20. Kingdom Hall, Warwick. April 14, 2019

Quite often I like to watch football on TV. I can get very interested in the game - so much so that at times I hardly notice the logos on the players or the flashing signboards round the touchline or the way that every break in the game is an opportunity for me to be urged to join the happy, burgeoning betting community. Advertising is everywhere. I get stopped in the street almost every day to be quizzed on who supplies my electricity, and my phone and email inbox are constantly bombarded with offers to get compensation for  PPI I was never sold or accidents I (thankfully) never had.

It gets wearing of course. I mute the TV at half-time, I bin the emails and sail past street canvassers as if I have much more important things to do. And as for those who knock at the door and drag us from our sofas...

Not many people actually knock at my door any more. Power companies gave up a long time ago and politicians only appear when they get desperate for your vote. But every now and then, I’ll get a visit from someone who doesn’t claim to be saving me money, but instead wants to save me.

Just such an approach came a few Saturdays ago when a knock at the door revealed a chap called Richard who, it transpired, was a Jehovah’s Witness bringing me an invitation to join a bible reading event. He had his sales pitch ready and his supporting literature in his hand. And off he went. I think he was truly stunned when I said yes.

So that’s that brings me here this morning to Warwick’s Kingdom Hall tucked away behind some light industrial development near the hospital. There’s a full car park and a packed hall. The greeting is sincere and widespread. A succession of very similarly-suited men shake my hand and welcome me in. There are even reserved spaces at the front so I get the best view.

This morning’s meeting comes in two parts: A video talk on ‘reaching out for the real life’ given to all 120,000 Jehovah’s Witness meetings around the globe and a discussion on an article in The Watchtower concerning the value of integrity and how it can be maintained.

The ‘real life’, we learn from the almost salesman-like speaker interspersing leading questions with bible quotations, is reached by turning your back on the shallow cares of the modern world and embracing the word of Jehovah. Integrity, we are told, means staying true to your beliefs in the face of either temptation or provocation. In both cases the reward on offer for following Jehovah’s way is eternal life.

Our world’s modern day obsession with material goods comes in for criticism bordering on scorn. We’re shown a picture of a JW ‘brother’ resisting the temptation to buy himself a huge new television. The TV, we’re invited to understand, won’t improve his life because what’s on it won’t be any better than what was on his current telly. I feel like asking the entire row of people following the bible references on fancy apps if the word of God is any better on an iPhone5 than it is in a paperback book, but I resist.

Reaching out for the real life seems to require giving ownership of your self to Jehovah; maintaining integrity means putting Jehovah’s will above your own. If I’m perfectly honest, I’m not sure I’d swap a life of experience, emotion, free thought, risk and possibilities for an eternity of apparently slavish obedience. But it seems others would. I also think integrity is perfectly attainable within our flawed world. It’s not Jehovah’s voice that makes me stick to my integrity, it’s voices from my upbringing reminding me of the moral obligation of not giving offence if it can be avoided. So I hold my tongue.

It’s a huge part of any church’s purpose to spread the word and get people in through the door. Without new people all religions would simply wither and become even more marginalised than many now are. So you can’t really, on reflection, criticise them for trying. But they might just find out that following my own choices and whims, I don’t always answer my door.

19. St Michael's, Budbrooke. April 7, 2019

St Michael's is a traditional stone built church tucked away in the very out-of-the-way hamlet of Budbrooke. There's quite a few cars in the car park and by the time the service gets started the church is pleasingly full. Evidently this is a popular church people are prepared to drive to.

I've chosen to come here partly as a consequence of browsing church websites - something of a regular time-filler for me these days. Very handy for checking service times and trying to get a feel for a place you've never been before. Most churches seem to have them and you can tell a lot about how a church wants to be viewed by the pictures displayed and the language used.

The website for this church reads more like the prospectus of a thrusting new business than a square towered church in the quiet countryside. Here's a taster of the church's message and its style of communication: "Our mission is: to raise a church of prayerful, passionate, missionary disciples of Jesus, empowered to serve God’s plan to renew the whole of creation. Our patterns of corporate worship are shaped to seek and glorify God and encourage, equip and empower us in his mission. The gathered church is the “powerhouse” that resources us in mission and is the place of inspiration and refreshment. This means we seek to ensure the following emphases are present through the ministry of Word and Spirit when we come together to worship as a gathered community."

