Diverse Church six months on

One of the many downsides of MND is that it limits one's freedom of movement, not just in the small matter of daily living, but also in the bigger things of choosing how often to go out. It's a major operation, comparatively, to get out to a meeting, for example. I was sorry, last week, to miss two quite different meetings.

One was on Thursday, organised by the Oxford Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship, entitled, "Evangelical witness in this diocese in the light of Pilling, Bishop Alan Wilson, and the appointment of a new Bishop of Oxford." In the light of the accompanying write-up and attached paper, this promised to be a meeting resisting any ground being given to the gay/equal marriage move in the Church of England. I wouldn't have minded saying a bit. I don't know whether I will hear any feed-back from that meeting. The other meeting was on Saturday in London organised by the Two:23 Network, a group who describe themselves: "Two:23 is a network of Christians, connected by LGBT (Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) issues, who have discovered that God loves us just as we are. This realisation frees us unashamedly to include and encourage all to discover the love of God for themselves, pursue the call of Christ and live in a way that cherishes others just as God cherishes us." I suspect the two meetings could scarcely have been more different - except that they both included worship. Now that's interesting....

I did listen to the talk given by Sally Hitchiner at the Two:23 meeting, which you can find on their website. She was talking about the group she was instrumental in founding for young Christians struggling with the faith and sexuality, called Diverse Church. It's an impressive and widely encompassing group, which supports and gives hope to youngsters who had none before. I can't give an adequate account of its scope. For that I recommend listening to Sally's talk (on http://two23.net/). Here are two contrasting quotes from it. "Being gay and a Christian is rather like finding you have incurable cancer." "Finding Diverse Church and discovering that you can be gay and a Christian is like finding Narnia."

Two things I picked up are that it's a pastoral group, rather than a political one. In other words, it exists to care rather than campaign. The other is that it's undogmatic, except for insisting that God loves each of us as we are and as we were created. And so the group includes gay young people who live together or want to find a life-partner, those who have decided to stay celibate and one married to someone of the other sex. They all accept and affirm each other. Something they have in common is that they have all suffered acutely, usually from hearing the message that God considers them, or their feelings, an "abomination". Not surprisingly many have felt or been excluded from their churches - and it seemed from God Himself. You can see a couple of their stories in this film: Christian, it gets better.

One of the most moving initiatives Diverse Church has started is handing over its Twitter feed to one member each Friday who uses the day to tell their story. I regularly follow it. It is a brave thing to undertake, as although it is done using only initials, the potential is there for hostile reactions. For many, I understand, it's the first time they have "come out" telling their story, 140 words at a time. Somehow the gradual way the stories unfold echo the tortuous journey many of the members have traveled, and emphasise the joy they experience when they discover acceptance for who they are. In my view, Diverse Church (which is not a church in the conventional sense, but encourages the Church to be as diverse as was intended) is a remarkable group of young Christians. I've learned from them. I think the Church needs to listen to them.

Saturday was World Aids Day, and Diverse Church's Twitter feed led its followers in a moving prayer, sentence by sentence, with which I finish. I felt as if the person tweeting was praying from his experience and his heart.

Lord,

I'm glad I can talk to you.

You’re always there -

even when my head is somewhere else.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed,

ashamed, afraid to face the future...

It’s hard living with a stigma.

It’s not what people say.

It’s what they don't say.

It’s the knowing smiles,

and the sheepish looks.

They all add up to a feeling of accusation.

Lord,

I’m glad I can talk to you

Nothing surprises you.

You’ve been where I’ve been

You’ve felt the discrimination

Experienced the betrayal

the hurt

the name calling

the whispering in corners

the religious prejudice.

Lord,

You make me feel whole again

You include me in

You make me feel understood.

Your extravagant generosity

leaves me speechless.

Words fail me as I try to say

Thank you.

You draw me

You give me a place in the picture

You tell me

I belong even when I can't believe.

