Stanley Sye

STANLEY SYE

Let me tell you a story.

There was once a Baptist Minister who could not get rid of the bats in his chapel. The minister decided therefore to seek advice from the leaders of the other churches.

The Methodist Minister, who loved singing hymns suggested that the Baptist Minister should have a hymnalong since the bats cannot stand music.

The Roman Catholic priest suggested that the Baptist Minister should fill the chapel with incense since bats could not stand the smell of it.

The Anglican priest suggested that the Baptist Minister should confirm all the bats. After all, that is what he had done to some people earlier, and those who were confirmed by the Bishop have not been seen since.

ooOOOoo

We may well smile at the Anglican approach but I get very angry at clergy who do not take Confirmation preparation seriously, since it is the best opportunity that the church will have of giving some Christian instruction.

For instance, I know a vicar who held only one class for his candidates, and that was a rehearsal the day before the bishop was due.

The following year, the same vicar decided to have three classes for Confirmation candidates. At the first, names, addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers of the candidates were recorded. The second class consisted of the vicar discussing some five chapters of a book he had previously given to the candidates. The only problem was that he had asked them to read a different five chapters before the lesson. The third and final lesson was a rehearsal for the service.

With such a casual approach to Christian instruction, I am not surprised that, like the bats, all the candidates were missing from church on the Sunday following their confirmation!

oooOOOooo

I recall preparing Stanley Sye for confirmation, way back in the 1970s, and his perseverance. Stanley was the Second Engineer on the Blue Funnel ship called the Autocylus. I gave him his first lesson when the ship was in the Port of Liverpool and I was chaplain to the port. His second lesson was given by Padre Geoffrey Shrives in Stanley's home port of Hong Kong. Padre Jimmy Wilson Hughes gave him his third lesson in Durban, South Africa. The fourth lesson was given by myself in Liverpool. Padre Eric Newman gave him his fifth lesson in Glasgow, and I completed the course in Liverpool with his sixth lesson. Over eighteen months had passed since he first came to me seeking confirmation. Four different chaplains of the Missions to Seafarers had been involved.

So I arranged for the Diocesan Bishop to administer the sacrament of Confirmation, at the Diocesan Office, which at one time had been the Mersey Missions to Seafarers headquarters. By sheer coincidence, there was an elderly priest at the service, about to commence his retirement. And of all the places in the world, he had commenced his ministry in Hong Kong!

I've never heard from Stanley since that day.

However, I was visiting the Mission to Seafarers chaplain, Wally Andrews, in 1986 in Hong Kong. He dashed into his office, apologising for his lateness. He had just baptised a seafarer on board his ship before it sailed. That seafarer had been influenced by a person called Stanley Sye. I have often wondered whether it was the same Stanley Sye that I had helped to prepare for confirmation in 1974.

Who knows?