FROM THE BOUNDARY

I’ve often wondered whether I’d have enjoyed life as an incumbent. It’s not exactly a walk-on part, is it? I imagine you’d have to wrestle with the Angel of God daily. One slip, and your people might rubbish you forever. It must be quite an ordeal. I’ve never felt worthy of it, anyway. After all, priesthood in middle age – there wasn’t much I hadn’t done to blot my copy book down the years; but at least it meant I could be kindly to those in my care for, most certainly, I wouldn’t be any better than they. Besides, I know that God’s seen it all before, God-knows how many times, and He doubtlessly smiles at our feeble attempts to make amends.

But sometimes I think it would have been nice to find, like George Herbert at Bemerton, that special place where just very ordinary people lay down their daily concerns and respond to the bells of worship, to say their ‘thank-you’s’ to God in wonder and gratitude for everything that is, knowing that you are ever there for them. There have been places like that for me on my journey, places where I’ve felt grounded, places whose angels have seen the tears of joy and yearning in my eyes too, and where I came to feel, as I still do, that Jesus will never let me go. They’ve generally been little places like the St. Basil Chapel and the Good Shepherd where the evening sun streams in from the sea and enflames your every breath. “Me thoughts I heard one calling, ‘Child’: and I replied, ‘My Lord’.”

 

I guess I think of a parish priest as a gardener whose gentle hands nurture the seedlings, and plants, and bushes, and trees in his garden as a duty which flowers from the heart and is rooted in love. The results will not always be discernible but are yet to be found in burgeoning greenery and colour, in birdsong and shady places, in the whisperings of the breeze in the grass and in those, the little children, who play there in wonder and delight – well, if they’re allowed. But this gardener must be cautious. He mustn’t ignore or forget the trees whose branches will never bear fruit for his table, nor be content merely with the colour of his blooms and not also their fragrance.

 

Yet I too have a garden, and I do what I can to nurture it though beyond the boundary of oversight and control and though its soil is, on times, dry and hard so that I must scratch around it, or soaked as marshland where mosquitoes breed, or scarred with the sentinels of impenetrable thickets, so that wherever they tread my feet will leave no clear trace and it’s as if my efforts really never were. Its flowers, if you see them, are the joy of bees. They’re wild but scented, and propagate themselves with but little help from me – for really, you see, it’s their garden not mine. Its birds, in their freedom, migrate and my greatest joy is to wave them on their way. It’s really only now that I’m beginning to understand how much I love this garden. If you close your eyes for a moment and then blink open, you may catch a glimpse of it yourself and even hear its call, and know, in your own silences, that it’s always been yours.

 

But let me complete my account of delinquent dagger-dancing Diocesan style. Since, in its idiocy, it assumes Wagnerian proportions and marks the denouement of things, let’s switch the metaphor and call it the ‘twilight of the Gods’. 

 

In February 2014 I wrote to my “Friend and Bishop” (‘F&B’) and raised two issues: first, whether the Diocese would be prepared to apply for a work permit for me; and second, whether given the concern expressed for clergy assistance by the lay person responsible for prison ministry I might offer my services. The first issue might seem a bit odd. But the fact is that for some two years I’d awaited the result of my Application for Immigrant Status and I was getting a little panicky. After 18 years in Barbados, two years did seem a bit odd. The second was an entirely natural request. When ‘F&B’ finally determined to ordain me in 2001, it was the prison ministry, given my experience, which he said he had in mind for me.

 

The Diocesan Secretary responded for ‘F&B’. Of the first, she wrote: “the Diocese is not in a position to assist you”. You what? Church denominations routinely seek work permits for overseas clergy. Of course, what she was really saying was ‘Look sunshine – there’s no job for you in this Diocese to which a work permit would relate. Go your way.’ Of the second, she wrote “no new members are being assigned to the ministry team”. You what? What “ministry team”? There’s only Ms B who’s soldiering on and needs help. It’s true that Canon Lashley had once provided the clergy presence; but as everyone knew he’d been ill for more than a year and Ms B was on her own.

 

Well, what to do? I made numerous attempts to speak to ‘F&B’ about it all, and after nine weeks of trying eventually did. The meeting went nowhere. Not to be put down I wrote to him, through the Diocesan Secretary, and asked him to convey my interest in prison ministry to Synod Council where the need for clergy assistance had first surfaced and then been repeated. At the next meeting of Council, I’m told, the Secretary reminded beloved ‘F&B’ about my letter. Apparently, he suggested the matter had been dealt with and that he’d spoken to me “several times” about it. You what? ‘One’ becomes a “team” and ‘once’ becomes “several”. So I wrote again and asked that that letter be presented to the next meeting of Council since the prison ministry was still being discussed there. The letter was suppressed.

 

Then there was the Diocesan Service jamboree. In January 2014, clergy were informed whether they would be taking part in the service the following month. I wasn’t on the list and so I wrote to say how much I wanted to participate. An email came back to say that it was thought I’d left the country! LOL! The fellow said he’d get back to me – but didn’t. So with my wife I attended the rehearsal and thus barged my way to recognition. The following year, my name was again omitted. I wrote to say I was still in the country but was told this time that “not everyone has been selected” – which was, of course, brilliantly self-evident. At that point, the curtain fell and I washed my hands of the whole fandango. Frankly, it had begun to bore me, and besides I’d discovered Pope Francis’ ‘Ministry of the Streets’ and the altar of the world. Nothing could be finer.

 

Go safely, then – until the next time.

 

Understanding from the boundary: God cannot be written, only experienced.