Lord, you’re unbelievable!!

Heavenly Father, tonight we pray for those whose lives have been overshadowed with the fear of HIV. The prejudice they fear they'll face...

Tonight we pray for the people who are living with HIV/AIDS. Here. Abroad. Anywhere. We pray for protection over them. Love them.

Place your tender hand over them and let them know your presence. Let them know that you're carrying them through the darkest days

and walking with them even in the days they're feeling better. Heavenly Father, help to eliminate the stigma attached...

Help us to stress the importance of being tested, the importance of talking about it, and the importance of living without fear of being discriminated.

Heavenly Father, give us the courage to speak out to those who think the illness isn't 'their problem'. Let them know it is their problem...

It's their problem, because we're all brothers and sisters in Christ. We are all created in one image, we all eat of the same bread...

we all pray to the same God. The same God who created us all in His image.

Tonight, and in the days and nights to come, just give those whose lives have been affected the love and courage they need...

Give them someone to talk to, someone who will listen and someone who will just make a cup of tea when things get too tough...

Show them your love that way. Use us to do your will.

In your name, we ask this and pray. Amen!

Love unknown

Well, it’s been quite an eventful ten days or so.  However I’ll concentrate on just one theme that occupied me which is the one about which I blogged before we went away for a few days.

On Friday (4^th) we were due to be celebrating with our friends Esther and Julie their wedding. So it was somehow bitter-sweet to hear Justin Welby doing an hour’s phone-in on LBC Radio, answering among other things questions about gay marriage. He came across well, I thought, not least making real why it is such a hard issue for him.

The wedding celebration was an extremely happy event. The couple were in great form. One of them said to me, “It’s nice to feel normal,” and I could see what she meant.

Then we went away to Devon for a few days, staying in a cottage up a winding crumbling lane and with a blissful absence of internet. Late breakfasts, fresh fish and chips, picnics by estuaries, views from the cottage, spending time with Jane's parents.… And so after all too short a break it was back to the harsh rushing world of traffic, vehicular and cyber.

One of the first things I picked up was the news that my occasional correspondent, Vicky Beeching, who did her theological studies at the same place as me had been getting it in the neck because of her support for equal marriage. She now describes herself on Twitter as “Theologian. Religious Commentator (Sky, BBC, ITV, Radio 2, Radio 4, LBC). Pro #womenbishops  & pro #equalmarriage. Feminist. Christian. Songwriter (EMI). Geek”. It was a blog post she had written entitled My support of same-sex marriage which had incurred the wrath of many Christian readers, sadly, and ironically, since it was a personal plea for dialogue carried on in a loving spirit.

“So, while many conservative and evangelical Christians are very angry about my stand for same-sex marriage, please let’s dialogue in love. Journey with me here. I’ll be blogging about this topic, the relevant Bible passages, recommending books and resources, and writing about the various questions that arise from them all.

“Thanks to the many people who do support equal marriage and have reached out to me. I’m touched by the way you have gathered around me and rallied to encourage me at this difficult time. Thanks also to those who’ve written to say they disagree with me, but are wanting to do so with kindness and respect.

“If you want to come on this journey, whatever your beliefs may be, I’d be delighted to have you read, comment and share your responses on this site.”

Vicky derives much of her income from royalties on her songs. One consequence of her expressing her views has been churches telling her they’ll no longer use her songs, and thus she will lose a good chunk of her livelihood. I decided to write her a note:

“Hi Vicky.

“Thank you for your blog post. As others have commented, it's brave. Being retired I don't have as much to lose as you do. Being relatively obscure, I don't stand to receive the shower of vitriol that you do. However as you know I come from a similarly conservatively Christian background as yourself - and have to confess to having held what might have been regarded as a Biblically-based homophobic stance, which I now regret and of which I have repented, as I believe I should have much sooner.

