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.

Fresh perspectives

Arrived for me this week in the form of Rev Rachel, a wonderful woman ordained in the Church of South India, whom I met at the furthest tip of India 11 months ago. Now it was her turn to visit England, and she too arrived for a clergy conference – though I hope and believe her journey to High Leigh was rather less stressful than ours to Kanyakumari.

The first wonderful realisation was just how natural it felt to be walking up the road to church here in Charlton Kings with my friend beside me. Just this time last year, I’d been full of trepidation as departure date drew near, - hating the thought of leaving my children, anxious that I might not appreciate the adventure I was being offered. Now, I know that a part of me will always feel connected with India, even if by some misfortune I never return there. I know that I have sisters and brothers out there – and I know too what joy it is to try to return a little of the hospitality they offered so generously.

So – it was just lovely to have Rachel staying here this weekend.
It was good to talk more about our contexts, now that we’ve both had a little experience of the life and ministry of the other.
We agreed that the driven nature of clergy life in CSI is as unhealthy as the comparative apathy of much of the church here in the UK.
We speculated about the role of affluence in dulling our sensibilities, so that it becomes possible to believe we are self sufficient, even invincible, in contrast to those Christians in the developing world who realise that nothing in life can be taken for granted.
Rachel suggested that part of our torpor here is simply the result of being a very old institution…I’d just not thought of that, but I suppose when something has been part of the mental (and physical) landscape for centuries, maybe familiarity does breed complacence, if not contempt.
We commiserated about our mutual uncertainty about the future. She will go home to hear whether she has been posted to a new parish, and if so where – a process in which she has no say whatsoever, and in which the needs of her family are unlikely to be taken into consideration. Remembering this made my own anxieties shrink rapidly
For me, driving Rachel around Gloucestershire on a day full of autumn mist and mizzle was grounds for apology and lament. I’d so wanted to take her to see the trees at Westonbirt ablaze with colour…but it just wasn’t going to work out that way. I wished I had something more to exciting to show her…but she was too weary after the conference and 8 days of concentrating on using English non stop to make jaunts to Oxford or beyond in any way attractive. Instead we mooched around gently…where I saw boredom and greyness, Rachel marvelled at order, quiet and the care that people take with their gardens. Where I lamented the sterility of a supermarket shopping experience, after the colour and variety of the markets of Bangalore, Rachel was bowled over by the range of products under one roof and the way the shoppers seemed able to handle the choices before them without melt down.
It seemed to me that in our exchange, I’d had the far better deal – but to share my home and a tiny fragment of my life with Rachel reminded me of just how special the experiences of November 06 remain for me.

For her feast day

a prayer by Teresa of Avila

May you be blessed forever Lord
For not abandoning us when we abandoned you.
May you be blessed forever Lord
For offering your hand of love in our darkest most lonely moments.
May you be blessed forever Lord
For loving us more than we love ourselves.
May you be blessed forever Lord
For continuing to pour your blessings upon us
Even though we respond so poorly.
May you be blessed forever Lord
For drawing out the goodness in all people
Even including us.
May you be blessed forever Lord
For repaying our sin with love.
May you be blessed forever Lord
For being constant and unchanging amidst all the changes of the world.
May you be blessed forever Lord
For all your countless blessings on us and on all your creatures.

Friday Five on a Monday: B-I-B-L-E

I know, I know...I'll be late for my own funeral one day.
After nearly a week away from the blog I've lots of half-worked-out posts to share, but neither time nor space to get them sorted immediately, so I'm taking refuge in the structure provided by the Friday Five just to ease me back into the swing of things once more.







1. What is your earliest memory of encountering a biblical text?
My first conscious encounter was with Psalm 107, the passage that begins – “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters…”
For some reason, I was told to learn this section of the psalm by heart to recite during worship in my nursery class at the rather nice AngloCatholic Convent school I then attended. I was all of 4, so quite what my teacher imagined she was doing I really don’t know, but it turned out to be a delight for me.
The child of a sailor, growing up on the stormy coast of the English Channel, I was reared on stories of great sea farers of old, and the romance of an island nation. So I was entranced by the rolling rhythm “They mount up to the heavens, they go down again to the depths” and knew, even then, that
“He bringeth them to their desired haven” was the most perfect closure.
Once I’d learned it, it was a resource to shout into the waves as they hurled spray and shingle onto the promenade during the winter months…Even now, alone on a beach, I can’t resist.
Soon, it was the passages set in “Messiah” that filled my head.
Church? Well, I was there most weeks, but have no memories of hearing Scripture there till much later. I guess I was too busy watching the thurifer fill the sanctuary with smoke,and wondering whether Fr Ogden knew that the whole place was on fire!


2. What is your favorite biblical translation, and why? (You might have a few for different purposes).
Not being a Biblical linguist, I’m in no position to query accuracy,- so tend to judge translations on the wisdom of others and my own stylistic preference
In common with many respondents, I prefer the NRSV for study (also because it was the Bible given to me at my ordination) and that’s also the translation we use for the Old Testament readings in the Daily Office. I’ll often consult the New Jerusalem too, during sermon prep. For the New Testament readings in the Office, we’re following The Message, where the sheer freshness shocks me into hearing familiar passages clearly…and in some of Paul’s longer sentences, clearly for the first time! I wouldn’t use it often for public worship, but just sometimes it seems to unpack layers of meaning that had been all but forgotten. Of course, there are some passages that need to be heard in KJV. I’ll never forget the day when Hattie Gandhi, aged about 8, threw a major tantrum because she had been invited to read one of the Nine Lessons during the village carol service – and, thinking to make it easier for a child, her reading had been taken from the Good News Bible. She was livid. When it came to shepherds on a hillside, only the Authorised Version would do!

