Category Archives: ministry

Burnt out clergy

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A topic close to my heart, as you know (see here and here, for example).

Tom Allen tells a sad tale of a priest who has had his ministry destroyed by the process: “I sat this morning with a broken man, exhausted by the competing expectations of a diverse multi-benefice parish, and the failure (with the exception of the person mentioned above) of anyone in his Diocese to provide any kind of empathetic support or forward thinking guidance. And so a priest of great gifts and spiritual insight (who remains a man of great faith and with a profound sense of God’s love for him and all people) will move onto other things in the near future – to a role which I am sure will value him for who he is and what he has to offer..”

I know people who have had precisely this experience – in fact, it was watching this happen that made me determined not to follow it. Tom provides an interesting link to this page, from which this quote comes:

Burnout may be mistaken for laziness, incompetence, instability and various types of mental illness; in particular, the symptoms of burnout are frequently mistaken for those of depression. As burnout progresses, a person’s efficiency decreases, and bullied clergy may find it increasingly difficult to fulfil the obligations of their ministry. Clergy experiencing burnout may find that the expectations on them seem to increase as their energy and efficiency decrease, as congregations, unable to see that their pastor is exhausted, bring to their constant attention all those people who have yet to be visited, jobs that have yet to be done and so-on. The normal tendency in these circumstances is to try to work harder in order to meet these expectations, but this only increases the exhaustion and so compounds the problem. Growing congregational dissatisfaction with their minister’s performance is readily exploited by those perpetrating the abuse, who will point to the increasingly obvious symptoms of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion as evidence that the minister is lazy, ineffective, uncaring and spiritually deficient.

Yeesss….

I was told a few days ago that there is a group of people in the parish who welcomed my arrival but who are now eager for me to be gone. Strangely, though, I am starting to care much much less about these slings and arrows. The whole issue of vocation has been very much in my mind recently, and in part the conversations about lay presidency have helped to unearth core elements of this. Two quotations from books I’ve read recently, which I’ve pondered a lot and found helpful:

The apostolic role within established churches and denominations requires the reinterpreting of the denomination’s foundational values in the light of the demands of its mission today. The ultimate goal of these apostolic leaders is to call the denomination away from maintenance, back to mission. The apostolic denominational leader needs to be a visionary, who can outlast significant opposition from within the denominational structures and can build alliances with those who desire change. Furthermore, the strategy of the apostolic leader could involve casting vision and winning approval for a shift from maintenance to mission. In addition, the leader has to encourage signs of life within the existing structures and raise up a new generation of leaders and churches from the old. The apostolic denominational leader needs to ensure the new generation is not “frozen out” by those who resist change. Finally, such a leader must restructure the denomination’s institutions so that they serve mission purposes.

Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God has made you to be. And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it.

The other thing that has really been helping me is getting stuck into 1 Corinthians. Poor Paul! Hence ‘My Heart’s Desire’: becoming less popular isn’t comfortable, but following God’s claim upon me IS.

A bit more on "lay" presidency

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I’ve continued to muse on this topic, because it raises such deep questions in me. So three more or less related points.

1. I have no doubt that, eg in the context of Roman persecution in the early church, or in the context of the oppressed Chinese churches of recent memory, there have been celebrations of communion without a canonically ordained priest present, where Christ was fully present in whatever way you want to understand that to be, and where the activity was as meaningful as it could be. In a related fashion, I don’t have any problems with a house group sharing communion amongst themselves, for example (though that depends a little on how it is understood). The issue, for me, is when that form is chosen exclusively over against a possible alternative, viz having an ordained person presiding, because of what then seems to be rejected: the reality of the wider Body. What I most struggle with, in the extremes of Christianity (ie at both evangelical and Roman Catholic ends of the Western spectrum), is the idea that ‘unless you’re exactly like us then you’re not a Christian’. To my mind embracing the authority of an ordained priest, ie ordained by the wider church, is precisely about saying ‘this is bigger than us’, ‘we are not the centre of gravity’ and so on. It’s about Christ not being the possession of the small group. I’m still digging into this perception of mine though; sometimes surprising things have happened once I uncover the roots of something like this. I am not yet fully clear on what I’m being led to understand about it.

