I saw this sign in a 'very English' bookshop in the out of town shopping centre on Monday morning.  It made me smile.

I vaguely recall my mother telling us to 'haud yer wheesht' when we were children which equated roughly to 'be quiet and calm down'.

There are now any number of variants of this old war time poster, some more amusing than others.

Anyway, for a bit of completeness, here's the Welsh version...

(For some reason I saved this as a draft and forgot about it until now!)

This is the title of the BUS/BMS Assembly which starts tomorrow (and for which I am travelling today as I need to be at a session at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow morning... my days of unnecessary, ridiculously early starts are, I have decided, done).  It is a great title, but is is true?  Will generosity, let alone outrageous generosity be evidenced?  Or will it just be a title that ends up bearing little resemblance to anything that takes place?

There are some interesting sessions and seminars planned, and some opportunities for the 'Outrgaeous Generosity' which we claim God offers (even if we put limits on that no matter what we may claim) to permeate our thinking.

Tomorrow morning - the Ministers Pensions Roadshow (why I have to be there early, why others are travelling form Didcot today).  In an economic recession, what is Outrageous Generosity in relation to pensions for ministers, many (most) of whom have low relatively incomes in the first place?  And what is Outrageous Generosity in terms of ethical investment?

A seminar from David Kerrigan entitled 'Integrity and Inclusivity, Mission and Sexual Ethics Today'.  What does outrageous generosity mean in terms of inclusion? of integrity? towards those with whom we disagree?

Or David McMillan on 'Just Peacemaking' how can that demonstrate outrageous generosity in a violent world?

And so on, and so forth.  Most of the main stage speakers have 'generous' in their titles - but how  generous is generous?  Is it outrageously so?  Will we come away more or less generous of spirit?  Will we get our ears tickled or our minds stirred?  Will 'love cover over a multitude of sins' or will we become polarised?

Back at the end of the last century, two women, both from Scottish churches, each training for ministry in England, under the aegis of BUGB travelled to the Scottish Baptist Assembly, where they wept openly as, once more, the churches voted against the ordination of women.  Roughly a decade later, slowly, but surely home-grown Scottish Baptist women ministers are being ordained, though this one English woman is still the only 'woman minister in sole pastoral charge of a Baptist church in Scotland'.  Some people left the BUS because it wouldn't ordain women.  Some people undoubtedly left once it did.  Some people had to leave the BUS to follow their calling.  Some people stayed put despite being denied their calling.  I find myself wondering where, from all parties, generosity was exercised, and where it was withheld? 

Outrageous generosity probably ought to carry with it something of the risky, risque, disturbing nature of things we find 'outrageous'.  We aren't, I hope, simply saying 'God's uber generous', which we all believe anyway.  Rather, I hope we're saying that God's generosity is shocking and bewildering and surprising-in-a-scary-way and might just lead us to re-think our cosy, self-righteous understandings.

So, I am hoping to be shaken up a bit, but in a way that shows me God's outrageous generosity is at work, rather than human self-righteous bombast (don't know if that word exists per se, but still!).

Praying for all speakers and seminar leaders, that they will be channels of God's outrageous, generous grace.  And for delgates, that we may be genuinely open to the breeze or the hurricane of God's Spirit.

It's a bit of a nutty week - a few urgent pastoral things to do and a sermon to research and hopefully get written by midday tomorrow, all before heading east for Baptist Assembly.  It's under control, just about, but if as a result I post nothing today people will get withdrawal symptons and/or worry about me!

Anyway, the thing that popped into my head and rattled around is part of the 'charge to Timothy' in which I locate my own call to ordained ministry, and to which I periodicially return to be reminded what I'm about.  It's this bit:

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

2 Tim 4:3 - 4 NRSV

'Itching ears' or, in what is evidently a more accurate translation of the Greek, things that 'tickle their ears'.  As we read these verses, we all think we know what they mean, and all think that the 'wandering away from truth' is x, y or z that differs from our understanding of truth.  So what we want to hear - what tickles our ears - is what we think is sound doctrine; and what does not accord with what we already think can be dismissed as other people accumulating teachers to suit their own desires.  How easy it is to point the finger at others whose theology differs from what makes us feel comfortable, and say 'aha, false teaching' and fail to notice how comfortable and complacent we have become ourselves.

Over the 15 or so years I've been preaching, it has often struck me that often people will tell me a sermon is 'good' when what I have said accords with that they already think (and, to be fair, I have been guilty of this too) - that somehow we take into church our subconscious soundness checklists against which we measure the sermon, rather than being truly open to the possibility that God will surprise us.  A nice 'ear tickler' will earn high praise; something that disturbs possibly won't. 

Over the years I have learned to value sermons that I really struggle with theologically, the ones that far from tickling my ears, cause my hackles to rise or make me squirm in my seat.  To be clear, I don't mean those that are badly prepared or carelessly delivered - they are plain bad.  I mean the ones that challenge what I understand, or force me to reconsider long-held and cherished perspectives.  I have learned that to be told "that made me think" is actually a great compliment to a preacher.  Likewise that 'can I just ask you about point x' need not (always) be a cause for defensiveness but actually is sometimes an opportunity to explore something further.

