250 years ago

It's 250 years since the birth of Robert Burns. In Wichenford we had a Burns supper to celebrate. It helps that the curate is Scottish.

Why should the Church remember Burns? He was a drunkard and a womaniser and left a string of illegitimate children across the country.

But as well as that he was a thorn in the side of the Church of that time. He had recognised the hypocrisy of an organisation that was concerned about respectability rather than faith. His poems "Holy Willie's Prayer" and "The address to the unco guid" lambaste the two-facedness of the Church. "The Cotter's Saturday Night" tells a story of a real faith that doesn't need the Church.


There's a story (I read it on the internet so it must be true!) that at one time the local church had a notice on it saying,

"All are welcome here with the EXCEPTION of Robert Burns."

Underneath was Burn's reply,

"He who wrote this wrote it well, but the same shall be writ on the gates of hell."

The Church in every age does well to listen to the criticism of Burn's. Are we interested in faith or respectability?

Swords into ploughshares and ploughshares into swords

At today's plough Sunday service, Sarah Brush reminded us that the bible uses the image of swords into ploughshares and vice versa. Changing circumstances require change.
Members of the congregation had been given pipe-cleaners and were invited first to shape them into something that represented current (agricultural) reality. Then they were to shape them into something representing future hopes.
So What did we get?


This young farmer had hopes of a large ring, not that she she said that she wants a husband - just the jewellery!!













She would like to be rich. She says she's looking for a rich farmer to marry. The way things have been with agriculture over recent years, that might be somewhat optimistic!












His future is to include a spanner



















and hers a beer glass.









As for Lionel, as the "oldest young farmer in town" his pipe-cleaner was shaped into a Zimmer frame. But he's still smiling. It must be the company

Quotable quotes

My sabbatical, now sadly coming to an end, has included a lot of reading and among all I have read have been some real gems. Here’s one of them.

“Why are so many Christians so obnoxious and mean spirited? It seems like Christianity’s mostly about being judgemental, narrow-minded, and having an infuriatingly condescending attitude towards anyone who isn’t a Christian. Christians are so busy being smug about being Christian that they forget to be kind.”

That quote is from “Penguins, Pain and the whole Shebang” by John Shore, quoted by John Drane in his book “After Mcdonaldisation”. I must say that I have met a number of Christians are who are not smug obnoxious and mean spirited, but (at the risk of being judgemental) I have met a number who are.

This blog is not a turkey!

But I gather some folk have ended on this page while looking for a game of getting the turkey across the farmyard. I'd hate you to be disappointed, so it's at http://www.ukturkeys.co.uk/fun-stuff/gobbler/
Enjoy but it is addictive!

Food Awards and Racing Cars

Wednesday evening I had the privilege of being at the BBC's Food and Farming awards. It was wonderful to hear about all the good and innovative things that have been happening agriculture & the food industry. A number of "ordinary" or rather "extra-ordinary" were honoured for their contributions by all sorts of celebrities. I was encouraged by all the good things that are happening to help reconnect food producers with the customers.

By way of a contrast on Friday I had a trip round the Red Bull Racing Factory, where they design, develop and build Formula 1 cars. The technology involved is fascinating. Good luck to the team and I hope they start winning soon.

Direct Line They must be joking!!!

I have two dogs, and since they were puppies they have been insured with DirectLine. As the dogs have got older the premiums have gone up and up, and the excess has got higher and higher.
One of the dogs now has epilepsy and dementia. DirectLine won't pay for the treatment of the epilepsy. They say we should have claimed when he first started showing mild signs a couple of years ago. We did not, so tough luck on us.
As for the dementia, they will pay for that but every time we get more pills from the vet we need to fill in another claim form telling them what they already know and even then they won't pay unless we get the vet to fill in a fresh form each time as well. What a bureaucratic nonsense! They know what's the matter with the dog. They know what treatment the vet has advised. They know we're buying the pills from the vet - we can produce receipts. So why on earth they need to have everyone waste their time with a new form very month is a complete nonsense. The vet has got better things to do with his time. So have I. You would think that DirectLine would have as well.

Reactions to pilgrims

Something I noticed when walking to Santiago & Finnisterre was that there were perhaps three different ways that people responded to a pilgrim.

As I was walking out of Porto there was an elderly woman who was clearly evidently thrilled that I was on my way to Santiago. Her total lack of English and my not much better Portuguese couldn't stop her conveying her pleasure that here was someone walking from her country to Santiago. That same reaction occurred later in the walk. A group of men working on the road were clearly thrilled. The presence of my rucksack protected my back from the over exuberant pats on the back they used to express their delight. Somehow my walking through their country was important to them and meant that they mattered.

