A smile for Remembrance Day, 11/11/11

I love the English language. What I want is a word that suggests humour and irony, and there it is: "Wry." Not just any word, this is a three letter word. And as any fule kno, the short words in a language tell you most about its speakers and writers.

So here's a wry offering for Remembrance Sunday, offered to you this Remembrance Day, in the hope that it will give you a smile at around the two minute silence millions upon millions will observe at 11a.m. It was inspired by Louis being asked to make this Sunday a day of young enterprise, making money selling junk at a car boot sale. Louis is a Scout, and he will (alongside  many others from the global scouting movement) be attending a Remembrance Sunday service. I am an "ordained entrepreneur," and I love enterprise, aspiration, wealth creation and the "big society," firmly believing that work is not merely toil, but a celebration of the very nature of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So on that day I will lead the Sunday service with an Act of Remembrance at St Thomas's Hall, Cambridge where I am privileged to minister.

We remember the war dead not as tragic figures defined by death alone, but as those who lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved - and, of course, laughed. So I offer you a wry poem, written on the small screen of my Android smartphone, somewhere between London Liverpool Street as I returned from collecting the IET Information Technology Award for the Cambridge Heathcare team.

On a Remembrance Sunday Car Boot Sale

In Flanders fields the poppies grew 

Between the hatching, straight and true 

That marks our pitch - until our eye 

Fell on an Astra parked nearby 

With garden shears of every hue.

We earn some bread. Some time ago 

We saw a boot sale near Heathrow, 

Paid, and got paid. So we branched out 

To Flanders fields.

Take up our offers so unique. 

Roll up, roll up and take a peek 

At all our wares. The value's clear: 

Cheap DVDs and Belgian beer. 

We've proved that it was time to clear 

Those Flanders fields.

“Stand Firm – Keep Going”

Philippians 3:17-4:1

It’s all in the watching. Well, actually there’s more to it than that, but unless you’re watching really carefully then you’re lost. No, unless we are all watching really carefully then we’re all lost.

We’re watching each other, of course, but mainly we’re all watching the one in front. While he waits, we wait. When he moves, we move. When he runs, we run. When he jumps, we jump. Then we all stop. We sit together. And that’s the exciting bit, of course. When we stick together, when we’ve run and jumped and sat together – that’s when we know we can get there, together.

It’s the running that people think about. Accelerating from a standing start, sprinting for all you’re worth. You could get lost in that feeling. But run for all you’re worth and unless you’re watching, really watching, then however fast you are you’re going to get left behind. Because the fastest you can ever hope to run on your own is about twenty miles per hour, and we need to do a hundred.

Have you been watching any of the Winter Olympics? There’s something about the four man bobsleigh race that I find really gripping. Maybe that’s partly because one of our favourite family films is Cool Runnings, about how Jamaica came to field its first bobsleigh team for the Winter Olympics twenty-odd years ago. And it’s definitely also because the moments when it all goes wrong at the start – when one of the team isn’t watching the driver and misses the moment to get into the sled – can be pretty funny!

But when they get it right, it’s impressive stuff. They wait together, watching the driver. They run with him, they watch for the moment he jumps and they follow. And they tuck in for an incredible journey, noses inches from the ice as they hurtle down the run faster than motorway speeds in a metal tube only just big enough for them all to squeeze in.

Now, Biblical scholarship will never be complete this side of eternity, but I’m about as sure as I can be that the apostle Paul wasn’t thinking about bobsleighs when he wrote to the church at Philippi. However, it’s not a bad sport to have in mind when we try and understand what he was saying to them nearly 2,000 years ago, and what this may mean for us today.

This passage could be pretty confusing. If you have a Bible to hand, let’s look at a few verses to see why.

A little before our reading, in chapter 3 verse 8 Paul speaks of how he has been willing to give up everything to gain Christ. In verses 12-14 he presents this as a kind of race – he’s pressing for the finishing line, and not there yet. And in verse 16 – the verse just before our reading – he asks that he and his readers might at least “live up to what [they] have already attained.” And to that end, (I’m summarising the reading very briefly here), he encourages the Philippians to look for Christian role models and follow them, to beware of people he calls “enemies of the cross of Christ,” and that as they wait for this same Lord Jesus Christ to return as saviour and transform them to be like him, they must stand firm.

And I have to say, this seems a crazy kind of race. Hello, Paul, are we meant to be standing firm or racing for the finishing line? Are we meant to fix our eyes on Christ or on you and on each other?

Well, as I said, I doubt that the apostle Paul was thinking about the four-man bobsleigh. That seems geographically and historically unlikely, to say the least. But maybe it will help us.

There are three things about that sport that could give us a way in to this standing race of Paul’s: how we can keep our eyes on the finishing line, how to race without running, and the challenge of standing firm.

So first, how can we keep our eyes on the finishing line, if the goal and end is Christ?

