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Bulletin No.5: January, 2006

End of Term Report-Autumn/Winter 2005

Hello everybody: on a scale of 1-9, I'm on 5! What happened to term 4? It was the fastest yet; it flew by. When I last wrote to you I was looking forward to the term starting in September with the new intake of students.

All went smoothly, my lasting memory of that residential weekend in Wakefield was the sense of community that exists amongst the students and staff. I felt the need to share conversation, to ease concerns and generally make the new students feel at home and welcome. But such sympathies were also directed at the students of my own year, with the added affection of the months spent together on this incredible journey, and to those ahead of me in the third year. As a new student in
September 2004 I was unaware of any such community relationship and I wondered, as I looked at the drawn strained faces of some of the new intake if I had looked so worried. I probably did. This intimate community of very different people (I speak of my own year now) has provided the gel that has held us together during this fourth term.

It has been a difficult term for us as a community but for me an exceptional term academically - I refer not to my grades - they are not for publishing! It has been difficult in that we haven't had the normal amount of time as a group together, that is when West side Manchester based students get together with East side Mirfield based students. Due to the size of our group our retreat in October and November had us split in two, the retreat was silent so we couldn't 'catch up' with everybody's
news, in addition we have also had a teaching day at Mirfield, a Saturday, so it was a 'hello, how are you and goodbye'. There are some students whom I haven't seen since September and I will not be seeing again until January at the start of term 5.

Academically the term has been a corker! With the exception of a few epistles and the Gospel of Luke, we have been studying the New Testament. It has been marvellous to examine, compare and reflect upon the work of the different writers and witnesses who have contributed to the New Testament. It has been fascinating to look at the ministry of Christ through the lens of the evangelists. For example, comparing the desolation and mockery of Christ on the cross in St. Mark's Gospel with
the triumphant 'it is accomplished' from St. John's, one can easily fall into the trap of having a 'preferred' Gospel, of having what some writers refer to as 'a canon within a canon', a lesson learnt is that we need the balance of all four Gospels, a four-fold prism that both separates and unites.

Term 5, which as I write is in six days time, has its own challenges, my second placement. This time it's not a congregational placement but one in a 'sector ministry', ie a chaplaincy.I have chosen to work in Whiston Hospital in Prescot alongside the
Chaplaincy team for the coming weeks. In fact I have already started over the holiday period and have gained some valuable experience and precious insights to this form of ministry. My next update will no doubt reflect my experiences there.

I will not be around much in January and February due to the placement and the course constraints, so please accept my very best wishes for a blessed and happy new year.

Martin.

Bulletin No.6: April, 2006

Hello again, on a scale of 1 – 9 I’m on 6. Since I last wrote to you I have completed a placement as a student Hospital Chaplain. The placement was very demanding and I’m pleased to say that not only did I learn about this extremely rewarding ministry but I also learnt something about myself too. I thought that the best way to share my experiences of this time of learning was to share with you part of my journal of my time on the wards.

Date: Sunday 25/12/05. What happened today, duration 4.5 hours.
Today’s task is to carry out bedside communions and distribute Christmas cards to all the patients on the wards. Time included having breakfast with the Chaplaincy team. The Chaplaincy team divides in order to complete all the communions in two hospitals by midday.

My feelings and thoughts, what I tended to do.
It’s early, it’s Christmas morning and many of the Chaplains have been to midnight Mass and are tired. Yet there is an atmosphere of quiet dedication coming from the multi-denominational team (C of E/RC/Free Church). For myself I am achieving a personal goal of actually doing something for somebody in a less fortunate position than myself on Christmas day. My supervisor tells me that in the case of a patient who is either too confused or too ill to receive communion then bedside prayers are said. She (my supervisor) tells me about the miracle of the Lord’s Prayer. Sometimes a patient even in what seems to be an unreachable condition will respond to the Lord’s Prayer and may even mouth the words.