3. What is your favorite book of the Bible? Your favorite verse/passage?
Oh dear…this is where my personal anxiety that I don’t “know” the Bible well enough, that I don’t have the right sort of “relationship” with it, really begins to bite. This is an ongoing neurosis of mine…Will my response reveal the depths of my ignorance? Will my friends still want to play with me when they know? Only one way to find out..
I love huge chunks of Isaiah (thank you, G F Handel)…and the prophecies of Micah. John is my favourite gospel…but my favourite passage? Umm
Romans 8 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depths, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

4. Which book of the Bible do you consider, in Luther’s famous words about James, to be “an epistle of straw?” Which verse(s) make you want to scream?
See above…I’m too insecure to tell you, in case I’ve managed to omit a jewel in ignorance…I certainly don’t spend a lot of time seeking comfort and sustenance from Leviticus et al….but what I’d love to obliterate immediately if not sooner is the noble sentiment expressed in psalm 137
How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones Against the rock.
Ummm…yes…I know it is important to be real with God. I don’t have a problem with the psalmist telling it like it is, - I just don’t feel comfortable praying those lines (and others like them) as we make our way through Evening Prayer.


5. Inclusive language in biblical translation and liturgical proclamation: for, against, or neutral?
I think it’s really important, a matter of basic hospitality, to use inclusive language where it is possible, but I’m not keen on the clunkier attempts that sometimes rear their heads. It is those, of course, that set a congregation muttering about political correctness gone mad – when they have actually not even noticed the gentler revisions
“To ask on behalf of all [edit: “men” is deleted] such things as their well being doth require”


Bonus: Back to the Psalms–which one best speaks the prayer of your heart?
Psalm 121 – just reading it puts me into a calm space where I can see God and know the constant love and protection that surrounds me.

Put not your trust in technology

On Sunday afternoon, as I was saving the powerpoint for OpenHouse, my mouse curled up and died.
Last month at OpenHouse the projector deserted us
This time it was the turn of my trusty laptop - which had been fine and happy when lent to LCM on Saturday evening, but which, on arrival at church, refused to respond to stern words, kindness, bribery or anything else (including threats with a screwdriver). The general concensus is that it is pretty conclusively dead.

It was an e*b*y bargain, and has given me a year or more's service - not bad for £90, so I'm not reckoning on paying anyone to plumb its depths for signs of life.Replacement is in order. The question is, (given that I'm no longer having to pay livery fees or insurance for the horse) whether I restrict myself to another bargain basement offer, or invest a little more. At the moment, I really only use it for OpenHouse and the odd foray into alt worship with the youth group - but of course things may look quite different in my new context.
So, you say, wait till you get there and see how the land lies....but I've got used to having the flexibility of a lap top and I want it (toddler moment) NOW!!
In fact, I'm already sulking gently at the prospect of not being able to take it to the diocesan conference which starts tomorrow - even though I'd almost certainly have nothing I really needed it for there (not one of the cool kids who take notes on their laptops yet..though I do type faster than write these days).

So, what to do? Any thoughts?
I can't afford to pay much more than, say, £300 unless it's something truly amazing - so please don't try to tell me I need a Mac. I know I do, but it'll just have to wait...

Just thought you'd like to know

that our second annual pet service went very well. Again, a preponderance of dogs, all of whom behaved beautifully (perhaps in awed response to the one cat who appeared to ensure that standards were being maintained.

What's more, I managed to put my money where my mouth is, and to bless Neville, whom I'm assured is a rat of great charm and distinction. I do claim to belong to an inclusive church, after all (but am so thankful that P's snakes remained at home, as they might have pushed me further than my theology can go).

Sadly, though the Evil Dillon was duly blessed and behaved impeccably for the duration of the service, it seems to have had only minimal effect once he left the building. Preachers' kids are one thing, preachers' dogs no less troubling on occasion. He raided the laundry basket again this morning...Honestly, you'd think he had shares in M&S, the rate he is destroying my underwear. St Francis, where are you when I need you?

More things....Part 2

One of the strangest aspects of yesterday for me was the experience of presiding at the 10.00 with my ears in such a state that I could barely hear myself much of the time, let alone any sort of congregational responses. (Fortunately, the pulpit mic is designed with the seriously hard of hearing in mind, so I didn't miss out on J's sermon). It is very very strange leading worship when you are apparently completely on your own...(and probably under water at that)....It concentrated the mind wonderfully, because I simply could not carry any responsibility for how the congregation were in the worship...I simply had to focus on where I was with God.

I possibly spend too much time worrying that leading liturgy can become a performance...that my relationship with the congregation has more importance than is helpful or desirable. Yesterday, from my perspective, I might have been the only person there when I stood at the high altar - but the reality was in no way diminished. It was a good morning, really good.