We Christians have a terrible habit of speaking in shorthand. Sometimes we can say things that sound very proper, or very pious, or very profound – not realising that the shorthand we use can confuse people who need to hear us speak clearly, or discourage people whose urgent need is for reassurance.

Here’s an example, “keep your eyes on Jesus.”

I think I know what that’s meant to mean. I don’t think it’s a wrong thing to say. And I’m pretty sure I’ve said it myself. But it is shorthand and it can be confusing.

At the most basic level, it’s impossible! If I want to keep my eyes literally fixed on Jesus, I’m going to have to do without him in person. I’ll need to make do with… what? A picture, perhaps. Jesus, looking slightly ethereal but also powerful, probably with a very western European face, a neat beard and a lovely clean dressing robe. That Jesus always seems so reassuring, but he’s not real. He’s not even realistic. And if I saw someone looking just like that heading straight for me in the Grand Arcade I think I’d duck into John Lewis.

And the Philippians had a similar problem. Culturally, Philippi was worlds away from Jerusalem. It was a Roman colony, fiercely loyal to the emperor. If you want to look at a Lord and Saviour, you look at the nearest statue of the emperor. And you have good reason to do so. Because the emperor is clearly your Lord and master, and as everyone in Philippi knows, he also represents salvation. You see, the city was given to disbanded troops by an emperor who had defeated them in battle in a time of civil war in the Roman Empire. There was every reason for them to expect death – but they found they were given a new life. The victorious Lord they had betrayed chose to trust them, to forgive and restore them.

And so, just imagine how it felt to be one of those people coming to faith in Christ. They already knew a story of salvation and new life. Perhaps that helped them to understand the Gospel. But the good news of Jesus Christ is a topsy-turvy kind of story. He’s a Lord – but he was executed in the Roman way – that is, in the deliberately barbaric way the Romans executed people who weren’t Roman citizens. Though he has already come, in verse 17 we are reminded that we do not see him but we do eagerly await him. And he’s a Saviour, but the daily experience of this salvation may have seemed like its opposite: from fitting in with society to standing out from it; being treated with suspicion; risking hardship by turning away from the cult of the Emperor. 

“Keep your eyes on Jesus” sounds very good, but how? Jesus is the goal, the end of the race. But you can’t actually see him from here.

If you’re in a bobsleigh team you have the same problem. You can’t see the finishing line, but you can see the driver. And you watch him – closely. When he runs, you run. When he jumps, you jump. That’s how you reach the end of the run - together.

And that’s Paul’s practical suggestion of verse 17: “follow my example and keep your eyes on those who live as we do.”

It would be very easy to misunderstand this. In fact, there are many people today – and there were many people at the time – representing Paul as the one who hides or even distorts Jesus, his life and his teaching. Isn’t this a prime example? “Look at me,” says Paul, “Copy me. Don’t worry about Jesus: to follow him you just have to follow me.” But no, you really can’t argue that from this letter. Firstly, Paul is encouraging the church at Philippi to study the whole Christian community, not just himself – and he spells out that he is on his way just as they are, he hasn’t already reached his goal. And secondly, Paul  keeps on stressing that Christ, Christ alone is the centre of the Christian faith, and that if our eyes become clouded we should fill them with the cross of Christ.

Not every Christian leader is reliable. And we don’t always find our brothers and sisters in the church the easiest people to be with, to work with, to worship with. So it’s hardly surprising if our constant temptation is to break away, believing that we will follow Christ better alone, or in a different community, or under different leadership.

Let’s be careful. The strongest runner must be in the bobsleigh to have any chance of finishing the race. It is together, as one team, as a body, that we have been selected. And our joy will be in running and completing the race together for the finishing line.

Now for my second question, how can we race without running?

Stephen gave this talk the theme, “Stand Firm – Keep Going.” And there’s the same puzzle. We can stand firm, or we can keep going. How on earth can we do both? How can we race without running?

Paul is encouraging to the church at Philippi to see their Christian life as moving and active, dynamic, having a direction. It also has an end – but the end is not yet.

At the same time he is warning the church to beware of changing direction. He is warning that there are many who “live as enemies of the cross of Christ.” And from the context, he’s clearly not warning them about people who don’t believe or present themselves as believers. He’s warning about people who are in – who may even be at the heart of – the church. And he has some very strong words to say: they are ruled by their appetite, they make a virtue of their vices, they want a faith that evades the embarrassment of Jesus crucified and they are headed for destruction.

They probably started well, but they have gone off-course. And by compromising the heart of the Christian faith, they have found their lives have improved. Perhaps they are now seen as intellectually respectable. Perhaps doors to success have started to open. Perhaps they have simply found an easier life: their route-plan to salvation takes the ring-road around Calvary. These people haven’t stopped, they’re speeding up. In fact, they look like life’s big winners. They seem to have found a balance between body, mind and spirit.

