15 years ago

Long time no blog.  I've been on holiday for a couple of weeks and it's hard to blog when you are in a temt in a field without mobile signal, let along electricity. 

 

I've just noticed that today marks the 15th anniversary of Princess Diana's death, one of those 'you must remember where you were when you heard' moments.  I was in Suffolk on a weekend away with friends and had got up very early to my (at the time) only child, the one who took her GCSEs this summer!  Bleary-eyed I switched on Radio 1 (okay, so I've changed) to find sombre classical music playing.  Which threw me somewhat.  In due course the news was given, the kind of news that takes a while to sink in.  The friends we were with hadn't got children 15 years ago and so I had to play with my wee girlie for two or three hours before it was decent to wake the others and tell them. 

The rather bizarre reaction to all that then unfolded, a nation taken by surprise in it's grief.  For some years afterwards I would visit people on the local estates for the church and it wasn't unusual to find a framed picture of Diana on the mantelpiece; whether as a saint or one of the family it was hard to know.   

15 years ago was also my last day of working with students for UCCF.  It was a brilliant time, I learnt so much through working there, much of which I still use today.  It shaped me for time in church ministry as did the great church that I was a part of and went on to serve.  Because 14 years and 364 days ago I started working for a church full-time.  More simply, tomorrow is my 15 year anniversary of being paid to work in a church.  I may be middle aged but I did a lot of other things first, no bad thing in my book. 

Church ministry is a great adventure!  Some amazing highs and some serious lows but rarely a dull moment.  Actually some dull moments would be nice; just occasionally.  It's amazing that we're allowed to do this, we who are fallible, flawed, but forgiven.  I regularly marvel that God uses me to lead a church but then he has previous history on this, in the Old Testament he spoke through a donkey.  Despite the occasional escape fantasy, I really can't think of anything I'd rather do. 

15 years in, what really matters is the next 15 years.  I am grateful that I don't know what lies ahead, but in the words of Paul in Philippians 3, "one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal."     

Buddha and the Cowboys

'Buddha and the Cowboys' might sound like a film mash up but actually it was my experience last Friday. 

The church premises were rented by a charity for the day and they took advantage of the summer weather to use the car park at the front for selling some of their wares and to run some stalls.  It was my favourite parishioner who alerted me to the fact that they had a stall selling various staues, including a couple of big ones of Buddha.  I had to gently point out to the organisers that this was a bit of a issue for us because, "We don't really do Buddha here" and they were lovely and apologetic and there was no issue about it at all.  

Then came the cowboys.  The charity had booked a re-enactment of some wild west heroes (they got permission from the police) having a shoot out in the car park in order to attract attention.  Well it certainly did that (though I would have thought that if you were looking to draw a crowd then the sound of gunfire might not be the best ploy.  The cowboys concerned were heard to remark that the sound of the guns bouncing off the wall around them made it really loud and apparently it was loud enough to panic the bank on the corner into thinking that a real life raid was taking place.  And I thought Church Members' Meetings could get a bit wild!

I've been lying low ever since.  The last thing we need at the moment is headlines - local or national - about a gun fight in the Baptist Church car park.      

Swindon College, gone but not forgotten

This week saw the final demise of the old Swindon College, a place for which I have many reasons to be grateful.  Certainly not for it's architecture, or even for the fact that the wonderful XTC once played there, supporting Thin Lizzy.  No, this was the place that gave me the chance to get back into education, some years after I left school.

The received wisdom was that I would be lucky to get my O levels (younger readers are referred to Google at this point) and so I left school at 16.  A few years later, and unemployed, I turned up here to enroll for a couple of A levels at evening class.  I didn't have enough money to sign up so they asked me how much I could afford and accepted that.  I'm really grateful that they did that. 

I then spent from September to May going to two evening classes a week to study for a couple of A levels.  Most of the time I had a temporary full-time job and I studied in the evenings.  Looking back, I'm amazed that I had the dedication but I knew that I needed A levels to get into college to do something more interesting than accountancy, which I'd been doing for too long after school.

