FROM THE BOUNDARY

Surveying the landmarks Part four

 

It’s impossible to ‘survey the landmarks’ of what we call ‘Christianity’ without scrutinising some of those we find in this land. Some stand straight and true. Others are skewed and need replacing. I suppose it’s like everywhere else.
 
There’s no denying there are some wonderful things to be seen from the boundary. One is the warmth and affection to be found in those whose lives we’ve touched in some way. This came home to me very forcibly last week when something deep inside me inexorably compelled me to visit a church with which I’ve been associated. I have a special affection for it and not least because its Patron shares the same name with the College where I read my Law. It was the Feast Night. Some at least remembered me very well and, after the service, hugged me as if the Prodigal had returned. Shortly after I arrived, a gentleman came over to me carrying an envelope. Inside was my personal prayer book which I’d thought irrevocably lost and with it some part of myself. I’d obviously left it somewhere on my last visit and he’d kept it safe over years. I was overjoyed and hugged him. Wasn’t it Leo Buscaglia, the ‘love doctor’, who enjoined us to hug each other more than we do?
 
With the refreshments after the service I chatted with a lady who spoke of the previous incumbent, whom I knew. “We thought of him as our son,” she said, and went on to tell me how she’d visited him in the US. Now that’s not the first time I’ve heard that about him, and no priest could ask for more.
 
In these sorts of ways, our people are being true to their truest selves, seeking nothing more, and responding naturally from their hearts as all people should. And yet there’s also a flip side.
 
For one thing, there were many empty pews. Why? This was the Feast Night, wasn’t it? Well, someone who knows suggested to me that a Feast should never be celebrated on a Friday evening because people go shopping. Eh? Shopping? And this the fulcrum of things? For another, almost none of the young people I remember were present. Where were they? They’re the hope for tomorrow aren’t they? And then the sermon – in many respects a thought provoking and dramatic affair, and yet, as ever, couched in the language of admonition and insisting that discipleship is all about obedience rather than the flowering of ourselves in Christ. At the refreshments afterwards, a kind lady led me to the vestry to sup with the priests. But no, I resisted the idea. My place is with you, here, with the people, not hidden away breathing rarefied oxygen with the priestly caste. Bless that young priest, now a Rector, who, years ago, would don his cassock and minister in Nelson Street. Yes, let the Church reach out into the heart of the city in the name of the Gospel and the poor, the ordinary working people in the 
little shops and stalls, and the beggars on their pavements.
 
So yes, as with all of us there’s always a darker side, an unholy contrast, a contradiction where reality overrides theory, where letter dispatches spirit. Do you remember, Anglicans who are reading this, the Diocesan Service of two years ago? I was there. It was the Service where the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, was supposed to deliver the sermon but, as it was claimed, couldn’t come because of the weather so that Fr Rogers, the Bishop’s nephew, perforce stood in at the last minute. Jefferts Schori was the first woman to be elected a Primate in the Anglican Communion and I’d looked forward very much to seeing her. She would have reminded us that there’s not just one strand of Christianity, which Bishop Holder refers to as ‘Caribbean spirituality’, to which we must all subscribe because, I suppose, we’re incapable of independent thought.
 
One of the leitmotifs of the service was the repeated call for renewal, inclusivity and, though the word was used only once in our prayers, ‘love’. Here are some of the things for which we prayed: opposition to social injustice and cruelty; not pushing people away; welcoming and offering a safe haven for all; safeguarding human rights; blotting out ignorance and prejudice; being fully human; giving special care to the marginalised, and so on. Yet, after the service many voiced their opposition to the possibility that the Presiding Bishop might have come because of her stand, and that of the Episcopal Church, on gay rights, blessings and marriage. Well, I do agree it was, perhaps, an odd choice, given the expressed attitude of the Provincial Bishops to gay marriages. But so what, given everything we’d prayed for? To this opposition, the hierarchy who’d invited Jefferts Schori, refrained from explanation and remained silent. Oh dear. It all raises the question of what our ‘Caribbean spirituality’ really consists. Do we Anglicans speak from our hearts or only from our lips?
 
Now tell me – if you were asked to describe your feelings about your own life in the Church, what would you say and why would you say it? Would you say, for example: ‘It’s something in my life which gives meaning and purpose, which excites and enlivens the ‘me’ which so often feels repressed, which makes me want to dance the dance of life and reach out creatively to everything which is good and true and beautiful and claim it for myself. It’s there for me whenever I am fearful and confused, which assures me of its love and makes me understand that Jesus is ever my friend and brother.’ Or would you say, for example: ‘It’s boring and largely irrelevant in my life. I attend because I’ve always attended but I remain confused. I never feel quite good enough because I’m always being told that I’m not. I’ve stopped listening really because I’ve heard it all before. The priest thinks an awful lot of himself but I suppose his jokes are OK.’ If neither of these, how would you express it?
 
If you remember, in an earlier column, I described myself, a priest without portfolio, as the overseer of a wild garden. In my way, in today’s column I’ve been sowing some seeds of my own. Whether they’ll grow into anything very much rather depends upon you. In that sense, I have no idea where they will land, nor with what result. This last week, by chance I met beloved Gabrielle with her mum in Bridgetown. She’s now 11, I should think, very tall and pretty – the most beautiful flowering. Her mum and dad must be very proud of her. When I last saw her, she must have been all of three months old, a holy seedling of Jesus, when I held her in my arms for baptism. Her reality reflects my intention today.
 
Go safely then – until the next time.
 
Theological College motto from the boundary: “Seek the truth come whence it may, cost what it will.”

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