Not quite sure where this week has gone: 3 funerals in 2 days probably has alot to do with the speed at which time hurtles past...Yesterday's was special.
No. Let me rephrase that. I know they are ALL special to the families involved, and believe me we do our utmost to ensure that they feel this. I rather think God does too.Inevitably, though, you engage differently in different contexts, and some touch you personally more than others.
Yesterday's was for a lady whom I'd been privileged to spend a long afternoon with, only a few days before she died. We had taken her Communion, stayed on for a cup of tea, and then been stranded thanks to prolonged and violent thunderstorms..She and her husband were clearly devoted, and as they shared stories and memories, knowing that their time was likely to be short, I really did feel that we were on holy ground.
When we had visited to discuss the funeral, he had worried that maybe not many people would attend, though the forest of cards all over the house suggested this might be unlikely. In the event, the church was full and the little house afterwards overflowed with love and concern, under which the family blossomed. I honestly think they enjoyed the experience...realising that the wife and mother who was so precious to them was loved and valued in so many different contexts. It made me realise just how valuable those letters and cards you struggle to send in the aftermath of a death can be....and how much more so the hugs and memories.

Clouds lift

Thank you to everyone who prayed, supported and responded to yesterday's blog....It would be too much to say that things are brighter today, but the weight of misery is maybe slightly less overwhelming.
Professionally, the day is one of weddings, which makes a nice change from the recent run of funerals: I can't actually conduct the things yet, of course, but I did have a jolly time acting as unofficial creche for assorted infants and toddlers who clearly felt that all that was necessary had been said within the first two minutes of the service. So we played in the sunshine and "they" did the grown up bits inside the church....and a good time was had by all.:-)

Friday 13th

Since my beloved youngest child was born on this day 12 years ago, I've always claimed a particular fondness for 13ths in general, and Friday 13th in particular. This year I'm rather uncertain, though.
The day has featured one deeply unhappy parishioner, two funerals plus a funeral visit and most seriously the awareness of the huge pain that one of my dearest friends is going through, and which I can do nothing to alleviate. I had never seen myself as a Mrs Fixit but clearly I have these tendencies...to no avail.
All I can do is stand at the foot of the cross and weep......for which, of course, there is rather a precedent. I know I'm not alone there, though, and this has helped me to get through the day and even manage to play birthday jollities with the boy himself. Thanks to those whose companionship in the sadness made this more possible.

Words, words, words....

Maggi's blog, here, carries some interesting thoughts about the role of those passages of Scripture, liturgy et al that we actually know by heart.....which sent me off on a roundabout track to consider how much our ideas (and specificially our theological ideas) are actually created by the words with which we express them. That may sound bizarre at first, and I do know the dangers of locating God within a particular form of service of type of language.After all, I'm a curate in the sort of traditional Anglican parish where, when we introduce the Lord's prayer with the words "As our Saviour taught us, so we pray..." a high proportion of the congregation assume that this means that Jesus did indeed instruct his disciples to pray in the English of 1611 ;-).
Nonetheless, I'm sure I'm not unique in finding that certain patterns of language effect me in a way that others, carrying the same meaning, do not...The Common Worship Evening Prayer includes an updated version of one of the familiar collects, retains the meaning exactly, but totally loses the effect...Why is this? Is it purely the resonance of countless Evensongs of my chorister past...or is there something inherently special about the words selected and arranged thus...Some words, I'm sure, are themselves Sacraments...they achieve what they symbolise or describe. For me, the final stanza of John Donne's "Hymne to God the Father", Here, does just that, and has done so ever since I read it in a train between Eastbourne and St Leonards on Sea, going home from school.to confront a new world, the day my father died. Whenever I read it, as I have so many times through the years, the same tangible certainty that all shall be well surrounds me once again, and I do indeed "feare no more".
I suspect this may be a glimpse of the blindingly obvious, and something others have considered long since....but, hey, I had fun cogitating anyway, and nobody forced you to read to the bitter end, did they??
PS If anyone felt moved to teach me how to do those links that would take you direct to a specific section of Maggi's blog (and indeed anyone else's)..., I'd be one up on the superteen Giles, and seriously, if not eternally, grateful!

