Have Cassock will travel.
Technically that is have Alb, but I guess cassock is a better known term for a clergy persons frock!
In her book The Towers of Trebizond, Rose Macauley portrays the Anglican missionary with his portable altar and vestments in the person of Father Hugh Chantry-Pigg, doubtless with red buttons on his cassock.
High Anglicans love their red buttons and, at least in the Diocese of Europe, enjoy driving through foreign countryside, often like Fr Chantry-Pigg, using ancient names or anglicised names of the places to which they travel and then opening up their portable altar/stroke treasure chest, to celebrate the ancient mysteries according to the rites of the 1662 Prayer Book.
I guess that I stand in a long and proud tradition of eccentric clergy travelling to foreign parts and keeping a small corner of some foreign land forever English.
Yesterday I left my first service twenty minutes late and had to travel the 15 Kilometres to the next Church along the Autopista, fortunately the speed limit is 120 KPH and our Citroen C3, not unlike Father Chantry-Piggs' Camel, managed to keep pace with a Ferrari and we arrived with enough time to spare to welcome the congregation for the Baptism of the twins whose parents were anxiously awaiting our arrival.
Then it was off to catch Man U at Wolverhampton, fortunately that was more of a virtual journey than a real one and then an altogether more entertaining evening service in the secular chapel at the Cemetery in the Garden of Allah, the Irish writer Gerald Brenan who lived in Alahaurin, referred to it as the Garden of Eden, which is an interesting connection given that when I am not playing at Fr Chantry-Pigg, I live in the Eden Valley in Cumbria, which to the best of my knowledge was never governed by the Caliphate.
I have recently been made aware that Giles Fraser also thinks aloud, although he thinks aloud for the Guardian and is probably paid rather more for his thoughts than I do for mine, the going rate seems to have been a penny for some time now.
Well I have also been thinking aloud about Archbishops and their appointment.
Fr Chantry-Pigg was a fictional character although it is not unusual to meet him where the Diocese of Europe meets the desert, red buttons are the clue to instant recognition of this increasingly rare species, Cultus Anglicana, if he wasn't fictional it might have been worth nominating him on the grounds that a) he was harmless, b) buffoonery has a certain charm, and c) he appeared to believe in where his vocation was leading him - to Trebizond.
Of course The Prime Minister will be given a great deal of carefully considered advice before the two names are submitted to him.
In the days before job descriptions and interviews found their place in the Anglican system of preferment (a much better word than promotion?) a Bishop friend of mine said he always knew when a job offer was being turned down because the first sentence of the letter from the person invited to consider the parish read, After much prayerful consideration ...., doubtless the possible candidates will not be starting their letter to Her Majesty, after she has received Mr Cameron's advice, with those words.
I was asked outright this morning who I thought the next Archbishop would/should be.
Difficult question to answer is that, the papers are of course full of supposition, anyone but York has already gained legs as a theory, then there is the jump a generation theory, but in a denomination where promotion (preferment) is based almost exclusively on patronage, perhaps the key question is who has the strongest, best placed, best connected, patrons.
Some years ago I was advised by an Archdeacon friend of mine to get onto General Synod, how do you think I got this job? He asked.
It transpired, as he told it, that he went to the toilet during a coffee break and was offered the job whilst washing his hands in the hand basin in the Church House toilet.
Cleanliness quite clearly next to Godliness.
So as I never use the Loo in Church House and am not on General Synod and therefore cannot spot who is:
.... waiting on the shingle or whether they will join the dance.
I will be as surprised as the next person when the name is announced.
Unfortunately for me I was given the heads up the last time.
I was at dinner with a friend who had invited another Priest who was apparently well connected, after discussing various issues that had arisen at supper the previous evening in the Downing Street kitchen, he was also indiscreet as well as well connected, a certain name was mentioned, yes, that name, should have put twenty quid on it there and then, but I'm not a betting man.
In Rose Macauley's book the great fault line was adultery which doesn't appear to bother Fr Chantry-Pigg enormously and bothers folk today even less.
Women will be consecrated eventually, probably sooner than later, same sex unions will be celebrated and the Church of England will divide as today's fault lines open up.
I rather suspect that the next Archbishop will preside over a great splitting asunder and a foot in either camp will only cause a splitting asunder of a different kind as the red buttons pop all the way up his cassock.