It was here that my English Literature lecturer told us this was a crash course and that if we worked hard we'd pass but we could forget about getting an A grade.  In all his years only one person had done this and she was a nun - like that proved something.  It was he who gave me a love for the poetry of John Donne.  He once broke a strike to teach us one week because he didn't feel it was fair on us part-timers trying to get back into education.  We went with him to The Beehive pub round the corner.  Quality fellow.   

It was here that my Sociology lecturer persuaded a group of us that there was no reason we couldn't apply to a university.  None of us believed him.  I played safe and had a couple of offers from teaching colleges for any kind of grades.

I collected my results with my aunt, who had registered for Sociology too.  We celebrated with cream cakes.  I got a C in Sociology and emulated the nun in Eng. Lit.  

Looking back I don't quite know how I managed it.  I wish I could thank the people that helped me on my way, without them I don't know what I'd be doing now.  As it was I got to university, met my favourite parishioner, and got to do similar kind of work as the nun. 

Swindon College, you were an ugly thing but I couldn't have done it without you.  Thank you.    

Men's Olympic Football - Great Britain v South Korea

Well, it looks like we may have missed the best day in living memory for Team GB in the Olympics because we were at the Olympics.  Whilst Jessica, Mo and Greg were performing heroically in the Olympic Stadium, we headed west for the Millennium Stadium and the Quarter Final of the Men's Football.  

It was my first trip to the Millennium Stadium and what a venue!  I have never been to a soccer match in the States but it is how I imagined it might be there - except with 70,000 people there.  The venue is clean and modern and we were sat in the Upper Tier, in terms of the kind of football I watch at Exeter it was like being sat up on top of the roof.  It made for a different perspective, easier to read the pattern of the game but a lot harder to identify who people were.

Ah, the romance of the game...

It was a very different kind of crowd to your usual football match, a lot of young families and people who don't usually go to games, or even have a lot of interest in football, but who wanted to sample the atmosphere - which was fantastic.  One woman I spoke to who had a five or six year old with her said that it should be okay because she had brought plenty of colouring for her. 

The game itself wasn't likely to convert many of the floating voters.  The standard wasn't great - Exeter City would have given GB a run for their money - and it lacked a bit of passion and even though it went to extra time and penalties - it wasn't so exciting because, nice though it would have been to see GB win, it didn't really matter much.  Had Exeter, or even England, been playing, it would have been much more tense because I would have cared a great deal more about the result.  As it was, this was a group of players put together for the tournament, a good thing but you know...    

As soon as it went to penalties we all knew what would happen.  Poor Daniel Sturridge, at least Stuart Pearce knows how he feels.  The journey home was ridiculously long, though they battled gamely to get us to our Park and Ride it took over an hour's queueing and then it was a slow drag to the M4.  The journey saw us get home at 1.45am but it was worth it.  In the words of someone fairly local to Cardiff, we can echo, "I was there."

The Cotswold Way - Day 9 - Old Sodbury to Pennsylvania

This old tree makes for great shelter in Doddington Park.

There are amber weather warnings issued for the day that I am due to walk Day 9 of my route but the plan is for completion on the last Friday/Saturday of my sabbatical, so there's no wriggle room.  My game of chicken with the weather is well and truly lost and I must carry on regardless.  My sister, under no such constraint bails out of walking with me but I don't blame her, and actually, it turns out for the best.

The original plan was to walk to Cold Ashton but the B&B is booked up and so I will be finishing a little earlier in Pennsylvania.  It makes for a short walk.   I could now complain about the conditions and research the rainfall but if you're living in Britain in 2012 you know what sort of a summer we're having.  Suffice to say that it was wetter under foot here on Leg 9 than when I was walking back in April.  I finished soaked through. 

A couple of shots taken in light drizzle rather than steady rain.  Both in Doddington Park.

 

The church building in Tormorton was a good place to repack my bag and eat an energy bar, say a prayer and resolve to move on and keep walking.  They had a lovely carpet and I already have wet muddy boots so no chance to explore.   

This is the last shot I took today, note the car headlights, windscreen wipers on, plenty of spray and gloom.  All at lunchtime in July.

There is, however, a definate highlight that will stick with me long into the future.  Shortly after walking over the bridge crossing the M4 motorway and walking the width of a field from it's traffic, I look up from the path to see a deer standing watching me not more than 25 or 30 yards away.  We meet each others gaze for a few moments before he bounds off ahead of me and then crosses my path and takes off towards the motorway.  It is a magical moment.  I have no prove of this encounter, my camera deep in my dry rucksack but it was a magnificent sight.

