24-7

Having done the "prayer-versus-practice" thing two days ago, I've just come back from a 1-hour slot at the Coventry 24-7 prayer room. Your intrepid reporter seeks at all times to be unbiased ...

And what can I say? The whole 24-7 prayer thing was sold to me superbly at the Cathedral Pentecost celebration. Succinctly, I was told that this was happening at 4 Priory Row for the whole of June, and that I would be missing out badly if I didn't go at least once and give it a go.

Never one to miss out on anything, I decided to give it a go this lunch-hour. It turned out to be a truly wonderful experience.

There are seven or eight different rooms in the building, each one designed to hold a different phase of the progression. As one comes in, immediately to one's left is the praise room (I think I've got the name right), where one is invited to spend some time in praise. For me this involved writing a poem, and then getting my hands covered in red paint in order to produce a palm print, within which I wrote something that meant a lot to me about God.

Further rooms involved preparation, praying for Coventry, praying for persecuted Christians, praying for Coventry youth projects, and a Celtic prayer room. All with their own interactive slants. And finally, the holy of holies, where one confronts the Cross in all its shock and horror, and comes to terms with what God has done for us.

I'd booked myself in for an hour. I over-ran substantially.

Eventually I came out, filled with a sense of ... completion. Yes, you too will be missing out badly if you don't go at least once and give it a go.

To be practical or to be prayerful?

It's an old question, whether one should try to solve the practical problem, or whether one should pray about it. And most Christians everywhere in most ages have known instinctively what the answer is: one should do both, often simultaneously, and often recognizing that praying is doing, and doing is praying. And my heart aches for my Coventry friends who are losing their jobs right now because of Big Government decisions. I would love to be in a position to fix this practically. I can't imagine how, so I pray.

But sometimes the question sneaks past us without us recognizing it. Do we need vision, or do we need pragmatic administration? Organizational rotas, or spontaneity? "Now we've got the administration out of the way, we can get down to things that matter." A wise person I know once said, No vision without implementation. There's cheap vision, just like there's cheap grace, and there's the other kind which gets involved, does the detail, sees it through to the end. The Incarnation seems to be a strong hint as to what is God's preferred option.

I thought about prayer versus practice at the start of the week, when I met the other wardens for an informal evening meeting to sort out some minor practical points. I didn't know the style, so I had no idea what to expect. Practically before we got the tea cups in our hands, there we were praying, and practically before we'd finished praying, there we were talking routine business, and no way were we going to end before we'd prayed for each others' practical concerns and real needs. I think I'm going to like working with this group.

Here's a movie clip which works for me as a summary of what praying versus practice is all about:

(youtube clip)

(and the rest of the film makes it even clearer).

Reflections after my first solo flight as churchwarden

It's been a good day.

First of all, the 0930 service. I thank God for the excellent 0930 team, which settles down and gets the job done, with lots of commitment and without fuss. They are wonderful! Collectively, the answer to a churchwarden's fervent prayer! A memorable Pentecost family service, with a happy One Programme format, and a sermon which was so good that it was quoted as the starting point of the 1100 service, but which actually I didn't hear because I was busy making sure of safety for the kids taking turns to do the air-driven rocket at the other end of the church. We couldn't help ourselves, crying out Oooh and Aaah as the rocket shot up nearly to the ceiling each time. Then Colin the verger wanted a go, so we took the rocket outside. I reckon it went higher than the highest trees!

My end of the church, we were learning by doing. The power of driven air, sending a rocket so high and so exciting. (And it was the preacher who had set us up to do just that; maximum points both ways, Sally!) 

Then the 1100, my first solo as warden. Well I knew there was just one thing which I didn't get right, but I noticed the recently retired church treasurer making sure that the two girls at the front went up to communion after I'd failed properly to communicate the possibilities to them, so I call that a win for superb teamwork. And superb teamwork trumps individual excellence every time ... And I shouldn't forget to mention the careful substitution which meant the rota for service at the 1100 Just Worked, without any need for me to intervene. Yet another piece of excellent teamwork and initiative.

Finally, at 1830, we went to the Pentecost celebration at the cathedral. You know what they say about busman's holidays? (A busman's holiday is one where you sit at the front watching someone else do all the work you'd be doing yourself if you were working.) Well, that's what it was like for me, being with a thousand others worshipping God in a superbly organized service, with a fantastic sense of coherence and drive. And it was all "come along and enjoy this, you wouldn't want to miss it", not "we must, we must, we must improve ourselves". So many good things, but I remember the placards saying "Jesus is Lord" in 150 languages[*], and getting excited about the 24/7 prayer room as a "thin place", which I should on no account fail to miss (because I will like it so much), and praying for church leaders in Coventry, and my friends saying, this was so good, can't we do it again? and saying to them, yes we can, there's another one planned for next year - only on an even bigger scale!
[*] Actually perhaps it's 150 for next year, not this one, but there were a lot of languages there ...