Powerful stuff indeed. The theme of this morning's informal worship though is more homely and domestic than commercial and businesslike: We're to focus on the family - our own family, the church family and God's chosen family. 

As seems to be the case in many churches these days there's a big projector screen. Some of the time this is displaying the words to a series of simple but catchy songs which are clearly popular with a very wide-ranging congregation. 

But the big screen also plays a part when this morning's talk commences. Having sat through a few meetings in my time, I never really warmed to the Power Point presentation. A few key words under a fairly arbitrary heading usually serve to distract rather than focus, in my opinion. There is a danger it can all become a bit 'team-building', a bit 'on-message'. There is also a danger that presenting in this meeting-like fashion can lead to overstatement and repetition. At more than an hour and a half and with three people effectively covering the same ground, there's certainly scope for that this morning.

We look at the bible passage in which Jesus, when told his mother and family are outside, tells the assembled that anyone who follows him is in essence his mother or brother and therefore of equal importance. To say a perfect stranger can have equal standing in your eyes as your own mother or brother is taken to be quite shocking. But I've never really felt that. Not these days anyway.

Outside Eastenders and The Sopranos it's a moot point as to whether unswerving family loyalty still carries the weight it once did. We live in an age of complex, almost accidental non-nuclear families. You have only to look at the hierarchy of loyalty in any inner city gang, ambitious start-up business or - dare I say it - religious group. The notion of the husband, wife and two children 'perfect' modular family is, I would say, so outdated to be positively redundant so Jesus' words have arguably lost any real power to shock.

There are many different loyalties within our modern families - whether actual or metaphorical - and we seem to cope with that without too much trouble. Heaven knows what the unstoppable tide of social media and online friendship have done to make our relationships with those a round us even more complex and nuanced: Even less archetypal. Families have confusing structures made up of very varied characters. All families have people whose views we respect and some whose presence and utterances we tolerate while secretly wishing they'd keep quiet. If it proves anything, then this lengthy family chat certainly proves that.

If all this sounds a bit negative then it isn't supposed to be. We just happen to live in the societal structure that we do taking the rough with the smooth. The group whose members all agree absolutely with each other on every point simply doesn't exist. We don't all have to like the same things. We couldn't. Yet we get along, bestowing loyalty, respect and harmony for the good of doing just that. Families are like that.

18. Masjid Zeenat ul Islam, Coventry. April 5, 2019

My satnav says it takes sixteen minutes to get from my home to Stoney Stanton Road in Coventry and the mosque where I’m heading to join Friday prayers. I know plenty of people for whom the journey might as well be sixteen hours.

To many the mosque - and those who go there - really are from a different world. This isn’t the place to debate prejudice, bigotry and ignorance, but we live in times when Islam’s appearance on our TV screens or newspaper pages tends to be about anything BUT the religion itself. Blithely bracketed with terrorists and barbaric practices and, most recently, the victims of one of the worst, most cowardly massacres in modern times, these are delicate, perplexing times for the muslim community. I have no qualms whatsoever about going. I know that my intentions are honest and respectful. But it’s still a step along a path I’ve never trodden.

Above all there is the fear of giving offence. I am constantly alert to the possibility of inadvertently going into a place I shouldn’t, saying or doing the wrong thing - or as often as not, failing to say or do the right thing. I have to say that this feeling is there for all the places I visit which hold some sort of unchartedness for me. I’m actually no more at home in a Catholic church or Kingdom Hall than I would be in a mosque, synagogue or gurdwara. It’s probably just the sense that there’s a heightened tension surrounding Britain’s relationship with Islam at the moment that makes me even keener to get it right. 

Having made tentative searches on the internet I am soberly dressed, right down to socks I am confident could offer no offence, and I wear on my face an expression of benign amiability. Now I know how election candidates feel.

The welcome here is as strong as any I’ve encountered. The unknown can be as scary as it can be exciting. This mosque - and Islamic centre - is clearly aware of that and presents a very friendly face. Duly cleansed by the offer of scented oil I take a seat at the back of the hall. I note that my companions on the lone row of chairs are all either very old or toting clearly debilitating injuries. I wish I was a bit more supple and could actually take part.

The modern purpose-built hall gradually fills up as prayer time approaches. This hall, plus another within the centre will all be full. It’s a very big centre serving an ever-expanding community.

