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 1^st 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.

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.