As Catherine said at the end, now that was a good Sunday!

Practice makes perfect

I woke up the other day to Radio 4, which was explaining how ten thousand hours practice will make the difference between (a) just fumbling around and (b) developing an ability which seems completely out of this world. It was a compelling argument: practice makes perfect, indeed, and in a very quantified sense. Reminds me of how I used to play the violin when I was young; too lazy to practice properly, and then I'd see others just pick up the instrument and do something magical with it. "Practice", they'd tell me, "that's all there is to it". I'm afraid laziness beat practice for me, and I never got far.

Probably practice makes churchwardening perfect, though 10000 hours at an hour a week is around 200 years, so I don't expect ever to attain world-class competitiveness. I'm down to warden the 1100 service tomorrow. It should be easier than the last time, since there is no special service. On the other hand it's my first solo flight, and I will be keenly observed by the Ones Who Know What Should be Done, all the ex-wardens. Kindly observation, I'm sure, but observation which will notice the timing, and the lack of timing, and whether I do a Baldrick and have to run from the wrong end of the church to the right end, while the organ plays, and the choir processes, and the servers serve. Better review the set of notes on how to do it, while I still have time. 

The service immediately before the 1100, the 0930, plans to finish early so we can all come out and cheer on the runners in the Coventry Half Marathon. It's the right thing to do. We're all in this together, seeking the good of our city, and it's good to share in our commonwealth. Cities need their people to look to the good of the city as if by a reflex, because together we can prosper, together we can face the challenges. So we'll be practicing that reflex, around 1000 tomorrow.

And it seems likely that next year will be a challenge. I'm doing the prayers as well as the wardening at the 1100 tomorrow (because one of the things about wardening is, you're the one to fill the gaps if needed), and I expect to be praying for the good of the city. If it's a challenging year, then it's also a wake-up call, to realize that together with God we can be stronger and more resilient than we could ever possibly hope to be on our own.

Easy to say this before the challenge. Harder to practice it when the pressure is on, harder to keep on watching out for each other when things get tough, harder to keep on keeping on keeping the faith 24/7. But practice is the thing. And ten thousand hours is only a little bit more than eight months; time enough to make a difference.

User-friendly?

Eldest son has contributed this one:

Edward: Sound familiar?

<youtube clip>

Confessions of a puzzled geek

This was my Facebook status recently [slightly edited], but it seemed too true not to add to this blog.


Wilfrid Kendall wonders why Catherine and Olivia find "The Big Bang Theory" so amusing. It just seems to be an ordinary documentary about average run-of-the-mill human beings ... take this clip about Sheldon:

<youtube clip>.

What is so hysterically funny about this prosaic documentary? Some people are really strange.

Transparent churches

Trouble with a new job, you never know how to do anything! Example: what should someone do if they want to put up notices at back of church? There must be some process by which approval is obtained, but how, and by whom? So one gets asked the question, and inflicts a kind of telephone tag or email ping-pong on the request, bouncing it around till some kind of resolution is obtained. There must be a better way ...

Therefore I want to construct a Frequently asked questions page for Holy Trinity Coventry, or FAQ as some people call it. I want a notice, or a web-page, or some kind of document, such that people can look up their frequently asked question on the page and see immediately where, whom, what to ask, and how to ask the question. Wouldn't that be great! Example: does this church make provision for children in its main Sunday morning services? (Yes ... and I think it is really first-class ...) Example: whom should I approach if I want to get married at Holy Trinity? (I may now know the right answer to this one.) It would definitely save time, but also it would be good to be able to be open and clear and positive about how to get the wheels turning.

Of course the FAQ needs to contain Largely Correct Answers, so a bit of work is needed on this. Not much good in having an FAQ which Misses Essential Points. So I'm not going to put one up right away, not until I can check out some of my Hopefully Not Completely Misinformed Responses. But it seems like a good starter project as I continue to clamber up this particular learning curve.

Parish Councils and Scientific Societies

One of the most fun jobs I've ever done was to help run a scientific society. The society in question is the Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability: and for three years in the late 90's I was the Scientific Secretary. It took me a while to learn what the job was really all about, though Jef Teugels (the society President who appointed me) gave me a succinct and accurate summary right at the start: "Your job is to have strong legs [ie: to keep going] and to tell everyone else what to do". In a sense the Bernoulli learning curve was all about learning how very true his early words had been.

