Rector's Ramblings

Tomorrow we have another go at the hypnotherapy. It was the only thing that kept me fag-free for a few weeks until I fell by the wayside! So, I'm off to invest some more money in the hope of saving lots. Whether my original sponsors will still cough up in six months time is neither here nor there. This is not for the sponsor money, but for me. I've decided I am a really unhappy smoker after my failed first attempt.

Another Partick Thistle Nil performance last night, with Owen Coyle's Burnley the visitors. The problem was twofold. Burnley got ONE. PTN look like they may never score this side of the New Year. MP is right! Remember the good old days when..........

Well, we seem to be starting pre-season as we finished the last one! A wonderful no-scoring draw with Carlisle, and by all accounts, the faithful are wondering where our first goal is coming from! Perhaps the defence of the mighty Burnley might help us out tonight?

I'll let you know!

Coming back from retreat,I realise that Lambeth is now in full sway, and am saddened by the words of +Gene.

"Never have I felt more in need of your prayers. As I write this, the opening service of the Lambeth Conference is going on at Canterbury Cathedral. I am a few miles away -- but it feels like a much further difference…

The level of fear and anxiety, especially among the Conference powers-that-be, is out the roof. No matter what I say, no matter what assurances I give, I seem to be regarded as a threat, something to be walled off and kept at a distance. Greeting a few American bishops in passing, and then at a dinner for General Seminary alumni last night, has been pleasant and supportive. But even though I thought I was properly prepared for the feeling of being shut out, I am stunned by the depth of that feeling…

I don't know how all this is going to play out over the next two weeks. At the moment, I am feeling like the ancient Hebrews, wandering in the desert looking for God's daily manna, just to get through. With all the exclusion and meanness that has come my way over the years, you'd think this would come as less of a surprise. But surprise me it did! And it hurts, especially at the hands of my brothers and sisters in Christ."

And, yes, I will pray for him, but I can't help feeling that things would have been a lot easier if he had just stayed at home.

So, off I go, today, on a four day "retreat" to Elie. Nae computers, nae telly, few distractions, I hope! Even my phone is getting turned off! I'll catch up with y'all on Saturday!

It has always been my dream that Partick Thistle Nil should have a Saviour on board. This obviously is our answer!  It's just who we need! 0-0 with one minute to go, and the game is won, with a mesmerising, Messianic overhead scissor kick.

Call in at the We Are Fishermen site for surfing, skateboarding, motorbiking and other unlikely incarnations of Jesus. "I am Victory" (above) can be yours for just $20 (plus postage).

Return to a discussion today that has followed me for most of my life. It involves the use of "amn't", and whether or not this is proper English! "Am not I going to church?", seems to just come out as "amn't I" when I speak or write! I'm told this should be "aren't I?", but that sounds daft to me! How can you say "I aren't" or "I are not"? That seems like bad bad English to me! However, I hear this "aren't I?" stuff being said by folk with plummy voices all the time! Of course, "aren't we?" is quite correct! Why not "amn't I?"?

I know some great academics in the English language, and the Rector of Falkirk who is always correcting ma spellin', read this blog and are maybe best placed to comment, but my mammy drilled "amn't I" rather than "aren't I" into us from an early age, and I'm loathe to stop using it!

My pal, Maggot, sent me this link!

This man could easily have a career in Scottish football, where tumshies like this are ten-a-penny. Except you, Mr K Clarke, because you work round the corner from the church, and you're a lawyer, and I can't afford to defend any action that would suggest that you're refereeing was anything other than pure dead brilliant, except when you refereed Rangers games....... oops, not that I think for a minute........

I'm looking forward to getting away for a wee 4 day retreat to Elie in Fife. A wee caravan all to myself on the beach, a chance to rest and refresh my soul, a time to read and reflect and lose the TV control, although I'm told I have Freeview if I want it! Noooooooooooo!

A retreat is a retreat, and I won't even be buying newspapers! I don't want to talk to neighbours, or anyone for that matter, really!

The RW has suggested I should take the dogs with me. Toastie and Peanut would make wonderful companions on my "spiritual trip", and would love long walks along the beaches of the East Neuk of Fife. Now, I love them to death, but I'm not sure if retreats and dogs go together!

