Judas Priest

Well hello again,

I have got rather accustomed to the sarcastic question that sporadically pops up, what do Vicar’s do on days other than Sundays? Ha ha, chuckle, chuckle, titter, titter, snigger, snigger, well ‘absolutely nothing’ I say.

I have been ordained just short of twelve months and the suggestion that I only work one day a week and just 52 days a year may sound all rather humorous and desirable but the reality is far from this silly sardonic notion. And whilst I don’t do a regular 9-5 shift or have key performance indicators to gauge my endeavors I do think I work rather hard in the name of Christ.

With ordination to the Priesthood fast approaching this blog affords me a little time to reflect upon a quite whirlwind year as a Deacon in the Church of England and as an Assistant Curate at St Matthew’s in Burnley, Lancashire.

The most recent thing I have done as an ordained minister was bury a still born baby, the first significant thing I did as an ordained minister was walk around Tesco in my dog collar to see how people responded to a newly ordained man of the cloth. On reflection, and maybe unsurprisingly the funeral had a much bigger impact on me than the supermarket experience. Nobody gave a stuff about me wandering through the cold meat section of Tesco, no one batted an eyelid as I looked and prodded the doughnuts in the reduced counter and I left quickly and rather underwhelmed that nobody wanted to engage with a new member of the clergy contingent.

The funeral for the baby was private, full of love, deeply moving and distinctly overwhelming where words were possibly futile, religion was somewhat insignificant and yet somehow people appreciated my endeavors which if anything left me even more mystified by what I had just experienced. No training college or readers manual, no words or Bible stuff did the trick. Nothing can really measure up or offer much when doing such things, but I came away drained yet relieved and somehow I thanked God for what I had just accomplished

I help out a community centre every week I don’t talk about God or scripture but I always look how Anglo Catholic clergy should look, a huge dose of black cotton linen and a white thing that goes round my neck. A blind man at the club doesn’t call me Alex he calls me Parson and it was only by googling the word Parson did I understand what a Parson did. I’m not sure my daily habits or work ethic befit such a title but I accept it with grace as part and parcel of being ordained. He seems to like me !

Another ‘lady’ who frequents the community center holds me in slightly lesser esteem and I have come to accept that as a clergyman I hold no weight or authority whatsoever in her eyes. However I do come in handy as an occasional Taxi driver who can run her to and fro at a time that is exclusively convenient to herself whilst never being offered a gesture towards running costs. I of course don’t mind helping her out and rather enjoy her insults or humour as she describes it, and her constant insistence that I should wear something a bit more cheery will always fall on deaf ears.

I have come to accept that academia is for clever people who can make very complicated subjects appear even more complicated than they already are and I am yet to find a tutor who agrees with my own self appraisal that all my theological essays are quite outstanding and deeply thought provoking. On the contrary most tutors seem quite concerned at my lack of reading, referencing and use of English 'gramma' but somehow by the skin of my teeth I stumble through each module euphorically satisfied that at least I didn’t fail. After being frequently reminded about personality types, and things like Myers Briggs I have come to accept that it is not me but my personality that is at fault and if only I could be slightly more introverted and less attracted to social media then I would undoubtedly be climbing the greasy steeple to things far, far great than Parish ministry!!

I do pray rather a lot for a clergyman! I am never too far away from my next prayer sometimes deeply engaged in asking God to help, support, feed, sustain, heal etc. Other times I feel cut adrift from the real world, devoid of words, struggling and mispronouncing long verses in the Bible, lighting the wrong candles, or forgetting to kneel at the appropriate moment and generally being a second or two behind where I need to be. I do have a ‘mistake’ kind of culture in my being but on reflection I have never cocked up deliberately. I have always tried my best with 100% commitment and dedication as someone who if fast approaching the end of my Diaconate year.

I go and visit a person who has a terminal illness, the person thanks me for coming and says nice things, I find the visit just fine but it’s afterwards when I pull open the door to on the Chevrolet Aveo and sit in silence for a moment. Why has that person just thanked me? I have just had the privilege of taking communion to the patient and listen to a pragmatic approach to an illness that will send  the person to heaven sooner than they would have liked.  Constant pain and suffering and yet this special individual still manages to find the time to ask how I am and what I have been up to. I wish I could be as good a human being as this individual is!

I don’t think, in fact I am certain I could never be a school teacher as my Monday morning visits to our primary school as invariably moments of entertainment or observation for my comedic tendencies. The children make me smile, even when they are being a little unruly and not sitting or facing in the right direction. It is not my responsibility to control 30, four or five year olds and that’s probably a good thing but I look on with admiration and respect as teacher brings it all together like a master conductor at The Last Night of the Proms. My responsibility is to listen to them read to me, which I do before conversation invariably turns to Spiderman or Batman, Barbie or Dollies. I often forget my responsibility and to be honest I like to engage with the idle chitter chatter of an infant child much more than books with small words and big letters. I love going to school!

I remember being ordained last year; I invited every person I think I ever knew. Outside of marriage and parenthood this was the biggest thing ever to happen to me, I had just got through 3/4 years of theological education, and I was about to leave a job that had provided nice things for me and my family for the last fifteen years. I was giving up lots of ‘important’ responsibilities in exchange for having cups of tea with elderly people, I gave up a healthy salary so I could go and be a 46 year old man deeply out of his comfort zone. I would longer see colleagues and friends that sustained me and I’m no longer alongside people who understood my personality and laughed at my jokes in all the right places. Now I’m with Christians who I have lovingly got to know and where in the early months I attempted to speak the Queens English with a Burnley accent. I lost the security of employment for the instability of ministry, where people die, and people hurt, where people grieve and people mourn and where one is the representative of our Lord Jesus Christ. I try and do this humbly with humility as I think Jesus would.

I am about to ordained to the Priesthood, I’m not sure if I deserve this accolade, I not sure if I’m the real deal or not. Sometimes it’s hard not to consider I might be the Judas Iscariot of the ordained world, I’m not deeply theologically sound, I have my doubts from time to time, I day dream about being a comedian, I laugh far too much and I’m just a bloke from Burnley.

However if there is one thing that I do concede to is that I am of God, that for whatever reason I serve him with a loyalty and a conscience that I am totally committed to that I hope and pray will stay with me until God calls me home. I look forward to celebrating Holy Communion among God and his people; I will celebrate the Eucharistic feast with the pride of a loving son before his Father. I will give thanks for his impact on my life, and I will pray he walks this amazing but sometimes lonely road with me, each amazing step of the way.

Till next time, love and peace

Alex the Anglican.