Holy Haddock

Scientific name: Melanogrammus aeglefinus
Market name: Haddock
Common names: Haddock, Finnan Haddie

I wonder if anyone has a spare Haddock about their person they would lend me for a while? These excellent looking Haddock are just the kind of thing I'm looking for. And I know you'll wonder why.

In our house the phrase 'slap me round the face with a wet haddock' is one of those things we say when we want someone to wake us up or surprise us in some small way. It maybe due to my fish selling ancestors that this phrase has entered our reperoire - then again perhaps not.

I need a wet Haddock to wake up a group of people who have written a very irritating book. The book 'Evangelism in a Spiritual Age: communicating faith in a changing culture' is by Stephen Croft and friends and published by Church House Publishing for the Anglican Church (2005). And why do I want to slap Stephen and his mates round the face with a wet Haddock. 'Cos they need to wake up -that's why.

The book pretends to be a new way of thinking about evangelism. Oh who will deliver us from this dratted 'e' word? A bunch of well meaning 'e' folk have got together and written a well meaning book about 'e' (not the controlled substance that concerned Professor Nutt this week) in a spiritual age - that's now they reckon.

It begins with Yvonne Richmond (first Haddock for her) telling us how she gave up her more agressive form of 'e' for a gentler listening sort of 'e' and whoa how surprised was she to find that she developed relationships with people. If that was not enough we then get a long commentary on a research project (good research project, maybe a nice plate of Haddock and chips for the researcher) in which we find out that ordinary people want to ask six big questions (more haddock please). I'll leave you to guess which ones.

Then Mark Ireland (two Haddock for him, one on each cheek - he'd doubtless turn the other one anyway) tells us how to do this sort of gentle 'e' in ordinary churches at funerals and at Christmas and such like. What the Haddock does he think we've been doing all this time (I do not believe it)? 'Perhaps we need to stop assuming that those who don't go to church have no faith' is smuggly says on page 77. For goodness sake, you do not even deserve all this Haddock I'm throwing at you. What sort of ministry have you people been practising all this time. And published by the Anglican Church. Well quite frankly you deserve everyone to leave (my ancestors left in 1662 by the way).

So why read the book at all. All I can say in my defense is I was asked to for a CWM conference I am preparing to take part in during January 2010. The book seems to think there is some sort of fringe or edge to the church that people inhabit vaguely or fall off. I can't say I see it that way. During a CWM event in 1994 I had the vision of a church with no inside or outside. I refered to it at my ordination, when I got a roll of toilet paper and threw it down the aisle in a long stream and then ripped it up (I think that was after I held up my bra). Mr Ireland says the new Anglican liturgies 'intentionally allow latitude' (page 83). Unfortunately not quite as much latitude as that.

So for now I'm staying out - where ever that is. If the book did anything positive for me it reminded me to keep moving. Once the well meaning 'e' folk start to catch up with you and begin to espouse something that sounds warm and 'bunny cuddly' as a friend of mine put it, it's time to be on your way, looking for the cutting edge of the gospel out there, everywhere, anywhere. Haddock anyone?

The dream comes alive

Last week Delory Brown, better known to Vision4life contacts as Gaius from Welcome to Corinth, starred as Martin Luther King Jnr at the Lawrence Bately Theatre in Huddersfield. As part of Black History Month, this was also a local celebration of talent. The programme began with a young rap poet, Samuel Wyatt, who has won prizes for his poems. He was followed by a local choir, the True Colours Gospel Choir who sang some of the songs from the civil rights era.

The Dream Comes Alive was a fictional interview between MLK and Moira Stewart, played by Huddersfield actress Lindsay Pascall, and accompanied by archive footage of King.

Brown had obviously done a lot of work to prepare for this role, which he did superbly. The cellar theatre is a small space and this was really the only drawback of the whole evening. Brown could easily have filled a bigger space and indeed it was a shame that he did not have the opportunity to do so. Speaking for alomost the entire time, with only questions interpolated by Pascall in her role as the well known newsreader, King/Brown began be recalling his early life and inspiration. There were many young people in the audience and everyone was hooked by his portrayal of the man who for some many epitomises the Black struggle. He then reviewed the main tennents of non violent resistance and ended with a glimpse into the future: what would MLK have made of the war in Afganistan?