I would love your opinion!

Those who keep up with our efforts to run and maintain a school in the poorest part of Serrekunda, The Gambia, will be well aware of the project and how it's funded. Following the link should give you the information you need.

We provide a unique service in the London Corner area of Serrekunda. We educate, feed and give medical care to 90 children, free of charge, and also run free Adult Literacy/General Education for mostly women in the community, mostly mums, and some dads. It greatly empowers the women! (One day they, too, could be a C of E bishop now!)

This all costs us almost £1000 per month to run. We get the money by having around 70 people who give regularly by Direct Debit, mostly around £5 per month, but some with a bigger contribution according to what they have left over! The contributers come from all over the UK, and one or two from more far flung lands!

Until recently, this was all ticking over nicely! However, the recent changes in the value of the Dalasi has meant that we are facing trouble and may have to abandon the feeding programme. We were getting around D50 to the £1, but now we are only getting about D30-35. Our school therefore is only getting three fifths of what they got in the last year or so. Giving amongst our regulars has increased, and some hold fund- raising events to try to meet the shortfall, but there is still a huge gap to fill.

When I started this project seven years ago, we were losing around four or five children a year. Child mortality was high. Since the feeding programme was introduced, along with the medical care, this is now a big fat zero! Our children are fed well at least once every day and are fit and healthy. Chest infections and malaria are less likely due to the Adult Education classes and the nutrition we provide for our kids.

Wouldn't it be a pity if that were to end?

I would ask you to have a read about our work and if you felt moved to, think about helping us in any way you can. You may even know of someone or some charity that could help us financially. We ourselves are a registered charity in Scotland. It's critical we close the gap before the next academic year begins.

For only £1 per week, or maybe a little more if you can afford it, you can help us save some little lives. Even a one-off donation would help!

They came this morning! Scene of Crime Officers, but Dumbarton's answer to CSI! No prints were found, as the blighters were wearing woolen gloves! But, but..... they have taken a DNA sample from the handle of the knife they used to cut through the plasterboard! I was waiting for them to take a swab from the inside of my mouth, just to eliminate me from their enquiries, but no luck!

The RW who is a CSI fanatic was ready to come back from work and offer the inside of her mouth too, and help to find the "stray hair", or the bit of dust that's only found in the Silverton area of Dumbarton, to help the CSI Dumbarton to close down the case quickly, but alas the lads weren't going for it!

The other thing that was weird was that they didn't close the blinds and come in with torches! Now, they always use torches in CSI New York and CSI with Grissome.

We're feeling seriously let down here!

Now, here’s the thing! Why would anyone break into the Church Office on a Sunday night? A bit like the chicken question! Easy! To get the collection from Sunday Services! Nae luck then, since we don’t leave large amounts of cash in the office, and if we did, they would be in a safe! (Large amounts from our Sunday collections are rarer than hen’s teeth anyway!) But you can cause considerable damage, and leave a helluva mess if you are looking for the non-existent collection! That’s what’s happened!

A tremendous effort! Take grills off windows, come through the kitchen, grab a chair, go back out the kitchen window, cos you need the chair to shut up the alarm box and you can’t reach without a chair, come back through the kitchen window, cut a hole big enough in the plaster boarding to tunnel into office, gemmy all the filing cabinets, search through all drawers, receptacles, cash boxes, fail to find the laptop, (aye – that fooled you), damage a chair to make a bigger gemmy, a couple of hundred quid from the Families United cabinet, (for families of drug misusers), and about £50 petty cash, and you are offski! Probably about £125 an hour. Not bad eh? You expected more! So do the guys who clean out our high gutters!

Meanwhile the RW is amazed that they didn't take the amazing bottle of red which was on the filing cabinet. Maybe they preferred white?

Songs of Praise give people comfort, but "Taking the Episcopalian", link in my blogroll, gave me access to the real words! Hear it all here!

Aye! It's not just the Church that has problems just now. My beloved football club are in turmoil too. As a fan, I regularly tuned into www.ptfc.net, the alternative Partick Thistle Nil website. Not the "official" one, but the one that belonged to us, the fans. There we argued on the forum, worried, joked, taunted Airdrie and Gypsy, (Clyde FC), fans, and had brilliant match reports and up to date real news of what was going on at Firhill.

