Pause for Thought
The Zoe Ball Show
BBC Radio 2
Saturday, August 20th, 2011

There's a scene in David Lean's movie Dr Zhivago that I have had to suffer all my life.

At one point in the film the hero struggles through a war-torn Siberian landscape until he reaches his childhood home - abandoned and encased in snow and ice. There he is reunited with his lover. They fire up the stove in one room and make it habitable. In the midst of all this chaos - the Russian Civil War and the depths of winter - they have a brief interlude of peace.

Zhivago finds the desk he wrote on as a child. He opens the drawer and discovers there, laid out in order, a sheaf of white paper, a pen and a bottle of ink.

He writes a poem.

My mother always talked about "Zhivago's Drawer". She would describe its order, its simplicity and its adequacy. She would then open the door to my bedroom which looked like any teenaged boy's bedroom and not at all like Zhivago's Drawer.

She would make reference to my school bag with its crumpled homework assignments and mouldering apple cores. Again, not Zhivago's Drawer.

And over the years I have muttered about "Zhivago's Bloody Drawer" countless times as I see what a mess my Income Tax return looks or the list of tasks which I have meant to get around to but haven't.

As a younger priest I would arrange to spend four or five days at the Trappist monastery north of Montreal, after Easter and after Christmas - not everybody's idea of a riotous good time - but I was attracted to the simplicity there. The balance and order of two lines of monks gliding in to worship in the wee hours of the morning, the Salve Regina sung at the end of the day with a single candle at the feet of a statue of Our Lady.

Please, God, before I die,
give me that small place of order and harmony
at the centre of my soul.

----


*nb. "bloody" edited to "wretched" in the actual broadcast.

Pause for Thought
The Richard Allinson Show
BBC Radio 2
Sunday, August 14th, 2011

I don't have time for side streets. People I know swear by them.

Why are you going this way? It'll take forever. Take this side street, then left at the post box past the yellow dog and over the bridge.

Right.

I'm going to end up in the middle of a field dotted with cow pats - lost and late. Give me the direct route any day. Simple and straight. If it takes a few minutes longer I can budget for that.

Edinburgh is crammed with tourists right now. They wear impossible colours and silly hats and walk slowly down the High Street. Many of them are wearing shorts. Some of them have knobbly knees.

They speak an amazing collection of languages - I can only guess at a few of them. I have time, you see, to guess because I always seem to be stuck behind a long queue of tourists ambling down the high street. They are on holiday. I am not.

They spend an awful lot of time taking pictures of the small closes - the quaint little alleyways - which open out on to the High Street. I've walked past plenty of these in the last eight years. I don't know where they lead. I've never walked in to one because I've generally had other things to do - like walking straight down the street from A to B.

Everything I know about history tells me that it's not made up of straight lines. Nor are the lives of the older people I love. Nor the lives of the saints or the people in the Old and New Testaments. There are always these side streets which open up because of disasters or misfortunes or even opportunities.

Angels and burning bushes seem to figure prominently in the Bible stories.

And I look forward, frankly, to clearing my slate well enough that I can follow a few of these side streets. Not just on holidays but in the midst of busy life when I feel the nudge.

And the next time I see a tourist in a ridiculous hat walk in to one of Edinburgh's little alleyways. I just may follow him in to see where it leads.

Geneva in early August

I can think of a half dozen lovely vistas which I have seen - in Canada and around the world. I have to add this one - the Geneva waterfront with the "jet d'eau" and Mont Blanc in the distance. We spent a week there with an old seminary pal of mine (now the Rector of Geneva) and his lady wife.

Orson Wells was not entirely wrong about the Swiss - they are tidy and orderly and life is a bit dull at times. They are fastidious recyclers and the busses/trams/trains/harbour-boats are all on an honour system. People "tut" at you when you cross the street at an unauthorized time and place.

But it's a lovely town.

It's too expensive to buy much of course. Every currency has fallen against the Swiss Franc. You see tourist families from nations with falling currencies negotiating with their children about limiting their sweets at waterfront stalls for reasons which have more to do with family finance than with sound dental health or good dietary habits.