The B&B is reached quite early in the day as the weather encouraged just putting your head down and stepping up the pace.  There was no-one to talk to all day except a woman cutting the grass outside Dryham Park, and in that wonderfully English way of ours we joke about the weather and move on.  I finally give in to the iPod for the first time on my walk and remember a "Rain" playlist that I'd put together for a recent family barbeque.  It does the trick and raises my spirirts.   

There is no pub in Pennsylvania anymore.  There is no pub in Cold Ashton anymore either.  But there is a wonderful woman in Cold Ashton called Sarah who does meals for walkers in the evening if they pre-book.  When I get there I discover that I am the only one to have prebooked and so I feel like royalty as I dine on wonderful garlic mushrooms and chicken curry, all washed down with selections of Bath Ales afterwards.  It really is a terrific meal and she's a great host.  All this and photography magazines to read as well.  I feel very local signing her visitors book amongst the Norwegians, Dutch and Americans - sometimes it feels like the rest of the world are more interested than the Brits in the Cotswold Way.

I feel ready for the last day of the walk tomorrow, where I am to be walking with Andy again and we'll be meeting our wives in Bath for a meal to celebrate.

The B&B that I almost stay in, is an oddity.  Very friendly people but I am a little troubled that virtually the first thing I notice is the UKIP tea-towel, something I've never seen anywhere before (I do lead a very sheltered life).  My discomfort is heightened further when I check out and ask them to order me a taxi, which they do in super quick time, but they tell me they have ordered me an English driver rather than all the Poles that are working round here at the moment.  It's odd - to say the very least - to be saying such things when your business relies on entertaining so many walkers from overseas. 

I've had to check out though because I've had a phone call.  My Dad has suddenly been taken ill and I am in that taxi to get to his hospital bedside late at night.  For a few days it all looks touch and go but mercifully he seems on the road to recovery now four weeks later; out of hospital and just beginning to get out and about.  This is why I've not blogged a lot or updated my Cotswold Way progress.  It's also why I have yet to complete the walk.  In the last month we've had some glorious weather and sometime soon I will complete the leg from Pennsylvania to Bath.  But in the meantime some things are a lot more important.   

Answered prayer

Very excited last night to hang around while some of our musicians rehearsed.  The church has been praying for musicians for at least seven years (I know that I started some six months before I arrived).  The good and faithful people that have served for so many years - decades - are now no longer able to get up in the organ seat and at the beginning of this year we were able to start using a very simple (but good quality) band with piano, drums and voice.  As you can see from the picture, there are now even more options and the quality is just fantastic.  Can't wait for Sunday, just hope the sermon is up to standard! 

Let the Games begin!

About a year ago I sat captivated by the brilliant extravaganza of the Cinescenie at Puy du Fou in the Vendee, France.  It was such an incredible spectacle that we sat there and thought how amazing it would be to see some of those ideas at the Olympic Opening Ceremony.  It wasn't just us who thought it was amazing either, we were staying next door to holiday makers where Dad used to work for Disney and he was blown away by it.

I wonder if Danny Boyle saw the show?  He did some similar things - the scale of everything, the feudal peasants, the geese and the livestock, the green fields, the history of the Industrial Revolution, (with Kenneth Branagh as Isobard Kingdom Brunel).   But he did so much more too.

So many highlights - the Queen as herself in a mini film with Daniel Craig as James Bond, Mr Bean playing with Simon Rattle and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the forging of the Olympic rings, the scale of the whole thing.  The soundtrack was a great reminder of all the good music that has come out of GB and you could have put together another one with all that wasn't used. 

Sure there were things you could say you'd like to see done differently.  Macca at the end didn't do it for me, the Team GB tracksuits look like they were donated by The Glitter Band and the athletes parade dragged a bit even though they had them marching through pretty quickly.  But overall it was fantastic. 

