Multiply overwhelmed

Sometimes you need a handy tagline to attach to your life and I have two absolute corkers at the moment. They both describe life as I, and many others I know, experience it presently, and help me make sense of my endless, sometimes conflicting, role juggling, which actually I now realise everyone is doing, all the time.

The first phrase I identify with is 'multiple overwhelmings', coined by theologian, David Ford in 1999. I didn't know you could have a plural of overwhelmings, but it comes as no surprise - this is precisely the territory we are talking about. Whatever can surprise, will surprise; sooner or later you will feel out of control in life and nothing will ever be straightforward. So bring it (them) on. We're not just overwhelmed by life: we're multiply overwhelmed. It's a great description of church life, any life, in the 21st Century. 

I used to wonder why it was so difficult to deal with certain issues in ministry. I'm a great lover of lists: I would write down some important things I needed to discuss with a senior colleague, whose experience I was sure could sort out whatever pressing concern had arisen, once and for all. I would write in my diary, 'Discuss so-and-so'. First I had a small diary, a week to a page. That soon became unworkable so I got a bigger one, with two days to a page. Eventually, after all the scribbling was getting me down, I got one with ONE DAY TO A PAGE. Morning, afternoon and evening appointments sprawled all over it.

So I would go to the meeting with an important thing to discuss, but then come back not having talked about that thing, feeling quite frustrated. It would have to be rescheduled into a discussion at a later date. Meanwhile if anyone asked me 'have you sorted out x yet?' I would have to say 'Sorry, not yet.' 

It kept happening. What was wrong with me? Then I realised the reason was that by the time the meeting came round, there was something else more important to discuss. In fact, by the time the meeting came round there were normally multiple more important things all jostling for that prized space at the top of the list of VERY IMPORTANT THINGS THAT ALL NEED DISCUSSING.

Every meeting with someone who could help, turned into an exercise in strict prioritisation. And it's the same with the diary. All time is finite. Putting one thing in will mean not doing something else. It's about volume. There's nothing like 'really important things' to knock off the merely 'important' thing you were going to sort out, so that what did seem important now goes into second place. Or third. Or fourth. Or fifth.

Housework - sadly the same. I plan to do the hoovering. On opening the shoe cupboard to find the hoover I remember my winter shoes are lost in there, so I decide to clear out the cupboard instead. The underfloor heating's kicking in (something I am always positively overwhelmed by). I remember the school uniform is still damp and needs to be dry by tomorrow. I go to get it from the utility room in order to hang it in the warm cupboard before searching for my shoes. I am greeted in the utility room by the cat litter tray which is too smelly to leave. I deal urgently with that. The phone rings. I pick it up and deal with something important. Afterwards I can't remember what I was doing. Then I notice it's time for the school run. To sum up my afternoon, I haven't done the hoovering, found my shoes or dried any washing.

As well as 'multiple overwhelmings' (because we couldn't just have one thing - let's be overwhelmed) I am conscious of another constant theme in life: that of 'rapid, discontinuous change'. This phrase was coined by two American writers on church growth (Roxburgh and Romanuk, The Missional Leader, 2006). They describe a 'light bulb' moment when they realised that church leaders across the US were noticing that the usual things that used to keep church life sustained and healthy were not working any more. Churches had always adapted to change, but incremental change is a lot different to 'rapid discontinuous change'. The latter can leave us wondering why a once flourishing congregation is suddenly, unaccountably, dwindling.  Where are people on Sunday mornings? A potent mix of cultural, sociological, economic, familial, technological and demographic change has left many organisations reeling, and the church is no exception. 

I feel it too with technology. As soon as one operating system is up and running, there's another bearing down on us. Teachers, preparing this autumn for the 'New' National Curriculum, hardly had time to implement it before the 'New' New National Curriculum appeared like a juggernaut coming over the hill. Every change needs time invested in it before it is mastered, Then, at the point of mastering it, more change comes along. You are a novice again. And again.

