Looking back over the past decade

Tracy Niven
Wednesday 1 September 2021

Greetings,

Today is my tenth anniversary as Chaplain to the University.  On Thursday 1 September 2011 I drove to St Andrews from St Monans where I was still living, and met the Chaplaincy secretaries Tracy and Emma, with Jamie Walker, my predecessor, who spent a week helping me understand the role I had begun.  Tracy, I am glad to say, is still an important part of what we do, as the Senior Chaplaincy Secretary.

Those first weeks are a bit of a blur now, as I got to grips with working in an office, having a secretarial team, an iPhone, an online calendar, a boss (the Proctor), two chapels, an honorary team and the many and varied expectations of others.  I found myself on the University Teaching and Research Ethics Committee, the Graduation Working Group and the Service Directors Group – none of which I really understood.  In those first days I remember speaking at wardens training about the Chaplaincy aware that half of them knew what my job was better than I did.  And I also remember speaking about the Chaplaincy at the same staff induction event at which I was being inducted.

Anyway, it all quickly settled down, and after a year, by the time things were happening for a second time, I had developed the habits and routines which most humans do – and which are probably rather hard to change.  And I realised, in time, that I loved being Chaplain – the interactions with students in fascinating years of transition and growth, and the deepening encounters with staff some of whom I’ve now known for a decade.

So: what does a chaplain do in a decade?  Well, for those of you who like numbers, here are a few.

I’ve conducted 31 baptisms (18 of infants, 13 of adults), six services of confirmation, and two naming ceremonies.  I’ve married 255 couples (from Dawn Slaughter and Guillaume Grall on 11 September 2011 to Leigh Slaven and Tommy Taylor four days ago).  I’ve taken 30 funerals, including six students.  I’ve conducted 22 memorial services, roughly half of staff members, and half of students.  I’ve led Evensong 71 times, preached 166 sermons (from Breakfast to Go on 18 September 2011 to Dum Spiro Spero – While I breathe, I hope, on 25 May this year), and written exactly 200 texts for the annual Advent Calendar.

Away from worship, I’ve held 15 Chaplain’s Conversations (from Anne Mullen to the late Sarah Broadie), led 48 gatherings of Turning Pages (staff discussion group), 50 meetings of the Ministry Discernment Group, and about 200 sessions of Thinking Allowed (student discussion group).  I’ve played 39 golf matches in University competitions, perhaps the greatest moment of glory winning the School of Medicine annual putting competition over the Himalayas.

It’s just as well I’m on the Graduation Working Group.  I’ve attended 93 ceremonies, missing only two – once when the Dalai Lama was speaking at the Caird Hall in Dundee at the same time, and once for an emergency pastoral issue.

In my first few weeks I wondered if any students or members of staff would ever ask to see me.  I needn’t have worried.  I’ve had 3330 appointments over the ten years, 2327 with students and 1003 with members of staff, listening, supporting, offering reflection, sometimes in times of deep distress, occasionally celebrating with great joy.

And I have sent 55,336 emails.

But Chaplaincy, if it means anything, means working with others.  Over this ten years it’s been the most wonderful privilege to share in leading services with fabulous musicians not least the members of the chapel choirs, and in recent years to share in all the work of the Chaplaincy with Sam.  In interfaith work I have been impressed again and again by students willing to encounter and learn from people of different convictions.  I’ve discovered so much about my own pastoral practice from sharing with colleagues in Student Services and Occupational Health.  The honorary chaplains have given hugely in ideas, commitment and generosity.  I’ve been encouraged by students to do more to relate the climate crisis and other environmental issues to faith.  There are countless others who have enabled the Chaplaincy to serve – not least Maya welcoming endless groups of students and staff into our home.

Certain events stand out in my memory.  The 600th Anniversary celebrations, in which I had to write a sermon in case Rowan Williams’ sleeper was delayed more than two hours (it wasn’t).  May Dips – dipping in the North Sea, then delivering coffee to shivering students.  My first time in the Dissection Room with first-year medics encountering their “silent teachers” – donated bodies.  The London Alumni Carol Services at St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and Westminster Central Hall.  Coming out of the Hebs Block with a visiting preacher one Raisin Sunday to the sight of a naked student racing his way around the quad.  The first Holocaust Memorial Vigil, on a freezing night on Lower College Lawn.  Cooking breakfast with Maya my wife for thirty ravenous chapel choir members en route to an early graduation service.  The BMS fire and its aftermath, spending the following day listening to colleagues whose research had gone up in smoke – and still listening.  Two different gatherings in the chapel when someone was missing – Oliver Smith and Duncan Sim.  Dancing with the Torah in Mansefield.  Coronavirus – a service of Compline on Zoom, candles lit in many households, as we wondered if the Prime Minister would live through the night.  The final service in May this year, when a choir sang together for the first time in over a year – If ye love me by Tallis.

How about some awards?
Favourite stained glass image in St Salvator’s Chapel?  Jesus calming the storm.
Best student musical production?  The Drowsy Chaperone.
Most memorable graduation address?  Bill Tooman reminding the brand new graduates of the importance of preparing to die.
Favourite wedding I conducted?  Has to be on the rooftop of a Bangalore hotel.
Finest sermon heard?  The late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, to Jewish students in the Boardroom of the Gateway Building.
Most moving music at a wedding?  A schoolgirl singing Sting’s Fields of Gold.
Most memorable (and nerve-wracking) dinner?  In the Principal’s dining-room with other candidates for the job of Chaplain and the interview panel.

Most brilliant music in online worship?  St Salvator’s Chapel Choir singing Hosanna to the Son of David by Thomas Weelkes, recorded in 22 different homes.

What have I been up to as Chaplain?  Well, when I was ordained, I said I do to this question: Do you engage…  faithfully, diligently, and cheerfully to discharge the duties of your ministry, seeking in all things the advancement of the Kingdom of God?  I suppose I interpret “the advancement of the Kingdom of God” as, in part, the sharing of the values by which Jesus lived, gathered people around him, and faced the powers of his time.  These values include love, compassion, generosity, honesty, peace-making and justice.  And I suppose that I have tried to do that in faithful listening to the lives of students and staff; compassionate companionship with people in their studies and their work, their beliefs and ways of thinking usually different from mine; in imaginative re-telling of the gospel in this particular context; and in praying for students, for colleagues and for all in need.  It’s been a wonderful ten years.  But no time for too much nostalgia – meetings and pastoral care today, new staff inductions tomorrow, and a sermon to write for the new academic year beginning this weekend, entitled The ends of the earth.

Here is the callow me in St Leonard’s Chapel in my first year (picture by Gayle McIntyre):

And a slightly more wrinkled chaplain, in his tenth year…

Thanks for being part of this decade of my life.

Yours,
Donald.

Share this story


Leave a reply

By using this form you agree with the storage and handling of your data by this website.