I am vicar, hear me roar :-)

Today has been Sunday all day, with the usual blend of highs and lows that this entails in any vicarly life...
Among the highs was a very good first ordained sermon from the Herring of Christ (TM) (and the happy realisation that I'm going to be working with said Herring for a minimum of 3 years - something which makes me feel very smiley both for myself and for the parishes) and a tiny moment, that will have been invisible to anyone but me.As we processed out from the 9.30 Eucharist at Church in the Valley I realised that I was concluding the procession because I had presided, while immediately in front of me were two male colleagues, one our curate, one my associate, who had Deaconed for me...and it hit me for a moment how far we have come as women ordained in the Church of England. We've a goodly way yet to travel, but for a moment or two this morning I looked back at the way we've come, and celebrated.
Lows were to do with my lifelong desire to please all the people all the time, which often leads to my finding myself in places I would never have chosen to stand. So this afternoon church in the valley was filled with all sorts of military types, resplendent in uniform and medals, for a service to lay up the standard of the local Royal British Legion branch. Only my own disorganisation has prevented my becoming a paid up member of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship - but on the other hand, the gentlemen of the Legion whom I've encountered locally (in particular at funerals) have been unfailingly charming and delightful - so despite my reservations, in many ways it was a privilege to host the service.
I did, though, baulk somewhat at the insistence that, along with all forces clergy of whatever persuasion, I should be branded "Padre" for the afternoon.
Despite my catholic leanings, I've mostly resisted being called "Mother" thus far...so to find myself an honorary father seemed, in all honesty, a bridge too far.
All part of the rich tapestry of parish life, I guess...

MADUganda

Once upon a time, when I was a curate, The Dufflepud and his friends spent one evening at Youth Club planning a dream trip to Madagascar. They were all Explorer Scouts at the time, and as they talked the dream began to seem possible as part of a challenge known as the Explorer Belt.
Lots of conversations later, the whole thing foundered because that little core group were so keen to include the Dufflepud, but thanks to his August birthday, he would not have been 16 in time for the expedition to take place.
A year later, though, the scheme surfaced again...This time it was to include Explorers and other Scouty types from across the south west of England, and in no time the Dufflepud was signed up, together with that little group of friends. They started planning, fund-raising, working at horrible hamburger joints with large yellow logos, and the months ticked away.
Then suddenly Madagascar, which had been conspicuous by its absence from international news for decades, hit the headlines with all sorts of political unrest following an election. Suddenly it was on the FCO's list of countries unsafe for inessential journeys. The Scout association announced that they could not countenance a trip and insurers refused to cover it. Disaster.
We felt terrible. After all, if the Dufflepud had been only 2 weeks older, the whole expedition might have taken place last summer, before the trouble began.
Reprieve!
The expedition leaders spent the best part of a week phoning, emailing, making arrangements in all directions and lo, the expedition has a new destination..Uganda (renamed in true colonial style) MADUganda.
The essential elements of the "Explorer Belt" - a 10 day trek in the bush in small groups (3 UK and 2 Ugandan Explorers) remain intact. The original plan to spend time working in an orphanage has had to be jettisoned, but instead there will be white water rafting down the Nile, an opportunity to straddle the Equator, and (this is where I get seriously jealous) 5 days on safari in the Masai Mara in Kenya.
I would post his sister's reaction to this, but we have just agreed that this is a clean blog, with no carbon emmissions...so I can't.
What I can say is that, even after despatching 2 other children on gap years abroad, to destinations that they had arranged themselves and about which I knew pretty much nothing, it's somehow even more alarming to have signed all the detailed consent forms that are part of a highly organised Scouting expedition. I have agreed to all sorts of sensible responses in all sorts of continencies that I devoutly hope are most unlikely contingencies. Now I'm watching him reconsider his packing, which is demonstrating the Scouting motto "be prepared" to a ridiculous extent, and trying not to imagine situations in which he might actually need all those first aid essentials...
He's only away for 28 days, he'll be with good (and pretty sensible) friends (indeed, in many ways he's pretty sensible himself) and he's part of a highly organised and well-led expedition....and I Still Don't Like It.
Normal service will be resumed once I've stopped jittering.

Children - for a change!

This past weekend was busy, exciting, challenging - and other things too....and as I reflected wearily last night I realised that almost every aspect had something to do with children.

It started with Saturday's Children for a Change festival at Gloucester Cathedral. Once upon a time, these festivals were an almost annual event, an eagerly anticipated date on the calendar, which was worth organising holidays around. I have very vivid memories of my own children engaging in a huge variety of wonderful activities to which they could never have had access in our small Cotswold village, of the excitement for all of us as we realised that we were involved in such a huge and creative diocesan family, of the sheer delight of watching the Cathedral turned upside down by invasions of under 11s...For a long time after one such festival, family visits to the Cathedral included a trip to one particular corner of the north aisle that, we swore, still sparkled quietly, thanks to a liberal application of glitter glue after I was let loose with a craft station of my own.