I really liked Danny Boyle's vision of Britain,   there was the tribute to those killed in London the day after it was announced that we had won the Olympics, the tribute to the NHS and children's literature, the honouring of the workers who constructed the stadium.  Perhaps, best of all, after all the speculation about who would light the cauldron we were sold dummies in the shape of Beckham, Redgrave and Ali before the honour went to seven teenage athletes of the future, a powerful symbol.  There's a lesson in there, I think. 

Back to work, back to reality...

...as Soul II Soul never quite sang.

Well, I'm three weeks back after a three month sabbatical and it's been an interesting time to say the least.  It was always going to be a bit of a challenge to get back into the groove and, actually, who's to say that it's a good idea to get back into the old groove?   I've been trying to catch up with people and situations, some of which (both the people and situations) I'm finding rather perplexing but the rest and recharge of sabbatical have been beneficial and have helped me through. 

After two difficult weeks it was good to get back on track with what it should be all about, as we celebrated 'On Your Marks', a Holiday Club for 80 children.  It was a great team effort and tonight I eagerly await the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games knowing that the Holiday Club team played a blinder.  A day of rest tomorrow and then Sunday morning brings around my favourite service of the year - the Holiday Club service.  Bring it on!

The picture?  I got pied today as the villian of the 'On Your Marks' drama.  Messy Church just got messier.   

Remember when it was all about mission? OR Why can't the church be more like a university Christian Union?

The Ugley Vicar has a very thought provoking post on the mission effectiveness of the Christian Union compared with the average Anglican parish here: Local Mission and the Christian Union.  Take a look, I think it's very perceptive and thought-provoking.  He concludes that the CU wins hands down.

In addition to the excellent points John Richardson makes I'd add that there's a flexibility and energy to the CU which means it can move fast (in my experience it has to because students are notoriously lousy at planning), be creative and take risks.   The leadership gets rotated every year, no-one gets to be minister, elder or deacon forever.  You aren't running thousands of ministries, you are mission focused.   You aren't bound by tradition and even though the leaders are inexperienced (most of us, myself included, really didn't know what we were doing) God seemed to come through for us a lot.  There's an inevitable incarnational element to most student communities and an openness to one another that most of us miss out on later in life.  We might even have been missional without knowing it.  There's also a lot of time and space and a lot less responsibility - or at least that was the case twenty odd years ago.  We thought we were busy.  We really weren't.  We wasted a lot of time hanging out together and I really can't see that it was wasted.   Fellowship was deep, spontaneous rather than scheduled.  It was all about mission.  I wonder if a lot of us miss those days?  I know that I do. 

Tropiquaria

Had a good night out with the Camera Club last night at the Tropiquaria, a night that inevitably sparked a bit of banter about the nature of creation with one of the guys I spar with on a regular basis.   The Meerkats are real posers but not all the animals were quite so co-operative. 

Even then, when a peacock turns it back on you it is a terrific sight.  The eyes have it!

The top and foot of the rhea, neither end looks that great.   Wouldn't want to pedicure those.   

Perhaps the highlight was being allowed in the cage with these little fellas, a chance to get some shots without the bars of the cage in the way.  17 135 - the number of the beast?

So, a fun night out at Club Tropiquaria, though the rumour that drinks were free turned out to be unfounded.  And if you have that truly dreadful song in your head for the rest of the day then I can only apologise. 

On my last legs

And in a couple of days time I probably will be because tomorrow I start the final two days of my Cotswold Way walk.  I walk from Old Sodbury to Pennsylvania tomorrow and then on into Bath on Saturday.  My walking companion has dropped out for tomorrow and I wouldn't blame them if my finalist decided against it for Saturday either. 

Why?  Well, the BBC weather forecasts on TV tonight (both local and national) show a great deal of rain due in the next 48 hours, with some areas (north of here) due to get a month's worth of rain in a morning.  The forecast is for a lot of heavy rain in the region I am walking.

Until you check the Met Office report online as I did less than an hour later.  It forecasts cloud all day.  And the BBC website shows rain at around 2pm but for it to be cloudy and nothing worse for the rest of the day.  As a precaution I have decided not to pack sun cream but I will pack a raincoat, just in case.   Saturday, on the other hand, is a different story.  All four reports are currently for heavy rain from early afternoon onwards. 

I am resolved to continue, as these are my last two walking days before the end of sabbatical.  My three month wait for better weather is over, I've run out of options.  I may be gone for some time...

