Storyteller's World

My Concise Oxford English Dictionary has a wonderful appendix of terms for groups of animals etc. Some of them for things you've never heard of or would never conceive of in a thousand years (a fling of dunlins?!) But though they suggest a superfluity of nuns (somewhat unfairly, since you can never find one when you need one) there's no collective noun listed for a group of clergy. A convocation? A disagreement? And so we are left with uncertainty even about what to call ourselves.

This happened recently with the local Ministers' Fraternal, the ecumenical clergy group which meets about once a quarter. When Diana, the newest member, turned up, it finally became impossible not to recognise the absurdity of calling ourselves a fraternal when I was the only male. I think I would have accepted the Ministers' Sorority, just to see how I felt, but they weren't having any of it. Likewise the Ecumenical Chapter was objected to (by some who were not there), on the grounds that it sounded too Anglican and/or Establishment. (I didn't like to mention that it was Hell's Angels I'd actually had in mind.) Calling ourselves by a different acronym each time we met was an attractive option. We could be MEMO one month (Marston Ecumenical Ministers Oh, something beginning with O), and the next time SLIM (Servant Leaders In Marston). Well, that debate is still ongoing.

In the mean time, we had a good old-fashioned Chapter meeting today. Just the Anglicans. Brothers and sisters. God be thanked for words that don't divide us by gender, at least.