Be thou my vision

I said I'd post a little more about the "boiling down" process by which we were encouraged, during last week's training, to arrive at a personal vision and mission statement - both things I've tended to view with some suspicion as bits of corporate-speak that were best left well alone.
That, however, was before last Tuesday.
As Claire said,
"If you don't fully understand who you are and what you are for, how on earth are you going to help others to meet the real you?".
It's so horribly easy to spend your days racing around like a gerbil on speed...It's easy enough to do that even if you believe that you are in the right place, doing the the things that God has called you to do...but if you've never spent time really considering that calling and whether or not you are being faithful to it, this becomes an even more likely outcome.

So, inspired by the day and knowing I need something to keep me on task with this in the interests of ending up as a round peg in a round hole, I came home with 3D's recommended text The Path and am working my way through some of its exercises en route to arriving at my personal mission statement (with luck, before I actually need it).
I've been invited to consider which of the 4 elements (earth, air, fire, water) I might be and to come up with at least 12 adjectives to describe myself as that element...
I've been asked to consider whose dream, whose life I am living...how much the Kathryn of today matches the dreams of my parents for themselves, or for their daughter...and I've been playing with words.
Playing with words?
Sounds fun for someone as loquacious as I am - but just wait till you are confronted with 10 lists of 30 words, from each of which to choose 3 that most excite you...and then, from your own resulting short-list of 30 just 3 that are your key-words around which your mission statement will be built.

Here are my hard-won 30. It was interesting that there were words on the initial list that left me so cold I was reaching for a jumper - but all of these make me smile inside, produce an "ahhhh, yes" response which proclaims them very close to the heart of my personal calling.

affirm - appreciate - celebrate - connect - counsel - create - enthuse - envision -

foster - dream - embrace - delight - reflect - relate - resonate - yearn - thirst-

write - play - praise - pray - heal- inspire - host - share - smile - serve - love -

open - nurture

The trouble is that all of them do feel very close to my heart...
I want to love and nurture, but also to celebrate. I want to embrace and affirm but also to play. To dream, delight and share. To choose just 3 - three - as pegs on which to hang some sort of expression of my personal vocation leaves me floundering. Which, of course, is precisely what this process is designed to prevent.
Oh dear.
I think I've a bit more work to do here, as the personal discernment rumbles on.

Delight or warning?

Now that we are definitely into autumn around here, and have moved into daylight-saving mode, I find that many of my journeys seem to involve heading east at sunrise and, conversely (if unsurprisingly) west at sunset...and the skies have been completely and mind-blowingly fantastic.
The trouble is that while once I would simply have rejoiced at their beauty and wondered what any shepherds about the place could expect by way of weather, I'm now rather concerned that quite so many clear skies and stunning light shows may be a further sign of the damage we're doing to our environment. After the floods of June and July and an October that closely resembled the Junes of my childhood, even the most sceptical in these parts are beginning to suspect that there may be something amiss. Are these fairytale skies also signs of the times? I've no idea of the science, but I have to say that as they appear day after day I'm becoming distinctly nervous.

Nonetheless, the drive back from Hereford
this evening featured such beauty
in my wing-mirror that I just had to stop
and wonder.


In case it's not familiar, the "shepherd" reference is to a piece of Old Wives' lore that proclaims
"Red sky at night, shepherd's delight.
Red sky at morning, shepherd's warning"

So now you know!

Too good not to share

Perhaps this shouldn't count towards my monthly allocation of bloggage, but I've been thinking alot about community in the wake of a wonderful blah day Catholic/Contemplative Fresh Expressions of church (hope to blog that later too) so this week's reflection from the Henri Nouwen Society was spot on.

On the Journey Towards Universal Solidarity
written by CLARA FRASCHETTI

I recently spent a week in a small rural village called Sega, in Ghana, West Africa. My purpose was to establish a partnership with the local school where my organization, Intercordia Canada, hopes to place student volunteers. One day I met with about 50 parents, some of who would be asked to host our students for three months this summer. Mister Godwin, the head of the school, introduced me and asked me to say a few words about Intercordia. When I was done, Mister Godwin asked if any parents had questions. A small, older gentleman stood up, his back hunched, his skin wrinkled by the hot sun, and he asked in Dambe, "What are your first impressions of our community?" Mister Godwin translated as I described my time in Sega. I told them about my first morning and how the children had immediately taken my hand and led me through the village. As we passed people on the road, they recognized right away that I was new in town and most nodded or said "You are welcome!" Some enthusiastically took my face in their hands and said something in Dambe and then repeated "You are welcome! You are welcome!" I looked at the man standing there amongst the other parents and told him that if a stranger came to my neighbourhood, with different coloured skin, who dressed differently, no one would offer a greeting. In fact people might look at that person with suspicion and turn away. The old man looked at me with concerned eyes and said, "But, that is no way to treat a stranger". I humbly agreed with him. Then he said with conviction, "Then you must send your students, so that we can help to develop your community".