The smugness about the Swiss Franc being the most stable currency in the world is wearing off with the realization that nobody can afford to buy their stuff any more and there are all sorts of folks being laid off in Switzerland.

Everything is advertised as being on sale. Still, I'm glad we went. It was a lovely trip to a beautiful place.

Beans on toast now for the next few months.

Pause for Thought
The Richard Allinson Show
BBC Radio 2
Sunday, August 7th, 2011

Words don't often fail us in our household. We are a fairly verbal lot in my family. We have lots to say.

Unless we visit a country where we don't speak the language. Then we have to use hand signals and point to places on the map.

I usually end up in Church on a Sunday. If it's a Communion service I can usually figure out what's going on. Sometimes the hymn tunes are familiar but I don't dare join in

I was a priest in a place called Chibougamau in Northern Quebec in the 1980's It was a mixed up sort of place and you really needed English, French and the native language, Cree, to get by as a clergyman and I only spoke two of them. The English and the French weren't a problem but Cree was hard to learn. Even after a few years I never managed more than a few words and phrases.

My first visit there was to an old lady named Alice who lived in a plywood shack on the edge of town and walked with two sticks and couldn't get about much. She was cooking a duck in a pot when I arrived. She pointed a chair out to me and motioned for me to sit. She carved the duck in two pieces and gave me half on a plate.

The door was open.

I knew that the word miyotchisigaw meant "nice day" and that any sentence could be turned into a question by adding the word "na" at the end. My church warden had taught me that - thought it might be useful.

I looked at the open door. "Miyotchisigaw na?" Isn't it a nice day?

She looked outside.

It was overcast. The wind was cold and blowing hard. There was still ice on the lake.

Enhe, she said, Miyotchisigaw.

Alice went on at length later to her daughter about her visit with the new priest and how she thought he would work out better than the last one had.

You see - if it were only the right words that mattered you could send those on a post card.




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Pause for Thought
The Zoe Ball Show
BBC Radio 2
Saturday, August 6th, 2011

The person who reads the gas and electricity meter at the Rectory where I live near Edinburgh knows when I've sat down for my lunch or lain down for a wee nap or am in the middle of a difficult phone call. The doorbell rings, the dogs start barking - chaos reigns. We miss him most of the time and get a card stuffed through the mail slot to fill in and send back. My wife's dog usually chews that up. The ones that are still legible I oftentimes neglect to fill in.

And so I get a visit. Always at the wrong time. The doorbell. The dogs. Chaos.

And what would they tell me if they got their information? That the winter has been long and I owe them more than I think in heating costs. That I've been leaving too many lights on and I owe them money for electricity. It's a bill after all - one which accumulates and which I'd rather forget about.

And so I get a visit.

There's not much in life that gets avoided. Less than we think. Not much we can conceal which somebody won't eventually require of us - loudly. We take a certain amount of pleasure in watching the high and mighty dragged before committees to answer questions. It's about time, we think, about time that the truth was told.

Not only is it a component of most religious traditions that we owe Somebody a reckoning, it's the experience we have of being observers of the ups and downs of other people's lives - that their performance at work is eventually found out - their lack of dedication to their spouse - their nickel and dime dishonesty when it comes to expenses - their lack of engagement in the lives of their children. It does come out eventually - and sometimes too late.

The time to turn things around is now. With the dog eared slip of paper asking us to make a regular accounting, with timely conversations with people we may have offended. With requests for grace and forgiveness.


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Thank You For Asking!

We went for a five day holiday to the highly wooded part of Scotland near Pitlochry, Dunkeld and Killiekrankie. One of the Scottish Dioceses owns a cottage which can be rented by SEC clergy at a reasonable rate. The fireplace smokes a bit but the digs were just the ticket.

We drove to the edge of Rannoch Moor and then picked up a train to Mallaig, just opposite the Isle of Skye. This is the view from the viaduct as the train passes Glenfinnan. Loch Shiel is in the background. It was the one really stunning vista of the week. I thought I'd share it with you.

