Phone Ministry

As I said in my first video offering, posted on the website almost three weeks ago now, my lead in to where we are today has meant that in a sense I have been ‘locked down’ slightly longer than most of the rest of you. That is simply because on the 9th March I had some minor surgery which meant that I was due then not to work for the two weeks that followed – as that fortnight was coming to an end I then started with a sore throat and cold  -and the then advice was that I must not leave my home but ‘self-isolate’. I was recovering, and due out of that by the 28th March, but by then of course the rest of the nation had joined me in the business of being exiled to your own home.

I was obviously in touch with the clergy team and sympathised with the Dean when he made the decision to close the cathedral – something he would have been instructed to do just a day later even if he had not got there first. It was the only responsible decision that could be taken if we were to play our part in trying to keep the most vulnerable people in our communities as safe as we could.

I then began to think about how we would go about trying to care for people in our dispersed community when physically, at least, that community could not meet. I did so knowing also that in just a few weeks’ time, Canon Lynda’s retirement would mean that I would be inheriting the mantle of overseeing that pastoral work of the cathedral – it would be a part of my brief to build upon the excellent work she has done for us as that lead in recent years – adding to that challenge I now knew that to kick that off, I would have to do this without being able to visit anyone and without being able to send anyone else to visit either. Pastoral care without any kind of physical contact - virtual pastoral care - if you like.

Around about Wednesday 25th March then, I came to the conclusion, that the only way we were probably going to be able to do this was by collecting together as many phone numbers as we could, of those we normally meet face to face, so the very least we could do would be to have an occasional conversation with them. As you can see from the photograph that goes with this blog, I was then also working from my new workspace – the ‘Canon Chancellors spare bedroom’. From here for all sorts of rather boring technical reasons it was almost impossible to access and interrogate the cathedral database – that did not mean that I did not spend two or three frustrating hours trying - making a number of contributions to my personal swear box along the way. I sent an appeal for help to our marketing and communications team, the guardians of - and our local experts in - all things database and discovered, brilliantly, that they had planned for this technical breakdown and could direct me to an offline version. This I managed to open and so I set to work.

A couple of hours, some cut and pasting, and a bit of typing later I had a list of around 100 of our most regular contacts, their phone numbers - and for those who were online, their emails. I also knew that much of the best pastoral work in our community is done by our laypeople rather than our clergy and my mind turned to who I might recruit to stay in touch with these people with me, and the rest of the clergy team. Peter Hewson, Carolyn Hendra, Sarah and Ian Brown, Cat Rose and Helen Bowden turned out to be those I settled on - and they all proved to be willing, able and committed to the task at hand. I have received a good deal of feedback from them on how people are - and from them and the other members of the Pastoral Care Network - the names of a good many other people who did not make it to the initial list - but who have since had a call.

And most people are OK and many of them have rewarding tales to tell of ‘love thy neighbour’ stories, telling of those who locally have offered them assistance by being in touch, doing the shopping or helping in some other way.

I know personally that I have had many good conversations – and as a person who is energised by my engagement with others, I know that often I have gained at least as much from these calls as I may have given.

Each day it remains the case that someone else is brought to my attention or springs to mind who we have not been in touch with yet - and having many brains engaged in this is always better than just relying on one. Some of you reading this may have a particular person on your mind  and you might just be wondering how they are getting on, or if they are as ‘OK’ as the rest of us seem to be, in our stoical British way. If that is the case, I am quite happy for you to email me and let me know who that person is. The odds are I will be able to tell you that we have been in touch and that they are as well as any of us can be right now - but at the same time you may just name that person who thus far has slipped through the net. If that is the case, we can then do all that we can to make some contact with them from the cathedral community. I have the most boring email address in the world alanbashforth@trurocathedral.org.uk – please do use it if you are worried about someone and we will try and ease that worry. Likewise, importantly if we have inadvertently missed you, let me know, offer me a contact and someone will catch up with you and your story of how you are dealing with these extraordinary times.

I have, through the time we have been doing this, become very well aware that more people than the original team are actively engaged in staying in touch with others and I am delighted that we have the kind of community that simply does that kind of thing. It warms my heart.  It will never for me replace the joy of the immediate company of others and the pleasure of trying our best to love each other, face to face, warts and all – but it is all we can do. And at the end of all of this it may just be that I have got to know some people better on the phone than I ever have in the flesh and that God can still in every circumstance build communities - even when gatherings of more than two are officially banned.

With every blessing

Canon Alan