But they are running out of control. They’re on the course, hurtling down the ice at breakneck speed, because they’ve taken the brakes off, they’re letting the bobsleigh steer itself. They may well break the course speed record, moments before they career off the track.

In bobsleigh racing, there’s a time to run and a time to sit. Sitting isn’t sleeping. Being part of the team, contributing weight to stabilise the bob, watching in case of problems ahead and being ready to call out – this part of the race isn’t about physical fitness.

It’s so easy to write off those of our brothers and sisters who aren’t visible, who aren’t up front, who aren’t starting new things, who don’t have the time, the energy, the health and strength to do all the things we may want to see happening in our churches.

Let’s be ready to see one another with new eyes, to see as Christ sees. Those who have run more of the course than we have ourselves are no less important. Faithful prayer, a watching eye, an encouraging word, a word of caution – these are indispensable. Those who run and those who are no longer able to run are pressing forward together to the goal.

Finally, then, I would like to conclude with just a thought about the challenge of standing firm.

I wonder if, this winter, you have had any run-ins with the snow and ice? You’re very fortunate if you have made it through the season with no bumps or bruises – and not everyone has been as lucky.

So think for a moment of those runners on the bobsleigh course. They’re running on ice.

Think of the moment before they start – and remember what it feels like when you’re standing, barely holding your balance, on a sheet of ice. Imagine if you started to run. How long before you would land with a bump?

If you want to compete in the bobsleigh, you need very special shoes. They have loads of tiny, sharp spikes – enough to get a good grip, not enough to get caught. And wearing them, you can stand firm, ready to run when you need to, and even to jump when the driver jumps.

In another of his letters [Ephesians 6], Paul talks about the need to have our “feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.”

We live in a world that moves fast: we stand on icy ground. It’s tempting to anchor ourselves – to dig through the ice and find rock beneath our feet. But that’s not the Christian calling. We can find comfort by protecting our culture, by looking to preserve everything as it was. The world is changing, and we protect ourselves in a kind of Christian bubble.

But that’s not the Christian calling. We have not been called from the world. We have been called in the world, we have been called to the world, and we have been called for the world. We haven’t been given a snow-plough, we have been given Gospel shoes. If we put them on – and only if we put them on – we will be ready to stand. And as we stand firm, we will be ready for our race: watching, ready to move, ready for the race ahead, ready to bring others too into this team, where they and we will be captained by Jesus Christ and received by him with joy at the end of our course.

Preached at St Martin’s Church, Cambridge and then at St Thomas’s Hall, Cambridge, 28 February, 2010

Clear Your Desk!

Luke 16:1-12

“Clear your desk!”

Those are words to knot your stomach. We all want to feel irreplaceable, but in business it can’t be so. Do you think the manager in Jesus’ story saw it coming? Was he lazy or greedy, dishonest or incompetent? The boss isn’t happy and this time it’s the chop – he just has time for a handover of the paperwork.

And there, that time for a handover, there’s just that little bit of wriggle room. “I’m losing my job, my income, my home. There’s no chance of a reference; there’s no safety net. I don’t have the muscles to be a builder, I don’t have the talent to be a busker and I don’t have the humility to be a beggar. But I need a pension plan, like, now.”

He thinks fast, he plans fast and he moves fast. Grabbing the file of invoices, he calls in all the debtors – everyone who owes something to the boss. In they come, one by one. Here’s the man who works the olive grove. He owes a share of the output – thousands of litres of extra virgin olive oil. At £4.99 a litre in Tesco’s that’s a tidy sum. “Tell you what,” says the manager (because he still is the manager, even if not for much longer), “Tell you what: I like you; you like me; we understand each other. You work hard, and maybe we’re asking too much. So here’s the deal: you can pay half, how does that sound? OK, we’re agreed. Yes, I’d love to come round some time for a meal. You can thank me later, I have a really busy morning.”

And so on through the queue: worried faces coming in, happy ones going out. He’s spent these last few hours when he’s meant to be putting the books in order buying favours by spending his boss’s capital. It’s not exactly stealing: he can’t be accused of having his hand in the till. He’ll be out on his ear, but he won’t be out in the cold, not with all those smiling friends who’ll be glad to see him, all those people who now owe him a big favour.

The boss gets wind of what he’s been up to and hauls him in. He’s been taken for a ride, but for whatever reason he decides to grin and bear it. “Well done,” he says to Mr Dishonest. “If only you’d been half as sharp on the job…”

And do you know? – because here’s the Sunday School teacher in me kicking in – God’s a bit like that.

What??????

Thank you, Maggi, for inviting me here tonight. You asked me to speak as the ‘ordained entrepreneur’ I call myself, and gave me the chance to look at what you and I agree is an outrageous story. It’s definitely one I need to make sense of, because I really want to know if I’m going God’s way.

If you’ll forgive me, I’d like to start by telling you some of my own story.

