Interesting times

This is sometimes said to be both a Chinese curse or a blessing.. may you live in Interesting Times.. personally I am inclined to think it is better to live in interesting times.
It has been an interesting week.
A funeral of a friend who died quite quickly.
I was called to bless a dog that was going to be put down.
Australia is besotted by the centenary of ANZAC at Gallipoli.
The Dr told me my "blood" was OK but I have a B12 deficiency (reading the Wiki entry it seems to describe me to a T)
I have been reading The Narrow Road to the Deep North  a very good book to read in this ANZAC week  (read Thom Keneally's review here)
I attended one of the many Parish Nomination Committee meetings [I have become  a "professional Diocesan nominator"...and the level of vacancy makes it rather taxing... I take this role very seriously, and I am glad that His Grace seem to do so also] The church is changing, morphing, declining, growing....those things may seem contradictory...but church is rather like that

Interesting times!
In the meantime...I live with an interesting person (my daughter!....lest you forget!) , I married my niece. I visited a jail. And greatest of joys...I went to fix my daughter's shower....and was able to hold the most precious member of our family in my arms. I like that better than anything else (even better than the sound of my own voice!)

Interesting times! Interesting times?
A curse, but most likely,
a blessing

Safe Space

 

We had an interesting discussion at a Clergy Conference today in which the Archbishop offered some tentative thoughts about recent events in our Diocese (see here for example).
He thoughtfully and a bit tentatively tried to suggest that our local diocese needed to discuss various issues which Anglicans are grappling with worldwide and that this needed to happen in a "safe space".
I agree with this. I have for a long time felt that the church is not "a safe space". Which you have to admit is a very serious indictment on our alleged commitment as Christians to love, tolerance, truth and honesty.
I bemoaned a little (I am good at 'bemoaning') that I have been waiting for this to happen...and pushed about when it might occur...apparently we might achieve it in the next twelve months.
I still feel really sad that the Church is not a 'safe space'...but I reflected that on my way to the meeting I had given a lift to one of my priest-parishioners, and on my way home to another one of my priest-parishioners. They are both dear friends and good and engaging conversationalists.
They both got an earful from me ( and listened and gave it back).
My reflection is that "safe space" may not be so much a place as a person. You know (to be deeply Christian!) what people like about the Lord is that he is is a safe place. And some of his nicer servants occasionally manage that too...my two passengers today are great gifts to me of safe space.
It is no doubt not so much about the place as the person who allows it to happen

What is it?

If you've never been to an Anglican synod then......you'll either love it or hate it. Having just spent last evening and all today (and looking to tomorrow afternoon) at a synod you may (or may not) have sympathy with me.

We have looked at the finances of our Diocese. The Bishop has told us what he thinks is important in our State...and he seemed to get it right (euthanasia, water, refugees and so on) and we have had lunch and morning tea...which is probably just as important as it's a great chance to catch up with people you haven't seen for a year.

Lest you think it is all beer and skittles, we also had to listen to (what seemed to me) drivel about Mission Action Plans (I'll qualify this later) in which we were told about lukewarm successes and the seduction to present novelty and yet more novelty in the name of being relevant. We were invited to reinvent the Dean and Chapter (Cathedral staff and support) and were bombarded by the excellent work that our social agency Anglicare is caught up in.

It is easy to become swamped. Conversations round the table and in the car on the way home were helpful for getting a sense of perspective.

My point? Let us not in the name of innovation forget that there is much that just continues on steadfastly.

Whilst applauding innovation it is easy to allow such plaudits to critique the traditional values that we have stood for.

Like struggling with trying to make genuine community might mean keep on keeping on instead of the ever escalating seduction of novel ways of being relevant.

I would maintain for example that the parish of which I have been the priest for 15 years has struggled with just staying where we are, instead of moving to one church and then another when we got bored. As a result the community depth is profound (and this is a characteristic of many of our 'ordinary' parishes) but they look 'ordinary'. They are not sexy...and there is almost certainly no Mission Action Plan!

O Synod. Can't wait for it to be over.

