Life, what is it but a dream?

I am tired of living a lie. But I am not even sure what the lie is or whether it really is a lie - I know it is something to do with these trappings we bolt onto basic Christianity. It started in my parents' open-brethren-cum-evangelical church, with the weekly "gospel service", door-to-door evangelism, the implied exclusiveness "we have a corner on Truth". Whilst I knew no better, even then some things didn't sit well with me. Like a special evangelistic weekend to which we were encouraged to invite our non-Christian friends to (then what were the weekly gospel meetings for?). Discussion as to whether an elder's son-in-law-to-be should be allowed to "break bread" because he came from a pentecostal church. Warnings about those who claimed God healed now-a-days, or warnings about the new vein of charismatic Christian songs that were effectively quotes from scripture. The implication that other denominations were, at best, inferior - or more likely plain deceived. Strong but opposing arguments about perspectives on eschatology. Women having to wear a hat and the question of exactly what constituted "a hat". Women not being allowed to speak in meetings (except for women's only meetings). In spite of all these quandaries it was probably the most Bible based church in the neighbourhood and I still miss the breaking of bread service (or I like to think I do, for I've not gone back to see).

Don't get me wrong - those folk meant well and I have been blessed beyond all that I deserve in being born in a free country to God fearing parents, as a child attending a Bible believing church, freely receiving a good education...

I've noted before of my church experiences in Oxford and, on moving to London, the "Friday Fellowship" that evolved from youngsters wanting "more of God" than they saw in the local Baptist church. A group in which Ali and I and another couple assumed de facto leadership. And teaching we received on the Baptism in the Spirit and on Speaking In Tongues, etc.

I look back with mingled horror at the way I harshly ploughed ahead cognisant of but not acting on my parents' warnings, thinking I was following God rather than man. Something I have since done in other circumstances and called it faith [see note]. We sold the house that my parents had helped us renovate, pooled funds with this other couple to purchase a larger property where we could live together In Community. I gave up my secure job with the BBC and became self-employed doing odd-jobbing building. We started to home-school our kids. All this in what we believed was a direction God had given us. And I still believe this, but faith can sometimes be tenuous.

My worried parents wrote to us. Not being sentimental I do not as a rule stash letters, but this one I have kept all these 37 years because I recognised its wisdom and truth even then as I still do today: here are some extracts which I think they would not have minded me sharing in retrospect [my emphasis and ellipses].

Although there is much in your fellowship that is good, and loving, and caring, admit you have a bias towards the gifts of the Spirit. And that there is part that is emotionally motivated... All this we believe in and do not condemn... Do beware, both of you, because God has given you common-sense also, beware of anything that is not real, because this intense atmosphere of sharing, can lead in time to disillusionment. We are still, and shall be until we are finally redeemed, human beings, subject to human failings. These things you take part in, can lead to splits among brothers and sisters in Christ, lack of security because you have lack of time to be alone with your immediate family. It can even lead to marriage breakdowns, and also physical and mental breakdowns. Just try to keep a right perspective, or you may have to pick up the pieces of a broken relationship. 

Later a group of us moved to Northern Ireland to join an established Christian community there, and squandered all our funds therewith. During this period Ali and I were demoted from leadership for reasons which evade me. And we watched as that community went bad and started to fall apart, and a group of us left en-masse before it was too late, but penniless.

By a miraculous coincidence the property we now live in was purchased using funds left in trust "for Christian work". When we moved in, there was hardly any heating and it was a bitter winter, but we were happy enough just to be free from the oppression and nonsense of that former community. We started a window cleaning business and the pittance we earned was enough to purchase basic food: the locals whose windows we cleaned were bemused at English folk cleaning Irish windows mid winter. Hard graft and a common vision to survive, and what we believe was the blessing of God, brought us to where we are now, with money in our pockets and enough reserve over the years to have paid outright for various extensions and renovations to our property without getting in debt. And today, all things considered, as community inmates go we are very well off thank you. But prosperity breeds contempt and contempt can lead to destruction.

On the stairs I passed a younger family heading bed-ward the other evening: child "Does God speak to us?" - mother "Yes of course he does" - child (gazing up at the ceiling) "Hello?.... no he doesn't".