That was in the early to mid 90s, rather a long time ago now.I don't know why there was such a hiatus in the festivals (though I'd be willing to guess it might have something to do with funding) but Children for a Change was well worth waiting for. As we gathered by the statue of Robert Raikes in Gloucester Park, it didn't feel as if the turnout was particularly splendid, but once we began marching through the streets of Gloucester we realised just how many churches were represented..a long line that spanned a couple of blocks. Once we reached the Cathedral, it took ages to get us all through the doors...and I began to realise just how many were actually there. To see the nave cleared of chairs but packed with people was quite stunning. Such a fabulous space...so well used.
The Psalm drummers launched us into a really great day (do you think there's a market for "praise aerobics"?I'm sure I must have burned at least enough calories to balance the fabulous ice cream I enjoyed later)...A small but enthusiastic contingent from the valley church school explored everything from martial arts to climbing-walls, from handling snakes to poker work, with story telling, circus skills, wood turning (to produce fantastic spinning tops) and macrame along the way....We explored corners we would never normally have noticed...bumped into old friends around every corner and generally had a fantastic time. I was sad that it hadn't been possible to encourage more families to come along - those who feel that the church is remote and inaccessible might have been wonderfully surprised...but I'd tried, really I had, and those who did come clearly enjoyed themselves.

In time honoured fashion, Sunday followed Saturday, and this being the 1st Sunday in the month we offered All Age worship at Church in the Valley. As we were also welcoming the new curate I thought it would be good to talk a little about the distinctive calling of the diaconate, and we looked at different bits of the ordinal and tired to work out what that might mean for M, and for all of us in our own ministries too. At the end of the talk, he and I washed the feet of a gaggle of willing children, an exercise which I found incredibly moving and powerful.Those tiny pink toes...I wondered where those feet might travel, prayed that as a church we might do all in our power to welcome and to serve these little ones, and prayed with all my heart that they might always feel as happy and loved within the church as they do now. It was earlier in the talk, though, that things very nearly went off the rails. I'd been trying to get the children to explore what being a herald might mean and one in particular was heading cheerfully in the right direction, when a lady of a certain age, whose enthusiastic participation makes her a great ally on All Age Sundays, announced with great firmness
"No...a herring isn't a messenger. It's a kind of fish!"

So now you know. The curate will, from henceforth (until an alternative suggests itself) rejoice in the bloggy pseudonym
"The Herring of Christ".
What else are deacons for...?

The Herring of Christ (TM)is thoroughly good news for all sorts of reasons, - including the family he brings with him. Youngest herring (small fry?) is a very charming baby who all but undid me yesterday at Communion. I'd given the Sacrament to his mum, who was holding him to face me for a blessing. Youngest herring gave me his habitual beaming smile and reached out both hands to take a host from the patten.
Yes I know he didn't know what he was doing...(just as he didn't know what was being done on his behalf at baptism a month ago)...but still, he was reaching out towards Christ and I, a minister of Christ's Church, was constrained to gently push him away. It won't have hurt him, I'm sure - but it didn't do much for me.
My committment to inclusive church is total - and my sacramental theology has no problem with offering our Lord to the children who long for Him (not that I could stand it their way if I tried, really...)So why do I insist on toeing lines that pretty much nobody else present would even have noticed were there?
"Children for a Change", the theme of the diocesan festival, carries with it a dual message...that our focus should be on children for once, and that children can of themselves bring about change. Small Fry has certainly made me reflect once again on our attitude to the Sacrament...and pray and dream and long for change there.
"For everyone born a place at the table..."

Power made perfect in weakness - a homily for the Eucharist, Trinity 4B

As you’ll know, later this morning we’re going to gather at St Matthew’s to welcome M, as he begins his new ministry among us.
This time last week, I’d imagine he and his fellow ordinands were both excited and apprehensive as they prepared to leave for the Cathedral, for one of the most significant days of their life.
It was an amazing service, with 16 new deacons presented to a packed Cathedral whose ancient stones have seen such celebrations countless times before…As the choir sang Palestrina, friends and family gathered from the four corners of the Kingdom and beyond and we worshipped God together and together celebrated the news ministries that began that day.
So much joy, so much love…on my own ordination days, I know it felt like a foretaste of heaven.
But, of course, Monday always follows Sunday – and for M last Monday saw a return to his office, to what my grandmother used to describe as “old clothes and porridge”.

Paul had a similar experience, it seems - though his was far beyond our imaginings.
Even an ordination in Gloucester can’t really compare with the glories of heaven but the pattern is the same...An experience of intense and awe-inspiring holiness, and then.......woomph.........down to earth with a bump.
The glory departs, and we are left to deal with our own workaday selves…
And, for Paul, that workaday self was afflicted in some way…though we don’t know exactly how.
He’s as enigmatic about his “Thorn in the flesh” as he is about his description of his experience of heaven.
We’re left wondering whether it is a physical defect of some kind, or perhaps an individual who makes his life miserable..
We can’t be certain – but we do know that his appeals to God for relief were denied.
That must have been so hard…
Paul praying in all the fervour of his new found faith…and the NO

God told him, in as many words, that this was a gift...a way of ensuring that he, Paul, would not become a celebrity himself but would remember constantly his dependence on God.
"My power is made perfect in weakness"
I’m reminded of times when as I’ve shared in the last weeks of a long and painful illness, and seen a new quality, a shining joy, an unshakeable calm transform the final days. Freed from the need to prove themselves, freed from the need to be anything but vessels for God, those approaching death often demonstrate the truth of Paul’s words.
Once we have the courage to let go of our selves, of our ideas about who we should be, and how we might control our lives…why then we will see God acting in ways that amaze and delight.