Technically that is have Alb, but I guess cassock is a better known term for a clergy persons frock!
In her book The Towers of Trebizond, Rose Macauley portrays the Anglican missionary with his portable altar and vestments in the person of Father Hugh Chantry-Pigg, doubtless with red buttons on his cassock.
High Anglicans love their red buttons and, at least in the Diocese of Europe, enjoy driving through foreign countryside, often like Fr Chantry-Pigg, using ancient names or anglicised names of the places to which they travel and then opening up their portable altar/stroke treasure chest, to celebrate the ancient mysteries according to the rites of the 1662 Prayer Book.
I guess that I stand in a long and proud tradition of eccentric clergy travelling to foreign parts and keeping a small corner of some foreign land forever English.
Yesterday I left my first service twenty minutes late and had to travel the 15 Kilometres to the next Church along the Autopista, fortunately the speed limit is 120 KPH and our Citroen C3, not unlike Father Chantry-Piggs' Camel, managed to keep pace with a Ferrari and we arrived with enough time to spare to welcome the congregation for the Baptism of the twins whose parents were anxiously awaiting our arrival.
Then it was off to catch Man U at Wolverhampton, fortunately that was more of a virtual journey than a real one and then an altogether more entertaining evening service in the secular chapel at the Cemetery in the Garden of Allah, the Irish writer Gerald Brenan who lived in Alahaurin, referred to it as the Garden of Eden, which is an interesting connection given that when I am not playing at Fr Chantry-Pigg, I live in the Eden Valley in Cumbria, which to the best of my knowledge was never governed by the Caliphate.
I have recently been made aware that Giles Fraser also thinks aloud, although he thinks aloud for the Guardian and is probably paid rather more for his thoughts than I do for mine, the going rate seems to have been a penny for some time now.
Well I have also been thinking aloud about Archbishops and their appointment.
Fr Chantry-Pigg was a fictional character although it is not unusual to meet him where the Diocese of Europe meets the desert, red buttons are the clue to instant recognition of this increasingly rare species, Cultus Anglicana, if he wasn't fictional it might have been worth nominating him on the grounds that a) he was harmless, b) buffoonery has a certain charm, and c) he appeared to believe in where his vocation was leading him - to Trebizond.
Of course The Prime Minister will be given a great deal of carefully considered advice before the two names are submitted to him.
In the days before job descriptions and interviews found their place in the Anglican system of preferment (a much better word than promotion?) a Bishop friend of mine said he always knew when a job offer was being turned down because the first sentence of the letter from the person invited to consider the parish read, After much prayerful consideration ...., doubtless the possible candidates will not be starting their letter to Her Majesty, after she has received Mr Cameron's advice, with those words.
I was asked outright this morning who I thought the next Archbishop would/should be.
Difficult question to answer is that, the papers are of course full of supposition, anyone but York has already gained legs as a theory, then there is the jump a generation theory, but in a denomination where promotion (preferment) is based almost exclusively on patronage, perhaps the key question is who has the strongest, best placed, best connected, patrons.
Some years ago I was advised by an Archdeacon friend of mine to get onto General Synod, how do you think I got this job? He asked.
It transpired, as he told it, that he went to the toilet during a coffee break and was offered the job whilst washing his hands in the hand basin in the Church House toilet.
Cleanliness quite clearly next to Godliness.
So as I never use the Loo in Church House and am not on General Synod and therefore cannot spot who is:
.... waiting on the shingle or whether they will join the dance.
I will be as surprised as the next person when the name is announced.
Unfortunately for me I was given the heads up the last time.
I was at dinner with a friend who had invited another Priest who was apparently well connected, after discussing various issues that had arisen at supper the previous evening in the Downing Street kitchen, he was also indiscreet as well as well connected, a certain name was mentioned, yes, that name, should have put twenty quid on it there and then, but I'm not a betting man.
In Rose Macauley's book the great fault line was adultery which doesn't appear to bother Fr Chantry-Pigg enormously and bothers folk today even less.
Women will be consecrated eventually, probably sooner than later, same sex unions will be celebrated and the Church of England will divide as today's fault lines open up.
I rather suspect that the next Archbishop will preside over a great splitting asunder and a foot in either camp will only cause a splitting asunder of a different kind as the red buttons pop all the way up his cassock.
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