There is a key to my disillusionment in my parents' beware of anything that is not real. In my life I have seen plenty of unreal nonsense in the name of God but not so much reality. Repeatedly I have asked God to make himself real / tangible to me. I am taught that I should have a "personal relationship" with the Lord but, if so, it seems very one way: I talk to him, period. Yes there have been times when I believe God has led me in a particular way, but these instances are the exception. In our little group I'm nominally a leader but I cannot preach, I'm not sociable, I hate confrontation rarely being sure enough of my own position to challenge that of others. My mother told me I was stubborn and this might be my sole redeeming feature - or is it damning?

If life is but a dream then anything goes. But otherwise there must be something that makes the distinction: like pinching oneself - although I've done that in dreams and it did hurt so I surmised it was real and then I woke up.  Two disciples walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus discussing rumours circulating after the crucifixion, later observed "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?"

I like that - burning is tangible - burning is real. I wonder - is it the same as the strong emotion I can feel for instance when I listen to Stainer's God so loved the world?

If this counts as "tangible" (as opposed to mere chemicals coursing through my bloodstream) then maybe it is because of the gospel truth in the words. And if this is truth then life is not but a dream and there is purpose.

"But, look here," said I. "This isn't child's play. Are you quite certain that this Dark Lord, this depraved Oyarsa of Tellus, really exists? Do you know for certain either that there are two sides, or which side is ours?"
He fixed me suddenly with one of his mild, but strangely formidable, glances.
"You are in real doubt about either, are you?" he asked.
"No," said I, after a pause, and felt rather ashamed.

I vacillate between doubt and being ashamed about doubting. But above all I long for reality. But I'm also a coward - afraid that if I abdicate I will loose eternal salvation.

Only a minority even know of Bruckner: of those who do an even smaller minority enjoy his music. He was an unusual and lonely man but a Catholic of intense faith [see my note again]. I have just enjoyed listening to Sergiu Celibidache's rendition of Bruckner's 5th. I do not often allow myself to listen to serious music, partly because I just don't and partly because it can be rather antisocial in my context. I'm also reading Anton Bruckner - Rustic Genius by Werner Wolff which seems a more positive biography than some I have read. He quotes Bruckner as saying:

When God finally calls me and asks, what have you done with the talent I gave you, my lad, I will show Him my scores and I hope He will judge me mercifully.

and

They want me to write in a different way. I could, but I must not. Out of thousands I was given this talent by God, only I. Sometime I will have to give an account of myself. How would the Father in Heaven judge me if I followed others and not Him?

Here was a man, laughed at by many in his time and still today, a timid, obscure, odd, awkward, simple, unassuming, yet devout man. But from his pen so many have been uplifted, set at peace, enthralled, gob-smacked, wowed. In his music we find sheer beauty, lasting reality.

His music: when I listen to lesser composers; Mozart, Haydn, and such like, I hear music for the sake of music. When I listen to the later works of Bruckner I do not so much hear the music but am immersed in the atmosphere it creates. The music is still there, of course, and expertly arranged, but it is no longer the sole purpose but only a means to an end. I am so glad that he was dogged enough not to "write in a different way".  Like: but men spoke from God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

I once heard a visiting preacher pooh-pooh a man in his home congregation who associated the uplifting found in music with experience of God. First it grated on me that he should shun a brother publically. Second, I am not at all sure that he was right. The purpose of Christian praise is to lift the participators into a recognition of the greatness of God. Like a telescope makes a distant object appear larger and brighter but does not actually change the object. Could not performing appropriate absolute music just as well be praise? I imagine there were no words When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.  Sometimes words are cheap and inadequate but music can be sublime.

This post has taken several weeks to write and I am still unsure whether I have made my point clearly enough. The lie I think I have lived is not some objective "God is dead" but is inside me. It feels as though I am finally waking up and my former life has been but a dream. I wake and grope around in the semi-darkness and wonder: where am I, who am I, what am I doing here? Movies have used this idea and gradually little clues suggest a previous existance. Yes, I was alive back then, but I didn't understand, and I am not sure I understand any better now.

When I look at heaven

And the works of Your hands

How is it Father

You are mindful of man?

Your loving kindness

Simply amazes me

Simply amazes me

When I look at Jesus

And the marks on His hands

How is it Father

You are mindful of man?