That's the same agenda that we find in the gospel, as the twelve are sent out, empty-handed, to begin their ministry.
Last Sunday, the new deacons each left the Cathedral with a Bible…and their friends and families will surely have laden them with any number of stoles, prayer books and all sorts of holy accoutrements.
We seem to need a lot of equipment in order to share the gospel today…
We have vestments and Communion sets, PCCs and Deanery synods, Grade 1 listed churches and Father Willis organs.
We have so much…we ought to be the most effective missionaries of all time.
But somehow, it doesn’t quite work that way.
Instead of the tools enabling the work of ministry, they threaten to become almost a substitute for it.
Concern for ensuring that all the equipment is running smoothly almost obscures the reason for its existence.
Something for us to be wary of perhaps, as we enjoy our beautiful and beloved building…

What if we could set out like the 12, empty handed
“no staff, no bread, no belt, no money”
I can’t imagine that any PCC Treasurer would rejoice at that approach – but what if we had the courage to try it…
What if we dared to set out, wholly dependent on God.
Could you just go – trusting that God would supply your needs?
Could you?

On balance, I’m glad that M and his fellow Deacons have been showered with gifts, because of course those gifts speak of love and support…of friendships sustained and prayers remembered over many months and years…
But I know too that really, all he needs, all any of us need as we reach out in love and service as the Church of Christ, are those gifts that God has already given us.
Where we feel inadequate, we need not fear…for the words that Paul heard so reluctantly still hold good today,
It is as we become weak that God’s power can most truly be seen at work in us – so let us pray for the faith and the courage to let go, to stop pretending to a control that is at best illusory…
Let us pray that we will allow ourselves to be weak, so that, in us, God may be strong.

Evensong Sermon - Trinity 4B 1 Sam 15:1-31

‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

Don’t judge a book by its cover…
A well worn saying if ever there was one , though not one I always attend to….and I’d guess perhaps you don’t either
Just think about it. When scouring the library shelves for a good read, unless you’re looking for a specific title or author, the cover is probably a major factor in determining your choice. Publishers have established a particular style of cover for particular genres of fiction and are pretty successful in persuading us to choose titles from their stable, by presenting them to match others.
And quite often it works well…We find that we do enjoy books that look a bit like others we’ve enjoyed already…so we continue to judge a book by its cover because we find it can be a guide to what lies within.

We tend to try this with people too.
After all, we’re visual beings
We are drawn to people who match our idea of what is attractive…We’re programmed for this – because like every other species
we are interested in the survival of our genes, and so we seek partners who conform to our ideals.
Initially, visual impact is an important determinant.
I had an great aunt, the product of another age, who swore that you could tell a great deal about somebody by looking at their shoes.
I wanted to laugh it off, to protest that it was nonsense – but at the same time I had to admit that I tended to feel more at home with the vaguely hippy girls who wore open toed sandals and fair trade cotton….
Perhaps there was something in it after all.

And of course, sometimes external appearance CAN give us a clue as to what is going on inside.
Those girls in their fair trade cotton shared at least some of my own priorities…while Great Aunt Marion was right that people whose unfashionably serviceable shoes shone with loving care probably had her own attitude, forged during two world wars, to making things last, doing the best with limited resources.
So outward appearances can be useful…but they are never the whole story.

Think of our Old Testament reading. God sends the prophet Samuel to anoint one of Jesse’s boys to be the future king of Israel. But God withholds one vital piece of information in advance.
Which one?
There’s quite a range to choose from, so Samuel decides that all he can do is to assemble the boys, in the hope that God will make his will plain.
The first and eldest obviously impressed the prophet with his stature and good looks. It does help if a head of state is easy on the eye... But God announced that his was, and is, a different agenda.
“Do not look upon his appearance or on the height of his stature,
because I have rejected him; for the Lord sees not as human beings see; they look on
the outward appearance, but the Lord looks upon the heart.” [I Samuel 6: 7]
And it’s the same right down the line.
A succession of strong and attractive boys, - any of them fit to be anointed and crowned, - but God’s view is different views.
Not one of the seven is the one he has chosen, so Samuel is forced to ask if Jesse has held any in reserve.
Like Samuel, Jesse had assumed that a new king should display kingly characteristics…Maybe a sportsman? or a proven fighter?…It’s easy to imagine him surveying his fine family with pride. So many splendid lads. No wonder God had sent the prophet here…
The youngest son, though, was surely a no-hoper – not even an also ran.
He was so far down the birth order he wasn’t likely to inherit a thing, a boy whose status in the family was reflected in his job, - a hazardous one, protecting the family flock. If it came to the crunch, the boy David was expendable…of less value than the sheep he guarded. This lad hadn’t even been called in from the fields to stand with his brothers because Jesse assumed David couldn’t be considered.
But God had said to Samuel, “Do not just look on his appearance or on the height of his stature....for
the Lord does not see as mortals see;”
and so the boy was sent for.
You may have noticed that as David came into the room he was described in glowing terms:
“Now David was ruddy and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. And the Lord said, ‘Arise, Samuel, anoint him; for this is he.”
Now, what’s that all about?
Hadn’t God just told Samuel that appearance wasn’t important?
“Do not look upon his appearance or on the height of his stature.....for the Lord sees not as human beings see;
yet now David is being described in pin-up terms.
Actually, I think this has more to do with his subsequent career as King of Israel than with his actual appearance that day in Bethlehem.
David was to become the stuff of legends. He was the one who killed Goliath, the
Philistine warrior giant. the one who united the 12 tribes of Israel into one nation of Israel.
He was the one who expanded Israel’s boundaries and amassed great wealth for the kingdom.
So as his story was handed on through the generations, he was given heroic characteristics at every turn – including his appearance.
Of course, we know that he wasn’t a flawless hero…remember Uriah and Bathsheba…but to those who finally came to write the histories, he was certainly no ordinary man.