Brown himself has an imposing physical presence and when he stood to give the final 'I have a dream' speech it was clear that he could have benefited from a bigger space in which to perform. The speech itself is well know and it was wonderful to hear the sentences rolling across the audience, including as it does so much 'Remembered Bible'. All together this was an excellent evening and if your local community decides to remember Black history month this way then look no further than Delroy Brown to fill the role. Failing that opporunity you can still catch his portrayal of Gaius on the Vision4life website: http://www.vision4life.org.uk/ (and go to the download DVD section).

Give us this day our daily potato

This year we grew our own potatoes.

They grew better on one side of the hills than the other.

The west side of the hills is wetter and the ground heavier. Also the potatoes seemed to get more disease and pests there. The east side of the hills was drier but being the north of England not so dry as to dry them out. As you can see we got some good potatoes. We also got some beans, cabbages, spring onions, tomatoes and other stuff.

We also had quite a lot of plums on our plum trees. Here is a poem about all of this gardening:

Plum picker

I’m not the plum picker
I’m the plum picker’s friend.
I’m only picking plums
till the plum season ends.

I am a
plum gatherer,
bean stalker,
potato lifter
wasp botherer
jam stirrer
pie baker
spud roaster
harvest admirer

Of course my attempts at growing fruit and vegetables, whilst they have made a difference to our health, are not on the same scale as that of women all over the world who have to grow stuff to live.

Heavenly gardener, give us this day our daily potato, yam or pumpkin.

As we marvel at the growing may we dig justly so that all may justly dig.

How can they remember who have never heard?

This must be the most frequently asked question about RB. At almost every event someone says 'But this won't work because ...' and it's usually because there is thought to be insufficient bible knowledge in the common pool for folks to engage in RB. In other words my opening generalisation 'There's a bible in everyone' is not true.

And of course, it's possible that folks saying this are correct. But then again it's not been my experience. In fact I think it's a red herring (enter red herring at this point - swims across screen and exits on the other side). The statement 'we can't do RB because there's no B to R' is just an excuse not to do anything.

RB is a risk. Maybe one day I'll find a group with no B to R but it hasn't happened yet. Personally I still think it's more of a question of how you R your B that what B you R. Of course some days RB goes better than others but for now I'll keep on RBing, at the very least because it's better than doing nothing.

PS When I published this post a free ad by Google popped up and offered me 50% off Red Herrings - now there's an offer it's hard to refuse.

Word of the week

Hannah is trying to teach me German in advance of our visit to Germany in August. My current favourite word is bloemenkohl (this may be spelt wrong).

Some little herb plants arrived yesterday in the post. These were a free gift. I am looking forward to planting them in my garden where broad beans, lettuce, cabbage, spuds and other goodies are currently growing. Alas no bloemenkohl though.

Watch out for catterpillars. Some ate my gooseberry leaves (!). Anyone who know what those might be, I'd be pleased to hear from you.

Remembering the Bible in Calderdale

Stainland and Holywell Green URC is a small faith community just over the border into Calderdale, and part of the Waverley Group. Today I took the Vision4life RB road show to their midweek fellowship group. About 12 people were there, mostly retired. We worked on Bible Scrapbooking (see Vision4life website for these instructions) using RB in five small groups.

Although not at first very confident, they soon got into this and produced five interesting versions of gospel stories. There were three different takes on the Holy Week narrative, one that emphasised Jesus carrying the cross, one that looked beyond Good Friday to Easter Day and one which saw the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday as the culmination of Jesus life. The two other groups remembered two other well remembered gospel episodes: Jesus calming the storm and the parable of the prodigal son. Hopefully we may have some photographs of these by the weekend so watch this space.

Everyone enjoyed it and felt able to contribute. One person was surprised how much everyone had joined in. Another said how much they liked working in the small group. Some made links between the Rb and episodes from life, including current events in the news and suggestions for prayer. All in all, another good example of how RB can reach the parts other ways of using the bible don't seem to reach.

Finished!

I'm pleased to say that the batik I started about 6 weeks ago is now finished. It represents the view of the bay and castle at Holy Island, where we did some RB back in April along the theme 'In my end is my beginning'. It was here that we remembered the post-resurection story of Jesus meeting the disciples at the enge of Lake Galilee with bar-be-qued fish. Kate Gray kindly brought along the fish and the smell (and eventual taste) added a wonderful dimension to our RB.