The Donkey's Tale

Over on twitter some of us have been chatting about the anxieties and pressures that we put upon ourselves as we approach the reality of our calling to ordained ministry. I remembered how I'd had to bolt for the loo to be violently sick the first time I tried on a clerical shirt, while another friend approached her diaconal retreat in floods of tears, insistent that it had all been a terrible mistake......and another had run away during the retreat, in a desperate attempt to evade the inevitable.

And I remembered a rather wonderful book "The Donkey's Tale" by Margaret Gray...which seems to be out of print now...but which has helped me hugely along the way.

It's a picture book, with very limited text...but its gist is something like this.

"Once there was a very ordinary girl, who opened her door one day and found that all the poor and sad of the world were outside, waiting for her to help them. She felt, as you might imagine, helpless, inadequate, useless....but as she slumped in despair a donkey appeared and said

"hang on........let me tell you what happened to me."

And he recounted how once, long ago, he had been chosen by someone amazing.

"He was heavy, and the road was long, but he always gave the strength to get there..." and as he carried the man, not giving in to his normal impulses to be grumpy, stubborn, lazy......people saw a miracle happen..."something happening that was bigger than me."

"He doesn't need another genius - he needs a few donkeys who know they have to depend on his strength - not theirs

his wisdom - not theirs

his words - not theirs"

"So it doesn't matter that I feel useless" said the girl

"He will show me what to do and give me the strength to do it"

"Yes" said the donkey..." and do remember to look at yourself from time to time and have a good laugh"

Isn't it wonderful? Can't you see how it makes all the difference to how you survive, or not, in this mad and wonderful and impossible calling to serve as priests in the Church of God?

I'm so thankful for that donkey :)

Work in Progress

"Not what thou art, nor what thou hast been, but what thou willt be beholdest God in his mercy".


I first came across those wonderful words in my childhood, when reading Rumer Godden's "In this House of Brede", - a book I loved partly because its landscape was the familiar expanse of the Romney Marshes (Brede was only a few miles away from my home, though the Benedictine community of Godden's work existed only in her imagination), and partly because I guess that even then a part of me was drawn to the idea of making my relationship with God the basis of my whole occupation...
Whatever the reason, I read a borrowed copy again and again and fragments lodged, unbidden, in my memory, to surface unexpectedly when needed.
These words, which I later discovered in "The Cloud of Unknowing", are a regular source of comfort as I fall into the gap between aspiration and reality in ministry once again.
Goodness, did I need them this week!


You see, sometimes even when we try our best, parish clergy get things horribly wrong.
We sleep through alarms and arrive at church 2 minutes late for an early Mass at which we are presiding.
We make choices based on what seems to be the wisest course of action, only to discover later that we should have headed in the opposite direction.
We say "Yes" to requests from people we respect, and find ourselves up to our necks in impossible situations.
We try to love all the people whom we encounter in the community where God has placed us, but some of them, specially when under the influence of drugs, scare us so much that we don't really want to visit them...so we don't, and then discover that it is actually too late.
We get tired and forget things that matter.
We get so overwhelmed by the urgent that the important slips past unattended to.
In other words, - we are relentlessly, irritatingly, human.


Being human has, for me, meant that the past week has been full of failures.
But in all the failures, I know that God hasn't given up on me, and that time and again God works to answer one of my most beloved, if not poetically satisfying prayers,
"Lord, redeem my foul-ups".


Even in a week like the one I've just lived through, I am confident that he does.

Too much or not enough?

Recently, thanks to my episcopal review, last week's retreat and a determination to avoid the dreaded burn-out, I've been spending some time pondering routes to a balanced life. Despite all the issues that I took with me, I know that by the time I left Llannerchwen last Friday I was properly present to myself, to others and indeed to God in a way that the breathlessness of parish ministry often precludes.

There are so many times here when, though I am trying my hardest to engage fully with the person in front of me, I'm horribly aware that I'm about to be late for the next appointment or am wondering what saying "Yes" to this particular request might mean for an already loaded diary...

That's just no good - for me, or for those whom I'm here to serve so it was a huge and wonderful blessing to come home without that sense of things pressing in which characterises life so much of the time...and it's a blessing I am keen to hold onto.

A bantam-buying expedition on Sunday and a flying visit to see Hugger Steward yesterday evening (OK, it's mad to drive to Cambridge and back for the sake of a 3 hour visit - but it was most definitely worth it) have helped so far, but I know that there are too many things clamouring for attention and it's hard not to be alarmed by them....

or at least, I was until a phone call with the son of the lady whose funeral I took this afternoon.

He, bless his heart, has been his mum's main carer throughout her illness and, like so many in his situation, finds himself somewhat lost now that she no longer needs his constant presence. He has mobility problems, which, he said, were now rather a blessing

"I'm glad it takes me longer to do things...it means I won't have so much time to fill now"

Perhaps, rather than agonising about the state of my diary I should just be thankful that there IS so much to get up for every morning. 

And, while the sun is shining, get out to walk the dog.

He came unto his own...

This, my third Christmas as priest in charge in these two parishes, has been unlike any Christmas I've yet experienced.

