Mothering Sunday

Today is the fourth Sunday in Lent and therefore Mothering Sunday. I have received flowers from my children and was awoken by a phone call from two of them - the clocks went back last night in Britain and I'm sure they wouldn't realise that they don't go back here until next weekend.

I'm not going to talk about my own mother, as she comes up quite regularly in what I write, but about the Church, because that's what mothering Sunday is about. People were to go once a year not to the local or daughter church, but to the mother church, the main one in their parish and this also meant that families were reunited because often children were sent to work away from home.

In Britain the Church of England is the established church and being British we contantly debate whether this is a good thing. But good or bad, it is part of our national identity. You don't have to even believe in God to think of yourself as a christian.

Now, living in a country where there is no established church, I look on what we have in Britain as a very good thing. The Queen is the head of the Church of England and that makes me feel comfortable. Schools are obliged to (but rarely do these days) provide a daily act of communal worship.

When I was at school, we sat every morning in the school hall and listened to readings from the Bible and sang hymns. We prepared whole school many-part hymns for sepcial occasions that made your heart soar. We studied Religious Instruction (mostly now referred to as RE) and whilst RE nowadays is all about comparing different religions, for us it was understanding the Bible and the Holy lands. How many maps of Palestine and Jordan we drew I wouldn't like to guess. We studied the Patriarchs, the Judges, the Kings. We were told we needed this to understand the underpinning of our laws and our literature.

The established church allows us to feel comfortable and confident. When Tony Blair was asked in a recent interview whether he had prayed about the decision to go into Iraq he said that as a christian he prayed about everything that was important, but that was personal and he wasn't going to talk about it. There is no need for Bible thumping, there is no point to win or score.

We see the Queen and the Royal Family going to church on important dates in the church calendar. You might say, 'so we don't have to' and in an odd way that is true, we don't have to prove that we are a christian nation because the Head of the Church does that for us. So when people do go, it is for the right and very personal reasons.

In 'Little Britain' there is a sketch where Andy insists on being dressed as baby Jesus, his wheelchair disguised as a crib and from this comical place he does one of the Christmas readings. In Britain we can and frequently do make fun of our religion, of vicars and priests and of the faithful and our rituals. We can do that because it is such a firm ground. The christian faith isn't going to wither and die because Father Ted makes a joke about God or the vicar of Dibley has sheep in the church.

I like that Christianity came to the islands by stealth, not bloodshed, it bound itself to the Celtic traditions that were already there. Christian festivals and even stories are really pagan ones. The spirituality that was already in the people was used to establish a new faith from the east.
I am horrified at the bloodshed that came with schism, but I believe the outcome was good, a reformed church that allowed philosophical debate and scientific discovery to go unhindered, that allowed people's potential to be fulfilled instead of stunted.

The comfort of establishment means that the faiths of the British don't have to compete. It is more than simple tolerance, other faiths are embraced. At my last school, we all shared the end of Ramadan Eid of the muslim children and they shared Christmas with us.

I can remember the beginnings of my own religious education. When we were very little, Amanda and I would walk, hand in hand and dressed in our Sunday best, round to Granny Manns' ground floor flat. She lived in council accomodation for the elderly, but it was independent living, she had her own flat, she wasn't our granny, just - well everyone's. In her living room she had a budgerigar in a cage. She was old and wrinkly but had superb posture. She would put on her hat - I don't believe we ever saw her outside without a hat - and walk all of us neighbourhood children in a crocodile to St. Andrew's church. We were allowed into the main part of the service to begin with, we knelt and prayed and we sang from 'Hymns Ancient and Modern', knowing which one from the slotted wooden numbers at the front of the church. Before the adults were prepared for Communion we went to Sunday school. On Mother's day we would make little posies for our mothers. Then we went back and met up with Granny Manns who walked us all back again, standing in the middle of the main road, arms spread like a police constable directing traffic, whilst we all crossed.

Once when my father returned from sea, he brought me a King James's Bible. The pages were edged with gold leaf and there were coloured pictures of Jesus's passion and the money-lenders being thrown out of the temple. There were also pictures of olive trees and parts of the Holy Lands.

I love the British lackadaisical approach to Christianity. I love that our God has grown with us. I love that Christianity informs our ethics without us even thinking about it. And I revere that people have given their lives so that we can feel comfortable and playful with our faith.

I love the quiet of our churches. To be able to just be in a cool stone building where generations upon generations have worshipped before and repeat the words of the litany like a mantra and pray inside my own head. To take communion and for it to mean communion with everyone, not just other Christians, and to not ever have to explain unless I want to. That's what I love about religious life in Britain.

The church is established. Christmas is Christmas, Easter is Easter, Whitsun is Whitsun, no-one needs to waste their time arguing, instead they can go about their own spirituality in their own way.
Amen.