“The Vicar calls…..” My grandfather was a clergyman in the Diocese of Manchester. He served in city centre parishes which were densely populated. One of his habits was to write poetry in Lancashire dialect, the collection is named after one of his longer poems, The Vicar calls. The first verse goes Ah’m glad to see yo’ Vicar Reight fain ah am yo’n come, Neau sit asahd o’ t’ feigher, Un mak’ yersel’ awhoam. Ah’ll make a sup o’ tay, Un wi’ con ‘ave a chat, There’s nobody’ll say nay Nobbut eaur tom cat. The eight verses are a monologue delivered by a Lancashire housewife who claims to be shy with men but nevertheless talks incessantly until the poor parson grabs his grabs his hat and makes good his escape. In those days vicars would spend Monday morning giving their several curates lists of houses to be visited and the clergy would go from door to door visiting parishioners. Parishes were not large geographically but in streets of terraced houses a small area would be home to several thousand people. At one time there would be one member of the clergy for every one hundred parishioners. These days the average is more like one member of the clergy for ten thousand parishioners. My first parish had a population of some 25,000. Our benefice has a much smaller population but covers a much larger area, somewhere near twenty square miles. The spread of members of our electoral rolls is much larger as over half our members live outside of both parishes. Which makes visiting quite a different thing from my grandfather’s day. He never saw the need to learn to drive, he could visit everyone without walking more than a mile from the Vicarage. Post-pandemic, though as we are reminded, not post-Covid, we find ourselves in a different place. Add to that the huge rise in fuel costs and it is clear we need to look at pastoral visiting differently. I can easily cover over 30 miles a day travelling around the benefice and often the people I have gone to see have been out. Hence we have been saying for some time that visiting will arranged differently. The clergy are glad to visit anyone who would wish to be visited for whatever reason. Some people receive Holy Communion at home. Some would like a chat about something. Some just want to keep in touch. There are no criteria, just the invitation. This seems odd to me as it overturns many years of just being free to call on people unannounced but the cost to the parishes of travel expenses is something we have to take into account. So please bear this in mind as we move into autumn and know winter lies ahead of us. We are pleased to visit, but it would be helpful to know who would like a visit and to make sure people are in when we call. Just ring the vicarage and we can make a convenient arrangement. Now if I may digress a little, the mention of fuel costs reminds me that it is not just petrol that is so expensive. We are aware that gas and electricity costs are soaring. One of my grandfather’s other habits was to smoke a pipe and to hold the bowl near the church thermometer, so that when the Church Wardens complained it was cold and they wanted to turn the heating on he would point out that the thermometer was reading a much more comfortable temperature. A midweek service? In March 2020 we had to forego public worship including our midweek service. We have been able to reinstate our morning services but so far there hasn’t been much enthusiasm for restarting our midweek service. It is something I have been giving much thought to and have raised it at our PCC meetings. There are a couple of things worth bearing in mind. Firstly, one point of midweek services is to offer something for those who cannot attend on a Sunday morning. I know people who struggle to get to St Mary’s at 9.30am on a Sunday and were equally unable to attend the Wednesday service which was also at 9.30am. I think we need to offer a later time. Secondly, I believe we ought to offer Book of Common Prayer services as well as Common Worship. The Book of Common Prayer remains a key part of our Anglican identity and whilst it might not be suitable for Sunday mornings these days those who attend midweek services are more likely to have grown up learning the old service by heart. Having looked at possible days and times the best suggestion seems to be Wednesday at around midday. It could be held at either church or alternate between the two. Much depends on who would actually attend such a service. So this is really asking how many people would attend a midweek service, and if there is sufficient support we will try it and see how it goes. Please let us know. You can speak to one of our Churchwardens to me. Thank you. Paul.
From the Vicar… I was in my boat the other day racing at Winsford Flash Sailing Club. As they used to say on Top Gear, it did not go well. The boat wasn’t set up right because I had been in a rush. I messed up more than one tack (thought to be fair the wind shifts were particularly cruel to me that day), and I made the classic mistake of not noting the course properly. All in all I was getting pretty fed up part way through the race. I got the point of considering retiring. My race would end with a DNF. (Did not finish). But then I remembered a book I’d been reading written by Robert Atwell, who used to be Bishop of Stockport and is now Bishop of Exeter. (I went to Exeter once whilst riding from Land’s End to John O’Groats to raise money for the new school at Church Walk in Northwich. It was raining so heavily all the traffic was at a standstill and water even got into the computer on the bike. I left it in a bin outside the cathedral. The computer, not the bike.) In his book Bishop Robert writes about retirement, something I’d needed to read because my CofE pension kicks in this year and I’d been advised that the sensible thing to do would be to take it now. However, as another bishop has noted, I ride a Triumph Bobber motorcycle so no-one could ever accuse me of being sensible. Bishop Robert says that the important thing about retiring is being prepared for it. It is about how you approach it, how you navigate the changes, what plans you make. He says quite simply, you can retire, or you can be ‘re-tyred’. Anyone who follows motorsport knows that having the right tyres is critical. Worn out tyres give poor grip. The wrong kind of tyres are even worse. Slick tyres on a wet track or wet tyres on a dry track do not go well. There are times when a driver in a good position will risk staying out on the wrong tyres rather than pit and lose places. Usually that decision, like my race, does not go well, and they end up regretting not being on the right tyres for the conditions. So retire, or be re-tyred? Sat in my boat I decided to re-tyre rather than retire. Now, if you’re awake you will realise that boats don’t have wheels but they do have sails and mine was all wrong. So, in the middle of the lake I undid everything, I eased the tension of all the ropes (they’re called sheets on a boat) and let it all hang loose. Then I reset it all and off I went. Now the boat went well, the sail could work properly, I finished the race. Sometimes people see church as a time to retire from life. A time to be still. A time to be quiet. A time to let go of stresses and strains. It is all of that. God knows our need for peace. Church is also a time to re-tyre, to equip ourselves to go back out ready for whatever comes next. If you want to use the motor-racing analogy going to church is our pit stop. Maybe it’s not quite as brief or frenetic as a Formula One pit stop, but it shares one thing in common, it the time we are made ready for the next stage of the race. St Paul wrote of Christian living as running the race that is set before us. In his day they didn’t have motor-racing and his escapades in boats often did not go well, but he used the analogy of being like an athlete and preparing his body for the challenges ahead. You might want to reflect on Robert Atwell’s question next time you sit in church. Are you here to retire from the world, or be re-tyred for it? We may return to this theme on the first Sunday of September when St Peter’s holds our Service in the Pits at Oulton Park at 11.00am. There will be an opportunity to go around the track after the service either cycling or walking. Please join us for this service which is the first we have been able to hold since 2019. Before I go, this is my first opportunity since our PCC members undertook the Safeguarding training courses that they were asked to do as trustees. I would like to acknowledge the generosity and dedication they have offered and thank them for their labours. Yours Paul.