(In writing this, of course, I'm very conscious that this is every day normality for some...I'm not presuming to comment on the experience of real deafness, simply on how my (presumably) temporary state impacted on me yesterday)

Things to think about...part 1

Yesterday wasn't just Sunday, it was the day on which St M's celebrates its festival of dedication. We are 817 years old (and sometimes, I feel that way)...Interesting to celebrate while we are once again in the grip of a building project. Work on the removal of pews front and back has already given us a taste for how lovely it will be once the space is fully ours to use...but meanwhile the mess, muddle and disruption is beginning to weary some people, and yesterday was the first Sunday when the main west door was inaccessible, so that our traditional procession, with assorted banners (not all of them belonging to living groups in the church today) just couldn't happen.
And of course, this saddened many people - specially those who are unconvinced that the changes will really be worth it in the end.
2 years ago, FabBishop preached at Dedication - and commented on the slightly questionable symbolism of a procession that is actually more of a circulation, since it doesn't lead you on to a new place, but brings you back to where you started.
Yesterday, my good friend the Canon preached a stormingly good sermon - and likened the sounds of St M's gearing up for worship to a locomotive getting up steam...The question was, and is, whether this train is going to be simply another exhibit in a "Living Steam" museum...lovingly polished but never allowed to actually travel anywhere ( - or worse still, a model locomotive on one of those elaborate indoor layouts, doomed to go round and round in circles forever -)...or whether we might after all be heading off in search of the Christ who has already gone before us into...Galilee, the precinct, Beeches Road - wherever we least expect to find him.

Meanwhile, the changes so far are encouraging people to sit closer to one another, and they also enabled us to share cake and wine in the church after the service - which felt great to the curate, at least!

A late arrival at the thankfulness ball

A Friday five on thankfulness is too good to miss, specially on a slightly sad Saturday (see below) when I could usefully practice a quick exercise in "Phillipianisation" (think of such things as are true, honourable, just, pure…)

List at least five things/people/places/graces….whatever…for which you are thankful

• My wonderful children each of whom has made my heart sing since the moment they were first placed in my arms…each of whom has developed gifts and talents I would never have expected while sharing enough with me to enable us to take delight in the same things…each of whom expands my horizons as they expand their own….…each of whom, as they grow, remains as huggy and affectionate as even their most soggy mother could wish…

• The seaside…where no matter how troubled or despondent I feel, things always regain perspective…where I can sing at the top of my voice and never worry that I'm disturbing anyone…where I connect with my own father, who loved the sea above all things apart from his wife and daughter…and with my heavenly Father, whose love is just as boundless

• My work…the endless wonder of being welcomed into peoples’ lives, of hearing their stories, celebrating with them, weeping beside them….being given words that sometimes make a difference…knowing that what I try to do each day really matters

• Children…in church, at Little Fishes, in school, at youth group (yeah, OK, they are only loosely children, but I am hugely thankful for them)…who give me so much and show me God in countless countless ways

• Books…somewhere to escape, since childhood…poetry…fiction….more recently travel…but the truth is that I would always rather read the Cornflakes packet than not be reading….

• Animals...those in our family, my madly exhuberant dogs and the dignified and cuddly cats...Nipper, Truffle and other ponies along the way...Bill who has single-pawedly persuaded me that lurchers are charming after all...and all the other dear dear pets I've known and loved
  

• Music…to listen and to perform…singing was the first route to God for me and remains one of the surest…when I get to heaven, there will be the B Minor Mass …unless, of course, it’s Spem in Alium…or some Dunstable Motets…or it might even be U2.

• Hot baths with lots of bubbles - and the first cup of tea, in bed on a chilly morning
  

• Perfect autumn days, like yesterday (though it would have been wiser of me to seize the moment and head out for a walk then, as today is chill and grey once more)

• My friends….old and new, near and far , virtual and real-life…which of course includes you.

(I know..that's not five in any possible sense of the word - but the rubric did say "at least" - so that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! Anyway, it has cheered me hugely to find more than 5 things for which I am seriously and deeply thankful, even with ear-ache and without a horse to my name)

So that's it, then

this afternoon an era ended for the GoodinParts family as I exchanged a horse passport for a moderately large cheque, and handed the delightful Dales cross Trufflehunter on to an excited 10 year old, her Mum and the all-important small sister.

It's a move that makes perfect sense. Hattie Gandhi is simply not around enough to justify a horse, and the Duffelpud's weekends are increasingly full of other things, even without the little matter of our having no idea where we might be living this time next year...So, when the dream family appeared, living right next door to his current yard, and asked if we might want to sell, how could we say no? They really are the best possible home, - since there's every chance that if M grows out of him (unlikely), or loses interest (no, I never thought it would happen either), her 4 year old sister will take over,- and their mum plans to ride and enjoy him too.
It might, in other words, be that desiderata a home for life.
Could not be better.

What's more it's October...
Evenings drawing in. Mist and mizzle.The joy of early mornings removing freezing mud from hooves before anyone can even think of riding out. I ought to be dancing the can-can all round Privet Drive.

But horses and ponies have been part of our family one way and another for all the past decade. Add to that my own unfulfilled childhood dreams, and you've got a pretty large chunk of my life in which things equine have been highly significant.
Now it's over. Just. Like. That.
So, here, for old time's sake, is the horse and his boy.

We did have fun.