Perhaps that's the answer to building community in our churches - to import catalysts from beyond the parish boundaries. Oh, hang on, perhaps that's part of the role of the clergy...to be catalysts for community. I like that.

Transition time again

What we are to become is both task and gift – Marilyn McCord Adams

The fundamental moral question, therefore, is not “What ought we to do?” but “What kind of persons are we called to become?”
(Life in Christ: Morals, Communion and the Church)

So I’m here in transition.
I’ve been in transition as a mother, and found it hard and uncongenial….but up to a point at least some of the intitiative still lay with me.
Now I’m in transition again, waiting to be born in a new place with a new role…but this time I’m the baby….I know and value the safety of my current environment, its familiar warm darkness, its reliable nurture.
But I’m being slowly squeezed, whatever I may feel, along a passage that is leading to a new reality outside my knowledge.
Staying put seems so comfortable and attractive, but it’s simply not an option that is open to me. The unborn child cannot stay put – she will die if she lingers too long, because the very environment that has nurtured her so far will gradually begin to starve and stifle.
So she has to submit to the wave upon wave that engulfs her and pushes her onwards to something she can’t yet imagine.
The waiting and the journey are both hard work – but to be born is to come one step closer to knowing oneself as an independent being….

Laborare est orare

In the mornings recently as we’ve gathered in St David’s Chapel for morning prayer, it has been to the background rumble of a small cement mixer, and the sound of hammering,purposeful conversation and even, this morning, a small forklift truck. Our builders have been splendid to work with, showing great sensitivity and understanding of the purpose of a church and going well beyond the call of duty to enable us to continue worship with minimal disruption while their work progresses. The Office, though, is too regular an occurrence to allow them to down tools, -so as they have mixed concrete, grouted tiles and laid the new floor where some vanished pews once stood, we too have pressed on with our work... Both labours are foundational. The words of prayer that we offer, in company with Christians across the world, provide the stability and structure that my ministry depends on…Morning and Evening Prayer are the book-ends that support everything else that happens in my day, and I know that they are no less essential to the life of the whole church, though on the whole we make less noise about them than the builders are bound to. I’ve loved the fact that pray-ers and builders have worked side by side, looking towards a church that is more truly fit for purpose, more fully an expression of our calling to be God’s people in this place, to worship with creativity and to welcome all comers in God’s name.

Thoughts for All Saints

Busy busy day, which began with the 8.00 Eucharist...not a congregation that expects (or indeed welcomes) a sermon as a general rule, but as I stood there looking at that faithful group (just 27 this morning) it seemed that I couldn't not say something about the feast we were celebrating - so I did the unthinkable for me. I just spoke to them. No notes. No clear sense of quite where I might go...but a thought for the day, which I hope might remind them of something important.

"A saint is someone that the light shines through"
That’s my favourite definition, - attributed to a small boy who was stuck for an answer to the question
“What is a saint” as he sat in a church of many stained glass windows.
I love it because, like so much that children say about God, it summarises in one short phrase a most important truth.
Saint ARE people whom the light shines through…people whose lives radiate God’s love so clearly that they point the way to others.
We have, of course, the church’s canon of saints, people whose lives and witness we celebrate year on year, - but we have too those unsung, unknown saints who’ve inspired those who knew them – those who know them. The saints of our community are, in a way, represented by the gallery of pictures of your former clergy who look down on me as I robe in the vestry...men who lived and worked among you, trying with all their strength to be signs of God's Kingdom. But you'll have others too, ladies who taught you, or taught your children at Sunday school...a grandparent or an elderly aunt who spoke to you about Jesus or simply loved you in such a way that you knew yourself loveable always...
Those beatitudes we’ve just heard as our gospel reading say nothing about being blessed when you convert thousands at a great rally at Wembley Stadium…they fail to mention the need to write a life changing book that all the world will read…
Mostly they speak about things to which we could all aspire – to be pure in heart, to long for righteousness, to be merciful…
Added together, those aspirations make up a very powerful witness…Added together, they transform ordinary people, people like us, into saints that the light shines through.
This is our calling.

