a lot of people there.  Most of them were wearing General Synod badges so the armed police outside probably regarded me more suspiciously for not having one to wear.  I tried to enter in as saintly and Anglican a way as I could.  It occurred to me that the effect of my lack of a badge was to give me the appearance of being a Minster regular amid a sea of visiting Synodites (that may not be a word but the alternative might be Synners . . .).

I took my seat (well of course it wasn't MY seat but who was to know?) at the end of an empty row.  In this way I left fate or God (hard to know in this setting) to decide who sat next to me.  Few congregations can have so many people in dog collars and various states of overdress as they busily greeted one another (but not me).

A middle aged lady and her friend sat next to me - at least she said "Hello".  Middle aged she might have been but her umbilical link to her mobile phone was definitely teenage.  In between sending and receiving messages she said,
"Sorry about the phone.  I'll switch it off in a minute. Do you worship here regularly?"
"No, I'm only in York doing research."

She returned to the messaging and that was all that she found out about me.  I did better.  I found out all about her - but not until much later.  What I quickly worked out was that she was a great deal more interesting to the gathered persons than I was, and more interesting to herself than I (or as it turned out the Eucharist) was.

The service began and somewhere in the 20 minutes of standing at the beginning (and people complain when Baptist churches sing three songs and stand for nearly 15 minutes!) the phone was abandoned at last.  Presumably she wasn't messaging the Archbishop of York at the front but in his own Cathedral he was surprisingly hesitant.  General Synod probably does that to an Archbishop.

Archbishop Justin of Canterbury preached and he, too, seemed greatly restrained, as though he was giving a press statement which, to all intents and purposes he was.

I always get the jitters at Anglican Communions because of the walking up the front bit, and this was all the more confusing for the fact that my row were to head backwards to the middle of the Minster.  Before that the Peace and my fellow-worshipper stood little chance of sharing it with me because her phone was out again and several people came to, I presume, wish her well.  Perhaps a better word for the Peace would be The Connection, then the phone could have its rightful place there.

When hundreds of people have to take the Eucharistic elements logistics are complex; the Minster did it well but it took a while.  When I returned to my seat my neighbour seemed to have adopted a new, slimmer phone.  Closer inspection (as the choir intoned an adoration of the Bread of Angels) revealed that she was in fact holding a mirror and doing her lipstick.

Caught in the act, as it were, she apologised, pointing out that she had an interview with The Times straight after the service.  Presumably our Lord would have used a mirror, but probably not lipstick, had this been his next appointment directly after the Last Supper.

His next appointment was Gethsemane.

The woman I shared this bizarre Eucharistic distraction with is certainly well known once you dig around a little.  She isn't bringing the C of E any closer to Jesus from what I can make out but she had a peculiarly beneficial effect in me by demonstrating exactly what not to be like in any Lord's Supper, however grand.

Sabbatical Picture No 10 Lindisfarne Priory

Few ruins have been more celebrated, photographed or visited than those of Lindisfarne Priory on Holy Island, Northumbria.  Nor is this a recent phenomenon.  Before photography, great painters came to the island or the coast nearby to paint these evocative ruins.  

But why are they ruins?

Way back in the time of the Viking raids the then monastery was indeed ransacked and much blood spilled.  But these ruins do not belong to those days.  Their glory owes a great deal to the wonderful story of St Cuthbert, the Celtic hermit and missionary bishop (yes, he was both) who is most prominently honoured in Durham Cathedral but whose true 'home' was this and nearby islands and islets.  So Cuthbert, who is still popular, brought their glory - from whence ruination?

They were not ruined, as many monasteries were, by the actions of Henry VIII, the Dissolution. Henry was rather keen on them as a defence against the Scots.  Rather, they seem to have been gently worn away by a lack of enthusiasm to be based at this remote outpost, and eventually the failing buildings were cannibalised by the island's village for stones to build houses.

Speaking to a London minister this very week, he observed that his church was characterised not by division or unsound doctrine but by apathy.  For all their photogenic beauty these ruins are, in fact, a testimony to loss of interest.  On which basis no church is entirely safe.