Last Saturday's book post

just didn't happen - as you may have noticed. No surprise there, then!
However, this doesn't mean I'm not busy reading...

Sillies for the week, thanks to my ever-wonderful public library were

• The Frost Fair - Edward Marston

(an amiable historical whodunnit, with good period detail and well drawn characters)

• Ragtime in Simla - Barbara Cleverly

(set in India AND a detective story: how could it fail?)

But I'm doing some proper reading too -

John Pritchard's The Life and Work of a Priest

is so wonderful that I'm re-reading and taking notes as I go and will give it a post of its very own shortly. Highly, highly recommended - one of those books that makes you want to cheer every few sentences. Thank you, LMC, who produced it for Christmas.

Humbled by a blessing

Sunday afternoon saw my return to the Home for the Decidedly Confused (stop giggling, I was visiting, ok?) which I'd not visited for a while. We work a rota with our neighbours at the Baptist church, so turns don't come round that often...and with a rather unremarkable reflection on the Baptism of Christ to offer I wasn't looking forward to it much.

The particular challenge about ministry here is that because so many of the residents suffer from at least a degree of confusion, if not full-blown dementia, making relationships is almost impossible - particularly when you only visit once every few weeks. Of course I'd be happy to visit more regularly, but we do have a lay visitor who brings Communion to the home, and I've no desire to tread on any toes, so my policy has been to keep a low profile unless one of our "own" elderly is admitted...As a result I don't get to know names, and even faces change quite regularly though some residents remain there for many years.

On Sunday, the group was much smaller than usual...about a dozen I guess, instead of the more usual twenty...but at least 4 of them were enthusiastic when I offered them a hymn sheet and the giant print order of service I've produced for them (loosely modelled on Evening Prayer). I felt quite hopeful. One third of my congregation able and willing to engage felt very promising, so I was disappointed as the service began and, as usual, I found myself the only voice speaking the prayers and responses. God forgive me, I heard myself thinking "Well, this is pretty pointless. They have no sense of what is going on...I might as well be reading them the Yellow Pages for all the good this is doing"
The first hymn was no better, but I ploughed on with the Gospel and then launched into my reflection on it.

The change happened just as I said

This is my son, the Beloved with whom I am well pleased
Not because of what he has done but because of who he is,

There it was - a sudden focussing of attention, an intensity of listening that transcended the buzz of a service bell, the noise of the tv in the adjoining lounge, even the struggling cough of the gentleman who sat, still wrapped in his bib, at the back of the dining room.
I heard myself again...but this time I knew exactly why I was there, as I spoke these words
This is my son, the beloved…
Hear God speaking those words to you, not because of what you can do for him but because of what he is….for what he is is simply and wholly love.

Obvious really - but just in case I was at any risk of missing the point, when the service was over and I had prayed down a blessing an elderly man spoke up
"I want to thank you for coming, for being with us. You have no idea what difference your words make to us. Come over here - I want to pray for you too"
And he did. He blessed me on behalf of all there, and of his home congregation , on the other side of Cheltenham.Quite wonderfully, as he held my hand in both of his.

Please, God, help me to learn the lesson I thought to teach...and to remember that there is never "routine" or "pointless" ministry if I remember to focus on your kingdom and not mine.

Birthday Girl

14th January 1987 saw London in the grip of a snow storm...It had started snowing the day before, and a thick layer already covered Wandsworth Common as we drove past it on the way to an ante-natal appointment at St George's, Tooting. Because 14th was my due date, we actually saw my consultant that day - and she agreed that there was nothing much happening and booked me in for another appointment the following week,
"At which stage," she added, somewhat ominously, "we'll discuss the options for an induction".

So, when I woke the following morning feeling a bit uncomfortable, I didn't pay very much attention.
First babies, after all, never arrive on their due date - and anyway, it would be much too much like hard work to make LCM dig out our car and drive me the 4 miles to the hospital, only to be sent home again when nothing much happened.
Only, it became apparent that something really was happening. Nothing very much, just enough to make me determined to keep walking up and down stairs while LCM ate some breakfast.Sitting or standing still just didn't seem to be an option...so our drive through the snow silenced streets of South London was rather a challenge - but still, I was quite sure this couldn't be labour. Not on the right day. No, I'd invented it because I was excited and longing for this baby to become a reality...