Later on at OpenHouse we explored our calling to be "lights that shine" a little more, looking at pictures of some stereotypical saints and then at some unsung saints from our ow community...We lit sparklers and enjoyed their effect in a dark church, but realised that they burned out very quickly - not the best metaphor for our calling....so we handed out glow sticks, which are still shining softly 5 hours on.

Finally at Koinonia we simply enjoyed the light from our sparklers, drawing wild patterns in the air and pretending that we were none of us grown up enough to worry about exams, jobs or the fact that tomorrow is Monday again.

The Way Ahead

was the name of my first piano book when I emerged triumphant from John Thompson Book 1...No more pictures of cute gnomes and instead pieces by "real" composers. Oh, I was so excited!
I guess there might be a similiar feel when I actually land that "first responsibility post" , towards which so much of my energies are currently geared. At the moment, though, I'm very grateful for any kindly helpers who cross my path (none of whom, oddly enough, have looked even remotely like gnomes).

On Tuesday, therefore, I was up at dawn for the drive to Guildford for training from Claire Pedrick of 3D Coaching on the gentle art of moving on. To my relief, the group was not just a collection of anxious curates (who could see their successors removal vans approaching the door) but clergy at all stages of ministry, who were trying to discern if now is the time for a change. The day was completely excellent - I'm delighted to have done it, though I wish even more that I'd been able to do it a year ago. Right now, the view from here is rather like this (actually part of the cloistered area outside Guildford Cathedral) - with lots of shadowy openings and
vague possibilities and one or two that look as if they might actually be a door-way to something.
Part of Tuesday's task was to begin to recognise our own gifts so that we have more hope of communicating them to interview panels...We were invited to mind-map our whole life's experience, drawing out the key skills that each chapter represented. I'd never, for example, recognised that opting to run a B&B when the last recession left us in a large Cotswold farmhouse with no money could be seen as adaptability as much as deperation! But actually, it can....and right the way down the line for everyone there are unrecognised talents to be spotted and drawn out.
From this, the next step was to "boil ourselves down" to the essence of ourselves in ministry...a process that was both hard-work and thoroughly rewarding (I'll tell more later) before we considered what might be the absolute essentials (and desirables) for a job to "fit". We were invited to consider those things that made us smile or cringe in any parish profile, and reflect on what that might say about the place and the people. One golden nugget that I'll have to keep at the forefront of my mind was Claire's reminder
"Those of you who are looking for your first parish need to be aware that you'll be so pathetically grateful if offered a job that you're likely to jump at anything. Just don't..."

I came home energised and keen to explore what it is that really makes me sing in my current ministry...and what that might say as I try to make clear how the way ahead might look for me.

Do you have any questions?

If ever there was a timely Friday Five, this one must be it. In a week in which I’ve spent one day learning about preparations for moving on (I’ll blog that tomorrow – one unexpected side effect of the NaBloPoMo is that I really can’t afford to just post whenever I think of it – I’ll surely run out of ideas far too soon that way) Mother Laura has produced questions on that terrifying event, The Interview.

1. What was the most memorable interview you ever had?
I’ve had quite a startling lack of interviews in my life, actually and none particularly stand out…When we first moved out of London and funds were almost non-existent, I tried to find any sort of un-demanding part time job to help…and again and again I fell over my Cambridge degree, which was suddenly not an asset but a huge liability. Oddly, it never occurred to me to leave it off the CV, even after the MD of a local quarrying firm, who had wanted some clerical help in the office told me categorically
“I couldn’t employ you. You’re friends with some of the people I work for”.
OK, there probably was a bit of a mismatch of my abilities and their needs – but at that moment what I needed most was an extra £100 per week and I really couldn’t see why over-qualification might be a problem. "But that was in another country and besides, the wench is dead…"


2. Have you ever been the interviewer rather than the interviewee? If so, are you a tiger, a creampuff, or somewhere in between?
I’ve never been part of the sort of career world that put me in the interviewer’s seat, but I have been part of a panel appointing a new teacher at the village school. On that occasion, I was so bowled over by the wonderfulness of one of the short-listed candidates that I was desperate for her to teach my children – so my approach was definitely along the “cream puff” lines. I so wanted her to show her best self, which she did, praise be – and got the job, and was every bit as much of an inspiration for Hugger Steward as I'd hoped. I don't think I do "tiger" actually...

