First thoughts

John Lennon onece said that life is what happens when you are busy making plans.
Well, teaching is what happens when you are busy making plans to teach. So it seems just now. Planning so many things and attending meetings to plan everything from the Taize service to the Christmas service. Yes, Christmas comes early when there is a service to plan.
I wonder if Jesus spent so much time planning?
Here I sit planning a trip to Zambia, a paper to present in Oxford and a lesson on World Poverty to Year 11 pupils. In the midst of this the new students arrive, maybe I should teach them to plan rather than do!
Somewhere over the Rainbow everything which we have ever planned will happen.
Not much blogging because work gets in the way and I would rather be working than blogging. Could this be the end of the blog for me after such a short time?

A headline in the daily Torygraph "Billions spent but UK schools still fail". So now the chattering classes are being fed with ample Government policy bashing from the usual suspects. Only a matter of days ago they were being told that more pupils were passing examinations. Of course this was not because of any efforts on the part of pupils and staff but rather the examinations were easier! It seems the chattering classes want to have their cake and eat it.
Those of us involved in education are caught between the rock and the hard place - once again we are accused of failing our young people. What about the parents! Has anyone ever thought about the amount that parents can do to support our schools and teachers? It is time this country supported teachers not just by throwing millions into a balck hole but by encouraging pupils to learn and parents to support their learning. Maybe then we might find changes for the better.Schools are not failing. Society is failing to value thoes who work in education. This is just another example of teacher bashing from people who should know better.

Not wanting to anticlerical in my previous comment about blessings it was just an observation from the pew so to speak. If a punter on the pew can make such an observation it might be time for some members of the Anglican clergy to take a long, hard look at themselves and see how other people see them. By that I do not mean those of us who attend churches but rather the vast majority of people who never set foot inside a church.

I am prompeted to this action by the comments in the Church Times about education. To which I wish to answer....It is we the common, poorly paid, overworked and undervalued teachers who struggle daily with apathetic pupils who should be given some credit when our charges gain a few GCSEs. Never once in that rag of the middle aged, pew warming, chattering classes is there a mention of how hard teachers work in schools. It is high time the clergy in the Church of England gave some credit to teachers in Anglican schools. We are not some sort of uneducated laity to be filled every Sunday by their (for the most part) dull words. We all have at least one university degree and reach every day numbers of people most clergy can only dream of reaching.Could it be that the clerics need to take a lesson from us in this respect?

So come on you vicars...give the teachers some credit for the success of CofE schools. One day we might not be here and then where will you be? Tending to your flocks of 50 Polo munching grannies in twin sets and dreaming of a youth club of rising acolytes for your high altar!

I can't help but comment on the double standards of many Anglican clergy. They seem happy to bless warships and nuclear submarines which are weapons of mass destruction costing the taxpayer a fortune. Yet, they are not happy blessing gay relationships or letting people who are divorced get married in church.

A funny old world!

Sitting down and enjoying a large GandT with my cigarette.Bach on the CD player and the smell of the roast beef which I am cooking is filling the air. So much for those people who moan about smoking etc etc. I enjoy it, I don't do it that often, I am considerate (I do not do it near others who object) and I mainly do it in my own home at the back door. Now what is wrong with that? There are far worse things than enjoying a quiet smoke whilst contemplating this morning'sermon. No, I will never stop smoking 5 a day, eating meat or drinking gin....my Granny did all these things in moderation and died......aged 97.

The task for today was to write the sermon - well finish it.I am one of those people who tend to wander off once I get started, I enjoy sermons both listening to them and preaching them. It seems that the sermon has gone out of fashion these days and it is hard to find one that hits the spot. Not moaning about it but it is probably an unusual position to be in as a liberal Anglican as the sermon seems to be the domain of those of a more evangelical bent.
The first sermon of the new term is I am told the one everyone listens to. This says a great deal about the others! It is also the one I have to do and in order to fit everyone in I have to preach it twice. My own parish priest Paul is celebrating the eucharist for us which will be his first encounter with a congregation of 900. I am not sure how many people preach to 900 people these days but it can't be many.
A wander round the countryside is just the thing to concentrate on the job in hand so off I went in the rain. The familiar countryside around here was a place where I played and messed about as a child. It has changed, the old barns and farms are now converted to communter houses with the dreaded silver 4x4 sitting in perfect condition on the paved driveway. The city has come to the countryside. Where have all the farmers gone? Cashed in on the property boom and sold out to business people working in the city? I hark back to an age of simple folk who grew their own spuds and sold veg from the gate of their small holding. The fact is there never was such a time. Life in the country was hard and people were poor. No wonder most of the local farmers have sold up and cashed in. I would have done the same. There is no way that I would spend my working life breaking my back in the freezing cold for the price of a few spuds.
The old farms now look like townhouses with pvc window frames and Narnia lamps. They are protected by huge security gates, intercom systems and large dogs. What is going on here? Who are they afraid of? The peasants who might venture down the country lanes to enjoy a little slice of what they experience? Who knows? I wonder who lives in these places and my imagination runs riot...drug barons, gangsters or footballers? Earlier this year there was a police raid on one of these converted farms and two arrests made. Armed police blocked the top of the lane and there were reports of people being held hostage. You just do not know your neighbours these days or rather you can't know your neighbours due to the security gates and large dogs. Best not to dwell on this too much.
Sad to think that Gerard Manley Hopkins lived in the lane at one time. I wonder what he would have made of the mansions with their footballer's wives and gangsters!
I contemplate the demise of the great sermon and reflect that maybe there was never a golden age of churches full of eager listeners and vibrant preachers. The 1851 church census does not provide evidence of the pews being full and subsequent research tends to suggest that for the most part congregations were never large.

The walk provided me with ideas but not for the sermon.

I returned home and completed the sermon on the Eucharist just in time to recall that I still had the presentation on Mark's Gospel to finish. The rain and the wind, the increasing work and an e-mail from Liverpool Hope is telling me that summer has ended and the new term is about to start. Bring it on!!!!