We parked the car and made our way through the falling snow. To my surprise, I seemed to have to stop every few minutes as waves of discomfort swept over me - but this couldn't be labour. It was much too manageable.Going up to the delivery suite in the lift was a bit of a show stopper - not least because I found myself sharing it with my (awe-inspiring) consultant. Surely I couldn't be about to prove her wrong.
But when we got into a delivery room, suddenly I was sure that she was indeed quite quite wrong.
"Goodness" said Helen, the student midwife, "I can see your baby's head - what alot of hair!"
The need to push became the single most important force in creation - and so, fifty minutes after we arrived at the hospital, my own darling daughter, - with hair damp and curly, and eyes as blue as the sunlit sea, - was placed in my arms for the very first time. The earth jolted on its axis, the traffic in the streets ground to a halt and there was music everywhere...

Three days of dream- land, as London struggled with the snow, and my baby (my baby!!) and I cuddled up together in our bed by the window, basking in the hot-house temperatures of the post-natal ward, surrounded by endless bouquets of pink flowers, as we watched people outside slither and slide on the icy pavements. People showered us with cards and gifts - but I couldn't understand why. Didn't they see that I already had all that I could ever have dreamed of?



Well, we came home, the dream was indeed reality, and the music of those first heady minutes of motherhood became a constant sound-track to our lives as this first-born of mine sang before she spoke, and has moved through life on a tide of song ever since.
Today I drove down to Cardiff to help her celebrate, amid the busyness of exam week.
Again, loving friends conspired to counter nature...The day was set grey, wet and murky, but BestUniFriend had arranged an indoor picnic, - its centre-piece a fully-fitted picnic hamper, containing all sorts of Wind in the Willows delights - and created an enchanted landscape - complete with elephants, peacocks and butterflies (albeit in minature) in which to savour it.

When I first cradled her in the soft light of the delivery room, once all the busyness was over and done, my prayer for her was that she would always have someone to love her, someone on whose sofa she could crash if the day had been bad, special people whom she could love and be loved by. Driving home tonight, I realised just how fully that prayer has been answered. Her life is full of special people, people who love her, people whom she loves and I'm so grateful.But most of all I'm grateful that she is my daughter.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DARLING GIRL - THANK YOU FOR 21 DELIGHTFUL YEARS.

Some improvement

So - the expenses have been submitted, 2 good visits happened, the rain turned to snow and then back to rain (during which the dogs got their walk), and I think I've earned the next bit of diversion...this time in the form of the Friday Five.
Mother Laura is shortly to be engulfed by a wave of family birthdays, so this week's theme is "It's my Party" (tears purely optional)

1. When is your birthday? Does anyone else (famous and/or in your own life) share it?
I'm 1st June - a date chosen by my parents and the gynae man when it became obvious that my mother wouldn't be able to carry me to term..Since both the surgeon and my father were navy men, they opted for "The Glorious 1st" - the date of a sea battle involving Lord Howe, whose details were never quite clear to me. I share the date with, of all people, Marilyn Monroe - but also Edward Woodward (oh the joy of saying his name...so much pleasure in so few syllables) and Fredericka von Stade. Rather to my embarassment, I'd not heard of the majority of the celebrities that the birthday website offered me as twins. My gorgeous god-daughter Lucy has a birthday the day before, though...When her dad phoned to tell me she had arrived, I was convinced that he'd phoned to wish me a happy birthday. Of course I'm the centre of the universe, dammit!

2. Do you prefer a big party or an intimate celebration for the chosen few? The only big parties I've done were my 18th and 21st, both of which I enjoyed mightily....but on the whole, an evening with the people I love most is probably a safer bet all round.

