GRAPEVINE No 124 Autumn 2021 THE MAGAZINE OF THE DIOCESE OF BRECHIN Bishop Andrew writes: A question that arises for us as Christians, even in this Greetings to all in the Diocese of Brechin – we are now in pandemic, is how we respond a time of the present pandemic when restrictions are being to the environmental crisis. greatly eased and the possibility of a return to something We are working to be visible much more like life ‘before the pandemic’ is looking possible signs of God’s love – and that for Scotland and her churches. This is a time of great hope work can extend to our own – and also a time of great anxiety for many people. The impact on the environment past eighteen months or so have been a time of taking and our advocacy for great care to avoid contact with people from other environmental action. The SEC has passed motions households, of wearing face coverings in most places calling for us to be net carbon outwith our homes and avoiding travel within Scotland and zero by 2030 – this will involve certainly to other countries. The restrictions to normal life changes in how we travel, that we (and so many other people in the world) have lived heat our churches and houses through have allowed a programme of vaccination to take and how we consume place. That programme, in this country anyway, has brought products and materials. And us to this time of increasing freedom. But the fear and we can also raise an anxiety that many people have is very real and very awareness of how all society, reasonable. What if the vaccine isn’t fully effective for me? people of faith or not, can be What if the virus develops a new variant that defeats other taking similar action. God’s protections? Can it actually be safe to stop taking all those love is for the whole world, for precautions? all creation. Much more work is needed as the church (and Our church life has followed And why have we done the wider world) take on this this same pattern. Extreme this? Why have we continued challenge to hold back climate lockdown, careful opening, to gather online, or with change but being careful and lockdown returning again – restrictions in place for conscious of our use of then re-opening and a steady ‘in-person’ worship? I would resources, focusing on process of relaxing offer that our church greener ways of living: those restrictions. All of our communities are all living can be a sign of that divine churches that have opened signs of God’s love for the love. have done exceptionally well world. We might look to a at applying mitigations, casual observer like a number Please stay safe and well carefully communicating how of Victorian (or thereabouts) as we move through this latest safe and meaningful their buildings where people gather season of this pandemic. worship will be, keeping online each week to sing and pray presence to keep all included and worship – but the faith Bless you all. and making sure everyone that built those buildings, the remains connected. It has faith that created the been a long, long journey for worshipping community in all of church communities, and each place, the faith that has there are restrictions still in supported and guided all place (and with the potential those people through this time to increase if a virus outbreak of pandemic – that faith, on occurs) – but all are doing display for all to see, is a sign Andrew, well. of God’s love for this world. Bishop of Brechin 1 The Reverend David Shepherd, R.I.P. The Reverend David Shepherd, As a Rector, David received the very interesting and well-illustrated who died on the twenty-seventh of same commission as that given to books for the Sunday School. In March, was one of the diminishing Saint Peter – ‘Feed my lambs, 2018, he published the first of number of Scottish clergy to serve tend my shearlings, tend my three volumes of autobiography, their whole ministry in the same sheep’. entitled “Shepherd’s Delight”. He diocese. left the other two volumes almost During his Rectorship, the ready to go to print. He was born in Bolton-le-Sands Baptismal Register showed no in 1942. On leaving Abottsholme less than eight hundred and fifty David’s letters are never likely School, he spent three years at lambs nurtured and in their to be forgotten, and would on Saint John’s College, Durham, baptism given grace to live occasion have been better written graduating in 1965. He later Christian lives. on asbestos paper. The seven added an M.A., and then an M.Litt. bishops under whom he served for a thesis on the Jugoslav Royal And the shearlings, those young were not exempt from what he Family. After a gap year in the and sometimes wayward euphemistically described as Probation Service, he joined members of the flock. In the “constructive criticism”. Edinburgh Theological College, halcyon days of the sixties at Saint where the Principal was Kenneth Paul’s Cathedral, his Sixty-Nine In 1986, he married Patricia, Woollcombe, later Bishop of Club had to be restricted to a who was a constant, yet Oxford. hundred and fifty members unobtrusive, support and mainstay David arrived in Dundee in the meeting regularly in the halls. He throughout his ministry. spent six fruitful years as Chaplain Diocese of Brechin in 1968 to Sadly his last few years were serve a title as curate of Saint to Anglican Students at Dundee University, some of whom stayed dogged by a progressively Paul’s Cathedral, Dundee. Several disabling cancer, through which of his maternal forebears had in contact for the rest of his life. Four ordinands came from those he was devotedly nursed by ministered in the Diocese, Patricia. including a bishop, a dean and a years. former Provost of Saint Paul’s. He Then – ‘Feed my sheep’. The He retired on Easter Day 2020 remained at the Cathedral for ordinary, routine day-to-day care after forty years at Saint Mary eleven years, during which he of the flock – visiting, preaching, Magdalene’s. exercised a remarkable ministry teaching, comforting and He was seventy-eight years old amongst young people both in the ministering to them to the end. at the time of his death and had Cathedral and in his Chaplaincy to Some thirteen hundred funerals, been a priest for more than fifty Anglican students in the University nearly all of them loved by their years. He leaves a wide circle of of Dundee. shepherd and loving in return. grateful Episcopalians. In June 1979, he was appointed Beyond Saint Mary Bishop Ted Luscombe as Rector of Saint Mary Magdalene’s, David’s hospital Magdalene’s in the city of Dundee. chaplaincy was exemplary. His This was a large building that had sixteen years as Chairman of formerly been a Catholic Apostolic Saint Serf’s Retirement Home saw Church. In 1954, an Episcopalian a major extension completed, the congregation had moved from books balanced and a facility of Hawkhill, at one time reputed to be which the Church was proud. He the most over-crowded area in was of great assistance in Europe. Over the years the Chaplaincy to the Burma Star building had become rather forlorn Association. and a recommendation was made that it should be closed. His He had a particular interest in appointment was an act of faith. lists and tables and would have made a good statistician. The I remember clearly the evening beginning of Advent always saw of his Institution. The church was him producing for the ensuing dark and dismal, and many of the year a table of lessons, readers, lights were not working. Under hymns and music. Although not David’s guidance, the building was musical himself, he appreciated transformed into a place of beauty good music and loved listening to – including the replacement of the the Mahler symphonies and windows with stained glass. But classical liturgical music. important as that was, the building was not the church, but the His principal recreation was in people, and it was to their care writing detective novels – fifteen of that he was being instituted. them altogether. He produced four 2 A New Chapter at St Paul’s Cathedral The Very Rev’d Elizabeth Thomson was instituted Witney: a bicycle. Witney is a market town on the as Rector and installed as Provost of St Paul’s edge of the Cotswolds, well on the edge so that Cathedral on Saturday, 19 June. Here she shares nothing is too steep. I was the team vicar of four thoughts on how she has arrived here. churches, one large, two small, one tiny, no more than five miles apart. So I cycled. I stopped in Derby, and When I arrived in Derby several years ago, and had now in Dundee with good safe cycle paths I have to write something about myself for the cathedral been cycling again (though I would like to note that website, I wrote that I had come ‘from a team parish in here everything is too steep). Cycling is great for Witney and an earlier curacy in Somerset; originally noticing things about the place where you are, the from Edinburgh, she is gradually working her way small details, the scents and sounds; for trying a north.’ It was true, for here I am three hundred miles different route or just exploring. You need a sense of further north, in Dundee in the Diocese of Brechin; place, I think, for ministry, and it’s very difficult to keep and, once again, I have been invited to write that alive if you’re a minister in a car or a minister something about myself.