Towards the end of last season, Alan Cowan, the Chairman, an honourable man I'm sure, banned PTFC.net from after match press conferences! Seemingly the Board couldn't take the criticism.

The committed people who ran the site have given in, and given up after years of maintaining one of the best fan's sites on the internet.

Banning from press conferences? Shutting up the complainers? Doing away with people who do not agree with them? Ring any bells?

It's not as if they are doing a brilliant job. I know of many who are having second thoughts about renewing their season ticket, me included! They are not called Partick Thistle Nil for nothing, but we pays our money and support them through thick and thin. We are true supporters.

However, we cannot criticise! Perhaps I have to be careful here. I don't want Rector's Ramblings to be shut down just yet, or my usual seat at home matches being tampered with because I have very negative feelings about the current Board!

Will I renew my season ticket? Aye. Because if you cut me in two I'd be red and yellow, and I go to support a football team that I've loved since I was 4 years old. How many of the current Board can saythat?

No, not my own father, but me! The High Church high jinks has raised a wee stushie in the parish over another matter. (See Wait Till I Tell You in the Parish Mag) It was made clear to me when I arrived in Dumbarton that naebody here wid be callin' me "father"! For a parish that didn't even have a candle on the altar 12 years ago, I expected nothing less!

However, with the High Church bit, and the local press referring to me lately as "Father Kenny", the issue has arisen again. Not that I'm bothered what people call me! Kenny will do fine thanks! However, an explanation as to how I ended up with the moniker of "Father Kenny"....!

In my curacy, a high church parish, the congregation took great delight in calling a new priest "Father", although there I was known as "Father Macaulay". My first Incumbency was also high church, but in a very poor area, along with the fact that the local Roman Catholic clergy were known as Fr John and Fr Gerry, I soon became known as Fr Kenny, both within the community and within the congregation! The term stuck in my next parish, and returning to the Cathedral in Glasgow, I was referred to as Fr Kenny. All Cathedral staff tended to be endowed with the title by most folk in the congregation of the time!

Then to Shettleston and Kings Park, where, although it was not used frequently, it was accepted as what most folk knew me as, and I was often called Father Kenny. I was called a lot of other things too!

Now Dumbarton......

Really, I don't care! "frkenny" is a nice and easy prefix for an email address!

However, it has always been my view that you have to earn the right to be called "Father" in any parish. If you are a true spiritual "father" to your flock, then the title is earned rather than just accepted and bestowed freely! I want people always to feel comfortable with what they call me, so here is a list: (choose your own)

Revd Macaulay, Mr Macaulay, Kenny, Kenneth, Fr Kenny, Fr Macaulay, Rector, Revd Kenny or Hey You!

Take your pick!

My sister a lone parent, with two grown up teenage boys still at home, has been in private lets for a number of years having had to sell her family home. The cost of letting privately, in Glasgow, is astronomical.

However, her landlord decided he wanted to sell her curent "short-term let", and now she has only 12 days before she becomes officially homeless! The options are grim!

Glasgow City Housing are not really in a position to offer her anything other than bed & breakfast, since she doesn't have enough points to secure decent housing. Her boys, because they are over 16 don't count. They are a decent family with pretty high standards.

She has no mental or physical health issues, like addiction, so she is not deemed to be a priority.

The same landlord offered her another house, yesterday, with reduced rent which could be affordable, in Rutherglen, miles from where she has lived all her life.

The flat is grotty, no central heating, no white goods, (she has none since all her private lets have had white goods included) and although spacious, it needs new floor coverings throughout. It needs totally disinfected and redecorated. New blinds, curtains, bedroom furniture etc etc.

All on a Nursery Nurse's wage! Pah!

I have worked in the addiction field for many years, and have tremendous sympathy for those who need housed who are trying to get their act together, but I also know of many, still using drugs, who get to the top of the list every time, and use and abuse the system. It's just not fair!

Anyone who could help with kitchen appliances that are decent are welcome to get in touch!

