| October Letter from the Rector |
|
New things are very nice; exciting, stimulating. The newness is great while it lasts, you see things differently, freshly, clearly. Coming to a new parish for a rector is a bit like that, you’ve to shake yourself up, look at the ideas you hold, habits you have, ways of doing things you haven’t thought about for years.
It’s a bit like that for parishioners, too, one would hope. A new cleric brings people out for a look-see who haven’t worn a very deep track to the church door before — and very welcome they are too. More accustomed members might become aware and appreciative of how they were doing things before without really paying attention. Eyes and minds and ears had been slowly closing over years because we knew what was going to happen next and didn’t need to think about it. A different voice, a different approach and angle. If it is stressful on the one hand [‘not what we’re used to’] hopefully it will also help growth and expansion and consolidation. [Parishioners’ mental tubes are entirely their own business, by the way.] I think I can do no better than put in writing here what I said in my first sermon: “I’m going to do what I did when I was ordained here 16 years ago. A friend of mine at university was much given to becoming obstreperous in drink. He would pick fights with the roughest man in the house, and offend everybody in sight. One night, before we went to the pub, he went round us all and shook each of our hands, and said he was sorry. When we asked why, he said it was because he knew he was going to get into trouble: he said, “I’ll apologise now, and save an embarrassing situation later”. So to save embarrassment later, I’m going to apologise now. Because I’m going to get it wrong, I’m going to offend someone by doing something, or by not doing something. Whether it’s a big thing or a small thing. Something I change or something I should have changed. But it’s going to happen, and possibly lots of it too, because that’s the way the world is. So I’m very sorry, and I apologise, and I’ll shake all your hands at the end of the service. My coming here is not a completely new departure. The best way to think of it is as a big sign in a shop window saying “Under New Mismanagement”. In the tradition of the Holy Church, from St Peter onwards, I am in a long line of clergy everywhere who sometimes gets it wrong, but, strangely, that gives me great confidence. There wasn’t a rector yet who pleased everybody, and God love the one who tried to. And I am not the boss, God is. I am not the leader, Christ is. I am not the church, we are. My job, in one sense, is to stay out of the road and let Jesus, the Holy Spirit, do his job. “I am not set over you, but amongst you and beside you.” The welcome we received on arriving here is very encouraging and affirming. I would like to ask you for your prayers for myself and Caitríona as we live here amongst you, that the Lord might bless our ministry in the time we have in this parish. Go gcumhdaí Dia sibh uilig, Gary |
You get the option to change, to grow a bit more and make your mind go sideways instead of on the same straight lines. You’re introduced to different ways of doing things, of thinking about things. If it’s stressful on the one hand, it’s also good for you on the other. ‘Flushes out the mental tubes’, so to speak.