Tony Gemmell Copyright © 1981 Thankyou Music

A note on faith
Abraham, we are told, was the father of faith. He believed God and God counted it to him as righteousness. But his faith also led him to do some dumb things like the conception and disposal of Ishmael (though God blessed him). Based on this I suppose that when we act on what we genuinely but mistakenly think is a word from God, it is sort of divinely overlooked or at least side stepped - because it was, after all, an act of faith on our part. This idea is similar to the case of Emeth.

On the fringe - or - never able to arrive at the truth

It is a universal truth - though largely ignored by some die-hard archaeologists - that there is no known culture in the world without religious beliefs (Terence Meaden, Archaeologist, Oxon). An interesting observation - some would say it is because there is a "God shaped hole" in everyone.

I have a rich Christian heritage but more to the point where am I now? Like in "But whom do you say that I am?".

I remember cringing when someone we used to visit would ask me "and what has God being doing in your life?" - because I could never think that there was anything in particular.

My earliest church memories were of Alresford Congregational church. Later we went by train to Winchester Baptist Church where I, tacet, would sometimes sit beside my father on the polished organ bench. His own folk were at various times nonconformist evangelical, Baptist and Peculiar and his father was at one time a reverend.

Winchester Baptist Church

Speaking of which, the ‘The Peculiar People’ were initially quite a fiery bunch but, doubtless after a generation, their zeal diminished. They later changed their name to the ‘Union of Evangelical Churches’ and their web site now says "divine healing does not now have such prominence..." If folk really were healed once, this seems a strange statement to make. Like, we don't want any of this getting better stuff.

My parents then joined NFC from whence stem most of my childhood church memories. Here I went to Sunday School and later the Adventurer's Club, was baptised, and first spoke (briefly and timidly) in public. Open Brethren based, I am thankful for the good knowledge of the Bible that NFC instilled in me, but I must have been suitably indoctrinated because, when I left home for college, I naively considered all other churches inferior and probably heretical and was surprised when I discovered committed Christians from other persuasions. In my final year I agreed to become the OICCU "Rep" for my college and, under considerable duress, was obliged to sign a statement of doctrine. It wasn't that I had a problem with anything there but I disagreed strongly (and still do) with the need to sign.

Whilst in Oxford I tried various church flavours including the James Street brethren assembly (now re-branded "evangelical") - the folk there were very friendly but I didn't fit in. Plain contrary to my upbringing I ended up most at home in the reasonably high Anglican college chapel - because the chaplain cared about my well being, because it was local and because I found I could worship God there. Despite the occasional smells and bells.

On finding my feet in my first job I started to attend CBC where I met and married Ali, and when we both wanted to be involved in young people's work we first had to become church members which implied signing up to their doctrine, which I once again did under much duress.

Both Ali and I wanted more than CBC appeared to offer and thus we met together with like-minded folk of similar age. One year the group had a holiday-cum-conference hosted by a Christian community in Eastleigh and this was our first introduction to communal living and The Move.

You can Google The Move and its founding leader Sam Fife and you'll find a lot of nonsense as well as some truth. And sure there was some nonsense, doubtless because of People. We had our share of this nonsense but thankfully nothing serious - because we were on the fringe.  The Wikipedia link is rather dated and things have changed, mellowed - a bit like the Peculiar People I wonder?

That Sam Fife (who I never met) was a "one man ministry", or at least the dominant leader, did raise warning bells in me but, hang it all, wasn't Jesus also a "one man ministry"? The thing is, some of what Fife preached his followers now don't go along with - at least they no longer emphasise - like "people of God we are not going to die" and the "wilderness message". If those radical areas that so intrigued his followers are now mellowed, do we revert to being plain evangelicals?

Probably not - Ali's parents were, for a time, Exclusive Brethren. When they left, not being able to stomach some of the more radical and intrusive teachings, her father could never feel at home in any other church flavour, none of which had the same sense of family and depth of conservative doctrine, so ended up without christian fellowship for the rest of his life.  I think I might have done similarly.

Seen in Texas 3 days ago

A recent guest on the Ryan Tubridy Show on RTE-radio-1 told how, when he was about six, he saw an angel standing beside his bed.  He hadn't told anyone else for years but much later his younger brother (who had shared the bedroom and would have been less than two at the time) asked him if he remembered the angel. So did that really happen?

I once saw an angel. I was a child sitting up in my bed at home. The angel was standing on top of a chimney stack on a building opposite my bedroom window: much taller than a human, with wings and shining white. Certainly not a cloud formation! But it might have been a dream - I cannot remember clearly: did that really happen?