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Thought For the Day

Good Morning Scotland
BBC Radio Scotland
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

Speaking once of hypocrisy, Jesus said

"Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known....whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light ...what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops"

This cuts several ways. It's been both the stock-in-trade of the News of the World over the years. It's now the reason for its demise.

Revelations of journalistic misdeeds and the misdeeds of those who fed the journalists information will no doubt continue as will the growing feelings of public outrage. We can expect the inevitable official over-reaction - the sound of the other official shoe hitting the boards - even though it was the work of journalists in a lightly-policed environment which brought these things to our attention. People in power who could have done something....didn't.

We find ourselves caught in this cycle of wrongdoing and reaction because we do not agree on much and we don't make use of what we do agree on - at least not when it comes to making money. We're missing our skeleton. We are floppy people who "ooze about" because ideas of honesty, restraint and fair play, at least in business dealings, are considered by some to be quaint notions.

They're still default positions in most friendships, marriages and voluntary associations but when we go to work - a transformation can occur. The bottom line takes pride of place.

What do they say in the movies when they pull the trigger, or betray a confidence or perform a "double cross"?

"Nothing personal, mate, it's only business."

In the midst of any crisis of public confidence whether in banking, in politics or journalism we might just marvel at the self-deceit of the principal actors who believe in the power of darkness to conceal their secrets.

Or we might be prompted to take a vow ourselves and join our public and private lives into one frank and visible person.

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Audio link available HERE for a limited time. TFTD beings at 1:18:27 - halfway along the audio bar.

A Summer Day on the High Street in Edinburgh

The High Street in Edinburgh was packed this afternoon with tourists. I took a break from my desk and walked for about three blocks and heard English precisely once. We've had an abysmal Spring with enormous quantities of rain and cold weather but that seems to have relented now. Most of us spent at least a full day this weekend cutting grass which had grown long and had been chronically too wet to cut. No more - the good times are here.



While I happened to hit a large foreign-language crowd this afternoon, there are plenty of North Americans who come here in the summer. The Americans and Canadians who come over here trying to reacquaint themselves with their Scottish roots are not always treated kindly. Let me rephrase that: they *are* treated kindly in situ but there is always a certain amount of muttering and rolling of eyes afterwards - as if they're only ersatz Scots, after all, who have no business pretending that they don't really come from Edmonton or Gary, Indiana.

I fail to understand the lack of pride on the part of Scots - that people from around the world have crossed oceans in order to identify with this place and to locate some aspect of their character in the streets and closes of Edinburgh and the hills outside. For some of these folks, in their cotton trousers and pastel golf shirts, a trip to Scotland is the culmination of many years' anticipation and a crowning part of their retirement. They say foolish things about tartans in High Street shops and tell at least ten people a day that their "grandmothers were Scotch", that they've always "felt Scottish" but surely the desire itself to come here and the iconic status that the place has had which helped to define people in the midst of a melting pot like the U.S.A or a mosaic like Canada ought to be worth something.

It ought to be respected more. Not every country can claim such abiding loyalty across generations.

The General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church

The quiet before the storm. In order to get a comfortable wee corner in Palmerston Place before the rush and excitement which the meeting of the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church one needs to get here early. The Primus having just explained to the "freshers" that Synod can get passionate, John Stuart runs through the agenda in a businesslike and dispassionate manner

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Location:Edinburgh

Thought for the Day

Good Morning Scotland
BBC Radio Scotland
Monday, May 23rd, 2011

Catastrophe looms. An overlooked character unlocks the secret but no one will listen. And so the worst happens, just as he said. A few folk make it through without being annihilated and existence is strangely renewed as a new day dawns. "Ah" you say, "Harold Camping and his predictions about the Rapture and the return of Christ".

Well, yes, but also the plot of every disaster movie I've seen in the last twenty years.

Lets start with the obvious. We are still here.

But we were still here, as well, when we left the movie theatre after seeing comets hit the earth or the deep-freeze grip the Globe or an enormous shark consume a bathing beauty off the New Jersey shore.

