The local council chamber is like something from the European parliament: whizzy microphones at every chair, individual name plates and biggest plasma screen you ever did see.  I'm glad my council tax is well spent.

There were around 60 members of the public crammed round the edges waiting for the meeting.  Item 1 was defered due to the lack of some accurate decibel data - and forty or so folk left in disgust, having travelled about 30 miles to be there.  One or two applications had speakers - allowed exactly 3 minutes each, and one recommendation was overturned (from accept to reject) after an elected councillor had waffled for 10 minutes on why it should not be passed (no three minute rule for him).

Ours took all of five minutes to get rejected, of which four and a half minutes was the man from the council presenting it.  There were no real grounds for rejection, indeed the stated reasons contradicted each other: the bottom line was they didn't want to approve it full stop.  Now we and our long suffering architect have to decide 'what next' - we meet all the requirements apart from keeping the old 'barn' going, which is what the planners want. 

So there we have it.  At least I only had a 2 mile journey home and could call at the chip shop for a late tea before switching on my PC.  Really must get one of those giant plasma screens before the next church meeting though..!

Probably not very ministerial language but there you go.  I have given up counting crises now, as every time I turn around there seems to be another one.  At least it looks as if I'll get away with giving away dangly skeletons at our Pentecost service (the valley of dry bones...) as the other Rev'ds are OK with it.

I think I am going to throw away the sermon I wrote yesterday, not because it's bad but because this week makes it seem wrong.  I am still using the BMS FACE thingy but don't feel that banging on about mega issues is helpful when several of my folk are in bits.  The theme is one of being set free, of chains that bind.  I wonder if here in costa del Dibley, the chains are something to do with stubborn independence, lack of openness, lack of trust, fear of judgement or rejection...  I can't help feeling that people might have been better placed to cope with their mega issues if they had shared them before they got so mega, that and the fact that then they might not all have come at once.

One of the songs I had already picked is one where, along with most ministers I know, the second verse prompts me to say something like 'yeah, right' because it has a naivety or unrealism that offends.  Yet parts of the song have an important message...

It was for freedom that Christ has set us free, no longer to be subject to the yoke of slavery...

Surely that is true (and it fits with some nice proof texts), just that sometimes we don't think about what it is that enslaves us - fear, insecurity, lack of self worth, absence of trust, stubborn independence.

Then the problematic second verse...

And in his presence our problems disappear...

Well eschatologically, yes, but in the here and now...  Maybe there is some perspective on them, maybe we find proof texts to show the spirituality of struggle and suffering, but they don't vanish, rather they lurk in the shadows waiting to pounce on us.  I don't think given the issues some of my folk are facing, or the culture of denial and secrecy, that this is a helpful thing to sing.  So I have rewritten the verse to speak of being held in the embrace of God's grace during our struggles. 

And in our struggles, our prayers he'll always hear, his grace embracing us in love... 

I will probably be taken on one side to have my heresies explained to me, as I did when I chose not to use triumphalist battle language a few weeks back, but my need to walk with bruised people means not offering twee answers or singing things that pressurise them into saying everything is good because God loves them.

I'd love to scratch the sermon slot altogether and get them to really share how life is for them, to really face up to the *&$^£"@* that constitutes some people's here and now, but the truth is that we are nowhere near that place.  If discipleship is in some way about community, then it is also about openness and honesty, but church has a long way to go to find that place.  So maybe my 'reflection' will be trying to help us move a step along that path, being set free from the chains of British stiff upper lip and self-sufficient independence (and maybe it's also the sermon that I need to hear!).

So said Shakespeare (Twelfth Night) and so it seems today - literally and metaphorically.  Great clouds disgorging their contents over my corner of the world, and the realisation that yes, this is, in part, why I am called to this bizarre role. Confidentiality and the sensitive nature of some of the stuff means it remains unsaid and unsayable, but this morning was the funeral of the father of one my seven year old Explorers, a letter arrived indicating that our planning application will be probably be rejected on Wednesday and another couple of mega pastoral crises decided to break affecting folk in my congregation.  My work load for this week has now just trebled as I pick up a whole raft of other people's work just to keep things roughly on track.

The good news - the glimmer of sun - was an excellent meeting with those involved in planning the ecumenical Pentecost service.