I’m a reluctant Christian. I was a happy atheist before I ran out of reasons to disbelieve that Jesus Christ is God’s Son. That was in my first year at Oxford, and it took me to nearly the end of my third to actually do something about it, to add a consenting heart to an assenting head.

I’m a reluctant vicar. I spent very nearly 20 years running away from a clear sense of calling to ordained Christian ministry before I became raw material for one of the vicar factories in Cambridge. And even then, I jumped off the production line leading to house and income and went ‘self-supporting,’ becoming unpaid curate of St Martin’s and keeping my family fed and housed by throwing myself into the business startup scene here at a time when our finances were rock bottom and the economy was subterranean.

But I am a happy entrepreneur. I love knocking down doors and opening up opportunities; spotting gaps and jumping into them; putting people together and seeing what happens; taking risks I think I can manage better than other people; celebrating the successes and bouncing back from the flops. And I fit my own definition of entrepreneur which is: someone who finds what they need to do what they want.

So if I am an ordained entrepreneur, most of my ministry is well off the beaten track of churches and the churchy. I’ve chosen to live with everything – faith included – at risk. And, getting back to the story, I’m bound to identify at least a bit with the opportunistic manager, if not in his ethics, certainly in his weighing up of a situation leading to rapid action to seize the main chance.

If that dishonest manager gets a thumbs-up from the boss, maybe I do too. Although I need to remember he got the sack, so I have to be a bit careful of getting smug.

Is God a bit like this boss? Well, there is something of grace about him – cheated by his outgoing staff member, he chooses to appreciate rather than incarcerate. When Jesus explains the story – OK, that’s an exaggeration, he leaves enough of a puzzle for generations of scholars and wearers of odd collars to sweat over – he says that “the children of this age are shrewder in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”

So this is a story for a mixed economy. There are “children of this age” who are thoroughly worldly and at home in the here and now, and there are “children of light” who are in a way visitors to or voyagers in the world as it is, who look to the world as it could be, to the world as God willing it will be. Thinking back to the Christmas season, we recall how in the birth of Jesus Matthew tells us that “the people living in darkness have seen a great light.” Those who respond to this light become children of light. They now shine in that same darkness with the reflected glory of the one true light – that’s not their job, it’s a kind of spiritual physics.

So is Jesus really telling us that shrewdness is a no-no for his people? Here comes the great reckoning, how’s your eternal balance sheet? Shrewds to the left – no credit, all crunch; prudes to the right and amply justified bonuses all round? No, I don’t think so. This parable comes in a block of teaching that begins a chapter before: “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’”

Jesus is offering a new perspective on living, and it’s the pious who don’t like it one bit. Those who take their religion so very seriously think Jesus is like the cross-eyed teacher who has no control over his pupils. He has absolutely no respect for them, and no apparent scruples. There he sits, surrounded by the faithless rich and the faceless poor. If a person is known by the company they keep, this Jesus is just another crowd-pleaser, careless of the rules. At best he’s misguided, wasting his time, talents and teaching.

And so Jesus tells this story. And it is meant to provoke that response of, “What??????” It’s a challenge as direct as you could want to the complacency which so easily sets in to all of us who start to think that when we become Christians we hand over responsibility to God and cover ourselves in an insulating layer of respectability. It’s not that we don’t want to see others find what we’ve found, of course. I’m sure they’ll see us, pillars of respectability, and some will be inspired by our radiance to become just like us.

Just think what’s been put into our trust: the riches of heaven, to know and be known as friends of God, and perhaps material prosperity as well. And what have we done, what are we doing with all this that has been entrusted to us? How are we using all we’ve been given? Secretly, as a private hoard, stockpiled until we need it? Perhaps we’re pooling our resources, sharing with others who are like us. Perhaps we even take the risk of putting this wealth on display. 

But the call to follow Jesus is different. It’s a call to risk being misunderstood – especially by Christians. It’s a call to meet people as they live in the misery of the world’s broken promises, and to greet them not with words of condemnation but with words of hope and friendship. It’s a call to trust God that if he should be calling us to give up all we have, whether riches or reputation, then we will be welcomed into eternal dwellings – welcomed into a new life that is not merely endless but boundless.

This story is outrageous because the Gospel is outrageous. It’s a reminder that faith is a risk. Gospel lives aren’t safe, but they are secure. They aren’t stable, but they are anchored. And Gospel goods aren’t for keeping – we need to act to share what’s been lavished on us or else either it or we will be spoiled. Gospel clothes are worn with humility: they are always worn at the knees. Gospel people are always ready to move – and always ready to be moved.

This Jesus, the Jesus of the Gospels, is a chancer, seizing the moment. He’s a risk-taker, putting everything at stake when that’s what it takes.

I wonder if one day you may hear his call as I have? It’s a call that thrills my soul just as it knots my stomach.

“Clear your desk!”