But all that lay ahead…Our reading presents us with a very ordinary boy, called to an extraordinary role.
Someone whose potential for good is clear only to God.
God’s vision, of course, is perfect. He sees the truth of who we are, the things we’d prefer to hide even from ourselves, - and the things that make other people remarkable and precious beyond our wildest imaginings.
Someone once said to Helen Keller, "What a pity you have no sight!" Helen Keller
replied, "Yes, but what a pity so many have sight but cannot see!"

Sometimes, it’s good to ask God to lend us his eyes…though borrowing them may have a lasting impact on every aspect of our relationships.
Let me tell you a story. – one which I may have shared with some of you before, but which has stayed with me as a lasting reminder of what can happen if we try, even for a moment, to see with God’s eyes.
It happened at a diocesan conference a few years ago. At the time, I was working as a charity administrator 4 days a week, running a bed and breakfast business, indulging in a spot of piano teaching, serving as a Reader in our benefice of 3 churches,- oh, and I was in the second year of ordination training. Getting to Swanwick was the nearest thing to a holiday I could see happening for a very long time…I was circling on my treadmill in true hamster fashion, and was generating much more heat than light in the process.
Conferences are strange. You find yourself taken out of your normal routine, into a world apart where new friendships can be forged based on shared experiences and the all important consumption of single malt after hours… Friendships can be forged but in an enclosed community, relationships can also quickly become oppressive.
So it was for me. Wherever I went, I seemed to bump into one particular person, who was friendly to the point of smothering me, By bedtime on day 2 it was driving me MAD. I found myself ducking into the ladies if she loomed in sight, and was pleased when I went into the main hall for the keynote speaker next day, to see that she was already settled, with no gaps anywhere near.
The speakers that morning were John and Olive Drane….and their talk touched places that nobody else had yet acknowledged during the conference. Olive has a ministry as a clown and after sharing her own story via a moving series of dialogues with God, she invited anyone who wanted prayer to come and have a cross painted in grease-paint wherever felt right…
"Hands, forehead, eyes..." she suggested.
Can you imagine? A room full of Anglican clergy, invited to relate to a clown…in front of each other!
There was a moment when it seemed that nobody would dare to move, but gradually people got to their feet. Some headed for the doors, but a long line began to form, and I found myself on the end of it. By the time I reached Olive, I knew what I wanted to pray about…
“I’m training for ministry…I have 3 children and too many jobs and I’m so busy I just can’t see the wood for the trees. Please paint the cross on my eyelids and ask God to help me focus on Him, the real purpose behind all this busy-ness”
Olive prayed, marked my eyelids, and I returned to my seat. The session ended, and we trouped out for coffee. I did feel better…as if there was at least some possibility that I might survive the next few weeks at least. Perhaps I was getting some perspective? I decided to take my coffee outside. But, oh dear, there was my nemesis only a few yards away from me, and I’d definitely been seen. I went over, and as I approached, X dissolved into a pool of tears.
Only afterwards did I realise that I’d spent almost an hour with her there, listening, praying, being the sort of friend she had believed me to be. And the amazing thing? It felt entirely natural, right, unforced…I was able to love…to see the real person with all the pain and vulnerability exposed, and not the bundle of irritations that had preoccupied me before. God had heard my prayer for clearer vision, but had not answered it as I’d expected. Instead, God had lent me HIS eyes…for a while, I was able to see as He does…

Imagine how our church and our community might be if we all saw with God’s eyes of love….
If we learned to recognise that beneath each façade – whether of poised elegance or of rude aggression – was someone with hopes, fears, joys and sorrows…Someone not unlike us.
I know we realise that intellectually – but if we felt it, too - think what a difference it might make.

God looks upon our hearts. Shouldn’t we try to do the same thing?
And let the people say, “Amen.”

Stupidly busy

My apologies for blog silence. A recent decision to create a "to do" list instead of simply agonising about those things left undone has been helpful in terms of attention to details, but less so in terms of allowing space when there is nothing actually pressing. So though there haven't been that many extraordinary events (OK so our new curate was ordained deacon last Sunday...but still... :-) ) time to reflect and time to blog have been conspicuous by their absence.

