When I was appointed Vicar of St Luke’s, Christchurch, New Zealand, in, I think, 1979, I went to visit my predecessor to ask him about the parish. He said, ‘There are nine parishioners, their average age is seventy two, and they’re all mad.’ I said, ‘Father, I’m sure that can’t be true.’ To which he replied, ‘Are you calling me a liar!’ He was exaggerating – a little.

St Luke’s was known as the church with more candles above the high altar than there were people in the congregation. We did have a reputation for being ‘unusual’ or ‘different’. I thought St Luke’s was wonderful. The people were wonderful.

The church was always full on a Sunday. We had chairs not pews. We only put out as many chairs as there were people. Therefore it was always a full house. Well that was the idea. It did mean we sat together to worship. The chairs were together and so were we.

In the early 1900’s, when my grandparents lived in the parish, my grandmother worshipped at St Luke’s. It would have suited her as she was ‘High Church’ and so was St Luke’s. My father was christened there and one of the long granite blocks that formed the steps into the church, (removed when a ramp was put in for wheelchair access) is now the headstone to his grave.

I can’t remember us ever having a ‘strategy’ or a ‘campaign’ to bring people in to St Luke’s. What we were there for was to worship God and people came together to do just that and then to get on with their lives. Many were involved in serving the community locally and nationally.

Some years into my appointment the wife of a Senior Cleric asked me, ‘When are you going to get some normal people coming to St Luke’s?’ I can’t remember how I answered her but I wish I’d thought to say that it’s not me it’s the Holy Spirit who gets people to come to church. It always comes to my mind afterwards what would have been the clever thing to say. And surely, even then, we were not ‘normal’ by definition, simply because we were churchgoers.

I do think that many people in authority in the church seem overly impressed by those they regard as ‘normal’. It usually means people with ‘normal’ skills. Anyone who has a good track record in ‘administration’ or in ‘the city’ is clearly to be noted and looked at with admiration. Similarly they seem to be remarkably dismissive of, or uneasy with, holiness. A pity in a way, especially when you think that becoming holy  is what we Christians are meant to be about.

However, regardless of all that, St Luke’s Christchurch New Zealand is to be no more. The building came down in the earthquakes and now the Anglican Parish of St Luke’s in the City is to close on 18 October this year, its Feast day, St Luke’s Day. This was decided at a Special General Meeting held on 2 May 2021. 

In an article in Anglican Life it states:

• For 162 years St Luke’s has been a liberal voice for the gospel in the heart of Christchurch, sustained by a deep commitment to a contemplative style of spirituality and outreach.
• Since the earthquakes St Luke’s has been at various venues but has not found a permanent home, and congregation numbers have declined.
• Currently the former site of St Luke’s Church is leased to the Side Door Arts Trust who have the 185 white chairs art installation there.

And the article continues:

St Luke’s parishioners are grieving deeply over the loss of their parish, but are also courageously looking forward. The parish is not merging with another but closing and their assets are being gifted to both the Cathedral and the Cathedral Reinstatement fund.

Rev’d Peter Beck says, “Parishioners are very clear that they would like the financial assets of the parish to be invested by the Church Property Trustees in order to fund a fulltime priest or deacon as part of the Cathedral team. This person’s main ministry focus will be chaplaincy to the inner city (e.g. to businesses, to ministries engaging with those who are poor, to the creative arts) as well as ensuring that a regular celebration of the Eucharist in the St Luke’s style is maintained at the Cathedral. Parishioners would also like funds to be available to support contemplative spirituality projects as well as social justice and service projects in the inner city.”

It seems to me from Peter Beck’s message it’s sort of business as usual for St Luke’s. 

In a recent blog a friend from Christchurch wrote, ‘At my Friday lunch yesterday, where my companions are probably more reasonable in their opinions than me, a small group at the end surprised me by criticising Joe Biden…….Of course we agreed to differ, and no plates were thrown – but where are we when even intelligent folk cannot agree, at least in general, on world affairs?’

The idea that intelligence brings people to have a like mind has always seemed to me rather naïve. It is also too close for comfort to that sort of intolerance which condemns anyone who does not share a particular view as being unintelligent. Years ago now a senior cleric of whom I was fond and who I respected said to me, after I expressed a fundamentally different view to his on a matter of doctrine, ‘and I had always thought you were intelligent.’ The worst thing was that he meant it. And of course he may have been right, that on this issue I may be unintelligent. I still hold the same view. I may well still be unintelligent.

