A View from the Pew – Life is stirring

View from the Pew is a column I write for Newslink, the diocesan magazine for Limerick & Killaloe - this peice appeared in the March 2010 edition.

Pussy willow bravely blooming

What a hard winter we’ve had of it!
First the floods in November, then the snow around Christmas, followed by the hardest frosts for many years.

The Shannon froze. It brought to mind my mother’s story of how as a teenager in the early 1930s, she and her friends walked across Lough Derg on the ice from the Tipperary to the Galway shore, dragging a small boat in case the ice cracked. Mistakenly I had thought I would never see such a thing myself because of global warming – but that confuses weather with climate. Weather is naturally variable, and even as the planet warms we can expect occasional cold snaps, though they may be rarer. Climate is about long timescales and wide areas. As we froze in Ireland, temperatures in the arctic were up to 7°C above normal this winter. Don’t be misled by the cold winter – climate change is continuing and real.

It was heartening to see how people rallied round to help their neighbours devastated by the floods and struggling in the cold. I was impressed how the IFA organised distribution of fodder donated by farmers with a surplus to those who had lost theirs. And we should all feel inspired by the generosity and enterprise of the children of St Michael’s National School, Limerick, who raised over €500 to give toys at Christmas to children who had lost theirs when they were flooded out of their homes, as reported in Newslink last month.

In the garden the frost has killed many tender plants, and I fear for a lot of others. The Chilean Puyas which survived several winters outside are all gone, as is a Cordyline. Two Olearias are looking very sick. And I have attended far too many funerals of old friends recently. Most were occasions to celebrate long lives well lived, but the death of a contemporary reminds me of my own mortality.

New life is stirring.
But now life is stirring again as the days lengthen and winter gives way to another spring. The flowering willow is covered with silver pussies, snowdrops are blooming their socks off, the first crocuses are struggling through over-long grass, and the hellebores are about to burst. The buds on Forsythia and winter cherry are swelling, and the catkins are lengthening on the cobnuts. The birds too are starting to think about making babies – I have just been watching from my window two hen blackbirds trying to chase each other away from a rather bemused looking cock. And a farming neighbour who looked ready to drop in the pew confided that he had barely slept for a week because he was up all night calving!

Is it just me who detects new life stirring in our diocese too? I hope not. These are just some of the things that I have noticed recently:

• The buoyant mood of the hundreds of people who made the pilgrimage from all corners of the diocese to Limerick for Celebrate Together in November. Something new happens when we move out of our own small parishes to come together.


• The mixture of fun and serious purpose in the largely lay group that Vicki Lynch brought together to attend the NOSTRA public lectures at Mary I. It was eye-opening to meet so many others who also yearn to talk about their faith and its implication for mission, to discover we are not alone.


• The new training programmes designed to equip lay people for ministry, as parish and diocesan readers and in pastoral and youth work, and the moves toward a ‘fellowship of vocation’. They promise to release the gifts of those who take them up for Christian service.

There are stirrings too in other churches. For all the disillusionment over clerical abuse, increasing numbers of Roman Catholic lay men and women are seeking pastoral and theological training – and they are pressing for a greater lay involvement in their parishes. New churches and worship communities are springing up as well. In my parish, for instance, there is the Nenagh Baptist Group, a new church plant which particularly welcomes the unchurched and young families, and Living Water, an interdenominational charismatic group, holding joyous monthly meetings of worship and prayer in a local hotel, both well worth a visit.

Where are the stirrings leading?
We know where the stirrings in the garden will lead – to burgeoning life, beautiful flowers and a bountiful future harvest.

It is less clear where the stirrings in the church are leading, but I feel sure the Holy Spirit is doing a new thing. Perhaps this Lent we should all ponder where the Spirit is leading us, both as the church and individually, and listen prayerfully for the Spirit to guide our responses.

Here are my own tentative first thoughts:

• We should not be afraid of new life stirring, but rather seek to nourish it. It springs from within our tradition, like a shoot sprouting from a rootstock, drawing strength from the faithful witness and unsung service of so many Church of Ireland people over the years. Let us see it as a harbinger of exciting renewal, not frightening change.