3. Do phone interviews make you more or less nervous than in-person ones?
I’ve never had one as such, - but the story that follows concerns a phone conversation to advise me of the result of an interview.
Imagine the scene. Idyllic summer’s evening somewhere in the Cotswolds.
I’m attempting to lead a small pony with a large appetite along the grassy track to his field, without hesitation, deviation or pauses for snacking en route.
Suddenly the calm of the evening is broken by an electronic version of a Bach Brandenburg concerto…
Tis the mobile.
Frantic rifling in many pockets ensues (all horsy clothes must be well pocketed, as you always need innumerable bits and pieces about your person, just in case). Finally the phone is located, dropped (missing a cow pat by inches) retrieved – miraculously all before the ringing stops.
So far, so good, though I’m dimly aware that Todd the Pony, who had been intent on nothing more interesting than the grass immediately in front of him, has spotted something more exciting….He is beginning to be restless.
“Kathryn, this is Bishop J” says a voice…”I have some news regarding your Selection Conference”
Oh. The world stops. Last time this bishop phoned and began with these words, road blocks and disappointment followed. With an effort, I reconnect with the here and now, just in time to to receive the words
“Warmly recommend you for training…”
Suddenly the evening sun glows with a new gold. It’s Yes….I can go forward. This wasn’t all a mad and unliveable dream…but just as I begin to take my part in the conversation, the lure of the wheel-barrow of hay only yards away becomes too strong. Instead of the polite and grateful responses to be expected from a brand new ordinand, what the Bishop actually hears is
“No…(Excuse me, Bishop….Yes, I am still here…) No. You wretched animal (Not you, of course, Bishop….I’m sorry. You were sayi------. COME BACK HERE"
Bishop (resignedly, knowing that distraction and Kathryn are constant companions) “I sense perhaps this isn’t the best moment to talk…”

4. What was the best advice you ever got to prepare for an interview? How about the worst?
At the training day this week, the thing that struck me right between the eyes was the need to really know who you are yourself, as fully as possible before you try to present that self to a stranger at interview. It may sound obvious, but it’s only too easy to go into an interview focussing on the obvious things that you imagine the interviewers are looking for - while what really matters is that the job should be a good fit for the whole of you, not just the bits that can “do” whatever it is.
Worst advice….before my first selection conference “Be yourself”.
There’s quite a lot of this particular self, and I think I drowned the selectors in Kathryn that time round. I wasn’t less honest at the re-match, just less keen to share everything, no matter what!

5. Do you have any pre-interview rituals that give you confidence?
No – if I can only manage to leave the house in Good Time that is more than enough for me.

I must be dotty

With everything else that is currently going on in my life, I've signed up for a whole month of blogging every day...
Let it be known that my thinking aloud will have at least regularity,if not substance, for the next 30 days.
My daughter may write novels, but me, I'm a humble blogger.
Let the posting commence
Happy NaBloPoMo everybody.

Journey On

This evening, for the 4th year running, St M's opened its doors to the families of those for whom we've conducted funerals over the past 2 years (who all received a personal invitation) and anyone else who wanted to come. They met for "A service of thanksgiving and remembrance" - something quite different from the traditional All Souls Requiem, with its list of names and general air of heavy solemnity.
People cry at this service, but they sometimes laugh too. Afterwards they share a glass of wine and talk about how they are making their way through their own particular valley of shadow. It's a huge privilege to see the courage and fidelity that keeps so many struggling onward - and the small miracles of hope that each person there represents.


It's a short service...barely half an hour of liturgy and at its climax comes an invitation to light a candle not only for the obvious losses that have brought them there, but also for any other experience of loss or disappointment, a baby never born, a friendship lost or broken...
This year I also offered the option of taking a seed away as a sign of hope - and to my amazed delight it seemed that everyone chose to do so.
We use words so much in the church. I love them - and they work for me - but tonight though my reflection seemed to hit the right note, it was the rituals and the music that spoke the greater truth.
All in the end is harvest.

You need to read this

John Davies, a Greenbelt friend (and the author of one of these which look to be a thoroughly Good Thing) has been following the M62 across England from Hull to Liverpool for the past 2 months. He's a fine writer and his walking blog has been well worth reading, with much to ponder - but nothing more so than today's post.