I've bought an egg timer. The type where the sand runs through, just as time runs inexorably through your fingers. It runs for exactly ten minutes. The point of this is because I need to slow down. I need to make time for silence, meditation, stillness and prayer. I cannot easily stop rushing about, but my egg timer will make sure I sit in the chair, for ten minutes, 'in the press of a busy day' and consider God in the midst of all the multiple overwhelmings and rapid, discontinuous change. 

I want to recentre myself within the Unchanging One, so that, instead of being overwhelmed by circumstances, I have a chance to be overwhelmed by Him.

Demon discouragement

Discouragement in Christian ministry, as with most forms of 'work', can come in many guises. As can encouragement. Generally speaking I spend more time encouraged than discouraged. Is this because I've only been in the 'job' three years? Maybe. Is it because generally I'm a positive person? Perhaps. Or because I'm 'part time' and spend quite a lot of my life doing other things, apart from 'ministry'? Or because I came into it midway through life, having done other things before? Possibly.

Discouragement does sometimes loom though; with the state of Christianity in the West, it can feel like you are walking along a tightrope and as long as you look straight ahead at your destination, you are okay; but if for a moment you look down, at the steep gorge and the swirling rapids hundreds of feet below, you are certain to come a cropper.


In September 2006, during the time I was filling in initial forms for the Diocesan Director of Ordinands (itself a test of how easily you can get discouraged), an article was published in the Saturday Times which I wish I hadn't read. Entitled 'Juggling the impossible in a long stone building with pews and a steeple', it was a sad personal account of one Anglican priest's battle with discouragement, which led to him leaving the ministry after 13 years, along with, as he claimed, at least a quarter of his ordained colleagues. 

He describes their initial hopes and dreams and the deeply significant Ordination service, during which they were charged with going out into their communities in the name of Jesus himself 'to serve as part of the great and benevolent machinery of the English state' (his phrase). But it was all eroded by the reality of daily ministry, trying to keep ancient church buildings going in the face of dwindling congregations and resources,

whilst still being available to carry out occasional offices for people who 'mock the church' by expecting services (marriage, Christening) which in their mind are entirely unconnected with any ongoing expression of corporate church life.

It made for grim reading, and was overly harsh in places. Logically perhaps I should have given up there and then...But I didn't. I consoled myself thinking of all the reasons this particular person had allowed himself to fall into discouragement so badly there was no way back. There must be a name for the psychological phenomenon whereby you are fully conscious of huge potential pitfalls in a given situation, yet you remain convinced that in your particular case, everything will be okay. Blind optimism. Or self delusion, perhaps?

But think about this: if all women, able to use their vivid imaginations to the full, decided that, say, childbirth was too undignified/uncomfortable (not to mention painful) an experience ever to consider going through; that the various pitfalls and outcomes might eventually overwhelm them, therefore it would be best to avoid it altogether; if we all took this quite logical stance, the whole human race would literally, eventually, die out. So clearly, the phenomenon of knowing about the potential dangers/risks associated with a course of action and doing it anyway, is fundamental to human survival. 


So I got ordained. And here I am, still going. Generally encouraged. But aware that the most fundamental safeguard against discouragement is to keep going deeper into God, because if the Church in this country dwindles much more, it's going to be like the Dark Ages, where the monks and nuns kept the Christian faith alive in worship and contemplation for 600 years before something was reborn nationally and culturally. And keeping the faith alive with tiny groups of deeply committed people is quite a good description of how ministry feels in small semi-rural churches sometimes (though, I'm very happy to say, without the Black Death).

Having said that, there are admittedly certain things, even just words, I'd rather not hear too frequently. I'm only human. No matter how much you tell yourself that it doesn't matter too much and it's not likely to destabilise everything, not immediately anyway, there are some frequent, constant drips......No doubt you'll have some of your own...