Fellow clergy will be familiar with the strange "festival maths" which means that every other year half the regular congregation are away from home, celebrating with their distant families - while the following year numbers soar as the families descend on them in their turn.

This year, though, was something rather different.

Heavy snow and wickedly icy roads kept many people at home. We had to cancel the Carol service at Church in the Valley (though many a carol was sung in a blissfully full and friendly pub that same evening) and Midnight Mass at Church on the Hill...the latter definitely a prudent decision given the extreme gradient of the path from road to church.

Down in the valley, one sterling soul had made a fantastic job of clearing the church path and we were all set for Christmas services as usual. The Crib service was a delight, featuring baby George as baby Jesus and a multitude of the heavenly host plus an assortment of shepherds (plus guinea pig lamb), a cow herd (complete with huge & cuddly cow) and one King full of oriental splendour. Increasingly, families opt to attend on Christmas Eve and then leave church alone for Christmas day - but that's fine, once you're used to this idea.

What really startled me this year was the absence of regulars at both Midnight Mass (maybe less surprising, given the weather and the age of many of my core congregation) and again on Christmas Day. At Midnight we had a good turn out overall - but the vast majority were visitors....Out of some 80 in church, I think that just 11 were familiar faces- which poses a few questions.

I guess on one level it's very simple....If you only expect to attend church at Christmas and Easter, then you are more likely to make the effort to get there even if conditions are less than encouraging - whereas if you fully expect to be there Sunday by Sunday for many years to come, then what is one Christmas among many?

I would certainly hate to think of anyone risking life and limb to worship with us - even on the highest of festivals - and I'd never make the mistake of thinking that absence from church equates with writing faith out of the festival....but all the same, it does seem odd that worshipping with your church community is simply not a priority for many. It never struck me that my parents, for example, were in any way "extreme" church-goers - but the year that my father broke his wrist and was unable to drive, a taxi was organised to get us all to church on Christmas day - because it was simply unthinkable that we should be anywhere else on that day of all days.

Clearly we are now in a very different place - with different expectations.

It was a joy to celebrate the birth of Christ with those who came through our doors.

It was a privilege to sit for an hour beside one young man who arrived as the last celebrating family departed on Christmas morning, and needed to take time to talk through his hurts and confusions in a safe place.

Being a priest in these communities is very special - a privilege and joy in so many unexpected ways. It's only fair that sometimes the struggles are unexpected too...

but I'm glad that it fell to another to read John 1 this Christmas. There might have been a bit too much reality in it for any semblance of comfort.

Or perhaps I'm reading it wrong.

Perhaps I should just smile quietly and say "It was ever thus......"

In which God reminds me of priorities

The first part of this week, as we approached our patronal festival, was spent very much focussed on that one service - on making the church building beautiful, on ensuring that the liturgy was "right" and the service booklets accurate...All went well, in a slightly unhinged kind of way, and I believe that the impact of such a celebration will continue to resource us for a good while to come. To have seven confirmands making that significant step in faith surrounded by friends, family and at least a sprinkling of their church family too was a truly wonderful thing.

But I suspect that God thought it was time to remind me of my calling to the whole parish, not just those who gather within the church building - even for such joyous celebrations...

You see, the very next morning I was booked to take a funeral - the stuff of everyday life, of course, but with added complications in the family that has been left behind.

I also heard of great and traumatic upheavals in the life of a beloved friend.

Next day another parishioner arrived to talk about a crisis that could derail her life just when it seemed to be coming together and yesterday the phone rang with another huge and unprecedented event that has blown apart somebody's world.

Fortunately nobody expects me to wade in and fix these situations - most of them are beyond short term fixing, and for those that aren't, there are others with far greater expertise already at work. But, simply by virtue of being "the vicar" people still believe that I should be involved. They believe, even when I doubt it myself, that there is something I can bring to their situation which that situation needs. 

They may not put it that way, but they need to know that God is involved in their lives, even when those lives seem most chaotic, least directed.

And, without exception, all of them hope that I will continue to pray for them through whatever comes next.

Never mind the state of the study - the office and work of a priest is a privilege beyond words.

"This is a proper church"

my bishop teased me gently on Tuesday, noting the thurifer getting organised and the diminutive acolytes standing waiting...
Thus at a stroke he confirmed both how easily he reads me and also how much my perspectives in ministry have been shaped by his influence.

You see, in hosting my first ever confirmation service this week, I felt as if I'd reached some sort of milestone on the way to becoming a "proper vicar" of a "proper church". Remembering an earlier (and not altogether unjustified) remark of his about a certain family likeness between valley church and a jumble sale, I'd spent a silly amount of hours preparing for the service - revamping notice boards,tidying odd corners, begging and beseeching those with the power to do so to remove the mowers from the back of the church.Together with the admirable Dufflepud I had also wrestled with the order of service, til it was in a nearly perfect as we could make it (of COURSE there was one stupid line break in the wrong place - but at least no huge and obvious typos). I knew I could do nothing about the size of congregation beyond encouraging all and sundry to attend...a patronal festival on a weeknight is always going to be a bit challenging, even with a bishop thrown in.
 Finally, having absolutely used up all my worry quotient, I accepted that I'd done my best - and suddenly it was 6.15, the bishop was here, and we were "in the slips" waiting to begin.