I visit an old lady who is very frail, skin and bone and heavily bruised. She is confused and drifting in and out of a half sleep. I do not sit but stand by her bed and lightly touch her hand and say the Lord’s Prayer. She turns her head toward me, fixes her large blue eyes straight into mine, her toothless mouth contorts into that which is about to sob deeply, there is no sound. My eyes water and my throat tightens, I say a blessing and leave. I feel deeply touched and believe that I have experienced the miracle of the Lord’s Prayer.

Self-evaluation
I am beginning to discern the enormity of this type of ministry. I feel the privilege of it, the importance of it and the sheer intimacy of being with people under such circumstances.

I am unsettled by my experience with the old lady, she is forever in my mind; questions keep coming to me. Did I do all I could? Did I give her cause for concern? Did she think she was dying and I was giving her final prayers? Did I frighten her? Did I witness what I thought I witnessed or what I wanted to witness?
I turn to my supervisor and share the step-by-step account of my behaviour during bedside communions and bedside prayers.

I’m doing just about everything wrong, but at last I know what I’m doing wrong and I know what I need to do both initially (which is easily corrected) and that which I need to develop.

I need to bring Martin to the visit, not a person with an order of service.

By standing over the old lady instead of sitting quietly beside her, I probably did frighten her, God forgive me.

My supervisor explains to me her tried and tested visiting technique.

Learning record

1. On approaching the ward assess its atmosphere and the conduct of the staff. Are they rushed, tense, relaxed, am I going to make their situation worse. Have there been any recent deaths on the ward? This will have a significant effect on the state of mind of all on the ward; I need to be aware of any such condition so that I can minister, through relevant prayer, in that environment.
2. Assess the patient physically, emotionally and spiritually. Physically - are they in pain, is there a catheter that I could trip over? Emotionally - are they stable, upset, angry, worried? Spiritually - what degree of spirituality can be perceived, eg, are they likely to want time to confess during communion or rather be happy to proceed to the next part of the liturgy without pause?
3. Assess the patients’ surroundings. Is there any evidence of cards, flowers etc from past visits from family and friends. Is there a drink nearby for elderly patients who may struggle with a dry communion wafer?
4. How do I introduce myself initially - and where am I during that introduction-particularly important to be non-threatening to sleepy or confused patients - crouch down briefly before leaving to get a chair. LISTEN to what the patient is saying, take it in, remember names and situations that are relevant to the patient and can be used later in extemporary prayer.
Try to sit alongside and only slightly ahead of the patient, not facing them or over them. This allows a non-threatening situation, a mutual vista and the ability to vary the amount of touch during the visit.
5. Assess the visit as it progresses and adjust accordingly on emotional, physical and spiritual grounds.
6. Did I pray with the patient and include things that needed to be said, things that are relevant and helpful, things picked up upon during the introduction and throughout the visit?
7. How to end the visit, if the patient has been distressed during the visit I must brighten the mood before leaving. Is a prolonged period of companionship required before leaving, is a follow up visit required in the week from another Chaplain?
8. After leaving the patient what is my assessment of them physically, emotionally and spiritually as compared with their pre-visit state?
9. How has the visit left me feeling?

Our local hospitals always need ward visitors and patient escorts. If you think you can learn from my experience and offer 1-2 hours per week, then give the Chaplaincy a ring. Escort training at Whiston Hospital: Part One 26/4/2006 7.30-9.00; 3/5/2006 7.30-9.00. Part Two 17/520/6 7.30-9.00. If these dates are incon-venient then please still contact the Spiritual Care Department on 0151 430 1657 as there will be further training over the summer.

My best wishes to you all.

Hello again, on a scale of 1 – 9 I’m on 7.

The highlight of term 6 has to be its final weekend, the commendation service for outgoing students. The commendation service, at the end of June serves as a graduation day for the student (sometimes followed the next day by ordination). It is a service during which the principle anoints each Ordinand on the palms and forehead with oil, and each is commended to their future parish. It was especially poignant this year, as those students who started with me in September 2004, and who only train for two years, were now being commended, four in all. It was a special moment for them of course, but it was also special for the rest of us as we laughed with them, and prayed for them.