We're away this weekend.
Oh, was it my turn?
We can't find the key.
The heating hasn't come on.
The milk's off.
The boiler's broken.
Please fill in the attached forms ASAP.
The projector won't talk to the laptop.
We weren't expecting you this morning.
We were expecting you yesterday morning.
You're supposed to sign twice on the certificate.
We tried that 6 years ago.
We tried that 26 years ago.
What do you mean, we can't have a kerbstone?

Car Boot Sale.
I never got that email.

Road closed due to Triathlon.
They've voted No.

Fire hazard.
Vandalism.
Slipping tile.
Faculty application.
Share increase.
Damp.
Corrosion.
Mould.
Rust.
Leak.
Ingress.
Bats.

A small gem of dynamite

'I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me.' Philemon verses 10,11.

‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Luke 14: 26-27

Paul wrote four letters from prison - the prison epistles - Philemon in the shortest. The recipient was probably a leader in the local church who, it would appear, owed his salvation to Paul. The epistle is a plea from Paul for Philemon to accept back a runaway slave named Onesimus, now a Christian convert. Slavery was widespread in the ancient world and it would take some time before the dynamite of the gospel began to ignite the reformers to purge its ugly stain from polite Western society.


What I love about this tiny gem of Scripture is what makes the gospel for this Sunday hard to hear. Being church, following Christ, is all about getting relationships right. And the gospel challenges all our relationships. If it doesn't, what kind of gospel is it? 

Paul writes 'I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother' (v.7). Philemon is a joy to Paul - the head of the house where the local church meets, the 'Apphia' of the letter probably his wife; 'Archippus' possibly their son. And Onesimus was their slave, living and working in the house where the church meets. But something went wrong and Onesimus ran away, finally ending up in jail and being converted by Paul.

So here are some interesting relationship alterations. Philemon is a slave owner but now a Christian; Onesimus was a slave but is now a Christian. Paul is an old man, a believer of many years, now a prisoner for his faith. He appeals to Philemon to take Onesimus back, this time as a brother in Christ. He refers to Onesimus as 'his heart' - literally, his 'innards', that deep place from where his heart beats or breaks. 

'Onesimus' means 'profitable' - in a clever Pauline linguistic trick, once he was 'useless', now he is 'useful'. The gospel changes everything. To use the word 'profitable' about a human being is heavily ironic to us, who shy away from the idea that people can be associated with any idea of monetary value. But Paul is onto something. Only now, as a brother in the Lord can he be properly 'useful'.

Will Philemon rise to the gospel challenge and take Onesimus back as a brother? To do so would to be to go against the culture of the day. But the call of Christ eventually (sometimes it takes a while) challenges culture. Jesus says unless we put him first, 'hating' natural family ties whilst loving him above all else, we cannot be his disciples. Give up your possessions. Give up your status. Give up your rights. Give up your slave. 

Commentators have noticed how Paul emphasises his advanced age and his chains in his appeal to Philemon's better nature. Surely he cannot deny an old man this favour? Receive this young man, who I have (literally) 'given birth to' in jail, as a brother, and you will be surely blessed. One can sense the strong emotional appeal. An appeal that perhaps would be hard to ignore, especially if the letter was to be read out in the local church gathering, which was what normally happened with Pauline epistles.

It reminds me of a wonderful incident reported about Pope Francis. Shortly after taking office, the Pope emerged one night from his room in the hostel Casa Santa Marta. Paul Vallely tells the story in his recent book Pope Francis, Untying the Knots: 

'It was just before dawn and a young Swiss guard was on

duty by the door. Discovering he had been standing there all night the Pope went back into his rooms and brought out a chair. He told the young soldier to sit down. The guard said he could not. The rules did not allow it. Whose rules? asked the Pope. 'My Captain's orders', the soldier replied. 'Well he is just a Captain and I am the Pope and my orders are that you sit down'. The soldier sat down (...) A few minutes later Francis appeared with a slice of bread and jam (...) which the leader of the world's billion Catholics gave to the soldier, with the words: 'Buon appetito, brother''. Vallely observes that this is both a personal, even humble act of kindness, but also veiled in subtly authoritarian terms, which cannot reasonably be refused!