The more I have been pummelled in the tumult of motorway ghosts speeding past me on my slow journey, the more I have become convinced of the deadliness of the disconnections our society has accepted. A people who can no longer move at walking pace, a people who must wall out children or run them down, a people radically disconnected from each other (whilst sharing the same spaces), a people radically disconnected even from our own bodies... I think we either have already died or are in an irreversably critical condition.


Go and read the rest here - I think that it is both important and beautifully written.

In conversation recently I concluded that perhaps the priestly task is, quite simply, to help people to see. What we should do and be once we have seen is another question, and a challenging one.

Friday Frivolity - It's a Pumpkin/Apple Five

Singing Owl over at Revgals writes: All Hallows Eve (Halloween) is near. As a child, Halloween was one of my favorite holidays. We didn’t yet worry about razor blades in apples or popcorn balls or some of the other concerns people have with Halloween these days. Halloween was a chance to be mildly scared, and better yet, to dress up and pretend to be something we really weren’t. Let’s talk about that a bit, but then let’s add in some food ideas for this year. Where I live the leaves are falling, the temperature is chilly and pumpkins are for sale everywhere, along with many kids of apples. What's more, the "Holiday Season" will soon be upon us. ACK! I could use a new idea for dessert. So, here we go…

1. How did you celebrate this time of year when you were a child?
Halloween as a festival has only really hit the UK since I grew up. When I was small, I loved the idea of telling stories by the fire (come to think of it, I still do) so I would try and organise my parents into doing just that somewhere around 31st October….and if I had a friend over, we’d maybe bob for apples (catching them in your teeth as they float in a bowl of water) and raid the dressing up box for long skirts and make sugar-paper witches hats. When I was a teenager, there was one year when I had a sort of low key fancy dress party and put candles all over the house….You see, I was longing for stones and tea-lights even then. But that’s about it.

2. Do you and/or your family “celebrate” Halloween? Why or why not? And if you do, has it changed from what you used to do?
Nope. Partly because the way the festival has arrived here is mega-commercial and slightly unpleasant. Instead of being about small children looking sweet dressed up as cats, it is apparently rather too often more about teenagers frightening the elderly with the nature of their tricks…There’s also a lot of confusion around as to whether we are celebrating the dark, and encouraging people to play with dangerous things, so some churches get very anxious about the whole caboodle. I'm not fully of their persuasion, (it seems to me that most of the activity is harmless fun) but it does mean that it would feel rather incongruous for a clergybird to be actively encouraging the festivities - just in case they go bad. When we lived in the village, we used to run a Light and Laughter party in church, which went down a storm. Gave kids a chance to dress up and play traditional games with apple; gave them the opportunity to be pleasantly scared by torchlight tag in the churchyard -but sent them home with a message of celebration of the light that no darkness can quench. It worked for us then.
A couple of years ago the diocese organised the most fantastic youth event in the Cathedral – again setting out to reclaim the Christian foundations of All Hallows Eve…I'd love to celebrate like that with 500 teenagers singing "Light of the World" on a regular basis.

2. Candy apples: Do you prefer red cinnamon or caramel covered? Or something else? I’ve only ever had the “toffee apple” variety – which I used to love, but suspect would make my teeth fall out nowdays ;). They weren't a Halloween special, though. I used to buy one when the fun fair came to town each summer - I wasn't allowed candyfloss, as my mother thought it too unwholesome to tolerate, but toffee apples might not quite count for your "Five a day" but they were technically fruit, so all was well. As to a cinnamon alternative - well, it is one of my favourite tastes, so who knows?
3. Pumpkins: Do you make Jack O’ Lanterns? Any ideas of what else to do with them? Deeply inept at such things. When I was a child, it was supposed to be turnip lanterns that you carved – and frankly a turnip is so jolly hard to carve that I decided the whole thing was Too Much at an early age and have never aspired to an alternative viewpoint, even now that the cult of the pumpkin is taking a firm hold on British society ;-)

4. Do you decorate your home for fall or Halloween? If so, what do you do? Bonus points for pictures. Fraid not – we once got a rather cute ceramic pumpkin designed to hold a tea light free with some purchase or other – so that sat on the kitchen window cill at our old house till it got broken…and that was it.