I think that term 6 will also be remembered as one of routine, or am I just getting used to it? Don’t get me wrong, the subject of the term, Church History from the Fathers to the Reformation was and still is fascinating. As some of you know my essay subject was St. Augustine’s understanding of the Trinity. Somebody please tell me, why did I pick the Trinity?

All joking aside, the essay was a real challenge, trying the get to grips with the core of our faith, a concept that separates us from the other ‘people of the book,’ (or do our similarities unite us?) was something I needed to do. And at the end of it all St. Augustine tells us to continually search for God’s face and when we cry ‘alleluia’ in joyous understanding, it might be apt to remind ourselves:

‘For if thou hast been able to comprehend what thou wouldest say, it is not God; if thou hast been able to comprehend it, thou hast comprehended something else instead of God…thou hast deceived thyself.’ (Augustine, Sermon 2 on the New Testament of the words of St. Matthew’s Gospel, Chap III. 13, ‘Then Jesus cometh from Galilee to the Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.’ Concerning the Trinity. Paragraph 16. 6.10.05. Copyright 2005 K. Knight. 06.07.06. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/160302.htm>)

I don’t think that the Church of England and NOC could have put any more into this ‘summer.’ The end of the second year is the time for Ordinands and DDO’s to get together and to discuss future training parishes. Many things have to be taken into consideration, personalities of the Ordinand and the incumbent, the churchmanship of the parish, its location, will Miriam like it? Etc. etc. Other Ordinands have to consider moving house and schools, even diocese, so it’s a stressful time and a time for making life–changing decisions. Miriam and I are now undergoing this process and we are yet to come out of ‘the other side.’ I’ll keep you posted.

NOC has kept me busy with plenty of essays over the summer which has me resident in the spare bedroom (the study) over the last eight weeks and now, with the work completed, Miriam and I can look forward to our two weeks holiday before starting back in September.

As I write I am four weeks away from starting my final year with ordination only ten months away (scary, isn’t it) but all this talk of training parishes and ordination, although wanting to be at the forefront of my mind, cannot be just yet. There are still three very different terms and an Easter school ahead, each with their own academic and formational challenges, term 7 is ‘Christian approaches to ethics in contemporary society.’

My best wishes to you all,

Martin.

Bulletin No. 9: January 2007

Hello again, on a scale of 1 – 9 I’m on 8. Term 7 was perhaps for some students, one of the most difficult and emotionally demanding. The module for September to Christmas 2006 was ‘Christian Approaches to Ethics in Contemporary Society.’ The subjects which we considered and were given the opportunity to explore, dependant upon our personal experiences – which is why for some it was so difficult – were abortion, homosexuality, feminism, sexual ethics, marriage, divorce, euthanasia, ecology and animals, business ethics, war and peace.

With this diverse spectrum, it is obvious that all subjects cannot be covered in any depth; we did however, explore euthanasia and IVF during our residential weekend, which proved to be emotionally taxing for students with experience of IVF. For the remainder of the subjects, as I have said, they are left to the individual to engage with.

For myself, I chose war and peace. As many of you know I have a military background and as part of my vocational calling I was having difficulty in reconciling my growing faith with the nature of the role I was practicing daily in the Royal Navy.

Instead of offering you differing viewpoints as to how Christians can engage with issues of warfare, whether as combatants or non-combatants, below is one of my assignments for the term. It is presented as a newspaper article based on ‘just war principles’ as applied to the first Gulf War, it expresses fears for a third Gulf War and suggests an alternative approach for individuals when considering the ethics of war.