St Francis’ Day today

Part of my personal calendar for as long as I can remember…

When I was a child, I used to try and arrange special treats for all my assorted pets, and any other animals I could lay my hands on, in honour of their patron saint.I would also wait hopefully for a treat or two to be directed my way, for St Francis' day is also the anniversary of my Baptism.
A baby born long after my parents had abandoned hope,-one who would, like any child, turn their lives and their world upside down .
They brought me joyfully to the church where they had married, to the priest who had married them 11 years before…and so I was baptised.

Years pass, and now when I stand at the font preparing to welcome a little one into the Church, to affirm our common identity in Christ, I often ask those present whether their own Baptism made a difference, whether the promises that were made on their behalf have been lived out to transform their lives.
But I also tell them something that I know directly to be true…that Baptism IS a Sacrament, that it works despite us…
That though on the day when they bring their child to the church, full of hopes, they have every intention of making those promises live…sometimes, with the best will in the world, life will get in the way.
I tell them that, actually, this is not the end of the world, that God honours our intentions, however imperfect their outworking in our lives.
Our Baptism service has parents and godparents answer questions about their intention to nurture the child in the faith with the response
“With the help of God I will”
and that’s what I believe in.
I believe in it,because I know that is how it worked for me.

Though my parents had the best of intentions, to worship together as a family, week on week, the reality was that my mother was so ill, for so much of my childhood that I can barely remember any times when our whole family went to church together. Instead, my father went quietly to the 8.00 Communion and it wasn’t till my singing committed me to the musical life of a faith community that my baptism began to be real to me within the congregation of God's faithful people.
So now, so many many years later, I stand as Canon Poole once stood holding me. Now it I who receive those little ones, I who pour water over their heads and baptise them in the name of Father, Son and Spirit…and I know that what was begun for me that day has made all the difference to what has come after…so I am thankful.

********************

When I saw the opening of the Common Worship Collect for today, I was sad for a moment that Ellen's service had happened already. Her life was most truly and beautifully modelled on the ideal it presents to us

O God, you ever delight to reveal yourself
to the child-like and lowly of heart.
Grant that, following the example of the blessed Francis
we may count the wisdom of this world as foolishness
and know only Jesus Christ, and him crucified,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

A thank you post

One of the great compensations for losing both my parents when I was just 18 (honestly, - there were some, I’m not just putting a brave face on things) was the number of friends who included me as extra members of their family, whose mums encouraged me to turn up for meals, to stay the night, or just hang around the place whenever I felt like it.

Some, of course, had been part of my life forever. E. has always been my honorary mother – a guaranteed source of love, understanding and encouragement through all the ups and downs of childhood and adolescence, and every bit as special to my children as well…
Then there was gentle L, whose son and I dated for a little while. L was one of life’s extrovert’s who knew only too well how long evenings can be when you come home to an empty flat.…For 2 summer vacs I spent at least 3 evenings most weeks at her home round the corner; she took huge delight in having someone to cook for, and together we would watch tv, do our nails or simply chat about nothing much….
Another was B., whose 2 daughters were among my closest friends at uni (one at Cambridge, the other when I moved to Durham for post grad work) – who opened her home to me for Christmas and made me feel hugely involved and included.

And there was Ellen.
I met Ellen’s daughter on my first day at Trinity, when we were being organised in alphabetical order for the freshers’ photo.
Two Ws, side by side…
Both reading English.
Both with few contacts in Cambridge.
Both ever so slightly out of our depths.

The friendship that began that day survives still. My beloved god daughter is M’s oldest child, while M’s husband stood god-father when the Dufflepud was baptised.There have been times when we’ve seen less of each other for a while, preoccupied with our own lives, our own concerns, but the ties are there. We’ve survived a good few crises together. She’s definitely on my short-list of people I would phone to help bury the body…And when I became friends with M. I was also adopted into her family.
Her parents were among the least assuming, most gentle people I’ve ever known.
Their small house in an unbeautiful town (which was nicely en route from Cambridge to St Leonards-on-Sea) was a real haven…
I first spent a holiday there when M . – who had wisely added touch-typing to her portfolio of marketable skills,- offered to type up my Part 1 dissertation. So for one week over Easter 1980 I was made welcome- and when I left I was told to return whenever I wanted.
So I did. Often.

Nobody ever made a special fuss – I was just included in the general blanket of care and kindness that was part of life there.
I never allowed to help round the house…”Mummy Watts” was very clear that nurturing her girls and their friends was her role.
Nurturing everyone, actually.
Ellen was someone who made a difference.
She was always collecting waifs and strays, stopping to be kind to little old ladies who were struggling with shopping, befriending the sad child on the edge of the playground in her years working at school.
She was a Deacon at her Baptist church, which had been her spiritual home from birth (and remained so even when she moved some distance away). Yesterday, someone said of her "Her life was her sermon" and certainly faith was woven into every aspect of life in that house…
We never talked about it (I would probably have described myself as an Anglican Agnostic if we had). We didn’t need to.
On my 21st birthday (the sort of date when my parents rather made their absence felt) there was a parcel, a copy of The Oxford Book of Children’s Verse, with love from E & D W (but to me they were always Mummy and Daddy Watts)…

One summer she had a detached retina, and was rushed to Moorfields Eye Hospital for surgery - where she shared a room with Gitel – an Orthodox Jew from the East End of London. Between those 2 women, of such different backgrounds and experience, a warm friendship grew – and it was a joy to visitors to come and be warmed by it in our turn. Ellen simply did not understand, did not recognise, why there might be any divisions, any discomfort engendered by their contrasting beliefs.


