JULY 2022
PSALMS AND PILGRIMAGE
SPECIAL DAYS
The end of teh month was all about psalms and pilgrimage. The first two and a half weeks had several special days in them. Our son Peter and his girlfriend Helen stayed with his grandfather for a week, followed by Linda going there too. Tuesday was Peter’s birthday and a celebration lunch was arranged in Plymouth. I suddenly decided to go down to, so I took the train for Plymouth in the morning and journeyed back tin the evening. I had hoped it would be a surprise, but he had guessed! Still I was über pleased to be the with the family. And the two long train journeys were actually very useful in doing work on my next book,
A week later I went to the farewell do of the bishop of Kensington who is taking a role at Lambeth, aiming to enable the church to communicate the gospel message more persuasively to the 21st century. I doubt whether he is going to be radical enough. Rather cheekily, I wished him good luck in his first heresy trial, which the great Charles Gore and had to suffer in the 19th century. For fresh ideas check out teh Thinking Faith Project at www.princeodoemena.com.
Two days later I went back to Hackbridge for another farewell. Bioregional, a major environmental pressure group, is leaving its offices in BedZED – the world’s first carbon-neutral building estate, right opposite my old church. It was lovely meeting up with so many old friends from both BedZED and the church. There was one major difference between the bishop’s farewell and Bioregional. With the bishop the wine flowed like water. At Bioregional it was the water that flowed like water.
PSALMS AS PRAYER IN NORFOLK
The following day Linda and I went to Kent to look at possible cars to buy. And we bought a handsome Honda Jazz. Peter was rather put out that we had broken with our silver car tradition and had bought a red one. The next day Linda and I drove down to Plymouth to celebrate her birthday at Sunday lunch with her father. I took the opportunity to go to Plympton parish church. For me the service was so-so, but the people there exceptional, especially a hard-of-hearing retired woman priest in her late 70’s (who am I to talk?) with an incredibly sharp mind. On the train back on Sunday afternoon, I met a charming Indian couple , the wife was a Jain – they are careful to kill no living creature however small, and have completely no concept of God. I aim to visit a Jain temple in London to find out more.
I am putting two more of my books out on audio with the help of Peter Walters. He read ‘Jesus the Troublemaker’ for me and did an excellent job. A very good person to work with. However I felt that he did not quite get “Psalms as Praise’, which is more of an argument rather than a story. I decided to read a lot of the more personal parts myself, with Peter reading other parts. The cost is the same as he will do all the editing and post-production work. It does of course make it a lot more expensive for me. I had to hire a car and book a hotel for four days. While I made a slight saving by driving a large Ford transit van which only cost £300 compared with a small car costing £500, it was. bit of a big beast in small Norfolk lanes.
Having wheels made it possible to visit Cley-next-the-Sea, just four miles to the north. It has an an extraordinary atmosphere, reed-beds stretching out to the sea and a windmill to have tea in – a healing place.
My time in Norfolk enabled me to complete my response to the two Zoom sessions on safeguarding I attended last November. I did quite a lot of work on it. I am happy to report that I have got my new certificate of trustworthiness, so I can continue to take church services.
TRONDHEIM & SANKT OLAF
Psalms and pilgrimage: after a week on Psalms.I went on pilgrimage. After one day’s very necessary turn-around, on Saturday I was off to Trondheim, Norway. I was part of a week-long Anglican-Lutheran conference. About fifty Anglicans and Lutherans came, from Latvia, USA, Germany, Norway and UK. I had some excellent meetings , specially with Bishop Michael Ipgrave, who wrote the foreword to ‘Journey through Lent with Jesus’ and Sheila Rosenthal, Anglican Chaplain at Trondheim. I arrived a day early and so was able to go to the Sunday service at the mediaeval cathedral – we sang ‘Amazing Grace’. In the afternoon I went to a Pentecostal service in English.
The theme of the conference was ‘Pilgrimage”. Bisho Michael was particularly keen on the new pilgrimages centred on St Chad, the first bishop of Lichfield. At the end of the week we took part in the great Norwegian celebration of their patron saint St Olaf. This included walking eight kilometres through a forest down to the cathedral, attending an amazing dramatisation with a full-blown orchestra of the events leading up to Olav’s death in the battle at the actual site, and finally being part of the Sunday eucharist with 1500 others.
I flew back on 1st August, but that is story for another newsletter.
MEANWHILE – THE MONTH’S FILMS
‘Elvis’ was fascinating. So interesting seeing Tom Hanks play a thoroughly unpleasant character, the conman Colonel Parker (no colonel!). And so sad for Elvis.
‘Thor – Love and Thunder’ I saw because I wanted to see what Peter and Helen liked about it. It wasn’t the best one, they said. I found it vacuous and left half way through – but it was very late.
‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ a film by a Chinese-American woman. The title describes the film accurately. I called it a Chinese martial arts film on acid. Poor Linda, very soon in I realised that this was quite the worst film for her to watch, there being no rhyme or reason to the switches between numerous multiverses. However, I can’t get the film out of my head, specially as it eventually turns into something like the sermon on the mount. I may well go and see it again.
Have a great August