5. Do you like pretending to be something different? Does a costume bring our an alternate personality?
I'm useless at clever craft ideas (see above re pumpkins), so hated fancy dress parties in my youth, as I could never create anything that matched the scope of my imagination. On the other hand, I used to really love it when I was duty parent for school trips to a Victorian school room . We first went the year we celebrated the centenary of the village school. The children had to dress appropriately, take a suitable lunch (hunk of bread and cheese) in a suitable package (that meant a brown paper bag) and staff and helpers were in costume too…and got bonus points for talking in 19th century English. Having done The Victorian Novel as a special study in my final year, I entered into the spirit of this with embarassing enthusiasm....in fact I could probably have made a good shot at taking on the role of the school mistress had the need arisen. But that was pretty much the exception...though perhaps I'm pretending to be something different all the time? I certainly wear a strange costume - but I get the feeling that I'm mostly being allowed to be my truest self. Whether robes based on the everyday wear of the 1st century Roman contribute much to this I really don’t know…If I were a trad. Catholic, I guess I’d be aiming for obliteration of self by my vestments – but as it seems to me that my self is about all I can bring to the worship, that’s not too helpful (though please, Lord, don’t let the me-ness of Kathryn get in anybody’s way…)

Bonus: Share your favorite recipe for an autumn food, particularly apple or pumpkin ones. Aaargh…..There is a yummy apple cheesecake that I used to make to use up the glut of apples from our mini orchard at the old house. Can’t disengage from the computer enough to go and hunt it now, but this one is pretty close
Apple Cheesecakes
Short crust pastry (sweetened if you prefer)
225g (8oz) Stewed apple 110g
110g (4oz) Caster Sugar
110g (4oz) Butter
4 Egg Yolks 2 Egg Whites
1 Lemon, rind and juice

Peel, core and boil sufficient apples to make 225g (8oz) when cooked.
Add the sugar and the melted butter.
Add the beaten eggs, grated lemon rind and juice.
Stir the mixture well.
Line patty pans with pastry
Add the mixture.
Bake about 20 minutes.

Two more "disconcertions"

1. When I arrived at the hairdressers yesterday, the staff were very busy discussing a recent funeral....which, they assured me, had been held at the pub down the road. Further discussion established that there had indeed been something in the church beforehand but as far as those women were concerned the real funeral was what happened by way of a party afterwards. Despressing but probably salutory for someone who spends so much time preparing funerals, weighing every word, trying as best I can to make a twenty minute slot at the crem helpful and meaningful. It's quite possible that I could actually read through the Yellow Pages with equal effect - because the pub's the thing.
2. I heard an ad promoting a "Sponsor a Child" scheme - which had as its basic incentive not the huge difference that sponsorship would make to the family concerned but, dear Lord, the feel-good factor for the sponsor. The punch-line of the campaign was "What will you feel as a child sponsor?" What I feel, is slightly queasy. Leaving aside all the ethical questions about whether child sponsorship is a good idea, selling it as the latest means to self gratification is, in my book, really rather horrible. What do you think?
   

Half empty or half full?

Recipe for a-less-than-perfect day off…

• Forego lie-in in order to go for bad haircut (usual stylist away – Curate a congenital wimp when it comes to challenging any sort of expert – result, a trim that became a complete and startling re-style, shorter than I’ve ever had it before….tolerable now I’ve washed it myself…but still not good)

• Watch the dangly part of lovely amber ear-ring that HG brought back from Poland disappear down plughole (again – redemption followed via LCM and a quick disconnection of the U bend, but there was a prolonged state of grief and shame-at-stupidity before this happy resolution)

• Attempt to recycle plastics and cardboard three times before suceeding. First of all the plastics bank was absent and the cardboard bank full, then plastics was there but cardboard missing - and finally they were both there in all their glory. And no, I didn't go out of my way 3 times in order to achieve this, - which would surely have been counterproductive in green terms - but it was irritating nonetheless. Indeed, if I'd not been hugely committed to environmental concerns I would probably have dumped the whole lot in the wheelie bin after the second attempt, rather than teetering around like a bag-lady on a bike for much of the morning.
  

