Neither Here nor There

Last Friday, Les and I passed another milestone on our journey to Cockermouth. The removal men came to our flat in Dalton (60 miles south of Cockermouth, in Cumbria) and we completely emptied the place of all our furniture. I must admit, tears came to my eyes as we left it for the last time - at least for the time being. Over the past 7 years, it has been a place of rest, refreshment and retreat, not just for us but for family members and friends. Somehow, just 24 hours there seemed enough to recharge my batteries. We've concluded that we are unlikely to use the place while in Cockermouth. Although not that far away in miles, it takes almost as long to get there from Cockermouth as it does from Liverpool, and since we often used to drive there late at night it's not a journey we would relish. Also, because all our family and many friends remain in Liverpool, we imagine - indeed have promised! - that short breaks will often happen back here. Jude has kindly set up her spare room with us in mind! Whether or not we retire to Dalton eventually we'll have to wait and see, but meanwhile we're renting it out so the income will come in handy.

It feels like a kind of limbo at the moment. Neither here nor there. The process towards appointing my successor is under way, and of course I have no part in that. Plans are being made for the future, which pass me by. The diary is fairly empty as I attend fewer meetings, though we have enjoyed many social engagements. And there are various 'last times': my last wedding last Saturday, and my last visits to St Barnabas and Mossley Hill churches last week and my last christening yesterday. Have I taken my last funeral? Don't know. That's not a request by the way!

Meanwhile, there are phone calls and emails to Cockermouth as plans are made there for the move, for the licensing service (17 May) and for the first weeks in post. Rota-planning for the next 3 months is well under way. It's an in-between time for many of us, at the threshold of new beginnings.

The same could be said nationally. Auspiciously or not, we move into our new home on Election Day! Currently we are in between governments, and like many others I find much of the electioneering very dispiriting. So much of it seems to be point-scoring against one another, and the appeal to the electorate often seems based upon our self-interest (who will make us wealthier?) or our baser instincts (who will deal with immigration?) There is little to inspire us with a vision of a more just, equitable, healthier society, and almost nothing to do with Britain's place in the world. A complete absence of foreign policy, it seems. Meanwhile, we hear of hundreds of desperate refugees drowning in the Mediterranean Sea met with silence from our leaders (the Archbishop of Canterbury excepted), when there must surely be a role for a compassionate Britain not only in helping with rescue but, more importantly, addressing the causes of such mass migration. Of course, one cause is our own historical foreign policy.

We have the dilemma of whether to vote tactically or for values and principles. Les and I will have a postal vote for the first time, as we shall no longer be in Liverpool on Election Day, but not quite resident in Cockermouth either. Neither here nor there.

There's a new book I must try and get hold of. It looks like someone else is picking up on our theme here of the church being for the blessing of the world. Graham Tomlin's book, 'The Widening Circle - Priesthood as God's Way of Blessing the World' has just been published, and although it's particularly about ordained ministry I hope it's also about the priesthood of all believers, called as we are to be 'communities of blessing'.

Being neither here nor there has a theological significance too. We are citizens of heaven while inhabiting the earth. Learning to live as belonging to one while living in the other is a real challenge to Christian people.  Next Sunday will be my last here, and - as it follows our Annual Meetings - the morning service will include a special prayer of dedication, as we all face our different futures. It includes the following words:

May we be at home in any place, for the whole world is yours.                                                            

May we, with our hopes set on eternal peace, live also as strangers in the land.

Perhaps because of my being 'in between', I have returned to a song which meant much to me years ago. It includes the title 'anchor of my soul', addressed to Jesus. This may not be your style of worship, but go to this video, and I hope you will be inspired. The singer is Lara Martin, and the song is entitled 'Voice of Hope'. You can find the lyrics elsewhere on YouTube, but they are clear enough in this live recording.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n_1B4VpXhI

Enjoy!

A Passionate Woman

It's rather ironic that, having written about stress last time, we should hear of the dreadful, nightmarish aeroplane crash in France, allegedly the act of a suicidal pilot. Somehow, I think there is more to this and I am not convinced that it is quite as we have been led to believe. Normally, suicidal tendencies relate to self-harm or self-destruction not calculated homicide. If the man was depressed, and it was deliberate, this could be a most extreme example of how alienated people can become in today's world, and mental illness is misunderstood or ignored. Surely, somebody must have noticed there was something disturbing about his behaviour or his demeanour?

Last weekend, Lesley and I went up to our new parish in Cockermouth, this time just to explore. We were fascinated by the history and geography of this 'Gem Town', and are really looking forward to going to live there. It feels very strange still serving here in Liverpool while planning ahead for a new life in Cumbria. Someone we know in south Cumbria wanted to know if I'd been a 'naughty boy' - being sent up to 'Red Indian' country in the north! We're past the point of no return now, with the removal firm booked, phone and internet connections sorted, and the first service rotas planned! I've even got my first wedding with two more in the pipeline.

On Monday night, I watched the Richard Dimbleby Memorial lecture by Martha Lane-Fox. http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/speeches/2015/martha-lane-fox-dot-everyone. She is a passionate woman - passionate, that is, for the internet and its seemingly infinite benefits (at least, according to her.) Fox is a highly successful, wealthy entrepreneur who has made her fortune from the dot.com business. She is also a remarkable human being, having survived a near-fatal car accident which damaged her pelvis so badly that some 28 operations were required before she could walk again. Her mobility is still impaired. Her thesis was that we have scarcely begun to appreciate the scope and value of the internet. She described it as a new 'institution', to which everyone could belong regardless of age, education or background: Dot Everyone. She pleaded for business leaders and politicians especially to wake up to its potential. She has even started an online 'Dot Everyone' petition to influence the new Prime Minister!  The greater part of her lecture was devoted to a passionate description of the possible benefits to our society, as one might expect from one who has made her fortune from it. She believes that UK could become a world leader in its development, and prosper greatly as a result. She devoted some time also to the question of ethics and proper controls, realising the many ways in which the internet has been abused for example in pornography, fraud, and trolling in social media. However, I was left somewhat uneasy: to belong to an institution is to be part of something bigger than we are and - most importantly - with an identifiable membership and a clear constitution, instruments of government etc. The whole point about the internet is that it is so vast, so expansive and expanding that it is quite impossible to define in the way an institution normally would be. What would be its values? How could it be organised? It all began to feel a bit Orwellian. Is it not rather a tool, to be taken out and used as and when required, not used as a substitute for human contact and relationship?

That said, I have no doubt that she is right about one thing: we don't use the internet to its full potential. I have been saying that in our churches for some time, and find it frustrating that good, up to date, fully functional websites are not seen as a priority. To misquote General Booth of the Salvation Army, 'why should the Devil have all the best media?'

Back to my own 'passionate woman' (aka Lesley!) On Friday, we watched the film 'Twelve Years a Slave'. I hadn't realised this was based on an autobiography, which made it all the more compelling and shocking. I particularly noticed the use of silence in the film, allowing the pictures to speak for themselves, to capture an expression or a scene for full effect.

It took me back to our holiday last year in Antigua. You just would not think that human beings could be so unbelievably cruel to another. In the slave trade you see the roots of today's racism, as our conversation with a local man revealed to us there. What is particularly hard to grasp is that many of those concerned in those days were God-fearing men. Just a couple of days ago, I came across some material about Liverpool slave merchants, who saw no contradiction in commending to Almighty God their ships' voyages, when setting out to purchase more black people for the slave markets in the West Indies. Now if the internet could be used to help change attitudes like these for the better, that could only be good.