My Aunt Mary claimed she had seen angels. She claimed all manner of things, mind you, but it would be wrong to discredit her experiences just for that reason.

If we cannot confirm whether recent extraordinary things like these really happened, what chance have we of confirming stories about a man who lived 2,000 years ago?  Most historians concede that the man Jesus existed - but they get woolly about the miracles. Did they really happen?  On the other hand why would anyone writing a Gospel account chose to blatantly lie?

Along with many others, I have a burden for a child with leukaemia and have earnestly prayed for his complete healing. His father is a Methodist minister and he also is praying for total healing: I would interpret this as "faith". But whilst there has been good medical progress, currently there has been a relapse. I am at least encouraged when I read "See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven". It's not the end of the story, of course, but I had hoped... But maybe I am missing something, maybe his being healed now would spoil some vast eternal plan?

We humans are rum creatures. We think we know so much and yet we know so little. Our understanding of science, when descriptive and thus concerning things we can measure now, is all very well. But when it becomes inferential, concerning things long ago or yet to come or far, far away or far too small, who knows whether we have it right? I sometimes wonder whether, if you look hard enough with a preconceived dogma, nature will oblige. Thus the double slit experiment which could be thought to answer to two apparently contradictory theories.

There's people who genuinely think the earth is flat. Or this guy who goes along with the electric sun hypothesis and writes:

Yet, here is an incredible thing. Even though the theories of Newton, Einstein, and Twentieth Century astronomy are blown to pieces on almost a daily basis by what is actually out there, yet modern man has refused absolutely to let go of those dis-proven ideas... And so to explain how "gravity" can do all these wondrous things, the mathematicians have pulled out of their hats such unprovable bits of nonsense as "dark matter," and "black holes," and "string theory," and "nuclear fusion," and so on. None of these fantastical ideas ever find their way into a practical laboratory because all engineers know they are complete fabrications. Governments have spent untold billions of dollars to duplicate "nuclear fusion" on earth to complete and continuing failure. Why? Because there is no such thing. That's why it takes government money to build the huge "super colliders." No private business would waste a penny on such nonsense. So, let's look at astronomy as it really is. The universe is electrical. The sun is a large solid ball of rock that sustains a vast and continual electrical arc lamp discharge above its surface exactly like the electrical arc used by welders. That electrical arc is fed by huge currents of electricity that flow down the arms of the Milky Way to its center.

His position is gently ameliorated here but, honestly, with things we can, at best, hardly detect, who can say whether our theories are correct?

In our early community years we were already convinced about home schooling our kids. We listened to a CLA teaching about legal cases where the US child protection authorities took kids from their parents and, on their advice, we decided to eschew child benefit to cut one possible hold the government might have on our kids. Years later I think of all that cash we didn't get and see all the young parents here taking child benefit without a thought. And yet I read the other day Norway's hidden scandal - so were we so stupid? I certainly have no regrets about home schooling. Our four children have not grown up with carbon copies of their parents strange beliefs as some think home schooled kids will, but each are now making their own choice as to how they should live and what they should belief, as is right and proper. And I am proud of them.

I like to think that I am searching for truth (though probably not nearly hard enough as in strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able).  But I am allergic to religious or hypocritical sort of "truth". Like in the parable of the leaven in all three measures of flour: I suppose the Kingdom of God must attract error.

In searching for truth I find myself coming back, again and again, to the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus. I try to read them without the preconceptions I grew up with, and I find a very human man with emotions and a sense of humour, who enjoys a good meal, who gets tired and thirsty after a long journey. Here I might add (though the accounts leave it out) that doubtless his body sweated and needed washing, that he had to go to the loo, cut his finger nails, and all the basic stuff we experience but don't generally advertise. But in this human frame he did only what he understood his Heavenly Father wanted, and thus he wrought amazing miracles, and he was crucified and died "to make us good".  And I get goose-bumps when I sing:

...Risen with healing in his wings 

Mild he lays his glory by, 

Born that man no more may die: 

Born to raise the son of earth, 

Born to give them second birth...
[Charles Wesley]

and

There is a green hill far away,

Without a city wall,

Where the dear Lord was crucified,

Who died to save us all

We may not know, we cannot tell,

What pains He had to bear;

But we believe it was for us

He hung and suffered there.

He died that we might be forgiven,

He died to make us good,

That we might go at last to heaven,

Saved by His precious blood.

