Much Study is a Weariness of the Flesh

... so it was just as well the Clergy Study Morning yesterday only went as far as lunch time before we were all released from Christ Church, Woking, to scarper in our various homeward directions. 'A study day like no other', the diocesan authorities had promised, apparently referring to the invitation we'd been asked to extend to laypeople to come along, because there was no other obvious difference from the usual format, and style. A pair of gentlemen from the musical team at Christ Church, armed with a guitar and a keyboard, assaulted 'Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty' until that noble hymn lay down and died, we had a sung version of the Creed that had me begging for it to end as one of said gentlemen led us in yet another repetition of part of it, and then we were ready for the speakers. A fellow called Nick spoke about how the Church of England had been issuing reports on how to integrate laypeople and clergy in evangelism, and working life and church life, since the 1940s and that 'if we're still talking about this in twenty years I shall scream'. I didn't think anything he came up with was particularly groundbreaking, though, but perhaps you can't after seventy years of Church of England reports. Then Paul Williams, the CEO of the Bible Society, outlined how the overarching narrative of the Scriptures could be used as 'a lens to interrogate the messages of contemporary culture': I quite liked this, but it was slightly depressing to hear him suggest that most Christians aren't aware there is an overarching narrative, as opposed to a succession of disconnected bits which they cherry-pick to justify their own ideological viewpoints. In between the two speakers, the Bishop pushed ahead of me (and several more people) in the queue for tea and asked me what I thought so far. I wasn't feeling all that well and couldn't help thinking of the scene in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy where the Vogon captain challenges the captive Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect, catching their breath after the psychic and physical pain of listening to some of his verses, 'either die in the vacuum of space; or [CHORD] tell me how good you thought my poem was'. As I waffled, the Bishop sort of became aware that he'd ended up halfway along the queue and insisted on handing me a paper cup in recognition of the fact.

The point arrived for breaking into groups, as it inevitably does. As we were sat in close-serried ranks of linked steel-framed chairs with very little room to manoeuvre round each other, this proved more logistically challenging than usual. I had forgotten we were supposed to bring along a layperson: Marion was there in her capacity as a chaplain at HMP Send, so the laypeople she usually deals with are not easily able to attend external events, and we agreed that clergy are laypeople underneath, as we are so often told. In our small group we concluded that the 'thing we would take away' was Nick's very touching anecdote of the hairdresser whose way of integrating church and work life was to pray for her customers as she massaged shampoo into their hair. This was a better suggestion than my statement that what I would take away was my cup, to put into the compost.

Finally we were shown a short video about the reorganisation at Church House. Little stylised graphics of happy clergy, laypeople and central staff, and even the odd dog, bounced across the screens to describe how the diocese was being restructured around meeting the real needs of parishes, although the Suffragan Bishop's hairstyle seemed to have changed in her translation into digital form. Wondrously, the presentation concluded without at any point using the phrase 'we've sacked a cartload of people because we can't pay for them anymore'.