A necessary evil

The ABC reports that besieged Bishop, Ross Davies, of South Australia's Diocese of the Murray will be "charged" under internal church proceedings. (here).
It is always easy to misinterpret what is going on here. And it is very sad for the Bishop, the Diocese and particularly the good and faithful folk of the Murray (which stretches from the southern suburbs of Adelaide to Mt Gambier in the South East and Renmark in the east Riverland).
It has gone on for some years now and is probably best characterised by the expression 'breakdown of relationships'.
The basic problem for the Anglican Church is that each Diocese is really independent and if there is need for external arbitration there is not necessarily any outside authority that can do this. Although the most obvious line is to the principle Bishop (called the Metropolitan...who in this case is the Archbishop of Adelaide), I think Bp Ross has some question about whether this line is correct. But we shall see.
Don't hold your breath waiting for titillation, it is likely that the argument will be in this area of 'relationship breakdown'. Like marriages which breakdown (mea culpa!) this will be the sad litany of disappointed expectations on both sides.
The truth is that this cannot go on forever, (without destroying the Diocese). Most people don't realise how fragile these small country Dioceses are...and as unpleasant as it may be....the Archbishop will reluctantly have to try and do what he can to sort it out. Hopefully it can be resolved. But it won't be happy, pretty ...but it is necessary.

What's in a miracle?

I think the danger for most people when we focus on someone being, what the Roman church calls, 'canonised' or made a saint is that we either make too much of it or too little.

Too much, in the sense that we all become obsessed with the process and curious 'proofs' required. In particular the demand for two verifiable miracles. (There is an interesting little flair of letters in Mt Gambier's Border Watch here)

The Anglican church, being a church not only of Catholic extraction but also of the Reform lost the process of canonisation in the 17th century. It was not until we felt at liberty to change our liturgy that we also felt free to revise the list of saints. That was the 20th century. By then the English Church had moved to all ends of the globe. And the quaint saints of the pre-Reformation days who had survived into the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 seemed very remote indeed here, for example, in the Antipodes. Even though we had fondness for Chad, Aidan, Wilfred and Hilda...saints of the British Isles.. local lists, calendars or suggestions began to emerge and were formalized in different ways and people like the Missionaries martyred by the Japanese in New Guinea, J C Patteson, pioneer bishop of Melanesia, Florence Nightingale, Dietrich Bonhoeffer...and many others came to attention.

Fortunately, we never became obsessed with the sort of legalistic process which demanded miracles. Choosing rather to see 'saints' as just ordinary Christians who happen to have died. (Most Christians, after all, do believe that biological death is not the end of our life in God...so we think of those who have died as being with God... what ever that might mean)

That these people might pray for and with us is what the New Testament seems to talk about...the writer of Hebrews says we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses...

It would be easy to allow this to become too little. Because the truth is when you look at someone like Mary McKillop she is an absolutely extraordinary women. Totally committed to care for and serve the poor, she refused to be cowed by powerful and angry men (we call them 'bishops'--sorry Jeff!...) not because she was just a difficult woman, which is how they often characterised her; but because she was so totally committed to working out her Godly vocation in serving the poorest of the poor that she would not allow anything to stand in the way of that call.

What she then achieved was ... well you could call it miraculous... education for those who no one could give a stuff about. No one, that is, other than Mary and her sisters.

In more secular times she would have been "Australian of the Year", but she is worthy of being on the list. True Australian respect for authority...that is open to be challenged if it stands in the way of justice and truth.

The non-Christian might admire her as an historical figure. Personally I think she is part of the great cloud, and is praying like mad for those who love and care for the poor and marginalised. And her work is continued by many of her sisters, and those who (whether RC or not) are inspired by her example. The miracle proof is coincidental to my mind.

When the world is in meltdown

This weekend is taken up with our annual Diocesan Meeting or Synod. The Eucharist last night seemed only moderately well-attended both by clergy and laity. We seem to have forgotten about the opportunity to invite community and other church leaders, the liturgy was very clergy dominated and even (as far as I could tell) those laity who were allowed to administer Communion were trainee priests.
The Bishop's address was dry, and he looked tired...poor man
The agenda is dominated by formality with only (it would seem) a slight departure into the controversial to discuss GAFCON (so called Global Anglican Futures Conference...a body that declares itself to be the new fount of orthodoxy).
The Bishop did press us about water issues, and the global financial crisis, but where were the community leaders to hear it?
It will all be over tomorrow evening. PTL!

