16. Our Lady, Lillington. March 24, 2019

Our Lady is a modern church set in the expanding residential maze of Lillington. Modern in the sense that it was designed and built in the early 1960s - like me, although its outward appearance suggests it has been much better looked after.

In a previous life - when both the church and I were less than half our current age - I used to work at the Youth Centre next door in a sort of modern campus shared with the library. Both other buildings have survived I’m pleased to see and I’m thrilled on entering the church to find it’s every bit the unexpected gem it was on the one occasion I came here before, for a wedding sometime in the 1990s. It is a fabulous space. A central altar area ringed by very open plan pews with chapels and focal points, including Stations of the Cross, outside that. The whole space is tall, elegant, unified and lit by beautiful walls of spectacular coloured glass. It puts me in mind of Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral; smaller, obviously, but with the same impressive celebration of light, space and colour.

Today is a good day to be here to view Our Lady. The bright low sun of a glorious spring morning is setting the colours ablaze and giving the entire church a real glow.

There’s a fine turnout for Mass and even the ranks of the musicians are good. A choir, seated with the rest of the congregation rather than separately, sings to the accompaniment of piano, guitar, bass, violin and flute. The music itself is modern, for the most part, and very well performed. 

It’s always nice to leave any musical encounter with the tune still playing in your head, although the final Bread of Heaven coming only a week after Wales - and their highly choral supporters - celebrated winning the Six Nations meant a few people would have had to swallow a bit of sporting pride for the sake of doing the right thing.

Three Sundays into Lent and ‘doing the right thing’ is the thrust of this morning’s sermon from Father Noel. And more than just doing what is right, it’s about getting on with it and doing the right thing now. Many of us, Father Noel says, understand deep down what is required of us but spend too long waiting to be told when to do it. Last week’s terrible events in New Zealand are remembered in this morning’s prayers and, to my mind at least, there is an important connection.

The aftermath of the Christchurch shootings has brought condemnation from many of the role of social media in allowing harrowing footage filmed by the killer to be shared round the world rapidly and comprehensively. Facebook in particular has been in the dock as it became evident that nine million copies had had to be taken down. Surely, the clamouring demands, social media can and should do more to keep these things from being spread; it should be for whoever is in charge of these huge organisations to take the lead and act. 

For me though, to point the finger at social media is, in no small part, to miss the point. Each and every one of those nine million people finding that footage coming into their account on their computer or phone had a moral decision to make. And it’s a decision they have to make alone for themselves.  That’s what a moral decision is. 

Expecting someone else, whether that be family, community, school, government or God, to make that decision for you is not what moral responsibility is about. A few more people choosing to make now the time when they dust down the moral compass and act individually to make society a better place, might make Lent a whole lot more than a well-meaning gesture or a would-be diet. 

15. St Paul’s Cathedral, London. March 15, 2019

A bargain train trip to London offers the chance for bemusement at Tate Modern, enjoyment at the British Museum and fulfilment at St Paul’s Cathedral. It should be a joyous day of treats but it’s overshadowed not just by stormy skies but by news from Christchurch of dozens killed in an attack on people praying in a mosque. 

By the time I’ve reached Euston the news is already wall-to-wall coverage with messages of condolence coming in from round the world including, of course, Theresa May. In her message she says her thoughts are with those caught up in the attacks and their families.

I’ve often wondered what that phrase ‘our thoughts are with...’ really means. It  crops up a lot in our social media world where the speed of a response appears to be more important than what that response actually is. Not that articulating your sympathies can ever be anything but well-intended. Thinking about someone who’s in distress or grief might help us believe we’re doing something when we patently can’t; it certainly helps those in grief know they’re not alone and that someone, however remote and unconnected, is appreciating their pain. In essence, I suspect it’s the secular, modern version of praying for someone.

It being the lead-up to Easter, the tradition of walking round the stations of the cross is observed. St Paul’s performs this outdoors - even when the sky above is black and threatening and the wind is buffeting hair and service booklets. Statues, memorials, fountains - all act as reminders of the progress made from betrayal to crucifixion. 

Led by a brave verger our group of less than a dozen moves from station to station to reflect as we go with plenty of space for silent prayer. Close your eyes for a moment here and it’s hard to escape the incessant background cacophony of chatter, traffic, skateboarders, circling helicopters and sirens. It’s hard too to get away from the crowded bustle of city folk, tourists and families pushing past this small group of silent ponderers, as London life finds no time to pause.

But perhaps that’s what prayer has to do - carve out the smallest moments of repose and reflection from the weight of thundering life. Holding the conviction that something so quiet will be heard through all this din, and that something will come of it, is in its way very impressive.

