by Paul Kerensa
The service continues warmly, uncontroversially and traditionally. The Methodist way may not have the formal structure of Catholics or high Anglicans, but it does have its gentle traditions. Not for this church the drum kits and projector screens of the modern age. Here we find a simple, stripped-down service of song, prayer and preaching. It’s a chance for us to simply give thanks, once again, that my medical ridiculousness has been overcome to give us lovely Theo the Foetus.
There is no Holy Communion today - it’s rarer among Methodists, although does occur.The sung worship is not overly showy or elaborate, and there are none of the freeform elements that some churches encourage. Many churches have more of an open floor for prayer or prophecy, or the worship leader has licence to go off-piste. Here the worship is so fixed, it’s on CD.
Of course this is just for today, while we’re waiting for Joseph’s musical accompaniment. But there is a general air that we have put our trust in the ministers to guide us through this service; the authority is placed in their hands.
As Jackie gives the Bible reading, and hands over to Gaynor for the sermon, I’m left realising what a credit these women are to the church. They cast light on the insanity of the long wait in the neighbouring C of E for women bishops. I have every confidence that in centuries from now, they’ll look back at church history in disbelief that it was left solely in the hands of men for so long. I’m sure the more turbulent parts of Christianity’s past, from crusades to cover-ups, would have been a very different story if women had had a bit more say.
‘It’s time for our last song,’ says Jackie with a frown. ‘And there’s no Joseph.’
The congregation join in a group frown, as do Zoë and I.We’re upset too.We’ll never get to meet the old man/young boy. Joseph is Godot.
A CD is found, and after a minute’s pause to discover which track number relates to which number in the book, we join in with Hymn Number 143/Track 6, ‘Love Divine, all Loves Excelling’.
We’re getting all the hearty Charles Wesley classics today. I wouldn’t be surprised if we followed it with ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’, even though it is April.
As the service ends, congregants lean from row to row and catch up. Zoë and I appraise the pleasant, uncomplicated service with a simple:
‘Very nice.’
‘Yes, very nice,’ she replies.
An uncluttered review of an uncluttered service. Ministering hasn’t needed to change much here since John Wesley preached in fields and to farmers as they laboured. Still today, Jackie and Gaynor bring straight- forward services with a strong community feel. Methodism was in many ways aimed at the working class who felt unwelcomed by the mainline church. This small chapel at the heart of the village has once again had that unpretentious broad appeal for those who want a place to sing, pray and hear preaching.
It’s church at street level, where elements of the service live or die not by whether certain buttons are pressed on a computer, but whether the organist can cycle down the hill in time.
‘The CD player was an interesting touch.’
‘Yes. Shame we didn’t hear Joseph’s organ playing. I suppose they share a musician between the churches.’
‘Mmm,’ I say. My eyes glaze and Zoë’s eyes roll because she knows the look - I’ve thought of a joke. ‘They need their own worship leader perhaps. A rhythm Methodist.’
Zoë glares, as do others. A time and a place, Paul.
Her glare is stopped short as we hear the front door burst open. We quickly turn. Could this, in the nick of time, be Joseph?
A sixty-year-old man enters puffing. It has to be ...
‘Joseph?’ exclaims Gaynor.
... It is!
The wheezing latecomer takes a moment, then speaks: ‘He’s not going to make it.’
... It isn’t.
‘St Andrew’s overran, and then his bike had a puncture.’
The regulars mumble regretfully: ‘Poor Joseph ... A puncture of all things ...’
He sits and pants, and Zoë turns to me.‘So is that Joseph’s dad, or... How old do you think Joseph is?’
‘Exactly!’ I cry. ‘Is he a boy? Is he a pensioner?’
Gaynor rushes past to reassure the newsbearer that we’ve finished anyway, and she nearly smacks into a low beam as she goes. A swift limbo shows that she knows the layout of this chapel well.
Jackie saunters past us, and I collar her with a question: ‘Excuse me, can I just ask? This ‘Joseph’...’