3. Describe your most memorable birthday(s)--good, bad, or both. My 6th birthday (I think) was made memorable by the fact that I spent most of my party coming down with chicken pox and feeling absolutely rotten, but determined to party on anyway..because it was the first time that all my class were invited to our house, and my parents had arranged some games which, in memory at least, were truly awesome...I wish I could recapture the excitement of the round-the-garden treasure hunt
My 40th was utterly wonderful, since it co-incided with the Cotswold Children's Choir's millennium production of Noye's Fludde. Hattie Gandhi had her first big solo part, and both the boys were on stage too, and I was part of a "community orchestra", picking up my cello again for the first time in many a year (In fact, at the first rehearsal the young man who shared my desk, when told that I hadn't played the cello for 20 years looked at me with jaw dropping amazement before uttering the awestruck comment "You haven't practised for TWENTY YEARS! Lucky you...!") If you know the work you'll remember that the final chorus uses Tallis's Canon - and every night my very good friend the conductor would exchange glances with me as we reached a particular line...and I would hear all my children singing quite beautifully and think to myself...... "Well, if I have to drop dead at this moment, I'll actually be quite content. This is as good as it gets"

4. What is your favorite cake and ice cream? (Bonus points if you share the cake recipe). Or would you rather have a different treat altogether?
June is strawberry time, so my favourite childhood birthday cake was always a simple sponge with stawberries and cream heaped upon it. Nowdays, actually I'll just have the strawberries, if that's OK. And maybe some Ben & Jerry's ice cream to wash them down.

5. Surprise parties: love 'em or hate 'em? I love the idea, though I've never had one....but I'm not sure I'd trust anyone other than HG or HS to invite the right people and arrange the right food...A surprise party surely has to be just the way you'd have arranged it, it you'd been asked to devise your dream celebration.

Bonus: Describe your ideal birthday--the sky's the limit.
Let's put a mixture of my children and my dearest friends (of course you're invited) on the narrowboat "Polyphony", going nowhere very much...with good food (yes, including strawberries - and "pink fish"), good music and champagne...It's a real summer day. There are ducklings in the reeds, a kingfisher flashes past....and when I open that basket that HG has been keeping so close to her person, it turns out to contain a kitten. Tabby and white, I think. That'll do me nicely.

Bother !

Those New Year intentions of mine aren't doing too well today...Here I am blogging between the hours of Morning and Evening Prayer, the rain is coming down in torrents so I don't see the dogs getting walked any time soon, and I'm busily not doing my end of last year expenses. Grrr.
In an effort to prevent myself from doing anything that might be remotely constructive, I wandered over to Dave Walker's wonderful Cartoon Blog where he has a post appealing for suggestions, real or imagined, of the things that clergy carry about their persons.
There are some entertaining ideas in the comments - and it made me ponder the essential contents of my own bag (or, in happier times, bike basket. The Duffeplud gave me a wonderful example of this species for Christmas, which simply hooks over the handlebars, so that I can have it sitting beside my desk in the study and drop things into it as I realise I might need them later - thankfully the basket was sitting right there when the bike was pinched so it's not gone as well)
So a list of the USEFUL contents of my bag (less than 50% of the actual contents, of course....time to weed again) looks a little like this

• Church book and desk diary - stuffed with essential bits of paper that I'll lose any day now

• Pens

• Mobile phone (which will be buried in the deepest recess, so that I only reach it as it stops ringing. Always. Without fail.)
  

• Book of Pastoral Prayers (includes such diverse liturgies as house blessing and marking the end of a relationship..)

• Keys - Church, Hall and Home

• Headache pills

• Brush/comb

• Small wooden bear to entertain miserable toddlers

• (If I DONT need them) Visiting cards

• Purse (usually empty of anything that might help to pay for parking)

• Post it notes (stuck to interior of bag and thus incapable of sticking to anything else)

• NRSV New Testament & Psalms (the copy I was given by the Bishop during my diaconal ordination)

• RevGals "That'll blog" notebook, as sent to me by Songbird

• (Not often enough) Camera (though current phone isn't bad at photography, so this is less vital than it used to be)

• Memory stick

I would like it to contain an oil stock, but I don't currently own one, and it ought probably to contain the sick-call stole that lives in my home Communion set....Tissues would also be an improvement on the current yards of loo paper that lurk in the depths- try offering that to a distressed parishioner with any sense of dignified compassion, eh!