Inside the cathedral Stations of the Cross gives way to the much better attended Evensong. This is church as grand theatre. It’s hard to think of many spaces as impressive or inspirational as the interior of this truly iconic building. It never fails to take the breath away through its ornateness, its architectural beauty, its sheer unbridled scale. You can get lost in the space. It can be like being at the back row of a stadium gig. No dry ice or giant inflatables but no big screen either.

There’s a charge for going into most cathedrals these days. Given the astronomical costs of keeping these fabulous buildings open and functioning, that’s to be expected. Cathedrals combine a wealth of treasure and history with an enormous and costly-to-heat space. Maintaining almighty organs, keeping skilled musicians, lighting the distant corners of the vaulted ceilings, ensuring hefty gargoyles don’t come crashing down - it all costs money and someone has to pay. St Paul’s charges £20 (as does Westminster Abbey, its equal in the ecclesiastical attractions league table) and tourists are happy to pay that to sample its stunning interiors, vertigo-inducing galleries and famous tombs.

I must confess that for years I have never paid. Not just because I am a cheapskate, although I am. More because I’ve always enjoyed seeing great cathedrals at work with worship and daily administrations in progress. There’s no charge for being a participant in a place of worship and the daily evensong  provides a chance to see and hear the place at work. Surprisingly it’s a tactic that’s not oversubscribed. I’ve been to evensong in Bristol with about a dozen people, similarly in Lichfield. In Winchester (admittedly at the other end of the day) I’ve sat with fewer than a handful. Not so here. People have come from all over the world not just to see St Paul’s but to worship in in too. So we are packed in. 

I suspect the staff and officials here are wise to the ‘evensong freeloaders’. We are herded quite brusquely to take our appointed places - no option of choosing where you’d like to be. Steward scan the assembled looking to weed out those daring to get the camera out. It’s the same at Westminster Abbey where I recall being moved on past the tomb of the unknown soldier by a jobsworth who clearly resented my pausing there for the briefest of moments.  

Somewhere within all the logistics of packing in people more intent on looking at the huge domed ceiling above or the magnificent gilt choir stalls, than in singing the printed words before them, the service itself is slightly lost. And that’s a pity because the readings are excellent and the anthems could hardly be bettered. Christchurch and its grieving people are remembered - in a congregation as international as this it’s almost inevitable that there’ll be New Zealanders feeling as far from home as it’s possible to be. 

Whether through prayer, social media messages or just reflection, we send our thoughts. And with a gathering as big and global as this, that has to be felt somewhere no matter how loud the din.

14. St John the Baptist, Leamington. March 10, 2019

I have walked past this church many times but never gone in. That’s becoming something of a refrain in these visits and the act of finally passing through the doors has become a pleasure. As a student in Leamington I’d often find myself navigating, or offering directions to others, by the churches of the town. St Paul’s in Leicester Street was right opposite where friends lived; we later had a flat just behind Holy Trinity; you had to turn right at the Methodist Church to find where I once lived, and so on. My grandparents used to do the same with pubs, but for me - perhaps because they stood out so much - it was always the churches.

St John the Baptist is a vast, imposing church right at the corner of a road in which a group of friends lived. Built at the time the town was expanding rapidly to the south, it towered over the new homes around it as it still does to this day. Wherever I was when south of the railway I could always find my way to Hitchman Road.

The service today is a fully sung Communion with a start of 9.30am. Perhaps it’s that relatively early start that accounts for there not being a lot of people here, although that’s not something the priest remarks on when I speak to him after.

Inside, the church is every bit as imposing as it is outside. There’s a huge feeling of space, it’s cold (as you’d expect) and voices reverberate in the distance. Having taken my place I then opt to creep forward half a dozen rows to give myself a chance of feeling part of the proceedings. This church used to be able to hold a thousand. Now with its side aisle pews removed the contrast between available space and filled seats is unavoidable. 

The altar group, such as it is, numbers only four and the priest, Father Stephen, is lucky in having an assistant who sings the liturgy, rings the bell, races to the piano to play and sing the hymns and still has time to be in position to lead the prayers. I can’t remember ever seeing anyone so busy on a Sunday morning.

This being the first Sunday of Lent the sermon concentrates on the nature of fasting and the approaches toward making your particular sacrifice for Lent. Nobody is expecting us to give up eating completely and starving for forty days - the church probably worked out at an early date that killing off believers through voluntary malnutrition was, in the words of modern politics, non-sustainable if a growing congregation was the target. 