It was such good entertainment.

To some extent, this has been as well. I am as guilty as the next man of having taken it all a little lightly. Spare a thought for those for whom it was deathly serious.

William Miller predicted such a triumphal return of Christ in the 1840's. What followed was known as The Great Disappointment. Marriages had not been entered into. As the date approached, crops had not even been planted.

The Bible is not the sort of book that easily admits of arithmetical calculation. The threats and promises therein cannot simply be lifted out of an ancient book and applied with sticky tape to contemporary situations. You're welcome to try. Nobody's going to promise not to have a laugh when you do.

The distressing thing about Christian catastrophism is the degree to which its disciples withdraw from the the world. Christ engaged that world with love. He didn't merely leave it to its fate. In the words, more or less, of another 1st century rabbi - Yochanan ben Zakkai:

"If you are planting a sapling and someone comes along to tell you that the Messiah has arrived, first go and plant the tree which depends on you for its life. Then brush the dirt off your hands - go and welcome the messiah".

Thought for the Day

Good Morning Scotland
BBC Radio Scotland
Monday, May 2nd, 2011

A few days have passed. Other events are looming large. The Royal Wedding with its solemn processions and daft hats now qualifies as memory.

I got a note on my computer about a minute in from the beginning of the ceremony on Friday - one of our future brides at St James’, Penicuik asking whether she, too, could have trees in Church for her wedding.

I said I thought we could work something out.

What other requests will working clergy now have to field stemming from this very public wedding?

One thing I can say. I’ll emphasize how her marriage, too, belongs to the community and not just to her and her future husband. Every marriage is public property and has the potential of adding strength to the society to which the couple belongs. Their promises form part of the collection of promises which, together, form the basis of that society.

They stand in a community of family and friends. Somebody signs as a witness that their vows have been undertaken publically.

Grandparents wheeled into church. They will not only feel the thrill of seeing somebody they knew as a baby finally tying the knot; they will also be assured that the wheel of life has taken a turn forward. They're now off the hook. Younger people are now entering into a solemn covenant – who will, together, grow wise through years of challenge and resolution - whose home will become a safe place for children and their table a refuge for those who need a listening ear. These two people will lend their strength to those around them.

The world’s media won’t be present. But a portion of the world – present and future - depends on those words spoken between them being true. True at the time they are spoken - as rings are exchanged and hands joined and a priest’s stole wraps those hands together - and true decades after the service is over.

The couple being married belongs to the world.

The strength of their union makes the world stronger.
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An audio link here is HERE for a limited time. TFTD begins at 1:19.26 - halfway along the audio bar.

Further divertissements with daft hats HERE

Much fun was had watching the Royal Wedding yesterday at the Rectory in Penicuik. I went and got some sticky buns. Mrs Rabbit and I had coffee. The step-rabbit had hot chocolate.

About a minute and a half into the ceremony I see a computer note from a future bride here at St James asking whether it might not be possible to have trees in Church for her wedding next year.

I said I thought we could work something out.

But I can't wear a pointy hat because I'm not a bishop and I can't speak with the sonorous tones of Rowan Williams or Richard Chartres because I'm neither of these people.

We had a marvelous time - thought the service went off without a hitch - glorious copes and ecclesiastical finery, great music, a decent sermon by the Bishop of London - a young couple very much at ease.

We have nothing but proprietary raspberries for all the sour republicans at home and abroad muttering about the propriety of the whole exercise.

It was not only proper it was magnificent!

Palm Sunday Procession in West Linton

Two village churches in the Scottish Borders - St Mungo's Scottish Episcopal Church and St Andrew's Church of Scotland, along with the churches in Carlops and Newlands put their collective heads together and came up with a dandy all-age village Palm Sunday procession with police escort, branches and Moses the donkey who neither kicked nor bit at any time during the morning although he did divest himself of a large quantity of manure in the forecourt of St Andrew's Church provoking a cheer from the crowd.