As I've noted before, the trouble is that for me thinking aloud, to at least a notional audience, is an almost essential part of reflecting at all - and as we all know (together, now, girls & boys) "The unreflected life is not worth living" - so I'm not specially pleased with this state of affairs. However, it seems I am by no means alone. While one blogging pastor on sabbatical is having to justify that needful taking of a sabbath to a congregation that should know better, and another is contemplating the gentle art of plate spinning, this week's Bible Society "news watch" included the following...

Britain’s workaholic Church ‘tired but hungry’

‘It is no longer just prayer that brings the church to its knees, but also tiredness.’ This is the finding of a London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC) and Spring Harvest survey conducted recently. The biggest struggles identified by 55 per cent of three thousand respondents were fatigue and time pressures. Home/work balance was an issue for almost half of those surveyed (47 per cent), long hours at work for 45 per cent and parenting a challenge for 33 per cent. The survey also found that the workplace was the biggest challenge for people to live out their Christian faith (43 per cent), followed by the neighbourhood (34 per cent) and home (24 per cent). Despite these pressures, some 57 per cent said they ‘actively’ see themselves as apprentices of Christ and 54 per cent pray intentionally about how God will use them.

Source: Eg (June 09)
http://www.licc.org.uk/uploaded_media/1245862845-eg%2022.pdf

It seems to me that there might be quite a thin line between use and abuse (not, of course, by God - but just conceivably by the church....) and that we all need to stop. and. think. before we're too wiped out to serve anyone at all.

And yes, I confess I did fail to take my day off yesterday...A funeral visit that my diary could not accommodate elsewhere, plus a visiting African bishop (who was, as it happens, well worth breaking the sabbath for)...
But I'm carving out some time on Monday, no matter what my "to do" list tells me.
Because having noted that I'm stupidly busy, to carry on being that busy would be just plain stupid!

Friday Five...music edition

Mary Beth invites us to ponder:
The sad news of Michael Jackson's untimely death has me thinking about music and its effects on us - individually, as cultures, as generations. Let's think about the soundtracks of our lives...

1) What sort of music did you listen to as a child - this would likely have been determined or influenced by your parents? Or perhaps your family wasn't musical...was the news the background? the radio? Singing around the piano?
My very earliest memories are of music - the sound of the Morning Concert on Radio 3 waking me to begin the day (my father turned on the radio as he prepared breakfast in bed for my semi-invalid mother) or piano music seeping through the wall that separated my bedroom from the sitting room as he played to unwind at the day's end.
Favourites were Mendelssohn Songs without Words, or Chopin waltzes .... or perhaps a piano arrangement of Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite. When I was about 4 one of my most favourite games of all was to dress up in some long petticoats, relics of my mother's dancing years, and whirl around the sitting room to Anitra's Dance. I sang before I talked, and Daddy was happy to play folksongs again and again for me. Some forebear of my mother's (I never quite worked out who) had been a kind of Scottish equivalent of Cecil Sharpe, collecting folksongs in Highlands and Islands, - and the one I loved singing best was Ho ro, my nut brown maiden. I'd not thought of it for years til this meme jogged my memory. Thank you, Mary Beth...glad to be reminded :-) )

2) Going ahead to teenage years, is there a song that says "high school" (or whatever it might've been called where you lived) to you?
I was a pretty intense classical music geek through my teens, but around about my 18th birthday I loved, loved, loved dancing to the Patti Smith single
"Because the night..." and that song is a backdrop to the complicated set of memories of that final summer at school. In my Oxbridge term I shared a room with a girl who loved Judy Collins, so she too is part of my memories of that era. My own music collection was entirely classical, though: I nearly missed an A level exam as I pondered how to spend a birthday record token...should it be Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis? or The Lark Ascending? (somehow I ended up both, though I've no idea how that was achieved in those pre-credit-card days...Maybe I used my train fare home?)

3) What is your favorite music for a lift on a down day? (hint: go to www.pandora.com and type in a performer/composer...see what you come up with!)
Pandora will only play nicely with US citizens, so I'll just say Bach, Bach and Bach again...He is pretty much the answer to any question, in my experience, and I've never been so miserable that his music makes no difference.

4) Who is your favorite performer of all time?
Oh...WHAT an impossible question. How do I choose between Jacqueline du Pre and Emma Kirkby? Between Ian Bostridge and Pablo Casals? Artur Rubenstein?
Menuhin in his prime? I just can't. I am grateful to them all, and so very many others.

5) What is your favorite style of music for worship?
I guess I'm Cathedral choral tradition to the bones. For the Eucharist let's have perhaps the Mozart Coronation Mass, or maybe Byrd for Five Voices. At Evensong, Gibbons Short Service is hard to beat...And psalms sung well to Anglican Chant are a short-cut to heaven.
But back in the real world, really pretty much whatever my congregation will sing with conviction works for me.

Waiting for Sunday

When the post arrived this morning, it included a postcard from our diocesan retreat house. I fell upon it with delight, because since Wednesday evening my thoughts have kept drifting in that direction.
On Wednesday 16 ordinands, to be made Deacon at Gloucester this Sunday, began their ordination retreat, and among them is my soon-to-be colleague (who may develop a blogname in the fulness of time, but is as yet blisfully anonymous)...