Yesterday I was back in that slightly run down little church, in a part of London where many colours and creeds have come together.
I was there to thank God.
I was there to listen to stories and memories of E, from her own community, the people who had known and loved her for a lifetime.
I was there to hear M speak bravely about the mother who gave and gave of herself to any and all who might need love, to share in the thankfulness and the resurrection joy through tears.
M described her mother as someone who “knew where she belonged and knew where she was going.”
Go well, then, Ellen, with every blessing on your arrival…and thank you for your mothering along the way.

Does anyone else

find the title of a website on the crematoria of Essex faintly comic?

HOW DO I GET THERE?

Ummm....not usually up to you, I'd have said.

God of surprises

I'm certain that I'm not alone in observing that, the greater the muddles we get ourselves into, the more obvious it is that God is hugely involved, sorting things out for us as we go along.

It has been that way this week...specially with regard to yesterday's wedding.
Through many dangers, toils and snares we finally got to The Day. After a morning of chill and mizzle the sun burst through the clouds, the bride looked stunning - amazing dress and shining joy are a pretty unbeatable combination - the music was great, the bells rang out as the couple walked under the arch of swords provided by the groom's RAF comrades....and God was tangibly present in every word and deed.
This morning was equally blessed....and the muddle equally evident. We started well. St M's takes its ritual quite seriously, - but it's very hard to retain a dignified bearing when the whole procession has to go into reverse because habit has taken the advance party down an aisle leading to nowhere, thanks to to building work! It's a sight and a half, I tell you, a crucifer, acolytes with candles, the whole works shuffling slowly backwards in a confined space, while singing
"All my hope on God is founded".
And so it went on, so that singing "Just as I am" at the Offertory gained a new, comic potential...Just as we were this morning was clearly not quite as ordered as might be desirable...but with lots of God about the place, which is infinitely preferable.
The sermon went better than expected too (thanks in the frequent large measure to Dylan) and all in all it was a good morning.

That was the week that was

WonderfulVicar being on a richly deserved holiday, this was the week when all sorts of things, both good and bad, came out of the woodwork. Writing it down in bullets it just looks mad and unmanageable, but actually there were quite a few glimpses of God as we went along, and I think my assorted commenters are quite right that the death of the church has been exaggerated.

Points along the way included

• Surreal juxtaposition number 1 – on Monday….from funeral to 50th birthday party for Ch K’s Brownies….Brownies don’t seem to have changed since my mum was, briefly, a tawny owl back in the 1960s..Happy little girls dance around a toadstool…they sing songs you’d never meet anywhere else….they enjoy arts and crafts…and the hot pass the parcel prize, in this age of urban sophistication, was bubble tubs. It was fun being 8 again, just for an evening

• Attendance at the meeting of a group for which I have only the very shakiest of credentials – except by way of an episcopal suggestion…so that I spent a morning wondering why I was there, what I could possibly contribute

• Truly wonderful funeral visit – in which 2 hours were filled with memories and deep thinking about someone, - after an opening gambit by the family “No idea what we can say about X…She had a very ordinary life”. Incredibly, given the way these things usually work, our ordinand on placement was actually able to share this visit – I can’t imagine a better first experience of the genre than the generosity with which this family shared themselves with us.
  

• Amazing and wonderful efforts by church warden and parish secretary to produce a team of ringers and a presentable church for a wedding couple who’ve had a few disasters on their way through the conveyor belt of wedding prep. Longsuffering Clockmaker and Hugger Steward also joined in the “spruce up the church” campaign, shifting paving slabs and helping to make a silk purse out what is, though only for the moment, a sow’s ear. Not sure which,if any, of the key players reads here, but in case they do drop in THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
  

• Holy ground at the bedside of a dying parishioner….her family there….the hospice staff kind beyond measure…and as I prayed for her, I was conscious, too, of 2 good friends whose mothers also died this week, a 12 year old across the Pond who has lost her father, and still born twins (who would now be older than me) mourned and commended to God...As I write, I’ve just heard of another friend's bereavement. Sometimes it’s just so hard…

• And then another surreal juxtaposition – straight from the hospice to a wedding rehearsal for tomorrow,- all jokes and nervous energy in our suspended building site. Talk about life’s rich tapestry…

So now it’s late, and I’m more tired than I remember being for a very long time. Mostly good tired, though perhaps this was not the wisest week to finally lose patience with my post India weight-gain and sign up to take action,- but if not now, when?


Lots of things ticked off the to do list, but I have a wedding address to sort before I can even begin to think of Sunday’s sermon,- and then there’s the afternoon worship for confused elderly and some creative something for Koinonia if I make it through Sunday's Evensong. Oh, and the aptly named Michaelmas Madness, St M’s takeover of the junior school playing field for an open afternoon of games and crafts for the community…that’s after the wedding….
Ummm….Head down, and make for Monday seems the best strategy…see you on the other side!

Ouch of the day.

The Church is dying. Its structure and theology make no sense today and haven't for decades. Far from being innocuous, their outdated uselessness goes beyond a nostalgic irrelevance to purposeful insidiousness, not just taking up space, but monolithically standing in the way of the spirit. The dying Church impedes God's various attempts at theological and liturgical progress, obviates meaningful spiritual communication and change, and squanders the precious time of people desperately seeking nurture, affirmation, and God. (Chuck Meyer: Dying Church, Living God)

Someone posted this on a preaching list I subscribe to - and it made my blood run cold. Is this really where we are, do you think? Though I know Meyer's name, I've not read any of his writing and wonder where he comes from in the debate.

