Feeling Good

How are you feeling?

I’m enjoying a bit of a break, and loving the ability to go to some ‘live’ music and theatre. The picture at the top of this comes from a BBC broadcast of a Prom concert this summer. I was lucky to be in the Royal Albert Hall that night, and the soloist had just played an encore which moved me to tears; the camera fixed on our part of the 3,000 strong crowd just as I stood to applaud... 

But that emotion - that being moved to tears - was, I think, not just about the music I had just heard. Like so many of us, these COVID months have been something of a ride for me. I’ve struggled in all sorts of ways, and been lucky in all sorts of ways. Joy has been hard to come by; grief has been a near neighbour. I expect the full implications of what we are all going through are some way off being revealed. 

And in the midst of this, the Church of England is moving ahead with its Living in Love and Faith project. I’ve tried to engage with some of those in current episcopal leadership of what is going on in order to ask questions and suggest ways of being a bit more inclusive than seems to be the default way of doing things. Because of these private conversations, I’ve not posted much online for a while.  

And yet…

There comes a point at which I think it’s fair to say that my confidence in our episcopal leadership on LGBTQ+ issues is pretty non-existent and I don’t see that changing in the near future. Private conversations end and public musings recommence. Having asked the Bishop of London in her role as head of the Next Steps Group of LLF to address systemic LGBTQ+phobia in the church, her response has been very clear that this is not an issue she thinks deserves any of her time. 

Without the structures of the church being part of any review, the things that Tina Beardsley has written about, or Sara Gillingham, or Alex Clare-Young - none of these things can be resolved. I had to fight for equality to be an issue that the LLF book addressed; but words remain only words if the gatekeepers to power will not act.

However…

Who are the gatekeepers to power?

For a very long time, in terms of change with respect to the lives of LGBTQ+ people in the church, the bishops have been those gatekeepers, and have kept that power very much to themselves. They have written reports. They have controlled the agenda. Even when they allowed more to join in the Shared Conversations, participants were anonymous and feedback was not public. They expected their version of reality to keep General Synod in check when they published a very conservative reflection after that process finished - and were genuinely shocked that too many people present in the halls of General Synod had been a part of that endeavour to believe their version of events.

And now, despite having made that mistake once, they’ve really gone and done it this time. Because the whole church is being invited to join in the conversation. And though my confidence in the Bishops is non-existent, my trust in the people of God is abundant. Even though the LLF course is pretty awful (and genuinely not a decent reflection on the book itself) I don’t think this matters: having done the course with a group of people (who shared my dislike of the course materials though not always for the same reasons!) what I discovered was that what mattered was - people had the chance to speak and listen and be honest and discover that although they didn’t see eye to eye on everything, what they did agree on was that all God’s children are all God’s children and the current situation where discrimination and prejudice are offered as a reasonable theological position just has to change. 

The genie is out of the bottle.

The bishops have - by design or accident - given up their power. They have given it over to the people of God, and the people of God now get to say to the bishops: we want better than we have had.

So how am I feeling?

I’m feeling that we are coming out of a time that has been awful, and that we should never, ever go back to what we had before. The way things were. We know that life should be better. Kinder. More generous. With every person mattering - especially the ones that have seemed to be forgotten and overlooked.

I think this is a great time to have LLF conversations in parishes because in those conversations we get to talk about what matters most: people. Ordinary people. Every first and last person. And we get to remember that excluding people from God’s presence, God’s love, God’s community is simply cruel and always wrong. 

We get to think about what kind of world we want and what kind of God we believe in. 

We get to be good. And decent. And we get to choose better.

And I will stand up and applaud every single person and place that goes for this, and I honestly believe that means I’m going to spend a long time on my feet and I am looking forward to it.

If participating in LLF in your church feels dangerous - don’t do it. If participating in LLF at this point in your story feels wrong - don’t do it.

But if you can, if it’s OK, if you have chance to be with God’s people in a place where goodness and kindness and decency are taking the day, then do join in the LLF conversations. And make sure your conversations are reflected in the online feedback on the LLF hub. 

Speak. Listen. Be heard. 

How am I feeling?

Last night I sat in the audience at the premiere of Andrew Loyd Webber’s Cinderella. Not to give away too much - there’s a church wedding in the show that rather prejudges the outcome of LLF, and the audience loved it!

We live in a world where the future is already breaking in, where the signs of the Kingdom are all around. So...

I’m feeling good.