This may well come into the TMI category - but I'd love to hear what you keep in your essential kit...and any entertaining additions that you feel might really boost my ministry! No point in mentioning chocolate - it wouldn't stand a chance.

Just thinking

WonderfulVicar is having his post-Christmas break at the moment (having, with his familiar generosity given me the pick of the time off, so that I didn't work from Christmas day lunchtime until 2nd January)..which has meant a busy week for me.
It began with 3 funerals, 1 of which has stayed with me in the days that followed.
You see, J seemed to have no-one, beyond the delightful couple who, as connections of her late husband, had befriended her after his sudden death, and had arranged the service.
J and her husband had, it appears, the sort of marriage that left no room for anyone else, and when he died she was almost completely isolated.
Since she had wished for burial in the parish cemetery, which has no chapel of its own, we met in church for her funeral - 3 mourners, the bearers and me. Earlier that day I had been part of a very different service in the crematorium chapel, filled to overflowing as we thanked God for someone whose family were as full ofgratitude as of grief...It seemed, really, that the venues should have been reversed. The church felt huge and empty and, even with the help of the bearers, the hymns sounded thin and disheartened. The friends who had "adopted" J knew nothing about her earlier life, and the past 10 years had seen increasing infirmity and confusion, so there was little to be said in the address, though I did my best with John Donne ("No man is an island...") and, for once had ample time to proclaim a Resurrection gospel.
And, as always, the liturgy did its work, carrying us through the processes of repentence, of thankfulness, commendation and farewell.
When I got home, though, LCM asked whether I'd have still tried to offer an address if there had been nobody there...The reality is, of course, that this just wouldn't happen.None of our funeral directors would leave the priest to conduct a service alone, and in the absence of anyone with the words to affirm the specific value of the life that has ended, it surely becomes even more important to affirm that ours is a God who notices when a sparrow falls...a God who has created us not for deadly oblivion but for joyous relationship with Him.
Each funeral, whatever the circumstance, is a witness to the love of God in a hard place...and goodness, the words of the liturgy are such a gift. Always, always they move us on...always, it seems to me, they bring with them the light of hope...and always it is such a privilege to carry that light, even in an empty church.

Did you know?

that the space left by a missing bike is not, as you might expect, simply of the size of the bike in question?


In fact, it expands in proportion to the usefulness of said vehicle,-so, when I came out of my front door on Monday morning to a gap where my bike had been parked, the gap was the size of a small canyon.I've been falling into it, and running even later than usual for everything all week.

Thanks, whoever took it: I hope it's being as helpful to you as it has been to me for the past several years...I do miss it.

After Saturday, Sunday

and my first back at work after the Christmas festivities...Suddenly, time at St M's feels very short and I'm torn between sadness at leaving so many dear and special people and excitement at what lies ahead. Actually, writing today let's substitute "terror" as I've a "drinks and meet the PCCs" evening tonight - and am more than marginally anxious about it...but I do know that on interview day, back in November, I was as honestly and completely myself as I've ever been, so whatever happens in the months and years ahead I know that the parish reps met me as I am, and made their decision based on that experience. If I'd not been to the 3D training day in October, I might have gone in determined to show them the sort of candidate I imagined they were looking for, - and goodness knows how that might have panned out!

However, that's all ahead. Right now, I'm engaged in relating to the people of St M's, in sharing their lives before God to whatever extent feels good to them...and there was plenty to be shared on Sunday once the Eucharist was over, and my ungainly sermon preached.
We also had the first OpenHouse of 2008 - and to my joy it was really well attended. That first service after Christmas is potentially problematic. Occasional worshippers, the backbone of OpenHouse (interesting thought, that "occasionals" should be the backbone of anything) have mostly appeared at church for the Crib Service so are unlikely to return so soon...and with schools not yet back, there's no mechanism for jogging of memories, beyond the banner on the fence. But, against all expectations, they came...a goodly crowd to "Follow that Star" around the church, and to practice chalking the doors (something I'd never met at all till this year...though it is apparently a European custom) and, of course, to eat the wonderful MU tea.
That was so good for morale. Of all the things that have happened since I've been here, the birth of OpenHouse is the thing I'm most proud of and this month's turnout suggests that it is firmly established now and , DV, should flourish come what may.