When I was clearing assorted diocesan hurdles en route to ordination, one of my interviewers asked me how I felt about signing up to work for a moribund institution...and I said, then, that I wasn't that fussed, as what mattered was that people were enabled to encounter and engage with God - and if the church had ceased to facilitate this, then it no longer had meaning, was indeed no longer truly church. I'd still say that, but I wonder what declarations like Meyer's say for the faithful ministry of thousands of priests and ministers across the world.To my mind, our best efforts are expended on ministering to those "seeking nurture, affirmation and God" - whether they are part of our congregations or (almost more often) outside them. In my experience the church has largely provided an enabling structure for that ministry...it's clearly a long long way from being the whole answer, but is the church really more part of the problem than the solution?

Fencing the table

Thanks to this month's book choice, there's been quite a discussion over in RevGal-land around questions of hospitality versus church identity. I didn't even try to read the book (somewhere in the curate's brain, a glimmer of realism stirred) but I wanted to throw in my 2 cents worth on the topic. The springboard for discussion was a scenario in which visiting Buddhist monks (iirc) were welcome and communicated at the altar...and there was much to-ing and fro-ing around the implications this has for baptism as a rite of entry and identity.

Back in the spring, I heard Bishop Lindsay Urwin speak on these very issues (and blogged it, here).At the time I was (and remain) deeply taken with his suggestion of porous boundaries, and a "lively doctrine of exceptions" which would allow for the Eucharist to become a sacrament of evangelism. If, as he argued, an encounter with Christ in the sacrament of bread and wine might inspire someone to seek baptism, can you imagine the incalculable damage that might be done by sending a longing communicant away empty-handed?
And, as Bishop Lindsay pointed out, we rarely, if ever, enquire about the baptismal status of visiting adults who appear at the altar rail on a Sunday morning...we rely on the implicit belief "The Lord knows his own, and what he's done to them".

For me, the invitation that the Iona community offers (Holy Communion Liturgy B in the Wee Worship Book) puts it best (though I recognise that, as ever, cowardice combined with denominational accountability might not allow me to proclaim this explicitly as often as I'd like)

This is the table not of the Church but of the Lord.
It is to be made ready for those who love him,
and who want to love him more.

So, come,
you who have much faith
and you who have little,
you who have been here often
and you who have not been for a very long time,
you who have tried to follow
and you who have failed.

Come, not because it is I who invite you:
it is our Lord.
It is his will that those who want him
should meet him here.

Harvest Festival

at St M's - and for the first time since I've been there, it really felt as if our efforts to build relationships with the schools and uniformed groups was having some impact.
There were lots of children in church. Definitely double figures, which for a Sunday morning is simply stunning.

My lurvely friends in the youth group spent yesterday afternoon here at Privet Drive making some excellent bread to illustrate the talk on the feeding of 5000, and our ordinand on placement did a star performance around the theme "God provides and multiplies".
Trying to consume the "12 baskets over" that had inadvertently been consecrated presented a few challenges to my personal theology of Eucharist, and led to a good few stifled giggles at the altar...but all has now been sorted, with due care and reverence...and all in all, it was a very happy morning.

Bring to God your gifts for harvest
Celebrate God's love with praise
God has filled the earth with good things
in their season year by year.
Field and forest, mine and ocean
Yield their crop for all to share,
Given for our lives' enrichment,
Tokens of our Maker's care.

Bring to God your gifts for harvest
Celebrate God's love with praise
Gifts of mind and hand and talents
Echo God's creative power.
Human hands tend God's creation
Body, mind and soul are fed
Work and rest and worship offer
At God's feet may all be laid.

Bring to God your gifts for harvest
Every day's activity.
Worship God in home and office
Boardroom, classroom, factory.
Join the song of adoration
Join the symphony of praise
Bring to God your gifts for harvest
Brint the fruit of all your days.

There's alot of it about -further variatons on a theme.

Hardly was the virtual ink dry on yesterday's musings on my sad failure to declutter, than the Friday Five popped up at RevGals...on the self same topic. Since I then spent the rest of my day off trying to declutter picture files on the computer, I'm coming in late, as part of my sermon-evasion-process.

Sally wrote
Making the most of our resources is important, I have been challenged this week by the amount of stuff we accumulate, I'd love to live a simpler lifestyle, it would be good for me, and for the environment I think...

With that in mind I bring you this Friday 5;

1. Are you a hoarder or a minimalist?
I'm a kind of accidentail hoarder. Hard put to it to say why or how much of my junk appeared, with no particular yearning to keep any of it - but there sure is alot of it about.

2. Name one important object ( could be an heirloom) that you will never part with.
Well, you know,that's a real struggle...When the floods were rising, Hattie Gandhi lovingly moved all her musical instruments upstairs, so that they had a better chance of survival if the crunch came - but I honestly couldn't think of anything that I cared about that much. I have a rather lovely carved Indian box, with a "secret" lock - in which I keep things to encourage me on a rainy day - but that's quite a new arrival in my life, and though it represents some special things and people, I'm not actually that attached. I think, books apart, it could all go without too much distress - perhaps a ring or two of my mother's, and the silver bangle that came from Bangalore...I don't know, honestly.

