Saturday 2 March 2024

The dozen predictions

 

Turnout will be lower even than the average of 39% at the last three by-elections held in October.

Wrong.  The turn out was 39.7%, so the political debacle around this election didn’t actually put additional people off voting.

There will be almost no comment about the democratic deficit of the clear winner being the over 60% who didn’t vote.

Correct.  I did hear one brief reference to this on the radio but the discussion didn’t pick it up.  The Prime Minister’s speech about the democratic problems with the result didn’t reference this at all.

Of the dozen candidates, perhaps half will receive a derisorily low level of support even from those who do turn out.

Correct (although I’d miscounted the candidates – there were eleven not twelve).  Five candidates each polled under 1.75% of the votes cast.

If the remaining votes cast are distributed evenly between the other six, each would receive the direct support of just 6% or so of the registered electors.

Correct.  The top six candidates attracted the support on average of 6.2% of registered electors.

Actually one of them will pull ahead with the support of twice as many, but still possibly nor more than one in eight of the registered voters.

Wrong.  The winner did better than attracting the support of 12.4% of registered electors – he attracted 15.8%.  The point remains that, seen like this, his election is legally secure but his popular support is much smaller than people realise.

He will immediately stand at a microphone and say things which are simply untrue about how his elections proves his political position is, and will now be even more, widely supported.

Correct.  He said no less than there had been a shift in our electoral tectonic plates.

He will not be the MP nine months later.

Too soon to say.

Whatever the result, it will not affect the shameful way many Jewish citizens of the United Kingdom feel less safe than they did a year ago.

We can probably call this ‘Correct’ already.

Nor it will be affect the desperation of those citizens of the United Kingdom who have been predicting famine and epidemic in Gaza.

We can probably call this ‘Correct’ already.

Conservative supporters might well be refining a new plan to hold back some things they might find out about some Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidates until after the deadlines have passed for printing ballot papers for the next General Election.

Too soon to say.

Meanwhile, the diameter of Gaia and of the Dean's Eye Window behind it are approximatly the same.

Wednesday 14 February 2024

Ash Wednesday variety

 

The boundary between Shrove Tuesday and Lent is mentally very crowded. 

Initial communication and arrangements with the Grimsby Minster parish flow, and inevitably form a particular non-Lenten focus.

There is a coincidental sudden intensity in being part of the Cathedral Tour Guide training.  Of the Cathedral Library’s manuscripts we were shown yesterday the most Lenten was a book of Penitential Psalms, with a glorious frontispiece picture of a turbaned David at prayer. 

My initial experiment in guiding a mentor round some imaginative possibilities elicited an understandable reaction that something ‘less detailed and more mundane’ would be needed for the average visitor. 

And we have a tour of the Works Department today, masons, glaziers and more; unusual to have such a treat on Ash Wednesday .

I have also begun to experiment with Matins not read from my own increasingly tattered set of books, listening to the Church of England’s Daily Prayer App through headphones.

I find it quite unlike praying on my own, or with colleagues in church, or being present at Cathedral Choral Evensong.  More like being on retreat at the back of the chapel in a monastic community.

And I return to my obsession with what is rarely said about the dynamic in by-elections.  Impatient to know what sort of knock on effect the Rochdale controversy will have on tomorrow’s votes in Kingswood and Wellingborough.  Switching on my computer chiefly to capture my assumptions about what will now happen at Rochdale at the end of the month.

We know that uniquely both the Green and Labour candidates have been disowned by their party, which throws some old election assumptions out.

I expect the turnout will be lower even than the average of 39% at the last three by-elections held in October.

There will be almost no comment about the democratic deficit of the clear winner being the over 60% who unite to say a combination of ‘I am not interested’ (simply disconnected), ‘A plague on all their houses’ (now disconnecting) and ‘None of the above’ (connected by angrily rejecting participation).

Of the dozen candidates, perhaps half will receive a derisorily low level of support even from those who do turn out.