Halfway through my 366 challenge - some reflections

Well, I've probably chosen the wettest year of my life to try this but yesterday marked the halfway point of my 366, taking and posting a picture everyday for the year.  I started a few days early, hence the halfway stage was reached on 29th June.

So far it has taught me to get out and about on days when you can't be bothered.  The windmill was photographed in January on a cold day and without the challenge I wouldn't have left the house. 

I've also learned that it's often good to go out shooting with someone else, I took off for the afternoon with someone I was at a conference with and watching how and where John was looking for pictures helped me find this image in Sidmouth. 

Dull rainy days (and we've had a lot of those) and looking at other people's shots on Flickr helped me shoot some things indoors. 

Seeing ordinary images in a new way and learning some basic Photoshop skills helped with this picture of a dandelion. 

 

And never be afraid of the cliched shot!  I have recently acquired a 'nifty fifty', a 50 mm lens which gives wonderfully narrow deep of field when it's opened up.

I think I like this sort of shot because without glasses this is what my world looks like. 

So, other reflections halfway through my 366 challenge?  It has been easier while on sabbatical and having so much more time.  Some days it feels like a chore and I wonder why I have done it.  I have shot some real rubbish some days (see here if you don't believe me 366 Photo Challenge).  I have considered giving up a few times but if I did I wouldn't have got a lot of my pictures.  I've experimented a bit and sometimes it comes off, others it doesn't.  Looking back at the results I'm pleased I've hung in there.  I'm not sure I'd do it again. 

Let's see how it looks on New Year's Eve.

Rafael Benitez - Church Guru?!

Very interested to read two very different things this afternoon that said the same thing. 

The first was the book Simple Church, (Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger) whihc advocates that you first work out what your philosophy of church is and then reflect that through everything you do, ensuring a process between one thing to the next.  Recruitment is made on the basis of people buying into your church philosophy.  Ministries either serve that philosophy or they become ex-ministries.  You do the stuff you are there to do and scrap the rest.  Quite radical.  Quite scary.  Quite obvious.  Quite rare.

The second thing I read was Rafael Benitez' piece in the i newspaper today that advocates pretty much the same thing.  He advocates establishing a philosophy for your football club: "England above all need the clubs to decide on the style of football they want to play, from academy through to first team.  They must then coach  the coaches in that style and then coach the players."  Otherwise, he says, the ones who aren't quite up to Premiership level end up going out on loan under managers with different philosophies and different styles of play, which is unhelpful. 

He goes on, "You must decide on a system; deciding, for instance, that  you want to play the ball on the floor, not in the air, and then you need to create a philosophy at your club where everyone has the same one."  This would translate in Simple Church terms to all the ministries pulling in the same direction rather than doing what each ministry leader likes best.  He also suggests recruiting on this basis too - "You stick to it, no matter who is manager, and you appoint a manager with that vision."
 

The Cotswold Way - Day 8 - Wotton under Edge to Old Sodbury

Today's adventure starts early in the hope that I can get back in time for the glamour tie of Holland v Germany in the Euros and so I catch a bus from Chipping Sodbury (where I have parked) to the start point of Wotton under Edge.  The bus goes all round the houses to get there but it gives me the chance to survey the general landscape and it's pretty apparent that it's a lot flatter than I am used to on the Cotswold Way so far.  It's isn't the sort of thing that I would normally pay much attention to but here on the walk this sort of thing takes on a greater significance!  The bus terminates yards from where I need to start walking and, after a brief detour to see the almshouses that were locked for the night when I finished here last time, I am on my way. 

The route through Wotton is easy enough and pretty clearly marked.  In fact they have bright blue signs which boldly and proudly proclaim the route and it's the best signage I've come across so far.  Through the church yard at Wotton and then along a path beside a stream and it makes for a very gentle start to the day before heading steeply uphill though a narrow path lined with tall stinging nettles.  Time to retreat and zip the bottom half of my trousers on. 