2. A specific point: much of the advocacy for lay presidency talks about the Passover ritual, which didn’t require any form of ordained ministry to be carried out (though I believe it was still ‘presided over’ by the head of each household). This seems to only draw on part of the roots of communion, for an equally substantial origin for communion is the Temple liturgy (Jn 2.19-20), which had the most extreme elevation of ordained hierarchy possible. A large part of the language that we use in Christian theology – eg Son of God language – stems from the Temple liturgy, so it can’t just be brushed off.

3. I had a very specific vocation experience, that was centred on the notion of presiding at communion, ie that was literally the vision I was given. It was not at all a welcome vision and I fought against it. Yet I couldn’t deny that presiding at communion was precisely what I was called to do. When I attended my selection conference I was pressed on how I understood this by a Bishop, and he exhumed the fact that my understanding was still quite shallow. He directed me to read this document, wherein the Church of England set out a) it’s understanding of communion; b) the role of the president in communion (indissolubly linked to overall responsibility for a community); and c) its rejection of lay presidency. It was b) that I hadn’t fully absorbed – and which I’m still wrestling with – but c) can’t be separated from a) and b). So this question raises the profoundest possible question about who I am called to be by God. Put differently, if lay presidency is accepted then I no longer know who I am called to be – I don’t know what the point of my life is. One of the key challenges made to me when I first began exploring ordination was ‘what can you do as a priest which you can’t do as a committed Christian?’, to which the answer is ‘preside at communion’ – but not simply as that act, but all which that act represents in terms of b) above, ie to bear responsibility for shepherding and feeding a flock. It is that which is my vocation, and presiding at communion is the necessary sign of that vocation. To separate out that general authority from the action which expresses its meaning is to unmake the vocation itself; all that seemed solid melts into the air. I’m afraid I can’t get away from seeing that rejection as either a rejection of sacramental theology as such (because if the sacraments have no incarnational reality then the role of the president is deferrable and delegatable) or simply – as I said before – an issue about rejecting authority, which, leaving aside my cheap cracks about adolescence, is profoundly unScriptural. Either way, I must confess that my vocational experience is an unarguable reality in my life – subject to further direct revelation of course! – and it is deeper in me than my attachment to the Church of England. If the Church of England changes it’s mind and accepts lay presidency then I would undoubtedly leave this Church. I doubt I’d be on my own in that.

Ho hum. I’m sure I’ll continue to gnaw on this bone.

My Heart’s Desire

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Pondering that ‘I confess’ meme, and my response to it – I think it dislodged something in me (something that was ripe for dislodging), especially with regard to the question of establishment. So this is a bit more of me thinking out loud about vocation. Click full post for text.

The other day, at my clergy support group, we had a conversation about the crazy way in which being a full time priest in the Church of England tends to frustrate vocation. It was this group which came up with the phrase ‘Incumbency drives out priesthood’, which I think sums up so much that has gone wrong (elsewhere I call it the ‘George Herbert model’ – though that is really a distinct problem). Why is it that in the one institution that you might expect to be able to foster a committed Christian pattern of life, that is, a life which is shaped around the Word spoken into each heart, and not around Worldly forms, there is this structure of expectations and practices that to all intents and purposes annihilates vocation? One of my jobs is Warden of Ordinands in this area, and so every so often I have a chat with people who are exploring a call to ordained ministry. I have met many remarkable, capable and effective people – God is clearly not slackening his call to ministry in the Church of England. Nor do I have any worries about the spread of the gospel in our wider culture. The mismatch seems to be between what is asked for from a parish priest by the institution – including all of parishioners, Bishops and the wider society – and what is asked for from a parish priest by God. In part this is a question of insane expectations, especially with regard to workload, but I’ve gone into that elsewhere, and since starting to take two days off a week, that issue has really receded for me. I’m not yet into the state of optimum balance, but I’m much closer to it. I am more and more of the mind that the issue is one of bad theology. It’s the Christendom model of passive faith, which is now utterly exhausted and without merit. The shell is still tottering and hasn’t yet dissolved, but the Spirit has moved on elsewhere. This isn’t a matter of abandoning everything about establishment. The notion of a ‘local church’ is profoundly important, and I’m rather a long way from abandoning the idea of episcopal oversight, with all that that entails. It’s more that I think the parishes should be set free to be genuinely Christian communities (especially with regard to their finances – but that’s another post really). What I want to talk about here is how I understand my vocation, ie what would be my heart’s desire for my role in a situation more or less the same as the one I’m in now?

