Friday, July 27, 2007

Lessons from holy joes

Tuesday night was a classic example of what happens when you listen to fears more than to friends…Ever since agreeing to speak to holy joe’s, several months ago, I’d been building it up my mind, till it towered huge and black my diary…a gathering of dozens of cool people steeped in cynicism over all things churchy, who would with incisive wit and withering scorn demolish whatever I cared to put before them.
Never mind the fact that I knew at least 3 members of the group to be personally charming, kind hearted and not bent on the destruction of humanity...the rest of them would, I was certain, be deeply, deeply scary.
Except of course that they weren’t.
Cool, yes. Scary, no.

I maybe should have known when we went down the stairs to the wonderful space where they currently meet. The chapel is simply crying to be used for alt worship, and indeed
the whole format was infinitely less alarming than the holy joes at Greenbelt scenario which had fuelled my fears…but by the time I realised this, it was rather too late for me to jettison my nervously prepared material and just talk.
So, poor loves, they experienced the curate taking a headlong dash through material that was far more formal than it needed to be – and emerging on the other side, white and shaking, but wondering what all the fuss had been about, and wishing I could do it again properly.
Bother.
However, one huge good came out of this part of the evening in that Michael, marooned in London thanks to those infamous floods, nobly trekked across town to be there, - thus enabling me to introduce him to Steve, as I’d hoped to for a good while now.
I think their conversation, and those which happened generally around the table afterwards probably justified the damp squib (or should that be squid- habitually damp, after all?) that was my talk…And I’m very glad to have discovered that, as so often, I’d managed to make anightmare mountain out of a benevolent…(not molehill, no steve, definitely not a molehill) but a much more benign landscape than I’d imagined.
Sorry M. Sorry C. I really should have believed you!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Ah. Live and learn, mais non?

liz crumlish said...

Kathryn,
Michael has already blogged and said how good you were. Believe it - I did!

Cal said...

I'm cool, I'm cool....yay!

But rest assured my dear your talk was in no way a damp squib - it was interesting and insightful and challenging. I just felt really bad that we didn't pick up on more of the wonderful things you said but instead ran away down roads and tangents in the discussion afterwards....but alas that is the HJs way. Hope you weren't offended.

Kathryn said...

Course I wasn't offended, Cal...I just felt I'd pitched it wrong and been rather a disappointment. But I loved the chance to talk afterwards...and everyone was just lovely. Live and learn, indeed

steve said...

sorry meant to respond earlier but a little distracted at the moment

nope it wasn't pitched wrong ... there is no such thing at holy joes ... it was pitched just right and they pick at the bits they wanna pick at

just because you didn't think it would go that way you can't stop it so why fight it

and i agree it was very good to meet michael and i am sure we will pick up where we left off sometime soon ...so thanks for handing him over i will enjoy him :)

we will be in touch for a return visit ... and there is no higher accolade we can bestow ... if we think you suck you don't get to return ... we don't review we just rebook :)

thanks for joining in