John Davies - Notes From a Small Vicar

I'm offering you Delayed Gratification

By a quirk of their new subscription system I have been sent an extra issue of Delayed Gratification #12, and - with the blessing of the magazine's staff - I'm offering it to you, reader: first come, first served (contact me via the Comments box below).

It's a wonderful magazine, great to look at , excellent in concept - the concept being that of 'Slow Journalism'. Each quarterly Delayed Gratification revisits the news stories of  three months ago, those we've perhaps forgotten or which seem somewhat different when the writer applies the 'long view' to them. It's the perfect antidote to the  immediacy and rapid obsolecence of most other media. Its other great selling point is its look. With a beautiful, original, cover, each issue also features terrific infographics which illustrate aspects of social, political, sporting and cultural life (look at these examples). It even arrives in the post in a neat custom card envelope. My spare could be yours...

(Not feeling) 100 per cent Scouse

According to The Echo, having just completed their online test, I am 100 per cent Scouse. This is heartening, in many ways, because it tells me that despite all the wanderings in my life, I will always have this place which roots and grounds me. But when I took The Echo's Scouseometer Challenge I had to guess at a couple of answers (eg, I've never been called, or thought to call anyone a 'lid', but I guessed it meant 'mate') and felt a bit wobbly in parts, because I really don't feel 100 per cent Scouse these days. To the extent that in my latest bookshelf-purge-before-house-removal I've bundled up a large collection of books on Liverpool's history and culture* - it's time now to immerse myself in Somerset life and lore.

I'm also working on a possible book collecting together my writings from over the years, and in the process I've uncovered this one, which is perhaps too Scouse to make it into a publication aimed at a general readership - but for the initiated, here's my Liverpool Poem (my entry into the Liverpool Poem 800 competition in 2007, first blogged here and revised slightly today)....

If I were to write a Liverpool poem

It would have to contain the compulsory
word play
flipping syllables
juggling syntax
being wittily ironic.
It would probably pay homage to the city fathers:
Drummond, McCulloch, Cope
And the city mothers:
Kitty, Casey, Simey.
It might reference a famous saying by John Lennon:
“Gerrard's a concept
by which we measure our pain”
or do something involving Batman appearing on Canning Place
dressed like Adrian Henri.

If I were to write a Liverpool poem
It would celebrate the excellence 
of our two great football teams:
Everton and Marine.
It would stand on Crosby beach with those metal men staring out to Wales;
It would stand on Upper Park Street mourning the demise of the lovely Welsh streets;
It would repent of something
Then do it again.

If I were to write a Liverpool poem
I wouldn’t do it now.
I’d have to do it in the sixties
when I could take it to a Happening
and let it happen,
Or in the eighties
whilst seated at a table at the Armadillo
as a pained Erics punk
on my lunch hour.

If I were to write a Liverpool poem
I wouldn’t publish it, of course:
I’d have to perform it
whilst standing on a node of esoteric power
(Not the manhole on Mathew Street, that’s been overdone: Everton Brow's my preference)
Or seated on the original Superlambanana
Wherever that is now.

If I were to write a Liverpool poem
It wouldn’t be over sentimental
And it wouldn’t have many regrets.

*This collection is now for sale on the secondhand shelves of News from Nowhere. I'm selling other titles through My Amazon Storefront.

Starting over in Somerset

Today it was announced that the Bishop of Taunton has appointed me as Rector of Cam Vale Benefice, a group of six rural churches within a five mile radius of each other, either side of the River Cam just east of Yeovil. 

It is a delight to be called to serve God in a lovely part of Somerset, and (from the impression gained during our two days of orientation and interview) among some lovely people, in a benefice which is quite 'mature' (ie. they've been working together for 26 years and are happy to continue doing so). (More in the Parish Profile pdf)

Plans are in hand for a service of Institution and Welcome for Monday 31 March at 7.00pm with the Bishop of Taunton and the Archdeacon of Wells. I shall pass on further details in due course.

 

There's a nice symmetry about the date: 31st March will be exactly a year since my final services in Devon - on Easter Sunday 2013. I'll be in post to celebrate Easter 2014 in Somerset. And it was lovely to receive an email today from Cam Vale's previous rector, Revd Michael Perry, who tells me that he's dipped into my blog off and on for several years (I hope the congregations haven't heard too many of my sermons before) and is 'utterly thrilled' that God has called me to the Cam Vale Churches. 

 

We loved living in Lydford and serving the people of the Northmoor team, and only family reasons took us away. From there, this West Country benefice is about one-third of the journey north up the M5 to the North-West, which means that we'll be able to keep alive our friendships in West Devon as well as being more easily accessible to family and friends on Merseyside: a perfect 'compromise'.

 

Diana and I want to thank everyone who has helped and supported us over this past year. Since my untimely resignation from Whitegate and Little Budworth we've often visited the Slough of Despond and the Vale of Tears, and been through very many Dark Nights of the Soul, and your kindness and prayers have kept us going through twenty-one job applications and six unsuccessful interviews (and one job I was offered but had to turn down for financial reasons). Now we've reached Cam Vale we pray that God will smooth our path for a kinder, better journey ahead. 

 

So - if you've asked how we're doing, written references for me, said a prayer, suggested jobs, offered me a pulpit or the occasional crematorium celebrant role - or, in a couple of cases, a house! - many thanks.

 

The Diocese of Chester have extended their hospitality to us so that we can stay in Whitegate Vicarage until we move, which we imagine will be early in March. We will then be living in the Rectory at Queen Camel. Numbers etc to follow.

 

He came to his own

‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him' ... We might consider that verse in terms of today, Jesus coming to his own people here in the UK, where almost 60 per cent of us describe ourselves as Christian, but most don’t practice our faith by church attendence. ‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him.’ Why? Is it because a gap has opened up between the Jesus we think we know through two millenia of Christendom, and who the scriptures say he really is?

 - from my talk this week in flood-soaked Somerset, He came to his own, which is a briefer rerun of last Sunday's sermon, minus Holly Willoughby.

Holly Willoughby’s Nightmare (is God’s nightmare too)

... Whilst preparing this talk, a vision came to me which I have called Holly Willoughby’s Nightmare. It is this. That at the climax of one of her Surprise Surprise shows, when the long-lost brother from New Zealand and the family who thought they’d never see him again, make the walk towards each other on the stage, the family turn to each other and say, ‘That’s not him, is it? I don’t recognise him. He hasn’t got the family look’, and turn away and reject him.

The only tears in the TV studio in this scenario would be the deep, wrenching tears of rejection felt by the man who had travelled across the world with great hopes and anticipation in his heart, only to be so publicly and horribly spurned.

Holly Willoughby’s Nightmare is God’s nightmare too.  

‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him ...’ Imagine how that feels.

‘... But to all who did receive him, he gave power to become children of God.’

Imagine how that feels. ...

- from today's talk, Holly Willoughby’s Nightmare (is God’s nightmare too)