However I now fear he was a fundamentalist liberal. I’ve come to accept that inside and outside the church that there are people of great intelligence with profoundly different views. There are also those who believe that only those who share their views are intelligent.

There is something of the ultimate put down when people imply or say of adherents of any religion or political party or group, ‘They’ll grow out of it.’ With all that emphasis of, ‘When they become more educated’, or ‘more intelligent’.

There was, for me, a wonderful moment in a televised conversation between the late Lord Sacks, one time Chief Rabbi, and one of the vocal atheists of our time, Richard Dawkins I think, when the atheist said, in obvious frustration, ‘But you are clearly intelligent. How can you possibly believe the world was created in seven days?’ To which Jonathan Sacks replied, ‘Six, not seven. God rested on the seventh day.’ He did go on to explain his understanding that the Book of Genesis is about the ‘Why’ not the ‘How’ of creation.

And then there’s an attitude I find surprising in those same intelligent people who, when they comment on world affairs, resort to what a politician or public figure looks like as if that is a valid criticism of their policies. When they use as part of their argument a persons hair style, tan, teeth, weight, or whatever. That does not seem to me to be intelligent.

My mother, who was involved in the founding of New Zealand’s National Party, said once, “Why, when people leave the Party, do members say, ‘They’ve let the side down’, and when people join the party, ‘They’ve seen the light.’” Her view was more generous, perhaps more intelligent, than that.

My attention was drawn recently to part of an interview she gave to a newspaper in 1968. I was sent a copy of the clipping. The article finishes with her reported as saying,

“One thing that strikes me about these good kind Americans is that they are so vehement in their political thought and they find it difficult to give credit to the leaders of political parties other than their own.

“If this is the attitude of the thoughtful educated Americans, I fear for the uneducated and unthinking people. With such intense political feeling the danger is that one section of the community is easily stirred up against the other, with tragic results.

“Heaven help New Zealand if we become so bigoted in our thought that a section of the community is lead to violence.

“To be tolerant is sometimes rather patronising. We should be understanding towards other people’s thoughts on religion, politics, race and way of life. Every type of person has something to contribute.”

Three events have been especially significant for me since coming out of self isolation and returning to what is regarded as normal life here in London. Normal life being the early stages of easing Lockdown restrictions.

The first I expected. It was the visits, albeit separately, of my family here. We couldn’t hug but we could be in the garden together, see each other and talk face to face. I could also hand over appropriate gifts – New Zealand marmite and New Zealand peanut butter.

The second took me slightly by surprise. Mass at St Agnes on Friday morning was especially moving. There were eight of us. Nothing was different from before I left last November or particularly different from the weekday mass at St Michael and All Angels in Christchurch, New Zealand, although, of course, here we wore masks and there we didn’t. And it wasn’t even so much the mass itself. It was being in the silence, the stillness and that sacred space.

The third event was also unexpected. I hadn’t imagined anything could measure up to swimming in any one of the pools in Christchurch’s Jellie Park. However being back at the Elephant and Castle’s Castle Centre was a total joy. It has only recently reopened and there are restrictions. You have to book and numbers are limited. I booked for the Friday 13.30 session, the slow lane of course. One of the staff on duty called out, ‘Welcome back!’ and seemed genuinely pleased to see me. There were some familiar faces and some familiar habits. There’s one woman who always says or nods, ‘Thank you’ when I indicate she should go ahead of me, she being a faster swimmer than I am, and there’s one man who doesn’t. They were both there.

Certainly part of the significance was the familiarity. But it was more than that and more than having a routine. Perhaps it is that Spring is here.

Self isolation at home is over. All my covid tests have come back negative. I have had my first AstraZeneca vaccination. The appointment at St Thomas’s was for 11.05 am and I was in the queue as required 15 minutes before my appointment time. I had arrived early as is my wont. I was called at 11.07. The whole thing was done efficiently and the staff were every bit as friendly and helpful as those at outpatients at the Public Hospital, Christchurch, New Zealand.

There is no doubt about it. New Zealanders are basically friendly and do talk. But then as I left the St Thomas’s Vaccination 1 site processing fifteen people about every ten minutes it seemed – there are three sites on the go at once – I was walking alongside a British Asian, a bit younger than me, he having just had his second jab, and we talked. There was nothing particularly deep or significant in what we said, we agreed that the system we’d just been through was great and that it is good that spring is on its way and basically how fortunate we are. In the supermarket this morning one of the staff noticed my ‘I’ve had my covid vaccination’ label and told me he’d had his that morning. We compared stories. And that is the atmosphere I’ve encountered in London these few days since I’ve been out and about.