World Peace – Child’s Play

I was recently saddened, dismayed and filled with prayerful hope. Saddened by a recent study of the ‘just war theory’ as applied to the first Gulf War, you remember that war, 1990-1991, the removal of Saddam’s forces from Kuwait. Dismayed by the hidden agenda of the joint naval exercises in the Straits of Hormuz in October this year, and filled with prayerful hope that the innocence of our children might give us the inspiration we need to heal our broken world.

The first Gulf War was portrayed by George Bush ‘as a just cause.’ From the invasion of Kuwait to the conclusion of Operation Desert Storm on 3 March 1991 the war was ‘characterised by just war language.’ Politicians and world leaders immediately condemned the Iraqi aggression and UN sanctions quickly followed.

Intense diplomatic activity ensued, to try and bring the crisis to a peaceful conclusion. Saddam, however, cared not a jot for sanctions or UN resolutions; all he wanted was Kuwaiti oil to raise Iraq out of its economic crisis.

With concepts of just cause, exhaustive diplomacy, the authority of the United Nations Security Council and right intention – to remove the Iraqi forces from Kuwait and not to continue to invade Iraq itself – the coalition forces went to war. So all the just war theorizing may have done is to ease a few consciences. It certainly didn’t prevent the war.

Anthony Harvey pessimistically wrote in his book, Demanding Peace Christian Responses to War and Violence. SCM 1999. ‘War…is endemic in the human race.’ That we will continue to fight each other until one is ‘victorious’ or a ‘more powerful force’ prevents us from doing so. That ‘more powerful force’ turned out to be public opinion, or more correctly the coalition’s fear of it. Having engaged in battle and as so often happens in the chaos of war, control of the sanitized, surgical action was being lost in massive bombing operations by B-52s on Iraqi infrastructure. This, combined with the huge imbalance of military casualties in favour of the coalition forces, led to a declaration of ceasefire after the bombing of the retreating Iraqi forces on the Basra road.

So it could be said that just war principles of discrimination – that you ensure that non-combatants are not targeted - and proportionality – that the good you intend to do by going to war is not obscured by the conduct of the war itself – were responsible for the ending of the war.

I was saddened that this war, although it achieved its objective and was seemingly fought under ‘just’ circumstances, left nothing but a legacy of misery.

Following the end of Operation Desert Storm coalition air forces remained in action over Iraq for most of the 1990’s, making the ‘peace’ won, at the cost of thousands of mainly Iraqi lives, an elusive one. Finally, the ‘Saddam issue’ resulted in the second Gulf war. Expressions like ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and ‘shock and awe’ were to become familiar. And what of Iraq today? As we hear daily, and are in danger of becoming desensitised to, Iraq is in a downward spiral of self-destructive sectarian violence that leads ever closer to civil war.

Following my sadness I was dismayed to read Dilip Hiro’s article ‘Dire Straits’ in the Guardian 20th December. In it Hiro reports on the ‘Pentagon led’ naval exercise ‘Leading Edge.’ The exercise apparently lasted for five days and involved combined elements from the navies of US, UK, France, Italy, Australia and others, as well as ‘observers’ from ‘19 other countries.’ Its aim was to ‘block the transport of weapons of mass destruction,’ this aim has been greeted with scepticism to say the least.

Its hidden aim is to ensure that the Straits of Hormuz remain ‘open’ for the export of oil to the West, should any future air strikes on Iran’s, ‘known and suspected nuclear facilities’ occur. This is in stark contrast, Hiro informs us, to recommendations that the U.S presidency embraces diplomacy, especially in dialogue with nations like Iran and Syria.

Is this the third Gulf War in waiting, is there no hope, are we to be condemned to perpetual warfare; are we to resign ourselves to Harvey’s comments about our nature?

Whilst submerged in this seemingly hopeless gloom of pessimistic reflection, I came across an anecdote from Bernard Tetlow, which not only gave me hope for our future, but also adds weight to Harvey’s suggestion that there is another way for the individual to engage with issues of national and international security.