• Similar stirrings are at work in other churches, as I found when I sought out and talked to Christians of other traditions. Most long to share Christian witness, prayer and service with others, just as we do. This suggests to me that the Spirit is leading our different denominations to walk together, recognising each other as fellow disciples of Jesus, who unites us in our diversity. Let us cultivate ecumenical activity - perhaps through a ‘Churches Together’ group in our own locality.


• In all our churches, ordinary lay men and women both feel a call to play a more active role and are responding to it. The old model of full-time professional clergy dispensing ministry to laity who passively consume it can no longer be sustained. With fewer vocations, limited finances and ever larger parish unions, clergy are overworked and risk burnout. In an age of mass higher education and democracy lay people recognise that they also are gifted for ministry and seek to exercise their gifts. It is now generally recognised that all Christians are called to serve in a multitude of different ways – the clergy’s role is to equip them to do so. Let us make a reality of passionate all-member ministry.


• We are most likely to discern where the Spirit is leading by sharing our own thoughts with others and testing them in discussion. Let us unleash the power of the Spirit by contributing to the debate.

What do you think? If you agree or disagree, or feel moved to contribute to the debate, why not share your thoughts in a letter to Madam Editor?

Hardress Jocelyn de Warrenne Waller, 5th May 1917 - 6th March 2010

Hardress Waller, by Vijay Bhushan, Hyderabad 1982

Late addition - see also his obituary in the Irish Times for Saturday 17th April 2010.

My friend and cousin Hardress Jocelyn de Warrenne Waller of Rynskaheen, Nenagh, Co Tipperary, died aged 92 after a short illness on 6th March 2010. He is survived by his widow Lygia (née Banasinska), son Jocelyn, grandson Thomas and great-grandchildren Alexander and William. A second grandson Edward was killed by a terrorist bomb in Bali in 2002.

At his funeral service in St Mary's Church of Ireland, Nenagh, on 10th March 2010, a large congregation joined together to give thanks for and celebrate his long life, well lived, and to recall his gifts of character, integrity and leadership, his sense of humour and zest for life, and all the ways in which he touched the hearts of his family, friends, neighbours and the wider community. After the service he was buried beside his parents Edgar and Dorothy in the family graveyard at Clough Prior, followed by refreshments at Lough Derg Yacht Club, of which he was a past Commodore.

He had a distinguished army career, serving in the Horse Artillery and Royal Horse Artillery where he was known by the nick-name Sam. After fighting in Burma during the Second World War, where he was awarded the Military Cross, he served in many places around the world, was received an MBE in 1956, and retired in 1965 with the rank of Brigadier. In a second career in horseracing, he was Secretary to the Horserace Betting Levy Board 1965-68, Director General of the Racecourse Association 1968-1975, and Senior Steward of the Irish Turf Club 1991-93. He was educated at Rossal and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.

He was also an accomplished polo player, a highly competitive and successful sailor of Shannon One Design dinghys, a military historian, a family genealogist, and with his wife Lygia a restorer of oil paintings.

I will miss him greatly.

The Waller family crest

I used this prayer of William Penn over his coffin the night before his funeral:

We give you back, O God, those whom you have given us
You did not lose them when you gave them to us,
and we do not lose them by their return to you.
Your Son has taught us that life is eternal and love cannot die.
So death is only an horizon, and an horizon is only the limit of our sight.
Open our eyes to see more clearly, and draw us closer to you,
so that we may know we are nearer to our loved ones,
who are with you.

View from the Pew - Love one another!

View from the Pew is a regular column in Newslink, the Limerick & Killaloe diocesan magazine. This piece appeared in the February 2010 edition.

Praying for Christian Unity
For many years churches around the world have designated 18th - 25th January as a Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Each year the global organisers, the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity and the World Council of Churches, ask the churches of one country to prepare materials for use by all. This year the job was given to Scotland, to mark the centenary of the first world mission conference held in Edinburgh in 1910, which is often seen as the beginning of the modern ecumenical movement.