3. What is the oldest item in your closet? Does it still fit???
Hah...There is a midnight blue evening dress from Laura Ashley that was new for my 21st birthday party - a couple of years ago now. Not the sort of garment I need every day for some reason, so I've no idea if it actually fits (though I fear its unlikely) - and only worth keeping if HG might want to wear it. Note to self: ask her, next time she's home.


4.Yard sales- love 'em or hate 'em ?
They aren't quite so much part of life in the UK - but I obtained most of my children's toys at the toddler, pre-school age from NCT Jumble Sales - so I guess that means that, where there's a need, I'm ready to leap in and rummage with the best of them.

5. Name a recycling habit you really want to get into.
This will sound smug because we're actually pretty good at this. Cheltenham has doorstep collections of paper, glass and tin cans, while we can recycle clothes,cardboard and plastic at assorted local centres.We compost madly. I wish someone would come up with a way to recycle those polystyrene trays that seem to be an essential feature of so much supermarket packaging - it's nearly all unwanted packaging that ends up in our bin. Why do they have to do it? Surely they see it's just making existing problems worse for the world.

Bonus...I realise that, in all my recycling, I'm completely ignoring the question of books. I find these so hard to part with. Even the rubbishy read-once paperbacks might be just the thing if I'm ever stuck in bed with flu...and all the shiny titles I buy for work, once read need to be there as reference books, don't they? When we moved to Privet Drive I was hugely brave and sent 14 boxes of books to fresh woods and pastures new - but I suspect that I've amply compensated for their loss in the last 3 years. Now all I have to do is find time to actually read the new acquisitions that gaze at me reproachfully from most flat surfaces around the study. They aren't allowed to settle on a shelf till they've been read, you see - so if you don't hear from me again, it may be that the leaning tower has finally engulfed me.
Should I seek help?

Why can't I do this?

Back in the "summer" I blogged about my determination to declutter my life. I'd signed up at seven things. I have a domestic goddess of my very own who performs miracles on a regular basis every Monday-but the sad truth is that I'm still overwhelmed at the prospect of serious dejunking.

Thus far (3 weeks in, assuming that my "seven things" started on 1st September) I've succeeded in taking 7 books to the British Heart Foundation Bookshop,and setting aside 14 more, and I've also a bag of assorted hats, scarves and the like as another set of 7- which all sounds OK. But the trouble is that I'm tackling this in a completely random, sytem free, Kathryn fashion - so that my uncluttering seems to be almost part of the clutter.

Because of course the issue is far less with my stuff than with the state of my poor addled, endlessly distractible brain. That's what is actually iritating me. That's what makes the domestic junk quite so oppressive. Tis a symptom of my general state of being. On a good day, I tell myself that it simply represents a rich and interesting mix - but at the moment it feels rather more like a state of sad confusion.
Ah well. Pass me the black bin bags.

akma saves the day

International Talk Like a Pirate day, that is.
I was a complete failure at introducing any hint of swash or buckle into Deanery Chapter this morning, so was feeling rather despondent till I read his insight into piratical prayer

Arrr Father.

Simple, but perfect, my hearties

Edit: I'm forever in Paul's debt for alerting me to this link
From henceforth, all prayers should end with Aye Aye.

Here I stand

Re-reading yesterday's post, I'm slightly worried that it might have come across as an anti-emerging whinge...which is quite definitely not my stance. I know I've written about this before, but it's an on-going issue as I try to prepare for ministry in a new place, where and when ever that may be.

As the mother of young adults serious about faith, who patently do not find God in the traditional church often enough to encourage attendance...as a priest serving a parish awash with young m/c families who want to get things "right" in life, have spiritual needs but don't excpect us to meet them...as an individual who loves Anglican liturgy but also needs other ways of worship sometimes to fire her soul...I'm utterly committed to my ordination charge to "proclaim the gospel AFRESH in this generation".
I'm hugely excited and thrilled at the ways the emerging churches are connecting with those who are either disenchanted, or have never felt any connection with the inherited church - and I want to be part of that process too. I've never believed that church is only on Sundays...that faith and life are things apart...that the institution matters more than its members...When I say that I want to belong to a both/and church, that is truly what I mean...and I hope always to have passionate (and compassionate) inclusion at the forefront of my ministry, wherever I may go.

Some failures of imagination.

This was the scene as I drove along the A40 at crack of dawn on Saturday, bound (via the Oxford Tube) for a blah learning day "Re-imagining Leadership in the Emerging Church". I liked the thought that I was heading into some sort of new dawn...My own ideas of leadership were ripe for reimagining, as I've always struggled with the the "L" word, and it's high time I began to address how it might actually work out in my future ministry. You may not be surprised to hear that I came back with very few answers - and no real cure for my anxieties, - but there was lots of good material to mull over.
Maggi began with a great analogy: leadership structures as a skeleton, - an essential framework to protect and support our vital organs, and enable life and movement.
She also had lots to say about models of leadership in Acts,- and a necessary reminder that we simply cannot and do not approach the accounts of the Early church as "cultural virgins"...we read from our own context, and with our own baggage.
As discussion was opened up, I was struck(not for the first time) by the absence of challenge to the apostles' statement
"It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait at tables" and indeed this seemed to be at variance with Maggi's splendid story of ++John Sentamu mopping his church hall floor after a service in his Tulse Hill days...and announcing with his habitual forthrightness
"If you're not prepared to mop the floor, you shouldn't be preaching the gospel".
Thus the leader is, in every sense, the care taker...the one who holds the vision, who ensures that the quieter voices are heard, that nobody is excluded. That I could sign up to, as a model at least (even if I fail in the reality). I loved, too, the idea of diaconal ministry as a ministry of hospitality - of welcoming and of holding relationships in community....though it then seems ironic that it is only when diaconal ordination is completed by priesting that the ministry includes presiding at the Eucharist.