Three of the participating churches have a service at 10:00 while St Andrew's generally get together at 11:00. This morning the three churches with the earlier service met at their usual time but truncated their services so that we could all gather on the green behind the medical practice at 10:45 in order to pipe the folks from St Andrew's to their door for a service which started 15 minutes late. People came to their windows and brought their children out to see the parade. Hymn sheets were handed out in abundance to onlookers. There were a few stations along the way where hymns were sung with some accompanying brass to keep folks together on the beat and on the note.

Those not proceeding to the service at St Andrew's wandered up to the undercroft at St Mungo's for a Bacon Butty and a cup of tea. It was a good time had by all and the planning representatives from all four churches are to be congratulated.

Palm Crosses

It's coming up to that time of year again. This Saturday morning at 10:00 we're gathering in the Hall with the children and anyone else who feels 'young at heart' to make the Palm Crosses for Sunday. There are several ways of making them and everybody swears by their own method. Each year we gather and the first thing we have to do is remember how we did them last year. Some of the methods involve a single piece of palm. We don't do it that way - we use two.

We use two because, erm, of the two natures of Christ - the divine and the human.

We use two pieces of palm because *thinking.....* of the two Gospel Sacraments - Baptism and Holy Communion.

No? Okay, we use two because that's how we were taught us a few years back and we're Anglicans and when we find something that works we stick with it like tar to an old boot.

So, in anticipation of Saturday's get-together to make palm crosses, I post here the a pictorial guide on the web which illustrated the way we do it. I post it simply as an aide-memoire for myself so I don't look like an utter pillock on Saturday morning.

Thought for the Day
Good Morning Scotland
BBC Radio Scotland
Monday, April 4th, 2011

The reading from the Gospel which most Christian churches read yesterday was the story of the man, born blind, who had his sight restored by Jesus at the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem. The disciples wanted first to discuss the situation from a comfortable distance - to understand whether blindness comes about as the consequence of somebody’s sin – this man’s - maybe his parents'.

But Jesus will have none of it. God reveals his power in a situation which simply is the way it is. And he wades right in.

I’m not alone in wondering “why” - there has been so much chaos and dis-ease breaking out all round the globe in the last month. The crust of the earth adjusts itself in the Far East and countless lives are changed forever . The grip of a few reliable strongmen starts to weaken in North Africa and the Middle East and, for different reasons but with similar effect, the dead are counted and communities are displaced.

Much needs to be understood, and done to prevent further suffering. But there's a limit. Sometimes such things simply happen – they are merely wounds in the earth.

As we speak, the pool of Siloam in Jerusalem is being excavated. And there’s a special quality to this corner of an ancient olive grove - it happened here and nowhere else. Aid and comfort was brought to this particular blind beggar

There is too much for any of us to understand. There is too much for any of us to deal with entirely – everywhere. We too find ourselves here and nowhere else dealing with actual situations and with real people – in communities and families – through charities and foundations in which we take a particular interest.

Things will continue to fall on people – the weight of buildings or the weight of political change.

No matter how small the community being served or how localized the disaster, today – we have an opportunity - here or there - somewhere. To wade in.
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An audio link is available for a limited time HERE. TFTD begins at 1:17.29 - halfway along the audio bar.

You know nothing about Lemmings!

Following a conversation with a young person about activities which "everybody does", I stopped myself from uttering the old canard about people jumping off bridges. I didn't even mention the Lemmings - those little rodents living in the north of Canada and along the same latitudes throughout Europe and Asia with a reputation for tossing themselves off cliffs in large numbers at the behest of some inner compulsion.

In fact it's all tosh. They don't throw themselves off cliffs. They migrate for food across vast distances where they are easy prey for owls and foxes. Most of them end up being dinner not suicide. A few of them fail to make it across rivers.

But no cliffs. They're smarter than that.

In order to create the myth of the suicidal lemming for their film "The White Wilderness" the Walt Disney people, in 1958 needed to transport large numbers of intelligent and self-preserving lemmings from the Canadian north to a suitable cliff down south from which they were tossed off with a turntable contraption for the benefit of the camera.

