Piglet and Pooh at Communion

If only life could be like Piglet and Pooh, simple friendship, trust, reliance, respect, glad the other is there!

Then we have the news…  Perhaps even we have stopped reacting to things.

That last terrorist act of murdering an elderly priest while a dozen people in rural France were at mass was especially horrific. I’ve received today a letter from the police passed down through the Methodist channels on how to make worship safer and more secure. If the day comes when we cannot be open to everyone, then we shut our doors for ever. But there is a lot of fear out there.  

We shared a communion service tonight at my church in Hastings, and we spent some time reflecting on connected-ness and breakdown of relationships.  

Nadia Bolz Weber is an amazingly quirky priest in America. She does some reflecting on the Lord’s Prayer which is about community:  

"Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, may thy undoing of our ways and the in-breaking of your ways – the way things really are—appear before our eyes. Brother Martin Luther reminds us that your kingdom comes with or without our asking for it but it in this prayer we ask that your dominion, your kingdom come among us. But right now, God, right now we think we might just skip over the asking for it and move right to the begging for it if that’s ok with you.

We beg you to bring more than just a small measure of heaven to earth because this place is a mess. Lord, your people are killing each other and the vulnerable are even more vulnerable and the wealthy are even more wealthy and we’ve developed weapons that do unspeakable things and we’ve developed economic systems than rely on those weapons continuing to be made and protected and it’s hard to see a way out, Lord. So, we need your Kingdom to speed the hell up. And if that’s not possible then open our eyes to where your kingdom already is taking root and growing among us, turn our eyes from our despair to any amount of light your kingdom is spreading, however small."

I find that quote, like every Nadia quote, very powerful. I cannot change the world tonight, but I can try to be different in my bit of it, in my relationships, in my churches, in where I walk. I am not anyone important, but if I can help somebody feel loved and wanted and valued, then I have shown God perhaps and that feels good. 

It felt powerful and right in the context of madness in the world at the moment to break bread tonight and be reminded of Jesus who was broken for us and to pray for those who don't get what is happening and are broken by their own circumstances. That is the call of the Church, not to argue over buildings and other trifling nonsense... (controversial corner there!)

I chose to end the worship tonight with the communion hymn by Bernadette Farrell. I love her work. Jesus broken as bread is broken gives hope for the world, even today. I hold on to that, very tightly when there are so many uncertainties. 

 Bread of life, hope of the world, Jesus Christ, our brother; feed us now, give us life, lead us to one another.

 As we proclaim your death as we recall your life,
We remember your promise to return again.

The bread we break and share was scattered once as grain:
Just as now it is gathered, make your people one.

We eat this living bread, we drink this saving cup:
Sign of hope in our broken world, source of lasting  love.

Hold us in unity, in love for all to see;
That the world may believe in you, God of all who live.

You are the bread of peace, you are the wine of joy,
Broken now for your people, poured in endless love.

My sabbatical blog 14 - enduring community

So my sabbatical is over, looking forward to 2022 or probably 2023 already!!! It was overwhelming to come back, the house felt very empty on Thursday evening and the last two days have been overwhelming with the warmth of the welcome back into my own communities. At St Helens yesterday someone said "you are not just our minister, you are our friend." At Calvert this morning I was welcomed at the start of the service like this "welcome home!" I have found it very moving to return to a community that perhaps values me as me more than I know...

I left Shetland on Tuesday evening and got extremely emotional as the ship sailed away. The Shetland community for a while became part of me, and took me to its heart and it was very hard to leave. I have found not just there but in Edinburgh, in Blackpool, in returning to former churches, in meeting new people, in sharing in new and exciting projects, some very small, that community is alive and where it is alive life flourishes. I was glad to end this time with some worship in Peterborough Cathedral which was six weeks ago an important stopping place and was again so on Wednesday. I return from sabbatical not the person who began it three and a bit months ago, professionally, spiritually and personally. The sabbatical was planned meticulously but being open to be surprised in so many ways led it to be even greater than I ever imagined. 