This hill, which becomes less severe once I hit the road, is the worst of it today and while it's hard work, it's also the start of a stage, which makes a difference.  It's here that I meet a great Canadian couple who have started from Wotton and are aiming to get to Little Sodbury.  Ken and Karen are walking the section from Painswick to Bath and are even newer to this walking game than I am.  I have to smile at Karen's distress at having to walk through mud and her glee at finding a puddle to wash her boots off a little.  With about ten miles still to walk it seems a little early to worry about such things.  I walk with them a little of the way and then they head off as I stop to take yet more photographs.  The views at the top are excellent and the sun is out and I've taken off a layer and just wearing two tee-shirts, which is how it stays for the rest of the day. 

Further proof of their inexperience follows as they miss a sign about a hundred yards from where I am taking pictures and they end up walking down a hill that they then have to walk back up again.  I manage to wave them back to where they need to be and they are following me at a distance.  They are probably the only two walkers I have encountered who walk more slowly than me (though I do feel that I am quicker than when I started this) and so I fgure I won't be seeing them again. 

There is a long, steep descent through woodland after this, which makes me glad that I am walking south rather than north but it is still very beautiful.  Then over open fields and looking back there is a great view of Wortley Hill and even more impressively, given the summer we have had, glorious blue sky. 

By the time I reach Hawkesbury Upton I am ready for a brief detour to the local hostelry having eaten my sandwiches up near the Somerset Memorial.  The Beaufort Arms serves a good pint and I end up on a table next to an Australian couple who are, rather heroically, doing the whole of the Cotswold Way in seven days.  They leave and their table is taken by Ken and Karen who have loved their walk but are calling it a day.  And why not?  It's all about enjoying the journey.  They are happy to enjoy a couple of drinks and enthuse about the walk and give themselves extra time before they walk again tomorrow.  Or they won't, depending on how they feel.

On hearing their story, I am surprised to find that they booked the walking holiday on a whim, just two weeks ago to the day.  They hadn't done any training for it and they aren't walkers.  She is 58 and he is 72 and they play some golf so figured, how hard can it be?  So they booked plane tickets and joined up with a company that arranges bag transfer along the route and stepped out.  Respect is due.  No wonder I walk a bit faster than them. 

After a couple of pints I know that if I don't get up and walk soon I won't feel like starting again so I wish them well and retrace my steps to where I left the trail.  The walking is very easy at this point and it is the terrain rather than the effects of the very good Spa ale, though beer tastes so much better if you have walked nearly eight miles to get to the pub.  There are poppies poking through, a sight that I always love. 

Past Horton Court and the lovely views from there and I am very soon in Little Sodbury.  It's here that I visit my second church because this is where William Tyndale attended church (although the building was elsewhere in the village then) and decided that he was going to translate the Bible into English.  I wonder if it was because the priest was doing such a good job or a bad one of preaching the Bible?

I promise that I won't go off on another one about Tynedale.  The church is quite pretty and there is a great sentiment on the lectern in the pulpit.  Tynedale is remembered with some strained glass, a little booklet, his figure is carved into the pulpit, there's a page of his translation framed on the wall and there's a great big sign about him outside too.  All well and good.     

However.  Bizarrely, and I promise that I didn't know this when I wrote up day 7, they appear to use the Tynedale translation (with original spellings) in their worship still today, nearly 500 years later.  Why?  I'll leave it at that.  New readers are referred to my previous rant / post about Day 7

A short sharp climb follows, up to Sodbury Camp, which is the site of an old Iron Age fort, covering 10 acres.  High on the hill it is the perfect vantage point for spotting potential enemies as they approached on the A46.  From there it's an easy walk down into Old Sodbury.  There's a moment or two of confusion as I try and follow the instruction about what to do when I reach the tall sycamore, all the time not having a clue what a sycamore looks like.  Just as I am in danger of missing the path by no more than 50 yards, a woman tending to her horses puts me right and I am soon at the point in Old Sodbury where the route crosses the main road.  

Here I must leave the Cotswold Way to turn right and walk another couple of miles into Chipping Sodbury.  I note that the bus into Chipping Sodbury is on this junction and more by accident than design I see that the last bus is due in two minutes.  I wait fifteen before giving up.  It races past three minutes later.  Nevermind.  The terrain is flat and it's still dry.  It doesn't take too long to walk and I manage to get home in time to watch the whole of the Germany v Holland game.  I can now look forward to two more days walking before I reach my goal, Bath Abbey.  They are walks of 9 miles and 10 miles and I plan to do them consecutively in early July.  Can't wait!    