Given at Robinson College, Cambridge, Sunday evening 21 February, 2010

Ordained Entrepreneurship

Matt Jamison, impressively confident and capable radio presenter at BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, on his Easy Sunday programme today. I was there for an interview about being an ordained entrepreneur (Thanks, Matt! Thanks, Heather! Thanks, Vanessa!).

A short while before there was a piece about churches dealing with the challenges of buildings to maintain and assets to protect. Or the opportunity of bringing the community into the church and finding everyone's best ideas of how to make best use of what we have to offer...

I'm hoping that kind of challenge and the stories of churches that have tried different approaches will be exactly the kind of thing we'll be featuring on churchcafe.org.uk, the free national podcast series launching in September. Not so much from people with ideas, but from ordinary people (including ordinary ministers!) who've tried things that have worked and things that haven't.

I'm also hoping to connect with someone as passionate as I am to give Cambridge entrepreneurs an opportunity to connect with the entrepreneurial Church (and that's the only kind we've got, however often we forget it).

Posted via email from JDAP posterous

Faith as risk

I've been training towards C of E ordination and a full-time paid curacy. Now that's in question. Here's the story, or its bones at least.

Selection is understood as a process of discernment - the object being to understand if the sense of call to ministry is experienced by the individual and recognised as appropriate and timely by the church.  My call came in 1984. How it came and how I was on the run for over twenty years is a whole other story. Buy me a beer and I'll tell you.

Right in the middle of the selection process, as a family we decided we were going to move to Cambridge. Our timing couldn't have been worse in so many ways: it was a costly move in a lot of ways, but also one which we experienced as totally right. This felt like a calling too - and not just to me individually this time.

It meant a jitter in the selection process, but Ely Diocese (Cambridge is part of Ely from the C of E's point of view) put me back just a couple of steps, not right back to the beginning. I was selected, and accepted at Ridley Hall (theological college) and by Sidney Sussex (matriculating college), hallelujah! 

Also costly, though. A couple of years of minimal (but still generous - who else pays people to train these days?) financial support, another tranche of downsizing. But we knew, at least, that at the end would be a curacy which would provide a family home and an income (stipend in church-speak - money paid to enable ministry, not technically a salary).

A seismic moment came last July, when I learned that that curacy wouldn't be in the Diocese. On reflection, this was an opportunity to rethink things that might have saved some trouble. Oh, the joy of rear-view mirror vision! However, after a couple of false starts I found and agreed a curacy: if you're on our Christmas card list you've had the details.

And now, after serious reflection and what I would again describe as call we have now agreed not to take that up. It's possible that something else will come up that meets our circumstances, but it's an unlikely possibility.

Where does that lead? Very probably it means finding work outside the church for the near-term. Lots of wise friends and associates are contributing to that decision; the key choice is something we'll have to make this month.

I'm excited and alarmed in roughly equal measure. I have strong marketing credentials and a passion for business, but now isn't a great time to be getting back into the market, especially after a two year break. 

My thinking at the moment is that I'll rebuild my portfolio career - combining work with small and startup businesses with projects for larger businesses in the technology space. And I know there's a great deal of risk in that. So here's my own challenge of discernment - is embracing that risk together with the risk of faith in Jesus Christ where God is calling me?

Somehow even the thought is energising, nourishing. And, yes, scary. Not very much like the comfortable talk of 'living on the edge' in lecture rooms. That would be a good thing.

Putting this on my blog feels like a big risk in itself. Because we've swapped tracks from a route where things are clear and safe from any outsider's point of view, to one that has a whole lot more questions than answers. Honesty is potentially rather costly.

So if you're the praying type, do feel free to adopt the Parsons family as a cause to place before God. And if not, well, say one anyway, what harm could that do?

The University of Cambridge and the Diocese of Ely are 800 years old

On the first Saturday of Lent Term there was a ringing of bells and a light show to mark the start of the 800th anniversary celebrations

Actually we went to an event (a lecture on the 'Horrible Science of Cambridge')  before Christmas that was also the start. Well, it's a big occasion, why not start a few times...

More photos are here and there's a video to give you more of a feel of what it was like here, then there's University stuff here and Diocese of Ely stuff (founded at the same time) here.

Being a Guerrilla Christian

It's a work in progress. With hindsight, in spite of every good intention last year, far too much of my time and attention went into the lovely but limited circle of the theological community. My new (academic) year's resolution has been to make sure that spare energy - and most especially that which I'm tempted to devote to attempts to reform things here at Ridley - goes outwards.