• Sally forth to collect HS from work TWICE because his hours were changed at the last minute and he couldn’t get to the phone till too late

• Plan and head off on trip to enjoy autumn colours on nearby wooded hill – only to be thwarted by notice advisiing “Hill closed due to erosion” (Actually, we drove on and found somewhere nearly as good, where we could and did run down steep slopes through carpets of leaves in the approved manic fashion)

The slightly disturbing thing is that, give or take the hair (which will assuredly grow again), all of these minor whinges were redeemed by bedtime…but the impact of the initial frustrations meant that when I was asked how my day off had been, my first thought was a grumpy one.
I guess all the stuff that we’re told about the power of first impressions holds good for experiences too. I forgot the things that had worked first time in favour of chuntering about those which had been frustrating...
Since I’m generally ridiculously positive about most things realising that I’d been in a “half empty” frame of mind yesterday was a bit unnerving.
Guess there could be a reason for this - but it's still something to watch.
Maybe I'm expecting too much of days off, so get unreasonably disappointed when they bring with them their own crop of average realities. Who knows?
The working day today has been pretty much positive all round...and as there are 6 of those to every 1 of the other, I guess I should just cease my mutterings.

Just thinking

The experience of preaching last night was definitely less than uplifting. Words that had seemed just right on even the final read-through fell heavily on an unresponsive air and I wondered whether, in fact, in the process of preaching to myself I had actually excluded everyone else.

In fact I had 3 positive comments at the door - each of them from a woman in one or another form of ministry. So I'm wondering whether the struggles with letting go are particularly intense for us as a group? Is that the shadow side of the longing to nurture?

I know that it's part of almost every aspect of my life right now, as I prepare to move on in ministry to a new place, and as I watch my children stepping out into the world. So much of me would like to freeze time, - indeed, to put the clocks back to the comfortable days of primary school children, whose needs and crises could be solved so easily with hugs, hot chocolate and a really good book.
But there's so much joy, too, in watching them grow into their new worlds...and I know that actually they will "go" whether I release them gracefully or try to hang on with clenched fists. But if I let go willingly, then the evidence shows that they are more than willing to return.
So, I make the choice to open my arms to receive the future, for them and for me as well.

So, I wrote my sermon mostly with real live pen on paper as I sat on Hattie Gandhi's beautifully patchworked bedspread in her student room in Cardiff...and it was an infinitely smoother process than being here with all my props around me and the lure of the internet only a mouse click away. Mind you, I couldn't have finished it without reading Paul's thoughts (or without an encouraging chat with Songbird along the way)...Moderation in all things, I guess. I just wish I could exercise more self control over online temptations. Have you discovered the rice game yet? Good news for some (assuming that the site is as good as its word - I haven't actually checked credentials) but for a procrastinating curate, I'm not so sure...
3,900 grains on Friday....
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go and see ;-)

Public announcement

Ladies, gentlemen, boys, girls and especially dogpals...I thought you should know this. As I came home from the 7.30 Eucharist this morning, none of the children heading for the junior school were wearing uniform.
I bumped into a group that I know, and asked what was going on, and was told, with beaming smiles, that

"Today is MUFTI DAY"

Mufti wishes to thank her devoted public for this sign of recognition of her central importance in all things, and will be giving audiences in the Curate's study by appointment throughout the day.

Edit; explanatory note for More Cows and others....Mufti = British Raj slang for " Civilian dress, especially when worn by one who normally wears a uniform. "...It was chosen by HG as the name of her puppy-with-a-posh-pedigree and kennel-name to match, so that on state (uniform) occasions the dog concerned might be known as Wyafon Kawarra but the rest of the time, in her everyday clothes, she's "Mufti".

A quiet evening in

So last night I prayed the Michael Leunig prayer and prepared to turn off the lap top and go back to sleep.
One way and another I spent alot of yesterday sleeping - and expect today to be rather similar.
However, I'd just snuggled down with a cat helpfully positioned on my toes when there was an anguished shout from downstairs "I need help!"
Passing swiftly over the inevitable comments from family members that anyone living here undoubtedly needs all the help they can get, it's pretty rare for LCM to voice any such request. Fury at the intransigence of inanimate object?Yes. Frustration at the plethora of smallish animals underfoo? Certainly. Frustration at the foibles of wife and children? Of course.
But "need" and "help" in the same sentence- well this was the first time I could recall hearing such a thing in 22 years of marriage - so I shot downstairs expecting little short of fire, flood and haemmorhage (sp???).
Actually, I wasn't that wrong. Not flood exactly but a steady trickle of water from the trap door that leads to the loft over my study.
The loft that is home for boxes of books for which no shelf space offered. Back at our own house just before we moved, there was a minor tragedy when all my music, which had lived in a loft next to the header tank for our hot water system, somehow got damp and was mouldy and unsalvageable before we got to it, - and that sort of memory lent wings to our rescue mission. LMC and HS were up the ladder and passing down boxes before I'd even got my slippers on. Inevitably at least one box disintegrated in transit, spilling theology all over the study floor, but it looks as if this was new damp, caused by the afternoon's constant rain, so once dried and spread out all over the sitting room, the books seem quite happy. And the curate's collection of terry nappies, preserved long beyond their official working life, has once again come in extremely useful. Maybe Michael Leunig should write a prayer about them? Maybe I should??