So, I am going to do my bestest to keep this in mind as I head off to Assembly, and listen to things that will tickle my ears and things that will give me cause for concern... and trust, that with the help of God's Spirit, I can get some inkling just what is the thing God is saying in this place, at this time.

It will be intriguing to see what folk say after this Sunday's effort!!

Sorry, that's probably a very gloomy lost title, it's based partly on the name of a book I will be mentioning, and partly on what I think pastoral care of dying or terminally ill peopple is about.

A lot of stuff recently has been reminding me of an essay I wrote - a very long time ago - based on my experiences of accompanying a couple through the final months of the husband's life.  Diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer, his GP expected him to live maybe six weeks; in the end he lived for nine months, before slipping away.  As a green trainee minister type person, I read lots of stuff to help me face the challenges of caring for this couple, and found some concepts and images that have remained with me since.  It was useful today to spend a little time reading my essay and reminding myself what it actually said, not what I remember it saying!

The first image I used was from a book called Letting Go by I Ainsworth-Smith and P Speck, London SPCK, 1982 (a newer edition is now published).  They defined what they called 'cones of awareness' around an individual person.

Cone 1, for the healthy person, is very wide, including work collegaues, relatives, immediate family, neighbours, friends, leisure companions and acquaintances, as well as (potentially) religious and medical professionals.  The healthy person can relate quickly and easily to different groups and is energised by the diversity.

Cone 2, for the sick person, narrows somewhat; work colleagues, acquaintances, leisure companions may be excluded (or exclude themselves) either de facto or through choice.  The sick person has less energy and is able to concentrate less well and for less time.  Relationships can actually prove sapping rather than energising.

Cone 3, for the dying person, becomes increasingly narrow, until they are alone, metaphorically if not literally.  Consciousness may be fleeting, conversation draining.  In the end, death, like birth, is something experienced alone.

Depending on the nature of the illness or condition, the sick person may revert to cone 1 as they recover.  This is the experience, to some extent, of anyone who has had illness or injury that can be overcome with medicine, surgery or rest.

Some people will, eventually, move from cone 2 to cone 3, a transition that is irreversible.  The transition is not usually abrupt, though it may be, with the scope of those allowed 'in' steadily reducing.  For some people, right at the end, it is too much to have anyone left inside the cone.

I have found this model quite helpful as I have accompanied families during the end-stage of a loved one's illness.  It has permitted me, quite often, to remain inside the cone longer than might otherwise have been possible.  At other times it has meant accepting that I am excluded from the cone, even when that is hard to face.

Another book that informed my essay, way back when, was Sharing the Darkess by Sheila Cassidy published by Darton, Longman and Todd in 1988.  In this book, Cassidy uses a set of of four sketches to illustrate the kinds of relationships that a sick, or dying, person may experience in their care setting.  If I remember correctly (it is more than a decade since I read the book and I don't have it to hand to check), there are four increasingly deep and mutual relationships:

1. the medical professional - a doctor, pictured in white coat and with a nurse who is passing a syringe, who has skills, drugs and procedures to offer.  The personal level of interaction is, inevitably, minimal
2. the clergyman (sic) - pictured in clerical collar and stole, holding a 'host'; he has a functional role and the tools of scripture and tradition.  A more personal relationship, but still professional.
3. a professional, pictured in 'mufti', who now has no professional tools, yet who retains the knowledge and experience gained over years.  Counselling or pastoral care can be offered. (I think this image probably relates to a terminal diagnosis)
4. human beings - pictured naked, stripped of all that training or experience can offer.  They meet in shared vulnerability and have nothing to offer but themselves.

The idea being explored here is slightly different from the cones model, in that it, at least to a degree, considers the de-skilling and re-humanising of the professionals involved in palliative or terminal care.  In other words, once you are allowed to remain inside the 'cone' of a very sick or dying person, you have to become more vulnerable yourself (in an appropriate way - you are still a professional) accepting that you don't have all the answers and can't make it all alright.  At least that's what I think it was about - I could be wrong!

The challenge for medical and religious professionals alike is that sometimes we can't 'mend' what is broken, that this person is going to die, and that if we are privileged enough to be allowed to stay in that ever-narrowing cone, we must allow ourselves to be de-skilled.  To sit in silence, holding the cooling, pale hand of a person who is nearing the door of eternity... that's both privilege and challenge.

Over the last year I have to varying degrees walked with a number of people as they, or their loved ones, have neared the door from life to eternity.  Sometimes I was allowed into the cone, sometimes I was an outside observer; either is a valid place to be.  As we draw closer to the autumn festivals of All Saints and All Souls (even if Bappies generally don't mark them) and even of Remembrance, it seems somehow fitting to reflect, if briefly, on how we best share the darkness, walking with otherws towards the door of eternity...

... a young person at church, thousands of miles from any blood relative, has an ear-to-ear grin because the church bought him a birthday cake and sang to him.

... some of last year's African students offer powerful insights from their culture which inform the sermon in a way no amount of theologising or biblical study ever would

... the person leading prayers of intercession has done an amazing job, thoughtful, profound, generous-spirited, honest (and they fitted perfectly with the hymn after the sermon!)

... people will give up part of their Sunday afternoon to discuss pastoral care (especially when the list of those needing care is sooooo long)

... someone feels free to express a view that is likely to be unpopular (even when that makes more work for me/others!)

... it's Sunday teatime and I'm knackered-but-content!