Enter the character known to some of you as "cage man" - a resident of the parish who has such issues with drug and alcohol abuse that he no longer has much of a foothold in any sort of reality. He's quite fond of me, and thus sees valley church as his particular pet project - something which has both positive and negative implications. On Tuesday he felt that he could best serve by yelling abuse at those who were coming in to the building, while periodically coming in himself, - whereupon he became quieter, if no more rational...He engaged FabBishop, his chaplain and me in earnest if mostly unintelligible conversation, being deeply disturbed at the fact that we were robed, and taking a great deal of convincing that the bishop was the bishop at all. G., one of the confirmands, who has a commanding presence, stationed himself close by, just in case we needed a rapid response - but all was well. The congregation coped admirably with the tirades directed at them, FabBishop managed to deal with signing registers and certificates while paying proper attention to the rather random conversation and God heard my fervent prayer that "cage man" should vacate the building before we began the service...He departed having given me a large hug and told me that he did love me really. Ummmm........


After that, the service went pretty much exactly as  I'd hoped. Great hymns were sung with gusto.  We enjoyed singing the round (based on the collect) which a gifted friend had written specially for the day. FabBishop pitched his sermon just right and gave all seven candidates things to take away and reflect on....and they were duly baptised (in one case) and confirmed. At Sunday's Messy Church we had all cut out footprints and created a path from the door past the font to the altar and there was such a sense of journey, of significant steps taken, of new horizons glimpsed....I found it all quite ridiculously moving - specially when the cluster of candidates aged 12 to 62 stood at the head of the nave, carrying the candles I had just lit for them from the Paschal candle and we commissioned them to 
"Shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the Father".


The thing was, it was a very real expression of who we are as church. Long before Lucy More launched her brilliant idea, "messy church" applied beautifully to church in the valley. Here, a guidedog in training is a regular member of the choir, and our acolytes include adults with learning difficulties from a nearby unit. Even without their help, Tuesday had its own messy moments. The charcoal refused to stay alight so that when the time came to cense the altar, even the best efforts of FabBishop failed to produce the faintest flurry of smoke...The sacristan somehow failed to expect extra communicants so the wafer box was empty when FabBishop needed to consecrate more...
Nothing was polished in any way...and above all, we started the service with "cage man", reminding us that we are here to welcome, love and serve those who really don't fit in anywhere else.


Maybe, then, we ARE a proper church...or at least getting there.
Will we arrive? 
One day "With the help of God, we will"

Not exactly restful.

It was a bitter January day.

The snow lay thick on the ground, and driving was impossible.

But nonetheless, I had to reach the Cathedral, where I was supposed to be singing Evensong.

For reasons best known to myself, I set out to walk there already wearing my cassock, - and the heavy black wool was soon wet and weighty with melted snow.

The drifts were so deep that I decided my best route was along the garden walls of the houses that lined my route.

It was slippery and hazardous, but I seemed to be doing alright until, as I moved from one garden to another, a woman burst out of the Fisher Price play house that was clearly her home and shouted

"Get OFF my wall! I'm not having any s***ing vicar walking along my wall.......Who do you think you are?"

I protested that I was already very late, and would definitely not reach the Cathedral if I had to retrace my steps...and which point she responded (in a voice that reminded me strongly of my junior school Maths teacher)

"You should have thought of that sooner......"

And then, to my relief, I woke up - and lo, it was Sunday morning.

All of which suggests that going to sleep uncertain about those things which I have not done is a recipe for an uneasy night...Small wonder that I forgot to take my sermon with me to Church in the Valley, and found myself preaching from my Nokia, reading direct from this blog.

Work in progress

Another session with the Shiny Work Consultant yesterday.Conversation ranged far and wide around myriad aspects of parish life and clerical chaos theory.This hasn't been a great week for work/life balance here at the vicarage. First there was the discovery of a couple of impossible double-bookings, occasioned by my tendency to believe that I'll REMEMBER fun things that I really want to do (sadly no: I very nearly committed myself to conduct a baptism on a SATURDAY when I should have been at not one but two weddings...) and by the folly of thinking that I can even see straight during Holy Week, still less take hall bookings in a responsible way.

Learning points there: abandon attempts to handle hall bookings (which I only took on as a temporary measure almost a year ago now)...Once something is handed on, don't worry about the details of how it is done - it will almost certainly work out, though not necessarily as you've envisaged, and that's no bad thing.

Write everything down immediately if not sooner, in red if it's fun.

Though when I returned home from holiday there were several promising gaps in the diary, a wedding couple, a funeral and a hospital visit soon ensured that the space that I'd imagined using for thoughtful work on a few biggish projects soon dwindled to nothing.

Learning point: write in preparation time...It absolutely has to happen, and burning midnight oil is rarely a route to achieving the best

On Monday, a small group of clergybirds met in my sitting room to talk about Justin's book. We are all contemporaries in ministry, who recognised that when we finished the CME1-4 training and were launched as fully-fledged incumbents we would miss the regular contact which the monthly doses of curate training had ensured...We also worried that we might never read a serious book again, so planned a regular reading group. 2 years on, I think we have actually managed to read 4 or maybe even 5 books (let's see...there was "Blue like Jazz" (which we largely hated)  

"Take this Bread" (even split...I loved it but others were unimpressed...) "Tokens of Trust" (did we actually discuss this...or were we sidetracked by Life along the way?) 