So here are some of the things I am determined not to put (much!) time, effort or brainpower towards:

1. The antediluvian administrative structure for students, which guarantees a lack of teamwork on community responsibilities, ensures inequality in the division of labour and creates that special combination of inefficiency and near-effectiveness that prevents the resource that is our joint time and effort being available to respond to need and opportunity


2. The Common Room's indifference to the administrative burden and intensified financial hardship (to the college) of a new payment regime for students


3. Our shared failure to take an interest in the student world beyond our own Victorian walled garden, whether in theological or general academe, and learn from their experience and practice

That list-making needs, then, to be the end of my musing on these three topics. The first and best of what's freed by this resolution needs to go to my family, who inevitably bear the lion's share of the burden of our change of circumstances as a result of a call to ministry. And the next in line is The Outside World.

The first flowering of this latter is being put up as the 'older and wiser' head on a panel for a 'grill a Christian' evening. I can guarantee 50% achievement on this measure, at least. And I am of an age when making a complete fool of myself is absolutely no deterrent, so as far as I can see the worst that can happen is that someone asks a clever question to which all I can answer is 'wibble,' while the upside is if someone can argue me out of faith I can give up this life of giving up and go back to consultancy, holidays and money.

If you have a praying disposition and are reading this on the day, do keep me in mind this evening. It would be great not to be the scaffolding that spoils someone's view of Jesus.

A sign of the times? (or, "Recession bites")

Well, if there was any doubt we're heading into a recession...

Hard words

Well, it's great that I've finished with exams for the year (although there's still some teaching to come).  

But...

Next year, same ordeal.

However, that's something for another day.  Meanwhile, with the pressure off, time at last to get a little croquet and perhaps a punt or two into the mix :D

The Lent We're Given

I've been out and about with my camera: go see my latest nature photo album ->

We had staircase pancake race on, well you can probably work out when. My role was to eat.

I think I did it rather well :)

There is a press furore about the Archbishop of Canterbury. So this notice may be of concern...

So who is my preferred archbishop? We ordinands need to keep our heads down!

Well, this isn't getting my reading list read. Bye for now!

Term ends - part one

Well, that was quick. The University term has finished, though for us ordinands there is still another week to go. Some courses, some time for reflection and some time together.

So what profound thoughts and reflections do I have?

Hmmm...

It's strange, though in some ways strangely comforting, to be mildly infantilised again. There are relatively few choices to make; there is in the main a kind of assumption that we all need to go back to the beginning - justified, I suppose, even if occasionally frustrating.

But something is lost, too. We arrive, fully connected to the world around us. And one by one, the ties are cut. And the danger is, of course, that we become churchy people, not Jesusy people.

So that's the challenge, I suppose. To remember - and act on the knowledge - that Jesus mixed with all the wrong people, held all the wrong opinions, said all the wrong things. Yet, "anyone who has seen me has seen the Father."

It's too long since I was here

It's been too long since I was here - sorry!

For a change I've put some public photos on facebook - if you want to see more I usually make them friends only so you'll have to join, but these you should be able to see regardless: http://cambridge.facebook.com/album.php?aid=20836&l=99e65&id=670216802

Things that have happened recently include:

• My first deaconing (i.e. assisting up front for the service, on this occasion robed, a real thrill :) )
• My first preaching slot at my attachment slot (as far as I know, no-one stormed out afterwards)
• My first proper essay (OK, OK, you had it much tougher)

The college communion service was very interesting, as I was on the planning team. Happily I didn't have anything too responsible to do, so I was able to have fun taking piccies, some of which were used in various guises. Here's a selection.

Holy Rollers, Batman

Have you ever felt that so much is going on you'll never assimilate all the impressions? It could be an unsettling experience, but it's more a happy daze at this stage!

As the termcard lectures get going, I'm starting to get more of a feel of how my time will be spent. As a mathematician by first degree, the whole business of essay research, planning and writing at University level is new to me, but the whole system is geared to getting us all used to it. The atmosphere is friendly, with people from a wide range of backgrounds.

So let me tell you a little about the course I'm on, the University of Cambridge Bachelor of Theology for Ministry (B.Th). It's a vocational degree - similar for instance to a Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) - designed to provide both the academic and practical knowledge a prospective Christian minister needs.

Teaching is delivered by the Theological Federation, which I've mentioned before, as well as by the Divinity Faculty. In the case of Faculty lectures, the resulting work is again within the Federation.

Each of the Federation Houses (Ridley Hall is one of these) has its particular denominational allegiance and distinctive emphases, which result in the specific experience of students (mainly but not exclusively ordinands like me) attending each. So, for instance, there are Ridley-specific activities - some are compulsory, some are optional. Happily there are Directors of Studies making sure that course structures overall and the programme for each individual meet the requisite needs of course and church.

Some of the work is study-based, some is experience and reflection-based. In the latter category is the Pastoral Portfolio, a substantial piece of work resting on actual activities we undertake and our theological reflections on them. Speaking personally, this is the least familiar but probably the most vital area of preparation for ministry, as we have the opportunity now to work in unfamiliar contexts under supervision and with joint reflection and so develop our abilities (not least our lifelong learning abilities) in real-life situations of need.