All of us, I’m sure, will have prayed in our parishes for Christian unity during that week. Many will have taken part in ecumenical services. In the Nenagh Union, for the 2nd year running, we hosted an alternative evening of ecumenical singing under the title ‘Come teach us your songs’. It was delightful, with enthusiastic choirs from the Church of Ireland, the Roman Catholics and the Nenagh Baptist Group joining in songs precious to each of our traditions, though we missed the Methodists and Living Waters who could not be with us this year, due to a prior engagement and illness. At the end we shared refreshments in a happy buzz of conversation, echoing Jesus’s constant table fellowship recorded in the Gospels.

Such ecumenical get-togethers give us a warm feeling, don’t they? I detect a great yearning for fellowship among lay Christians I meet of all denominations. Jesus prayed to his Father in heaven for his disciples, ‘that they may be one, as we are one’ (John 17:22). The Spirit is surely calling his people together today, just as Jesus did two thousand years ago.

Unity in Diversity
But I don’t think that means the Spirit calls all Christians to be identical – to worship in the same way, or to believe the same things. Our Father in heaven delights in diversity, judging from the wonderful variety of life that he has called into being on this planet. In the same way, surely, he calls his churches to be diverse in the glorious variety of their traditions and beliefs. Just as there is a unity in the diversity of life based on shared inheritance through DNA, so there is a unity in the diversity of our churches based on our shared inheritance of the love of God through Jesus.

We can learn so much about the love of God from our brothers and sisters in different denominations. Their different insights and spiritualities can only enrich our own if we engage with them – we don’t have to agree with them in all things, nor copy them, just engage with them lovingly and respectfully. The body of Christ contains us all, and is diminished by any that are missing.

There is a darker side, however. All denominations, surely, also have things to be ashamed of, things to be repented of, things others should take as awful warnings. But let us take the beam from our own eye before we look for specks in our neighbour’s. We Anglicans behave like hypocrites when we talk to others about Christian unity yet are incapable of maintaining it within our own Anglican Communion.

Schism is an ugly word
But that seems to be what the Anglican Communion faces in the near future, unless the Holy Spirit brings about a change of heart. For generations Anglicans have prided themselves on being a broad church, able to hold together in reasonable amity a wide variety of views, from low-church Evangelicals to high-church Anglo-Catholics and everything in between. But all this has changed in recent years. Now many Anglicans are unable to abide together in love. Though the focus of conflict is elsewhere, we in the Church of Ireland are not immune from the schismatic forces, which are already opening up old North-South fault lines.

The main presenting issue is whether homosexual practice is compatible with Christian discipleship, though there are others, like the ordination of women. Some people identify the root cause as deep underlying differences about the authority of scripture. But I think less seemly forces are also at work, involving power and politics in the church and funding from outside it. Parties have formed:

• One side call themselves ‘orthodox’. They see themselves as maintaining traditional biblical values. They abhor homosexuality as sinful, and some, though not all, oppose the ordination of women.
• The other is called ‘liberal’, at least by their opponents. They call for the church to be ‘inclusive’ of women and minorities, including partnered homosexuals. They support their ordination as priests and bishops, and hold services of blessing for those in civil partnerships and same sex relationships.

Most ordinary folk in the pews hear little of the disputes. The protagonists are for the most part clergy, arguing with other clergy; many if not most of them seek to steer a middle path and try not to disturb the faith of their flocks. But the contending voices have become shockingly shrill and bitter, as can be seen from the blogs and web sites where much of the argument is conducted (for a taste of it - but not for sensitive souls - try googling ‘Anglican Mainstream’, ‘Inclusive Church’, and ‘Virtue Online’). Both factions accuse their opponents of not being true Christians, seek to drive them out of ‘their’ church, and try to recruit the rest of us to their cause.

I would be less than honest if I did not admit that my own sympathies lie with the liberal, inclusive side – the Jesus I encounter in the Gospels never rejects those who come to him, and is infuriated by those who place the letter of the law above its spirit. But I am deeply disturbed by the sheer hatred displayed by some on both sides. It is as if an evil spirit has possessed otherwise decent, Christian men and women, who share much more than divides them.

