Five years Canon Chancellor - Reflection by Canon Ellen

With all that’s going on at the moment I hadn’t realised that the 5th anniversary of my installation as Canon Chancellor was on June 5. I suspect time is doing peculiar things to all of our heads and hearts at the moment. So, I shouldn’t be surprised that this nearly passed me by. But, there it was in my Facebook memories with a feast of photos and a set of wonderful comments.

So much has happened in the last 5 years both in my personal life and in the life of the Cathedral – too much to summarise in a short blog post. So, I am not even going to try to do that. But, I will say that in the midst of change and uncertainty, joys and triumphs, shifts and flux, the Cathedral remains a constant comfort and challenge. Whatever the Cathedral is (and I would love to hear what you think the cathedral is because I am struggling to sum that up), for me it is not about individuals, worship styles, personnel, what’s on the menu in the Welsford, the events in the Well or any one thing at all. It is all those things ordinary things and so much more... It seems to be that what has marked out the last 5 years has been that the Cathedral, as Dean Sue has inspired us to imagine, is a place of encounter.
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The cathedral is a place where real life happens – and it is also a place where a taste of heaven – the Kingdom of God to come – happens. In the everyday and in the extra-ordinary. The mundane and the exceptional exist in almost effortless conversation in our Cathedral. I meet Jesus every day at the Cathedral, I am touched by the glory of the generosity of the Holy Spirit and the tenderness of God. This is the everyday stuff of our cathedral, I don’t expect it but it just happens.   

I hear the justice of God proclaimed in every food parcel offered by Micah, I see love of Jesus shared in our welcome of guests, the gentle call of the Holy Spirit as we dare to whisper ‘glory’ in our worship. I see the wrestling of our humanity in our disagreements and the challenges we face together. And experience something of the incomprehensible enormity of God in the architecture.

It’s not always been easy (well life isn’t always easy is it!) but these past five Cathedral years have been magnificent and way beyond anything of my imagining. I am grateful for every encounter, every brick, every note heard and every moment being Canon Chancellor at our Liverpool Cathedral.

Canon Ellen

While you're here:
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