So what is community? Respect, listening, valuing, learning, being open to the other, holding on to what is good from the past but not being frightened to let the past go and embrace new things, spending time voicing our hurt and our pain (as in many evensongs I have loved), and celebrating that life is so much more fulfilling when we share it with others (even introverts like me see that!)

In church terms we used a hymn in Baltasound last Sunday and I used it this morning back in Hastings which really speaks to me about a faith community:

The Church is wherever God's people are praising,

knowing they're wanted and loved by their Lord.

The Church is wherever Christ's followers are trying

to live and to share out the good news of God.

The Church is wherever God's people are loving,

where all are forgiven and start once again,

where all are accepted, whatever their background,

whatever their past and whatever their pain.

The Church is wherever God's people are seeking

to reach out and touch folk wherever they are --

conveying the Gospel, its joy and its comfort,

to challenge, refresh, and excite and inspire.

The Church is wherever God's people are praising,

knowing we're wanted and loved by our Lord.

The Church is where we as Christ's followers are trying

to live and to share the good news of God.    

In a world that while I have been on this journey has gone mad and has broken down, we need to be interconnected far more. And as for me, well, this final picture perhaps says everything. I shared a cabin on the ship from Lerwick to Aberdeen with two loud snorers! I could stand it no more by 3am so got up and stood alone on the deck of the ship to watch the sun rise. God has spoken in this time to me - I feel less worried and less pressured about things even though I have come back to busyness and issues. I am open to see where I am led next. I am open to see what new possibilities might be emerging. Most of all, I thank God for this time and all of the lovely people who have made it so great and have journeyed with me. 

I wrote this prayer towards the end of last week:

God of journeys thank you for all the things you show us if we are brave enough to set out.

Thank you for your presence in sunshine and rain, in blue skies and in thick fog when we can't see the road.

Thank you for conversations on the way, people who share their story, for faithful church communities and retreat houses I have shared with these weeks, from Edinburgh to Holy Island, from Blackpool to Shetland and other expressions of church in my home town I was brave enough to try. And thank you for places I travelled through in the past who welcomed me back and are part of my story, Harpenden, Oakham and Empingham and Mossley and its wonderful Whit Friday fun and excitement!

Thank you for surprises on the way I never expected, new beginnings and new possibilities. For love and trust.

Thank you for the promise of your care on the journey home on boats, in cars, and on trains. Thank you for the promise when things ahead feel a bit scary as I am out of control to accept they will be good and thank you when I reach home over 800 miles away of the promise of a welcome back! Give my churches patience as they cope with my frazzled brain as I adapt over the first few weeks...

God of journeys help me to trust, to believe, to worry less and embrace your invitation to find joy more. I will never forget this time - I am not the same as I set out.

Now I simply rest in your presence and see what you have, not in my script for me next!
Amen.

   

  

My sabbatical blog 13 - Close Knit Community

Welcome to my penultimate sabbatical blog written on Shetland. There will be one more written to reflect on this whole journey, written probably on Sunday. I have lots in my head to ponder, let alone thinking about returning to work!

I've just driven back to Lerwick from Unst via Yell in horrendous fog. It is a two and a half hour journey including two ferries. This morning I hit the rush hour and it was interesting to watch people whose daily work includes ferry travel as the norm. There were some very big lorries on the Unst to Yell ferry with me at 9.45 and a long queue. On Sunday night at 9pm coming back to Unst from Yell I was the only one on the ferry.



So, my last few days here have been sharing with the folk of the North Isles, Yell and Unst. I moved from Lerwick to Haroldswick on Saturday. I stayed in a very strange place called Saxa Vord - which used to be the naval base which spied on Russia in the Cold War. I stayed in what would have been a naval family house and ate in the officers mess. As the fog swirled on Sunday and this morning, it felt quite an odd place to be. There was no mobile phone signal unless you had the phone in a certain place on the bedside table and didn't move it! Or went to a bus stop to talk... How we rely on our phones!