I think it would involve the following:

The apostolic role of guarding the faith. This was the great benefit I gained from reading Hirsch’s book on mission – the precise word describing that part of my nature which I hadn’t clarified before, ie the task of an apostle: to keep the church to authentic faith, rooting out that bad theology which destroys life, in order that the community might flourish and manifest that abundance of life which is our inheritance. So the bulk of my time would be spent in teaching and forming the understanding of the community around the living Word.

As the first fruit of that, and as one of the primary things to foster: vibrant small groups as the engine of maturity and discipline within the wider body as a whole. I don’t see a way to be a Christian without being embedded in some form of accountability structure; it’s impossible (near-impossible) to do it as a solitary act, and I see small groups, meeting weekly for structured teaching and fellowship as the driving force of the wider church as a whole.

Leading corporate worship, especially the weekly common eucharist and liturgical daily prayer – the latter not just as something for a clerical elite but as the daily bread which all Christians can be fed by. The Daily Office doesn’t replace private prayer, it supplements it, most particularly by diminishing the importance of the individual ego with its whims and diversions. To be immersed in Scripture in the act of reading and praising and interceding – this is the meat and drink of spiritual formation. For a Christian to be without it is like choosing to be a marathon runner yet not moving your legs. And to be attached to just one church – for each church to have its own minister, who lives with and alongside that community. It’s impossible to do this for more than one locale.

The routine pastoral work – and many other things – is then distributed throughout the body and is only something for me to engage with when there are things that cannot be dealt with by anybody else – the GP vs surgeon model. Similarly the main task of engaging with the wider population is taken forward by each church member themselves – I would spend hardly any time at all dealing directly with the wider community, I would no longer be the ‘court chaplain’ (= court jester) at the beck and call of the authorities. Yet I would still be needed to act as a spokesperson for the church community, I don’t see that changing.

Basically – lots of ways in which I am used up as a source of value for the committed Christian community – and virtually no ways in which I am used up either as an institutional pawn or as a panderer to the jaded appetites of spiritually self-abusing baby-boomers! No more needing to be ‘nice’ to people! Something much starker, much more austere, much more disciplined and disciplining – but also much more life-giving and healing.

That’s what I think I’m called to be. That’s what a priest is, isn’t it?

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”

Feed the sheep – protect them from the wolves. Don’t feed the wolves by neglecting the sheep. And how to feed the sheep? Word and Sacrament. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Forgotten Ways (Alan Hirsch)

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I found this to be a very good book, although it had one or two very irritating flaws, not the least of which was an astonishingly inane jacket-quote from someone called Leonard Sweet, which would have prevented me from buying the book if I had seen it beforehand.

But that’s a cavil. This is an excellent book about mission; one that I will almost certainly be sharing with the wider leadership team here. It’s had quite an impact on me, not least in providing ‘the fourth thing’… I’ve often thought that (following Eugene Peterson’s analysis) there were three things in my ministry that I felt called to concentrate on: celebrating communion; teaching and preaching; and spiritual direction. However, I’ve also felt that there was a ‘fourth thing’ that was in me and that didn’t quite fit with this – and I’ve variously called it management, or leadership, or even (before I came to Mersea and decided against doing a PhD) ‘the Civil Service element’ in my character. What this book has done for me – and for which I am profoundly grateful – is given me a different description of this element, and one, moreover, which gives me great peace. It is the apostolic element. Hirsch quotes Steve Addison saying:

“The apostolic role within established churches and denominations requires the reinterpreting of the denomination’s foundational values in the light of the demands of its mission today. The ultimate goal of these apostolic leaders is to call the denomination away from maintenance, back to mission. The apostolic denominational leader needs to be a visionary, who can outlast significant opposition from within the denominational structures and can build alliances with those who desire change. Furthermore, the strategy of the apostolic leader could involve casting vision and winning approval for a shift from maintenance to mission. In addition, the leader has to encourage signs of life within the existing structures and raise up a new generation of leaders and churches from the old. The apostolic denominational leader needs to ensure the new generation is not “frozen out” by those who resist change. Finally, such a leader must restructure the denomination’s institutions so that they serve mission purposes.”

In a week of great and diverse stresses it has been very healing and heartening to read that.