In essence it’s a symbolic suspension of luxury, of unnecessary indulgence, that’s being looked for. But it should be a sacrifice. Not going to McDonald’s appears to be Fr Stephen’s recommended response to the challenge. I ponder my breakfast of sugar-free muesli and skimmed milk and wonder again how far I can go. Perhaps the spoon is a luxury I could do without for a few weeks.

I’m glad to hear that Lent’s role as a time for studying scripture is still held as important. I’m continuing to look at the scripture passages and ‘thoughts for the day’ I picked up last week. Some lessons seem to appeal more than others, some I’m really not sure about. Like giving up chocolate or tobacco, perhaps studying is better if you’re in a group. I’m probably not really ready for either I suspect.

Among the many prayers offered this morning is one asking for wisdom for those steering us through the Brexit negotiations as the deadline approaches.   There is perhaps an irony in an institution as historically divided and entrenched as the church calling on others to put their differences aside for the greater good, but in these uncertain, troubling times we grab solace and hope wherever we can. Perhaps prayer will do the trick. 

Given the lack of consensus, the pig-headedness, the selfishness and intransigence we’ve witnessed in the last two years at Westminster we might still be asking too much.

13. Exeter College Chapel, Oxford. March 6, 2019

A day out in Oxford - a regular favourite for somewhere to wander for a day whenever I take time off. There’s plenty of art to enjoy, fabulous bookshops to plunder and - more often than not - the chance of a lunchtime chamber or organ recital to take in.

Today it’s Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. Oxford does churches like few other places. Not only are there the glorious historic churches whose spires help give the skyline its dreaming nickname; there are also plenty of colleges offering equally splendid, equally beautiful chapels.

Ash Wednesday with its solemnity and tradition is widely-observed and the choice, represented on the usual posters tied to the railings, is broad. Exeter College, in offering some of the best music ever written, just gets the nod though in truth any of a dozen others would have been a treat. They all have choirs, they all have treasures - like college rowing eights taking to the river or quiz teams taking on Jeremy Paxman, there’s a subtle whiff of competition here.

History is everywhere in these colleges. It’s in the buildings and the settings obviously. Centuries of students and dons have hurried across snowy quads, college scarves and surplices fluttering behind them to join in ancient music and even older words. Preserved over those centuries the atmosphere within is also one of history. Old master paintings, wood worn with polishing, magnificent stained glass and just enough candlelight to see by.

There is a sense, it has to be said, that this is non-participatory church. Perhaps it’s in the esoteric nature of college ritual, perhaps so much history keeps us at arms length, perhaps it’s the fact that the congregation is drawn from transitory students and even more transitory visitors and knows it will never come together in this way again. There is a definite feeling of being on the outside and watching what others do. This sits rather awkwardly with Ash Wednesday and its very personal commitment to faith and self-restraint. 

But included or not, it’s impossible not to be moved by a stunningly clear and soaring singing of Allegri’s Miserere while foreheads are marked by the small ash cross reminding all that we come from dust and will return that way in time. Having earlier seen a number of people around the city wearing these marks, it strikes me that the Christian faith doesn’t have that many outwardly visible personal symbols such as this. 

Lent - the period of fasting and study before Easter - has come to mean many different things in different walks of life. The very strict observance of fasting has, for most, become a combination of cutting back on excess while increasing prayer and study. Giving something up for Lent is now one of those things grabbed by the secular and often observed in ignorance of its meaning or place in the Christian faith. People who have never been near a church will suddenly declare themselves to be free from smoking or drink, adamant about shunning the cake trolley or crisps and so on. Lent it would seem is simply an excuse for trying to be a little less unhealthy in precisely the way you should have done anyway. A bit like the way the words ‘charity’ and ‘challenge’ now seem to be convenient passports to the look-at-me generation’s need to show off. These people, ironically, have no problem displaying the symbols of their piety.

Personally I’m struggling a bit on things to give up. Recent revelations at the doctor’s haven’t left me with many excesses to trim. I don’t smoke either. I could give up sugar-free, fat-free plain rice cakes but I think even God would be stretched to find that an impressive sacrifice. So perhaps it’s the study route. An earlier church visit provided me with a forty-day supply of thoughts to ponder. I decide I’ll do my best to avoid distraction and stick to that.

Then back out into the Oxford evening. Restaurants are starting to fill, covered market stalls promising lavish treats, pubs already ringed by outdoor smokers, bookshop windows still calling me in. Oxford may do the start of Lent beautifully, but it also provides the well-intentioned with every opportunity to fall at the first hurdle.