At the other end of the scale of reactions was that of a market trader in Padron. By the time I arrived the market was over and they were packing up to go home. Among all the mess was a long cardboard tube - it had probably had a roll of cloth on it. The trader picked it up, used it like a pilgrim staff, and limped along with words that sounded like "So perigrino" - "I'm a pilgrim". It's probably a good job that my Spanish is nowhere near good enough to respond to the mickey taking. I would have liked to respond "Yes you are, from birth to death. How's your pilgrimage going?!" Just as well my Spanish is virtually non-existent!

A third response I encountered was a look of incredulity and non-comprehension - this particularly from people for whom life appeared to be hard. The look on their faces seemed to be saying "Life is hard enough as it is, why make it more difficult???" I found myself wondering whether they might not be right. The last time I saw people sleeping in bunks as in the hostels was years ago when I did a placement as a volunteer in an approved school for young criminals! Is going on a pilgrimage a self indulgent way for the comfortable to rough it for a week or so. Looking at the register in one hostel I saw the professions listed by the users as "Teachers", "Professors" (but they were French so probably only teachers anyway) "Lawyers", "Ships Captain", and of course "Chaplain". I saw no sign of "bricklayers", "labourers" or "carpenters". Perhaps pilgrimage is a whim of the comfortable.

Am I (becoming) a grumpy old man?

I've just come back from doing the Porto to Santiago camino, followed by on to Finisterre and all in all it was an excellent experience, BUT I found myself wondering whether the welcome of the church(es) to pilgrims was as it might be.

In my mind I found myself contrasting the welcome that visitors get to cathedrals I know in the UK with that offered by the cathedral in Santiago. UK cathedrals frequently have "welcomers" - lay people, often retired, whose role is to greet people arriving and offer them a little basic information or answer straightforward questions. There was no such welcome In Santiago the building was left to speak for itself - which is fine for those who know what they're seeing & where they're going but not so good for those who are less informed. And the only notices in the cathedrals we a list of "NO"s, NO flash photography, No use of tripods (why ever not - they're hardly going to disturb someone's prayer?!?) NO mobile phones, NO...

And in the Pilgrim Office (why on earth is it UPSTAIRS - after people have walked 200+km, why not make it easier for them and have it downstairs?) when I found it - I didn't know which door of the cathedral it was next to - there seemed little or no interest in whether I had had a good journey, why I'd done the journey... It was just fill the form in and leave a donation. I had been going to ask whether I, as a non-catholic, could receive Communion at the pilgrim mass the next day but didn't bother to ask as I doubted that the girl in the office could cope with the question. I hoped to see someone in the Cathedral that I could ask, but in spite of spending a lot of time in it, saw no one I felt confident to ask. The only option would have been to ask at one of the confessionals but that's not what they're there for.

On further reflection I found myself thinking about the churches along the camino. The vast majority were firmly locked & so no opportunity to go in to pray/look. It seemed ironic as a number seemed to have been built along the camino for the use of pilgrims, but the pilgrims are locked out. In Tui I arrived at siesta time and so the Cathedral was closed - that would be unthinkable in the UK.

I found myself contrasting all that with the welcome given to walkers by one church in this country where there is tea, coffee and a kettle left out for visitors to use.

So does the church need to up its game and think about the needs of pilgrims, or am I (becoming) a grumpy old man?

Mucky boots

Monday saw (in theory) the start of my sabbatical. Part of which will include a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. I fly to Porto and walk from there to the alleged burial site of St James some 150 miles to the north.

As part of my preparation I have been doing more walking than usual. Yesterday (Tuesday) I walked to Broadwas Church for their morning communion service. In days gone, nobody would have thought twice about walking in with mucky boots, but nowadays a carpet covers the floor & so I took my boots off as I went in. There is, after all, a precedent for taking shoes off on holy ground.

The reading for the service was Psalm 139 " Oh Lord, you've searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise... you are familiar with all my ways..."
That was good news as whilst I had checked out the footpaths on a map before walking down to Broadwas there were bits that were unfamiliar that I did n't know. There will be more unfamiliar bits between Porto and Santiago, so the psalm is rather reassuring.

Thinking inside the box

This week I was leading a harvest assembly for a primary school. There was, I told them, something very special in a box I had brought.
The children could tell that it was quite heavy and rattled when shaken. It would, I told them, if you did the right things with it, produce

• a woolly jumper,
• a drink of orange juice
• a story book
• an apple
• a cuddly sheep

Could they guess what was in the box?

They came up with

• credit cards - but they don't produce anything but debt
• money - but that doesn't produce anything, it just enables people to buy what others have produced
  
• love - a pretty good guess at many school assemblies but that's not heavy or rattles when you shake it
• a statue of Jesus - Well if the answer isn't "love" then usually it's "Jesus" but not today!!!

Have you worked out what was in the box yet???

It was soil, dirt, earth, compost. Not something we usually value but the basis for supplying most of our needs. In the Genesis 2 account of God creating man, He makes Adam from the Adamah, Compo from the compost, and tells Compo to serve and keep the earth from which he is created.

That "serving and keeping" of the earth is generally done for us by farmers.