Ah well, life goes on - with a hey and a ho and a hey nonny noe!!

I love looking at dew or frost spangled spider webs, there is structure, fragility, beauty and practicality all woven (groan) together.  Of course, we don't like them in our houses - though there are many corners of Dibley manse where dusty webs bear witness to my apalling standards of house keeping and the industry of the local spider population.

Way back when I was beginning to learn about 'theological reflection' someone introduced the metaphor of the spider's web, and it is one that to this day remains one of the most helpful for me, and one I enjoy playing around with - if not literally!

Like all metaphors and models it is imperfect, but it offers me a balance for the "pastoral cycle" which has dominated (and is a good basis for reflection).

A spider web needs anchor points - but what are they?  How many are needed?  Must they always be the same?  A multi-disciplinary approach perhaps?

A spider web has loads of different strands all meeting at, or passing through a central point - a theocentric or christocentric model perhaps?

There are stands that move around the web, linking the different anchorage threads, some closer to the centre, some further out.  In some, but not all, webs strands may skip over some threads to reach others and/or the spacings may be varied.  Are there echoes of people like Westerhoff III (great name!) on spiritual nurture here?

The whole thing is practical - a dinner trap.  At the same time it is fleeting - how quickly webs can be brushed away.

In this mix of beauty, structure, fragility and practicality there seem to be echoes of the contingence and particularity of all theological reflection.  All too soon the web is gone, though usually the anchor points remain waiting for another spider to build another web on another day.

Sometimes I find myself making odd connections - a presentation on spiritual care of people with dementia seemed to connect somehow with my sense that 'the past' is a 'resource' for thinking understanding our 'now' (is there any word I don't need to 'problematise'?!).  Someone looking at pastoral care of ministers saw the 'disinterment' of past as parallel to the cleansing of old wounds and traumas that can occur in counselling sessions - in other words, it is precisely by engaging with our own 'past', personal or corporate, that we are enabled to become more whole, more healthy.  These aren't 'pastoral cycle' iterations, they are 'spider web' connections.  Both are valid, neither is superior - and I guess so long as I learn from each I am growing in some senses.

(Oh, and for those that like a nice simplistic Biblical parallel, spider webs are a bit like fishing nets... and, in cynical mode, some models of evangelism are perhaps reflective of the predatory nature of the spider web!!!  "I will make you spiders of men, spiders of men, spiders of men..."  Or not. ;-) )

After my Mary & Martha sermon, a nun came up to me to thank me for the service, and asked if I knew the poem The Sons of Martha by Kipling.  I did not, and she could only remember snippets, but she knew that it was written for an Engineering Society.  So, ex-mechanical engineer and now theological engineer that I consider myself to be, I tracked it down with a little help from Google...

The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.

It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by land and main.

They say to mountains, 'Be ye removed'. They say to the lesser floods, 'Be dry'.
Under their rods are the rocks reproved - they are not afraid of that which is high.
Then do the hill-tops shake to the summit - then is the bed of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly sleeping and unaware.

They finger death at their gloves' end where they piece and repiece the living wires.
He rears against the gates they tend: they feed him hungry behind their fires.
Early at dawn, ere men see clear, they stumble into his terrible stall,
And hale him forth like a haltered steer, and goad and turn him till evenfall.

To these from birth is Belief forbidden, from these till death is Relief afar.
They are concerned with matters hidden - under the earthline their altars are;
The secret fountains to follow up, waters withdrawn to restore to the mouth,
And gather the floods as in a cup, and pour them again at a city's drouth.

They do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to leave their work when they damn-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark and the desert they stand,
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren's days may be long in the land.

Raise ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path more fair or flat:
Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha spilled for that:
Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness to any creed,
But simple service simply given to his own kind in their common need.

And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessed - they know the angels are on their side.
They know in them is the Grace confessed, and for them are the Mercies multiplied.
They sit at the Feet - they hear the Word - they see how truly the Promise runs:
They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and - the Lord He lays it on Martha's Sons.

 

A tad cynical perhaps, but as the IMechE used to proudly boast 'nothing moves without engineers'!  Oh, and the text is purple because Google tells me that is the engineer's colour - you learn something new every day.  It's also episcopal...!