To be honest, it's been quite hard to think about much else, as the experience of my own ordination retreats is still so fresh in my mind. I've imagined the group standing in the Chapter House to take the oaths of allegiance to the Queen and to the Bishop (in all things lawful and honest)...enjoying a very English tea (mine was at the Deanery)...travelling to Glenfall.
I've remembered my own expectation that now was the time when I really would be found out, my inadequacies revealed. An announcement would come from ABM to say that there had been an administrative error and I should never have trained at all...

Actually my diaconal retreat was one of the most significant events of my journey so far. Because I was ordained beside many with whom I had trained at WEMTC, in some ways the experience looked a little like just another WEMTC residential - but during those 3 and a bit days we found ourselves moved along on a process which presented us at the Cathedral as ready as we ever would be for what was to come. It was a time of huge and lasting blessing.

So, I've been thinking and praying for this year's ordinands, and praying with extra fervour for the nearly-Curate and for our role here as a training parish. When I was first asked to consider receiving a Deacon this Petertide I was incredulous. The phone-call came just a few months after I'd arrived here, when I was still wrestling on a daily basis with the absence of my very own, much beloved, training incumbent and trying to work out what it meant to be priest-in-charge in these two parishes.
Now they expected me to train someone myself?!?! Laughable!
In much the same spirit that I started my diaconal retreat, I continued with life as usual, confident that "they" would wake up to the impossibility of pursuing this route. It just wouldn't be fair to the ordinand...
A few weeks later, an email arrived introducing us to one another. Could we at least meet and talk? The diocese recognised my anxieties (how, for example, could I hope to train someone who will exercise a high proportion of is ministry outside the parish, in his workplace?) but thought we would both benefit from meeting face to face anyway.

And when the meeting actually happened - challenge suddenly became opportunity.
I remembered with joy that you really can't be a training incumbent without doing heaps of theological reflection.
I recognised that I was being offered the chance to learn about ministry here in greater depth by facilitating another in ministry.
I thought about how WonderfulVicar allowed me to find my own way in ministry, while providing support and friendship and mopping up diasters when they struck.
I remembered the delight of praying the Office regularly with a colleague (though we've not yet worked out how this will actually happen, given work committments, that was so much at the heart of my curacy I'll do everything I can to make it possible at least once a week).
And so I became, characteristically, excited.

I loved my curacy.
I'll do all that I can to enable my new colleague to have an equally happy experience - and I'm so looking forward to learning with him, and from him as we travel together over the next 3/4 years.

I first received an Ember Card when Hugger Steward's godfather was ordained back in the 1980s. In those days, we giggled rather at the implications of the concluding lines
"Please pray also for Fr X and the parish of St Y's where Z is to serve"
teasing our C that with him as their curate, they would need all the prayerful help they could get.
The diocesan Ember Card this year doesn't mention prayer for training incumbents and parishes - but it would surely be welcome.

Meanwhile, if you are so inclined, here is the prayer on the diocesan card...

Father, you have taught the ministers of your Church
to be the willing servants of others.
Give to those soon to be ordained deacon
Skill and gentleness
in the practice of their ministry,
and perseverance always in prayer;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Gritty Reality - or why the vicar is just a tad ashamed!

The thing about preachers is, - do we ever manage to practice what we preach?

After spending Saturday afternoon/evening focussing on God's presence in our storms, you'd have thought I might be able to weather at least a minor squall, no?
But, as so often, I thought I was writing about the Great Drama of life - real griefs, terrible losses, earth-shaking events.
This meant I was quite unable to apply my own words to the minor irritation that drove me to frenzy yesterday.

Yesterday, coming as it did between Saturday & Monday, turned out to be Sunday - and not just any old Sunday but the third in the month.
This meant that in addition to the usual morning selection of Eucharists, at 8.00, 9.30 and 11.00, in the afternoon we also have 2 hours of Messy Church ...and this month I was a bit more personally involved in preparations, as some of the team were sadly unable to be with us.
So, when I packed my bag for the morning rush, I included my purse - planning to lapse into a bit of Sunday shopping in the form of fish fingers & French Fries at the big supermarket at the bottom of the hill after morning worship.
Three services later, I pulled into the car park and delved for my purse.
Nothing.
Scrabbling around on the floor of the car (a favourite hiding place) brought no results.
Nor did returning home to my uncharacteristically tidy study...nor retracing my steps around the churches.
Failing to remember my own words (after all, Jesus is only any use for the big crises, right?!) I launched into my own particular combination of panic & tantrum, the emotional squall that tends to assail me whenever inanimate objects fail to fall into line...
Given cards, driving licence, and my last few rupees, which I had tucked away in a side pocket as a promise to myself that one day I will return to India, the panic element was considerable - the full "knotted-tummy,-unable-to-concentrate-on- much-else" deal.
Sound stormy yet?

LCM, whose profession requires an eye for detail, accompanied me on this search and we investigated vestries in both churches, the upstairs office where I'd done some copying and pretty well every flat surface my bag had ever been on.
The bag in question is one of those hessian shopping bags that are designed to discourage you from adding to the global plastics mountain...so it has an open top, and yesterday it was pretty full.
As the Messy Church team assembled we discussed possibilities, and reluctantly concluded that my purse had been at the top of the bag in a public space for just long enough to tempt someone. Apparently not the first time things have vanished, even from more sensible spots in church - and even during worship.
Add a measure of pastoral guilt (what sort of church leadership creates a climate in which someone might come to worship and combine this with a spot of minor theft?) and the internal turmoil was beginning to reach gale force.