12. All Saints, Leek Wootton. March 3, 2019

The walk round the golf course at Leek Wootton has been a favourite of mine for a number of years. It takes in only a bit of the landscaped golf course before tracking a loop around the edge of it just the other side of the boundary - a separation probably as welcome to the golfers as it is to the walkers. There are paths through corn fields, bits through ancient woodland and paths which can sometimes, like today, be boggy and prey to thick mud.

It takes me about and hour and a quarter to do a full circuit, more if the blackberries are out, but I always know I’m closing in on the last stretch when the stone tower of All Saints comes into view. Via a series of gates, the route goes through the graveyard and right past the church door.

I have completed this walk well over a hundred times - usually on my own - and yet I cannot recall ever having set foot inside the church. I’ve gone round the circuit in blazing heat, in snow, often (like today) in steady drizzle; I’ve started out before dawn to catch the early birdsong and sometimes finish late enough that I have to hurry to get back to the car before the woods become too spooky. It’s a route I know extremely well.

Because the walk is so familiar I often hardly notice its passing. I can switch off my awareness of what’s around me and just let my thoughts wander. I’ve solved countless work problems like this; I’ve written poems, decided on Christmas plans, made peace with those whose actions have upset me and reconciled myself to my own failings. The walk has become an important part of my equilibrium. It gives me space and time to think.

Returning to the car park to change my mud-encrusted walking boots, I watch a few dozen runners passing by on the early stages of the Warwick half-marathon. Perhaps the act of running for over an hour affords a similar chance to let the mind wander, although with shoulders hunched against the now heavy rain, it doesn’t look like the resulting thoughts are all that positive. Each to his own, no doubt.

Today’s service chooses as its focus the many different forms of prayer. It’s something we should think about and which repays that thought. 

Rev Jim Perryman steers us through a couple of very thought-provoking exercises. We’re given small photographs and invited to look at them deeply, reflecting on what they make us think beyond the obvious element of merely recognising them. My picture is a fast flowing stream bursting over rocks. It’s attractive, inviting, calming even. If it has a meaning beyond that then I believe that lies in water being so potent a symbol of life, of renewal. A fitting subject for early spring meanderings. As a stimulus for meditation, a picture could be every bit as useful a portal as my walk.

On small coloured pieces of paper we also write our thoughts - however brief - on prayer, the people we would pray for and the God we would be praying to. Those individual thoughts are linked into a chain which carries all our hopes and thoughts. It’s a very moving sight in its own uncomplicated way.

There is a sizeable step between simply repeating an oft-repeated prayer or hymn and actually pausing to decide and record the prayer you would personally like to make. That difference lies both in having the space to think and the necessary impetus to start the process. 

Time to think in any significant depth is at such a premium in our busy lives. It’s something of a cliche but the sheer weight of information we shoulder every day, and the relentless tidal surge with which it engulfs us, leaves us with no time to stop, take stock and just think. 

Rev Jim points at the need firstly to empty our minds of clutter before we can then begin to coax our minds to see things afresh and perhaps even make a start on understanding what we feel, what’s important. 

I wonder if in church, as in my customary walk, the same is true. Maybe it’s not solely the actual words of the familiar prayers and liturgy that matter, but the spaces between which allow us the opportunity to think what those words mean, or even arrive at words of our own.

It’s something well worth thinking about, but I may have to wait for the rain to clear before I make a start.

11. Warwick Methodist Church. February 24, 2019

I’ve only ever visited this church once before and that was a long time ago. It was for a wedding way back in the 1980s. I dimly recall a narrow, rather dark space with us all wedged in while a distinctly Sale-of-the-Century organ led us through a jaunty Onward Christian Soldiers.

The fact that I don’t recognise it today has less to do with my failing memory and more to do with the total transformation the church went through in the early nineties. A ninety degree shift of orientation and the addition of a fabulous stained glass feature wall produced a real landmark building. It’s become a very recognisable part of the skyline. I’ve driven past it many times but, even on this foggy morning, the effect has to be seen from within - light, colour and space in abundance.

There’s a warm welcome and a fairly healthy congregation. The service, conducted by Rev Barbara Greenwood, is simple, straightforward and comparatively light in tone with room even for the odd bit of humour. There’s a theme of doing the things we can do and leaving the rest to God. The hymns and songs are well-sung - something you’d expect from Methodists perhaps - and are very well played. It makes quite a difference to a church to have a talented and versatile musician in the team.

All of which acts as a prelude to a quite remarkable moment and probably the bravest and most relevant sermon I’ve heard. It comes against a backdrop of a Catholic conference on abuse in the church, the ongoing arguments over whether or not to let Shamima Begum return from her time with ISIS and the truly disturbing rape and murder of a six-year-old girl in remote Scotland. In all these cases it’s hard not to be carried along by general feelings of revulsion and a clamouring for fairly base revenge. Unmask the guilty clerics and those who helped conceal them; let her rot in her ISIS camp, she deserves all she gets and we owe her nothing; publish his name and his picture in the full knowledge that this makes an act of vigilante justice more likely. 