There was no other good enough

To pay the price of sin;

He only could unlock the gate

Of heaven and let us in.

O dearly, dearly has He loved,

And we must love Him, too,

And trust in His redeeming blood,

And try His works to do.
[Cecil Frances Alexander]

Interestingly Cecil Frances Alexander, née Humphreys, second daughter of the late Major John Humphreys, Miltown House, co. Tyrone, Ireland, b. 1823, also author of All things bright and beautiful... The purple-headed mountain, the river running by might well have lived at or at least been associated with Humpreystown House, in which case those purple headed mountains are the ones we see across the lake at this time of the year, and the river might be the Liffey or Kings River.

A different past

I was living in a large house in spacious grounds. Early one morning I went out for my run, as is my want, and noticed a girl from the community carrying a wide basket and picking up litter, a task I complemented her about. We walked together and soon joined another community member on his morning walk. Initially the path we took was well known to me, one I often ran barefoot. And so on leaving the property we turned left onto the main road and then after a while turned right onto a side road. I found I was seeing stuff around me that, when running, I had not noticed. Soon we turned right onto a stony track that, hitherto, I had avoided as a barefoot runner. The track I supposed ran parallel to the main road but continued for several miles before looping back to where it started.

A few days later the experience was repeated but without turning onto the stony track. I thought I ought to have known the road so was surprised to find a stretch of water on my right terminated by an old mill building where a few men were up to their thighs harvesting some sort of vegetable that grew in the water. They each had a large-brimmed hat and these and what old-looking clothes they wore were the same dull green colour as the building behind them. They told us what it was they were collecting - it sounded something like mangroves or mongoose. I thought I would help them from the side but accidentally slipped into the water where I was greeted as if I were one of them. After some merriment I decided we should return as I was getting cold.

When eventually we got back home, all had changed. The road our home was on was now only a narrow, flower strewn path between cottages and I recognised from my childhood days a chapel on the right. I entered and found it familiar yet somewhat decrepit and predating the improvements and additions I had witnessed as a boy. We met an old church friend who, on hearing my story, suggested I should walk up the road to my house where I would meet my wife. Sure enough, on entering what I supposed had been my home, seated at the meal table were Ali and several others including known to me. One person I did not recognises introduced himself as my uncle.

It transpired that I had re-entered my existence on an alternative time-plane, one in which I existed together with my peers but in which our surroundings were perhaps 100 or more years historic. One in which this relation of mine had not died in childhood.

It was, of course, a dream. But such a prolonged dream. During it I woke twice to empty my bladder, returned to bed, thought I was taking an age to get back to sleep only to find myself immediately re-immersed in the dream. And such a vivid portrayal of landscapes, such detail and depth of colour, my eyes feasting on the scenery and able to almost zoom into areas of interest.

On waking I was made aware in an instant of a kaleidoscope of events in my life, things ranging where I have been so, so blessed to areas of abject failure and utter depression.

Doctors and Dentists

As a child there are other children and there are adults. Excepting parents and very close relatives, for children most adults are off the radar. But there are exceptions.

In Alresford when I grew up there were two doctors. My parents generally frequented Dr. Leishman, the older and more serious of the two. Leishman is an apt name for a doctor - it is "the Scottish form of the name "Leachman" or "Leechman", from the Old English "laece", leech, and "mann", servant of the physician, hence, someone who used leeches in helping a physician, to cure somebody." Doubtless he must have been involved in the matter of my tonsils removal but what I remember is having jabs and an embarrassing appointment after I had, in great fear of loosing my manhood, reported to my father a swelling on my penis. By the time the doctor inspected me all was well and I remember he then took my father aside out of my earshot. What passed between them I shall never know but for ever after I have honoured them because nothing more was ever said on the subject. It taught me a lesson which I have often sought to apply that discretion is the better part of valour. Of the other doctor, Riley by name, I only remember as being a younger man.

There was a master at school, a good teacher who I respected and who knew how to keep order. But then in those days there was such a thing as the cosh. He once gave me a taste of it, I think he was making an example of me and he didn't hit too hard, more as a warning maybe. Maybe not. He taught maths and games. After games we all had to strip and use the communal shower - when younger this involved running through it as fast as possible so as to avoid getting too wet. Only in later years did it occur to me that a shower could be pleasurable. The fact that we were all in various stages of undress didn't particularly bother anyone - it was just the way it was. On one occasion the said master came through the boys' changing room just as I had returned, still wet, from the shower. He picked me up by the shoulders and shook me vigorously up and down. Apart from a slight annoyance at being picked on I thought no more about it until more recently when I have wondered if there was anything sexual in it. Even if there had been I would not have, either then or now, wanted to accuse him and I do not believe it did me any harm. But I guess it might be the closest I have ever got to being molested.