I was really glad to share in three lovely acts of worship on Sunday. In the morning, I joined the congregation of St John's in Baltasound to receive from the wonderful David Cooper, who featured in the Island Parish programme. He was fantastic, holding everyone's attention with a long but highly entertaining yet very deep sermon on the Good Samaritan, and not a note of paper. We went from Origen's allegory of the parable, to Martin Luther King, to Gladstone on the Armenian refugee crisis in Victorian times to his thoughts on the food banks and the referendum! There were about 40 there, including Sister Mary Martin who also featured on the programme who has built and lives in her own hermitage. It was a delight to receive good quality worship.  We also sang some deep theology from the wonderful Church Hymnary 4 hymn book which is a lovely book I should dip into more.

On Sunday afternoon, I led worship in the most northerly church in Britain at Haroldswick.



We had had a debate over what time to have the service in the week, and concluded 3pm would be best as they could get an organist then. I arrived to find the organist wasn't coming as she had a cough. So, we had to improvise. I got them to choose their favourite hymns instead of what I had picked, and they sang them unaccompanied in parts which was very moving. We had a very deep time of worship together. The congregation included four people on holiday and the afternoon is one of my highlights of being here. I felt very honoured to lead worship as far north as Methodism gets in the Connexion. It was good to read the Conference statement about national life in that context. I also noticed several pictures and artefacts there from the most southern church in Britain on Jersey and I sent a picture to the Superintendent minister there.



Then I had fun! I was due on Yell on Sunday evening to speak at a Christian Aid service which the local folk were leading themselves. I got the ferry from Unst in quite bad fog, crossed onto Yell, and the fog became very bad indeed. I drove very slowly and eventually after about 45 minutes of careful driving found the chapel. I'd been there en route north the day before for their Christian Aid tea - see picture above- an amazing spread - but fog makes certainties very uncertain and I wasn't sure I would see the chapel in the murk. But I got there and we had perhaps the liveliest time of worship in my five weeks here. The service was led by the local congregation, including a singing group and a really enthusiastic organist called Beattie who played from a tonic sol fa music book. They sang hymns out of Sankey's Sacred Songs and Solos - a book I've not used since Markyate Sisterhood as a lay worker every Thursday! I preached on the need to be interconnected and the challenge to be community and was well received. I was told I must come back and to keep in touch. Another huge amount of food followed. But I left quite quickly as the fog looked like it was worsening.



I got over to Unst then I have never driven through worse fog ever and arrived back very shaken...  I guess people who live here adapt to sudden changes in the weather. As I thought about how I felt on Sunday night, I wonder what winter is like here and how people cope. I guess they just cope!




I have enjoyed while being on Unst eating in the Final Checkout - an amazing cafe come community shop where the whole island seems to gather and catch up. I paid my bill on Sunday lunchtime, I was in a shirt and tie. The man said "you're the man whose come to take the service at the Methodist, aren't you?!" The only non local about, I guess! There is a clear deep reliance on one another in a small community. Unst felt very isolated to me, perhaps too isolated for me despite my love of rural work. It was an education to visit the community centre and look at the posters - Avril does hair there on a Thursday etc!



With little mobile phone signal, no computer, no television, and no newspapers I could find, Unst also felt cut off from the rest of the world, even the Shetland mainland. I arrived yesterday at the Heritage Centre. I had had BBC Radio Scotland on in the car. They were discussing the Tory party leadership contest and who might win it. I told them we have a new Prime Minister! The whole political scene has changed beyond recognition while I have been on these islands, hardly reported here. The local paper is more interested in what liner is in port this week....  

I am now waiting to continue my journey tonight as the boat for Aberdeen leaves at 7pm. It is very foggy and very windy so it might be fun. I am trying to get my head round the fact I am leaving these beautiful and peace filled islands in a few hours, who have made me so welcome, blessed me beyond measure, and have a place in my heart now. I will come back one day...