And there is also no doubt that New Zealanders have been able to live through this time of pandemic with very little of the difficulty, worry and fear that the rest of the world has faced. During my five months in New Zealand I encountered no gloating in that. It’s just a fact. The only day to day signs of the pandemic are masks being worn on public transport and people ‘checking in’ to shops, restaurants, churches, and all the rest, usually on their mobile phones. Occasionally I would see taped two meter distances still on a floor or on the ground from when social distancing had been required. I suspect that the masks at least will be part of reality for some time to come.

There was also in New Zealand, wherever I went, an interest in and concern for the rest of the world. Perhaps because all New Zealanders are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants there is a greater awareness of the world as a whole than there is here in the United Kingdom. The television news there is every bit as insular as it is here but I think the geographical isolation of New Zealand and the comparatively small population helps people to look outward and forward. Or that may be a result of the ‘immigrant’ gene as well.

But with this as with so many things I imagine it depends to a great extent on who you mix with, who you talk to and most importantly who you listen to.

For my own part I have realised that as well as missing U.K family and friends while I was away (and I do have enough of each in N.Z. to compensate) I missed being surrounded by my own ‘things’. I had always considered myself fairly detached from my possessions. I enjoy them of course and value them usually because of their associations. But I had believed I ‘sat lightly’ to them. I discovered, while being away, that my own nest in Kennington Park Road was more important to me than I had realised.

I’ve done my three turns around Cleaver Square and have booked a swim at the Castle Centre for Friday. I’m back home with the familiar. However my local Tesco Express has moved everything around. How inconsiderate!

It wasn’t so much the journey as the beginning of the journey. I was at the check in counter at Auckland Airport. My reference numbers didn’t match. The Covid Test Kit booking number on my receipt was different to that on my UK Visas and Immigration ‘Public Health Passenger Locator Form’. I hadn’t filled in the online form correctly. Therefore I couldn’t complete check in. Therefore I couldn’t continue to immigration. Therefore I couldn’t get on the plane. Therefore my stomach sank.

However, thanks to the great patience and kindness of the Singapore Airlines check in staff, I managed. One gave me a wheel chair to sit in and I began to fill in, on my iPad, my ‘Passenger Locator Form’ again, from the beginning. Another found the correct reference number that did match, and, when I’d done, sent themselves an email from my iPad and came back a few minutes later with the essential form printed out. A third member of staff said to me, ‘Well done!’ when it was they, not I, who had done well. So I was checked in and through I went.

My stomach was lifting again but because there was no lounge available, or bar, or anything, I couldn’t get a settling brandy. There was a machine but it didn’t do brandy. There were two friendly fellow passengers who invited me to sit in the waiting area with them, we’d seen each other in the queue to the check in, and we chatted. He had been in technology and she ran a charity which helped women join or rejoin the work force. Calm, friendly people were, for me, even better than a brandy.

The flight was fine with only fifty five minutes between flights in Singapore. When I had telephoned Singapore Airlines to make the booking I had asked how they could get my bags from one plane to the other in so short a time.
‘That, Mr Acland,’ I was told, ‘Is our problem, not yours.’
He was right of course and there my bags were at Heathrow not even on the carousel but all lined up ready to be collected.

The most notable aspects of the twenty four hour journey were that behind my ears hurt from the elastic of my mask and I couldn’t hear because I hadn’t been able to recharge the rechargeable batteries in my hearing aids.

Immigration at Heathrow was calm and efficient and, having presented my documents and having explained to the immigration officer that I couldn’t hear, he looked at everything, typed something into his computer, gave me a thumbs up sign and waved me through. Within an hour from the plane landing I was in a car on my way home.

It is spring. The sun shines. Ive unpacked. I’ve done some sweeping of leaves in the garden and have tied up a clematis. I’ve done some cooking. My covid test kit arrived and I’ve sent off my day 2 swab, back of throat and up a nostril same swab turned five times. And I’ve had the result – negative. How good it is that a negative result can be so positive. I will do a day five test tomorrow and may well be out of isolation by the weekend. The time in New Zealand was wonderful and it is wonderful to be home.