The Bernoulli Society at the time had a membership of over a thousand university statisticians - a small society, but spread all across the world. There were (and are) no paid staff at all; matters were run by six or so members of the Executive Committee (including the Scientific Secretary) on a strictly voluntary basis. So by one way of accounting this was a very small operation indeed; the annual budget must have been around £30k, mostly spent on distributing newsletters and a scientific journal. On the other hand, what we did was something that mattered; along with other scientific societies we nurtured a world community of researchers drawn from almost every possible culture and language and region. We oversaw regional committees and subject specialist committees and sponsored conferences. We had virtually no money for any of this: even the travel to committee meetings had to be found by ensuring coincidence with scientific conferences. But scientific societies play a key rôle in forming connections, in making it possible for junior researchers to meet the giants in their field, in providing opportunities for people to travel to conferences when their own countries could not afford to send them.

No wealth, then, and not much prestige, but the shared labour has won me many good friends whom I would otherwise have missed. And I learned a few lessons along the way.

Mostly, I think, the lesson that in the end it is people that matter, people and their motivations. When we had to choose people to do various jobs, we had to figure out whom we could trust, who might want to do the job we had in mind, who would see it through to the end, preferably without causing too many international incidents along the way. (Successful international scientific societies hate international incidents - we passionately prefer calm constructive creative peace.) Always we had to remember that we were all getting older at the standard rate (one year per year), so that if we wanted Bernoulli Society to prosper in the future then it was vital to look out for opportunities to involve younger people. And, since there were never enough people for the jobs we wanted doing, we couldn't afford to be blinkered by gender or other discrimination. I learned that it is important to write emails which set things out clearly, item by item; that while the other person may well be smarter than me, they need not necessarily share the same cultural frame of reference, and that they may care deeply about things which seem trivialities to me (I am not going to embarrass myself by giving examples here: ask me when you next see me). And also I learned that friends come from all sorts of places, that it is important to be open to the new.

It was a fantastic experience, and I was really sorry when increasing administrative pressures at work forced me to give it up.

So here I am again, clambering up a different learning curve in a different environment. I hasten to note, I don't think a churchwarden's job is "to have strong legs and to tell everyone else what to do", though both may very occasionally be useful. Certainly Holy Trinity Coventry is a voluntary association just like Bernoulli Society; it works when people fill the rôles they want to fill, and are good at filling. Maybe the significant element of this job is to find round holes for round pegs, rather than square ones. One of the big differences is that in Coventry we can all meet relatively frequently; Bernoulli Society could only convene as a whole once every four years at its World Congress. (But how often do you make the exotic and exciting trip to visit a different service at worship? might it be an intriguing experience to observe for yourself the contrast between evensong and an 0930 service? or to rise - almost - with the sun to go to 0800 communion? or to discover an opportunity to find Holy Trinity worshipping mid-week?)

And the trust thing. We had to trust people when we ran Bernoulli Society. No way could we micro-manage Bernoulli-sponsored meetings across the globe. Instead, we laid down basic rules and simple methods of accountability - reports in our periodic newsletter, protocols for regional meetings of statisticians, procedures and expectations for earning the right to use the Bernoulli Society logo for a conference. So it is interesting to see here in Holy Trinity the growing emphasis on the central rôle of the Parish Council, and the way in which responsibilities are being devolved to the Youth and Children's Work Committee and others. Learning to talk to each other, learning to take decisions together, learning to trust each other when we devolve tasks. I guess in some sense we've been doing this forever, but it's the kind of lesson one has to keep on learning, keep on practicing. And on the way we find ourselves meeting the other, the people with whom we would not otherwise have come into contact. You won't get cash-rich in this sort of world, but there are other kinds of wealth that matter much much more.

Intelligent tradition

This post is a bit more serious than average -- or what I hope to establish as the average. However there is a joke (of sorts) at the end.

Many many years ago, when the world and I were young, I visited Moscow for a week. It was in the last years of Brezhnev, in the last decade before the Great Restructuring. My sister was studying in Moscow for a year as a penniless and insignificant doctoral student, and had suggested that I come over, so that she could show me round. And what a visit it was! She had an enormous range of contacts; students, dissidents, official sculptresses, rich violinists, the list went on and on. My week was a dizzying whirl of visits, rushing from one new experience to the next.

