'Tis done ... we have a Bishop!

Don't they look jolly? The chaps in the gold hats are the current bishops of the SEC; the others are either retired or from overseas - but the one in the centre, the one with the biggest smile, is Bishop Kevin, the new bishop of Argyll and The Isles. I managed to get this, among a clutch of snatched-and-blurred pics, by leaping in an unladylike fashion onto a pew in the cathedral as they finished the photo-call; you can just see the official photographer in the bottom left.

But enough of the technical stuff. On a day when the wind threatened to lift the roof and the rain battered down on the alarmingly glass roof of the choir, an unfeasibly large number packed the cathedral to see Bishop Kevin consecrated and Bishop Mark give up the burden of looking after us - it's been a long haul, and he's been brilliant. There was a considerable invasion of Edinburgh folk, obviously loathe to let +Kevin go, and a selection of luminaries from other parts of the province, all interested by the Argyll weather and the possibility that gaiters might be worn (they weren't). Kilts there were, however, and some tartan trews, and tweed - not to mention the odd fleecy jumper.

The Right Reverend David Conner, Dean of Windsor, preached a sermon that drew heavily on Philip Larkin's poem Church Going. Written 60 years ago, it gives a picture of the poet - and Larkin himself took part in a TV film that showed him, bicycle and all - visiting a church, going in only when he is "sure there's nothing going on". Larkin, said the Dean, was like the Greeks in the Gospel of the day who wanted "to see Jesus". Although Larkin said he was "bored, uninformed", he nevertheless often found himself "tending to this cross of ground" because of what it held, what it had held over the ages, and this was a commonly-found attitude of the majority of people nowadays, who still have this hunger without really knowing what it is they seek. Bishop Kevin's role was to be a leader in mission, relentless in his prayerful quest to show the love of Christ in the world so that those who seek find not barriers and impenetrable theology but rather the answer to the need they might not fully understand, the "hunger ... to be more serious".

"Reach out, my friend," he said in conclusion, "reach out, but dig deep."

The digging will soon begin, but for this weekend, it seemed, the celebrations were paramount. And after a service lasting over two hours, the hungry horde scuttled along the road like so many Mary Poppinses under their billowing brollies and descended on the purvey in the Argyll Gathering halls. When we left, five hours after arriving, the rain was still falling steadily. We surfed home through the gathering gloom, crashing through the potholes that seemed to have multiplied since the morning. At least we didn't crash the car. Summer consecrations must be more dangerous - we drove into a ditch after the last one.

Casting off

Laying down the staff
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

Yesterday the Bishop of Argyll ceremonially signalled the end of his episcopate by laying his staff and mitre on the altar of the Cathedral of St John the Divine in Oban. And with that sentence I lay aside any obligation to write sensibly about the event and free myself to blog as usual.

It poured, of course. It would seem unnatural this summer not to be scurrying through the puddles of Oban, not to be sitting in one's mac all through the service for warmth - or even, in the case of the unfortunate Dean, for protection from the rain which dripped on his head and his notes during the sermon. (And you wonder why they wear these big copes? Wonder no more). People had that windswept look - for there was also quite a gale blowing - that defies any attempt at glamour; there were two exceptions to this, whose photos appear on my flickr stream, but the rest of us had given up. Fleeces, trousers, cagoules - and these strange Masai warrior shoes which seem to have been taken up by the Argyll piskies, who will surely all be slim of thigh by the end of this dreadful summer.

The service was not without its hilarious moments. The ringer of the bell at communion may have broken his stays with his vigour (the obvious result was a coil of rope descending around him in an apocalyptic fashion) and the public address system had developed its own variety of flu and burbled alarmingly and at random. The Dean's sermon seems to have hijacked the Synod Clerk's farewell speech, so the latter improvised a variety of sermon which had us all - including the Bishop - on the edge of our various seats. The congregational singing was somewhat tentative - maybe in anticipation of a future without +Martin's wonderful voice - and we received communion in bread only, because we still, apparently, fear contamination from the flu.

That said, there was a great deal of illicit embracing at the end of the service, and a palpable sadness at the imminent departure of Martin and Elspeth. And yes, I too will be sad to see them go - but delighted to see another of my friends reach the sunny uplands of retirement and canter off into freedom. Thanks to +Martin's efforts, he is not, as Richard Holloway predicted five years ago, the last Bishop of Argyll, and we shall soon begin the process of looking for his successor. But take him for all in all, we shall not look upon his like again. Quote, anyone?

Off again

As at this time last year, I'm about to abandon the blogosphere for a bit and return to the less virtual (but I hope virtuous) occupation of singing. The photo is of where we'll be tomorrow afternoon, singing Byrd's Ave Verum Corpus for a joint Palm Sunday Eucharist with the congregations of St Martin's, Tighnabruaich and St Paul's, Rothesay. As there is not actually a Piskie church building in Tighnabruaich, services are held in Kames Parish Church, of which this is the bell-tower.

After that we're off to Cumbrae again, to my favourite cathedral, where we shall have three days of singing and contemplation. At least, I hope there will be time for the latter; musicians have ways of seducing one into "one more run through ...". Me, I like to quite while we're ahead.

And in case that all seems too holy for words, I'm taking Christopher Brookmyre's All Fun and Games until Someone Loses an Eye to finish - if I can keep my eyes open, that is.

Ben Gunn without the cheese

Well, that was quite a weekend! This photo of The Cathedral of The Isles, taken during Friday's lull in the frightful weather, gives no notion of the rattling slates, creaking roof timbers, guttering candles and flooded coastal roads that were to follow, nor of the fact that we would be stranded on Cumbrae by the storm and feel that by Sunday we were escaping by the skin of our teeth as we bumped across on the recently-restored Cumbrae ferry link which had been off earlier in the day. (We also had an interesting ride on the Western ferry from McInroy's point, travelling stern-first through the darkness as the sea washed down the length of the car deck, engulfing the cars at roof-height in a white-out of water and spray).

As for the weekend? We were there to sing in the Advent Carol service, and there were choristers stranded who had to be in London today (Monday), so we were not alone in our anxieties. But there was another sense in which we - four of us who've sung together in the cathedral since 1968 - were on our own, and that was in the experience stakes. By now, the rest of the choir seems to be made up largely of singers young enough to be our weans, and the result for me at least is a mix of smugness and irritation. Smugness because we've done it so often that we know exactly what's required, read like pros and don't wander off in mid-piece; irritation because we were surrounded by sopranos with the voices of angels and lowly sight-reading skills and an operatic bass who had never sung in a choir before and who tended not to watch the conductor. I was quite ratty by the time the performance began (who? moi?), so the spiritual dimension was somewhat lacking, though I did manage to fit in a quiet afternoon of study (1st Samuel, anyone?) before the singing began.

I'm ratty again right now because I still can't post my photos as I want to, and lost a first version of this because of it. But there's the usual virtual Mars Bar for the first to spot the point of the title of this post.