‘No!’ Zoë says, putting her hand between us like she’s stopping a fight. ‘I don’t want to know.’
Jackie smiles and moves on.
‘Best we don’t find out,’ Zoë says to me. ‘Well it just works if he’s young or old.’
I agree. Some names - Maisie, Boo-boo, Elmo - sound great for kids but I can’t imagine them aged eighty. Others - Doris, Frank, Methuselah - are probably best only adopted when you retire. ‘Joseph’ works for both, and works for both of us.
We resolve that if it’s a boy, we’ll call him Joseph.
53 For clarity, that’s been the only occasion I’ve heard those words.
54 At least three involved taramasalata.
13
Up Above the Streets and Houses
Handling Hot Potatoes
It was a boy, so we called him Joseph.
He was and is, of course, a delight, with occasional elements of screaminess. The whole experience was a total whirlwind. We didn’t sleep for the excitement before the birth, and we didn’t sleep a huge amount afterwards.
I became a recluse for a few weeks, knee-deep in a world of nappies, sleeplessness and 3 a.m. trips to the 24-hour Tesco for new nappies - zombie-like, yet somehow enjoying the trip out.
Gigs were hard work for a while as I operated on Red Bull and good will. I took less work on and tried not to drive as far, although inevitably just a few less gigs than normal does affect your stage performance.
I had a comedy festival, which necessitated me doing as many guest spots as possible at as many venues as possible, to plug my own solo show. I’d do five minute spots, little advertisements for my hour-long show, and end each set with the venue and time of my solo show.
It always sounds awkward - comedy is for telling it like it is, not flogging your wares. I’ve heard numerous comics banging out anti- consumerist, anti-individualist rants, then wrapping up by plugging a book or DVD they’re selling at the back for a fiver. To survive, the stand-up comic needs to be capitalist but sound anti-capitalist. To see my latest range of anti-capitalist merchandise, visit www.paulkerensa.com.
On one such day I managed seven gigs, which was almost too many, running from venue to venue, doing callbacks to jokes that I’d told to previous audiences.Two poor lads saw me at noon and again at midnight across town, thanks to their bad luck. They started heckling my punchlines, fresh in their heads because they’d only heard them a few hours before. By that point I was hoarse, tired, and mistakenly aiming putdowns at people from three gigs ago.
Guest spot number six was a gig I’d booked myself when passing the venue. I’d seen them advertising a charity comedy show, with names on the bill that were not vastly up the pecking order from me. I almost felt entitled to a gig there.
Thanks to guest spot number five running late, I arrived at this pub to hear the show in full swing.The landlord was outside smoking as he yelled, ‘Where’ve you been?! You’re due on!’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘Who’s on now?’
‘Nigel, local performance poet. Have you seen him? Every two lines, he takes off a layer of clothing. Ends up stark naked. He’s here every year. Crowd loves him.’
Wow, I thought. My whimsy about parenthood and geekery might be a bit of a comedown after that.
The landlord con
tinued,‘We’ll have an interval after you, cos it’s the Scottish Gay Men’s Chorus and they need time to set up.’ Quite a line- up they’ve got here.
Inside the venue I heard an almighty cheer, which indicated that Nigel had reached his big finish. The compère briefly took the stage to announce my name, and I ran in, leapt onstage, and started my set. At my feet, a naked Nigel picked up his clothes.
‘Scuse the exhaustion, we’ve got one of those ... what do you call them? ... Babies!’ I began.
No cheer. Never mind, some audiences don’t. I haven’t taken off any clothes, so perhaps they cheer here at different things. I tried to claw a response from them:
‘Who here’s got kids?’
No one, apparently. They say talk about what you know, and right now, this was all I knew. This was an all-male audience, but surely it doesn’t take a woman to reply. Some of the men were a bit older, and I thought must be at grandparent level by now. Maybe they just didn’t like me and didn’t want to join in. I tried to win it back by getting feisty:
‘Are we all barren?!’