It's the same with Paul. He is transformed by the gospel; he longs for the same transformation in his brothers and sisters in Christ. No matter what Onesimus has done: 'if he has done you some wrong, owes you anything, put it down to my account. I, PAUL, AM WRITING IN MY OWN HAND, I SHALL REPAY'* (this comes before a 'gentle' reminder that in fact Philemon owes him everything anyway!) Hints of the Good Samaritan, who was similarly moved from his 'innards' (same verb) with pity and generosity. 'So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me' (verse 17). The slave is equal to the apostle. 

This is radical stuff. The logic of the gospel - equality of status before God and love for all fellow creatures - drives all before it like a flood. Hierarchical relationships based on power sit very uneasily where Jesus is Lord. They sit uneasily in the church. Paul was an old man, he had

softened. The phenomenon of someone whose life is so touched by the gospel that everything they do and think, everything they are, is seasoned with gentleness and grace, is a very compelling one. 

Maybe you know someone like this. By loving Christ above all other, by letting God's heart touch ours, by letting the logic of the gospel turn all natural relationships on their head, we can become people like this. For his glory,

Amen.
*Nicholas King translation

How to be humble

Luke 14: 'When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honour, he told them a parable. ‘When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honour, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, “Give this person your place”, and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place.But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher”; then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’

Jesus noticed things, people. He was a people watcher. He describes here a familiar setting - a celebration meal. We all have a sense of who the important ones are at a formal, or even informal meal, in any given social setting, even if we think status doesn't matter any more these days. Yes, we have Twitter, where you can message your favourite author or celebrity in the hope they will respond, but mostly, the more well known they are the less likely that is to happen.

At my school (all girls, fee paying, 1980s) status mattered. The Head had status. She had 'presence'. She ate lunch with a different table of 'gells' every week on the dining hall. Obviously, she took the top table, on the dais, and the 'top' seat on that table. If it was your turn to sit next to her you had to accord her the proper status while she complained about Elton John ('isn't he the one who writes everything in C?') and telepathically expected things to be passed her (salt, jug of water) at just the right moment without her having to ask for them. It always gave me indigestion.

Status is not dead. Alain de Botton writes (status) 'anxiety is provoked by, among other elements, recession, redundancy, promotions, retirement, conversations with colleagues in the same industry, newspaper profiles of the prominent and the greater success of friends'. I only have to think about colleagues who have finished their Curacies already while I trudge into year four and at least three more 6 hour training days, plus paperwork, and I break out in a cold sweat...

Jesus 'noticed' how guests subtly chose the places of honour and of course he wants reversal, in his inimitable way (you can see why he made enemies amongst the religious status holders...) Aim for the lowest place and you will be moved higher, maybe. We all want to be noticed, to count. Who can think of someone who's so secure in their identity that they can be said to be truly humble? It's difficult. Rev. Angela Butler, a colleague on our Team, who passed away in the Spring, was such a person. She was ready and willing to serve the church as a single woman three decades before women could be ordained, but she never complained about her apparent lack of status; instead she waited patiently until the Church came round to the idea. She served by making others feel good about themselves and by underplaying her own talents and her vast experience of ministry. Other people, ordinary people, genuinely interested her - she was constantly amazed, like a child, by the ordinary situations where she perceived something extraordinary to be a work.

Is humility a spiritual issue? 'Humus', from which we get 'humility', means earth.

When you're earthed, you know who you are and you understand your status before God, others and self. The earth is good. The earth IS. By chance we sang 'For the Beauty of the earth' as we considered this passage in church: I like the version which uses the tune 'As with Gladness', particularly as Beth Nielsen Chapman sings it: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAf_FsS0YFM (it's really beautiful, especially the key change...)