“My change of mind and heart has not been an overnight conversion, but has been based on my reexamination of the 'proof-texts' (very situation-specific in all cases but one; that one a Biblical hapax legomenon [single instance] with a much debated meaning), the resounding silence of Jesus on the subject of same-sex attraction, and his resounding condemnation of judging others and his all-encompassing demand of love. It's also arisen from witnessing the harm inflicted on LGBT young people and their parents by the uncomprehending condemnation of Christians like me, and from an encounter with a couple where I had no doubt that I was to reach out, accept and love them. I had the privilege of celebrating with their friends after their marriage a week ago on Friday.

“Ironically I had listened to Archbishop Justin's phone-in on LBC Radio that same morning. And I did understand the awful dilemma that he has as a crucial leader within the Anglican worldwide church, being aware that any 'liberalisation' which might take place here would have fatal consequences to fellow Christians in other countries - as well as having the responsibility to uphold the Church's agreed teaching on marriage. I share your hope that 'as the Church of England enters a two year discussion period about “human sexuality” based around The Pilling Report,... those of us on all ‘sides’ can talk with respect and kindness, despite the deeply painful and inflammatory nature of the subject matter.' As mule-headed Oliver Cromwell said to the equally stubborn Scottish Kirk Synod, 'I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.' We're all of us mere humans.

“I suspect you don't need me to say that I don't believe you're a heretic, but on the contrary Valiant for Truth in the market place of Vanity Fair. And I for one will be listening to 'The Wonder of the Cross' this coming week and being grateful.”

Following my recommendation of Vicky’s article, I was contacted through Facebook by one person challenging me to justify myself: “I have just never found an even slightly convincing theological argument for its practice...” I recommended Justin Lee’s Unconditional and Renato Lings, Love Lost in Translation. I suspect Vicky’s subsequent posts on the subject will provide more theology than I’m likely to. Another friend asked me whether I had read the Rev Steve Chalke’s article on the subject – which I had, and did again. I replied, “Yes, I have read it. It's so sad that Christians divide so heatedly over the issue. As I mentioned in my blog, knowing parents of gay children and having friends who are gay has made me think that the received attitude to homosexuality is pastorally misconceived and harmful - unloving and unChristlike. I suspect I'm like Steve Chalke in that. There are more struggling young gay Christians than churches like to acknowledge and consequently they feel they either have to conceal their sexuality or leave the ordinary fellowship of church.”

In her reply she agreed and recounted how one of her friends at university left the church when she realised that she was gay. She had prayed so hard that her feelings would be taken away from her. “I also am concerned that Christians appear to the outside world to be unloving bigots. I am so conscious of how the church is viewed by many of my colleagues - and it is not good!”

The stance which has caused more than “one of these little ones to fall” seems to me highly perilous and to require re-examination. I have previously said that I do not like Government redefining language by dictat – that is acting ultra vires in my opinion – but I do also like the Church supporting faithful loving commitment. Perhaps we need to accept that we live in an imperfect and broken world, and do what we can to work for the reconciliation between person and person and between people and God, which is why we call this Friday Good.

Have a listen to this: "The wonder of the Cross". I think it’s up there with “When I survey” and “There is a green hill”.

A rainbow world

In May 2004 we travelled with our great friends Anthony and Ruth to Florence, staying in the Hotel Berchielli near the Ponte Vecchio. Jane's and my bedroom, I remember looked down on this quiet square, Piazza del Limbo, with the 11th century Santi Apostoli church opposite. That was the first time that I appreciated the relief and the hazards of wheelchair travel. It was an unforgettable four days. Among the sights in one of the large piazzas there was a peace vigil - it was a year after the invasion of Iraq with all the messy mopping up. The vigil was largely young people and students. They were selling peace ('PACE') flags, and so I bought one as my souvenir of Florence, not as beautiful as Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence sextet, but there we go. I still have it.