My sabbatical blog 12 - A pastoral community

I am about to begin my last few days here which feels strange. I've been here over a month now and it will be very hard to leave. But there are special things ahead on the journey and I am, despite feeling very wobbly about returning to work after three months away, looking forward to seeing everyone again. They have some interesting things for me in my last week here planned. I move up to Unst on Saturday for my last three days, which will include staying in a massive house on my own, leading worship in the most northerly church in the country and then sharing in an evening cafe service and celebration on Sunday night. I am beginning to get my head round the journey back. I seriously underplayed the fatigue I felt after getting here - a week on Tuesday will involve a ferry from Unst to Yell, a ferry from Yell to the mainland, an hour's drive back to Lerwick, twelve and a half hours on a ship to Aberdeen, seven hours on a train, an overnight stop and a lovely evening planned which will be very special, then the next day being taken to pick up my car which is at my Mum's, then a drive round the M25 and down to Hastings. I might surface a week on Friday for an evening meeting!!! Folk will have to be patient with me as the pace here has been very slow, and I've got used to it. But I am soon to leave it and return to some sort of normality but I return a different person. More of that in my last reflections I suspect next week!

I've been to three different services since the last blog post a week ago. The District here held a super farewell evening for the outgoing Chair, Jeremy Dare at Lerwick Methodist Church last Monday. He has clearly had an amazing pastoral ministry here and will be missed, although he and his wife Sheila are staying on Shetland, setting up home on Yell. The District turned out in large numbers to say thank you - we had a good time of worship together, preceded by an enormous buffet. There were about 120 in a tiny hall and the food was served up in an even tinier kitchen. They then got more food out after the service! It was good to be included almost as a temporary member of the team here and I enjoyed the evening chatting to people. It was great to sit next to the Rev David Cooper, who is a Methodist minister serving in a Church of Scotland appointment on Unst, who was one of the people on the recent BBC Island Parish programme. He was great fun and as quirky as he came across on the television! The organist at Lerwick who is very elderly, played "I cannot tell why he whom angels worship" very slowly. David turned to me when we finished singing and said "at last!!" Then he disappeared for the ferry. Unst is a long way north, you forget how big these islands are. I have been shocked how tired I've been after a day's work on a Sunday. I didn't get out of bed today until 3pm!!




I have tried to work out this week what the focus of the church is here. I am conscious the Methodist Conference is meeting as I write this and will churn out more policy and priorities for us to follow - how we are God's people effectively for the 21st century. I made the point to my District Chair about the pressures of Superintendency before my sabbatical that with more and more procedural stuff and legal stuff and mission stuff some of which my context can't cope with, I am in danger of becoming more and more detached from the pastoral needs of my communities. I've not heard mission mentioned once here. The main focus seems to be pastoral care and nurture of small communities. The Chair clearly has been an exceptional pastoral visitor, driving miles each week to visit people in remote places. I have asked myself what my emphasis would be if I were stationed here. Some people have this week spoken with me about the church and numbers waning. Apart from in Lerwick and in Scalloway and perhaps two or three others there are no new people coming. Several of the Methodist societies have closed, some still open are only open because of a few coming to them still. The church at Sandness which I visited a week yesterday is open because two people have a holiday home there and keep coming. Others are only open when people are not away. They chat together and when everyone is on holiday or out, they cancel the service. It transpires the church I sat outside a few weeks ago now worship in the community centre. There was no sign on the church to tell me that, nor was that in the listings in the Friday Shetland Times. I mentioned it to someone, and laughed that in this week's Shetland Times it now says "Gruting (Community Centre)"! A lesson for us when we assume no one might be coming and don't put a notice out when there is a change. A new Superintendent arrives here at the end of next month and the pressure on him is high - people are waiting to see what he will do. I cannot for some of these places see much future. The emphasis is on pastoral care rather than mission and outreach.