Without the commercial interests behind the enterprise, the poor creatures would be up on the tundra enjoying the Midnight Sun and munching on some sedge.

Lemmings know better. So should you!

Daydreams

When the studies are more in hand and Holy Week and Easter are "accomplished" I do want to take a day trip the the 15th Century Church at Fowlis Easter near Dundee and Guthrie Parish Church, a little farther on, to see some of the medieval paintings there which survived the Reformation (and only just). My pal Stephen has just come back from a jaunt to Fowlis Easter and includes a few of the photographs he took. Here you see the soul of the Bad Thief to one side of Jesus at the crucifixion yielding up his soul to a demon.

Mention is made in one article to paintings at Fowlis Easter being discussed at the Synod of Fife on May 6th, 1612

'Item, it is statute and ordained that the paintrie quhilk is upon the pulpitt
and ruid-laft, being monumentes of idolatrie, sal be obliterate be laying it over
with grein colour. The minister with diligens to see the same exped.'

The same article notes that the paintings were rediscovered 'at some point after 1746' languishing beneath a coat of whitewash. I am unclear whether they are now situated exactly where they once were or whether these fragments have been moved elsewhere within the body of the Church.

The article also makes reference to fragments of a judgement scene in the "Guthrie Aisle":

"...'Doom', a subject popular in medieval times,
but now surviving in Scotland only at Guthrie"

So - those of us who are not residents of Guthrie, overshadowed by a residual sense of doom, might we consider a jaunt up north and a few "monumentes of idolatrie" some Saturday after Easter?

Lent

A young curate gets married prior to Easter. At the end of the wedding reception he and his wife retire to their hotel to begin a short honeymoon. The curate climbs in to bed with his wife, gives her a peck on the cheek, rolls over and goes to sleep.

His bride, nonplussed, says “What’s all this, then? It’s our wedding night!”

“I know that”, replies the curate, “but it’s Lent!”

His wife loses it and begins to cry. “That’s terrible. That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever heard. So who did you lend it to and for how long?”

Thought for the Day
Good Morning Scotland
BBC Radio Scotland
Thursday, March 10th, 2011

We all know people who spend an inordinate amount of time fretting about whether they’re any good. It’s almost a caricature of religious types that they walk around whacking themselves on the head with a length of board proclaiming that they’re no good.

It might be low self esteem. It might all be a show of some sort – something “put on”. It makes them almost as difficult to sit next to at a dinner party as the ones who’ve never considered that they weren’t God’s gift to the world.

In this season of second thoughts about our lives and futures – i.e. the season of Lent – we certainly don't need our egos puffed up but neither do we need to be knocked down a peg or two on principle simply because it’s the right season to do so.

We need a sober and realistic analysis of who we are.

Part of that is recognizing our weakness – which is not a matter of beating ourselves up but recognizing that there are certain things we are going to have to do in community, or in conjunction with other people – people we love or perhaps even people we don’t particularly get on with but who have the skills and the abilities we don’t.

It might also mean that we have to look beyond ourselves in order to find strength and inspiration, courage or forgiveness. It’s not for nothing that many Lenten programmes have a chapter called “beginning to pray”.

Another part of it is recognizing that our time is limited. This earthly life has finite edges – it’s like a canvas of a definite size and area and that’s all we have on which to paint our colours.

So time is not to be wasted. Opportunities are to be seized.

And if any of this makes you feel bad – then this is the time do something about it!
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Audio available for a limited time HERE. TFTD begins at 1:22.37 - halfway along the audio bar.

Isaiah 40:3-9
"Prepare ye the way"
Michael Wise (1648-1687)

Prepare ye the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low:
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough places shall be made plain.
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together.
And the voice said, Cry.
What shall I cry?
All flesh is grass,
and the goodliness thereof is as the flower that is in the field:
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth:
but the word of our God shall stand for ever.
O Zion, that bringest good tidings,
get thee up into the mountains;
O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings,
lift up thy voice with strength;
and say unto Judah, Behold thy God!