There were two other elements that really resonated with me: the first, that the apostolic call isn’t about pastoring as commonly understood: ‘in actual practice, a predominantly pastoral conception of the church and ministry now actually constitutes a major hindrance to the church reconceiving itself as a missional agency’. The second, that the apostle is first and foremost a working theologian, one who safeguards the ‘DNA’ of the Christian faith. That is precisely what I have seen as most essential in my ministry so far, and the source of all the positive things that have followed (such as there have been).

A final long quotation (from Karl Barth, which the book ends with):

It is certain that we all have reason to ask ourselves each of these questions and in every case quickly and clearly to give the answer:
No, the church’s existence does not always have to possess the same form in the future that it possessed in the past as though this were the only possible pattern;
No, the continuance and victory of the cause of God, which the Christian Church is to serve with her witness, is not unconditionally linked with the forms of existence which it has had until now;
No, the hour may strike, and perhaps already has struck, when God, to our discomfiture, but to his glory and for the salvation of mankind, will put an end to this mode of existence because it lacks integrity;
Yes, it could be our duty to free ourselves inwardly from our dependency on that mode of existence even while it still lasts. Indeed, on the assumption that it may one day entirely disappear, we definitely should look about us for new ventures in new directions.
Yes, as the Church of God we may depend on it that if only we are attentive, God will show us such new ways as we can hardly anticipate now. And as the people who are bound to God, we may even now claim unconquerable security for ourselves through him. For his name is above all names….

Amen. Praise the Lord!

Revival

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This is a substantially expanded and amended version of my sermon yesterday, based on Luke 7.11-17 & Galatians 1.11-end (in particular, West Mersea worshippers will find it of interest). Click ‘full post’ for text.

The story of the widow of Nain has great human impact: a sorrowing widow; a son that dies; and then – revival.

One of the first things to bear in mind about this story is the social and economic context – that is, unless there was an economically productive male around, you were incredibly vulnerable. So a widow is vulnerable without her husband, but even more than that, a widow losing her son is doubly vulnerable, not simply in economic terms but because the son was her link to the future, a source of meaning as well as means. It is precisely this concern for the vulnerable that is the Spirit behind the prophetic teaching, calling the faithful to provide for the widows and orphans. And here Jesus’ compassion and prophetic stance is clear – “his heart went out to her” – and just like Elijah with the widow of Zarephath the man of God revives the son from the dead, and gives him back to his mother. The family is reunited, means and meaning are revived.

There are a number of aspects to this story to explore. A first is simply to wonder: does Jesus experience a premonition of what is to come as he takes part in this tale? Does he consider that before too long his own mother will be outside the city wall, grieving for her dead son?

But going a little deeper than that, is there something here about our faith, about what it is to pursue that faith within a church community – and perhaps, is there a message here specifically for this church in West Mersea?

To explain what I mean by that, I’d like to talk about St Paul’s conversion experience, on the road to Damascus, and in particular how he describes it in this passage from Galatians – where he describes the sort of person that he was before he met the risen Lord, and the sort of person he became after, which allowed the good news to spread. Paul says that in his former life he was extremely zealous for the traditions of his fathers – but then he began to disbelieve in them. In other words, meeting with Christ began to generate disbelief in him, a disbelief in what had gone before.

The thing is, being human, we surround ourselves with customs and habits and traditions – they are useful in helping us to negotiate our way through life. And they come up in all areas of life – think of how you make a cup of tea, for example. Yet when these habits and traditions enter into our ways of worship we call them ‘sacred’, and these form our religions. It seems to me that part of what being a Christian means – part of what coming to know the living Christ involves – is precisely that we become less concerned about the sacred, less concerned about being religious, just in order that we might concentrate on something which is even more important – the new life offered in Christ, which relativises all of our religious traditions and sacred arts. This is the process of redemption – the light of Christ entering into all the darkest corners of our own hearts as we slowly attain to the full stature of the risen Christ.

The thing is, in so many ways, Christianity is still a very young faith. We may have been going for some two thousand years, but we are really only just beginning to get to grips with what it means to say that this man Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God incarnate upon earth. We still have so far to go on our pilgrimage; we are still discovering the depths of faith. You could say that the faith is this young man outside the walls of a town.

Do I mean that the faith is dead? Hardly that. But I do wonder how far the church is in the position of the widow – disconnected from the future – and beginning to despair.

“Young man I say to you get up.” It is through being addressed by the word of the living Word that the dead come to life, that the dead are revived.

