A few weeks ago I was addressed as ‘Mr ex-Vicar man’ at a folk club I’ve started attending in the last year. I’ve run this title past a few people – not all of them clergy- and most find it pretty offensive, which I’m fairly sure it was meant to be. Of course, on one level it’s true. I am the ex-Vicar of a few parishes not far away from here. Yet I’m fairly sure that this man had in mind the other meaning of Vicar, that is the generic term for ‘Anglican priest’. In that sense I am not an ex-Vicar, but a retired priest still practising my ministry in many and varied ways, even when playing Bob Dylan in the Folk Club.
This little incident has led me to reflect on the past 13 months since my retirement- the different things I have done and the ways I have been- and the change from being at the heart of a community of faith to living an anonymous life on a big housing estate in our secular society.
I remain of course a priest, although, for most of the year, I have not had the magic ‘Permission to Officiate’ licence from the Bishop enabling me to take services in any local church. I have also struggled to find a church nearby that is both welcoming and open to my ministry, leading me (in the past few months) to answer pleas for Sunday help from churches on the basis of their need. We will see how this develops as parish vacancies are filled (which they are, at a surprising rate!) .
Having said that, I also decided, soon after retirement, to take a good break from church and to do a mixture of things I enjoy -including guitar playing and music making with others- and socially useful work that puts me in touch with a wider range of people than I met as a parish priest. For me, the latter has led to volunteering for Citizens Advice. Both have presented challenges and opportunities for which I have felt both equipped and ill-equipped by my life’s work.
First, music making. In my last parish I joined a local Guitar Club soon after I arrived. This is a gathering of local guitar players (mostly but not exclusively men of a certain age) who meet once a week in the back room of a pub or coffee shop to rehearse 5 or 6 rock/pop songs. Someone turns up with a song complete with printed out chords and lyrics and usually takes the lead vocal; most play chords, one plays bass and our tutor (ex-Rolling Stone- yes, really!) plays lead. It is a very pleasant way of spending a weekday afternoon, leading to a monthly Evening at a pub where songs are performed, followed by an Open Mic for all. We even managed to keep it going by Zoom- in some fashion- during Covid.
When I retired to a town 10 miles away, I kept this up, making a seamless transition into my new life. However, after a couple of months the convenor suddenly gave it up without a reason. For a while it was rudderless and fell prey to a thin-skinned and bullying personality who threatened to destroy the club (and was probably the reason for the convenor’s departure). With a heavy heart I realised that 36 years as a parish priest, trying to form community , blend the gifts of volunteers and stand up to strong characters, had equipped me to take a hold of the situation. I am glad to say that the Club has survived , is attracting new members and above all remains fun! (This is a different club to the afore-mentioned folk club where I just turn with my guitar and play).
Volunteering for Citizens Advice is obviously completely different. It is a national agency, working to very strict standards and employing a mix of volunteers and paid people, offering help and advice to all comers. My particular role, which I took on after three months training, is that of Initial Assessor, answering the phone or meeting people face to face, welcoming them, assessing their enquiry, putting it on the System to be dealt with by an experienced Adviser. Although we work to very clear guidelines, this role gives me freedom to welcome people in the open way that, for me, is 2nd nature after 36 years in parish ministry, (where people would often just turn up at church or phone the Vicarage late at night in various states of need,) even if I am welcoming them on behalf of Citizens Advice not the church. In other words, I have found some of my accumulated skills to be transferable.
There are, however, two important differences between now and then. The first is that the work I do for Citizens Advice is done as part of a team. When I’ve entered the case onto the system, it is passed on. This could not be more different to my work as a parish priest. Many is the time I got over-involved and out of my depth with a person who just ‘turned up’. This was completely down to me to fix – a burden that was sometimes hard to bear, and one I certainly do not miss.
The second difference is the God factor- the One who, so it seems in our secular society, cannot be named. At Citizens Advice we have our own way of taking the religious temperature of the nation. When logging all enquirers’ details on the system, and in order to guard against discrimination, we are required to ask about the seven protected characteristics of a person: race, sex, gender, transgender, sexual orientation, disability, age and religion or faith. ‘Would you describe yourself as white British, straight, disabled, religious etc?’ I’ve tried different ways of reframing these questions, which are hard to ask, especially the religious one. My latest: Is faith important in your life? Yet it seems that, however, I ask it, the answer, in this predominately white area, remains the same. No. None. Recently an 85 year old thought about it for a few seconds then said, ‘No, a total atheist.’ Would he have said that even 20 years ago? Maybe, but I doubt it. The climate has changed.
I think back to the ease with which I moved from helping people to speaking about God. ‘God bless you’, ‘Would you like me to pray?’ I miss this, but I can’t complain, for have chosen to volunteer in a publicly funded service where the common ground on which people stand is secular and in which faith expression, although protected by law, is at very least discouraged and frequently banned. This is the same environment inhabited by staff in the NHS, Councils, schools (excluding faith schools), broadcasting and so on. Unless, that is, you have a clerical collar one, or its equivalent. A professional Christian.
Of course I knew in theory that clergy were in a privileged position in this regard. I can remember many study groups in churches where we were discussing talking about our faith to our neighbours and people saying, ‘It’s OK for you Vicar, people expect you to talk about God!’ Feeling the chill of our society’s faith temperature, as I have in the last year, is quite another matter. What a world away from the lady who checked my passport at Accra Airport in Ghana 25 years ago. When she heard we were on a church trip she asked ‘ Father, could you pray for me please?’
I am not saying that God has to be mentioned to be there. I believe that, in words from the Delphic Oracle that CG Jung had carved over his doorway in Zurich: ‘Bidden or unbidden, God is present.’ I believe too that the work of community building, music making and helping others in their need is intrinsically good and comes from God. Yet I am somewhat taken aback by the hostility with which increasing numbers of people talk about God, the church, and people of faith, many of whom are actively engaged in work for the good of society. It is often said that many charities and charity shops would fold if people of faith gave up working for them.
The final thought prompted by the ‘Ex-Vicar’ outburst is the importance of church and meeting together as Christians. Christians can often feel like strangers in a strange land in modern Britain, a sentiment I have discovered for myself in the past year, stripped as I have been of the supportive community that used to surround me. I have found that, for all its deficiencies (which are many and varied) the church and church worship has been a lifeline for me, a place where I can refocus and draw strength for the my new life. It doesn’t replace ‘being the Vicar’, a unique and irreplaceable alchemy of faith and community which I miss, though not the stresses which accompany it. But I have learned to appreciate what I now voluntarily choose to do after 36 years of having to do it! That is no small thing for, in the words of the Westminster Confession, ‘the chief end of Man is to worship God.’
Hugh's Views 