At Lunchtime on Wednesday (20 May), I received a completely unexpected telephone call from the Radio 4 "PM" programme. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Paisley, the Rt Rev Philip Tartaglia, had issued a warning to Catholics in Scotland that Twitter could damage real human relationships, and PM were looking for a clergy-person to disagree with him. Somehow, through the wonders of Internet searching, they had found me, and they wanted to know whether I could take part in an on-air discussion on the subject.
Since I'm never one to turn down the chance of a good discussion I agreed, subject to clearing it with my Diocesan Communications Officer and, if she deemed necessary, my Bishop. In the event, the discussion was not with Bishop Tartaglia but with the well-known Roman Catholic journalist, Joanna Bogle. I found myself sitting in a little room at Radio Hereford & Worcester recording a conversation with Ms Bogle in London - somewhat ironically, since we both agreed on the value of face-to-face contact and body language, we could only hear and not see each other.
The main difficulty for me was that, in many ways, I agreed with Ms Bogle's emphasis on the need for personal contact, and I expect that most other "twitterers" would have done too. Of course there is no substitute for face-to-face contact, for sharing a cup of tea with someone, shaking their hand or giving them a hug - no-one knows that better than a parish priest, whether Anglican or Roman Catholic. Of course old friends are important and should not be displaced by new ones made over the Internet. But why can these two aspects of friendship not run side-by-side? A very dear friend of 15 years' standing introduced me to Twitter; he lives some distance away and we now have more frequent contact than we've had since the days when we attended the same church. It is still great to see him and his family, but distance means this cannot happen more than a few times a year at most. My friendship with him is not diminished by the fact that we now both have online friends who join in with our conversations. Of course it is important for children and young people to be careful about the people they are in touch with, and for parents to exercise proper control. But isn't this just as true in the "real" world?
Many of my online friends are people that I would like to meet face-to-face some time, but who knows whether it will ever possible, living all over the UK and beyond as they do? Some too are people who do not find it easy to get out, and to whom it is a boon to be able make contact with people via their computers. Strangely, the Bishop is quoted in the Telegraph as referring to making friendships with "real people", as if those of us who twitter are actually not real; my online friends are real people, but I would have been unlikely to meet them in any other way. It is amazing how much you can get to know about people by exchanging views in 140 character snatches - to be honest I wouldn't have believed it either until I tried it! It's certainly good discipline for thinking about how to say something concisely - perhaps my congregation will see the benefit in my sermons?!
Not surprisingly, the weirdest part of the whole experience was listening to the broadcast interview. I am used to the fact that our voices never sound quite the same played back to us as they sound when we speak - even if I play back a message I've left on our answering machine, I think "Is that really me?" However, I've had quite a bit of public speaking and media training through the years, and know that the main dangers are speaking too high or too fast, and if doing anything in public always make a very conscious effort not too. I was therefore more than surprised that I appeared to be gabbling in a rather high pitched voice. My husband who - poor man - has to listen to me all the time said that he thought I sounded as if I'd had a close encounter with a helium balloon! I wondered whether the tape might have been run slightly fast, but my co-interviewee seemed, if anything, to be talking in a slightly slower, deeper voice than I remembered. No doubt all part of the "unreality" of technology, whether the new phenomenon of Twitter or much older one of radio!
When my parents were children, radio technology was in its infancy, and the levels of communication that we have today were beyond imagining. When I was a child, there were two black and white TV channels that closed down with the National Anthem at 10.00pm. Whatever the future holds, I hope that I will always be able to use whatever technology is available to meet new people and broaden my outlook on life. I'm glad that there are others who feel the same! Happy twittering!
Friday, 22 May 2009
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
MPs' Expenses
I'm probably committing some kind of heresy when I say that I am more fascinated by the different reactions to this issue than I am by the issue itself. Even the normally refined group of people that I follow on Twitter are coming close to fisticuffs, and some are being very unpleasant about Stephen Fry. I've just watched a short film clip of Stephen being rather rude about journalists and their expenses - he doesn't say "people in glass houses" but that's his drift - and, more importantly, saying that we should be more worried about some of the other things that politicians get wrong.