Towards the end of the week, we went to an evening party hosted by Jewish students. I remember a small room, crammed full of twenty or so young people, a loving and cheerful atmosphere. I was chatting to one of the men, and he suddenly said, "You'll be wondering why we bother to be different, here in a society which dislikes difference and makes life so very difficult for us. Let me play you a song which explains why, in a way far better than I can put into words." And he got them to play this song on the record player:

youtube clip

(have a look: it's about 7 minutes long, I'll wait).

A little later in the evening there was a phone-call, claiming to be from the police, saying the neighbours had complained and we should stop the party. Though I had no Russian, I noticed peoples' reactions and their body language. It wasn't a trivial thing to be Jewish in Brezhnev's Russia; it came with a price attached.

I've been thinking about tradition this week; what it is, where one finds it. I work in higher education, particularly in the field of mathematical science, even more particularly in statistics, and it seems to me that we are steeped in tradition of a certain kind, without realizing it. We have our own jokes (they are excruciating). We believe in logic, in systematically thinking things out right down to the far end. We have a hidden hierarchy, almost a dissenting hierarchy, in which you are as good as the theorem you proved yesterday, and may no longer be as good as the theorem you proved the week before last. We think there is a notion of "mathematical taste", which allows us to say what is good work and what is not, but it is very hard to explain what this entails. There is a rumour that the American Mathematical Society can never run a conference in the same city twice because of the behaviour of those who attend;  we don't get banned from hotels for trashing hotel rooms or for disgraceful behaviour; we get banned because our idea of a good time is to get together over a table in the corridor, drink bad coffee, and discuss mathematics far into the night - and that sort of behaviour doesn't pay the hotel's bills! But it's a tradition that works, has worked for four thousand years, and now pervades all of modern society (including the processes by which you can read this blog).

And I worship, and now serve as churchwarden, in an Anglican church in which all manner of ecclesiastical traditions are joined together in a single community. In a single Sunday our church services range from early morning 1662 Common Prayer (no music, no singing, but phrases which ring through my heart in wonderful poetry), through an informal 0930 service largely run by ordinary people (who work through their daily theology together each Sunday in a way which makes far more sense of the modern fashion for "independent learning" than any government prescription could ever do), then a full Eucharist with choir, and a sublime choral evensong, and finishes off with an experimental evening service at 7pm. We believe we have to engage with all these different traditions, and learn a mutual respect, and an understanding of how each part is to be considered valuable; not in a functional and utilitarian way, but because each tradition represents something of who we are, and how we relate to God. It isn't easy, but it is what we are called to do.

Not all tradition is good, of course. As an Anglican I know there are dark chapters in the past of my Anglican community, and I can neither ignore them nor easily escape from them. As a mathematical scientist I have to recognize that from time to time the triumphalism of mathematical logic oppresses the human spirit, and that there can be a subtle and corrupting arrogance in the mathematical soul. I have to own my tradition, because it is part of what makes me who I am, but I can still be intelligent about it, and recognize that it need not be an unqualified good.

So. Intelligent tradition, then; recognizing that even when I consciously break away from my past nevertheless I am still influenced by it, still swim in the currents of thinking and behaviour and habitual assumptions, the currents of the sea in which I was born. Intelligent tradition, because that will allow me to reach out to the beyond, that will allow my church to celebrate its diversity without compromise, that will allow me to aspire to function as salt and light in my working community, that will allow me to change when change is what is needed, while losing neither identity nor integrity.

To end this excessively serious post, here is the joke.

Top excuse for not doing homework:

I accidentally divided by zero and my paper burst
into flames.
(Taken from a scientific paper on mathematical jokes - bet you didn't want to know that!)

From medieval times into the future (II)

Today was my first operational service as churchwarden, and it was a big one: the Freemen's Sunday Service. I woke up with a tune running through my head which is becoming something of a signature  for my wardenly activities: "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling". (I'm not entirely sure what this may signify.)

The Freemen's service start-time was 1100; however a hectic set-up commenced at 1030, just as the previous service was finishing. Pews had to be reserved, in some instances working around friends and relations of a family whose baby had just been baptized (fortunately they were understanding). The Guild Bible had to be received and conveyed to the Vestry. People had to be recruited to collect the offertory, to carry the elements (bread and wine) and to help conduct the congregation up to communion. Churchwarden staffs had to be set in the appropriate slots. The Great Doors of the West end of church had to be opened - which meant careful yet strenuous application of muscle to shift some very stiff bolts. And all this had to be completed before 1050, so that I and my colleague Lynn could then stand at the door looking relaxed and ready to receive the procession of Freemen's Guild and City dignitaries. The preparation period being somewhat extended as a result of my decision to wear a suit in honour of the occasion, which surprised and alarmed many of my Holy Trinity friends, who had not been aware that I possessed such a thing and needed reassurance.