A few years ago I was told a story about one of my predecessors as Rector of Mersea, Reg East, who was a rather Charismatic individual. He had a dream, or a vision, of the island of Mersea catching fire, and the fire spreading, which he understood to be a promise of revival. I have pondered this a lot, along with a comment from a colleague that an upsurge in musical creativity is often associated with a revival – and that we are presently experiencing just such an upsurge.

Is a revival coming? I really don’t know. I do know that a revival is not something that is in our control; it’s not something that we can achieve. We are not called to produce a revival; we are called to be faithful. In other words, to give right glory to God, the Son who is raised from the dead. That’s what being orthodox literally means – right glory. That is our task, that is our witness and that is the only true revival we can seek – to praise the God who gives life to the dead. We must worship the risen Christ, and always be aware of the danger of being caught up in our religion instead.

I do believe that, as I said in my first ever sermon in this place, the tide of unbelief has turned, that the Spirit is abroad in this country, and that we will see a resurgence of belief. I interpret the renewed squeals on the part of the atheists as being an acknowledgment, deep from their bowels, that their argument has been lost. For so long it seemed unarguable that as you matured as a person, so you left behind the childish blandishments of sentimental faith. That lie has been nailed, and we are seeing the consequences rippling down into the wider culture.

But more than this: I am certain that God is doing something special in this place: here, in West Mersea. I reflect upon the remarkable gathering of strength that is occurring here – the associate priests, the retired clergy (with some more on the way), the musical team, the way in which vocations are prospering as with pastoral assistants and lay evangelists being called forward from our midst, the lay leadership in all its forms. I reflect on the fact that, according to Bob Jackson, we are one of the fastest growing churches in the country. We do have a remarkable story to tell in that regard.

I also reflect on Saturday morning when the PCC gave a unanimous endorsement of my proposals to rearrange the sanctuary. I wasn’t expecting this – I had thought that the PCC would be split, and although I thought it would be in favour, I was expecting that the majority would be insufficient to carry the proposals through – for this sort of change, it is not enough for there to be a bare majority, there needs to be a much stronger sense of widespread consent. In the end there was unanimity – even amongst those members of the PCC who couldn’t be present, four expressed a preference, and all four were in favour.

This was strangely humbling. I think in part it was humbling because there has been pain associated with the change, and undoubtedly – related to this and to other emphases that I have brought to my ministry here – some cannot participate in the process, and they choose to leave.

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.”

I am still digesting everything that happened on Saturday morning. It is as if there was an endorsement not simply from the PCC but from the Spirit also, saying not just ‘keep going’ but ‘go further, do more!’ There is a cost to this; the challenge I face is how to ensure that the old testament heart remains a heart of flesh and doesn’t become a heart of stone.

And yet; the Lord is with me. I have felt very close to Him these past couple of months – to the extent that colleagues have remarked upon it. And He has given me the ability to see farther than most. This doesn’t make me infallible (hardly that!!), it doesn’t mean I won’t get some things completely wrong, especially with regard to details. But I have this vision of what is possible. And I must pursue it. It’s been creeping up on me slowly, and it isn’t something I fully understand, or can even describe. I feel frightened, and nervous, and excited all at the same time. What I am convinced of is that something remarkable is happening here in West Mersea. My task, my prayer, is that I can work out what God is doing – and then get out of the way.

O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvellous things.
His right hand and his holy arm have gained him victory.
The Lord has made known his victory;
he has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations.
He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises.
Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody.
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord.

Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who live in it.
Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy
at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.
(Psalm 98)

Jesus Christ is not a gay hippy in a dress

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I loved this (courtesy of the I-monk). As well as my title quote (apologies for the homophobic element!), this spoke to me:

“People think of a church planter as a pastor. He’s not yet a pastor. He’s trying to build the church so that he can BE a pastor.”

That’s how I feel about my ministry. I’m not yet a pastor – I’m trying to build the church; more precisely I’m trying to bind up open wounds and get the body to knit back together. But being a pastor is what I’m called to be, and who I fundamentally am. It’s just that I can’t be that yet.

There are demons that need to be driven out by prayer and supplication.

My sadness is that I suspect my task in the life of these parishes is to do the structural work. It will be those who come after me who will be excellent pastors.

And that’s alright. These people are so lovely. They deserve excellent pastoring, and if I can help in that process – even if it is indirect – then that is alright.

