I spent half the ordination service wondering whether a special knowledge would descend on me the moment the bishop placed his hands on my head. It didn’t.<\/p>\n
I was never a great curate, really. Always too insubordinate and rather heterodox in my beliefs. But I enjoyed the amazing privilege of being close to people at some of the most acute moments in their lives. Like the very first lady I visited, who died in my arms, happy that the curate had come. Or the funeral of a disabled teenager who believed equally passionately in social justice and Paul Simon, so we sat in tears at the crematorium listening to all four minutes and 50 seconds of “Bridge over Troubled Water”. Or the joy of visiting the special care baby unit every Wednesday with communion for exhausted, exhilarant mums.<\/p>\n
And in the end there is (was?) something profoundly decent about the Church of England, because contrary to rumour, most churchgoers are not self-righteous hypocrites, but liberal-minded people who are looking for a sense of meaning in their lives….<\/p>\n