Trapped

Here's the girl I trapped 21 years ago today and proof that I've been looking after her well.  Can I keep her, please?

Woman only speaks for 25 minutes!

On Sunday morning, my favourite parishioner preached for the first time on a Sunday.  She has spoken to groups before, children, pensioners, people in between, but she has never preached on a Sunday, in a church building, to men and women, using a lectern. 

Some people that I love will be joyful at the opportunity she had to speak on Sunday, some others (who I also love but disagree with) will be upset that a woman preached on a Sunday.  I suspect that most people in church aren't all that bothered either way and that most people outside the church must wonder what we are like if we are even still having this conversation.  

It has been interesting on my sabbatical to visit churches that have been recommended to me as places doing a good job. Every minister I have spoken to has been gracious and generous with their time and thoughts.  I've asked each one if women preach at their church.  Each has said that they do (although the overwhelming majority of preachers are men) and that it's not an issue for them as a church.  It's of particular interest to me as we are in the middle of discussions as a church about this very thing.  We've been studying the Scriptures as a leadership and trying to work out what they say because, like it or not, neither side of the debate can say that it is straight forward.  It's not altogether clear.  I, and most of the church leadership, are happy to welcome women preachers.  This is most definitely not a pragmatic decision but based on what we believe the Bible allows.  Being the kind of people we aspire to be (i.e. family), we'll need to sit down as a church and discuss it before we make a final decision.  There may well be future blogs on this. 

Back to Sunday.  She did  a terrific job and I am left thinking that there must be something that I can do better than her.  If she's this good the first time...  More seriously, I also wonder why some people would be happier to have a less able/gifted (male) teacher in the pulpit on a Sunday.  Pragmatism isn't the reason for our decision but you do have to consider that the church is missing out where it is not using gifted women in this area of ministry.   

Cotswold Way - Day 7 - Coldharbour Farm to Wotton-under-Edge

Today Dursley is internationally famous in a way that no-one would have believed twenty years ago.  Sure it has had the odd brush with fame before - Listers produced machines from here, and Mikael Pedersen came from Denmark to produce his bicycle here.  Shakespeare, it is claimed, may have taught here for a while and there's a pub, The Old Spot, which was CAMRA 'Pub of the Year' a few years ago.  

None of these, however, are the reason that people know about Dursley.  Harry Potter fans know the Dursleys from JK Rowling's novels; she was born just down the road from here.  Due to her phenomenal her sales and the almost obsessive devotion of her fans, Dursley has become world famous.  Yet, for all great things about the Harry Potter novels (and I've read each one, seen all the films and will be taking the studio tour later this summer) JK Rowling isn't the most important literary figure we'll encounter on the Cotswold Way today.  Far, far, from it. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I park in Wotton-under-Edge and get a bus to Dursley, delaying my start for the day because the weather forecast is lousy for the day.  The worst of it is a heavy downpour with some thunder at lunchtime.  So I plan my journey to start in the early afternoon.  And, of course, it's perfectly dry all morning and only begins to rain as I step off the bus at Dursley.  

The first twenty five minutes is spent walking in light rain back to where I left the trail last week.  It's easy walking and, making sure I touch the stile I climbed over at the end of the previous leg, I turn around and start Day 7 proper.  At the same time the rain stops and despite some threatening black clouds that have locals predicting a downpour, it's dry for the rest of the walk.   Dursley is pretty uneventful (sorry Potter fans) but the steep climb out of the village up Stinchcombe is more memorable - why did Pedersen think that producing a bicycle here in the hills was a good idea? 

The whole of this leg is well signposted with the slightly panic inducing waymark near the top of the hill which gives two options, neither of which is marked with the magic words 'Cotswold Way'.  It's only a few yards on from here though that I come across the Golf Club, just where the map says it should be.      

Stinchcombe is golf course number 3 on this walk and is doing good business.  There's a choice of walking across the course or walking a couple of miles around it.  Both are recognised routes and neither will have the good people who regulate the Cotswold Way thinking any the worse of you.  But my internal policeman won't even counter the shorter route, even though the guidebook says the longer route isn't worth taking.  And they were probably right.  But the walking was easy and no-one can take my badge off of me at the end on a technicality.  (You do know there is a badge in this, don't you?)