Love one another
I think this evil spirit of faction can only be opposed with love. Recall that Jesus said to his disciples, ‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another’ (John 13:34).

St Paul, who knew a thing or two about faction fighting, has some good advice. He urged the Ephesians to ‘speak the truth in love’ and warned the Corinthians not to let their liberty become ‘a stumbling block’ to others. Let us love one another. Let us respect each other’s integrity and be honest with one another. Let us walk the extra mile with those with whom we disagree. And if at last some decide to walk apart, let us be generous to them, wish them God speed and give them something for the journey.

And let us pray together, for unity in our diversity, and for the grace to hear where God’s Holy Spirit is leading us.

The Shannon is frozen

Whooper Swan (Cygnus cygnus)

photo Andreas Trepte, www.photo-natur.de

Yesterday I watched the Whooper swans leave Dromineer: three straggling Vs, honking as they went, almost yellow against the grey snowy sky. They know what they are about, these great migratory birds which come to us from Iceland every winter. No doubt the last patch of water they were keeping open was begining to freeze, so they decided to head on further South, to the Wexford slobs perhaps.

I went down to the beach at Dromineer in the late afternoon, and the lake looked to be frozen as far as the eye could see, at least as far as the Corrikeen Islands. Families with chidren and dogs were gathering in a magical light to venture out onto the ice, marvelling at the once-in-a-generation sight. I feel sure they were quite safe within a few yards of the shore, but a few foolhardy souls had ventured out as far as a hundred yards. I could see the ice was barely 2 inches thick - far to thin to be safe away from the shore - so I yelled at them to come back, which to give them their due they did - lads from the Nenagh Canoe Club, who quite understood the point of my officious behaviour.

I remember as a child in East Anglia learning to skate on the frozen Towny in Landbeach with cushions tied on fron and back to soften my falls. I also remember being taken to the Fen Championships, which are only held in years when the ice is thick enough, where hundreds of spectators watch the competitors skate at staggering speeds round a course marked on the ice. I see that they are being held this year today, 10th January 2010, on Whittlesey Wash.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPzX-9v_M5c

And my mother, God bless her, had a story about how, when the Shannon froze in the early 1930s, with some friends she walked from Luska over to the Galway shore pushing a small boat in front of them for safety. With global warming I never thought I would see the lake frozen myself, but of course a freeze like this is weather, not climate. We may be freezing here, but it has nothing to do with climate change: according to Dr Walter Meier of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colorado, this winter “pretty much all of the Arctic is above normal” - by as much as 15 degrees Fahrenheit in some areas.

I was due to take services in Templederry and Puckane today, but I cancelled them after talking to the Church Wardens. The sermon I had planned will fly another day. A good decision. As I write this now, from my study window I can see the snow falling gently. The drive and road are pure white. A day to stay put and thank God for the beauty of snow, a warm house and water that still runs.

Drive and Labyrinth in the snow

Raised beds & Lime alley in the snow

Christmas Greetings

Wishing you

A Very Happy & Blessed Christmas

and all the very best for 2010

The Petrograd Madonna painted in 1918 by Kuzma Sergeyevich Petrov-Vodkin (1878-1939). This painting has an icon-like quality, reflecting the artist’s teenage work with icon painters at Khvalynsk on the Volga, where he was born. For me it is a reminder that the Christ-child comes to us in every age, even in the midst of turmoil and strife.

Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone

Winter Wonderland

The countryside around, like the rest of Ireland, is a winter wonderland, dusted with a light snowfall two days ago and frosted hard ever since, with hoar-frost glistening on every twig the pale morning light has not reached.

Frosted pink Hebe

It is very beautiful, but dangerously slippy on roads like ours that have not been salted. Susanna and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary two days ago and booked ourselves for a dinner at the Whiskey Still in the village. But when we came to drive there, the car's wheels spun on the compacted ice just outside our drive entrance and we slipped back. Eventually, I let the car slide into the rough margin of the road where rough grit gave enough traction to breast the hill. And we enjoyed an excellent dinner, reminiscing about our Florida wedding and Sarasota honeymoon, spent in shorts sunbathing by the side of a pool, observed by a green-masked heron!

