Friday October 7th

One of the things I most miss, a little to my surprise, is taking funerals. For the busy parish priest, a funeral is inevitably an unplanned intervention, disrupting the smooth arranging and carrying-out of one's diary commitments, and, of course, requiring a much greater investment of time and energy than the hour or so of the service itself. Nevertheless, I still miss them, and I can think of some quite special times when God, I think, was able to use me to great effect within situations of bereavement and loss.

I still seem to attend quite a few, of course, being the age I now am. And from time to time - today being one occasion - I set up sound equipment for funerals in small country chapels where it's likely there'll be more attending than can be seated inside. When doing this, I'm on site for longer than anyone else - setting up, taking down, and attending to the equipment throughout the service itself - giving me the opportunity to observe the customs and interaction.

Today's was a well and sensitively taken service, I thought. And there was, as I saw it, a healthy balance of genuine grief tempered both by the comfort of a faith sincerely held and by the greetings, conversations and general good humour to be found when country folk get together for whatever reason. It was a sad occasion, but not a time to be washed away by sadness: a parting but also a celebration. This is what should happen; the dominant feeling was one of goodwill, within which those most affected by the loss can find themselves treasured, comforted and affirmed. I felt privileged to be in that place today.

Thursday October 6th

Until my sudden departure from paid employment (last March), I was a vicar, let it be known. On a single day, over thirty years of - I hope - useful and effective ministry was brought to what at the time seemed like a permanent end. It felt almost as though I had ceased to exist - for almost the whole of my adult life this had been not only my job but my identity. I had lost not only my paid job but my status and position, and of course my home. The journey on from that point has been a hard one, but it is beginning to feel like a journey with purpose and destination. I have been tempted to give up hope, tempted into believing that I have never had any genuine call into this work. I'm not in that place now - but that doesn't mean there aren't flashbacks.

I don't need to go into the whys and wherefores that lie behind the events of the past few months; they're not important. But I probably should say that, for me, the life of faith has always involved the persistent reality of doubt. You can't have the one, can you, without the other? So what is the origin of faith, and what are the reasons for its persistence, given that doubt also persists? I have found my faith to be renewed and revived through the witness of others, and because of the ministry and prayer they have offered. This has been so important to me through the past weeks and months. I have known myself to be surrounded and sustained by love - despite the times when I have been spiky and difficult and quite unloveable . . .

For now, I continue to be work in progress.

Reflections

I looked into a moveless pool
where a younger self looked up with hopeful eyes
and met my frown with an open smile.
Startled, I cast a cynical stone
and watched as the splintered fragments of my long ago
rippled away into oblivion.

Wednesday October 5th

Tomatoes are gradually building up on our kitchen windowsill, there to complete the process of ripening. We have a small lean-to greenhouse which is in fact on the north side of the house, pretty much - so it often feels cooler in there than outside! But it's a sheltered place, and will be a good frost-free refuge for some of the tender stuff from the garden when it gets colder. And the tomatoes haven't done badly. I probably left a few too many trusses on, though, and not all the fruit are as large as I'd like. I planted two different varieties, but as usual I've forgotten what they were! I'm in awe of those gardeners who have everything identified and labelled - it isn't something I ever manage to achieve. A lot of the plants in the greenhouse will be cleared out in a fortnight's time to be put on sale at the church autumn fair, and it's then we'll be able to move some of the tender plants in from the garden.

Tuesday October 4th

A sunny, windy afternoon here at Brookfield, and the end, I think, of a remarkable last blast of summer. Black-eyed Susan still flowering happily outside my window, but that'll soon change if we get the predicted early frosts. Six months now since I temporarily (I hope) finished work, and I've finally decided to sign on the dole, for the first time since I left uni. It was easier in those days - all you had to do was join the line and stare at the peeling paint in the crowded dole office until your name was called. Now - if you do it on-line, anyway - it takes page after page of probing questions. I very nearly gave up! I think now HMG knows more about me than I had thought I knew about myself. All part of life's rich tapestry, I suppose (I know, to use a phrase like that is to admit to having little in the way of original thought - but can you be surprised after all that form-filling). Why did they need to know quite so much about my wife? Or my mother-in-law? Gissajob, I say - that's all I want.

Autumn Poem

Brown-curled parchment driftings of the green lane's ancient haws

crunch beneath my boots; once again the year is dying,

and this shaded path is in transition. Those screaming swifts are now long gone

that once possessed this sky.

Quarrelsome starlings arrive to take their place, and only

the last few nervous swallows hold conversation along the wires, debating

their overdue departure. Beneath the coursing swifts of June

there had seemed so much time, too much to ever spend; but now

the north wind on my face breathes its tale of coming frosts,

and my account is overdrawn.

The farmyard beasts eye me across their muddy gate. For them

time has a different measure

and is not reflected upon. I walk on

towards the yellow smear of the disappearing sun,

leaving the swallows on their perching wires, to climb the hill path

and gaze across the hard land they will leave.