The concensus was that cards should be cancelled without more ado - so LCM promised to do this while I continued with Messy Church (which, despite all this, was its usual delightful, community-building self: I specially love the meal, when parents, children and teenage helpers all sit down together. I love this even more when K's marshmallow crispies are on the menu, but that's beside the point)
I received lots of sympathic outrage from parents and helpers, indulged in a fair bit of messy creativity myself, and even managed to make the point that Peter was often not so much "Rock" as "Rocky" without noticing a similarity...

It wasn't until much much later, when guests had departed, the team cleared up, and the Dufflepud and I were locking the vestry...or maybe it was later still, when I'd dealt with all the relieved embarassment created by his finding the purse, on a dark chair, in a dark corner, where LCM and I (and 2 or 3 others besides) had already hunted to no avail....but finally, sometime last night (was it before or after the phone lost and found? I really don't know)....finally I MADE THE CONNECTION.

I spend so much time reminding people that God is involved in every aspect of their lives, that God cares about details, that we can and should look Godwards in the most "trivial" situations...that Jesus won't leap out of our boat if the seas are a bit rough...
So I guess this is by way of a very public confession!
I have not done those things that I ought to have done, and I have done those things that I ought not to have done...
I just left God out of my calculations through one long and wearing afternoon.
Fortunately, She's not one to bear grudges - so I'm off to preside at the Eucharist for St Alban.
Thank God for new days and fresh starts - and a week without credit card can surely only be good for me!

Trinity 2 Yr B Mark 4:35-41

When I was a child, I had a picture by my bed, a sea scene that included the Breton Fisherman’s Prayer, “Oh God be good to me. Your sea is so vast and my boat is so small.” Growing up on the Sussex coast, that made such good sense to me. I was familiar with the days when the waves roiled and surged, throwing shingle up from the beach onto the promenade, so that favourite beaches took on a wholly different form from one storm to the next. I knew which shops and houses would need to close their storm shutters, to ensure that the glass wasn’t broken on stormy winter nights. And I knew, too, that the sound of day time fireworks, a maroon going up near the fishing harbour never meant good news, but rather a signal that the lifeboat was needed. Stormy seas were part of the fabric of my childhood.

Fast forward to my later teens, and life was pretty stormy too. Losing both parents within six months, just as I was leaving school, was scarcely a recipe for halcyon days….Somewhere, the wind was getting up and the waves were beginning to grow larger. But it wasn’t until a few years later, when I began a series of miscarriages, that I really found myself sharing the experience of the disciples. By that time I was certain that I was a Christian. The faith that I had absorbed pretty much by osmosis, the sort that “goes without saying” had flourished during my student years, as I found myself in an environment where everyone wanted to ask the Big Questions, and sat up late night after night debating them. I knew that Jesus and I were travelling together, that I was in his boat (or was he in mine?)…that life would now be all sunshine and smiles.

Except that it wasn’t. As miscarriage followed miscarriage the emotional storm was almost overwhelming. From my perspective, Jesus was asleep right enough, and, like the disciples, I was pretty sure that he didn’t care at all “Teacher do you not CARE that we are perishing?” Unlike the disciples, though, I didn’t have the sense to try and waken him. Instead I struggled on alone, filled with resentment. With so much wrong in my world, why wouldn’t my God intervene?

It’s a question others ask me, again and again…I’m hearing it more at the moment, as redundancies bite, as funds run out, as political and environmental upheavals dominate the news. Many people feel as if they are teetering on the edge of chaos, and so they ask “Where is God? Doesn’t he care? What’s going on?” It’s pretty much the same question that Job had to deal with, as he experienced the undeserved loss of all that he held dear. Oh God, why? Are you asleep, that you let such things happen in your world?

The answer Job is given is nothing like the answer he hoped for. God doesn’t apologise, or justify Godself. Instead God reminds Job, and through Job reminds us, of God’s formidable power. Where we you when I laid the foundation of the earth? And the answer, of course, is that we were nowhere about…because what is going on was and is simply too much for us, beyond our ken in every way.

You see, here’s the thing. We long to domesticate God, we demand that God behaves in ways that fit our schemes… We like the idea of God as a cosy talisman, to be taken about with us as a guarantee of safety. Jesus asleep in the boat on a bright sunny day is just fine for us. Pretty much perfect, in fact...as a sleeping Jesus can surely not make too many demands upon us. But then the storm strikes, and with it all that is dark and chaotic in our selves and in our world. And Jesus sleeps on, resting in the face of turmoil and danger.
Does he not care, or is he simply so rooted in God that he knows there is nothing to fear?

And then Jesus wakes, and the storm is calmed – and that intervention is almost as frightening as the storm. The disciples are terrified They want God’s action, but on their terms, in a way that they can handle…And so once again, they model the behaviour of so many through the ages. “Give us the theory” they cry “but don’t give us yourself. You are too great for us to cope with…too much for anyone to handle” Jesus asleep in the storm seems a let down. Jesus awake and active, calming the waters with a word, is more than we can deal with. But, though the tempests rage everything IS under control. We may be battered and bruised, we may be fast running out of faith, but there is a small, solid pebble of reality in which we can trust. Jesus was able to sleep in that storm tossed boat because he knew that his Father willed nothing bad for him, or for any of his children. He rested in his faith, the faith based upon a perfect trust between Father and Son.