I remember my family asking me when I proudly showed it them, "Do you know what it means, Dad?" So I told them it was an Italian peace flag and I'd got it from a vigil in Florence. They told me it also was the symbol of the lesbian and gay movement. (In fact I have now discovered that they were wrong for reasons I'll explain.) However at that time I was - I was going to say ambivalent about homosexuality, but that's too kind to myself - I was anti-gay. ("Love the sinner; hate the sin" - that sort of thing.) I put my peace flag away in a drawer. Readers of my blog will know that comparatively recently I have repented of my ignorant arrogance, as a result of encounters, study and reflection - see here, and here, and here. I've concluded that normally sexual orientation is not a lifestyle choice but an innate gift.

I was reminded of my flag with the great celebration in the media of the introduction of equal marriage at midnight on Friday. I was very glad when Archbishop Justin Welby went on record saying, "I think the church has reacted by fully accepting that it's the law, and should react on Saturday by continuing to demonstrate in word and action, the love of Christ for every human being." Strangely, for such a moderate statement, it will no doubt have exposed him to a good deal of hate mail and brickbats, probably from all sides. Nonetheless as The Guardian commented it did represent a shift in tone, rather as Pope Francis's "Who am I to judge?" answer did. I was surprised to read about the reaction to the American charity, World Vision's decision to open employment to people in a same-sex marriage. As one blog put it, the gates of the social media were stormed by people arguing for what they felt was the truth. "Additionally, and almost unbelievably, many chose to withdraw their child sponsorships in order to send a loud, clanging-symbol  of a message to World Vision." I suppose it was not surprising, albeit shameful, when World Vision quickly reversed its decision. A friend of mine was on the receiving end of very nasty trolling when she commented, "Someday the Church will look back on the fight over same-sex relationships with same incredulity & shame as with slavery & women’s suffrage." However, I hope she is proved right - in the not too far distant future.


Meanwhile I am looking forward to joining with lesbian friends of ours who are marrying on Friday. We feel very privileged to have been invited and are looking forward to congratulating them - and I shall be praying that God will bless them as they will have made their lifelong marriage vows to each other. Every such lifelong commitment needs every blessing, I reckon.

The LGBT flag has, you'll notice, the red stripe on top and the purple at the bottom and has the turquoise missing. The stripes represent (starting at the top): life, healing, sunlight, nature, serenity/harmony, spirit.

As I sit in my chair, I still value the rainbow as the reminder of God being utterly faithful and loving us too much ever to destroy the world, despite all our attempts. It reminds me of the eternal love that is at the heart of existence. It reminds me that even I am loved by the creator of everything. Hard to credit, but apparently true. "His steadfast love - for everyone - endures for ever."

PS The reason I have been quite vocal on the issue is the harshness of the criticism heaped on LGBT people, often sadly by followers of Jesus who had nothing to say on the subject but was very explicit on judging: "Judge not, that you be not judged." This is my way of saying I'm sorry.

To my friends (part 1)

When I survey the wondrous cross

on which the Prince of Glory died;   

my richest gain I count but loss,

and pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,

save in the death of Christ, my God;

all the vain things that charm me most,

I sacrifice them to his blood.

See, from his head, his hands, his feet,

sorrow and love flow mingled down.

Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,

or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

that were an offering far too small;

love so amazing, so divine,

demands my soul, my life, my all.                                                         

              Isaac Watts

This blog is very much my own reactions to things going on in my life, or in the news, or sometimes both. This post is particularly so. It’s written in the light of good friends who have been severely wounded, both themselves and their children. It’s written after news reportage of the Church of England’s House of Bishops’ Pastoral Guidance on Same Sex Marriage, published somewhat ironically on St Valentine’s Day, and after discussion of it on the Sunday Programme on Radio 4.

What follows is not a criticism of the archbishops whose names are appended to the guidance and both of whom I greatly admire. I understand they have an impossible course to follow, and I understand that the guidance is a holding position while the two years’ consultation of November’s “Pilling Report” on Human Sexuality takes place. And I understand the dilemma the bishops found themselves in between the Church’s “official” teaching on the subject and the more “progressive” approach of the Pilling group.