If you read my previous post, you'll be expecting some reflections on the art of walking backwards in front of a Mace and Sword. Well I have to say I didn't get that bit quite right. We did walk in front, but not backwards. Probably just as well, since I was very nervous and might have swerved backwards into one of the pews. Fortunately I was able to manage walking forwards without incident, and we successfully installed the procession in their reserved pews.

Churchwarden operations continued throughout the service; counting the congregation, welcoming latecomers, changing lighting arrangements during the sermon, marshalling the mini-procession bringing the offertory and elements up to the front (at which point the normally imperturbable Lynn was forced to comment that I was leaving the start a little late!), assisting the congregation to move up to receive communion in a way which did not result in major grid-lock across the entire church, all of this needing continuous alertness and situational awareness. I imagine I will get used to it eventually. Three comic incidents stick in my mind; signalling frantically to the Vicar at the end of communion that he had to bring communion to a temporarily disabled parishioner (only to be told that this had already been done by others while I myself had been taking communion - need to upgrade to eyes in the back of my head); bemusedly watching Lynn gesture expressively to me across the width of the church at the start of the recessional hymn, till the penny dropped and I realized I needed to dash to the West end to open the great doors for the outgoing procession; and committing a great social and ecclesiastical gaffe by returning the Eastwards bow of an exiting dignitary, realizing too late that he was bowing to Someone infinitely more important than me.

But we got through to the end just fine, and it seemed to me to be a happy and comfortable occasion. And that counts. As with conference organization, so with church services; at the end you know things have gone OK if you can review what went wrong and say "if that is the worst thing that happens then it's all been great!".

And here are my summary reflections: that my service was made so much more enjoyable by the kind and warm participation of the Freemen; and that I am very grateful to a number of Holy Trinity people who immediately responded positively to my requests for help, even when they had not previously had a go at whatever I was asking for. And finally that the two morning services together comprised around 360 people; which I think is a very strong figure compared with a total Coventry population of 300 000. Numbers aren't everything, but they aren't nothing either, and they correlate to a morning in which I believe we made a good impact for the Gospel, thank God.

From medieval times into the future (I)

The office of churchwarden dates back to medieval times; in a future post I hope to explore this. But today's post concerns an encounter with another ancient institution (the City of Coventry Freemen's Guild), and is the first part of a reflection on my very first duty as churchwarden: officiating at the Freemen's Sunday service, 1100, 2 May 2010.

All major church services require careful prior preparation and rehearsal. Think of them as dramatic productions, and you will see why. Our own rehearsal took place last Thursday after work, requiring only a handful of the participants (Vicar, Verger, Guild Master and Guild Master elect, two church wardens, and associates who have come to cheer us on). My own rôle is largely one of stage management; I need to ensure pews are properly reserved ("reserve alternate rows: it's more friendly that way"), that the Guild Bible arrives and is properly located within the church ("10:30: take it to the vestry"), that the tall wooden doors are opened ready for the procession ("10:50: be careful as unbolting can be tricky"), that I am ready to welcome the procession ("the procession will have started at 10:50 and arrive at 10:55 - hope it doesn't rain"), and that at the appropriate time I lead the second part of the procession in (after Vicar, Mayor and Guild Master), walking backwards in front of the Mace and the Sword, walking backwards through the nave to the front pews where Mace- and Sword-bearer will deposit their charges on a table ("make sure there is a table there") and seat themselves always within sight of their responsibilities.

All this together with observing a 15-point list of instructions concerning my normal duties. There will be a great deal to do. Fortunately my predecessor Lynn is kindly joining me for this my first service, and has promised to point out when I am about to miss something. That's a big relief.

Walking backwards at the head of the procession. There seems to be a metaphor flying around in that sentence, pregnant with undisclosed meaning.

Walking backwards in front of the Sword and the Mace. What do I feel about that? Delighted, actually. Delighted to do honour to this group of unassuming, kind, humorous men and women, all of whom have qualified as Coventry Freemen by being "apprentices who learnt their trade by servitude", as expressed in the Guild history. Delighted to be part of the kind civility of the occasion, expressed for example in how Colin our verger bows as he conducts the Master elect up to read the first lesson. And nervous, because I want to serve these people by doing my part without stumbling. It's a comfort to read in the Guild magazine of a small technical hitch that arose in their recent Guild Admission court; "it just shows that no matter how good you are at something, it can still go wrong".

So. The rehearsal went well, and we go live at 1100 tomorrow. Time for me to read yet again through my lists of things to do and when to do them.