The Other Reason for Writing...

I was quite surprised to return from Greenbelt to find that some good folk had actually taken a glance at what I had written last week. Most encouraging, particularly the people from Russia. How you ended up here remains a mystery but I liked it all the same.

Still, I'm not here to brag about the quantity of internet traffic that's been coming my way (18 views all month...) but to announce I've started a new job. Today was my first day, an induction day for new staff which got progressively more morbid, slowly descending from Health and Safety into the horror stories of child abuse.

For you see, I work in a school, and I work as part of the chaplaincy team. That is to say, there is the Chaplain, and there is me. I shan't say where, but I will say it's big- I've never seen so many teaching staff attached to a single institution, and despite my best intentions in shaving off my beard, I still had the biggest hair of any of the male staff. And I still had itchy patches round my neck and jaw. And the shaving had revealed I still had spots underneath. And I have a cold sore. 

I felt a little out of place.

But nevertheless I have been hired, and all things being equal I will be paid, I will have a house for a year for yes, yes it is in a private school.

And I do wonder if I've sold out for the sake of 11 cheques already.

I should say I'm not just a school chaplain, though 4 days of the week I am, I also will be working in the Parish Church. That's for two days. The Saturday is my own. But nevertheless, it's not the Church that's paying me.

So why have I done this? Hard to say really, the job practically dropped out of the sky and into my email box, I thought 'why not?' and before long I was in an interview and then offered a job. By instinct quite lazy, I felt it easier than making any more applications.

But it's more than that. It's closer to where most of my friends live than Swindon, it offers experience of church and chapel life, the possibility of teaching experience, it gives me a year out from studies, it's new and exciting and the co-curricular stuff gives me a chance to pick up all that I neglected at Oxford.

But it's more than that. It's a scheme for those who are testing vocation, trying to taste and see if the Lord is good. Good enough to follow in a priestly ministry. Am I thinking about that? I don't know...Oxford skews one's understanding of what being a priest is like. I can't help but wonder if it's a passing phase brought on by a heady mix of choral music and theological study for three years. Much as I love both of those things.

But it's more than that. Because it's a chance to move from 'contemplation' to 'action', it's a chance to test in the real world all that I've wondered about over the last few years. And that's the other reason for writing this blog more regularly. To see if I really have found some things useful.

For I am an Anglo-Catholic in the radical tradition. What does this mean for me? I shall save that for another post, but suffice to say it mixes a rather old fashioned piety with a deep respect for the riches of our Christian heritage along with an insistence upon the social dimensions and impact of the gospel message today.

I am only a young man, and when I read a lot of stuff concerning youth work or look at the churches that seem to have young congregations, they tend to be of a quite conservative, often evangelical or even charismatic persuasion. Indeed, this was my background growing up. I remain a critical friend (or so I would like to think) but I felt the need to move on, and found in this very different style of churchmanship in many external respects  something deeper, more engaging, more fulfilling, more in touch with its history and with the idea of a community as well as a much more obvious appreciation for learning and study.

To take the label of 'catholic' for one's own though is of course hardly to be buying into a homogeneous thing, even with the term 'anglo-catholic', so I don't want anyone to jump to conclusions about what wisdom I'd hope to share with my young audiences...but this perhaps is the biggest reason why I wanted to try this this year: I want to know if others, especially the young, can find Christ in the wealth of our traditions as the enduring body of Christ over the last two millennia. As I did, and continue to do. Can an authentically catholic expression of the faith be something that engages the young?

Of course, I have my prejudices and values...I'd like to say they are derived from the gospel, but others may sharply disagree. Exactly which bits I wish to bring into the light a little more will be for the next post, and I think Greenbelt may well feature heavily into that mix.

Still, if this post has bored you, I will leave you with this guy who I did see perform at the festival. And I thought he was brilliant.