In case you wonder at my accolade "good teacher" - there were plenty of bad ones! I do not mean morally bad (how should I know their morals?), but bad at teaching. And so it came as a pleasant surprise to be taught by someone who could both keep order and instill interest.

We had numerous RE teachers of various abilities but one stands out. I cannot remember his name but he was a sincere youngish man and I respected him. I remember him reading so very passionately David's lamentation over Saul and Jonathan "The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!" and explaining to us pagans how much David must really have loved these his enemies. On another occasion the subject of sex came up and I remember him informing the whole class how the act of sex was the most beautiful and pleasurable expression between man and woman and that we should be careful to cherish it as so.  Such remarks do not go unnoticed.

Mr Hutchins was our family's dentist. His surgery was in Jewry Street, Winchester and he was stout. Very. As a child I remember wondering how he could possibly get close enough to my mouth without his stomach getting in the way. Or, however did he tie his shoe laces up? I used to suck my thumb (my parents did not approve of pacifiers). They had tried all sorts to stop this habit including that bitter stuff that gets painted on, whose taste I rather liked. And then on one visit Mr Hutchins told me I had to stop sucking my thumb otherwise my teeth would be crooked and, just like that, I stopped and never did it again. If only the same resolve could touch my other bad habits! On another occasion I had four extractions to make room for other teeth (so they said) and this involved gas as a general anaesthetic. I suppose I was "out" for only a few minutes. I remember the rubber smell of the face mask and the fast, furious and intense dream which followed, featuring a sort of octagonal gallery or tower in which I think I was being chased around and around..

Mr Gregory was our family's solicitor and another notary in my life. He was, I suppose, the author of the present-day Dutton Gregory Solicitors and, to me, he was the epitome of the ideal professional citizen. Back then I remember his habitual performance of O Holy Night at the Alresford Christmas-around-the-tree celebration, to the accompaniment of my father on the piano. Later it would be he who drew up wills for both my mother and father.

Barbara was a friend of the family, I suppose in her twenties when I was very young. Oft times I was sent to the kitchen in disgrace, because I hadn't eaten everything on my plate. Strange that few parents require this of their children now-a-days. She would come and rescue me, help me to finish what had by then become cold and glutenous, perhaps she even ate some herself. Clearly an angel. When asked (at that tender age) whom I might marry I vehemently decried the idea but conceded that if I were forced it would be Barbara.

Mr DCF was the chief elder at the church I grew up attending. To me he was the ultimate, all-knowing, could-do-no-wrong, Godly man. I have since learned, after bitter experience, how dangerous it is to set anyone on a pedestal like that.

Miss Wellman was one of my Sunday school teachers. She was aged, a dear, had white hair and I remember her for her gentleness towards us children. I suppose I ought to be able to recall some of her lessons but I regret I cannot. I only have a vague recollection of being herded from the church sanctuary to a nearby office where the lesson was conducted.

Joe Bush was the local itinerant youth evangelist. He was an older man with white hair and gentle yet severe in principles, and loved by all. He held tent crusades throughout Hampshire and sometimes preached at NFC. I remember one occasion when he came up to talk to my mother after the meeting and turned to me and earnestly encouraged me to respect her. I hadn't been aware that I didn't but I took that instruction to heart for I deeply respected this man.

I have spoken of EW aka the whirlpool elsewhere. I could mention my best friend's parents, his father never resting but always out gardening, his mother's most excellent chipped potatoes and fried fish, his grandmother's licking her knife then dunking it in the tomato ketchup bottle. Or my other friend's parents, father who I reckoned could make anything mechanical, his mother's spaghetti dish that I liked so much - in which the tomato sauce was reduced to solid bits which stuck to the strands of pasta. And the fat and thin Miss Curtis's. And here my roll-call is degenerating a bit like Hebrews 11: And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of...

When is a hat a hat?