If the remaining votes cast are distributed evenly between the other six, each would receive the direct support of just 6% or so of the registered electors.

Actually one of them will pull ahead with the support of twice as many, but still possibly nor more than one in eight of the registered voters.

He (sic – none of the twelve candidates are women) will immediately stand at a microphone and say things which are simply untrue about how his elections proves his political position is, and will now be even more, widely supported.

He will not be the MP nine months later.

Sadly, whatever the result, it will not affect the shameful way many Jewish citizens of the United Kingdom feel less safe than they did a year ago; that damage is already done.

Equally sadly, nor it will be affect the desperation of those citizens of the United Kingdom who have been predicting famine and epidemic in Gaza; that outcome may already be in front of us.

Sufficient numbers of Conservative supporters with power in the media (to be clear – this isn’t code for the vile untrue anti-Semitic trope that there is a Jewish group – this is simply a guess about Conservative election strategy) might well be refining a new plan to hold back some things they might find out about some Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidates until after the deadlines have passed for printing ballot papers for the next General Election.

Obviously, none of the last four predictions will in fact be provable or disprovable on 1st March, unlike the first half dozen.

Meanwhile, the picture is of St Mary Magdalene’s church between Lincoln Castle and Cathedral.  I hope to be there this evening, half imaginative and half mundane.  I shall miss being there more than occasionally during my Grimsby assignment.

Monday 12 February 2024

Lighbulb moment?

 


A Lincoln Cathedral variation on the question about how many people it takes to change a lighbulb.

Meanwhile my surprising news is that, after an initial eighteen months of retirement, I am about to step back into stipendiary ministry, albeit only half-time and albeit for a very limited period.

The parish neighbouring the one of which I was Rector 1999-2017, and the one which contains Grimsby Minster, is about to go into vacancy for the second time in less than four years.  Among other things, a newly ordained Curate had already been left without the direct support and supervision she deserves when the now retiring Vicar went off sick a little while ago.

I happened to take the Christmas morning service there (finding, as far as I could see, good people doing a fruitful job) totally unaware that the call would come a few weeks later.

So an ordinary day last month took an unexpected turn with that early morning call from the Archdeacon asking me to consider a supportive role until a new Vicar can be appointed.  ‘Consultant priest and training supervisor’ has turned out to be the ungainly but accurate way of saying publically ‘not Interim Priest-in-Charge’.

I’m actually going to be licensed as a half-time Assistant Curate, although most people won’t realise that.  Having been so licensed for the first time in 1984, I am enjoying the serendipity of being so licensed again in 2024. 

I start at the beginning of next month (although quite a bit of this morning was already taken up with preparatory work and contacts) and anticipate going over by train as often as driving (the journey time being no different).

What does ‘half-time’ mean?  There is the (potential) rub.  In 2021/2 I was no longer coping with post-lockdown full-time work while living on my own in a large Rectory set in large grounds.  That is why I retired early, and that is why I shall have to be very careful now.

The undertaking is to be there on a variable two days in the week, plus most Sundays in the month, plus some work from my desk at home during the four full days plus one Sunday a month I am in Lincoln.  My present realisation is that I’ll need to police that balance with care.

A little bed and butter work.  But mainly helping people plan which light bulbs need changing and how best to marshall the right combination of people do so, all the while aware that there are sensitive situations including an unknown quantity of crossed and even faulty wires.

Monday 29 January 2024

Chaffinches and Christians

 

The Chaffinches have begun to sing.  Loudly, early, unexpectedly and welcome outside my window this morning.  And then straight away I heard them again on Radio 4’s Tweet of the Day.  

I usually find it a frustrating experience listening to  a presenter talk over the top of most of the bird song but today he left at least several snatches of song uninterrupted.  I hadn’t twigged before that chaf-finch is simply the common finch which is seen in greatest quantities when later in the year it roots around among stubble and chaff.