Catch up posts

What a blessing I realised I had no hope of producing a post a day for the whole year...but just to break the blogging ice, a few quick bullets of what's been going on here

Saturday - once sermon procrastination was done and dusted, we embarked on a frenzy of house cleaning and cooking in honour of stage 1 of Hattie Gandhi's 21st birthday. The Day itself is still to come, but she has 3 major essays and an exam that week so her celebrations are being somewhat scattered. Saturday was the "Significant People" party - featuring a couple of her godparents, her musical and writing mentors, dearest of all dear friends - and us, the rest of the GoodinParts family too. We had the loveliest evening. Her special people are indeed truly special (the two godparents close enough to come are my first ever school friend, whom I met in the sandpit in my first week at kindergarten 43 years ago, and my honorary brother (son of my hon mother, E) whom I've known and loved all my life) - and HG glowed gently with the sheer delight of having some of her favourite souls on the planet gathered in one place. Not for nothing did both mother and daughter cherish Henrietta's House during childhood - with its vision of a house where all the people we love best can be together.

Flowers and fizz abounded, conversation was relaxed and happy, writing mentor regaled us with wonderful story telling, but my favourite part of the evening was surely when violas, flutes and guitars appeared and all sorts of music followed. It's hard to accept that my first born is fully adult now, but what could be better for a parent than to know that her life is full of story and song, full of light and colour, but most of all full of people who love and are loved by her.

Books do furnish a room

On New Year's day, a friend sent me the link to an article in praise of books...good, solid books printed on real paper...the sort of books that teeter in piles beside my bed, that spill over from my shelves in the study, that I hoard as the most zealous dragon guards its jewels.
It's a good article - one I'm sure you'll enjoy - and with a happy heap of Christmas books still awaiting my attention, it connected instantly with me. After all, we've a house move only 3 months away - and our last move involved a very painful pruning process, from which I've only slowly recovered. This time, though, I'm happy to report that the 80feet of shelving dictated by the C of E for clergy studies is already fixed to the wall in the new vicarage (it couldn't actually be fitted into the study here at Privet Drive) and I'm not planning to leave anything behind...except maybe that volume I picked up when allowed free rein to plunder the shelves of a retiring priest.
Who could resist a paperback entitled
"Courtesans and Fishbones"? Sheer bliss - though the book itself turns out to be a scholarly work in an area right off my map...

Anyway - I digress (surely not!)...Several bloggers have decided to join Alex in her Reading Challenge to list every book consumed this year. I'm hoping that if I sign up too, it might encourage me to finish those I start. I think I'll aim to post once a week on a Saturday...Cathy has a clever little ticker widget too, QG is reviewing hers, while St Casserole, bless her heart, voices an anxiety I share, about admitting to some of the trash I read by way of relaxation.
Apparently all is grist to Alex's mill -
so, herewith my books for the first week of January in this year of our Lord 2008
(I'll only link the the worthwhile ones, I think....I'm sure you're more than capable of indulging your own fictional vices in the "amiable trash" category ;-) )

• Beginnings and Endings (and what happens in between) - Maggi Dawn

(I was privileged to read this before publication, so didn't follow it through Advent as assiduously as I would have otherwise...but it's a joy, truly - and something I'd warmly recommend for another year)

• The Cat who went bananas - Lilian Jackson Baum

• What Came before he shot her - Elizabeth George

Next week you can expect a marked decrease in fiction consumption, balanced, I trust, by something approaching to Serious Reading (though of course, given my customary "follow through" rate, you are equally likely never to hear anything about this again!)

ETA I ought to make it clear, perhaps, that the 80feet are the shelves actually provided by the church in every stipendiary clergy study (in theory at least)....our aggregate total of shelving is probably at least 3 times that...not to mention the window cills, piles on floors, stacks in corners...

