Reality

 

It has long been a concern and an irritation that Christmas arrives before November is finished! Possibly my main reason for being annoyed at the decorations, trees, advertisements and carols appearing so early is that it does not allow the deeper (and often more difficult and darker) themes of Advent to be explored. This is something I have said before, said often and in the saying have irritated many folks.

 

In passing, I perhaps should note that I feel a little different this year as the restrictions under which we are having to live due to this pandemic are making me feel that any fairy light I see and every Christmas song I hear is more likely to evoke a smile instead of a snarl! But don’t worry… I am fairly confident that by next year normal service will have resumed!

 

But I am also hopeful that this year’s very strange and difficult circumstances might bring about another inevitable change, and one that I would welcome.

 

I would hope that the many people who dread the ‘festive season’ with its demands, might feel less pressured this year. For we are all facing a very odd and (in many respects) unwelcome Christmas, and so perhaps we will not be demanding that everyone ‘enjoys themselves’ or adopts the outward 'enforced jollity’ that is so often required of us by others.

 

Parties will be cancelled, dinners will be small, gatherings will be limited, carol services will be physically distanced and silent, hugs will be few and kisses under the mistletoe will be banned. And I can imagine that there are many folks (the recently bereaved, the financially strapped, the emotionally fragile, those with mental health challenges, and those with relationship strains - to name but some) who will be a little relieved at not being forced to ‘put on a happy face’.

 

For me, part of the irritating irony of Christmas too soon invading Advent is that so many of the themes of this season deal with these very issues of loss and longing, of wondering and waiting, of darkness and difficulty and so on. But how little of this we get to hear above the continued blare of ‘Santa Claus is coming to town’.

 

So perhaps this year it will be different. And perhaps this year we will be able to be a little more sensitive to those who cannot so easily adopt the jollity normally demanded. And perhaps this year we will discover anew that the joy, peace and hope of which Christmas speaks is not always the same as the jollity and festivity which usually prevails.

 

For many there is a different reality, and maybe this year we will have the space and the context in which to see that.

Seasons

 From a meteorological perspective, autumn ends tomorrow and winter begins on Tuesday.

 

For me the end of autumn marks the end of what has long been my favourite season. That is in part due to the beauty of the colours, the crisp mornings, and the harvest of fruits etc. It also has to do with good memories associated with autumn, especially from my days at university.

 

But the seasons come and go, and we can do nothing to stop that cycle. And I like winter too with the white of the frost and the dark of the nights. And when winter passes I will be ready for spring…

 

‘For everything there is a season…’ says the Preacher-Philosopher (Ecclesiastes 3: 1).

 

And in life too.

 

As I begin the slow countdown of months until I retire, I find myself very content with this season of my life, and looking forward to the new season soon to begin. Indeed, I am content too with the realisation that the season that lies ahead will be one of necessary slowing down (both chosen and enforced) and that this season will have its eventual and inevitable end. All of which is just fine.

 

Today is the beginning of a new season in the Christian Year: Advent.

 

I love Advent with its sense of preparation and anticipation, and also the great themes of waiting, watching, patience, and the reflection on the mysteries of God’s here but not-here realm, the now but not-yet of his rule.

 

And (as I have so often said) the celebration of Christmas is all the more special for me when I allow Advent to be Advent and as I seek to hold off the intrusive Christmas that seeks to invade this season. Contrary to the accusations that are often made against me, this is not because I am a Scrooge or a Grinch – I love Christmas! Nor is it because I am some kind of ‘liturgical fundamentalist’  (yes, that was a serious criticism of me!).

 

But I appreciate seasons, each in their time and turn, and each speaks to me in different ways and I savour and value the worth of each.

 

 

Acknowledging and Accepting

 

In my previous post which referenced my laptop disaster I made mention of the fact that I can no longer keep up with technology and this has been part of what has led to a conclusion that my days as a full-time active Minister are now numbered.  

And in an earlier post I acknowledged that (like many others) I am experiencing a bit of what I termed ‘COVID-malaise’.

I am putting both of these things down as ‘markers’ of a kind; a way of acknowledging that my current feelings may in part be affected by this malaise and may also have been triggered a bit by some technological failures. But, even taking these into account, I have spent some time in fairly sober and level-headed reflection in these pandemic months.

Now, in truth, I was always likely to be looking towards retirement at this stage. I have reached that age where one begins to count in terms of months and not years until retirement. However, before the virus hit us, I had been wondering about going on for a few years beyond retirement age, weighing up the pros and cons and so forth. At no point was I imagining that I might not be the right kind of Minister for the future or for the church that now needs to emerge. On the contrary, I thought I still had my finger on the pulse, still understood the issues, still had a vision for the new kind of church that will come to birth in the years to come.  

I no longer think that.

This is not simply about technology (although that plays a part). It is also about creativity and imagination. I observe my younger colleagues coming up with excellent and innovative ideas and effectively implementing these even in these restricted times and I realise that while I can readily see that their ideas are very good, I can also see that I was nowhere near even beginning to come up with such creative ideas. Indeed, I no longer have any clear vision as to what the future of mission , worship, pastoral care and so on will look like. The game has changed, the rules have been re-written and I – who think I have been and continue to be very creative in approach – no longer fully grasp what is going on.