In this he is voicing what I have been feeling for days. OK, so some MPs have been paid from the public purse for some things that are highly questionable, but the total cost to the taxpayer can only be tiny fraction of any one of the expensive and ill-conceived blunders that are so frequently in the news when we aren't worrying about MPs' expense claims. Some of those blunders cost livelihoods and even lives too, not just money.
Today, a fellow-cleric on Twitter suggested that it was offensive to someone on the minimum wage that an MP should be able to claim the cost of having his garden tidied. It seems to me that this is one of the more legitimate claims that could be made in connection with a second home. I would like my MP to be contributing to running the country, not trying to keep on top of two lots of gardening! I am also not sure whether it is people on the minimum wage who are making the most noise about this particular matter. This seems to me to be a very middle class furore.
In a couple of weeks' time, our Deanery will be having the usual meeting with Diocesan representatives to talk about the Diocesan budget, and how much parishes will be expected to pay next year towards it. Since the majority consists of the costs of supporting parish clergy, inevitably our terms of service always come under scrutiny. People who do, or have retired from, very well-paid professional jobs sometimes speak about clergy on stipends of C£22,000pa as if we are only in it for the money. If it happens to be mentioned that the Diocese pays our Council Tax and Water Rates, someone always says "I wish they paid mine!" Any attempt to point out that people earning £22,000 don't normally choose to live in houses the size of the average vicarage, just brings the inevitable question as to why we need such big houses anyway, and so on. Some clergy get so upset that they will not even go to the meetings. The obvious resentment towards MPs claiming even the quite legitimate expenses of having to have a home in London and one in the constituency seems to me to be of the same order as the attitude to clergy costs.
While some MPs' expenses obviously are a matter for legitimate concern, I feel that it is a great pity that they are all being treated in the same way. I feel that the media feeding frenzy is out of all proportion to the problem, and I am hoping that, very shortly, I will be able to turn on my TV or radio, or pick up a newspaper, and hear about the things that really make a difference to people living on the minimum wage.
In this he is voicing what I have been feeling for days. OK, so some MPs have been paid from the public purse for some things that are highly questionable, but the total cost to the taxpayer can only be tiny fraction of any one of the expensive and ill-conceived blunders that are so frequently in the news when we aren't worrying about MPs' expense claims. Some of those blunders cost livelihoods and even lives too, not just money.
Today, a fellow-cleric on Twitter suggested that it was offensive to someone on the minimum wage that an MP should be able to claim the cost of having his garden tidied. It seems to me that this is one of the more legitimate claims that could be made in connection with a second home. I would like my MP to be contributing to running the country, not trying to keep on top of two lots of gardening! I am also not sure whether it is people on the minimum wage who are making the most noise about this particular matter. This seems to me to be a very middle class furore.
In a couple of weeks' time, our Deanery will be having the usual meeting with Diocesan representatives to talk about the Diocesan budget, and how much parishes will be expected to pay next year towards it. Since the majority consists of the costs of supporting parish clergy, inevitably our terms of service always come under scrutiny. People who do, or have retired from, very well-paid professional jobs sometimes speak about clergy on stipends of C£22,000pa as if we are only in it for the money. If it happens to be mentioned that the Diocese pays our Council Tax and Water Rates, someone always says "I wish they paid mine!" Any attempt to point out that people earning £22,000 don't normally choose to live in houses the size of the average vicarage, just brings the inevitable question as to why we need such big houses anyway, and so on. Some clergy get so upset that they will not even go to the meetings. The obvious resentment towards MPs claiming even the quite legitimate expenses of having to have a home in London and one in the constituency seems to me to be of the same order as the attitude to clergy costs.
