A message from the Dean - 26 June 2020
Dear Friends,
As lockdown restrictions are lifted the Cathedral is preparing to re-open for worship and for visitors next month. Every Government announcement carries with it a huge amount of guidance about what and what isn’t permissible, usually phrased in such a way that further clarification is often required! Therefore our approach to re-opening will be very cautious. We will be applying all the safety, cleansing and hygiene advice scrupulously so that risks to public health are mitigated whilst realising most people will be enjoying a “stay cation” this summer. If the weather is good, and we and the rest of Lichfield get our messaging and communication right, we could be busy.
We’re undertaking a “listening” process involving members of our worshipping and volunteering communities and we will be sounding out our partners in the Diocese, in schools, colleges and universities, our local authorities and chambers of trade and commerce. We want to build a picture of how people and organisations are responding to the changed circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, how the Cathedral can serve and be alongside the people of our region, and what needs our priority and attention. Thanks to all of you who have taken part in the telephone survey; let me assure those who weren’t contacted that you will have a chance to respond to an on-line or paper survey quite soon and I welcome your views and participation.
Mark Carney, the former Governor of the Bank of England and now the United Nations Envoy for Climate Action, remarked recently that: (quoting Lenin) “history seems to have decades where nothing happens, then times when decades happen in weeks”. That’s certainly been our experience. Many things have moved, the crisis has been a moment of truth. What do we value? Where and how do we belong to one another? What kind of politics do we want to see practised? What can we rely on? Is there an expressed need to re-discover trust? All these questions have boiled and simmered for the last three months and they deserve our full attention as a Christian community. As Chapter has thought about our future, two questions have framed our thinking: 1. “What time is it?” (What kind of time are we living in? What’s shaping our thinking and culture?). and 2. “Who is Jesus Christ for us today?” (A question the great twentieth-century martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer taught us to ask in order to keep our witness and service authentic and responsive).
Part of our discernment will be to listen carefully to what many stakeholders are saying, but also to search our scriptures, listen to where our hearts lead us when we pray, and listen to what is going on in the wider church. For sure we will have to do some costly pruning in order to weather this crisis and emerge with the right shoots and branches ready to emerge and bear new growth.
Talking to fellow Deans, no Cathedral has evaded the challenge to re-think and re-purpose themselves. We’ve all been frustrated by abrupt changes in policy announced by the Government without much warning. We’ve all got used to peering into a very foggy crystal ball when thinking about what steps to take next. (I’m reminded of a sea-side joke – a notice appeared on the doors of the Winter Gardens in Blackpool during an international convention of clairvoyants “Cancelled, owing to unforeseen circumstances”). However, God has a way of settling anxiety and showing what has to be done. As we have re-opened the Cathedral for private prayer, people have remarked not only that it was good to be back, but to have a fresh realisation of why there is a Cathedral – a place where we can encounter God in silence and wonder. It raises a question about the bustle and perhaps over-familiar and slightly dis-respectful way we usually behave in surroundings we count as home. Familiar and friendly as the Cathedral may be it is, nonetheless, sacred space.
Other themes are emerging. We’re asking ourselves “who’s missing from the Cathedral?” The answers aren’t hard to supply: all the generations below retirement age, especially children and young adults. If we ask who’s hurting most in our present culture the answers are obvious: the poor, the jobless, people with mental health problems, people isolated or with chronic and debilitating health conditions. If we ask ourselves what have we got to offer? Well there’s a lavish amount of human talent in the Cathedral’s worshipping and volunteering community. There’s our power to convene and draw attention to concerns, people and causes. There’s a chance to turn many opportunities into wider and more diverse volunteering roles. We have a building in constant need of repair and if Government wants to create new jobs, why not get this country’s fantastic heritage assets (like cathedrals, castles and civic buildings) into wonderful, fit-for-the-future condition? What about setting up a reliable “good Neighbours” scheme that can look-in, shop and transport to surgeries and hospitals, people without much support. Can we turn our Enterprise Company into a set of social enterprises, taking in and training apprentices across a range of skills? None of these ideas need to be grand (apart from asking the Government to spread some funds our way!) but just re-thinking our role as a Cathedral, dedicated to the humble people, Mary and Chad, who accomplished great things by being in tune with God’s will, could allow us to serve Jesus Christ in the way he shows himself to us today. Understanding him exalts us with the incomparable privilege of serving him, attending to his words that we live by them, that God may fulfil his love in us, to his heart’s content.
With my love, prayers and blessing.
Adrian