 

That thought came to me as I was watching rugby this past weekend. I was listening to what the commentators were saying about the game, the tactics, the rules infringements and so on, and remembering that there was a time when I played rugby as a schoolboy. The difference between school rugby and international rugby is, of course, immense! But it is not simply that. The rules have changed, the scoring has changed and the strategy and tactics have changed too… beyond all recognition really. A few years ago I was in conversation with someone who had been a Scotland International player back in the day and he said that he struggled to understand the contemporary game.

That’s how I am feeling about Ministry – or at least, how I feel at the prospect of Ministry in the kind of church that I think needs to emerge.

One friend and colleague who has recently retired and who has been thinking similar thoughts to mine, put it this way ‘one of the major reasons for my retirement was the realisation that never mind the answers, I didn't even know what the questions are…’!

Quite.

Added to which I have read too many comments on social media etc by retired colleagues offering advice (usually unsolicited) on how to take the church forward, some of which has made me cringe. (and, just for clarity, there have also been some excellent contributions to debates and resources from retired colleagues! But usually these have been by way of support and encouragement rather than ‘advice’!)

I do not wish to be one of these self-appointed ‘wise people’ telling my younger colleagues how to do it.

This does not mean that I feel I have little to offer in Ministry. Far from it! I will be pleased to offer my support, my prayers, my care… and I hope I will long be able to lead worship and preach etc. But full-time Ministry involves more than that. It involves leadership and vision and more besides, and these now must be the responsibility of the next generation.

So I am now counting the months to retirement and to offering what I can without imagining that I can offer what I can’t!

When earlier this year I began to acknowledge the reality that I have just described it was a bit unnerving and disconcerting. But over these last few months I have come to accommodate this thought and accept it. I feel quite comfortable with recognising that the time is drawing near when I should pass over the baton and start cheering from the side-lines.

 

Blessing and Curse

 It is long been observed that technology can be both a blessing and a curse. We know that there are huge benefits that are ours because of the technological advances of recent decades. But we equally know that there are also many downsides. Before the present pandemic hit, it was widely suggested that amongst the negative impacts of technological developments was the fact that there was so much more physical distancing of people; people were relating with others less face to face and more online.

Now - in these strange days of restrictions on our meeting with others - that assessment seems rather ironic! We are required to keep physical distance and are restricted from actually meeting too many others. And so the internet has become a lifeline for us. Just imagine if this pandemic had hit 20 years ago... how would we have kept in touch, conducted worship, held meetings and so on?

But 'we have the technology' (for those of you old enough to remember, that is a quote from the seventies TV show ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’). And so we who are Ministers can record our services and people can share in worship via the internet or we can stream our actual services from church and so on.

And so it was that last Thursday I was recording Sunday’s worship in the empty church building when my laptop fell off the stand on which it was perched as it was acting as my 'tele-prompter'. Disaster! My laptop was pronounced dead at the scene.

And suddenly I discovered just how much of a 'necessity' having this laptop is in my ministry! Of course, there are other computers in the house and most of my work was backed up in the cloud (or physically). But nonetheless, this is a major inconvenience.

Technology? I love it and I loathe it... but I can't live without it.

But nor do I co-exist with it very easily or naturally. I remain a wee bit of a technological dinosaur, and one thing I have concluded during this pandemic time is that the church of tomorrow will need to be much more tech savvy than it is now or than I suspect I can be. That is but one small example of why it is that the emerging church that must surely come to birth in days to come will not be best served by the likes of me.

I must begin to plan to step aside and make way for a new generation whom I will support and for whom I will pray. But we are now in a new world, and it will not be my world.

 But all of that ‘stepping aside’ is for another post.

 For the moment, whether you love or loathe technology (or – like me – sometimes one and sometimes the other!) I invite you to ponder what life would have been like during this pandemic had it not been for computers, social media, the internet etc. If all this had happened in 1990 and not 2020, what would our lives have been like these last nine months?

 That very thought leads me to give thanks for technology!

COVID Malaise

  It is ages since I last posted on my blog.

 As I looked back in my blog folder I realised that I had planned some posts in August, but I never got the length of completing or publishing them….

 …just as well. There were three of them as part of a series ‘Emerging from Lockdown’!

 Except of course we did not quite emerge and have not properly emerged and may be some considerable time away from fully emerging!

 The whole thing has been fragile, staggered, uncertain and frustrating, and it is having a negative effect on so many of us. Not that I am criticising the governments… not at all. I think that it is very important to seek to contain and control this virus and I do not think that the decisions our politicians have to take are at all easy.

 I am simply reflecting on the fact that this ongoing situation is causing many people to experience weariness, low mood, loss of motivation, irritability etc etc. (and for some people the effect on mental health is far more severe).

 In conversation after conversation people mention these same feelings.

 I feel them all too, sometimes more and sometimes less. But this general sense of ‘COVID-malaise’ is rarely far away.

 So how do we cope with this? What are the strategies for dealing with it? Where do we find strength and positive coping mechanisms? How do we build resilience?

 I am asking the questions not providing the answers! I really don’t know. I think some of my ways of coping may be healthier than some of my other ways of coping! For me, trying to maintain a routine, a pattern of spiritual devotion, making sure I get out and about every day, exercise and so forth definitely helps. I also think I need to plan to do creative things (music, writing etc) as the few times I have engaged with these it has definitely helped.

 But the big thing is, I am missing people. I am missing spending time with people pastorally, in meetings, socially and so on. I am missing handshakes, hugs and the like. I am missing ‘normal’ worship (ie without physical distancing and face coverings and with singing!)

 It is interesting (and instructive) to realise that I miss all of that. And perhaps more than anything it is this absence that causes COVID-malaise?