So I am reminded to begin to blog (if not to tweet) again, and find being hopeful of picking things out of the chaf around me a satisfying thought.

There is a row of mediaeval churches along the High Street beneath the hill.  I can pass St Benedict’s, St Mary-le-Wigford’s, St Peter-at-Gowt’s and St Botolph’s on a straight walk of less than a mile (and in doing so would have past several more had they not long gone).  

 There are early Friends and Unitarian buildings too which predate the nineteenth and twentieth century nonconformist ones and the Catholic Church next door to me. 

St Benedict’s ceased to operate as a parish church in the 1930s, but has had a variety of Christian use since, including housing a Christian bookshop today.  

I remember taking services at St Botolph’s in the 1990s (including a wedding at which an attempt was made to abduct a bridesmaid) but it too has ceased to operate as a parish church, one of two disused Anglican churches in the city which are now the home of Greek Orthodox congregations.

I take the occasional service now at both St Mary-le-Wigford’s (its focus is on a mid-week congregation) and St Peter-at-Gowt’s (which is the one where Sunday worship still happens) where there is no Vicar and only small congregations.   

I worry for their future as much as for that of many rural churches in tiny villages.  There is extensive terrace housing off the lower High Street and two Church of England Primary Schools in St Peter’s parish – who will look after them when the local parish churches cease to be viable?

But that wasn’t the note which prompted this post, nor the one on which I wanted to finish.  In the ten minute walk back from the last service I took at St Peter’s, I walked past or near Baptist, Methodist and Salvation Army buildings. 

I actually started close to where the Orthodox worship (the founding members were of Cypriot origin).  I past two A frames on pavements announcing the presence of two independent congregations meeting at that time in the halls there (which appear to have preachers or pastors of African origin).  

I cut across near the hall in which the Church of England’s latest church plant operates what feels like a Holy Trinity, Brompton franchise (although there is more to it than that) next door to a further very substantial disused Anglican church.  

I finished next to the packed Catholic church car park (where the service I went to last Good Friday was one of the most international worshipping experiences I’ve had, being specifically aware of worshippers with roots in Kerala, Nigeria, Pakistan and Poland alongside many others).

The future of the style of Anglicanism (and commitment to the care of a parish) which has formed me feels as if might not even survive, but Christianity doesn’t look like disappearing in ‘below hill’ Lincoln any time soon,

The picture is taken from the Cathedral.  The central rectangular block of a building is the Bishop’s Chapel attached to the diocesan offices.  The church visible immediately above it is St Hugh’s Catholic Church with its adjacent hall to its left.   

And the terrace in which I live is only visible from this angle as the next thing on the left (its roof line shines a bit almost directly above the doorway to the Bishop's Chapel.  It is hard to make out the scatter of trees in which the chaffinches were singing first thing but they are there.

Wednesday 20 December 2023

Stella coeli exstirpavit

 

Deeper into mediaeval Marian theology than would be usual for my approach to Christmas, although my post about Deborah’s death three year’s ago today dwelt on the Magnificat being read as Gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Advent that day.

I’m newly caught up on the periphery of the Lincoln Mystery Players ahead of two performances of the Christmas part of their sequence, a mixture of material with biblical roots and apocryphal roots. 

So the Cherry Tree Carol is to be acted out.  Joseph saying ‘he who got you with child’ can pick cherries for Mary, and the tree (a stage hand – me!) meekly bowing down to give her the direct access to them which she desired.

And the singing of the Latin ‘Prayer in time of pandemic’ which I’ve had a go at rendering in English thus:

 

Star of heaven,

rise in the warring constellations

whose conjunctions

dictate our deathly ulcerations,

and stop the fight.

 

Gracious Lady,

the first taste of an apple seeded

invasive death,

so, suckling the Lord, you weeded

that great plague out.

 

Star of the sea,

knowing your son, who honours you,

will not say ‘no’,

beseech him now to make all things new,

pandemic free.