So now let me give you an idea of the pattern of a typical week and of life between terms. (I may be wrong on all sorts of important details, though!)

Weekdays in the University term, mornings start with a service of morning prayer followed by timetabled lectures and seminars, afternoons are mainly geared to study, then some evenings involve specific commitments. Saturday is generally kept free, and on Sundays we will be involved with the specific church to which we're attached (we've all been visiting prospective attachment churches and this is being finalised over the next couple of weeks).

We get an extra period before and after the University term when there are additional lectures, other short courses and so on, plus several vacations will be punctuated by activities, notably mission, church placement (a block period of weeks to live and work in another place) and in some cases block period Social Context Placement.

Oh, yes, and of course at various times there will be exams. Mustn't forget that particular blessing.

My general impression is that, as we expected, it's demanding in time without destroying the possibility of family life in the process. And Cambridge itself as a backdrop and workplace is a very pleasant bonus.

There. Now you know all I do. And you're perhaps getting a sense of why at this rather early hour I'm now more than ready for bed.

Good night :)

The calm...

Cambridge must now be at its very quietest: definitely the calm before the storm.

There's lots of painting going on everywhere you look. New pubs, bars and restaurants sprout on every street, full of hope that they will prove to be this year's 'in' place.

Even King's Parade is peaceful. That grass looked pretty good yesterday; it will look pretty good tomorrow and more or less all the time except when it's recovering from the BBC Outside Broadcast Unit.

It's pretty much the same cluster of bicycles, just a single tidy row, no need to scramble and search through a heap. The shops are full and neat, hoping for an influx of unaccountably guilty-feeling parents, wanting to cheer their progeny (or themselves) up with an impulse purchase.

And here it's the same. Life is changing in so many ways, starting any day now. I'll get the key to my shared study on Sunday, and then it starts. Two years that will, I suspect, feel like two weeks.

We all know in theory what the change means, but there's the theory and there's the fact. How will the children adapt to the change of routine? How much will I miss the school run (school cycle, that is)? How will we carve out time to be a couple in this new, exciting, alarming phase of our lives? Where will we be this time two years hence?

"Margaret, are you grieving over Goldengrove unleaving? Leaves, like the things
of man, you with your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! As the heart grows
older it will come to such sights colder by and by, nor spare a sigh though
worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie. Yet you will weep, and know why.
Now, no matter, child, the name: sorrow's springs are the same. Nor mouth
had, no, nor mind, expressed what heart heard of, ghost guessed: it is the
blight man was born for: it is Margaret you mourn for." GMH

There's a little mourning to do for what's past; there's an 'unleaving' we have chosen. But we believe that we are following one who will not fail us. If sorrow's springs are the same, the springs of hope and joy lead also to one single source. It is in order to climb in pursuit of that source that we have set out, both to be refreshed ourselves and to bring its crystal water to others.

Tuesday...

...dawned bright and glorious. Enough chill in the air to invigorate, not enough to make one's throat dry while cycling.

So cycle I did. And here are some highlights of my journey to fetch the paper (and today's free book, from the Horrible Science series).

St Andrew's Street Baptist Church has an exhibition from Stop The Traffik, which is trying to rally public opinion and action against the continuing scandal of people trafficking.

This is an important year, marking the bicentenary of the passing of the Act of Parliament that outlawed slavery and slave trafficking throughout the British Empire, and effectively throughout a large part of the world as British sea power was such that it acted as something of a global policing service.

There are issues for us Brits as we contemplate the age of empire, but this is one area where we can be unreservedly proud of our contribution in the past.

That should also inspire us to get out and do something - just signing the online petition is a start - to bring that great work to a conclusion.

Here's proof that I was being responsible, carbon-wise, in my perambulations.

I'm not a great fan of this little corner of Cambridge. After the wild exuberance of King's College, it's a bit derivative and lame. But I like the lettering on this doorway.

You're never too far from a stack of bicycles here. Unfortunately, a favourite pastime of some late night wanderers is mild or major vandalism of bikes. I only noticed today that someone has kindly removed the handle of the basket on the front of my bike.

Thanks.

After my comments about looking up, here's another delight!

It's the gold leaf that makes this one particularly thrilling, in my opinion at least.

Now here's the answer to the puzzle picture. I'd have accepted, "it's a car park!"

I've never yet had occasion to use the Park Street Cycle Park, but I'm glad it's there. (Maybe I should use it more often. Fewer petty vandalisms.)


Back, now, to looking up. I'm very fond of Cambridge's many and varied crosses. They're particularly stunning on such a clear day. Carved stone against an azure sky is a wonderful thing.

So here's one...
...and here's another. (Admittedly this isn't against the sky, but the composition might tell you which well-known church building we're at.)

So there you are. It's great being forced out in the morning!

(And a bit later too: Ruth and I took the opportunity of a stop in Costa Coffee en route to Sainsbury's, to shop for this evening's meal.