It's Friday night

but for this week only, my sermon procrastination techniques have to be applied a full 24 hours early, as tomorrow we've guests here, so sitting late over a hot computer is simply not an option...
On that basis, and because I cannot martial my thoughts on the Epiphany despite all sorts of splendid help from some truly amazing friends, it's time to play the 0h-so-topical Friday Five

Sally says
Well it had to be didn't it, love them or hate them I bet you've been asked about New Year resolutions. So with no more fuss here is this weeks Friday Five;

1. Do you make New Year resolutions?
Kind of. Actually, I make resolutions at the drop of a hat. New Year. Ash Wednesday. My birthday. Coming home from a retreat. New school year in September...I'm always on the lookout for new beginnings, and intent on indulging in some sort of self improvement in their honour. That's the theory at least

2. Is this something you take seriously, or is it a bit of fun?
Not so seriously that I get bogged down when I trip over my own feet and have to abandon the quest - though I'm serious in longing to make some of the changes those "resolutions" represent.

3. Share one goal for 2008.
Simple and obvious. To settle happily into my new parishes and begin building worthwhile relationships with the people there as we explore ministry together.
fwiw, other goals/resolutions below

4. Money is no barrier, share one wild/ impossible dream for 2008
Return to India with my children and deliver the money St M's raised to rebuild Dharma's church to him in person.

5. Someone wants to publish a story of your year in 2008, what will the title of that book be?
"More Tea Vicar, or What Kathryn did next"

And to-day's lesson is...

Never let anyone kid you that letting go gets easier with experience.

Yesterday afternoon, Hugger Steward and I were out working on his driving, as it’s not long till he takes his test. He’s been learning for 4 months and is a good driver on the whole, so if we’re just proceeding from A to B for a purpose I tend to be pretty relaxed and forget the “L” plates on the car.
When we’re out to practice specific things, though, it’s somehow a different matter.
I remember all the things he doesn’t know, imagine all the situations he’s unprepared for, and all the anxieties and neuroses of a mother watching her offspring try their wings come into play with a vengeance. Against all reason, all need, yesterday saw me clenching my hands, applying my foot to a non-existent brake-pedal, indulging in all the dotty behaviours that seem to be part of my pattern when struggling to let go of control of something or someone important. As we came down a steep hill towards the race-course, I remembered another time when I’d felt just this way…as Hattie Gandhi, aged 6 or thereabouts, raced downhill on her bike, just days after taking off the fairy wheels for the last time. It felt like a parable of parenthood then, and it still does…that headlong rush of a child into their future, leaving me standing, wondering at their courage.

After a cosy Christmas break, with familiar traditions revisited, and young adults largely content to fall into the roles they’ve taken right through their childhood, perhaps it’s not surprising that the current dose of letting go feels particularly challenging…specially when I realise that next time HG comes home it will be to a different house, one that she will never have lived in full time, one that she may never really think of as “home”. She went back to uni yesterda, and HS is beginning to prepare for his stay in Africa later in the year… Their mother is slowly unclenching her fists and continuing to work on smiling as she watches them fly.

Not exactly resolutions

As someone with negative "Completer/Finisher" ratings on Belbin, I've never done particularly well with New Year resolutions...When I was a child, my father used to advise me to "Aim for the stars and you might hit the mountain tops". I've embraced the "aim for the stars" part just fine through the years, regularly setting myself ridiculously high standards, and resolving to achieve at the very least six impossible things before breakfast, but I have tended to assume that anything less than a stellar success rate was grounds for early despair...
Not the stuff of which successful New Year resolvers are made, in short.
However, wandering around the internet on this last day of my holidays, I've been struck by how many wise and sensible approaches to the whole "new year, new start" thing there are. OK, so I've never got anywhere before, but I've also never made my hopes or intentions public - and I'm wondering if a measure of accountability to my friends may help to sustain my resolve, particularly if I am at least slightly realistic in my ambitions.

So - I have three things in my sights as 2008 begins (in no particular order)

1. To take the dogs out for at least some sort of walk myself every. single. day. The dogs need it - and I probably need it even more, as cycling round the parish never seems to be enough to encourage anything like fitness (and when I move, I suspect that cycling may actually become harder too)
   
2. To restrict on-line playtime to before Morning Prayer and after Evening Prayer only from Monday to Friday (day off excepted). The possibilities of infinite diversion are just too great, and a day of non achievement sends me grumpy to bed!
   
