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Aoradh worship gathering…

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(An old photo of one of our gatherings.)

We are just back from our monthly worship gathering with Aoradh. We had planned to use a larger space this week, as people had expressed a desire to sing. That old fashioned, uncool kind of worship from the 80’s and 90’s- you may remember… (More on this later.)

In the end we used Andy and Angela’s big lounge, and we had power points reflections, music, communion, sharing and lots of other simple but lovely things- oh and we sang too. All the elements of our worship were collected in the moment- prepared by different people, but it all fitted together remarkably well.

Then, as is our way, we ate. Lots.

To meet with such lovely people and worship is such a blessing. There are times to look up, to look in and to look out. Today we mostly looked up, but because we did this together it was all the more special.

To finish, we pinched a blessing that Jonny mentioned that Grace had used recently- a lovely one by John O’Donahue. We cut it up, and circulated it, asking people to read the one they had chosen, and to take it away as their own words. I ended up picking up two- the ones highlighted below.

May the blessings released through your hands
cause windows to open in darkened minds

May the suffering your calling brings
be but winter before the spring

May the companionship of your doubt
Restore what your beliefs leave out

May the secret hungers of your heart
harvest from emptiness its secret fruit

May your solitude be a voyage
into the wilderness and wonder of God

May your words have the prophetic edge
to enable the heart to hear itself

May the silence where your calling dwells
foster your freedom in all you do and feel

May you find words full of divine warmth
to clothe others in the language of dawn

May your potentiality be released
to explore new horizons of what’s possible

May your becoming bring gentle surprises
as you remember you’ve not arrived

A man needs a beard…

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I am now about a month into the cultivation of something new for me- a beard. (No the photograph above is not of me.)

It is not much of a thing really- I do not have the nerve to go all ZZ Top. And it is decidedly grey or ‘silver’ as I like to call it.

But it is my own.

Changing your appearance like this after 44 years of a smooth hairless jawline is quite disturbing- but in a good way I think. It kind of marks another one of those life transitions, the passing of young man into- well slightly less young man. Oh all right- middle aged man.

There, I said it.

And it is really not so bad. Sure, I have a bad back, knees that sound like a bag of bones as I climb stairs, tennis elbows and the odd wrinkle or two, but today I spent a day with my lovely family- cutting grass, making bread, stacking logs and dodging showers. A day framed by rainbows and towering clouds, all the more lovely for a sense of something precious-  the drawing towards the end of summer. Days shorter, but still lovely. Evenings requiring the lighting of a fire, but perhaps the central heating can wait a while longer.

Michaela is ambivalent about the beard- she has always said she hates them, but I think she secretly likes mine.

Or perhaps it is just that she too feels the change in the seasons.

History of here…

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Our house, circa 2003

We have just had a lovely couple of days with my brother Steve, his wife Kate and little Jamie. Lots of sillyness and laughter, too much food and not a lot of sleep. I only wish my sister could have been there too- but life has thrown us all into a complication of geography and distance.

This morning we intended to take a walk through Dunoon, but it was lashing down with rain, so we went to Castle House museum. I have only been once before- years ago- and we were wondering whether they would have any information about our house- who lived here previously, what it was used for etc.

Because here is where we are, and being fully here seems to me to involve an appreciation of connection- with family and friends now, but also with who has been here before us.

I discovered today that behind where we live there was an Episcopalian church- made of corrugated iron, which eventually burnt down. And a little further back into the woods is a mound that was thought to be a Roman Fort.

What we discovered about our house turned out to be a little more than we expected. Maps of the plot of land before the house was built, old land records listing the details of the person who built it, a Robert Donaldson, who seems to have been an instrument maker from Glasgow. We need to go back to dig a little deeper into the copper plate records, but another thing we discovered is that our house used to be a ‘nursing home’- not in the sense of elderly care, but rather a place where people went to give birth to babies, or to recover from illness. It was called ‘St Margaret’s nursing home’ and there are people alive today in Dunoon (and elsewhere) who were born here.

Scratch the surface, scrape back the paint and peeling paper, and there are whole lives laid out before us. The hopes, aspirations, triumphs, disappointments and tragedies of those who used to be here, but now are elsewhere.

It is humbling, but also makes me grateful.

(Not least as this week, Michaela and I have been married 21 years!)

End of our cricket season…

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Yesterday signaled the end of our playing season. A sad day- pointing to the coming winter.