New Farm Chapel, Alresford

It is not my intention in this post to judge any group but rather to record my own experiences and misgivings. New Farm Chapel, the church my parents went to, was one of the caldrons of my childhood. Back then it was heavily influenced by the Open Brethren movement, and thus it was strong on Bible teaching. Which is not a bad thing. And strong on some other areas like the rapture, women may not lead or preach, women must have their heads covered in church, and that anything that smelled of pentecostal should be avoided like the plague. There was a girl, one of my peers, who returned from some third party Christian youth camp, exuberant because she had witnessed healings and levels of praise that thrilled here - and I remember that words were said... And I overheard one staid member chatting to my father about strange groups that met in houses and put scripture to music, as if that were wrong. Least-ways that is how my memory recalls. And something inside me said: hey - something is wrong here.  But, like Mary, I kept all these things and pondered them in my heart, and remained thoroughly conservative in the meantime.

The head covering rule was followed in similar fashion to our own 'rule' that women should not wear "pants" (as our friends across the sea call them) unless for modesty. The game was to see how small a covering would be acceptable - for example a tiny square of material pinned to the hair. Which begs the question: when is a hat a hat?

However, the positives outweighed these negatives and, all said and done, I bless and honour those folk for the input they had into my life. After all, it was after a gospel meeting at the age of 10 that, whilst my mother prayed with me, I gave my life to God. Or at least I said I would. Or at least I started to. For us humans can vacillate so easily. And, later at age 14 and at my own request, it was there that I was baptised.

The breaking of bread service is a hall-mark of the brethren movement and it was, once I was old enough to understand it, very meaningful to me. In later years I found the communion service at the Anglican college chapel at Oriel very different but equally meaningful. In contrast to my experience at the very friendly and sincere baptist church where Ali and I met and were later married - where communion was tacked on to the regular Sunday meeting as a sort of after-thought every 4th Sunday and consisted of dry, tiny squares of shop bread and Ribena in individual shot-glasses. Ribena is a great drink and, for me, is associated with many fond childhood memories, but it is no substitute for wine.

The ceiling of New Farm's sanctuary originally had a raised central section half-cylindrical in shape and, in the semicircle so described at the pulpit end, was a raised panel declaring in gilt lettering on a maroon back that "every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" with the bible reference Phi 2:11 in a smaller font at the bottom.

A major renovation was carried out in my time in which extra rooms were added along the far side and the main hall was extended and the ceiling altered so that the raised part was wider and now only a segment of a cylinder, lit by a line of fluorescent tubes either side hidden in a pelmet. I see in the stock picture above that, since my time, they have extended upwards so that there is now a second story at the rear.

The church secretary, an older man who was referred to lovingly by one of our family friends as "Eddie Whirlpool" for his getting confused when giving the announcements, was a professional sign writer and it was he who painted that panel so beautifully.

courtesy Google Streetview

This is where he worked - he ran a small Christian bookshop on the ground floor and had his sign-writing shop upstairs. He was related to or a family friend of my best friend D and we would sometimes drop in for something to do - it was only a few hundred yards from where I lived. He would furnish us with paint and brushes and we would wile away a happy afternoon - I loved the smell of the paints. On one occasion I painted, not very well, a Narnian banner - a red lion rampant on a bright green field.

Genuine gold leaf

Some of E's sign-writing demanded gilt lettering - his method, as I remember, was to paint a base-coat in a sort of gold yellow and then apply the gold leaf from a book like the one above.

Powerscourt House, Co. Wicklow

Having been brought up "brethren" it is curious that I should now live not that far from a nursery of the brethren movement, Powerscourt House. Here it was that Lady Powerscourt hosted meetings that J. N. Darby frequented. The now widely accepted rapture theory also had its roots here.

Curious also that I should marry a girl who had been brought up in the exclusive brethren.

I never considered New Farm chapel as brethren "proper" - other brethren assemblies I had visited were far drier and stricter - some even to the point of men one side and women the other side of the aisle.  In the same way as I have never considered our present church as properly a part of the movement some claim it is part of. Maybe that's just the rebellious streak in me, or maybe it is because I hold dearly to the belief, held by both expressions, in the autonomy of the local assembly.

Which is why I a bit of a problem with the quote "In view of the above this meeting of elders of Auckland assemblies considers that xxx Gospel Centre has put itself outside the fellowship of Assemblies known as 'open brethren' ". Just as when is a hat a hat, when is a local expression truly autonomous?