Traditionally there have been two approaches adopted by Christians and others, to the morality of their participation, or the participation of their armed forces, ‘in their name,’ in war. That is the application of just war principles or of declarations of pacifism whilst working for ‘peace.’ Both were evident in the first Gulf War, the former by the coalition governments as explained above, and the latter, particularly by the Roman Catholic Church.

Harvey suggests in his chapter, ‘Non Violence and the Pacifist Alternative,’ that there is common ground to be found between just war theorists and pacifists. That common area has become known as non-violent resistance. Harvey suggests that we as individuals exercise our rights and use the ballot box to determine that personal opinions are reflected in national policies. That we realise our social conscience and express it in public demonstration; interestingly, he calls for the training of ‘unarmed civilian peacekeepers,’ a civilian enterprise that would work toward reconciliation of conflicting issues, either between nations or within nations. This is not about undermining the role of the United Nations, it is about educating ourselves and thereby our society in its continuing development toward world peace. Imagine if we trained our children in peacekeeping; what fruits would we harvest? A slump in the sale of plastic battleaxes might be a good social indicator.

Mr. Tetlow in writing to the Daily Mail 20th December, told the story of a vicar struggling to prepare his sermon because he was being continually distracted by his young son.

The stressed vicar leaves his desk and starts to search for something to occupy the child. He comes across a magazine with a map of the world on it; he tears the page out, with the idea of turning the map into a jigsaw puzzle. The vicar cuts the map into jigsaw shaped pieces and gives it to his son with instructions to piece the picture back together. Fully confident that he will be able to work without further distraction, the vicar returns to his study.

To his great surprise after only a few minutes his son returns, proudly displaying the completed picture. Stunned, the vicar looks at the picture and says: ‘That’s amazing, son, how did you manage to put it back together so quickly?’ ‘It was easy, Dad,’ the son replies. ‘because on the other side was a picture of a man, and I thought that if I got the man right, then the world would be right!’

My best wishes for a peaceful 2007,

Martin

Bulletin No. 10: May 2007

Hello again, on a scale of 1-9, guess what? I’m on 9! As I write I am seven weeks from ordination and you would not believe what needs to be done between then and now! I could list half a dozen or more things for you but it’s best that I remain calm!

Last term was quite difficult, the academic level was higher and therefore required extra effort and concentration. The term was focussed on different ways of discipleship, as suggested by theologians down the years from Luther to Moltmann. We were concentrating from the reformation to the present day; anything previous to the reformation had been covered in another module.

April also involved my third and final Easter school – yes I’m sorry I missed seeing Miriam as the Easter bunny at the Easter party but believe me I did help in the ‘design’ of the costume.

Easter school was excellent as usual, the planning and dedication of the staff certainly showed as the weeks programme unfolded. We were treated to lectures by professors and accomplished authors; the theme of the week was relationships. That, I know covers a massive spectrum of relating and no stone was left undisturbed.

We considered same sex relationships, civil partnerships, age concern, sexual and physical abuse to children and adults, marriage and divorce, disability, single issues, in fact we discussed as many of the myriad of human interfaces as possible.

Naturally such discussions hit raw nerves, with over 90 students present there will always be somebody who has been or is affected by one or more of those relationships. So more than one student needed some sensitive and compassionate pastoral care over the week.

Easter school wasn’t all work though, there was time enough to play – I do a smashing Frank Sinatra on the karaoke! Seriously, we as a group are very much aware that we are nearing the end of our initial academic training (in reality I’m completing year three of seven in training terms) and we are doing the ‘last of’ things, and people are realising that this very intimate and supportive community is coming to an end. I will continue my training with the other six Liverpool NOC ordinands but the community as we know it will only continue in small localised support groups, so there is a sense of loss, a sense of change and moving on amongst the students.

That’s it for this penultimate update; my next article will be post ordination! See you there.

With every best wish,

Martin

On the Sunday before the ordination (the Feast of the Birth of St John the Baptist), Fr Neil Kelley's sermon focussed on Martin's forthcoming translation.
Click here for the text of the sermon.