Under the weather?

Today saw probably the most concentrated snow we have experienced here in our time. The best part of 12 inches has landed, and almost everything has ground to the usual halt such weather induces in Southern England. I know we don’t carry the gear because it’s only this bad a few days a year, but we lost about 30 days last year to such snow, and you’d think if the total losses were grossed up over a few years, it would be worth someone’s while to kit up for days such as this.

Just for the record, another feature of this week has been me staggering around like Frankenstein’s monster with a wooden leg, thanks to an enterprising Indian critter unspecified that managed to infect a sac in my rght knee. Sad Sac is not over blessed with blood supply, so two batches of big chunky antibiotics have gone down the hatch — come next Wednesday we may have a result. It’s the only time in my life my knee has had a temperature without the rest of me having it, too. Insane or what?

Acknowledging the Unquiet Dead

The time aorund All Souls Day can be disturbing. This year I went to our local RC Church with my friend and colleague Bishop Peter Doyle of Northmapton and the Archbishop of Ljubljana for a Mass of Reparation for the victims of Slovene atrocities in May and June of 1945. This was all put together by Keith Miles of the Anglo-Slovene society. The Slovene Ambassador attended, and we all ended up on Slovene TV, an unusual experience. The story behind this event does not reflect well on anyone, but it’s important to acknowledge its significance and learn from it.

It concerns 12,000 Slovenian troops who had fought for Nazi Germany and surrendered in Austria. Those who knew they might not fare well in Stalin’s hands rushed to surrender to the Americans and British, hoping to save their lives from the gulags. It appears they were promised humane treatment and a home in Italy, then packed by the British into cattle trucks that took them “home”. Who knew how much when, and how these actions relate to the scramble among the Allies as the future iron curtain was forming up in 1945 is still unclear.

The cattle trucks took them to a place now known as Huda Jama, where they were herded through a 320 metre tunnel to pits where they were stripped and systematically slaughtered. Their bodies were walled in to avoid future detection, and the whole affair tactfully forgotten. You need make no value judgment about these peoples’ politics or why they fought on the side they did in World War II to see it does nobody any credit to pretend about such an atrocity.

Brits and Americans like to believe we were always the good guys. In the main we were, perhaps, but we have our own dirty little secrets, too, and it does no harm to be reminded of our own capacity to be complicit in evil, just like everybody else. The murderers were home grown, but they would never have been able to murder without British troops herding prisoners of war into cattle trucks, some like the Michael Palin character handing out crosses in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, courteously and perhaps even with a few twinges of regret that they might be sending those poor devils to their deaths. Well, they were. Even (especially?) the British need reminding that sometimes the interests of the Great Game, courtesy and administrative efficiency, are not enough.

These were not the only nor the latest tunnels full of of dead bodies, not even in the former Yugoslavia. Only by encoding the past in a truthful way can we hope to understand our own capacity for evil, complicit or instrumental. Only by acknowledging that can we truly resolve to act differently, should our turn ever come to make the kind of fundamental moral choice, life or death, that most home counties Pelagian English obfuscate about and avoid. The unquiet dead should not go away without some formal acknowledgment, and act of reparation.

Passion Play in Great Missenden

Since the publication in 1986 of Lent Holy Week and Easter, churches have increasingly enriched their observances. Real ashes on Ash Wednesday, Palm processions, and the washing of feet on Maundy Thursday are now found all over the place where once they were rather top shelf activities.

This week Great Missenden Parish Church is putting on a simple Passion Play, locally produced, developed and resourced from scratch by a group of friends led by Brenda Harris. It’s certanly a fresh way of being drawn into the story. Being in the cast also draws people together, strengthens community, and enables everyone to experience the story from the inside out. What is lost in Broadway slickery is regained, and more, in impact when you know all the people on stage, and off. The short play comes with a simple meal in Church for those who want it, and 7·30 tonight is the last performance, for this year.

This is a brave and moving endeavour for a local Church. Holy Week is a time to explore the story personally, and this production certainly brought it to life.

The use of drama in Church grew through the middle ages, aided by Franciscan spirituality with its cribs and other visual aids. Plays became suspect, though, for their embellishments and, perhaps, their inherently hazardous blend of doctrinal creativity on the hoof and local colouring, seasoned by all the precariousness of a live show.