Friday’s congregational prayer is preceded by a sermon exhorting all to remain true to what they know to be right. The world, says the speaker, is full of forces which seek to divide and cast doubt. Only by sticking true to the principles which bring you here today can we all avoid being dragged off the right course. It could be a lesson for anyone from any religion, or indeed none.

The Salaat-ul-Jumu'ah itself is impressive. The hall is packed, with appeals to  ‘move on down the bus’ and stand shoulder to shoulder. It is as clear a physical expression of devotion and togetherness as you could expect to see. It’s as intensely observed as it is brief.

Once the shoes are on and the packed hall has emptied, the focus switches to the streets outside where the socialising happens and a hundred different conversations take place. I get warm greetings and handshakes from many and a much longer discussion with a man who was born a muslim and came to the city in the 1960s. So keen is he to welcome me and show what being a muslim means that we spend half an hour sitting in the car park comparing life stories and watching a phone clip outlining the five pillars of Islam. It’s an entirely friendly gesture. He’s very keen that I go again. I’m sure I shall.

According to my car park correspondent, one of the pillars of Islam seems to encourage constantly hitting a notional reset button to ditch distractions and return to what’s important to you. Another is the notion of pilgrimage. The phrase often used is ‘to travel with intent’.

For me that doesn’t necessarily mean having a fixed target in mind, just the conviction that your journey should be one from which you can learn something, anything. It’s not where you travel, but how you travel. So where should such a pilgrimage take you? A journey of sixteen minutes may seem unlikely to yield a great reward, but if it makes you think things you haven’t thought before, it’s as good as a lengthy trek through a strange but thrilling country.

17. Salvation Army, Leamington. March 31, 2019

Today is Mothering Sunday. We learn a lot from our mothers, most of it generally good and morally sound one would hope. They shape us when we’re young by a combination of example, coaching and remonstration. I suspect most of us don’t grasp either that it’s happening  or acknowledge its affects at the time. But it all gets absorbed and, as you get older, you begin to see how many of the things you adhere to, and quite a number of the things you instinctively reject, come from that relationship. 

And it doesn’t end when the living relationship does. I’m often aware of things I do being learned from my mother and I constantly hear her voice in my head whenever I consider, however fleetingly, a course of action of which she would not have approved.

My mother was a lifelong, committed atheist - and forthright with it. She had no place for organised religion or for the things it required of you. It was all bunkum and she had no time for anyone who tried to persuade her otherwise.

Apart, that is, from one group of people. Growing up in tough post-war East London she watched the Salvation Army as they braved the roughest of pubs,  the coldest of street corners, to tend to an often forcefully unresponsive flock. And she saw how they were always there whenever and wherever they were needed. She wouldn’t have a word spoken against them.

I’m delighted to note that the Salvation Army’s calling card the War Cry is still going strong and I leave with a copy - my mother would probably have read it despite her misgivings.

This morning’s worship in a well-appointed and very welcoming small church in Leamington is a small gathering with an equal mix of Salvation Army uniforms and not.

Small though the turnout may be, it’s a very involving experience. Prayers are invited from the floor and volunteers sought to take part in the proceedings. No danger here of this being a service you might spectate upon from a distance. The Salvation Army being all about rolling up your proverbial sleeves and getting involved, that shouldn’t be a surprise.

The Pastor is keen to expand the notion of mothering to include all those - although still female - who have found themselves in a position where they have influence over others. It’s a welcome touch as these catch-all celebrations - fathers, grandparents, teachers, sweethearts etc - are often negatively defined by who they leave out. There are flowers and the offer of chocolate treats for all those being thanked this morning.

It’s nice to note too that those of us whose ‘significant female example-setters’ have long since departed are included too. There are candles to light and words of quiet reflection for us too. It’s thoughtful, respectful and utterly non-showy. Nothing for the mother to disapprove of there.

One of the recurring themes of the morning, in prayer, in reaffirmation and even on posters on the walls is that, in this church, everybody is a somebody. Everyone is welcome, everyone plays a part of equal worth. It’s the simple creed of making sure someone knows that, in your eyes at least, they matter. It’s something we all should get from our mothers. Sadly we don’t always, but that should at least spur us on to make the best effort we can toward those who look to us for kindness, love and guidance. Perhaps in a way we’re all mothers.

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.