"Velvet Elvis" (still great - though this was by no means my first reading of it) and this time "If you meet George Herbert....". It says alot about the way life spirals out of control that it proves so hard to actually read books that I have suggested, or to find time to discuss them with people whom I want to see...and it's not much consolation that it's just as hard for the others too. Symptoms, symptoms...

Hence our decision to read "If you meet..." Sooo much of the book resonated with our own experience...I'm still giggling ruefully about the train-spotting vicar who, when quizzed about his daily pilgrimage to the railway line said

"It's good to see one thing in the parish that I don't have to run" : sometimes this can feel so close to the truth.

BUT (sorry Justin) we could see ourselves using the book, with all its hard-won knowledge, as another weapon with which to beat ourselves. I loved the balance in the suggested Rule of Life but the thought of even trying to implement it myself filled me with a wholly unwelcome panic. Yes, I want time to read, time to study, time to write, time to grow - but not at the cost of relationships within these parishes...I can and will attempt at monthly reading day, but more than that simply wouldn't help me. And that's what it's about, isn't it...Finding a route to enable flourishing in every aspect of life...If it works, splendid...if not, put it down. Yes?

For the moment, I'm committed to  the SCP Rule  , which should keep me on track spiritually, and any addenda are likely to result in my throwing in the towel altogether.

That's what's so fabulous about Shiny WorkConsultant. She recognises the struggles and issues for ENFPs in any sort of planning, understands that I will always throw caution to the winds and timetables out the window if I think someone "needs me" (whatever that might mean) and is prepared to start where I am and help me find a route through, that I actually have a hope of taking.

So this time I've come home fired with enthusiasm for bright pink star shaped memos, writing "to do's" on red  paper, and encouraging the congregation to write in a notebook those things they'd like me to attend to. It's really not great to keep on washing reminders to "Pray for X" or "Visit Y" when the notes get left in a pocket after the Sunday Eucharist!

I might even try and manage the diary, at least a little bit. Next week includes 2 important bits of writing...perhaps I could factor them in to the planning now. How's that for revolution? 

Important PS I'm very aware that wise and wonderful friends have been saying all of this to me for months, if not years. Please don't think I've not heard your advice or tried to follow it...It just takes a very long time to turn round a liner, and your wisdom (some of which remains blutacked above the desk, beside my bed AND on the front door) is almost certainly the only reason I had the courage to ask Shiny Work Consultant for help at all.

On NOT going it alone...

Reading yesterday's post on the plates I am juggling, Howard quite rightly picked me up on the absence of references to involving others, and the risks that this approach would present.

Believe me, I'm very well aware of these.

The treasured "golden age" in parish in the valley was during the ministry of my predecessor but one, during the 1990s. Church and culture were rather different then, and he and a succession of beloved curates seem to have presented between them an amalgum of the mythical omni-competent vicar (though, reassuringly, he was also a great one for losing his keys!). In the following years there was, if I've grasped the situation properly, a widening gulf between a congregation that hoped and believed that their priest would make things happen for them and clergy who came to ministry with other, quite different assumptions.

Somehow instead of acknowledging this and meeting in the middle, people subsided into inertia. There was a perhaps a sense of disappointment and lost initiative from both directions - and it seems to me that helping the congregation remember that they are all invited to join in with God's mission to love and serve our community is an important part of what I'm about.

It's not a speedy process, though there are many hopeful signs this year.

• My wonderful Reader colleague has just brought a long-held dream to birth in the form of a weekly "Drop In for Tea" session in the church hall (a regular booking ended just as she began to put the final arrangements in place, making the whole project infinitely more manageable)

• We've had a really positive response to a short course on  pastoral visiting, a team has been established, and just last weekend three fab members of church in the valley gave up their Saturday to attend a really excellent CME event on Baptism.

• The recent joint PCC away day was another landmark - with some wonderfully honest and self-aware comments from both church councils, and lots of hope for the future.

• A relatively new member of the congregation turns out to have deep and wide experience of enabling prayer - just as the PCC in the valley identified raising the profile of prayer as a priority for the coming year

So I'm really sorry if I sound as if I'm on my own with all this. There are some wonderful people and, as the induction service made very clear, whatever we're doing here, we need to do it together.

