John Davies - Notes From a Small Vicar

Attending to the smallest things on Sardine Street

Why Sardine Street in the title of A Sardine Street Box of Tricks? After all, Phil Smith and Simon Persighetti's book describes and discusses a series of walks, interventions, experiments, and other myth-making merriment, on Exeter's Queen Street. So why sardine? Because, they tell us, sardines were depicted on models or banners in mock funeral processions to mark the last day of Carnival (as in Goya's painting The Burial of the Sardine). 'Carrying [the symbol of a sardine on a pole] was a mark of a promise to ourselves to attend to (and tend) the smallest and seemingly most insignificant things of the street.'

They took a year doing it, and the book is a terrific resource for anyone wanting to attemt something similar on their own street, wherever that may be: it is 'a handbook for making a one street 'mis-guided tour'. Identifying your significant street, mounting your walk, and collecting your own relics.' It  complements rather than supercedes their earlier Mis-Guides and is especially helpful for its detailed explanations which accompany each step of the methods described along the way:

The extraordinary in the ordinary: there is a particular dynamic between materiality and immateriality. By taking a piece of detritus from the street, or a can of abject booze, or a momentary juxtaposition of a dove and a white plastic bag and mouldig each of them, through an action, into an idea.

I liked what they said about the Mis-Guide 'wear[ing] something that sets you apart and allows others to have permission to approach you: "Excuse me, what are you supposed to be?" Or: "what are you doing?"' 'The role of 'mis-guide' should expose the problems of the conventional guide (prejudices, the anti-democratic expert, the limitation of meaning).' This made me decide, that when I take a group of WI ladies on a tour around Lydford next week, I shall expose my ignorance of the subject-matter by wearing a set of L-plates, my invitation to them to critique me and make their own  contributions to a new story we might build of the places we walk. Having said that, this Sardine Street Box of Tricks has also reminded me of the great value of deep, intensive research (theirs, on-street, in-library and on-line, took three years before they started their walks). So I'm off to do some deep digging into local history to inform the stories we share as we tour these village streets next week....

Christianity for Adults

At last, an 'introduction to Christianity' course for adults! For some time now James Alison and the Raven Foundation have been working on The Forgiving Victim: the Adult Introduction to Christianity Course; it's now at the stage of consultation and the Raven Foundation has made available for previewing some fragments of the forthcoming DVD course. The Foundation is interested in hearing your take on them - if you have time, of course. The survey can be found here. Well worth a look. At four to six minutes each, these video fragments will be at the core of my daily devotions this coming week... maybe you'll help James out by taking a look and responding too. James' website is here.

Things come in threes, or George and his triple bypass

I re-rehearsed my 2008 sermon, Things come in threes, for the people of Inwardleigh, Sourton and later Germansweek today. It's a bit of fun but it gets the Trinity across, I think. Great feedback too... as in this extract from the afternoon's version:

Preachers get worked up about the Trinity. They think it's something that other people will never understand. A complex doctrine beyond the theologically untrained. If I ever get that arrogant or ignorant, fire me.

Because God has ordained that things come in threes.

And most of the time that helps us, comforts us, pleases us. We get it. We know what that's about.

I’ve preached this sermon twice already today. At Inwardleigh people came up to me afterwards and said I could have mentioned the Three Wise Men, or Three Blind Mice; and one man told me that he had realised for the first time ever, that behind the altar there, are three windows, each a with picture illustrating one person of the Trinity - Father, Son and Spirit.

And at Sourton old George Heathman smiled wryly throughout my talk and later told me nonchalantly that this week he’d had a triple heart bypass operation....

There are signs of the Trinity everywhere in our lives, in the world, if we are tuned in to seeing them.

      If we understand threes then we understand God.

      If we understand God then we understand threes.

The foodbank and the company of ghosts

Weeks after I penned it, the Church Times last Thursday published my article about the rise of the Okehampton Foodbank. It seems to have made good waves. As it ought: on the strength and integrity of the project alone. And this week I have completed a piece called M62: in the company of ghosts. It's for Erbacce Press, who are working on a book about motorways, 'encompassing poetry, art and academic work about motorways', and who liked what they read of my 2007 motorway walk. Nice to revisit it, put slight new slants on some of the stories and observations. And to offer them some road poems from the book as well. I'll look forward to seeing it in print.

Blame it on the wine - a hint of Pentecost at Bratton Village hall

When the time for the Saturday night celebration party of the Bratton Clovelly - Nonant Twinning Association came, they were all gathered together in one place - Bratton Village Hall. Now there were people there who had been doing this for years: Devonians from birth, those who had made Bratton their home after a life lived elsewhere, people who seldom left Bayeux except to make this trip, experienced French travellers; good linguists, bad linguists, those whose local accents were so strong that even their neighbours sometimes found it difficult to understand what they were saying. The crowd gathered and enjoyed their evening together, the language barriers between them melted as they communicated through a stronger, more intuitive language of wine, music, and dance; body language, signs, symbols and song. As the gathering applauded Reg's rendition of 'I love Paris in the Springtime' all were amazed and perplexed, saying, 'What does this mean?' But others said, 'It's because of the wine.' And it may well have been, because it was way, way past nine o'clock in the evening.

Following up last weekend's events by suggesting they carried just a hint of Pentecost: Gathering the scattered - the Holy Spirit's work, was today's talk.

Smells and bells

Interesting couple of weeks services: last Sunday a Rogation celebration in a big barn a mile from here; tomorrow a bilingual communion for the French guests of the people of Bratton Clovelly, on their annual twinning exchange from Nonant. Inbetween, an Ascension service in which we snuffed out scented candles to signify that whilst Christ has gone in substance he's still around (as in 'May the fragrance of Jesus fill this place'). And today a service for the Okehampton Deanery Ringers Association ringing competition. It's also St Petroc's Day, so very appropriate to be in the church of that name, in Lydford, for the occasion. And that gave me a theme, a meditation on whether the peregrini, the wandering Welshman Petroc, was a model for bellringers, or whether they should stick with the  (at least) four patron saints they already have, including Agatha, whose breasts, brutally cut from her body at her martyrdom, were mistaken by early ringers guilds as bells, and adopted as guild emblems.... Ringing the good news on Saint Petroc’s Day: today's talk.