There you are. Bang up to date. Must go: stock's a-bubbling.

Atonement Moment

We're well supplied with cinemas here. So we thought we'd head off to the Arts Picturehouse to see Atonement.

Wow.

A great film, but don't go if you're down in the dumps. A heartwarming knockabout comedy it isn't. But a truly great film it is.

Now we're watching Saved. Not in the same league, but a counterpoint. (Thanks, Helena :) )

Just Look Up

Looking up is always rewarding. In Cambridge, even the best known parts - especially the best known parts - have details that easily escape the eye.

I like roofs, chimneys, gargoyles, statues, and all the crinkly bits of architecture that show it's all for a purpose, all thought through.

Sometimes you can see or guess that what was on paper has some points of difference with what is in stone.

Perhaps the architect has seen potential as the building was raised, or more mundanely maybe funds didn't stretch to the original design.

We were in Barcelona not so long ago, and like every visitor must, we marvelled at the Gaudi buildings.

Everything, everything seems organic.

Impossible-seeming curves challenge one's expectations of what a chimney should be like. Or an office. Or a cathedral. Or a statue. Or a frieze. Or... or... or...
(Great pictures, by the way, Ruthie :D )

Because of Gaudi (and, in a different way, Rogers), we realise that that 'should' relates to our own limited experience and understanding.

There's no 'should' about it: it's a matter of skill, and taste, and art, and choice.

So common sense turns out to be the box in which we sit - a perfect cube whose walls seem solid but are, in fact, illusions. Look up, and you get a peep outside; maybe you even get a tiny glimpse of the whole scene.

There's probably a sermon in that. Must file it away for a few months!

King's Views

Kings College - like a lot of Cambridge buildings - has great chunks of scaffold spoiling the view right now.

So note my raw photographer's cunning in eliminating the unsightly object making use of the handy tree. Almost indetectable.

King's Parade has now hit the calm-before-the-storm stage. Plenty of tourists are still around, but a tiny fraction of the height of summertime language student 'n' tourist frenzy. Lots of students about to arrive, though - quite a few are to be seen making scouting visits with parents in tow (or, more probably, the other way round). I'm very probably taking the Cambridge University BTh, but continue to take the view that nothing's certain until it's certain. If I do, though, I'll be a member of one of the colleges, although it's Ridley itself and the wider Federation that will be the centre of life and study. (Who takes the role of the Klingons, I wonder?)

Meeting assorted Ridleyites (Ridleians? Ridlish? Ridlonians? I must ask), one of the choices seems to be how much to get involved with college life, and one of the temptations is to end up in an ordinands' ghetto, thus using the crucial formation time here in Cambridge to lose all touch with real life! There's a benefit in being in Cambridge already, of course - we already have a group of friends, neighbours and school gate acquaintances. I hope I will get to enjoy a bit of college life, though I realise that 'mature students' have a cloak of invisibility to rival Harry Potter's when around straight-from-school undergraduates. (Nice to have a chance to sport my MA gown at the odd formal dinner, though ;) ).

Here are my resolutions to give me some chance at least of mixing in a bit at college:

• I must resist the temptation to cap every student's travelling tale with one of my own from somewhere more exciting or six of my own to show range of experience
• I must resist the temptation to gloat over those juggling student loans when we CofE ordinands are funded (and indeed I got a student grant first time round)
• I must resist the temptation to name-drop people and places and companies from the last 20 years in order to compete with the energy and fresh-facedness all around
• I must resist the temptation to try and relive student life first time round

I'll let you know how I do with all those!

Back to the view at King's.

Another alternative to photography is to use the digital dexterity of my photo editing software. Guess which object it removed for me, and with what it replaced it when I asked (nicely). No peeking at the first picture, mind.

It's a wonderful thing, technology, isn't it?

Right. Back to work!

Mystery Object

Cambridge is a late starting city. I had to be up and about early, so I cycled around a bit to get some fresh air and kick-start the circulation. But even by ten to nine, the city feels like no-one wants to be out of bed. The market's just setting up, the coffee shops are open but near empty, the few pedestrians have dazed or purposeful or resentful looks.

Here is today's mystery object. In Cambridge. But no more clues.

In case you're still thinking about DNA001, it's time for the first clue.

(Drum roll.)

There's a connection with Doctor Who.

More next week unless someone gets it.

Saturday

The first weekend of term time is always a pleasure: the children back into school routine and appreciative of the break.

The children asked for a 'duvet day.' Just let me get my hands on whoever coined that phrase...

We negotiated.

So we had a quiet morning, then out and about for the afternoon.

We went to the playground in the first picture (they're someone else's children, in case you're confused!), which is by the bit of the river in the second. Very picturesque :)


For more pictures of us all than you could possibly want, send me a message and I'll let you know how to track us down on facebook.


Conclusion: Cambridge is a great city for families!