Maybe Not the Boat after all?

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The day had to come. I suppose it was bound to, sooner or later. The day of disillusion, of worn-out-ness, of simply feeling that it is all just too much, and I shall never see the end of it, but I am just weary. Perversely, it is a bright shining day, the very sort of day when one might expect to be full of enthusiasm, eager to make progress before the weather closes in and holds me up until next Spring. But whatever the day, I am just weary of it.


Refitting the boat, I mean. We have made good progress this year, using all our holidays and almost finishing the new pannelling and partitions, though we shall not really be ready for the kitchen cupboards that are to be delivered on my day off next week. When Tricia ordered them that seemed a very long time ahead. We were sure it was the right sort of delivery time. But now, if we are not careful the boxes will clutter the boat unopened until next April.

I suppose what made me begin to think this way was the realisation yesterday that we have not a clear enough schedule , it is not evident now what needs to be done next. We have planed, of course, but not in sufficient detail. Can we install the shower partition or any part of it? Not until the plumber comes back to fit the taps and check his pipe work for leaks. That means the pipes must be accessible. But he cannot fit the taps until the panels are in place, which hide the pipes... and so on it goes. I suppose one pauses for breath, thinks a lot, and then works out a different way to arrange things. But yesterday and today it simply felt like an endless process we have wandered naiively into, a tunnel with no friendly gleam of light.

That, I guess, is the dark night of the boat.


I wonder if something else is affecting my mood? Pondering last evening the way our shortage of clergy is obliging the Church of England to revisit the nature of the priestly task, it was hard to escape a faint sense of disillusion about ministry. Someone I have not known much asked me where I was from.... and how long had I been there? "Well, 24, no now it must be 25 year." A look on astonishment crossed his face, which made me smile. People just don't do that sort of thing nowadays. These new-fangled clergy are all contract men, five year terms and job descriptions, straight out of the NHS. For them, no matte how much they try to dress it up, Ministry is a job, not a calling, "Never meant to stay so long," I confided, hoping to console him. "Seven years, I thought it would take, then I would be off to pastures new. But it did not work out like that; seven years passed, and the specific task I came to do was finished... but by then things, and not least the Church, had changed. I've been marooned there; almost entirely by accident. Never meant to stay so long." This seemed to cheer him up and we talked of biscuits instead. But it set me pondering, as the evening's business progressed - about Common Worship and changes in our liturgy - just how much of a dinosaur I have become.


An old-fashioned parson, stranded out of time; how many more are there like me, I wonder? It is not so much that with the passing of time one grows out of touch with other clergy, though that does happen - more so now, in a church where clergy move so dreadfully often. When my Mac came back on line today after some rare but essential maintenance, one of the first eMails to arrive was a sad little note from a bishop, not merely urging folk to book in for the diocesan conference, but grimly reminding them that they were expected to attend, and he would want everyone who intended to absent themselves to write to him and explain their excuse!! And there is to be none of your signing in and then dashing off back home again, neither :-(

Oh Dear me. Well, its all very efficient, but such missives are generally fishy. For a start, no one can compel an incumbent to be there. And again, such notes usually arrive because of a minor panic. Too few people have expressed any interest at all, and support must be drummed up. But the saddest thing is that once upon a time clergy did not need to be reminded, they would have been eagerly looking forward to the opportunity to be refreshed, to meet old friends and ponder important things together. How dismal to have to splutter out bogus threats lest we play hookey; what sorry times we live in.

But no, there is something else. And neither is it that as one grows older one tires, and has less energy for things. I have less energy than when I was forty, that is true, but I also know better how to go about things as well. It is that when one is forty, it is possible to look forwards with an unlimited horizon. When one passes 60, that ceases to be so. That is not entirely the case, of course, but it does make a difference to the way one works and plans. Just makes me wonder if it not the boat that wearies me so, but the Church?