Neither is this a theological essay. I’m not the theologian of my family! I suppose it’s no profounder than a personal cry of the heart. What follows is, I hope, self-explanatory.

Dear Emma and Angela

It was really good to meet you on Friday. Of course Father Dom had told me a bit about you and what you were wanting. What he told me was clearly true. You are a remarkable pair. And in the few years of your relationship your love has withstood what many don’t experience in a lifetime. I think it was you, Ange, who said you’d tried to find something bad in your love, like something that leaves a bad taste in your mouth, or like tasting salt when you’ve asked for sugar in your coffee, in what you have. And you couldn’t find it.

You asked what Jesus would have thought of you two. That’s a very good question, but probably an impossible one, because time-travelling that perfect, utterly loving Lord into the present is beyond us. I don’t think he would have refused to welcome you, that’s for sure. However let me approach it differently. I was listening to Kathryn Scott’s beautiful version of Isaac Watts’ When I survey the wondrous cross, the greatest of all hymns, this morning – beautiful! I was struck by how wonderfully and impossibly aspirational it was, like so much of the best worship. (Charles Wesley reportedly said he would give up all his other hymns to have written this one.) Watts intended it be sung during communion. It is a highly devotional response to the sacrificial love of Christ.

I noticed phrases such as “my richest gain I count but loss”, “all the vain things that charm me most/I sacrifice them to His blood” and “demands my soul, my life, my all”. They were, I reflected, in the same vein and as radical as the demands that Jesus made to his contemporaries, about leaving, or selling, everything, about living like the birds, not worrying about the future, about observing every scintilla of the law, about absolute faithfulness to one’s spouse, about hating the members of one’s family, about taking up one’s cross daily and following him. We comfort ourselves with the assurance that they are poetic or Hebrew expressions, and that they must be taken in their context. That may well be true, but the fact is that most of us muddle through as best we may.

Sometimes, it seems to me, the Holy Spirit and the Word (i.e. Jesus’ words) come together and speak to a person in a specific way. For example, St Francis hears the call to abandon his life of luxury and takes to the road with nothing. Many others have heard a similar call. However it is a personal call. It’s not a demand made by an institution. In fact on the whole such personal calls are an embarrassment to hierarchies, whether of church or state. When the institutional Church starts to make the demands which only Christ who knows our hearts can make, it oversteps its competence. Forgive me if my history is ill-founded, but when the Church used its power to instigate the Crusades as a Christian duty it got it wrong.

There have been times in history when, for example, the Church allowed marriage for its presbyters, others when it demanded celibacy, and now in this country we have two patterns of priestly ministry. I’m married; Father Dom may not marry. In the Church of England divorcés were once barred from ministry, but now are accepted without a qualm. Once, women were excluded from the priesthood; now the C of E is on the way to what was the original (in my view!) pattern of women in leadership. In the C of E there was a time not long ago when vicars were not allowed to conduct a wedding for people who had been divorced, only a blessing after a civil ceremony. Remember Charles and Camilla? There was even a time when living together before getting married was “living in sin”. Now the Church tolerates it and is just grateful when cohabiters decide to tie the knot.

It’s tough then that those who are naturally attracted to others of their own gender should be faced with such a hard line, as your Church and mine follow. Two days ago, the Bishops and Archbishops in my Church issued “pastoral guidelines” for clergy about same sex marriage. Clergy are reminded that under canon (Church) law they may not themselves marry someone of the same sex, although they may be in a civil partnership provided they remain celibate within it. When the Equal Marriage Act comes into effect in March, of course, under Statute Law they will not be allowed to conduct a marriage ceremony for a gay couple. They are reminded that they may not formally bless a couple after a civil partnership ceremony nor after a same-sex wedding, although a “more informal kind of prayer” is permissible.(Not that you need to know all that! It's just on my mind at the moment and it's partially relevant.) 

