Dear colleagues,

The frequency of these letters continues. The reason is that I am catching up with more and more that is going on. My own news continues to be good news. I’m now quite used to the monthly clinics, which will carry on for a bit, as well as the bone-marrows, which are going to be quarterly for a year, and then gradually reduce. I won’t explain what is involved. Some of you might even feel sorry for me if I did! But the truth of the matter is that one just gets used to needles being stuck into one’s body somewhere.

Let’s start with Clergy Pensions. The Pensions Board will be publishing a document in June, which will set out various options. John Pinder, the Chair of the House of Clergy, will be seeking your views. I shall need your help to brief congregations as well as possible. I can’t emphasise too strongly that the present situation is not the result of mismanagement, but involves all pension funds. The Pensions Board continues to administer its funds responsibly; we are just having to fall in line with legal requirements, and clergy tend to live longer than other people! There is no doubt that difficult decisions will have to be made in 2007. Inevitably it will mean an increase in Parish Share over and above that which we had previously anticipated. But we must look positively on the future.

Secondly, the Energy Audit. This is an initiative sponsored directly by the Archbishop of Canterbury. That’s not the only reason why it’s important. All the public debate on this issue seems to point to the significance of both national initiatives and local policy changes. What is envisaged is not complicated – Treasurers pay the bills, and they will know how many units will have been consumed! The Diocesan Environmental Audit, publicized in the ‘Pompey Chimes’, builds on this, following our own Synod’s debate, which led to a recommendation that we find out exactly how green we are in our use of energy, and how we can improve what we do in a way that really makes a difference. October/November is the time for the audit. Bishopsgrove, home and office, will be taking part. I hope everyone else will. Materials for the audit can be found on the diocesan website. Any queries will be dealt with by Stephen Palmer.

Thirdly, we shall be looking soon (we hope!) for a new Chair of the Diocesan Finance Committee. Michael Jordan took this on a couple of years ago, but both he and I realize that it would be better both for him and for the accountability of this body if the Chair were occupied by someone else. In the end, it is my appointment, which is why I am consulting you now, so that you realize that I am open to suggestions. It needs to be someone with recent relevant experience, for example, as a chief executive of an organization; someone who is a committed Christian; but not someone who will bore us all to death with management-speak, telling us how useless and ignorant we all are! I’d be very grateful for any suggestions.

Then there is a change of Secretary at Bishopsgrove. For the past fifteen and a half years, Jean Maslin has served both Bishop Timothy and myself, both here and initially at Bishopswood. Many of you will have cause to be grateful for the efficient and pastoral way in which she has spoken to you on the phone, or the courteous way in which she received you at the door of the office when you’ve called. Jean retired earlier this month. Julie Anderson continues to work here, and we look forward to announcing Jean’s successor shortly.

While I was in hospital, I had a great deal of time to think about many things – the Diocesan bigger picture At my last Staff Meeting before the diagnosis, I shared with my colleagues a few thoughts on the number of things under way in the management of the diocese: the Cathedral Appeal, the move of the Diocesan Office, the Dilloway review, HR legislation and its ramifications on Diocesan Lay and Clergy staff, Clergy numbers, and KAIROS. It is important not to lump all these together too closely. Yes, they do impinge on each other in the short term, partly because they are often discussed at the same meetings. But some of them happen to be taking place at the same time as others, and that’s a coincidence. Clergy numbers, always a fluid figure, appear to be back on the ‘up’, if next year’s allocation of Stipendiary curacies is anything to go by. Keep praying!

On top of all that, I knew that Chris Lowson would be moving to another job. I had no idea how ill I was at the time, but I knew that we were in for a particularly busy time. In the event, I was put out of action for the autumn and winter, Chris moved, Trevor Reader moved over to the mainland, and much else besides. Many of these factors may not have affected the parishes very obviously, but I am aware that my colleagues on Bishop’s Staff have often been running in order to keep up with the pace of demands from all over the place – including the day-to-day communication between themselves and you who are, as they say, ‘on the ground.’ I want now to pay tribute to them for their hard work, on behalf of you all. It has been immensely frustrating for me not to be able to be present at Diocesan Synods and other gatherings, particularly in the Dilloway follow-up negotiations in the deaneries and archdeaconries.

In that connection, the documents that will be coming to Synod next month represent what I regard as a very judicious adjustment of the original proposals, that take on board many concerns that people have. But the underlying philosophy remains: we need a tighter and leaner organization, because all the evidence shows that things at present are both over-stretched and work-intensive, which are hallmarks of an organization that is not ‘delivering’.