3. (The biggie) To do things on time - maybe to set myself artificial deadlines if that's what it takes to get stuff done (yes, even expenses) (I do recognise the irony of posting this on the second day of the New Year - but Rome wasn't built in a day, so I'm not going to get picky!)
   

Thus far, I've managed with number 1, and I don't return to work till tomorrow so numbers 2 & 3 have yet to become issues. Wish me luck, blogmates

Big Spender!

Baby Car isn't the only one whose New Year's Day behaviour really mustn't become a habit.
I had a very exciting day myself - but it was rather expensive.
You see, I finally managed to book the flights (not too costly thanks to some saved air miles) and pay the rest of the money due for the RevGals Big Event. I can't quite believe that I'm going to America for the very first time but for only one week. If that's not mad enough,the week concerned happens to be in the brief gap between leaving St M's and arriving in my new parishes....the week when we're moving house, in fact. Yes, that week!
But if not now, then, I suspect, never...and the opportunity to meet irl so many online friends, to be part of that supportive community immediately before a new chapter in ministry begins for me, and to learn, I'm sure, from the official sessions as well as from just being together is simply unmissable.

So - out came my credit card.

And, while I was at it, Hugger Steward and I finally settled on my new laptop.
The quest to avoid Vista meant that we had fewer options - but opinion seems unanimous that XP is a much safer system (even the man in Generally Clueless Computer Shop agreed, despite the fact that this radically reduced his chances of selling us a computer) and we found something that meets all my needs (apart from being a Mac, that is....) that came in at £1.28 below my budget!
I've told Hugger Steward he can keep the change as commission - and am locking up my credit card for the rest of the month.

A New Year's silly

before I go back to work, (with thanks to Sue)

The Recipe For Kathryn

3 parts Inspiration 2 parts Charisma 1 part Playfulness Splash of Fun Sip slowly on the beach

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

I'm hoping

that beloved Baby Car has not started the New Year as it means to go on. I had to abandon the drive to take Hugger Steward to his New Year's Eve festivities after the car cut out completely and refused to start...Of course, once reinforcements had arrived in the shape of Longsuffering Clockmaker, the car behaved beautifully allll the way home (LCM took HS to the party, so that was OK too)...but this morning Baby Car had the vapours all over again as I drove to collect him. However, with a couple of rests we managed the journey there and back safely and I'm just sooo glad that I lent my car to Hattie G. The thought of a carload of students stuck on a dark road somewhere on New Year's Eve is scarcely a reassuring topic for maternal contemplation - but as it is, she phoned just after midnight full of joy, while we too had an excellent evening, that featured good friends AND a chocolate fountain.
With that in mind, tis as well that my most achievable resolution involves daily exercise for both dogs and curate....though I can't see my joining the ranks of those who set out first thing this morning to jog round the village in shiney new trainers any time soon.

My phone and my in-box are full of New Year messages from many directions, all so much appreciated...but I particularly like this, from friends in India. Nobody could argue with the sentiments, - and the expression of them is rather charming too I think. So, by way of a New Year card to all of you
"May this year fill you with all the joy and peaces to reflesh your soul and God give you the strenght to perserve in all that 2008 has in store for you"...

or, if you prefer it straight

That was the year, that was

If you read my response to the last Friday Five, you may have guessed that, for all its celebrations, 2007 has not been a year of unremitting joy in Privet Drive.
Last New Year's Eve, though I made no public pronouncements, I did make myself a promise as the evening wore on that in the year ahead I would take active steps to sort out those parts of my life I was least happy with.
At the end of the year, despite alot of very hard work from more than one quarter, actually nothing much has changed.
I'm not even sure if it can - and that's not a good thing to realise,- though as I type this I hear my Great Aunt May's voice "What can't be cured must be endured" - so perhaps this year's goal had better be an end to even my quiet internal whingeing.
Certainly the blog isn't the place for any necessary processing - so instead, I too will join the ranks of those reviewing the year via the first sentence of each month's posts. I hope this year's may be a little more exciting than its predecessor

