Priesthood
My spiritual journey has been complex, leading from an Anglo-Catholic
childhood, via adolescent atheism, sixties-style Buddhism, and then Evangelical
Christianity, towards a more liberal Catholic perspective. I feel a
special closeness to Orthodox worship and spirituality, but also an increasing
draw to Buddhism.
I trained for the Anglican priesthood at the College of the Resurrection,
Mirfield. I was ordained deacon in 1982, and priest in 1983, and
worked as a priest for 20 years alongside Judith, who was also later ordained,
in three urban parishes in Bristol:
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Holy Nativity, Knowle, the multi-cultural urban area
 where I was curate;
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St Aidan's, East Bristol, where Judith and I saw the renewal of a
building and its people over a period of 10 years; and
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St Barnabas and Holy Cross, Knowle West, a deprived estate where Judith
and I worked for 7 years, ministering alongside secular workers to the
beleaguered community, as much as to the two small congregations. The
picture shows us fighting (unsuccessfully) alongside local parents against
the closure of their secondary school.
Since then I have felt called to express my priesthood in theological teaching
and writing. I look back on my parish ministry with great fondness, and
feel that between us, within the
limitations of these difficult times, Judith and I did a good job. I
remain committed to a sacramental Christian vision of life, but am increasingly
drawn back to my earlier Buddhist ways of understanding the world. So now I feel
impelled to explore the priesthood which belongs to all human beings, as blessed
in Christ the one true Human Being - you could say that I am testing a
vocation to the laity! I am not sure this universal priesthood is anything other
than what Buddhists call the Buddha-Mind in everyone. I am currently
trying to live the life of the wilderness - repentance, solitude, study,
contemplation and the love of God and his world - within the city of Worcester,
and preparing for a move to Wiltshire.
The Chi-Rho page, which is the first Page of St Matthew's
Gospel in the from the book of Kells symbolises this new phase of my life, as
the Merrywood demonstration perhaps stands for my earlier more activist
ministry. The letters stand for Christ who was the focus of the contemplative
life of the monks who produced the book, but this Christ is crammed with vibrant
and often humorous images taken from close observation of the natural world, and
alive with the intricately interweaving swirls that are so characteristic of
Celtic art. You can explore this imagery more clearly by clicking on the picture
- though if you are not broadband it may take time to load!
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