Journal: Films make you mad!

In an effort to separate myself from work I have been taking some time off during the day each week to watch a film at the local cinema. It takes me out of communication with the world and hides me away in a dark place for a couple of hours. I even get to have a brew and take it in with me - how good is that?

So I might not be getting around to a day off (I've promised to 'tell all' truth next week at quarter's end) but I'm having some time off: and it's been a most annoying and madness inducing experience.

The films I have seen thus far are:

Viceroy's House: About the partition of India and the stitch-up the British government engaged in with Mountbattens. Showed something extremely uncomfortable about this nation of ours in terms of arrogance, deceit and distastefulness.

I, Daniel Blake: A most uncomfortable watch indeed. It took me back to my time working in the wonderful world of the Employment Agency with those looking for work and the poor Employment Advisors who worked in the Jobcentres. An American contracting company providing a less than able provision with the goal of minimising payments and providing less than adequate services to the jobless population - and all in MY name! I was ready to learn the 'red flag' and head for Westminster by the time this fly on the wall offering was done. GRrrrr!

United Kingdom: My father used to say that Winston Churchill was a dictator who was needed to fight another dictator and that I should be in no doubt that he was never anyone's 'real' hero. Stiff words coming from a bloke who thought Margaret Thatcher was a bit of a lefty politician!

This film added another notch to my slowly emerging dislike of the man as he promised one thing if elected and delivered something very different once he was. But that's politics, isn't it?

But the arrogance of the British government and the colonial machinery takes your breath away and makes one disgusted at the heritage that being English lays upon us.

"Oxford teaches - film educates". Those were the words I was handed in a tutorial many years ago. "We can offer you books and anecdotes and the stillness to assimilate them but the silver screen makes them flesh; but not always truthfully!" my tutor continued. Books may be written with poor scholarship and equally poor language and you will see through this, but a well crafted film will send barbs into your flesh and make you aware just as Eve became aware as she ate the apple.

Sin lies in the action, not the object. Did the apple posses any power other than attract? Surely the act of taking from the tree brought an awareness of what sin was because it caused the separation between man and God. The focus of our desires is always present and before us, but it is the action that is sin.

This is true regardless of what is placed under the glass cover and beheld with desire: Things sexual, monetary, physical and intellectual - all of them qualify. It isn't what the object is, but the way we deal with us wanting it and the lines we are willing to cross to make it ours, or should I say 'possess  us'?

Lord, help me to see the lines and never cross them such that I become sinful and damage self or others. Help me to see the best in people and to love wholeheartedly, and yet never lose sight of the ability of each of us to place on a pedestal that thing which causes us to lose our soul (as did the ring bring both physical and spiritual death in Gollum's tale of woe).

Lord have mercy upon us for our past - and as Brexit is made real today - in our future as we consign ourselves into a very different reality.

More Time Off Vicar?

That's the question I was asked yesterday and it irked me (which is odd because the last couple of weeks haven't been the hardest I've ever known)!

Looking back on the last week there are many highlights in the shape of funerals, funeral visits, BCP Evensong, praying with people, counselling, visiting, training course, midweek communion, coffee morning and more besides. There were a few stressors in the shape of paperwork and ecumenical stuff. So why did the question leave me smiling, but deep down and out of sight, wounded, frustrated, niggled, disturbed (I can't actually name the emotion, I just know a light came on somewhere)?

It might have been that it was Friday and having managed time for breakfast, walking the dogs and the whole family watching a film together that I was chilled (even Kid's Club was laid back and fun). My day off had happened (hope you're reading this bishop, I've had a day off. Well sort of!) and I was relaxed and pretty much horizontal, so why and what was the problem?

Been praying about it and recall the wise words of an extremely experienced dog-collar. "Never explain why or where, just tell them you're not available!" I had breached the Hugh Wilcox rule and the response was exactly as he warned all those years back. "All they will see is that you are not available for them and your response will confirm their misconception. If they contact you more than once on your day off and you tell them you're off having lunch with your wife, they will assume that you're always having lunch with your wife (I wish!)."

Living over the shop is a blessing and a curse. You are there when needed. You are there when you aren't available (ie. Day off) and can be grabbed whenever you come and go. Friends who are detached and distant tell me that the opposite is true for them. They are too far from the church building and so rarely get disturbed.

On balance I like where I am and perhaps need a thicker skin (or more time off) and to remember the 'Wilcox Rule', after all a colleague told me that they took lots of 'personal time' but never told anyone and so they assumed their absence and I ability to answer the telephone meant they were always busy. The other side of my coin perhaps

Hey ho. 06:56 and office done, day planned. Prayed and (internal) supervision session completed (thank you for listening) and time for 07:00 Radio Four news.

Thanks guys