July – from the Vicar I am always intrigued, often amused, and sometimes annoyed, at the plethora of days to mark all sorts of things. For example, in July we have a National Doctors’ Day (1st), World Sports Journalists Day (2nd), International Plastic Bag Free Day (3rd), World Population Day (11th), World Youth Skills Day (15th), International Justice Day (17th), Nelson Mandela International Day (18th), World Chess Day (20th), National Broadcasting Day (23rd), Income Tax Dax (24th), World Hepatitis Day (28th), International Tiger Day (29th), International Day of Friendship (30th). You could add various days remembering saints and holy people, John and Henry Venn, Thomas, Thomas More and John Fisher, Benedict, John Keble, Swithun, Bonaventure, Osmund, Elzabeth Ferard, Gregory of Nyssa, Margaret of Antioch, Bartolome de las Casas, Mary Magdelene, Bridget of Sweden, James the Apostle, Anne and Joachim (Mary’s Mum and Dad), Brooke Foss Westcott, Mary, Martha and Lazarus, William Wilberforce, Ignatius of Loyola. It's quite a list. The concept of ‘holidays’ comes from ‘holy days’ which in medieval times were the only break people got from work. Needless to say this was very popular with working people, not so popular with their employers. Nor did it work quite as planned. The original idea was that on holy days people would reflect on the characteristics of whichever saint was being remembered and try to live their life emulating the characteristics of that holy person. It was meant to be a day of prayer and dedication, but for some strange reason more often ended up as an opportunity for making merry and indulging in less than saintly behaviour. The holidays we know today are a remnant of the original holy days, echoed perhaps in the growth of special days designed to focus our attention on important themes. I can understand a day to honour the medical profession, or those working for justice, and an international plastic bag free day can remind us how often we act carelessly with the planet’s resources. I am not so sure why we need a day to mark sports journalists, chess, or income tax, though I suspect there are a few who might need reminding that paying our taxes is a public duty to serve the common good. I am quite pleased there is an International Day of Friendship. I remember a chap called Geoff who was in charge of a local crematorium. One day he asked someone who was waiting if they were a member of the family. “Oh no,” they replied, “we’re only friends.” Geoff wasn’t having any of that. “Never say ‘only’ friends. Friends are important. People choose their friends carefully. If you’ve shared the gift of friendship don’t belittle it. At the end of someone’s life friendship is something to cherish.” I used to visit a lady who suffered with dementia. It a wide spectrum and affects people differently. In her case she would always remember who I was but never why I was on her doorstep. During our short service of Holy Communion she would tell me the name of every bird visiting her garden and the same story several times over. And near the end she would tell me that she had no memory and she’d probably already told me that and then roar with laughter. Hers was a gentleness, it is a disease which can be much crueller. When she died she left me a prayer which I carry with me at every funeral. I don’t know where it came from but it must be from one of the older books of prayers. O God our heavenly Father, who hast made pleasant the lovely bonds of friendship, we thank thee for our families and the many friends with whom thou hast enriched our lives; strengthen the bonds of love which unite us in thee, and in death divide us not, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amongst the list of holy people in the holy days of July are Mary Magdelene, Mary, Martha and Lazarus, people who were friends of Jesus. Those we often refer to a Quakers call themselves the Society of Friends. I think that amongst the many days of many themes a day to cherish friendship is worth remembering. Two events in July remind us of the gift of friendship. On 24th July we will mark Pauline’s retirement as our Pastoral Worker. She will become Pastoral Worker Emeritus and we will take the opportunity during our morning services to thank God for her service to our benefice. On 31st July we mark St Peter’s Patronal Festival. This is a bit of a local tradition because the rest of Christendom celebrates St Peter on 29 June but when we were working out the annual calendar we realised there are five Sundays in July so we bent the rules a bit. I am told that it used to be a tradition for the parishes to celebrate each other’s Patronal Festivals so we put two dates into the 2022 diary. 31 July for St Peter and 11 September for St Mary. Neither actually fall anywhere near the ‘right’ day, but if you can’t misbehave with friends then who can you misbehave with? Paul.