Storms will happen – and their severity has no basis in the strength or weakness of our faith. Storms, personal and circumstantial, are the way life is.
Sometimes it’s quite right to be afraid, and always it’s quite right to ask for help. That help may not appear in the instant, and it may be almost as alarming as the danger….for it will not be help on our terms.
But it will be enough…
We can trust that.

Julian of Norwich had her visions of God as she came close to death. She was almost overwhelmed by her own trials, but instead of sinking, she learned to float again, and offered her experiences as a gift to the church, a gift of faith and love still valued centuries on. Listen to her
"He said not 'Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased'; but he said, 'Thou shalt not be overcome."
Amen. May it be so.

Blogging block

On Thursday a text from someone whom I love dearly prompted me to tweet a prayer request for all those bearing the hidden grief of miscarriage.
The response was generous, with comments appearing in many forms and from all directions, some quite unexpected....and I thought to myself, "I ought to reflect on this. It's clearly huge for so many people".
But somehow, I didn't quite want to.

That puzzled me. Though I am that strange contradiction, a shy extrovert, I much prefer to engage with people in total honesty, and a major aspect of the blog has always been as a place to do just that. To work through who I am before God in the situations of the day, and sometimes to look at the past in the light of the present.

But I've never written about my miscarriages, that I can remember.
I had so many of them, you see.
I'd only been married a few months when, unexpectedly, there was a little ring at the bottom of a test tube and I found myself joyfully pregant.
My parents were married 11 years before I appeared on the scene, and died before I thought of asking what lay at the root of the childless years...For some reason I always assumed infertility (possibly because of my mother's life long health problems) so I was jubillant that I had managed to conceive so easily.
We phoned everyone...
Just days later, I started to bleed.

As we phoned everyone again, I began to learn of just how "normal" this is.
Many had stories to tell. We were among the first of our own generation of friends to marry and attempt parenthood, but so many of our older friends shared their own stories of loss, redeemed in healthy families (our peers...who might have had brothers and sisters to be our friends too).
It didn't help much, though at least I began to realise that all the things I was feeling had been felt by others before me.
I was introduced to the Miscarriage Association and cried as I read of the experiences of others, my sisters in secret bereavement.

By the time it happened again, I had a small collection of books and pamphlets on my shelves....and mourned the lost babes whose stories were told there even as I mourned my own.
I wondered if my body, - always taken for granted as efficient, if not beloved, would forever let me down.
It was ironic - years earlier, while trying to plot a course for my life, I'd realised that my longing for children was absolutely fundamental, non-negotiable. I'd abandoned the vaguest possibility of serious singing, because a wise teacher told me
"If you can think of anything else you might ever want to do, don't attempt to make singing your career".
And now, the "anything else" seemed to be slipping out of sight.

But suddenly, - before the doctors thought I could even dream of conceiving, my period was late, the tests were positive...and this time the babe stayed safely where she belonged until, one snowy January morning Hattie Gandhi was placed in my arms and the world shone.
Medics reassured me - "just one of those things...we don't know why they happen but you'll be alright now"
But I wasn't.
Again, and again, and again.
Each loss weighed heavier, until after a particularly frightening miscarriage at 17 weeks, when blood and tears seemed set to drown my world, I gave up on God.
I lay in bed in our terraced S London house on the Sunday morning afterwards. LCM had taken HG to Mass, but our West Indian neighbours liked their music loud and that morning it was, for some reason, not their usual fare but, bizarrely, the Faure Requiem.
A work I loved, had sung many times...the work I would have chosen as music for my own funeral...and I felt nothing.
Where words and music had always been a sure route to consolation, as I flung myself sobbing into God's arms, - nothing.
I was past being angry.
There simply wasn't a relationship any more.
Nothing.

I went through the motions, attending worship because I simply didn't have the energy to explain to LCM that the whole thing was pointless.
When I could, I found ways of avoiding it, though, pleading headaches and feeling relieved when Hattie Gandhi was fractious and needed to be taken out of church.
One day I was sitting in the car outside the Brompton Oratory and something changed...
I found myself swearing away at God, using language I'd never used in any other context, the gist of which was
"You needn't think I'm going in there to talk to you, you.........................."
And there were the words, almost visible in their reality
"That's quite alright...we can just as easily talk here".

So began the long, slow process of forgiving God. The arrival of the boys helped of course, though they were never "replacements", but always, gloriously, themselves.
Time helped too.
And I woke up one morning realising we were gently, undramatically, friends again.
But I've never really made sense of that waste of life's potential, those oceans of tears wept by so many women.
I understand now that God weeps too...and that each of those babes is safe in God's arms...but for those whose arms remain empty that's never answer enough.

No wonder I've not written much about this before. I try to make this blog a place of resolution as well as honesty - but some things are beyond resolution this side of eternity.
I don't hurt any more, but I truly couldn't offer any words in answer to the prevailing question at the time "Oh God, why..."
So, once again, I invite you to pray for those bearing the hidden burden of loss that is miscarriage...