Visit to Alma Mater

It's been an age since I posted a blog - sorry, but there's a lot more coming in the near future. I'm posting this one because I want space to reflect on a recent experience and share the ramblings of my disorganised brain with anyone foolish enough to connect.

As retirement approaches - gradually - I find increasingly I want to connect with significant points in my past. Every year for the last decade or so I have thought of going to the college where I trained to be a minister for the College Conference - a day-long affair involving news, catching up, food, some theological input and trying to avoid the painful realisation that we are all looking rather old these days. Every year I have also found a good excuse not to go, but this year I decided that if I didn't do it now it probably wouldn't happen, so climbed aboard Bromwyn (my BMW K75 RT Ultima) at 6 a.m. for the 110 mile journey down the M1, through central London and across the river to reach South Norwood, where the college is based.

 The relatively grand entrance is new - when I was last there these flats were not built, and a petrol station occupied the site. So much for filling the fuel tank up here ready for the return trip.
The journey took a jaw-dropping 3 hours 15 minutes. By 7 a.m. the M1 in Buckinghamshire was very full of traffic, but this was as nothing compared to hitting the North Circular at 8 a.m. when everything literally ground to a halt. The choice when you come off the M1 is between going about 180 degrees round the North / South Circular or blasting a path through the middle of London via the A5, Marble Arch, Hyde Park Corner and Vauxhall Bridge, then finding a way through Brixton to pick up the A215 to Crystal Palace and South Norwood. By now the heat was sweltering and though it was fun riding a bike down Park Lane, it was just a relentless grind after that. Amazingly I didn't collide with anything. In places you can use the bus lanes on a motor bike, but not in all of them, so the rest of the time I either learned to be patient, or else followed the kamikaze tactics of other bikers and simply rode aggressively down the wrong side of the road hoping that either oncoming traffic would make space, or if it was a London bus heading straight for me that there would be some space to pull in somewhere in the traffic queue. This was hairy stuff, but it seems it's what everyone expects bikers to do, so I told Bromwyn to be brave and trust me. Still the journey took well over three hours, with no stops. Question was would going back be any easier, and would the conference be worth it?

The new car park - this was just grass when I was there, but the expansion of the college community has clearly necessitated the substitution of some tarmac for some turf.

How I always remember the entrance to what was, before it became a theological college, a large country mansion. The first time I set eyes on this place as a youngster of about 18 I knew I wanted to come here. It took me another 7 years before I was accepted as a ministerial student, but the waiting was worth it to belong and be allowed to prepare for ministry here.

Now this I completely approve of - the increased car parking includes a motorcycle bay, so Bromwyn (left) had some company for the day.

The wonderful front elevation from the lawn - this was always a great sight. By this time, in the warm June sunshine, I was so glad I had come. The rigours of the journey forgotten, some caffeine revitalising my spirits, and a great flood of very happy memories.
I spent 4 academic years here, and another after I returned from a year-long placement in Dallas, Texas, working for the college and the then principal whilst looking for a church that would have me. I loved almost every minute, made some wonderful friends, and collected a very useful tool kit to equip me for my calling. Wherever I looked I could recall only happy memories, including bringing our first child here just after she was born at the end of my third year. I sat with my coffee and simply allowed the warmth of nostalgia to wash over me.

 This is the chapel - scene of so many interesting experiences, including weekly sermon class, where a student would preach to the whole college community, after which everyone would adjourn to the lecture theatre to criticise it. I was fortunate - they were very kind and gentle with me, a courtesy not afforded every student - especially those who had an elevated opinion of themselves!

Here the main sessions of the day took place at this year's conference - three mainly academic papers on the nature of the persons of the trinity - as well as the news of college and the "in memoriam" slots. The latter caused a certain amount of sadness as I had known the first two names on the list of those members of conference who had died - the first being the minister of the first church we went to when we moved to Croydon in 1980.

It was interesting to listen to the talks / lectures, which were largely academic in nature. On one level it had been a while since I had been exposed to good evangelical scholarship, so it was good to soak up some biblically-based thinking of an academic nature; the third talk on the Holy Spirit was I thought especially well put together. 

At the same time I couldn't help feeling that I had moved on from here, and that whilst it was intellectually stimulating and challenging, and without doubt helpful at various points, it was also somewhat too esoteric, with too many conclusions based on assumptions that were smuggled in unannounced, or perhaps taken for granted because after all this is an evangelical college so everyone accepts the authority of the Bible without asking many uncomfortable questions. Perhaps it's just me that has moved away from this ideologically attractive sanctuary, and perhaps I have sold my birthright, but I now work in an environment where one has to argue for the trustworthiness of what the Bible says before expanding on it, and if I'm honest I feel more comfortable where I am now than where I might have been in the early 1980's.

I had two other reservations; firstly whilst all the talks were well researched, put together and presented, I couldn't help but feel that the whole 50-minute paper could have been summarised in two sentences with no real loss of value. Secondly, that when this college was founded it was intended to teach often uneducated people to communicate the love of God and the message of Jesus with uneducated people many of who would not be able to read or write and bring them to faith and help them grow as followers of Jesus. I couldn't help wondering whether something of this original vision had been lost somewhere.

This plaque stands just inside the doorway. I passed it every day, and it was a perennial reminder of my life's calling and the reason I was a student at this place I loved so much.

The main entrance hall, with the stained glass window with a picture of a hand holding a cross with the motto of the college - et teneo et teneor - I both hold and am held, as well as a bust of the founder, who was dead before he reached my age but achieved far far more. We used to hold Christmas concerts in here with a real fire in the fireplace and enjoyed many scintillating performances from students and staff. More wonderful happy memories.

The return journey?
Even worse - three hours to Watford Gap where I decided it was dinner time, before completing the ride back to Leicester.
Was I glad I went? Yes - wouldn't have missed seeing the place and soaking up that atmosphere again for the world. Will I go to another conference? Maybe, but possibly not, especially when my home is another 250 miles further away, as it will be in a few years.