Comic Relief Day - the flippant bit...

I'm not a big fan of the telethon thing but if I have to engage with one then it would be Comic Relief. I can't stand that Pudsey Bear thing - not that I disagree with charity fundraisers per se (oops, Sorry about the Latin, it's a Catholic thing!) I guess it is the whole "let's take a look around the BBC regions to see what people have been up to - Over in the Midlands Quantity Surveyor Colin Wilkinson has spent the day surveying quantities whilst immersed in a bath of Heinz oxtail soup and raised £7.50 for Children in Need" And all the waving of the 'big cheques' gets up my (big, red) nose. At least Comic Relief is entertaining AND they have the good sense to only do it once every two years. There were a number of highlights in last night's show. Of course, I was eager to see who had won the Fame Academy title. It was, as (sort of) predicted here the delightful Tara Palmer-Tomkinson with her 'kinky boots' routine. In terms of voice, Tricia Penrose should have won it, without a shadow of a doubt. She did a great rendition of the immensely talented Alicia Keys' If I Ain't Got You. (As I click, I am listening to the original) But as in all these things it is a popularity contest and Tara was the bigger personality. What really matters is that loadsa money was raised for good cause.

I latched onto Ricky Gervais' spoof appeal video instantly, having spotted the blue screen technology. Nevertheless it will remain, I suspect, one of those supremely wicked comedy moments for some years to come. True comedy pushes the boundaries and this was pure genius. Even as I was protesting at its inappropriateness I was laughing.

Peter Kaye came up with a good one - a remake of the old Proclaimers hit 500 miles. I'm not a big fan of Peter Kaye, partly because he is too popular (here I reveal one of the many complexities of my personality). There are certain people that I use as a guage in this. I like to catch on to new talent early on. As soon as I began to hear middle-class mums and 12 year-olds saying "yeah, I know" and "I'm the only gay in the village, see" I knew it was time to move on from Little Britain. Kaye has a very retro act and his humour is quite unsophisticated - he's a bit of a one trick pony really. BUT, he enlisted the help of the extremely talented Matt Lucas to add some comic credibility. And of course, cameos from everyone in comedy, current faves and has-beens alike. The inclusion of the Proclaimers themselves should give their career a boost. I saw them two years ago at Greenbelt Festival and I remember how, when this song was played, spontaneous singing and dancing seemed to break out across the whole festival site with no generational boundaries. This bodes well for sales of the Comic Relief version. This should partially make up for Amarillo which I hoped had been consigned to the 1970's archives forever but has since been adopted as an anthem by lovers of tat everywhere.

Best laugh of the night goes to Catherine Tate. Stroppy teen, Lauren, goes to 10 Downing Street on her work experience placement. When PM Tony Blair (the REAL Tony Blair) turns the tables on her and says "Am I bovvered?" I almost lost control of my bodily functions. Well in, Tone, mate, the boy done well. George Bush may have his Barneycam videos, but you were real class!

Comic Relief does Fame Academy

When Fr Simon suggested giving up TV for a day for Lent, you may have all sat and nodded approvingly but I just thought "Nah!!". I actually watch very little TV and wouldn't miss it if it weren't there. So, with a clear conscience I have been watching the recent series of Fame Academy for Comic Relief. I wonder why the likes of Shaun Williamson (formerly Barry from Eastenders) is taking part. He has a good voice and has probably done a bit of cabaret in the past. Have you seen local lad, Ray Stubbs, perform? Sports commentator Ray is, I am told, a former resident of Ridgewood Drive in Pensby. He is clearly in it for a laugh but has been fairly entertaining in the process. He always has a slightly manic and dangerous look in his eye. I would perhaps like to see 'It girl' (no, it's nothing to do with computers!) Tara Palmer-Tomkinson do well. I get the impression that she has a fundamental honesty and vulnerable childlike quality. She puts me very much in mind of people like Marianne Faithful and perhaps even Edith Piaf - a chequered past but also an inner strength.

Eh?

The Exhortation on the Eucharist? Motu Proprio? What does it all mean? No, I'm not being rhetorical, what DOES it all mean?

Somethin' Wonderful

Today's photo is of last night's lunar eclipse as seen in Pensby, taken on a very ordinary compact digital camera. For once the night skies were clear enough to observe the moon turn copper as all but a smidgen of the sun's light was blocked by the Earth. It amazes me that this is not an uncommon occurrence but it is the first time that I have seen it. As a family we spent a good ten minutes standing, open mouthed in awe looking at it.

Today's gospel reading was the Luke's account of the Transfiguration. Fr Simon's homily opened up the idea of seeing the wondrous in the mundane. He illustrated this by reading a passage from An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan who was held hostage in Beirut by Hezbollah. The passage described how a humble orange transcended its mundane state and was transfigured in Keenan's eyes as a result of the deprivation he experienced in captivity. This put me in mind of a book I once read by Columbian novelist Gabriel García Márquez. One of the features of the writing of García Márquez is magical realism. Ordinary things, such as umbrellas, are described in such a way that they become extraordinary, the magical sits comfortably alongside the everyday.

This concept intrigued me when I was engaged in an important stage in my spiritual journey. It opened my eyes to the importance of giving everything appropriate attention. I suppose it could be described as the art of being 'fully present' or 'living in the moment'. It taught me to be attentive to the fragrance of lavender on a summer evening, the lush greenness of the grass after a spring shower and the song of a solitary bird at dusk.