If your view of reality is as forgiven person, reliant on God, it's refreshing not to have to grab onto personal status. Who we are counts before what what we do. A completely counter cultural way of looking at life. When my maternal grandpa died a prayer was discovered in his desk. It surprised the family - he did not come across as an especially religious man. It was entitled: 'A Prayer for Humility':

'Lord, keep me from becoming talkative and possessed with the idea that I must express myself on every subject.

Release me from the craving to straighten out everyone's affairs.

Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong. 

Make me helpful but not bossy.

With my vast store of knowledge and experience it does seem a pity not to use it all.

But Thou knowest, Lord, that I want a few friends at the end.'

Amen.

Climate change: funny/not so funny

I thought Ian McEwan's 'Solar' (2010) would be a serious book about a serious subject: global warming. Then I started reading it. It was really funny at first. Michael Beard is an ageing, fat, bald Nobel Laureate-winning physicist whose main preoccupation is the affair his fifth wife, Patrice, is having with their builder, Rodney Tarpin, a man who owns a 'mock-Tudor house, renovated and tudorised by his own hand, with a boat trailer under a Victorian-style lamp post on a concreted front driveway'. Beard is comic - he overeats and obsesses about his appearance. His 'manhood' is nearly fatally compromised in a hilarious description of what happens when a man attempts to answer the call of nature in sub zero Arctic temperatures.

The book settles into satirical mode as Beard witnesses the accidental death of a young climate change scientist (also having an affair with his wife) and is able to frame the builder, Tarpin, for his death, thus dispatching one of his wife's lovers temporarily to jail and then passing off the dead man's original climate research as his own work throughout the rest of the book (there's a great gag in that the young man dies after slipping on the polar bear skin rug on the Beards' highly polished floor, hitting his head on a glass table as he falls. The polar bear has the last laugh.)

What stands out is not the idealism often associated with climate change protesters, or the virtue some think is needed to combat it, but the entirely pragmatic approach taken by science, to try and find alternative, world-saving energy sources. Beard is a pragmatist but also a man of unchecked appetites - for food, drink, academic recognition, and to an extent - sex. Clearly not a stupid man intellectually, he is continually compromised by his failing personal life, juggling different women from different relationships, and even the expectations of a young daughter, at the end. He appears to escape all initial signs of a comeuppance but his continual overeating and ignoring of ominous health signs can mean only one thing and when the end comes, it comes suddenly and grotesquely.

Religious readers of McEwan will recognise a characteristically bleak vision of humanity - realistic but without hope. If Beard's doomed, plagiaristic attempt at creating clean fuel is a model for the 'solutions' science has in store for us, the book casts a long and hopeless shadow. 

But it also begs the question: is climate change a moral issue or a scientific one? In a long speech to a collection of academics Beard says of the human collective failure to address climate change: 'This matter has to move beyond virtue. Virtue is too passive, too narrow. Virtue can motivate individuals, but for groups, societies, a whole civilisation, it's a weak force (...) For humanity, en masse, greed trumps virtue.' 

How true; unless of course, we are looking at a Wilberforce or a Mother Theresa (who would, no doubt, claim to be ordinary human beings). But this speech, coming from one whose own greed is, literally, the death of him, does not really inspire. Beard is the original 'fool' of the Old Testament - one who says in his heart 'there is no God' - bankrupt spiritually and morally - 'his god is his belly', as St Paul would say.

Yet he knows we have mucked about with the planet. We all know. We lack the will to do anything about it, despite knowing what we could do about it. The bottom line is that efforts in the right direction (less consumption, more equitable living) affect our personal standard of living. Is climate change a moral issue or a purely scientific one? McEwan's protagonist would say it was purely scientific, and its solution will be scientific. Charities such as Christian Aid would say moral on both counts.

As long as we live in a world where resources are unevenly distributed for the rich and against the poor, the poor will be first to suffer when the oceans rise. Even the New Testament talks of a time when people will live in fear of the sea and the roaring of the waves*, a passage which always makes my spine tingle. In a bad way. 