Seeing the wood for the trees

Today was my first session with the rather fantastic work consultant that I have somehow been blessed with (I still find it very hard to believe either that  
a) I managed to ask for help or
b) that she happened to have space and time to take me on)

I talked an awful lot as I outlined the journey so far and tried to give her a sense of the landscape of my life and ministry...In true ENFP I didn't realise some of it til I heard myself speak it aloud - but that was good and useful.
I talked about the energy needed and expended in frantic plate juggling and together we identified some of those plates

• Sunday worship - with a special focus on my longing to pull the liturgy together and to build a children's choir at Church in the Valley
• Messy Church
• Schools work - assemblies, governor work, pastoral support, "being there"
• Occasional offices - with the wealth of extra opportunities that they present but also the equivalent volume of extra work
• Trying hard to be a "good enough" training incumbent in a situation that is so utterly unlike my own experience of curacy
• Working towards our community project, to connect assorted agencies with those in the parish who most need access to them
• Youth work - building on the embryonic Youth Emmaus group but looking for ways to continue their nurture beyond Confirmation
• follow on work with our First Communion group
• building pastoral relationships with care homes, sheltered housing, individuals...those beyond the Sunday congregation
• shedloads of awful awful admin - the stuff of open churchyards, busy wedding lists, and non-existent parish office staff

I failed to mention spiritual direction, diocesan synod and Board of Education, deanery pastoral committee etc etc but just trying to identify the headline concerns made it abundantly clear that the feeling that sometimes it is all way too much for one person is actually quite justified!

Even rather fantastic work consultants can't make things vanish just like that, though it's possible that she may persuade me to let go of some of them....but she wisely suggested nothing of the sort today! Instead she asked me, interestingly, which thing I felt I most "had" to do, and which one I most "wanted" to do.
The answer to both?
Messy Church!

Over the next few months, I guess we'll work out how to arrange plates, put them down safely, hand over the juggling poles to other people...It's going to be interesting, I think, but a huge blessing to have someone wise and wonderful to wade through the tides with me.

Here we go round the mulberry bush - or variations on a familiar theme.

I've spent the last 36 hours away with my Deanery chapter at the lovely diocesan retreat house that just happens to be in my training parish. While I'm generally happy and fulfilled in my work here, I still struggle with visiting Glenfall, with driving past my old church, past the homes of people whom I love and care about, and knowing that chapter of my life is done. Most of all, I miss the wisdom and companionship of my training incumbent, WonderfulVicar - and there's nothing like spending time with my chapter colleagues to make me fully aware of my own inexperience. Not that they are anything other than splendid and supportive - it's simply that as we spend time together reflecting on ministry and planning for an exciting Deanery Mission which will take place this coming autumn I find it very hard not to believe that I should be doing everything...and doing it now.

My colleagues, being older in ministry, if not in years, have a degree of realistic wisdom that I struggle with. Those with big dreams and ambitious plans generally have the human resources in place to make it at least conceivable that they might accomplish them. Me, not so much!

I know that wild excitement and high aspirations are part of the way I live life, and they have led me into all sorts of wonderful and surprising experiences...but I also know that I can only do so much and that fretting myself into misery over all the unattainable things I long to do won't benefit anyone.

I have an email from a wise wise friend posted beside my monitor...it begins with the reminder

"It's a marathon, not a sprint"

I'm reading and re reading it this evening, while contemplating the to-do's that might otherwise submerge me.

God willing, in two weeks time I'll finally get to that retreat that was stymied when I broke my arm last year. I want to go into that precious space with nothing too major outstanding, so that there's no voice at the back of my head saying "You really ought to have brought the laptop..."

So I'm listing the main things that are rattling around in the vicar's brain tonight, in no particular order - and looking forward to gradually crossing many of them off over the next 10 days.

Finalise liturgy for united Candlemas service

Write sermon for the above

Write funeral addresses x 2

Produce Lent leaflet (choosing suitable books to recommend - which ideally I should have read - hmmn - that could be problematic - any recommendations?)

Tweak material for First Communion course beginning Saturday

Find and reclaim my Youth Emmaus (have a vague memory of saying to someone a good while ago "Do borrow it, I can't see myself using it here for a while) or order a replacement copy for our young confirmands group beginning next month

Plan PCC Away Day (1st Saturday in Lent)

Confirm venue booked last year for above (or find an alternative...please God, no!)

Write reminders to PCC members for above

Plan Lent course (at least this year I'm not writing the thing)

Choose appropriate Sunday for taught Eucharist during Lent

Plan Experience Easter trail & dates

Write to local schools re Experience Easter

Order banner for Messy Church

Sort out access to parish website and update material there

Review Child/Vulnerable Adult Protection policies, ideally before Church on the Hill PCC on Thursday (revised editions should be with Social Resp. Director by the end of the month)

Respond to Valley Church PCC Secretary re extra agenda items for THEIR PCC

Christian Copyright Licence (there must be someone I can delegate this to...I feel pale green every time I open the file, but we ought to have paid some money several months ago)

Convene meetings x 2 to discuss our contribution to Deanery Mission

Consider role of closing service of above, which we are hosting and which I am apparently planning (ideally with a team, if one can be found...)

Plan the thing

Convene meeting of lay intercessors to follow up on FabBishop's training and share it with those unable to attend

Convene meeting of servers to iron out liturgical hiccoughs and to begin training children to serve

Read papers for Diocesan synod and assorted other meetings next week

Choose dates for deanery theology reading group which I agreed to convene before Christmas - and actually get hold of and read the flipping book.

Writing that lot down has scared me somewhat, but made it abundantly clear that the half-made decision to abort the possible extra service to celebrate love and marriage on St Valentine's Day is the only one possible. In any case, I would want the service to extend beyond the wedding couples of recent years to be a genuinely inclusive celebration - but there's a fair way to go before I can attempt to steer either congregation officially into the Inclusive Church fold, and my gut feeling is that this is a battle for another day.

