I can get as starstruck as the next man when confronted with someone "off the telly" but it was a real pleasure to meet Matt Baker, of Blue Peter and now Countryfile fame, his wife Nicola and his family on the occasion of baptising their new baby, Molly, at Winston on Sunday Morning.  We have it on good authority from Molly's big brother Luke that they enjoyed the service very much! We also raised £232.30 for the people in Haiti.

 

Going back a few days it was also a pleasure to welcome Bishop Mark who took the assembly at Gainford primary school on Thursday. In a novel beginning he started in silence, just looking at the children, and just before it became uncomfortable he started speaking in a very soft voice "Once...... upon...... a...... time......" Mark certainly had their rapt attention from then on.

 

You may celebrate the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, sometimes known as Candlemas on the 2nd February or you may have brought it forward to Sunday - but anyhow, it marks the official end of the Christmas and Epiphany season. It marks a watershed in the liturgical year whereby Sundays stop being "of Epiphany" and start being called "before Lent".

In the gospel story Luke has mixed two separate things, the presentation of the first born and the purification of the mother - the "presentation" of the first born actually implies no visit to the Temple and it is actually the purification of Mary that is the ritual Luke is describing.  The "purification of Mary" is an earlier name for the feast and still one you will come across in the church. Purifying oneself owes everything to a cultic religious system almost completely alien to our modern ways of seeing things. You could only take part in religious duties and celebrations if you were ritually clean and there existed reams of rules and regulations that people were supposed to follow, including of course, ritual washing before meals and kosher food laws - both of which Jesus eschewed. One of the things that made a person unclean was a flow of blood and of course childbirth came within this orbit. So after childbirth a woman needed ritual purification - re-admittance to cultic practices. If you want to read the actual law on which this episode is based look up Leviticus chapter 12. So the scene is set for the encounter with Simeon and Anna.

Coming as it does as a watershed between Epiphany and the liturgical journey to the cross there is a bitter-sweet aspect to Candlemas.  The significance of Jesus is revealed to Simeon and Anna (an epiphany theme) but also the pain that will ensue. Simeon says "This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign to be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed - and a sword will pierce your own soul too".

In the Orthodox church it is the day that the believers bring their beeswax candles that they will use at home during the year to church to be blessed. In the west, where normally we don't use candles so much at home, it has become the day when some high churches bless their candles for liturgical use during the year - hence the other name - Candlemas!

 

You should by now all have a list in church to sign up to this event if you want to go - to be completed by the 7th February. I have attached the poster to this email outlining the full programme just in case. Bishop's Mark and Tom will both be there. A coach is leaving Barny at 7am (ouch) with pick up points at Staindrop and Evenwood. There will be a charge for this service of approximately £10. We have a person coordinating the pilgrimage for this Deanery, and that is the Reverend Emma Johnson so if you have any other enquiries these can be directed to her on 01388 834594.

 

Here is something for you to just think about for the moment. Let me whet your appetite. Have you ever thought that your church could support in some way a small project abroad?  CMS (The Christian Mission Society) has been cutting back its funding for various ventures in Europe because of their own financial troubles which has left some of their mission partners high and dry, and I have been alerted by Alistair McNaughton to the situation of two people, husband and wife Valentin and Daniella Kozhuharov who on the 2nd January this year set up a mission centre in a town called Veliko Turnovo in Bulgaria whose remit is to improve relations between the Orthodox and Anglican churches - amongst others - and to learn from each other. This has the blessing of Bishop Gregorii of Veliko Turnovo and they have just opened the brand new mission centre in the town and Valentin has been appointed head of mission in the Diocese. He has five rooms - one is an office and the others are to be used to accommodate visiting Christians from abroad. He and his wife used to be based in Moscow training RE teachers for the Moscow Patriarchate (so pretty hot stuff) and are now back in Bulgaria involved with this new project but CMS will be forced to stop funding them soon. They are funded with approx. £200 per month by their own Bishop but this kind of money only lasts only about ten days in Bulgaria so they are seeking other funding to grow the mission. They want to welcome groups from abroad and to learn from them. Bulgarian Orthodoxy is in a very different place from Western Christianity and only through better contact can we learn and grow together.  A different kind of mission. This could be an exciting opportunity for individuals, churches or group of churches to support an initiative from the bottom up. It could eventually lead to exchanges, fraternal and educational, for adults and young people. Who knows? From little acorns........If you are interested just register that interest with me. I am in contact with Valentin and we will proceed together.

Note: Veliko Turnovo is a beautiful town, built on high ridges and it used to be the old capital of Bulgaria. It was here that I was exploring opening another Anglican church before our attentions turned to Macedonia. There are hundreds of British second home owners in this area because of the beauty and charm of Veliko. There is even an English style pub that sells fish and chips! 