Doug Gay came at things from a very different angle, challenging the necessity of ordained ministry at all. I liked his take on emerging church as a "sensibility" rather than a movement, or proto-denomination....and his alternative hermeutical cycle, of auditing the tradition, retrieving those things from the past that are worth recovery, unbundling them from the inessentials, supplementing with the new insights and visions of the present and re-mixing to form a church suited to contemporary mission.

Lots to reflect on, - but my main regret as I travelled home was the painful irony of a situation in which the "emergers" seem as intent on dismissing the needs and values of those who remain at home in traditional church as ever the traditionalists have been of those who no longer feel at home within the walls. When asked to outline my own background and aspirations in a brief "buzz group" after lunch, I was conscious of at least one slightly patronising smile around the table. For someone totally committed to a both/and church, and hoping to serve in a context that enables both strands of expression to flourish, this is rather depressing...If we're intent on looking at what Jesus is doing in our communities, and then joining in - he's likely to be wherever people are reaching out to one another - and sometimes, surely, that might even include the parish church!

Getting things done

I'm being madly productive today (truly, I am) but came up for air for long enough to do this...
Verdict: Quite accurate and very pretty

Friday 5: Meetings, Meetings

Today's Friday Five is brought by Reverendmother on the subject of meetings, inspired no doubt by the reality of life in the PCUSA.

1. What's your view of meetings? Choose one or more, or make up your own:
a) When they're good, they're good. I love the feeling of people working well together on a common goal.
b) I don't seek them out, but I recognize them as a necessary part of life.
c) The only good meeting is a canceled meeting.
I've had too many meetings this week, as the autumn term gets under way, so am feeling less positive than I might...I guess "b" is my normal viewpoint. St M's is stuffed with able people with strong opinions on many things, so it follows that there is a plethora of committees, some happier than others. Sometimes it seems to me that their main impact is in soaking up the energy and enthusiasm of all those involved before they can actually do anything...and at such times, my favourite line is
"For God loved the world so much that he didn't send a committee...".
As you may have guessed from that, I've not been blessed with too many examples of "a". On the other hand, though "c" for cancellations can be a real gift if the diary is full and you are suddenly given an evening's grace, its probably not the best recipe for long term achievement.

2. Do you like some amount of community building or conversation, or are you all business?
I'm endlessly divertable (ENFP, remember) with a strong leaning towards community building at any opportunity, so really have to watch this. On the whole, if a meeting is needful then I prefer to try and concentrate on the job in hand, - though the best meetings are those where everyone likes each other enough to head to the pub afterwards..and the meeting is done and dusted well before closing time.

3. How do you feel about leading meetings? Share any particular strengths or weaknesses you have in this area.
I'm rather out of practice after 3 years of curacy,- specially given that my final pre ordination job was as Clerk to the Trustees of a local charity - plenty of minute taking, not much leading.
Currently, I'm working really hard at not taking over the leadership role from my lowlier seat...when there are topics that I care passionately about, it can be hard to behave with due discretion and deference to the Chair.

4. Have you ever participated in a virtual meeting? (conference call, IM, chat, etc.) What do you think of this format?
Not really...and I'd not be keen. I think faces and body language speak so loudly, it is really sad if they are excluded from the communication.


5. Share a story of a memorable meeting you attended.
Ooh....that would be the PCC meeting that happened in our sitting room 4 days after the Dufflepud was born. We had a big decision to make, so had deliberately arranged things so that I could be there come what may...and the new arrival slept and fed and fed and slept and improved the tenor of the evening no end.
I've had my share of memorably dreadful meetings too...the sort that start at 7.30, and end at around 11.00 pm, by which point you are voting enthusiastically for your own execution ... anything to make it stop.

I remember a conversation some years ago with a good friend, a cradle Catholic who was struggling to find her own path to faith and to set aside a rather negative experience of gloom and guilt. It was late and we were getting weary when she burst out
"Can't Christianity just get rid of the cross".

Today, Holy Cross day, we're invited to celebrate it, to rejoice in all that it means to us, regardless of our understandings of atonement... to marvel that an instrument of death is transformed into the symbol of salvation and the route to eternal life.

Of course, when I'm trying to explain it to children it's easier to focus on what really matters...so I point out Christ's open armed invitation and then send the children round the church to count crosses and remember each time they see one that this is how much God loves them. St M's has a tiled floor with a design a bit like this, only in red and black...
so you'll guess where this is going.
I will never forget the small boy who came over after about 5 minutes and said
"But Kathryn, I've lost count...I got up to more than 500 crosses and there are hundreds and hundreds wherever I look. Is that really how much God loves me?"

There's only one answer
"Yes...and more. Thanks be to God."