I lead worship yesterday morning at Vidlin, a fantastic setting for a chapel. There were twelve there, and we had a good time. I used the Conference service liturgy and tried to link them with what was happening in London. They were quite responsive, and we had I think a helpful hour. Coffee followed, only four stopped though. They shared with me their problem that in a growing community in recent years (300 live in Vidlin) and having an active primary school at the other end of the harbour, they have tried things like Messy Church and holiday clubs to no avail. The minister is only seen once a plan, they have a fortnightly service only, two of them a plan are local arrangements. The other Sunday in between they go up a very windy road to Lunna Kirk, where there are six at most. It has been suggested the two churches merge. The Kirk people went mad even though their building is unaccessible in winter, but it is an important part of Shetland history so cannot close. I had a good morning in Vidlin, including a lovely lunch with Pearl Johnson who led a holiday club with me 20 years ago and it was good to spend time with her. My first taste of rhubarb cheesecake!

Last night I decided to change denominations and take the ferry over to Bressay and join the Church of Scotland congregation there for their 6.15 service. I was stared at as I opened the door at 6.14, having been on the phone to someone right up to the door so I was very last minute. Three ladies sat there. A tune book was thrust into my hand without a word. The vicar, the excellent Rev Dr Caroline Lockerbie told us this was her third service of the day. She led us in a thoughtful theological exposition of being a neighbour. It was very deep, I did lose her when she drifted onto original sin and Calvin but it was good to be led and be stretched. The seats in a Church of Scotland church are quite bizarre. As I found at St Giles in Edinburgh, you sit at the sides, the pulpit faces the front. The vicar last night was behind the organ and a flowerpot so I couldn't see her. It was very strange. Everyone seemed overwhelmed a visitor had come. They were very friendly afterwards but it showed me how hard it is for people to come into church cold. Sometimes small dying communities have lost any expectation that someone might come and their facial expression can be negative! Again I learnt in the Church of Scotland several of the clergy here are retiring soon, with no one to replace them, and something has to give.




The emphasis in every service I have sat in and every conversation I have had here about the nature of church is it is keeping people inside it aware of God's love for them and looking after them pastorally. Apart from ministry to tourists off boats in Lerwick and the excellent Friday cafe at Walls and I think the church I end in at East Yell who are quite go ahead, I see no going out at all happening. Back home we have emphasized new ideas and mission, and perhaps - I say perhaps - I have in my programme and my time neglected being alongside people, being too busy sorting safeguarding and supervision and falling down garages and charity commissioners, and statistical returns... I came into ministry to be with people and offer them worship and prayer and care and a reminder of God's love. Plenty to ponder!  The Ordination Service which many will have experienced at Conference yesterday includes a phrase that always makes me shudder: "let no one suffer at your neglect." Can the Church really pile on more and more pressure on its ministers?? I intend now to be far more chilled out and to look after myself and those close to me far more, while still working hard. I have never felt this well and it has to continue. I am determined it will!

I've also had many helpful conversations this week with people about what it is like to live here.
Issues have come out like:

• While my pink sky pictures are lovely and I find huge peace standing in the light at midnight, the winter here is no fun when it hardly gets light at all, and many people suffer from depression. 
• Young people find it hard to get work here and many have to leave to go to the mainland of the UK for study and long term work. Some don't cope with being away from here at all and soon come back. There is a huge project here called "Mind Your Head" encouraging people to talk about how they feel when they feel lonely and then back here unemployed and directionless. 
• Older people here don't do change AT ALL! Hence holding on to traditions and ways of life that perhaps now don't work. The Church of Scotland last week held a meeting to discuss merging three churches closing Scalloway and Weisdale and meeting in the middle of them at Tingwall. Apparently there was blood and no decisions were made! 
• It is cripplingly expensive to get off the island. I was speaking to a Mum whose daughter is at university in Newcastle. It costs over £4000 a time to take a car on the boat and have a cabin and then fill the car with petrol. 
• The vote on the EU will affect lots of people who work here from across the continent. One of the bar staff in the hotel comes from Bulgaria and is returning there to start a business next week. He told me he's been here two years and with the dip in the pound will take home less money than he had hoped. 
• Shetland needs to keep its tourism industry developing, as that now is its main source of income. The place has felt like part of Scandinavia really to me, not part of the UK at all. 

I continue to enjoy taking some amazing pictures. I have learnt my lesson from the other day though - got a bit soaked taking this one!!