Nothing. Not even an ooh. Just the slow hum of conversation beginning.That’s the worst thing to hear as a comedian. Heckling’s better than general chat - far better.
And then the penny, like Nigel’s trousers, dropped. A voice in my head did a Through The Keyhole-style recap as Lloyd Grossman: ‘Who would drink in a bar like this? Let’s look at the evidence: Nigel the stripping poet.The Scottish Gay Men’s Chorus. Every comedian but me being gay or lesbian. The all-male audience. The annual fundraiser for a local Aids charity.The rainbow flags outside. David, it’s over to you.’
All were clues, you might say. I’d say to you that I am clearly so free of prejudice and bias that I don’t see things that others might.Yes, it was a tricky performance once I’d realised this was an all-gay gig, and I probably wouldn’t have begun as I did had I known. But I did my time, and closed with the mandatory: ‘I’m in The George function room at 8 p.m. Come along! No need for babysitters.’ Finally, they laughed.
A few weeks later and I was back at my usual pace of life on the road, stopping at hotels and spare rooms. I treated myself to nicer accommo- dation, which was needless since I was so tired most of the time that I’d sleep for twelve hours straight in a bus shelter if necessary.
There’s been a sliding scale over the years of what I’ll plump for. When I started out in my early twenties, I’d stay on floors. Once it wasn’t even a living-room floor, but a kitchen floor, being woken up at 3 a.m. by the promoter’s wife home from nightshift defrosting some bread. It wasn’t the sound of the toaster that woke me, but the freezer door being slammed into my head.
I outgrew floors and insisted on sofas, which again was fine until the tenant’s flatmates would wake me to play Xbox on the living-room telly. Then I became all prima donna and would ask for a spare room. At this rate I soon won’t stay anywhere without a personal jacuzzi, turn-down service and Corby trouser press next to a little kettle.
For now a popular stop-off is of course with friends, and one old friend - and vicar - had uttered those three silly words to me:‘Stay any time.’
The week of the gig, I texted him to check his address. I thought I could probably find it; I knew the village he was in, so figured I’d just head there, find the big pointy building, and knock on the vicarage next door.
‘Apartment 8a, Ironworks Street’ came the reply, along with a city centre postcode. An urban church, I thought - maybe he was now a town centre chaplain. I’d heard of these yet never seen them. I imagine they’re like an ecclesiastical high-street ninja. I love the idea of clergy mixing with town shoppers incognito, then bursting out with a quick prayer while you’re queuing in M&S: ‘Please God let them have this in an 18 for this woman ... Sorry, 16, my mistake.’
I knew Luke had a nice little Church of England parish, with, I had always presumed, a charming rectory and a Sunday school teacher called Alex. They’d eventually marry in a lovely ceremony attended by the whole community, with school kids dancing around the maypole.That’s always been my impression anyway. Ironworks Street slightly shook up that world. Perhaps, I thought, he doesn’t live in a village called Dibley in a county called Midsomer.
‘Yes,’ he said when I double-checked.‘I was in the vicarage.That was before ...Well there have been a few changes.’
Luke had come out. The Sunday school teacher myth was on hold, although Alex could be Alexander.This might have surprised me, but as we know from the gay bar gig, my gaydar is so bad that if it were real radar, no airport would employ me. Closet doors could be swinging open all around me, and all I’d notice was a slight draught, thinking it’s the window. I’m the sort of person who’d meet Louie Spence and his female assistant and ask how long they’d been married.
I arrived in Ironworks Street and Luke explained more.
‘I was expecting a bit of a showdown with the bishop,’ Luke told me over a cup of tea. ‘I was hoping for instant martyr status. Actually he was pretty okay about it. Even sent me a very nice congratulations card.’
The new Luke looked just like the old Luke. There was no tight- fitting T-shirt, and I probably had more pink shirts than he did. We just picked up where we left off, except now in a fashionable apartment block rather than a country vicarage.