Marathon, not sprint. Marathon, not sprint.

In a while I'm off to have a pub supper with the Herring of Christ (TM), as a follow-up to the recent curates' and incumbents' training morning. Curates are absolutely not and never should be a spare pair of hands, but another brain to help with the prioritising is more than welcome. Experience suggests that he will refuse to dance around the mulberry bush, and that can only be a good thing!

Not really sure if I should blog this....

My to do list for the coming week looks something like this (which is why I'm a great fan of Justin's book though I need to do some work on applying it...)

• Plan address for Monday funeral

• Contact family of next week’s funeral

• Produce publicity for Christingle & distribute via schools

• Sort Christingle service

• Write letter to supermarket requesting discount oranges for Christingle

• Check curate is happy to do Christingle talk (notice a common theme emerging here?)

• Write December letter, What’s On & other bits for parish mag

•  

• Email curate re green audit of Valley Church in response to his concern raised at LAST PCC

• Reflect and pray over PCC agenda for Tuesday & prepare whatever else is necessary

• Plan address for Wednesday funeral (a tricky one – I REALLY wasn’t ready to say Goodbye to this lady)

• Plan Wednesday assembly

• Chase electrician for church hall

• Return phonecall of lady wanting to book hall for party

• [Consider who I can ask to take on oversight of church hall] (A hopeful appeal to the PCC netted a very sensible term time solution, but I'm not sure that having two routes to hall bookings, depending on the time of year, is likely to be hugely successful...Still need to think on this)
  

• Ask men’s committee to place second notice board in hall entrance so the church isn’t constantly advertising children’s discos & Nearly New clothes sales

• Produce publicity for December services in both churches

• Produce Christmas card advertising services for delivery to every house on the hill

• Check all is OK with Advent Sunday service

• Write Advent Sunday sermon

• Read & respond to papers for Thursday meeting at Church House

• Read papers & prepare for Governors’ meeting

• Write up PTA meeting and confirm that new Secretary is truly happy to BE Secretary

• Fix date to go in to school to spend day with Reception

• Visit assorted poorly parishioners in hospital and at home

• Prepare & lead School Advent service

• Meet with diocesan missioner to consider priorities for Valley Church in the light of parish snapshot

• Phone round to fix home Communions that are overdue

• Phone round to fix visits to bereaved that are overdue

• Do October & November expenses (oh dear...they are ALWAYS due)
  

Fortunately I also get to preside at the Eucharist twice,
To walk my lovely dogs as often as I possibly can
And to have supper with a good friend

It’s possible, therefore, that I might make it to the weekend unscathed…………Specially if I remember to pray! 

eta It's ~Monday again, and no surprise to see that the things which were NOT time-sensitive didn't get done...but must truly find their way onto this week's agenda. No paper heavy meetings in the immediate offing now, though, so maybe I'll feel more competent, DV

In search of clarity

Last week's diocesan clergy day was designed to tell us those things we really HAVE to know about Terms of Service, Common Tenure and the like - and as a result, it looked anything but promising in advance. Despite the new and pleasing venue, the yummy lunch, and the welcome opportunity to catch up with all sorts of lovely people, on the whole not much happened to change my opinion. It's profoundly depressing that large chunks of CME budget are likely to be spent mostly on process, rather than on some of the life giving, brain enhancing theology that has been available in the past...Cheesey though it be, I would prefer to aspire to life as a human being not simply a human doing, but I'm not certain that this is where Terms of Service will leave me....Certainly I won't be able to trust to diocesan serendipity to offer an unlikely course or training day on just the thing to fire my brain and my soul. Clearly I will have to learn to be more intentional in pursuing things that open windows onto wide and wonderful horizons.

HOWEVER I guess it may be good to find ourselves constrained to reflect more deliberately on the value of our activity...It's just possible that if our aims and objectives include things like "helping to build the Kingdom" or "loving and cherishing this community in God's name and for his sake" then some of my more draining and depressing admin may be ruled out of court. You never know...

Thankfulness (reprise)

Things are very happy right now at Church in the Valley.

Two weeks ago, we celebrated St Matthew's Day, combining it with Back to Church Sunday, and had a very encouraging response. Though several core congregation had warned me they would be away on holiday, we still had attendance well into the 70s, a dozen guests had responded to the official invitations, and a good crowd of children joined in procession and kept us awake and joyful... I kind of thought that might be the highspot of worship this autumn and was duly grateful for all the hope and promise it represented.

Today was Harvest Festival - and having celebrated Harvest well and truly with Valley Church School on Friday I didn't anticipate a huge turnout, particularly as we'd encouraged the children to make a special effort for the community Medieval Fayre later.
Wrong again!
However much I may know that it's not about numbers, it is very encouraging when people want to come together to celebrate God's goodness and build community here. There were some returners from Back to Church Sunday, some newcomers who promised to come again (one bought the most lovely flower arrangement round yesterday as her contribution to Harvest) and more children than I had hoped for in my wildest dreams. Today is the first Sunday of the annual head count of "Statistics for Mission" so the sidesmen were jubillant as they relayed the figures. We even had (possibly, though not exclusively,for the benefit of the Herring of Christ (TM)) "the bit with a dog" - as Dennis the Guide dog puppy came and helped with the talk, which focussed on St Francis and his recognition of the whole of creation praising God.