While some MPs' expenses obviously are a matter for legitimate concern, I feel that it is a great pity that they are all being treated in the same way. I feel that the media feeding frenzy is out of all proportion to the problem, and I am hoping that, very shortly, I will be able to turn on my TV or radio, or pick up a newspaper, and hear about the things that really make a difference to people living on the minimum wage.
Monday, 4 May 2009
A Picture!
When I was travelling to exotic places, nearly all my posts were accompanied by photographs. Now I am having my thoughts while looking out at my garden, and the Malvern Hills beyond - a lovely view, but it may get a bit tedious if I posted the same picture every time I had something to say! However, here is a picture of a view even more stunning than the glorious Malverns; it was taken from the holiday cottage we rented in Cornwall last week, and looks out across the bay to Mevagissey. We had a lovely relaxing few days, and could not have asked for a nicer spot in which to spend them!
Sunday, 3 May 2009
Love one another
In a recent post on the Church Times blog , http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=74344 the Rev Canon Giles Fraser expresses concern about Christian bloggers who write vicious things about Christians with different views from their own. I must be very naive, because I thought that the reason for writing a Christian blog was to be - how can I put? Oh yes! - "Christian". That doesn't mean that we should always be bland and uncontroversial, but I don't see why we can't disagree in a civilised way.
Surely the whole point of writing a blog from a Christian perspective (or any other perspective come to that) is to give people reading it an impression of what we are about. I often think of things that would make entertaining blog posts, but which would be a kind of "Grumpy Old Women" style rant. This would normally be against a large and faceless "them" rather than an individual, so no-one would be hurt, but even that does not seem to give an edifying picture of Christianity and the people who profess it. All my friends and parishioners know that I like a good moan occasionally (who doesn't!) but, hopefully, that is not all they see. The people who write vitriolic things on their blogs may be very kind, caring people, but that is not the impression that someone who stumbles across their blog will get of them. Much more importantly, readers will get a very strange impression of what Christianity is about.
Jesus told his disciples to love one another, and the letters from St Paul and others to the emerging churches make it clear that this was seen as one of the most important ways of spreading the Gospel message. People would see loving, caring communities and want to know more about the faith that brought them together. If Christian bloggers cannot even be civil to one another, how can they possibly hope to spread the Good News of God's love for all people.
Giles Fraser suggests that part of the problem is that people will say in print what they would not say to someone face-to-face. This is undoubtedly true in general terms, but I really would have thought that anyone of any intelligence, going to the trouble of posting their thoughts on the Internet, would consider the impact of what they are writing - not just on the people they are insulting but on their readers, and on the Christian message. But then, as I said, I'm obviously very naive.
Surely the whole point of writing a blog from a Christian perspective (or any other perspective come to that) is to give people reading it an impression of what we are about. I often think of things that would make entertaining blog posts, but which would be a kind of "Grumpy Old Women" style rant. This would normally be against a large and faceless "them" rather than an individual, so no-one would be hurt, but even that does not seem to give an edifying picture of Christianity and the people who profess it. All my friends and parishioners know that I like a good moan occasionally (who doesn't!) but, hopefully, that is not all they see. The people who write vitriolic things on their blogs may be very kind, caring people, but that is not the impression that someone who stumbles across their blog will get of them. Much more importantly, readers will get a very strange impression of what Christianity is about.
Jesus told his disciples to love one another, and the letters from St Paul and others to the emerging churches make it clear that this was seen as one of the most important ways of spreading the Gospel message. People would see loving, caring communities and want to know more about the faith that brought them together. If Christian bloggers cannot even be civil to one another, how can they possibly hope to spread the Good News of God's love for all people.
Giles Fraser suggests that part of the problem is that people will say in print what they would not say to someone face-to-face. This is undoubtedly true in general terms, but I really would have thought that anyone of any intelligence, going to the trouble of posting their thoughts on the Internet, would consider the impact of what they are writing - not just on the people they are insulting but on their readers, and on the Christian message. But then, as I said, I'm obviously very naive.
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