Dear Internet

Mr Grenville-Stubbs here again. It has been a while since I wrote on Nick’s blog and the main reason for that is that he has been blocking what I wanted to write. In the end I told him that by not allowing me to write he might be stifling God’s Spirit. He relented on the condition that he could add a ‘PS’ at the end. So here goes...

I have been getting more and more irritated by people in our church who insist on criticising me behind my back. My friend, Mr Capel, told me that Mrs Higginbotham has been complaining to everyone about me and my wandering hands (it’s all explained here).

Mr Baumgarten has apparently been working on an amendment to the Church Constitution to limit the number of ‘points of order’ that one person can raise at a Church Meeting – apparently I do this too frequently and he says that everyone is fed up with me. I sense that I will be making a few more points of order if that ever comes to a Church Meeting.

Mrs Barnard has apparently been speaking to the Minister about how negative I am about other people and told him that I am the reason she has stopped coming to Church Meetings.

Me?

Negative?

I can’t believe she had the nerve to say that – especially given that she has not attended the last three Church Meetings and has never spoken up in one of them when she was there!

And then there is Mr Bolder, who is taking a preaching course, and who got upset with me when I told him that the pews were not comfortable enough for the length of his boring sermons. I was just telling him the truth – if nobody tells him he won’t learn.

And Mr Davenport apparently has been grumbling about the way I dealt with his questioning the appropriateness of a lack of footwear in church (you can read about it here).

These people just don’t understand me. Their negativity and critical attitude is undermining and discouraging (not that I am going to give up). When we are having coffee after a service I can see some of them glancing in my direction as they talk and when I go up to them it’s as if they weren’t talking about anything, or it’s clear that they have just changed the subject.

This cannot go on. I went to see our Minister, Rev Philip Inneck-Tucker. I told him what was happening and about all of the bad attitudes that existed in the church. None of them have ever spoken to me directly about these things they have just gossiped about it between themselves and it’s got to stop. I said that he needed to preach against it, and if he wouldn’t then I would stand up in a Church Meeting and name these people publicly.

I also told him that Jesus had a lot to say about this and pointed him to Matthew 7:1-5. Rev Phil just looked at me and asked if I had had my eyes checked recently. I think he’s losing the plot – this is not about my eyesight, it’s about how everyone else is so negative and unkind. He then told me that he would not allow me to speak about it in the Church Meeting, so since I am being censored in the Church Meeting I have been lobbying Nick to let me write about it on his blog.

And now I have done so I feel better. At least now you know how awful everyone else is.

Yours faithfully

Mr QR Grenville-Stubbs

PS (from Nick): it seems that Mr Grenville-Stubbs does not have a sense of irony.

PPS (from Nick): I have changed the names of those mentioned by Mr Grenville-Stubbs in order to try to preserve a modicum of respect for them, however as he had already named Mrs Higginbotham I did not feel it made sense to change her name.

Be blessed, be a blessing