I went on a fun-filled railway trip down to Bradford over the weekend. It’s unlike me to decide to visit t’North from t’further North where I live, but sometimes one has to make sacrifices! And it was a very special occasion. I went to see a close friend ordained as a deacon in the Church of England. It was a fantastic event, with a beautiful service in Bradford Cathedral, and afterwards, we ventured back to her humble abode for a small family shindig, where I took the chance to play wine waiter, always a favourite guise of mine.

The first time I met her kept playing across my inner eyelids, like a camera obscura effect. Like in one of those old movies, when they go into reminiscence mode, and the camera is suddenly one of those old movie projectors, complete with jumps and fizz. Sitting on the steps outside St Ninians, Aberdeen, waiting for the service. And it suddenly occurred to me that while we change a lot over our lives, from incarnation to incarnation, the core remains the same.

Let me rephrase that now, in my somewhat rambling manner. When a person is invested deacon, they get to wear the stole. This is a long strip of cloth, which in a deacon is worn similarly to the sash in a Miss World pageant. Across the chest, from the shoulder, fastened at the opposite hip. Later, on becoming a priest,, they can wear the chasuble, a clerical vestment very similar to a poncho in design, but they don’t stop wearing the stole. Later still, if taking what might seem to some poor souls to be the ultimate preferment, a bishop is awarded the vestments of cope and mitre, the episcopal cloak and hat so stylised in the chesspiece bishops. But still they can wear the stole there too.

Because no matter how high they rise, they never stop being a deacon. The diaconate never leaves them. The first steps are as important as any that come after. Because while we change a lot over our lives, a lot stays the same. We shape our lives. We shape the stories we make of them, and the successes we become. But all those stories and successes are borne of us, in us, and without our input, they’d never happen.

I may have hit a regeneration button in coming down to the city here. But I never stopped being myself. There may have been other points over the years where I have hit that regenerate button, but I never stopped being me. My impossible dreams never left me or changed me into someone else. We’ve all passed a lot of water since St Ninians, since we sat there on the steps, waiting for the service to start. Since we worked in the Chaplaincy together, served on the vestry together. Our paths may not be as closely linked.

And I can still surprise her, by appearing out of the blue at an ordination service. And I can still be the one to play wine-waiter, and glide round the room, making people laugh. I can still be, even with competition, the clown. Albeit a stylish clown, who makes very bad puns. Because the exact wording of these little ramblings seems to have been inexorably moving, like one of the old shaggy dog stories, to the terrible punchline. Because after all that, when episcopal preferment has smiled and smiled again, a bishop will always move diaconally…

Good Morning.