LUBBOCK, Texas — Dan Bentley, 38, used to have trouble admitting he was wrong, until a sermon series convinced him that asking forgiveness was the path to personal freedom. Now he is asking forgiveness so much that he’s on the verge of losing every friend he’s ever made.

"I’m cleaning the slate with everybody, no matter how difficult that proves to be," he says.

Bentley recently asked a woman at work to forgive him for spending years ogling her, especially when she wore particular outfits. He was promptly hit with a sexual harassment claim and a demotion.

He asked forgiveness of two high school buddies and detailed what had bothered him about their personalities. They haven’t invited him fishing since.

Even his mother is angry at him for confessing that for years he’d seen her as overbearing, selfish and manipulating and that he needed forgiveness for "always liking Dad a lot better."

She promptly disinvited him to the family’s Fourth of July reunion.

Bentley says that though he’s paid a high price for coming clean he "really feels free."

"My pastor was right," he says. "Asking forgiveness completely changes your life." • (From Lark News)

Our current exec for the running of our school had their final meeting tonight before the AGM. Here are the folk who make it all happen!

Having read the STATEMENT ON THE GLOBAL ANGLICAN FUTURE in Gadgetvicar's Blog I'm understanding that there is now to be an "Anglican Communion" within the Anglican Communion. Rebel factions indeed! The only thing that the Gafcon conference in Jerusalem has done is ensure that even within our individual Provinces, there will be Churches within Churches. At least that's my understanding.

These goodly people in Jerusalem have decided that The Gospel is on their side, and it's "us other yins" who need converted and brought back into God's fold. My outrage at this stuff is just as strong as my outrage for the other "lot", who decide to go ahead with gay marriages days before Lambeth. However, that has already been addressed in an earlier blog of mine.

People of every age, every cause, every movement have always tried to enlist Jesus and somehow the Christ fails to be tied down to any cause or movement. This elusive Jesus seems to refuse to be tied down at all! Here we have Gafcon claiming Him for themselves, and the liberal left claiming exactly the same!

Gafcon cannot be ignored or marginalised. Over 300 bishops were present, many o whom will not attend Lambeth in principle. This is a big movement, and it seems that many of the attendees are now going into the world to get individual parishes within our Provinces to enlist. They suggest that we can all live in an Anglican Communion, where they have the whole truth of The Gospel and the rest of us are wrong. Where have I heard that before? (See comments on aforementioned blog)that I wrote!

What future for the Anglican Communion now? Well thanks to both extreme camps, none, I'm afraid. God save us all from extremeists

And the wounded Body of Christ has another few nails to contend with.

I attended Jim's funeral at St Oswald's Kings Park today. Jim was one of my faithful servers when I was Priest-in-Charge there, and was someone who knew how to serve at the altar in a proper manner, with dignity and a profound understanding of liturgy.

We laughed long and hard often, and when things needed doing, Jim was always around to give a hand, totally unafraid of getting his hands dirty!

He will live long in my memory, and I thanked God for him this morning. A wonderful life that needed celebrating. Gladys, his wife should be in all our prayers today. She has lost a husband and a soul-friend and a man who ensured that life was rarely dull. Rest in peace, Jim.

Our Gambian student has graduated, and how we celebrated on Saturday! Well done Faye Macaulay Suso!

Weren't Spain wonderful? Ian McCall is already changing the tactics for Partick Thistle Nil's campaign next season. We are going to play "Spanish Style". Sombreros will be worn! Red & yellow, of course!

Ian Andsell has introduced me to a new site which may help people access the magazine a bit more easily. Rather than sending a PDF file to all our recipients, we can, instead, simply send a link.

Last month's Magazine is here: http://publishing.yudu.com/Freedom/Agtsj/StAugustinesmagazine/

To use the site itself for your own publications, have a look on: http://www.yudufreedom.com

The July/August Magazine will be out by the weekend!

The SA has a friend! Yes, one who looks after her home comforts in between bringing in dead birds and live mice. Thanks to M she can sleep in peace without the puppy wanting some of the action!

It was my intention to visit The Cathedral tonight for Evensong. Firstly because I love Evensong, secondly to catch up with some old friends, and thirdly to return vestments I had borrowed last week.

However, I have been so busy over the last three weeks that I have seen very little of the football fiesta that's been going on. Tonight's final, Spain v Germany, is a mouth-watering prospect!

