We publish a Parish Magazine 4 times a year and in each Magazine there is a letter from a member of the ministry team. Here is the Summer 2008 one from Phiippa:
NEW VICAR - SAME GOD!
So said a poster outside a church in Manchester
As Ronan, Caitlin and I prepare to move into the Vicarage, ready for my Licensing on 29th September it is a little difficult to know what to say. I hope as a family we will settle into Harpenden and make many friends. As your new priest, I pray that together we will journey in faith, building on what is already a strong foundation of faith and
Below is a poem shared with me when I was first ordained, and says something of who I am as a person and as a priest. Perhaps over time you will work out which bits apply!
PRIESTLY DUTIES - Stewart Henderson
What should a priest be?
All things to all - male, female and genderless.
What should a priest be?
Reverent and relaxed, vibrant in youth,
assured through the middle years, divine sage when aging.
What should a priest be? accessible and incorruptible, abstemious,
yet full of celebration, informed, but not threateningly so,
and far above the passing souffle of fashion.
What should a priest be?
an authority on singleness, Solomon-like on the labyrinth of human sexuality,
excellent with young marrieds, old marrieds, were marrieds,
never marrieds, shouldn't have marrieds, those who live together,
those who live apart, and those who don't live anywhere,
respectfully mindful of senior citizens and war veterans,
familiar with the ravages of arthritis, osteoporosis, post-natal depression,
anorexia, whooping-cough and nits.
What should a priest be?
all-round family person, counsellor,
but not officially because of the recent changes in legislation,
teacher, expositor, confessor, entertainer, juggler, good with children,
and possibly sea-lions, empathetic towards pressure-groups.
What should a priest be? On nodding terms with Freud, Jung,
St John of the Cross,The Scott Report, The Rave Culture, The Internet,
The Lottery, BSE and Anthea Turner, pre-modern, fairly modern,
apost-modern,nd, ideally, secondary-modern - if called to the inner city.
What should a priest be?
charismatic, if needs must, but quietly so, evangelical,
and thoroughly meditative, mystical, but not New Age. Liberal,
and so open to other voices, traditionalist, reformer and revolutionary
and hopefully, not on medication unless for an old sporting injury.
So, what does a priest do?
Mostly stays awake at Deanery synods.
Tries not to annoy the Bishop too much.
visits hospices, administers comfort, conducts weddings, christenings, -
not necessarily in that order, takes funerals, consecrates the elderly
to the grave, buries children and babies
feels completely helpless beside the swaying family of a suicide.
What does a priest do?
tries to colour in God uses words to explain miracles which is
like teaching a millipede to sing, but even more difficult.
What does a priest do?
answers the phone when sometimes they'd rather not
occasionally errs and strays into tabloid titillation
prays for Her Majesty's Government.
What does a priest do?
Tends the flock through time, oil and incense,
would secretly like each PCC to commence with a mud-pie making contest,
sometimes falls asleep when praying yearns, like us, for heart-rushing deliverance
What does a priest do?
has rows with their family, wants to inhale Heaven, stares at bluebells,
attempts to convey the mad love of God,
would like to ice-skate with crocodiles and hear the roses when they pray.
How should a priest live? How should we live?
As priests transformed by The Priest that death prised open
so that he could be our priest martyred, diaphanous and matchless priest.
What should a priest be?
What should a priest do?
How should a priest live?
With every Blessing
Philippa Segrave-Pride
Philippa Segrave-Pride