God’s sense of humour (again)

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One of the signs of God’s presence that I perceive is a manifestation of his sense of humour. Just when I get most worked up about musical questions in worship, and how far I’m offending people etc etc, we had Evening Prayer on the last day of the month, and so (as we follow the BCP cycle for psalms) we had the ‘praise’ psalms at the end of the psalmody – Sing to the Lord a new song!

That was me thinking God was taking the mickey, and telling me to lighten up a bit.

And now comes an excellent new set of propositions from the perennially wonderful Kim Fabricius, on what it is to be a minister. Remarkably timely – another way in which I see God acting in my life and telling me to breathe a little more easily. This one spoke precisely to me:

“Ministers are shepherds – though many a member would prefer a pet lamb. As they call their flock to new pastures, and to experimental patterns and models of ministry, they are inevitably going to piss off some of the fat sheep. So ministers must expect to be butted.”

It’s like climbing a mountain

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Moses ascended the mountain and came face to face with the living God. That is a true image of worship – that worship is at the top of the mountain, and it takes effort to get there. But lets run with this image a little bit.

The top of the mountain is the ‘best’ worship of which we are capable. It is rich, it is thick, it is edifying and transformational. It is the presence of the living God.

That is where we all want to get to.

Are there different mountains? Possibly. I remember many of my Anglo-Catholic brethren getting very worked up when John Sentamu played his Ugandan drums in between consecrating the elements and distributing them.

Truth is, though, that English people still have a sufficient common culture that there’s no need to talk about different mountains. There probably are such.

So the top of the mountain is that presence of God – and it is that image of God expressing itself in us in triune harmony.

Nobody disputes that that is where we need to get to.

It seems to me that the issue lies in a different direction.

We are roped together, on the climb. The climb has become more difficult; heavy and inclement weather has set in; the blizzard is heavy; the world is being remade around us.

Some of our party are lost. We were tethered together – now we’re not. Don’t know why.

We need to fix our pinions in hard and pay out some more rope – extend the line from where we’ve reached on the mountainside down to those lower down beneath us. We can’t leave them behind. They’ll freeze to death. We’ve got some essential supplies of food for our journey – they haven’t got much.

So we pay out the rope. Some of our number go back down; we find the others – some of them at least.

There are voices from above. The weather is too hard. Let’s just stay where we are. Hunker down. Wait for this storm to blow over. We’ve got the food. We’ll be alright.

From below it’s clear that that won’t work. The lead party are in danger themselves. They’re stuck – and if they stay stuck then they will die. For the mountain itself is moving. What seemed to be rock is in fact a frozen ledge. And the weather will change; that which seemed to be solid will melt – and there is nothing beneath it but the pit.

The group below have found some more rope. It’s good rope; different quality to what we’ve been using but it’ll hold people fast.

If we tie all of us together, we’ll make it through.

Nobody needs to be lost.

The eye cannot say to the hand “I don’t need you!”

If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.

And now I will show you the most excellent way….

Tiredness and judgement

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I’m in the process of uploading an audio recording of my Learning Church talk on Saturday, which is the first in a planned sequence of four on Holy Communion. However, one of the things that I am feeling rather strongly is that I’m going to need to spend the first ten minutes or so of the next one unpicking part of what I said, in that I think it’s a mistake to use the language of ‘literal’ when talking about the bread being the body etc. (More on which next week!)

This is just one example of a number over the last few days where I feel my judgement has been slightly off. The most comical one came when taking the family off to a birthday party in the woods, and I went in completely the wrong direction, which caused various delays and mild panics. More serious is that I might have caused offence in certain quarters by writing something in preparation for an important meeting that got sent out in less-than-usually edited form, and that might have consequences.

The explanation is that the journey back from Wales normally takes 8 or 9 hours, most of which is driving at high speed on the motorway. We normally come back a day early from the holiday so that I have a day or so to recover and re-acclimatise. The trouble this time was that I was so wired about this meeting (which I hadn’t planned to take place so soon after my return from holiday, and which was highly ‘political’) that I woke up at 5am on the first morning back and spent a few hours writing up the paper; and then had a fairly full day doing all the mundane jobs of getting back into the saddle, like mowing the back lawn.

All of which means that after only a few days back I am once more feeling absolutely shattered! I’m sure it’s nothing that a few good nights sleep won’t sort out, but even so – it’s a bit worrying. I think I need to take these bodily limits more seriously when I’m planning things. I don’t want the misjudgements to escalate.