So, Evensong ASAP, old friends also, and vestments returned in the morning. This old man is feeling his age tonight, and I'm not long in after a long long day! Only dad to visit now, and then I feel I'm entitled to a wee bit of relaxation.

The Old Testament Lesson today, which I didn’t preach on, brings back wonderful images for me. It was the story of Abraham, told by God, as a “test”, to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Abraham in obedience goes as far as even lighting the fire to sacrifice his son as a burnt offering to The Lord, when at the last minute an angel intervenes, and provides a ram for the sacrificial offering instead. Abraham had passed the “test”!

It has been my privilege to be in The Gambia on three occasions when the Muslim Feast of Tobaski has taken place. (Little Eid). This feast celebrates Abraham’s faith and obedience, based on today’s story. After the Imam has said public prayers and killed his own ram, the people go home and slay their own animals, sharing the meat with the poor who have no animals to slay! It’s like Christmas, and probably the only day of the year when every Gambian will eat meat! Everyone is dressed in new clothes, and the joy and happiness is indeed very much akin to our Christmas!

There is a parallel! At Christmas, we celebrate the fact that Mary’s “yes” to God resulted in the Christ being born. In the Muslim world, it’s Abraham’s “yes”, with all its consequences that’s celebrated. Christian and Muslim preachers will agree that it was a test of Abraham’s faith, and a test of his commitment. How far was he prepared to go? How much was he prepared to give?

That was touched on again in today’s Gospel when Jesus challenged the level of hospitality and kindness we were prepared to offer for the sake of the Kingdom!

But, back to Abraham! I’ve heard it said, often, that testing of faith and testing of commitment are the same thing in this story, and maybe they are, but I would say that in our common life, they don’t necessarily go together!

I have listened to people who talk about their faith being “tested”. This is usually in the context of something awful happening to them or their loved ones, and is articulated in words which go something like, “God really tested my faith.” Wee Jimmy has cancer, and “God tested my faith”! Ouch! What sort of God would do such a thing?

However, bad things, dreadful things happen, and often our faith is tested, but God doesn’t visit evil upon us to test our faith in Him/Her! A loved one dying in a cancer ward can be a severe test of our faith, but God didn’t send the cancer!

However, I do believe that God tests our commitment on a regular basis. Many times every day in fact! We have an Incarnational faith, and Jesus is to be seen in every single person we meet. It’s easy to talk about the down-and-outs drinking super lager down by the quay, or the kids addicted to heroin in our communities. “There”, the preacher tells us, “we find Jesus, crucified still, crying out for resurrection”. And the preacher is right!

However we meet Jesus in every person we encounter in our daily lives. How we react to that person or with that person is crucial because we are interacting with Jesus himself! Even in family and friends, we encounter Jesus as part of their humanity. If we “fall out” with someone, we fall out with Jesus himself, and that is why we need to be reconciled to each other. Why are we nasty about others, often, when within that person we should be recognising Our Lord Himself?

So, God is forever testing our commitment. Our commitment to the Gospel, our commitment to living it, and our commitment to responding to Him properly in the faces of everyone we meet and inter-react with.

And that’s the sermon that was never preached! It may just end up being the pastoral letter in next month’s magazine instead!

No football to go to, (so looking forward to the new season), sermon to write, the RW off to lunch with friends, and Doctor Who finale to look forward to!

And a Gambian afternoon to fill in the spaces! Faye graduated on Thursday and we're having a Gambian celebration this afternoon, peanut soup et al!

Wonderful evening last night with great friends, T & M, where we scoffed an Indian carry-out and told each other funny stories and laughed like drains. How I enjoy their company!

So, back to mince & tatties tomorrow! - and a Euro 2008 final!

In the next week or two, it is my intention to abandon this blog, but it will continue on www.staugustinesdumbarton.co.uk/news

The new blog is beginning to shape up, and I'd appreciate comments on it, if you care to visit! The more feedback, the better the new blog will look.

All the old subjects like "Partick Thistle Nil", and lots of humour will continue, but simply in a different place, so no worries about my blog being "toned down".

Comments here, or on the new blog are, as always, very welcome!