Afficionados of full-on Anglican Life and Literature cannot forget Reverend Wiggin’s Christmas Pageant at Christ Church Gravesend New Hampshire. This is one of the finest pieces of comic writing there is, in the Quintessential Anglican novel, John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. The Christmas Pageant, recounted with undersattement and comic tension worthy of Joyce Grenfell, is an irrestible imbroglio from which Owen rises heroically

‘What’s wrong with the Christ-Child?’ Barb Wiggin asked.
‘ALL THOSE BABIES,’ Owen said. ‘JUST TO GET ONE TO LIE IN THE MANGER WITHOUT CRYING. DO WE HAVE TO HAVE ALL THOSE BABIES?’
‘But it’s like the song says, Owen,’ the Rector told him. “Little Lord Jesus no crying he makes.”
‘OKAY, OKAY,’ Owen said. ‘BUT ALL THOSE BABIES - YOU CAN HEAR THEM CRYING. EVEN OFFSTAGE YOU CAN HEAR THEM. AND ALL THOSE GROWN-UPS!’ he said. ‘ALL THOSE BIG MEN PASSING THE BABIES IN AND OUT. THEY’RE SO BIG - THEY LOOK RIDICULOUS. THEY MAKE US LOOK RIDICULOUS.’
‘You know a baby who won’t cry, Owen?’ Barb Wiggin asked him — and, of course, she knew as soon as she spoke... how he had trapped her.
‘I KNOW SOMEONE WHO CAN FIT IN THE CRIB,’ Owen said. ‘SOMEONE SMALL ENOUGH TO LOOK LIKE A BABY,’ he said. ‘SOMEONE OLD ENOUGH NOT TO CRY.’
Mary Beth Baird could not contain herself. ‘Owen can be the Baby Jesus!’ she yelled. Owen Meany smiled and shrugged.
‘I CAN FIT IN THE CRIB,’ he said modestly.
Harold Crosby could no longer contain himself, either; he vomited. He vomited often enough for it to pass almost unnoticed, especially now that Owen had our undivided attention...

I’m not sure people this side of the pond are yet ready for such glorious experiences, but, this worked better than that. Seeing neighbours and friends in the story helps us locate ourselves within the plot. The play was well-supported, and may well develop further in future years...

Trouble Brewing — Stirring Times

Great Missenden’s Big Brew took place a couple of Saturdays ago in the Parish Church. Its context was Living Hope, an environmental day conference organised by the local Church. It brought together national and local leaders from green organizations like A Rocha, CAFOD, CCOW, Christian Aid, Christian Ecology Link, Tearfund and Traidcraft with an audience of 130 people. There were three keynotes to kick proceedings off:

1. Paula Clifford argued for a passionate realism about where we stand, including an awarenss that others around the world are paying a heavy price for our indecision. One thought for the day was that “politicians are a renewable resource”. She suggested three prime sources of hope in torubled times:
   — Community: The Body of Christ is a central NT concept, but can be an elusive ideal. We need to re-estabish what this means for ourselves locally, nationally and internationaly
   — Interdependence: is a pragmatic reality which is often underestimated or abused. How are we interdependent in a global world, and how shuld we be?
   — Mission: Christians have, since hte beginning, been turning the world upside down; but how would a carbon-neutral world look and feel, and how do we bring it about?
   
   
2. Chris Sunderland of Earth Abbey told us that in his lifetime world population had grown from 2.5 billion to 6.7 billion, and we need to re-imagine our way of life. Some people are sharing their land and working fewer days to reconnect with each other and the land, and he commended local projects and ideas like GrowZones.
   
   
3. Dave Bookless of A Rocha believed that since Copenhagen concern about climate change had slipped down the political agenda. We had also missed the opportunity of the financial crisis to reboot our banking system and returned to business as usual. The environment isn’t the problem — we are! Lord May, an atheist, wants Churches to invoke fear of a divine punisher to make people act. This aspiration is understandable, if a little nutty. Dave argued that, like St Francis, we need to open our eyes, minds and hearts to God, the Earth, and the other person.
   — We are fallen, with a propensity for idolatry. God’ first commission in Scripture was to steward the earth.
   — We need a Copernical reeconfiguration of our attitudes — earth doesn”t revolve around us.
   — The other is a significant figure in Scripture. The alien within our gates matters, and with the prospect of serious migration driven by climate change we need to get our heads and hearts arund the consequences.
   

There followed smaller meetings on a variety of topics from greening school buildings to liturgy, the practicalities of ground and air-source heating, to the latest climate science. This event certainly showed that local churches and groups can put on top notch training events around the issues facing us. Congratulations to Margaret Dixon and her local team for pulling it all together. The event has now gone on to a website for follow up and sharing of ideas — earthingfaith.org.