Understandable though this all is in light of the current unresolved controversy within the Church (based mainly around a handful of hotly debated proof texts in the Old and New Testament, which I know you have looked at carefully), to my gay friends it perpetuates a rigidly negative message – which unsurprisingly strikes them as homophobic, despite the repeated assurances of love with which the Pastoral Guidance is replete. I understand them feeling less loved, less accepted and positively excluded by the Church which claims to represent Jesus Christ on earth. I wonder if the mistake we are making as the institutional Church is to demand that members of the LGBT community make sacrifices, about which the rest of us devoutly sing but fail to demand of ourselves. It strikes me that Jesus alone has the prerogative of making demands on anyone. When he walked the earth, he called for different sacrifices from individual followers.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9.57ff) 

I can’t find it in myself to say that you must give each other up or sacrifice the comfort and love that you find in each other. I think that only the Lord Jesus could make such a demand, which he would do through His Spirit and through your consciences. Not me; not any church. However having talked to you, I have no doubt that that your love is genuine, as real as mine and my wife’s, and that your commitment to each other is “for better for worse” – you’ve proved that! – and that it’s lifelong. I can see that you nurture each other’s faith. You’re good for each other. I know you don't want to get married yet, but you want to make a formal commitment to each other and to God and you’d like to have the commitment publicly blessed. You didn’t choose your orientation. In fact I know it has been an agonizing struggle, especially for you, Angela. I believe your love is a good thing, a gift. It's generous; it's unselfish. I can’t refuse to ask God to bless it. Somehow we shall find a way.

God bless you and keep you.

Michael  

PS Have you seen this moving video of the star Ellen Page speaking on Valentine’s Day? The tension and emotion as she speaks is visibly tangible, isn’t it? And she expresses her (and so many others’) pain and hope so well. I think everyone should watch it. Brave girl.

PS A very good explanation of why the guidance hurts so badly is here: http://www.acceptingevangelicals.org/2014/02/bishops-ban-clergy-from-same-sex-marriage/#comment-3852

Thankfully, looking back

Well, it’s been quite a year, in my book.  Internationally, it’s been a bit of a mess, with seemingly endless blood-letting and just some hopeful glimmers such as the breakthrough in the Iranian nuclear talks.  Nationally, it’s hard to know what to think, with, apparently, economic recovery on its way (hurray!) and yet, clearly, standards of living still falling and food-banks multiplying.  So leaving things too complicated for me aside, let me reflect on my own past twelve months.

Early in the year, the two big ecclesiastical appointments caused me to suspect that the Almighty hadn’t nodded off.  He’s the one to break the mould – and in Justin Welby first and then in Jorge Mario Bergoglio the world was suddenly faced with an Archbishop and a Pope of very different characters from any of their predecessors right back to the first century.  Justin Welby today concurred with Time magazine’s identification of Pope Francis as Man of the Year.  I must say for me they are both outstanding examples of Christian leadership, men with the moral mettle to practise what they preach.  Francis “almost persuades me” to be a Catholic - good thing Justin's there too! 

I’ve been kept quite busy talking about ending life well, a number of times at St Mellitus’ College in West London and a couple of times on TV.  The former I especially enjoyed.  I suppose it was partly the erstwhile teacher in me; and it was partly having a sympathetic audience prepared to take the trouble to understand my gob-stoppered speech.  It’s something, as you know, that I feel strongly about, and which I think is under threat in the very country where the hospice movement began.  As Dame Cicely Saunders, its pioneer, once said, “You matter because you are you. You matter to the last moment of your life, and we will do all we can, not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die.”  That should be the motto of all geriatric and terminal care. 