Is religion/virtue always idealistic, science always pragmatic? Can they do without each other? Will one need the other if we are ever going to sort it all out for future (not to mention, present) generations? In casting Beard as a central failure of a figure, McEwan has given, not a comic, after all, but tragi-comic novel about humanity's greed, small mindedness and incompetence. And it's not a pretty picture.

*Luke 21:25-28

Jesus gets stressed

Luke Chapter 12: 49-51 & : 56.

‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! 

'You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?'

A collective sigh from the company of preachers this week: Sunday's reading is one of the hardest of Jesus' teachings to preach on, giving us images of fire, baptism, 'stress', pressure, division, of slamming hypocrites and interpreting signs.

This Sunday's short passage of Luke comes at the end of an eventful chapter which begins with the crowds in their thousands threatening to trample each other in their rush to get near Jesus. Jesus uses this public occasion as a chance to warn against the 'yeast' (hypocrisy) of the religious leaders, to encourage people instead to have a healthy 'fear' of the Almighty who alone holds all the important things about us.

There follows teaching about money, possessions and what one of the funeral prayers calls 'readiness to live in the light of eternity'. Then comes the principle of accountability and the idea that blessing brings responsibility. 

Finally Jesus seems to have 'one of those moments'. We've all had them. Everything is building up, the crowds are full of hopefuls who have no intention on paying the cost of really following him, people are asking inane questions like 'please will you intervene in an inheritance dispute?' and no one seems the slightest bit aware of what is coming on the horizon for Jesus, i.e. his own crucifixion as a self offering for the life of the world. 

The chapter ends in 3 striking images:

1. Fire.

1. 
   Jesus cries out: 'I came to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were already kindled!' It's like he's saying 'come on people - wake up spiritually!!' He likens his death to a baptism - he must 'go under' as it were. I have a baptism with which to be baptized and what stress I am under until it is completed!'

Interesting word: 'stress'. Did Jesus get stressed like us? Or was it a bit more serious? The Greek verb is συνέχω, which the NRSV translates as 'what stress I am under', other translations using the word 'distressed'. 'Stressed' sounds rather anachronistic in the New Testament. Did Jesus get stressed like us? This was something a little bit more pressing. 'Stressed' is a good way of conveying the pressure his death and its accomplishment brought to Jesus as the verb means to surround or hold. It is used of Peter's mother in law when she was 'gripped' by a fever, and of the Gerasenes who were 'seized' with fear at Jesus' exorcism of the man called 'Legion'. 

He still longs to kindle a fire in us.

2. Division.

I used to hate long division at school. it seemed a very complicated way  to make a large number small and it normally went wrong about two thirds of the way down the page. When you divide something you get down to the nub of it. The nub of following Jesus is that it's about our own death and resurrection, our own baptism. Death to self and being alive to Him. It is bound to be controversial after a while. 

It was CS Lewis who said that Christianity was either of no importance, or it was of ultimate importance. The only thing it couldn't possibly be was of moderate importance. And so we wince at Jesus's talk of division - division within families particularly - didn't he come to bring peace on earth? But every decision for something or someone is a decision against something or someone else. The word of God is a two edged sword dividing soul and spirit; bone and marrow. Sorrow, like a sword, would pierce the heart of Mary as she witnessed the death of her son. 

Talk of division is to get to the 'crux' of the matter. It's a call for radical discipleship.

3. Weather.

We all like to think we're experts at predicting the weather, though since I got an iPhone, the temptation is to spend the whole time on the Met office App and forget to look up into the sky to make the entirely straightforwards prediction: I am going to need a coat later on. The people of Jesus' day knew how to interpret the weather signs but they failed to interpret the spiritual signs - and he was the primary sign. His miracles were signs that he was the Messiah; his death and resurrection were there, albeit rather hidden, inside the Old Testament Scriptures (we know this because of the Emmaus Road discourse); yet they couldn't see what was about to happen, and when it did; they ignored it.