Something completely different

Today, my day off, I decided to redeem myself with the children by a Proper Day Out. After an entertaining visit to the orthodontist, who had moved practice to the other side of Cheltenham without warning, so that we found her only after frantic drive across town....for an appointment that must have taken a good 45 seconds..we headed south to Somerset and Kilve. Amazing beach, with huge stones, and terraced rocks which make most convincing sleeping dragons...plus handy cave for lunch in the rain. All very happy, then as rain intensified and swimming looked increasingly unlikely, we went in search of Exmoor ponies and Lorna Doone. En route through some of the most beautifully wild country I've enjoyed for a while, we saw a sign to 12th century church....Children agreed we could divert, as reward for good behaviour....but have to say I wish we hadn't. The church itself was tiny and quite appealing...on the edge of a tiny hamlet of 10 houses. It houses the smallest and least threatening pulpit I've ever encountered:not so much "6 feet above contradiction" as "a small step above uncertainty". Amazingly it claimed to have both a vicar and a curate (the former being known as The Rev and the latter as Fr....which intrigued me mildly) and was actually planning to hold a service this coming w'end, Evensong taking place every 3rd Sunday...But what reduced me to silent misery was the fact that it was stuffed...and I mean STUFFED...with dead flowers. Three arrangements in the sanctuary, one by the font....they simply shouted of despair and desolation. Here, in the middle of all the tourist routes, signposted from 3 directions, was a church saying "We are dead. We are irrelevant. Even we don't care any more....why should you?"
G remarked in some disgust that only I could find myself in the middle of Exmoor doing theological reflections about dead flowers....sadly, I fear he might not be right...and that others might also see it this way.

Can anoyone tell me.......?

why, when I am endlessly patient with all sorts of unreasonable old ladies, disaffected youths and wobbly clerics, I am totally incapable of remembering for half an hour what it felt like to be 17....
Feeling very ashamed of myself, as I had a Major Row with beloved daughter, who is, not unreasonably, feeling a bit deprived of social life, since I've dragged her 2o miles in the wake of my ordination, failed so far to insure my car for her to practice driving on, and vanished cheerfully out the door calling "Mustn't be late for Evening Prayer" just when she was about to talk to me....
I guess that blogs are not intended as alternative confessionals, and there aint alot of absolution to be had anyway, but I do hope I'm not developing into Rev Jekyll/Mummy Hyde...only worth knowing when I'm in "uniform". The thing is, it's not just professional niceness...I really do feel tremendously fond of and concerned for all these people....Of course, I feel considerably fonder and more concerned for my nearest and dearests, but showing it, that's another matter :-(

So easy, really

This morning I visited a family who come to our "Prams and Pushchairs" toddler church...Unusually, they had ASKED for a service of Thanksgiving rather than Baptism for the younger children, and when I met their dad it all made sense. He was a really thoughtful guy, with no churchy pretensions whatsoever, who nonetheless said that he "respected church too much to make empty promises there".
Impressive, eh? Wish he could chat to some of the other families we encounter.We had a satisfying conversation, and I was just beginning to tear myself away from the delightful baby when her big brother asked me rather sheepishly if I could do a " sort of prayer thingy for if you're being adopted". It turned out that this is a second relationship for his mother, and that the father of the girls, is going to adopt J too....I was of course more than happy to agree to include prayers to reflect this in the service, and the grin that spread over J's face when he realised that not only could he be included in his sisters' special day, but that God might actually want to be involved in his new relationship, was worth almost anything and then a bit more. The family had already asked for the inevitable "Let the children come to me" reading, and it was good to be able to tell them that when Jesus placed his hands on the heads of those children he was proclaiming himself their father and protector...adopting them, in fact.
Hard to tell which of us was more thrilled, really.....And they call this sort of thing "work".
I left there with a beautiful drawing of a smiling flower in a pot and a pipecleaner heart to grace the study....and a longing for there to be more moments of revelation, when people grasp that God really does care about them, and the church manages not to put its foot in it and crush their faltering moves towards him.

Not so good

Well, it's just over a month since I dropped off the clerical production line and landed as a shiney new curate in the parish...A month of new experiences, new people by the hundred (all of whom know ALL about me, including probably where I've put the keys to the vestry) and more joy than I would ever have believed a "job" could entail.
But today is different. My boss, who is truly wonderful (gentle reader, I refer to the vicar, my more immediate boss, rather than the Boss whom you might presume to be the sole employer of even infant clergy) phoned to say that Sheila died yesterday.
She was a wonderful lady. A former PCC secretary who had huge reservations about the ministry of women, she had battled with a particularly unpleasant form of cancer for nearly 10years, suriving on liquid meal replacements ever since diagnosis. When I first went with Michael to visit her, he warned me that she might be a little cool, given her strong views on ordination. Instead she was both gracious and welcoming, and over 4 weeks we became very good friends as we explored life, death, ministry...and the mysterious attractions of Big Brother. A quick visit last Friday morning turned into nearly 2 hours, we had so much to say to each other. A return trip was in the diary for today...but it's too late. She waited until her daughter and family returned from holiday in the States on Tuesday...fell into a coma on Wednesday and moved on yesterday afternoon. She'd allowed us to come so far along the road with her, it hurts that neither of us were there at the end.
Go well, Sheila, straight into the loving arms of God. Thank you for your friendship and your inspiration. I'm so glad I knew you.