Well, certainly, helped by Jane and family and friends, this year I have continued to live – and to live a fulfilled life.  I have had moments of desperate frustration, part and parcel, as a friend of mine recently put it, of  “The joy and depths of this terrible, painful and yet wonderful journey of loss, disability and dependence - the gift that has been given to us.”  Yet I have had times of great joy, such as the week’s holiday with all our family in the middle of Devon in the sunniest August for years; getting down and into the sea perched on a bulbous bouncing beach wheelchair; getting to know our daughter’s rapidly growing special needs’ therapy puppy, and getting to know new friends.

Two particularly special friends we made this year are Esther and her partner, Julie.  It’s not often that a chance encounter completely changes one - I'd call it a "God-moment".  But hearing Esther explaining vividly the prolonged pain and exclusion she’d endured among Christians because of her sexual orientation was the final confirmation for me that I and many like me had long been responsible for a gross injustice in the very community which should be marked by justice and love.  Followers of this blog will perhaps remember that I have long admired faithfulness in same-sex friendships.  However now I believe something more, and that is that sexual orientation is not a lifestyle choice, but an innate given, or gift.  How can we withhold love and welcome from our sisters and brothers?  I think we should bless them.  It will for many seem an unremarkable conclusion.  Equally for many it will seem heresy.  There it is.  It seems I keep on learning - slowly. 

I’ve not been able adequately to express the power of that meeting and my present conviction.  The best I can do is recommend my book of the year, given me at Christmas: Unconditional by Justin Lee (subtitled “Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs-Christians Debate” published this year by Hodder & Stoughton, also published as Torn in the US).  If you don’t understand the hurt gays endure in the Church, this will give you some idea.

My DVD of the year has to be Les Misérables, that remarkable achievement of performance, cinematography and, of course, of story-telling.  I forbad myself seeing it in a cinema suspecting I would weep uncontrollably and loudly, and so waited for the DVD to come out.  I didn’t weep uncontrollably, although I confess Anne Hathaway’s extraordinary "I dreamed a dream" did reduce me to tears.  However it’s the film’s unbearably potent message of forgiveness and love that most moved me and conjures the dream of how radically revolutionary a society based on it would be.  It would be the Kingdom of heaven.

My woman of the year, apart from members of my family, is, I think, Jack Monroe, a deservedly popular blogger, A girl called Jack looks back, who in her own words “started this year living – existing – on a £10 a week food budget topped up with five items of food from the Storehouse food bank once a week. (And) ended it with a recipe book deal, baking biscuits on Woman’s Hour, with a Guardian column, a debate in the House of Commons and regular political and campaign pieces in the Daily Mirror.”  She came across my radar when she was campaigning for the poor and petitioning for a parliamentary debate about the rise in food banks.  I just like her.

My man of the year, apart from members of my family again, is – sorry to be predictable – Pope Francis.  Here’s quite a good summary of why (not mine): Why Pope Francis is person of the year.  I’m sure there are thousands of less high-profile people who are equally acting out the good news of Jesus Christ, but it is quite something to be in a position of such power and temptation and to maintain one’s integrity and humility.  No doubt he has made and will make mistakes.  After all he is human.

Talking of the all too human, my sporting flop of the year has to be the England men's cricket tour of Australia this winter. What a craven capitulation!  The less said the better.  And is the sporting triumph the second consecutive “British” win of the Tour de France by Chris Froome, or the “British” Men’s Singles victory at Wimbledon for Andy Murray?  I guess I'd go for the Scotsman.

My outing of the year - well, I'll choose our two to Stratford on Avon, first to see As You Like It, with Pippa Nixon outstanding as Rosalind, to celebrate our wedding anniversary, and secondly to see Nancy Meckler's brilliant production of All's Well that Ends Well in company with our delightful out-laws.

So another year ends.  And I’m looking forward to my favourite morning.  Tomorrow, I hope to wake up beside my lovely wife and realise that I’ve been spared to enjoy yet another year of discovery, starting with the Vienna New Year's Day concert, coffee and croissants..., and then who knows what surprises and new or renewed friendships?  Lord, bring it on!