I step on it over the second part of the golf course as I head to North Nibley not just for fear of rain but also wanting to get to the village shop before it closes.   

It's lovely walking, through fields and crops and even making the brief acquaintance of a couple of horses. 

Then, one of those lovely little moments that make walking the Cotswold Way such a joy.  A fridge just on the side of the road, advertising chilled bottled water for walkers.  There's an honesty box in the fridge along with the bottled water and a rather charming notice saying that the price has been held for six years at 50p a bottle.  It was a great investment, which refreshed body and soul.     

I make it to the Village Shop in North Nibley with 10 minutes to spare.  I'd upped my pace not to buy a pork pie, but because I had read in a guidebook that this was the place to pick up the key for the next destination on my walk.  It would mean walking up the hill twice, but I was prepared to do so for what lay ahead.  Turned out that I had need not have worried, the shop assistant tells me that it was open and would be left that way.  Still, as a result of  being there I was a pork pie up.  It felt like it would be rude not to have bought one.    

I'm shortly at the bottom of some very steep steps where I have a quiet smile at the written notice at the bottom.  After several stops on the way up to catch my breath my attitude changes from one of being sniffy about his writing skills to being grateful for the work he must have put in to do this cleaning.  Well done Raymond!  This is seriously steep and very hard work. 

Then, here it is, through the trees.  I find myself looking up at the Tynedale monument, perched high above North Nibley.  With all due respect  to JK Rowling, William Tynedale is an even more important literary figure in the life of the English speaking world than even her.  

He was born in North Nibley and is the man who gave us the Bible in English.  He asked his Bishop for permission to do this and was denied, but driven by a desire to make the Scriptures available for "the boy that driveth the plow", he carried on anyway.  He was labelled a heretic, because the position of the church was that the Scriptures should not be translated into English.  It seems ridiculous to even type those words today.   

He took to the continent and finished his translations in Germany and Belgium.  They were printed up and then smuggled back into Britain.  For this he was betrayed, arrested, and then strangled before being burnt at the stake in Belgium.  His dying words were reported as being ""Lord! Open the King of England's eyes", and it seems like his prayer was answered.  Just four years later the King approved the publication of English translations of the Bible, based on Tynedale's work.  It is calculated that about three quarters the King James or Authorised Version of the Bible is Tynedale's work.  

Thanks to him, you and I can read the Bible.  We may not choose to, but it's there for all of us.  Driven by one man's desire to make it accessible to all who wish to read it.  Now 'the boy that driveth the plow' could read it for himself.  Here he could read that he could only be put right by faith in God alone, all the good works in the world weren't going to save him.  No wonder the church at the time were so cross.

It's ironic, of course, that there are still some people who insist on using the work of Tynedale today and who refuse to accept any other translation of the Scriptures, even though it's so dated now.  Some love the beauty of the language, others are tied to tradition.  I have a degree in Religious Studies with some English Literature modules thrown in for good measure and I have a hard time reading the KJV.  Fair play to those who don't but don't make it a requirement unless you want to hide the Scriptures from people today.   Michael Gove, a Conservative minister here, has just sent a KJV to all schools, marking it's 400 year anniversary.  I'm sure the kids will be delighted.  Richard Dawkins supports the move and if I didn't want kids to read the Bible, so would I.   

I reckon that today Tynedale would be coding the Scriptures to produce versions for the iPad, or producing it in cartoon form for YouTube, or doing something digital and ingenious for something on the cutting edge of new technology so that the boy that driveth the X Box might be able to engage with the Bible.

I seem to have gone off on one.  Suffice to say, "Hats off to Tynedale!"  And there's a great view from the top of the tower that commemorates and celebrates his life.         

From the monument, it's a gentle couple of miles to Wotton.  Unlike most of the woodlands that I have walked on the Cotswold Way, this is pretty level and easy walking in evening sunlight before a sharp downhill section into the town. 

Normally, I'd be walking the following day as well but there are long bouts of heavy rain, high winds, and warnings about severe damage across the south west for the next couple of days.  Turned out that they were right enough about that.  Day 8 will need to be rearranged.