St Mary's, Highley

The Complaint of Sinead O’Conner

I am largely a stranger to Pop music, but even I was aware of Sinead O’Conner. She led a rumbustious life, scared by abuse, mental illness and trauma. Through this she produced music that people wanted to listen to, music which spoke to them. Largely an outsider, she was also a leader of popular culture.

One of the more intriguing features of Sinead’s life was the way that faith was central to it. She rejected the traditional Roman Catholicism of her native Ireland; a religion that, at least in some quarters, had become complacent and which had become used to deference. After various adventures on its fringes, including becoming ordained in a breakaway Roman Catholic group, she eventually converted to Islam. I have some doubts whether she was any more comfortable with the certainties of the Imans than she was with the preaching of priests. However, I do not doubt her belief in God; she spoke of how “living with the Devil”, I think a comment on her troubled life, made her more aware of God. She instead complained “that real God and religion are two different things and that religion is trying to obscure what God really is.”

At its best, religious practice works to point us towards the real God, the God who, I as a Christian, would say is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. But I am aware that this is often far from the case; Sinead’s experience of religion is a common one. I have a feeling that her complaint is one that Jesus himself would agree with.

Rev David Poyner

How Big is God?

My eye was caught this week by an interview in the Church Times with Ian Cave, a former nurse and now a human rights observer, with a particular interest in Israel and Palestine. He is a Quaker but it is worth quoting his words.

“While my mother used to go to church on Sundays when we were very young, I was brought up in a secular environment and considered myself an atheist… [Now] I share the Clerk role with my local Quaker meeting… I remain a non-theist Quaker (ie a Quaker who does not feel the need to speak about God) but I believe that many of us share a common experience which some people call God. When I sit silently and manage to clear all the thoughts and words bursting inside my head, sometimes I become aware of insights. Some Quakers call this listening to the light, others call it the voice of God. You probably know what I mean. I’ve tried to put my values into practice- to let ‘my life speak’ as Quakers say”.

I am a Christian priest who affirms the creeds each Sunday and I make no apologies for speaking of God as a reality and sharing my faith with others. But I recognise and value those who clearly have a spiritual dimension in their lives and engage with it but do not wish to label it. I have a feeling that the God who I worship is also happy to speak to those people who do not call her/him by name. I have more concerns about those who do not engage with any spiritual aspect of their lives.

Rev David Poyner

In the Cloud

Last Saturday, I took a chance on the weather forecast and drove out to Wales, to walk up Cader Idris. I wanted to repeat a walk I last did thirty years ago; following a path up the north side of the hill. When I set off, it was warm and dry but the top of hill was covered in cloud. I got caught in one sharp shower and the summit was still in mist when I got there. I ate my sandwiches in the hut at the top of the hill and then started to pick my way back down. About 100 feet below the summit, just after a rocky scramble, I paused and then became aware that the cloud was moving. I did wonder if the whole mountain was going to clear and whether I should go back to the top; it didn’t and, fortunately, I didn’t. Instead I simply stood for about 10 minutes, watching the mist swirl, catching glimpses of the panorama of the valley below, the sharp rocks on the cliff face next to the path. I was caught up in the moment; focussing on the detail of the mountain, sharing in its intimacy and its mystery. Hill walkers usually curse low cloud, but there are times when I think it enhances a climb.

I’m not sure you actually need to climb a mountain to find something of wonder in mist; I’ve had similar experiences walking to the station on a foggy morning. There is something spiritual, mystical, about being in a cloud. In the late 14th century, an unknown mystic wrote a book called “The cloud of unknowing”, about entering a spiritual cloud to better experience the mystery of God. The next time you find yourself in mist, if you can pause to enjoy the mystery, the wonder and that which I call God.

Rev David Poyner

Requiem for a bat

On Wednesday, I was put on the spot. Alex, from the Caring for God’s Acre team was visiting Billingsley churchyard to scythe the grass; some volunteers from the congregation had joined him and I had come to show moral support and consume the cake that had been provided. They also serve who stand and eat…

Whilst in earnest discussion about how to encourage more wild flowers, I was interrupted by one of our volunteers who was in a state of some excitation; whilst cleaning the church she had found a dead bat, which we have subsequently identified as Soprano Pipistrelle. We think it may have died of shock at observing 10 in church for the most recent 8am communion after 20 at the last evening service. But what then caught me off guard was when she asked me to pray for it, before we committed its remains to the ground. Do bats have souls? Is there a place in heaven for bats?? I quickly mumbled some words of thanksgiving for its life.

I have no idea if bats or any other creature (or indeed plant) has a soul; I leave such matters to God. But all living creatures are part of “creation”, the natural world that ultimately owes its existence to God, even though God works through the laws of physics and chemistry and evolution by natural selection. And the religious thinkers who wrote the creation poems in Genesis recognised a great truth, when they  said that the natural/created world was good, because it ultimately reflects the goodness of its creator/primary cause. So I am  glad I commended it to God in my brief prayer.

Rev David Poyner