Clearout

My computer, like most people’s I suspect, is clogged with irrelevant stuff. In the time I’ve been at Swanvale Halt I’ve changed laptop three times and have meekly and unthinkingly copied everything across from one to another. Now I’ve decided to dispose of everything that doesn’t seem useful – all the duplicated photos, the outdated downloaded documents, the superceded liturgies, the items that are far better off on the church office computer than mine – and the sermons.

I preach a great deal, on average three times a week, perhaps (at least that seems like a great deal to me, perhaps it’s not). It’s probably, in fact, my major form of creative output. When I started out at Lambourne I used to write everything out longhand, but when I arrived at Swanvale Halt this seemed too onerous to keep up and for 8am and midweek Masses I got into the habit of scribbling notes and then preaching from them. But when we reopened after the first Covid lockdown I began preaching from a brief outline as part of the attempt to be as brief as possible. I preferred it: it felt more lively, if less polished. It’s not a disaster if I stumble in my search for the right word (as I often do), but I have to steer clear of the hazardous waters of repetitious waffle and be very clear how the sermon is going to end! For one-off occasions – funerals, weddings, and special events – I still write everything out. But there were between four and five hundred written sermon texts remaining on the machine.

I felt a bit of a pang deleting them, as I suppose they represent a significant part of my creative energy, but the fact is that I have never, ever looked back at a single one of them. What would be the point in keeping them? Once upon a time clergy were in the habit of publishing books of sermons, but unless you are John Donne this would seem to be a decidedly otiose activity in this day and age. I remember once picking up a book of ‘Best Sermons of All Time’ and turning to the offering from the mighty Charles Spurgeon: it was turgid and lifeless by our standards. If any of my efforts have ever touched anyone for the good, it will have been for that moment, that time and place, and a sermon lifted into another context from the one in which it’s preached is likely to be baffling and hollow. Getting rid of these files is a small act of liberation.