All that jubillation was followed by the auction of harvest produce - nearly £80 raised for USPG and alot of enthusiasm along the way...Valley Church is not wealthy but the faithful know about generosity, as they showed today.
I feel privileged to be part of that community.

And then on to a further community celebration - the Medieval Fayre...This is the second year that a splendid local councillor has mustered all and sundry to gather in the park on an autumn afternoon, dressed in all sorts of approximations to medieval finery, with no aim in view beyond building community. The procession from school to park was made bright by splendidly costumed children (I'm so glad my own are well past the "I need a medieval costume by tomorrow" stage)...and the emphasis was very much on families having fun together. We worked alongside our Methodist friends and the church corner, featuring free helium balloons (them) and free gingerbread pigs to ice or illuminated initials to decorate (us) drew a steady stream of children all afternoon.Many were familiar faces, children I see every week at school and know by name .Some were children I meet on walks with the dogs. Many of the parents I did not know at all, and this was a wonderful opportunity to explain what Messy Church does, to assure them that that too is free, and to give out our calendars and info leaflets while the children had fun. Mostly, though, it was time to enjoy making connections, celebrating friendships, and just being glad to be part of things.
I was specially pleased that Messy Church won "best stall" at the fayre. Good PR for us, and a well deserved prize of Fair Trade choc for the Dufflepud, who had nobly made all 100 gingerbread pigs, once it became obvious last night that yet again his mother had failed to master the art of bi-location.

I do love this job.
Just wish there were more time to really enjoy it - Harvest supper tonight!
Pictures to follow

10 Commandments for Reducing Stress

My good friend S., with whom I trained at vicar school, clearly knows me far better than is comfortable. She sent me this today...I promise to try but please don't hold your breath.....

TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR REDUCING STRESS

1. Thou shalt not be perfect, or even try.

2. Thou shalt not try to be all things to all people.

3. Thou shalt leave undone things that ought to be

done.

4. Thou shalt not spread thyself too thin.

5. Thou shalt learn to say No.

6. Thou shalt schedule time for thyself and for thy

support network.

7. Thou shalt switch off and do nothing regularly.

8. Thou shalt be boring, inelegant, untidy and

unattractive at times.

9. Thou shalt not feel guilty.

10. Thou shalt very definitely not be thine own worst

enemy, but thine own best friend.

Michaelmas Triads

The feast of St Michael & All Angels - and one of those golden, autumnal days that make it easy to sense the presence of angels at every turn. I love this feast, which celebrates the constant proximity of heaven...the endless progression of angels up and down from there to here...wonderful.

Last night I was in the congregation to see a friend licensed to a scary but potentially wonderful new post...FabBishop, preaching, talked about three aspects to the angelic calling (to be reflected in the life of the Church)...
"Feet on the ground" - or at least, focussed on the earthing of God's self in the incarnation (so, a church rooted in, and not over against its community)
"Hearts in heaven" - (Where your treasure is....) and
"Lips that tell"....(and, for the churches, LIVES that tell as well...since our proclamation of Good News must be evident in who we are as in what we say)...

Today, at a quietly joyful Eucharist, I reminded the tiny congregation of the traditional attributes of each of the archangels...Michael, (meaning "who is like God") the protector...
Gabriel (the strength of God) bringing good news to Mary "The Lord is with you."
Raphael (the healing of God) and we talked a little about the ways in which we could share in the work, as well as the song of the angels

Later I came home and read in a post by Bishop Nick Baines of another Bishop (Jack Nicholls, late Bishop of Sheffield) He is a speaker at the Southwark Diocesan conference this year, and shared with the clergy a lesson he'd learned from one of his own personal angels, a nun long since gone to her rest...

there are only three things to be involved with as a priest:

* the praise of God
* the pain of the world
* the repentance of the church.

He went on to say that the place and purpose of prayer is to locate us at the place where the love of God and the pain of the world meet … which happens to be where the cross is to be found.

I'm excited to be reminded of this truth, which resonates even more now as I try to serve in these parishes than it did when I first encountered Bishop Jack some 10 years ago, while I was still trying to run from my vocation.

I wish that I had the courage to draw a line under any and every thing that does not, at the end, boil down to one of these three things...my hunch is that all that gives me life in ministry can be distilled into one category or another.
What do you think?

The blogging future

Last week Cheesehead noted a decline in blog activity and the responses to her post confirm that many one-time enthusiasts are neglecting their blogs these days, though none of them seem to be glad about this.
And, of course, I'm in the same boat.
Despite my best intentions, regular blogging just doesn't seem to be happening.
Mostly, it's not a question of disinclination, or even of blogger's block - it's simply that I'm too. darned. busy. to do the sort of thinking that needs to happen to enable any blogging worth reading.
I'm more than a little embarassed by this.
After all, back in the carefree days of curacy (!), I managed to fill my days pretty convincingly, and rarely felt that I was short of things to do, - but somehow along the way there was always time to pause, to notice what God might be up to, to dig out the right quotation, to hunt the right image. and then to indulge in a little thinking aloud.