How do we interpret the signs of the times? There's something important about what Rowan Williams said when he referred to the 'next man that sits on the throne of St Augustine': 'he should read the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other'. Do we look critically at the news with an eye on the spiritual significance of things? Do we ask God 'what is happening in this turn of events, in this trend today?' The world needs spiritually and culturally literate believers.

So, fire; division and weather. And Jesus getting stressed. We pray for grace to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest these pictures. To ask for baptism in the Spirit's fire; to have the courage to take the right route at the division of the ways, and to interpret the signs of the times as clearly as we interpret the weather.

Amen.

Humming in the Spirit

I have developed a ministry of humming.

Humming is not the same as singing. It's normally quieter for a start.

I found myself doing it quite a lot this summer, especially in settings where singing in tongues was taking place, though I'm not aware of any biblical references to humming...(this was generally not during Anglican morning worship by the way; more in big Christian camping venues or tiny Welsh revivalist chapels).

Singing in tongues is an interesting phenomenon. For a more scholarly article on it see: http://www.pneumafoundation.org/resources/articles/rwgraves010.pdf

St Paul mentions it in 1 Corinthians 12 ('I will sing praise with the spirit but I will sing praise with the mind also') - it was clearly a feature in the church of the years immediately after Christ.

In practice it appears to function well within the context of extended, contemporary musical worship, as Peter Ward describes in Selling Worship: 'In charismatic worship the songs function (...) as the means to encounter with God' (p. 199). In other words, it comes with its own theology of the mediation of God's grace, which is quite different from (or perhaps not?) sacramental theology...

If you have a competent and more importantly, sensitive band, they can lead seamlessly from a known song into a more improvised time where people are encouraged to sing extempore, sometimes singing in their mother tongue, words or phrases that the Spirit inspires, often short phrases from the bible, or else genuinely singing in an unknown tongue, or 'glossolalia'. The effect can be, quite simply, beautiful.

But musically it all needs a bit of glue.

It needs to hang together harmonically. Sometimes the band will play a 'sostenuto' chord over which singers find harmonies; sometimes they'll play a more complex series of chords. 

People need encouraging to sing out in improvisation; tongues is the jazz of church music. Humming is a useful place to start and harmonically flexible. A chord is made up of three notes; usually the first, third and fifth. If you can hear the first and fifth, you can hum a third to hold it (glue it) together. If you can only hear a third and a first, you can hum a fifth. Its all about listening. When the chord has been established you can let the words come.

In fact it hadn't occurred to me with such force before that in worship we're required to endlessly listen. Obviously to God, but also to each other. If you are fortunate enough to be somewhere where there's ample leisure to spend extended time in God's presence, humming can glue the combined sound together, leaving your mind free to receive whatever God wants to say to you. I had all sorts of ideas and pictures while humming in venues through the summer.

Humming is invisible. Undemonstrative glue. Broken things often needs glueing together. 

Humming in harmony, adding to the praises of God's people, being a perfect picture of the symphony of the body, each person giving his or her own best, without being pushy. Or simply listening and receiving. One of the 'new (spontaneous) songs' we heard at New Wine this summer was 'Just simply be in my love.'

It has always been noticeable how much more frequent are people's stories of physical or emotional healing during this kind of worship. It's not even 'singing in the Spirit' - more 'singing the Spirit'.

Humming is background; it doesn't put itself up front...you can't quite pin down where it's coming from but without it things might start to fall apart a bit.

It's what a parish priest aspires to: presence as glue - effective but often unnoticed - a community often unable to quantify quite what that presence means but poorer without it.

I'm not sure what St Paul would have made of it, but here's to humming in the Spirit.

(This song (imagine no drums and just the chords) seems to lead well into improvisation: be patient, give it time; be open.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR;i-umeLhs)