Luke related that many of his neighbours were also gay, but more through coincidence than design - this wasn’t specifically the ‘gay district’, just that these flats were quite nice, and only affordable by DINKYs (Double Income No Kids Yet). But even the DINKYs often move out to suburban semi-detacheds, using their ‘DI’ to get a garden for when they have ‘K’ later.That leaves these pricey metropolitan flats for not so much DINKYs, as DINKs.
‘There is a big gay scene in this city,’ Luke said, adding, ‘But it’s not for me.We prefer the pub down the road. Good ales, good pub quiz.’
The ‘we’ is Luke and his civil partner John. Gay priesthood and gay marriage - two ecclesiastical hot potatoes rolled together into a giant plate of mash, that a lot of people don’t know how to digest.As for me, I’ve always thought the major awkwardness of a same-gender wedding is the usher greeting attendees asking, ‘Is it groom’s side or groom’s side?’ ... before seating you anywhere.
At the time of writing, marriage is still the preserve of Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, nor indeed Madam and Eve. But this may soon change.The political atmosphere is moving towards it: civil partnership is not enough for many, and true equality means that traditional marriage needs to be redefined. If it passes, then individual churches may or may not be forced to conduct same-sex weddings. That said, B&B owners have been forced to accommodate same-sex couples against their will, so whether the organised church can hold out in the courts longer than the B&B industry, remains to be seen.
‘So are you ex-Anglican?’ I asked Luke, still trying to work out where he now fitted in church life.
‘I’m ex-parish, still Anglican. Ish.’
He’d become a prison chaplain, employed by the Home Office, and was therefore under their equal opportunities protections. I sensed he’d had his metaphorical bag packed and was ready to leave the C of E for good, from parish to pariah. Then the bishop was a bit more accepting than expected, so he took a sideways step into prison ministry.
Luke clarified, ‘My services in prison are Anglican. I’m still licensed by the diocese.’
Luke had done an unusual thing in even telling his bishop - many don’t. And his bishop was gracious in response - some aren’t.
The Church and Homosexuality
With more stances than a Gap catalogue model, here’s a simplified opinion spectrum (or rainbow):
‘Do not adopt the customs of the people who live there.’
- Leviticus 20:23
RED: ... in the face. These placard-wielding extremists have closet doors and
minds that are nailed shut. Their numbers are thankfully minimal, and Louis Theroux has them on speed-dial.
‘Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed ...’ - 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
ORANGE: The future’s bright, the future’s straight, if you ‘pray away the gay’, ‘convert the flirt’, ‘minister to the sinister’, and so on. If the far-far-right go large with their beliefs to a placard-sized A0, the far-righters keep theirs to a handy A5 pamphlet size.You might hear of people being ‘ex-gay’ or ‘post-gay’, though I doubt that my friend Luke thinks of himself as ‘ex-straight’. Besides, I can’t hear ‘ex-gay’ without thinking of Monty Python’s parrot sketch: ‘This man is no more a homosexual, he has ceased to be attracted to men, he’s no longer a friend of Dorothy and he’s joined the heterosexuals ... This, is an ex-gay.’
‘Love the sinner, hate the sin.’ - Gandhi
YELLOW:The only association I can find with ‘yellow’ is that this is quite middle-of-the-road, and, er, so are Coldplay. And they had a hit with ‘Yellow’. Ahem ...
Gandhi’s quote has been adopted by many in the church, and is often misattributed to the Bible. Perhaps the biblical quote best seen with it is: ‘He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone.’ - John 8:7.
I don’t know that it’s up to me to hate anyone else’s sin. God can, and I’m sure will, loathe a good deal of the sins we commit. I don’t care to number mine: there’s going to be a lot. So how about,‘Love the sinner, let God judge the sin’? Not as catchy, but just a thought. I’m not a preacher or theologian though, so what do I know ... I’m just a bloke who doesn’t like hating things (except maybe Coldplay).