Sad too as Will and I will have to wait for next year for another game- even though most of our matches this year have been cancelled due to rain. It has become a real pleasure- to play (mostly badly) and to watch William hold his own against adults. In fact, sometimes more than hold his own.

Yesterday was a case in point. We played a strong team from Edinburgh, packed with fit antipodeans in their 20’s and 3o’s. They blasted me for consecutive sixes, and the captain took me off, replacing me with William. Who turned the ball and stopped the scoring instantly.

Then I was full of pride as I watched his diminutive figure playing immaculate forward defence, until he eventually pulled a little too loosely and was caught at square leg.

We lost again- badly, but I will miss our outings.

However, my body is sore- tennis elbows, hamstring and bad back. I need an off season!

Off to Greenbelt!

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We are off down to Cheltenham for Greenbelt Festival. Hope to see you there!

If you go- come to our worship event- New Forms Cafe, 7pm on Friday.

Or you might like to check out the Proost ‘Silent Pilgrimmage’- poetry by Harry, Podraig and myself. Pick up headphones at the Greenbelt Angels desk.

But do say hello, perhaps we can share a pint of Redemption ale.

Scottish cricket comes home…

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Today we played cricket against Mid Argyll Cricket club.

What a ground! In the shadow of the ancient hill fort of Dunnad in Kilmartin Glen. There is something about played such a quintessentially English game (a discussion point- I know!) so close to the ancient seat of power of the Scots.

For the record- we lost. Badly. But it was a great day.

Meanwhile Emily and Michaela were at Toward Sailing Club fun day. Sailing races, food, swimming and being towed behind a speedboat on an inflatable. Emily that is, not Michaela.

Back to school…

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Up here in Scotland, the school holidays are over.

Emily starts her ‘highers’, and William is now in his last year of primary school. Emily is a prefect this year- complete with blazer of office-

I often hear parents longing for the end of school holidays- not me. I love the gentle pace of the long summer days- which like our children’s childhood, still pass by so quickly.

Summer is now on its last legs- staggering onwards to autumn. It has been lovely though…

Starsuckers…

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I watched some of this film the other day-

It is impossible to watch this and not think that there is something bonkers- something rather sick- at the root of our media machine (and therefore at the root of our society.)

We hunger for significance

And the primary way we demonstrate this is through the media machine

Which for its part will chase after any train wreck or celebrity breakdown in order to make a splash of attention, which will then convert into a splash of cash

And because train wrecks and celebrity breakdowns are unpredictable, then the machine manufactures them-

And we play the game- even though we understand that it is a game. Even though we know that it is all fake and phoney. Because what else is there?

How else might we aspire to significance?

How else might life be lifted from the humdrum but by the exposure of some soft subcutaneous celebrity flesh? (Apologies for the Dylan Thomas-esque excessive use of sibilance!)

And how, my friends, do we begin to do things differently? Because each one of our areas of expansion- even the Church- falls into similar traps. We elevate our celebrities, feed on them, then watch them fall.

The TFT counter culture anti-tabloid manifesto! 

So, here it is. Time to push back!

Lets be like fat men who walk past Macdonalds- at least some of the time…

  1. Stop buying tabloid newspapers. I know- they are entertaining, and you only buy them for the sport, but the ink is toxic- and it will stain all sorts of things that you are not immediately aware of.
  2. Let’s stop caring what celebrities think. Rather let’s look for other voices- those at the margins. Particularly those who are poor and weak.
  3. Let us focus on the small scale, not the big scale- let us hope to find our place in small communities as we set ourself towards simple missions.
  4. And as for the interweb- useful though it is- it is not democratic. It is not a means of levelling the playing field. That dream is dead. It reflects all the mess of wider society. So let us sometimes deliberately SWITCH OFF (Scary as it might be to those of us addicted to laptops and smart phones) and so something simple, and hospitable. Go for a walk with a friend. Visit someone who is lonely. Write a letter. Go to a pub and buy someone a drink.
  5. Value the small things. Celebrate them in verse and song.
  6. Cultivate individuality, not image.
  7. Create for the joy of it- not for the relationship to what is cool.
  8. And as for Christian celebrities- well lets make a rule that they can only be seen in public wearing clothes from Oxfam- one size too small. Or if that is too cruel, lets just have an open on going discussion about human frailties and how we measure the wisdom and worth of an individual.
  9. Gossip about goodness. Try to tell stories of people’s secret success and hidden kindnesses.
  10. All that is broken in you, all that is beautiful on others- these things are eternal.