But it’s vital that we keep our eye on KAIROS! It’s no passing whim. There will be no new diocesan initiatives in the foreseeable future that do not relate directly to what KAIROS is helping us to do and be. I know that the actual ‘take-up’ is patchy in some places, and old attitudes of self-sufficiency die hard. At the end of the day, I have no power to make you ‘go a-KAIROS-ing’! But I do want to make clear that we are already looking at the various Deanery submissions in detail, and identifying the training needs. I shall be pondering these and many other matters over the summer, and look forward to hearing about how the plans are being implemented.

When we had the KAIROS Day of Prayer last year, I went to each Archdeaconry and spoke about the Transfiguration, concentrating on each of the three synoptic narratives in the three different addresses I gave. It was a useful way of not preaching exactly the same sermon three times! I’m happy to report that I used the time of my convalescence when I left hospital for the last time in mid-January, to write a book. Much of it was in my head already. The text was sent off to the publishers (Darton, Longman and Todd) before Easter. It’s to be called ‘Rooted in Detachment: Living the Transfiguration’ (an echo of Michael Ramsey’s study published in 1949, the year I was born), and it is due to appear in the autumn. Each chapter looks at a particular episode, e.g. Ascent, Change, Cloud, Voice, Descent, from a pastoral, exegetical, and historical perspective; I was also urged to bring in some thoughts about my illness – so I did. It was an added bonus to be able to walk up the aisle of the Cathedral on Maundy Thursday to your warm, unforgettable welcome back, with this little number out of the way!

One of the things I decided to do, in response to some of the feedback from Clive Dilloway’s initial ‘trawl’ round the diocese is to try to connect the different parts of my job to each other. Perhaps I have let them live in separate worlds as far as my public ministry is concerned. All Bishops have national responsibilities, both for the Church and what we often call the ‘wider community.’ Archbishop Rowan asked me to speak in the debate on Assisted Dying a couple of weeks ago.

It was the longest debate in the House of Lords that I had ever attended. (If you speak, you are reminded on the Order Paper that it is ‘considered discourteous’ not to be present at least for the opening and concluding sets of speeches.) It began just after 10.00 a.m. and ended at 5.30 p.m. For all that some of the publicity beforehand criticised ‘the bishops’ for sinking it, there were only three speeches from our Benches - Canterbury, St Albans (who was on the Select Committee), and myself; and this in a debate with over 90 speakers. Although there were one or two slight spats on procedural matters, it was a good-natured debate, with people really trying to listen to each other. I was asked to speak about the absence of safeguards for the terminally ill who might be suffering from depression, as well as on some of the ethical issues, such as the common view today that ‘I can’ usually means ‘I must’, and the absence of a ‘doctrine of restraint’ around the legislation. (Some of you might be smiling wryly at the Bishop of Portsmouth championing restraint!)

In the event, I was struck by a debate that was driven by a human rights campaign, founded on the best of intentions, which was turned down (by 143 to 100 votes) on a combination of lawyers and medics, aided on by religious leaders. It was not a clean fight between euthanasiasts and absolutists in opposition on any grounds. I suspect that some of those who voted against were trying to find a way round the dilemma, but couldn’t, because if you give a patient that sort of right, family and carers (whoever they are) have to have – or could be liable for – some kind of responsibility. Palliative care kept being mentioned, but there were one or two references to the unevenness of provision in this regard throughout the country as a whole.

I am writing all this at Ascensiontide, which always makes me think of my father’s death, as well as that neglected aspect of eucharistic theology so powerfully (and differently) expounded by Augustine, John Calvin, and Jeremy Taylor (what an ironic trio!) – the heavenly intercession of Christ, and our union with him. I have learnt a lot about prayer over the past year. It hasn’t made me particularly holy. It’s just made me see it as such a central part of the Christian life. Not long prayers (St Benedict wisely tells us to be succinct, unless we really can’t), but words and names that express our relationships, our love, and our care. I’ve been asked to pray for more people, on purely chance encounters, over the past few months than ever before. So the names and the intentions get offered up, for you and for others, whether I’m saying Mattins or Evensong, or offering the eucharist, in my Chapel or elsewhere. I suppose you could say that my fight with leukemia has made me more aware of other people’s suffering – and less ready to be fully committed to the silliness of the Church.

With every blessing

+ Kenneth

9^th June 2006