It is a hard time for the birds, which Susanna is assiduously providing with food and fresh water. The familiar common birds visit the birdtable and hanging feeders in a constant stream, including Chaffinches, Greenfinches, occasional Goldfinches, Sparrows, Dunnocks, Robins, Great Tits, Blue Tits, Coal Tit's, a single hen Blackcap Warbler and a juvenile cock Blackbird. I can see them through the bedroom window, and observe their pecking order. The Blackbird rules the roost and the others stay away when he is feeding. Next in order are the Greenfinches, but they tolerate others feeding beside them so long as they are not too close. Then comes the Blackcap hen, who is faced off by Greenfinches, but agressively chases away all the smaller birds, like a garden fascist as I previously described it. The Tits and Chaffinches just muck in together.

Elsewhere in the garden, blackbirds maintain their territories despite the weather. I have just seen a Pied Wagtail exploring the gutter for insects outside my upstairs study window. Yesterday there was a Robin on the ground outside the greenhouse which was unable to fly, and later I found it dead and threw its little body into the hedge, where no doubt it will provide a meal for some other creature.

Nenagh bells rang out – and the people came

The Nenagh Churches Together team

l-r: James Armitage, John Armitage, Joc Sanders, Sr Patricia Greene,

Rev Marie Rowley-Brooke, Rev AnnaGretta Hagen (visiting from Norway)

photo by Padraig O Flannabhra

The bells rang out on Sunday 6th December to announce the Nenagh Churches Together prayer vigil for the Copenhagen climate talks, held in St Mary’s Church of Ireland from 4.30 to 6.30 pm. And the people came, from many different church traditions including Catholic, Methodist, Church of Ireland, and Lutheran. Some came for just a few minutes, others for the entire two hours, but between 20 and 30 were present at any one time, substantially more than attended the Day of Prayer for climate change in Teach an Leinn in October, according to the organisers.

The focus of the vigil was a table covered with a green cloth symbolising creation, on which were placed symbols of the faith shared by all Christians, a cross, a bible and a candle, together with a globe symbolising the beautiful God-given planet earth, now threatened by global warming.

In a calm, contemplative atmosphere, those present listened to readings and music, reflected in silence, and prayed for the success of the Copenhagen talks. They prayed too for the world leaders gathered there including our own – it is not nations that make decisions, but individual human beings, who must feel the heavy burden of their responsibility. And they also prayed for an end to the human greed which is damaging our God-given planet. Young people played a big part, among them: Thomas and Ellen Langley from Templederry who read prayers; and Leaving Cert student Maggie Starr who read her poem ‘It’s a sprint to the line’.

It is pleasing to note local TD Máire Hoctor was there - she will no doubt convey the message of the vigil to An Taoiseach Brian Cowan and Minister of the Environment John Gormley, who lead the Irish delegation at Copenhagen.

Afterwards people shared refreshments of tea, coffee and delicious home-made cakes, and chatted. Among comments overheard were these:

• “Let’s hope that the governments can wake up and see what the average everyday people are seeing over the world”;
• “The poor earth needs all the prayers we can manage”;
• “It was moving and meaningful, and especially so because it was a shared witness with Christian traditions working together”.

The Nenagh Churches Together team look forward to working together on many such shared events in future.

It's a Sprint to the line, Or a race against time.
By Maggie Starr

In the dying sunlight of my evening,
My thoughts smell of burning fear.
I've over-dosed on my anger,
And the antidote has yet to be conceived.

We've blinded our views of previous failings,
Unwilling to comprehend their probable conclusion.
We've smoked this animal from his caving,
Our deafness anaesthetizes our guilt.

Our knowledge-seeking conscience have tasted the antidote,
Some have touched the formula in moral experimentations.
Our selfish race have evaporated the referee,
Our league must now trust in our own resourcefulness.

A great poet once said;
*"I had a dream, which was not all a dream,
The bright Sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander."

This problem is the religion of our age,
Self-righteous, intolerant based on dissent.
But, the best time to do something worthwhile,
Is between yesterday and tomorrow.

It's a sprint to the line,
Or a race against time.

*Lord Byron