The gospel reading this morning is the oft-quoted passage about turning the other cheek, forgiving and praying for those who do you any harm. The expectation could easily be that we’ll be encouraged to apply this instruction to the current mood and advocate calm, understanding and reconciliation.

But Rev Greenwood doesn’t subscribe to that. Not today anyway. And not having recently acted as chaplain during a safeguarding training event.

If the Bible says you must forgive, then the Bible has got it wrong, she says. It is right to feel angry, right to feel sickened and right to find automatic, blanket forgiveness a step too far. So don’t forgive, don’t just let this happen and NOT react.

Doing nothing in the face of abuse - as one might take the Bible’s words to mean - is plain wrong. Doing nothing is what allows those abusing others to carry on. Turning the other cheek doesn’t seem to stop some people hurting, threatening or abusing others. So, at the very least, listen and report such acts and by doing so perhaps make something happen. 

It’s a very brave thing to say, to admit our natural temptation toward revenge on those who have upset us. Brave too, to expose a flaw in the comfortably liberal beliefs that unite most if not all of the people here today. It’s not what you’d expect at all and is perhaps all the more refreshing for that. There are times when an unexpected voice speaks to us with far more clarity than the ones we’re accustomed to hearing. Perhaps it takes a 90 degree turn in more than just the building to make such things happen.

Before emerging into a world far less foggy than when I last looked, I make a point of thanking Rev Greenwood for her words and impressing on her how brave I thought they were. I have no way of knowing if anyone else felt as moved as I did, but I firmly wish that more people - a lot more people - could have heard it.

10. St Gregory, Offchurch. February 17, 2019

Many years ago, almost in a completely different life, I used to play cricket in Offchurch and the pub was a regular target for walks over the fields from Leamington. I always thought the village church looked quintessentially English and - about 35 years later - I finally get round to opening the door and going in. Hardly impulsive then.

It’s a beautiful spring morning despite it being February. There are daffodils and a carpet of crocuses in the graveyard and the low sun is giving a splendid warmth to the stonework. Perhaps as I get older I notice the passing seasons all the more but I think I can be excused for detecting a sense of renewal in the air. It’s a theme which stays with us all morning.

St Gregory’s is a wonderfully traditional church. There’s a very promising organ and some fine stained glass windows spectacularly backlit by the sun. There’s also the welcome (and increasingly rare) sight of a very visible team of bell-ringers calling the village from its Sunday slumbers. But I’m here on a far-from-traditional weekend. Today’s gathering is a family service and the emphasis is entirely on young people.

In addition to the vicar, a number of people report on what the church has been doing to provide something for teenagers, a gap which clearly needs filling. And we even hear from some young worshippers contributing thoughts and poems. A recent activities weekend gets the big screen treatment - plenty of the kind of rope-climbing, abseiling and obstacle-negotiating which used to be called Outward Bound but is now team development or personal challenge. Those who went also provide the commentary and it’s clear that their enjoyment is matched by the pride the congregation has in them. 

The service part of proceedings is kept very short. A handful of very brief songs, a few prayers and responses and very little else. But it obviously works. There’s a decent turnout this morning - running out of service books is always a good sign - and most choose to stay to chat afterwards. It’s a healthy community.

I’m welcomed by a few people and I have a nice chat with a woman who also acts as a lay chaplain at Warwick Hospital’s chaplaincy, and the vicar Hugh. 

The seasons advancing irrevocably as they do, we’re all aware of the need for churches to attract young people and - crucially - encourage them to stay. Perhaps services like this, and the thrills of going out on camps is the way. But I have slight concerns. I find myself wondering if these sought-after churchgoers of tomorrow really need something different, something tailored to them. 

As a music fan I have long been sceptical of classical concerts designed just for the young. Dress down, use a pally conductor, bung in the theme from Harry Potter - all well and good but are we trying to con them a little? Great music is great music no matter how much you sugar it up. It will either be for you or it won’t be. And perhaps the same is true of a supportive, vibrant church community. Perhaps the best advert for joining such a community is to see that community at its most effective. Seeing a full church is as good a statement of value and purpose as any.

But perhaps a little enticement helps. However the church goes about it, the confidant young worshippers who presented their experiences to this service should see the congregation in good stead for another generation. Particularly if they feel proud enough to bring a friend. I just wonder of any of them fancy becoming bell-ringers.