Now, though there is every reason to suppose that God is just as busy about the place, I seem to be too intent on galloping from pillar to post to actually reflect on this. That wouldn't matter too much if it was just the blog that was suffering - but of course, it's not. If I'm not reflecting here, I'm perilously close to not reflecting anywhere (the more so in the absence of WonderfulVicar and theological son to ramble to) - and that is positively dangerous.

It would be oh so easy to just pull the plug on this blog here and now. I could stop feeling guilty about my neglect of it, stop comparing my current contributions with the meatier posts of former days...So many of the things I might like to blog about are potentially complicated, and might cause distress close to home if misunderstood...while too much of my time is taken up with doing highly uninspiring things like...signing forms approving headstones, for example!
And yet...And yet...

While tweeting deals with my need to connect with the world beyond the parish, it doesn't constrain me to reflect on what is actually going on with God, these people, this place...or, of course, with me as I continue to try to fathom what being the priest for these parishes really means.
And there's the risk that if I don't look at it here, I may not do so anywhere,that I might have the experience and miss the meaning.

So, somehow, I need to return to the discipline of fairly regular blogging....
I'm not entirely sure where I might find the time for it, but there is simply no point in becoming a relentless activist...so much NOT what I was ordained for.
So, I need to have the courage to do my thinking aloud when I can safely do so...but I need to remember, always, that there are people reading my words whose stories, too, are played out against this backdrop, people whom I'm called to serve, people who are part of the reason I'm here at all.

Sunday special - high farce on the hill.

A good morning at both churches today.
Several groups of visitors, who were more willing to offer feedback than the regulars are - and were indeed distinctly complimentary
The return of a newcomer from a week or two back, who expressed her intention of coming again and didn't bolt when I suggested that I might drop in and see her after the hols.
A sermon that somehow carried within it (for the preacher at least) the friends who had been part of its production - making them feel very close throughout the morning.

And - the highspot of the day - the most fantastic offertory at Church on the Hill!

You remember that we are in the grip of all sorts of anti flu procedures?
Communion in one kind, a really thorough wash in warm soapy water and a quick squirt of hand gel before I consecrate.
So the sacristan up the hill asked me when I would want the water - and I said
"Oh, at the offertory...I'll just wash in the same place that I would normally do the token lavabo".
Cue an offertory procession comprising the elements, the gifts of the people AND a large red plastic washing up bowl.

The Herring and I both lost it completely for a few moments - it's amazing how long even the shortest aisle can seem as you battle with hysteria.
When the Archbishops' guidelines were first published there were some rather wonderful nonsense emails circulating about the correct liturgical use of gel etc
This morning, we enacted one of them!

Thank you God, for the gift of laughter :-)

Words I never expected to say

"I must get organised"

Regular readers will know that I make it a point of honour to be almost a caricature of my MyersBriggs ENFP profile, avoiding planning (dreaming is different), leaving everything til the last minute if not later and generally running scared of anything that looks remotely like a schedule.
That worked quite well in curacy days...The main things were laid out, daily and weekly, and though I could bounce chaotically from one to another, there was no danger of essentials being overlooked or spoiled through lack of preparation, because the ultimate responsibility was not mine.

Now, of course, it's a very different matter.
I'm the one responsible for ensuring that those fixed things that held me on course actually happen.
I'm the one responsible for ensuring that I achieve such necessary things as Time Off (interesting - WonderfulVicar struggled with this one too; though he was very good at safeguarding my day off, his own was a different matter)
I have total freedom to organise my days, and my diary, - or to let the diary organise me instead.

I guess I took my diary's supremacy for granted til last week.
I would write in appointments, thinking "That clear slot on Tuesday afternoon will be just perfect for rewriting the Baptism intro leaflet" - but then someone would ask to see me and I'd offer them Tuesday afternoon, because it seemed rude to postpone them when I could fit them in and only inconvenience myself.
In fact, any time a real person hove in sight, I'd squeeze them in to the diary no matter what...which meant that always, the long-term desirables were postponed and the short-term essentials were often completed only by excessive burning of the midnight oil.

It just didn't occurr to me that the diary was MINE to control...til in conversation with a friend, another cleric, I discovered that he has perfected the art of apportioning time in ways that make sense.
For example, by Tuesday I owe the parish mag editor all kinds of copy.
I've known this for a while, but trusted that a slot would appear in which I could work on it...With no such slot forthcoming, I'll be working late tomorrow night
D., however, would have identified some time weeks ago in which he would work on the magazine and no matter what came up, he would stick to it.

One crucial difference is that he's part of a team, and doesn't hold overall responsibility for the life of his church, but (pathetic though it seems) this was truly the first time I had dreamed that such an approach was possible.
With the Herring of Christ to encourage, I can't afford to be heading into weekends with things still evolving around me. It's simply not fair when he's learning the job to force him to engage with a constantly shifting landscape as well...so whatever else, worship prep needs attention. It would be good to know by Thursday night who is doing what, and how, on Sunday morning...

The problem is, the one slot I can see in this week's diary is late on Sunday afternoon.......
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

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...