Every now and then,I am filled with an unwarranted sense of my own importance as a communicator (this may be an occupational hazard for preachers) and specifically as a writer, and delude myself into believing that this blog has merit beyond the very limited reality.
As anyone reading this surely knows , I'm chaotic by nature and find it really hard to use time well and wisely, so I was probably hoping for magic answers, but was not unduly surprised to find them eluding me.
Llan was great: I'd not been there in stormy weather before, and in its position on the side of the hill the house felt very much like a ship breasting the waves, as the wind howled around us.
OpenHouse, our once a month informal family worship, is now 18 months old.
Apologies for the break in transmission, which crept up on me rather.
I’m getting slightly confused here.
If you're feeling weary, I suggest you just move straight on. I'm not quite sure why I'm blogging this - it's not, I promise, in an effort to claim the "most clapped-out clergy award" for 2007.
Hattie Gandhi remains the perfect person with whom to travel and our hosts at Tregithy were their usual hospitable selves.
I really don’t want to bore you…but I do need to note some other highlights of Greenbelt worship this year, if only so I've a reference point when I need it.
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.
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.
World AIDS Day and I'm thinking about my friends in Tamil Nadu who are part of the AIDS Awareness and Rehabilitation project that opened while we were out there a year ago.

So - themes of blogging, of characteristic confusion, of worship and time out, and of some of the special people whom God has put in my way. Pretty representative of my life, I guess.
Time now to walk dogs and then make salads....New Year's Eve, with all its weight of expectations and scope for disappointment, stretches ahead.
However you're spending it, I hope it's kind to you

Auld Lang Syne Friday Five

It feels a little early still to review 2007, but with a Friday Five to inspire me I've been reflecting on memorable moments of the past 12 months. It hasn't been the easiest year I've ever lived through, and though it has seen some important resolutions there is still alot of stuff I'd love to have come to better terms with by now...but looking back, there has been so much to treasure. A year in which Greenbelt, in all its wonderfulness, isn't absolutely at the top of my Things to Remember is surely a year that has had alot going for it. I'd hoped "memorable" might also mean "photgenic", but the more I thought the more I realised that the sort of experiences I'll carry most decisively with me from this year aren't on the whole the stuff of point-and-shoot cameras, and some of them, indeed, aren't wholly mine to share...but this is at least a vaguely representative selection.

So...here goes

• The shout of triumph with which Hugger Steward burst out of his room having opened the envelope offering him a place at Cambridge (echoed 8 months later as he opened his A level results)

• Spending my birthday on board Polyphony with all my children together and the sun shining

• Celebrating an Alt. Eucharist with Koinonia on Remembrance Sunday - sharing the Sacrament as Peirce Pettis sang "God Believes in You" (the Koinonia Birthday Eucharist in June isn't something I'll forget in a hurry either - specially "We want to see Jesus lifted high")

• The Eucharistic Prayer at Midnight Mass - feeling as if I was somehow singing those words on behalf of everyone in the whole world

• Anwering the phone an hour after getting home from the interview day to hear the Bishop say "We'd love you to come"

Did I mention mayhem?

Somewhere amid all that seething excitement of children is mother holding her baby son.
On reflection, as a metaphor for most family Christmasses that's spot on.

Words, words, words

One of the snags of being ENFP, infinitely distractible and almost certainly trying to do too many things at once on any given occasion is my tendency never to notice details (unless they are what distracts me, of course - oh look - a Christmas tree!)
So it wasn't till I posted last night that I realised that I'd passed my 1000th post -
Ironically, I think it was the one I called Making a Mark

That seems an awful lot of expeditions into other people's lives. Thank you for the generosity with which you receive my words and encourage me to keep on writing. I'll hope to be awake enough to notice when I get to 1111 and we'll party then, OK?


Meanwhile, today the church is celebrating John, apostle and evangelist, and writer of perhaps the most perfect prose in the Bible. Since he quite reasonably didn't write his own collect, it's a bit of an anticlimax:


Merciful Lord
cast your bright beams of light upon the Church;
that being enlightened by the teaching
of the apostle and evangelist Saint John,
we may so walk in the light of your truth
that we may at the last attain to the light of everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ your incarnate Son our Lord...