 

I saw a great programme last night outlining the liberal Christian faith of Barack Obama and how he outflanked the evangelical right to gain the presidency for the Democrats. The biggest impression one was left with is just how different the USA and Britain are culturally. When Tony Blair was PM he was advised by his press guru Alistair Campbell that in British politics "We don't do God" lest the electorate thought you might be a bit weird. In the USA by comparison it is thought quite impossible to get elected without the support of Christians of one hue or another. Religion is worn on the sleeve and there were fascinating clips of Obama being interviewed by the pastor of the conservative "Saddleback" church and another making a speech saying he would ignore Leviticus and Deuteronomy and be led instead by the sermon on the mount. He came to faith in a radical liberal church in South Chicago which espoused a social gospel of equality and emancipation. The faith he found there is driving him still. The health care system he is trying to introduce in the USA springs directly from the social gospel - politics and faith inextricably mixed. Most of the opposition comes from the evangelical Christian right, desperate to wound him as much as they can. We were treated to the extraordinary admission by the leader of the Southern Baptists that he opposed the health care reforms because they were "too comprehensive" - I was left open mouthed -The reforms include too many poor black people presumably!  The sub text of the Republican - Democrat divide is the widening division between conservative and liberal Christianity. The programme was made by the black British theologian Robert Beckford, a man I have only met once but who is quite impressive. If you see it repeated give it a whirl.

 

British politics can be rough but Romanian politics always has a few little exotic twists and turns. I am indebted to the Bucharest corespondent of Associated Press (and a former church warden of COR Bucharest), and friend, Alison Mutler, for this breaking story this week....... 

 

Was a top contender for the Romanian presidency zapped out of the race by a shadowy parapsychologist enlisted by his rival?

The claim might be dismissed as preposterous in most other EU countries. But here in Romania, home of Dracula and other occult traditions, Mircea Geoana's assertion that a "negative energy attack" led to his narrow loss to re-elected President Traian Basescu has been the talk of the nation.

At first Romanians mocked their ex-foreign minister saying he was a bad loser. Basescu himself jokingly dismissed the allegations. But the recent publication of photos showing well-known parapsychologist Aliodor Manolea close to Basescu during the campaign has caused Romanians to ask whether the president really did put a hex on his rival.

The photos show Manolea, a slightly built, bearded man with a round face and cropped receding hair, walking yards (meters) behind Basescu ahead of the debate. Manolea's specialties include deep mind control, clairvoyance and hypnotic trance, according to the Romanian Association of Transpersonal Psychology.

Manoela's alleged role in the elections evokes age-old Balkan rituals where the evil eye, witch doctors and other mysterious forces were used to launch mystic energy attacks on opponents and sap hapless victims of their vital strength.

 

Baptism policy and practice can be a hot topic amongst many clergy.Should it be hard or soft? Make 'em leap through burning hoops or a completely open policy with minimal preparation? I have experienced both kinds. Some churches in my last Deanery in Canterbury made people attend a full Alpha course before they would baptise their children. My church did nothing except welcome them with open arms (how did you guess?). The really interesting thing is that when it came to asking how many families retained their commitment to the church after baptism - the results of both methods were identical - almost complete failure with the previously unchurched. In fact I think we did marginally better than most but not much. In Margate I baptised about 60 children a year for four years, so gained a little experience and I learned a lot about human nature. I learned that parents will do anything and say anything to get what they want for their children. If it is a baptism they are after, a baptism they will have. Believe me, Aunt Ethel, Mum and wider family expectations hold much more sway in their lives than the church or God! 

 

I used to ask all the curates from the other church traditions on my Post ordination training how they did things and they all admitted that no matter how difficult they made it, how doctrinaire they were, how many hoops they made people jump through, how many courses they devised, how many times they made people come to church beforehand, the result was exactly the same. Nearly all of the parents would comply with anything to get the desired result and afterwards they were gone. It is not malicious - it is people doing what they see as being best for the children. It is the same story a few years later when it is time for the children to get into a decent school. There is a saying nowadays amongst middle class parents that you either "pay or pray" to get into a decent school. Churches in London boroughs especially see an influx at certain times of year when it is time for the admission papers to be signed by the vicar to qualify as a church attendee for the church school with the high grades and good reputation.

It is also a curious fact that when I was at Doncaster prison (learning from the chaplain, not as an inmate) the main chaplain told me that the ones who lasted the longest were paradoxically the ones where there was no preparation at all.  

So after all those considerations, what to do? Well, the lesson I suppose is that the Spirit blows where he wills and trying to control Him is vanity but for what it is worth I do try and spend some time "translating" the liturgy into something rational and meaningful for today and impress upon parents the beautiful thing they are doing. And I have never met anyone who couldn't grasp the concept of turning towards the good and away from things which are objectively bad, so that's a good start. If they can also grasp that a relationship is being officially inaugurated between their child and God that needs to be nurtured to be kept alive that is even better. If they can also see that this relationship consists of spiritual healing and seeing the world differently, better still. If it also conveys belonging, to God and each other, brilliant.

How do we try and do that? The best thing I have come up with is to simply relax and let the symbols speak. I am by conviction a sacramentalist. Symbols can speak far louder than words to most people. It might seem very optimistic to hope that anyone has a mystical experience of God during a baptism service and most of the time you would be right, but then sometimes, just sometimes......The oil of healing, the waters of new life, and the light of Christ can still knock many people sideways - just when they were least expecting it. They needed no preparation, just an openness to what was going on. It is the one thing I ask from people - to be open to wherever and however the Spirit takes them. Sometimes even that basic openness is missing, but if people really are open, it is still a lovely sight to see a great bruiser of a bloke caught off guard with a tear in his eye, genuinely moved. And that is our business - moving people.    

 

The prayer for today is beautiful and comes from the community of St. Hilda. Notice here that the Spirit is feminine in accordance with ancient tradition

 

 

Love and peace

 

Martin