Clarification

After word and clarification
Since I wrote my post about the clergy meeting at which the Lambeth Conference was discussed the Archbishop has clarified with me the fact that I am mistaken about his having gone further than Lambeth, he says to me:

"You suggested that the Lambeth resolution related (only) to ordinations to the episcopate. This may be what people have focussed on as a result of events in the US, however the text is “nor ordaining those involved in same gender
unions”. The reference is not simply to the episcopate and I am not (if I might quote you) going further than Lambeth. "

It's a bit of a worry

We got a report on Lambeth yesterday, from our two Bishops.

It was, I must say a bit of a worry, about what might now happen.

Archbishop Rowan Williams has asked for three moratoriums

• There be no consecrations of partnered gay people to the episcopate
• That blessing of same-sex relationships cease
• That cross border interventions by Bishops outside their own dioceses cease
  

Our Bishop was obviously pained to explain what the implications of this might be for him and our Diocese, and in a very laboured and careful way sought to explain how he anticipated this might be implemented.

I make two observations on this:

One, that he actually only addressed the first two moratoria. When I questioned what the implications of the third moratoria might be for this Diocese; and asked whether it was really a sop to those who did not like the first two he was rather defensive.

Given that we have already had cross-border incursions in this country, and it does not seem entirely unlikely that they could happen in this Diocese, it is naive to think that it does not or will not apply . There have also been internal cross-border moves which have not been without controversy and indeed pain. My impression is that the Bishop was suggesting that this sort of thing might be OK.

My point? That moratorium number 3 is of a different order from 1&2.

My second observation is that there was a disproportionate focus on the the same-sex moratoria. The bishop, it seemed to me, actually went further than Lambeth which talked about not consecrating bishops who were in same sex relationships. Jeffery seemed to extend this to ordinations to priests.

I am not aware that any bishop in this Diocese has actually knowingly ordained a homosexual person, let alone one living in a committed same-sex relationship. That such have been ordained is evident. By and large the strategy seems to have been to not ask the question on the one hand, or to not answer it on the other.

I was left feeling sad (yet again) about what this meant for any men and women of homosexual orientation in our midst. About how they must feel. When good old Fr Andy got animated and questioned whether we had really taken the responsibility to listen to gay people, the Bishop offered to lend us a couple of books!

Andy said..."Why would the gay community want to talk to us when we want to persecute them?"...was there a tear in his eye? The Bishop looked unknowingly at what this exchange might mean.

I think it means we have certainly not taken seriously the need to listen. We have not even really gone through the motions. And once again we allow a vulnerable minority to bear the suffering of us all!

As I say, it's a bit of a worry isn't it?

After word and clarification

Since I first wrote this the Archbishop has clarified with me the fact that I am mistaken about his having gone further than Lambeth he says to me:

"You suggested that the Lambeth resolution related (only) to ordinations to the
episcopate. This may be what people have focussed on as a result of events
in the US, however the text is “nor ordaining those involved in same gender
unions”. The reference is not simply to the episcopate and I am not (if I
might quote you) going further than Lambeth. "

A tale of two bishops

A meeting yesterday of local clergy with our bishop had the usual ho-hummity about it. And certain matters that were frustrating, but so what. It was ever so.

I struggle, as I listen, to identify with the church-world that is being described. 

Our own bishop, Jeffery, agonises with us about how he needs to stop being an administrator and start (after nearly 3 years) being a bishop...and it is is a real tension for him.

He muses longingly about a conversation he has with his Victorian counterpart about how he causes his office to run....Oh (says +Melbourne)  I have an Executive Assistant paid 100K+, and a PA paid 70K+... +Jeff laughed, knowing full well that was never going to happen here. We did hear of all sorts of other changes that seem to have been made or about to be made without much open discussion...at least none  I have been involved in......most of it would seem to have implications both financial and philosophical for the way we operate. I would have imagined that much discussion would have been helpful to get people on board.

When the floor was opened there was deathly silence. I wondered what would happen if I got up and said "The trouble with all this is that I feel absolutely no ownership or commitment to anything you have just told us." But I decided not to and no one else did, instead we commented on minor irrelevancies

We were also treated to Bishop Ezekiel from Bor in southern Sudan. African Bishops are an interesting lot, deeply spiritual and faithful they have a Christianity which is often disarmingly frank!

Amidst all this we were told...Sudanese clergy are paid nothing, but their  bishops receive a stipend of $3K. 

So +Melbourne could have 33 Sudanese Assistant Bishops or an EA.

I am sure I am not the only one who sees a sad irony in all this.

We live in a number of very different worlds!