Hugh's story

They say familiarity breeds contempt, but that’s too blunt a claim. Familiarity can also nurture love and nuance and wisdom. In the life of the regular churchgoer, a growing and reinforced familiarity with scripture and liturgy can foster depth and thoughtfulness, which – goes the theory – find an ever deeper expression in the world beyond the church...

But it can’t be denied that such familiarity can also dull and distort. My friend, the priest John Rowe, reflecting on what he thought to be the too frequent celebration of the Eucharist, spoke of ‘trivialisation by repetition’ and lamented the gap so often found between church life and praxis.
 
In over three decades in which I frequently celebrated the Eucharist I was ever aware of the privilege. I was also aware of the risk that ought to accompany every celebration, for celebrant and participants. The words, the claims, the promises, the challenges. Yet how often it is a tamed, and taming, exchange. If asked if I’d presided at the Eucharist on such-and-such an occasion, I’d say ‘yes, and no one was hurt’. The aim was to point to its explosive potential. It is something I wrote about on my blog.
 
What can be done to counter the taming and domesticating effects of the life of the church on serious followers, laity and clergy alike? Conscientious clergy try hard with that, imaginatively seeking new ways to bring to life old and familiar formulas. But however hard they try, and however gifted they may be in the trying, the problem clandestinely remains: church life can dull senses, insulate the high voltage ‘current’ of the Gospel from those who wish, or need, to experience it, and become a tomb of sorts.
 
I was interested from the first moment Henry mentioned his musings on the idea of feral spirituality. It provided a ‘model’ – a metaphor I now think – for what had long fascinated me: how the Gospel might survive the church. ‘Feral’ most often means to revert to an untamed state after escape from captivity or domestication. As with all metaphors and figures of speech, it can be pushed too far. Best to take from it what is helpful and see where it leads. 'Feral' does not necessarily mean leaving the church. It will more often involve being the church, differently.