Meanwhile, though,the mystery remains, where did the water come in? There is apparently quite a large area covered, though not to any great depth - but no obvious hole in the roof anywhere. Time to phone the poor guy at Church House who deals with property. After 2 sets of real floods and lots of all round bad weather, he emailed all clergy a few weeks ago to say that the housing budget for this year was basically spent...I guess storm and water damage to clergy housing is just one more inconvenient truth to be dealth with as the global environment crisis continues.

In time of kleenex

God bless those who suffer from the common cold.
Nature has entered into them;
Has led them aside and lain them gently low
To contemplate life from the wayside;
To consider human frailty;
To receive the deep and dreamy messages of fever.
We give thanks for the insights of this
humble perspective.
We give thanks for blessings in disguise.

Michael Leunig from The Prayer Tree


Small selfish footnote
(And, if it's not too contrary to the spirit of the above, we pray for a total recovery by tomorrow..)

Tread lightly

Question: if you don't know about something till after it has happened, are you still late?

I've just discovered, via Julie at One Hand Clapping, that yesterday was Blog Action Day for the Environment.

At our conference last week, the theme was "Pressure Points" and our first keynote address was "The Earth under Pressure" - with Clare Foster, the Archbishops' Advisor on all sorts of ethical and environmental concerns,- so I'd kind of planned an environmental post some time this week.
If I'd only known....
However, true to my tradition of coming in late whenever possible, I thought I might as well write it anyway - because, actually, this stuff really matters.

Clare was excellent - really inspirational (and how exciting to know that some of the national voices of the C of E are so eloquent) and her theme was sobering but never depressing. She took as her starting point the Anglican Communion's Fifth Mark of Mission
"Strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and to sustain the life of the earth".
(Good, eh? I wonder if I'm the only person who didn't know that either there were 5 Communion wide marks, or that they included such wisdom. Guess I'd maybe better research the others)

Her presentation hang on several key theological points

• The Covenant nature of creation - an interdependent web
• Creation as Sacrament - every footfall of ours lands upon the body of Christ
• humanity as "second Adams" with the task of tilling and keeping, serving and conserving the earth - not dominating by right (even the concept of "stewardship" implies a measure of control that we cannot apply in our relationship with creation)
• (My favourite) The Sabbath Feast of Enoughness...an escape from the assumption of endless economic growth, of more as better, in favour of an economic model based upon perhaps a tree, which has limits to its growth...and then simply gains in maturity, though (as with the human body) renewal is constant throughout its lifetime....We need to recognise, against all the cultural impetus in the opposite direction, that we and the material world alike have limits...we cannot extend anything forever

She went on to talk about the practice of sabbath not only in ecological terms (reminding us of the jubilee principle, which leaves the earth fallow to rest every seventh year) but in personal terms...speaking of the way ceaseless hurry turns her into something less than human, someone who views everything, everyone as an obstacle in her need to get there on time ("Me too...me too" cried the curate who never leaves for anywhere before she should actually be arriving)
OOoooh - and there's a book - slight but practical, with ideas to implement and a moral and theoloical rationale to support them

Clare left us with the delightful invitation/challenge to pursue little sabbaths - being in the moment when delayed at traffic lights, while waiting for the computer to boot up, whenever, wherever the pauses come.
Later in the conference, during one of the (stunning) homilies preached by "ordinary" diocesan clergy, this point came home as he told of watching a woman at a cash point so intent on her next task that she didn't even wait to collect the money she was withdrawing...Apparently each year thousands of pounds are abandoned in the mad rush for the next thing. Quite incredible!
I'd rather stupidly not made the connection between personal and ecological balance - but it's something I'm pondering today, an unexpected sabbath enforced by the Common Cold.
Now, there's a lovely Michael Leunig prayer about that somewhere...if I can find it, I'll blog it later.