The playwright Dennis Potter was interviewed by Melvyn Bragg when in the advanced stages of terminal cancer. It is no secret that when we accept life as finite, we see things though different eyes. Potter described this phenomenon to Bragg between pauses to take sips of liquid morphine from a hip flask. He said that outside the window of his study at his home near the Forest of Dean there was an apple tree. He went on to describe his impressions of the spring blossom on the tree as the "blossomiest blossom". This ordinary blossom had transcended its natural state. Potter probably hadn't noticed it until he realised he would never see it again. The certainty of death had enabled him to be fully present. There is wisdom in that.

Coincidentally, the theme of this year's Greenbelt is Heaven in Ordinary. If you would like to explore these ideas further, you could do worse than to be fully present to the muddy fields around Cheltenham racecourse over August Bank Holiday weekend! Click here for information.

Well in Bono laa!!!

I know we all suffer a little celebrity do-gooder fatigue from time to time. We see the likes of good old "Sir"-Effing-Bob or indeed "Sir" Bono on TV and we want to say "yeah, yeah, point taken, why don't you just go back to making records..." Well, I for one am prepared to take off my cynical head today and say an understated "nicely put" to Bono. Click on the image below to hear a stirring speech made by the man himself on the occasion of winning the Chairman's award at the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) last night. I just love the way his voice quivered with passion toward the end. A "Spirited" performance if ever there was one and a message for us all to take to heart.

A Life Stripped Bare: My Year Trying to Live Ethically

No, not me, Leo Hickman. I remember making my second visit to the Eden Project in Cornwall in August 2005. The first time was when it first opened. If you have never been there, I would recommend it, should you ever be in Cornwall. It is a most impressive ecological experiment constructed in the wastes of an old china clay quarry. Even if you have not been there, you will recognise the biomes, the two giant greenhouses which replicate the environments of temperate and tropical zones. Well, no visit to a place like that is complete with out a trip to the book shop to round the day off. This is where I chanced upon A Life Stripped Bare: My Year Trying to Live Ethically by journalist Leo Hickman. The book documents his journey from his 'mange tout' moment, that is his epiphany when he realised that his supermarket green beans had been air freighted at great expense from Kenya just so so that he could have out of season veg in London. Hickman responded to a challenge to live ethically by having three ethical auditors visit his home to talk to him about how he could live more ethically and exposed the dark secrets lurking in his cupboards in the process. The book was a great eye-opener for me and is a superb read for anyone questioning western lifestyles in this year of Living Simply. Hickman traversed the whole gamut of ethical living; the dilemma of whether to buy Fair Trade or organic, to buy import or local, ethical investments, composting, the disposable vs terry nappy debate, natural or synthetic furnishings, natural cleaning products, travelling carbon neutral, voluntary work and anything else that you can think of. What I loved about this book is that it wasn't a fundamentalist rant on the subject, it was a relatively ordinary bloke and his family trying to do their bit and the heartening thing is that some things worked really well and some things just didn't work at all for them. But it was all washed down with a healthy dose of humour. Surely this is an encouragement to us all to have a go.

A Life Stripped Bare is available from all good bookshops
(ISBN-10: 1903919614, ISBN-13: 978-1903919613)

The Guardian's Ethical Living Site featuring Leo Hickman

The Vocations Crisis

The recent pastoral letter, as evidenced by a recent post, has raised more than a couple of controversies of its own. Nevertheless it must be accepted as an honest attempt to address the increasing problem of priest numbers, a problem which, it seems, grows more grave by the day. I think Fr Simon has said that 2008 is the big year for the diocese with something in the region of 12 priests due to take their retirement after a long life of service to God and to their community (though I have no memory for numbers, so be warned, I may be way off beam there!). Sadly this is not mirrored by the numbers of those coming into the priesthood. What is more tragic is the startling number of younger priests that this diocese has lost through death and decisions to leave the priesthood. Meanwhile this places a heavy burden on those who are left behind. Is crisis too strong a word?

When I was younger and had not been married for very long I recall that there seemed to be a spate of marital breakdowns among my friends and colleagues. It was what I can only describe as a domino effect. At times I felt destabilised. Although I had no reason to feel unhappy in my own marriage, the radical departure from the seemingly happy domestic scene for so many people that I knew made me feel restless and question, rightly or wrongly, my own situation. I suppose I was in shock. Ask yourself, when people you know have divorced, could you always see it coming? Or from the outside, did it go from apparent domestic bliss to the divorce courts in one fell swoop? I say this to suggest that there may be a parallel with those who follow a vocation to the priesthood. Is there a support mechanism in place for our priests to talk about and deal with how they feel when a colleague leaves? Or are they just left to get on with it? Do we consider the implications on our priests?

I think I have been guilty of self-interest when considering the implications of the diocesan restructure. Perhaps I ought to consider the effects that the priest drain has on the morale of those who are trying to follow their vocation in evermore stressful circumstances and what I can do to alleviate the situation.

But I, as an individual, cannot solve such problems in isolation. Perhaps I am being unfair but I am perplexed that Rome appears to disregard the problems of vocations. Historically they have created a structure which relies upon the role of the priest in order to function. Can there be a Catholic church without priests? Whilst they are the only ones allowed to administer certain sacraments, no. Then why the inflexibility? I would say that some creative thinking is called for but actually we could all suggest potential answers; it is not, as they say, rocket science. But it would seem that Rome is happy to fiddle while the church in Britain burns. The vocations crisis will not be solved by a snazzy marketing campaign though this did not stop the Archdiocese of Indianapolis trying with the little bit of fun pictured above.


May I ask anyone who visits this blog this week, to pray for more men to have the courage to respond to God's call on their lives and to pray for strength for all who are trying to follow a priestly vocation. And perhaps for those at the zenith of God's Church on Earth to wake up and smell the coffee...Fair Trade, naturally!