There’s no getting away from the fact that getting real about our environment involves choices for us all, and has an inevitable political dimension. Therefore, to wrap things up, I chaired an afternoon session with David Lidington, our local MP. His thought-provoking review of the major issues and realities brought in experience of the national and international scene and demonstrated, to my mind, courage and leadership in two potentially awkward areas:

1. David mentioned what would otherwise have been one dreaded elephant in the room — the new high speed rail link across the Chilterns. This issue could turn into ignorant armies clashing by night, stigmatising the other lot as NIMBY’s or Tree-huggers. We actually need some light as well as heat, here. There is no cost-free way of maintaining a high tech society, but by the same token there’s no point saving the environment by mucking up the local environment unnecessarily. There are some cute calls to be made. Public Consultation on the £17Bn scheme begins in earnest this autumn, and people need to lock onto the global and local realities closely and imaginatively.
   
   
2. David very helpfully discussed how the process of politics actually works for jobbing MP’s — genuinely personal communications arising from real experience are, inevitably, more helpful than name-calling bulk productions, which are more helpful than nothing, perhaps, but don't actually give MP’s much to go on. The message I heard was (my words not his) “Be personal, be real, and above all, get involved!”
   

This is a troubled time to be green. There is a fair amount of disappointment from Copenhagen. Powerful vested interests are manning the bar on the Titanic with glad tidings that the icebergs are illusory and the party must go on. What I don’t get is, even if it could be proved scientifically that pumping tons of needless crap into the sky doesn’t actually affect anything that matters, where’s the fun in dong that? Wouldn’t it be even more fun to tread lightly and with self-awarensss towards habits of living that go with the grain of life?

Hunkering down in the snow?

Cloudy today, after yesterday’s great freeze, as we await fresh snow over the coming weekend:

Various people have been commenting on the closure of our schools — over 170 in Buckinghamshire. It’s fun for a day, but puts working families to considerable hardship, especially single parents.

I vividly remember a two mile trek to school through conditions like this in the days just before obsessive health & safety anxiety and the great car society. Someone was telling us that in the big freeze up of 1947 schools were assiduously kept open, because they were well heated with food supplies for all the children.

Perhaps we are experiencing extra inconvenience because of our dependence on the car — most teachers, like everyone else, live far further away from where they work than in the 60’s. We do have the Internet, but the freeze is forcing us to think local.

I am really impressed by the ways various Bucks churches were instantly opened and made available for overnight accommodation with people stuck in the last fall of snow. If we are in for an extended bout of such weather, it will become increasingly urgent for all of us to be looking out for neighbours who may be housebound, ill, short of fuel or basic supplies, or stuck for childcare — ask what you can do to help in Church in Sunday, if you can get there...

all pictues from Great Missenden yesterday, except for the picture from the Coventry Telegraph of Mrs Margaret Darmody (nee Pratt) of Leamington going to Coundon infants school in Coventry in 1947.

Siberia on the Misbourne

Be careful what you pray for, because you might just get it. I dedicate this Seasonal cheesy snack of an observation to anyone who’s been praying for a white Christmas. This year, in our little pocket of the Chilterns, we seem to be about to get one. Like King George V in 1932, it is only through one of the marvels of modern Science I am enabled to communicate. All other media have fallen over.

Bing Crosby used to reckon a snowy whiteout was ideal for Christmas cards. Really? With iced up roads, and a flaky rail service, I beg to differ, Mr so-called Crosby. Furthermore we have a seasonal tradition of trouble and strife at the Royal Mail. This august organisation seems to be managed with all the finesse of the 1920‘s foreign legion. Simple rational command and control breeds irrational anger. Floggings will continue until the workforce become a caring sharing integrated team of skilled 21st Century professionals. I should Cocoa.

An impending white Christmas is not comfortable but it brings some simple joys — beauty, a house full of effervescent teenagers, the joy of sledging down the road, passing on my way, with schadenfreude, some poor geezer in a giant Merc trying to drive it forwards and finding his trusty steed will only go sideways. Large Mercedes do that, I’m told. Yet another reason not to pop out and buy one. Not that anyone’s popping anywhere right now.

We are staggering around in slightly undersized wellies through a very British winter wonderland. We wonder what’s happened to the gritting lorries, and whether the plumbing will hold. We wonder why our public transport is such a shambles. We see Cancelled services — Church as well as buses — abandoned cars on every hill, the cat up to its stomach in snow wondering where to take a dump. 100 stranded staff and customers slept last night in our Wycombe John Lewis store. Today, Lucy offered emergency accommodation to some people sranded in the village, but they managed to get out, in the end, under their own steam.