Watching and Waiting: Women Bishops, New Job, Pilling, Fulcrum (The Universe and Everything.....?)

It's been a little while since I last posted.  Partly this has been because I've been insanely busy, and now we are at Advent, that is not any less the case, but I have a day off and I also want to update you on my thoughts and news, should you wish to read them.

There have been a couple of important things that have come up for me over the last three months.

Women Bishops legislation - This has been approved for consultation - woohoo - slightly muted optimism as I want to believe that no-one will sabotage the final vote when it comes, but if I'm honest my trust is low on that one, so we shall see.  This is not pessimism, or cynicism, just reality based on the last vote, and the vast majority of encounters I've had with Conservative Evangelicals that have made me sense that they would stop it if they could.  And why would they not - they believe it is an anti-gospel move.  It appears that the Trad Caths are on board and will abstain if not vote in favour.  This seems to be a legislation that they can work with.  So I watch with interest.  There should be a post soon on the Y2WB website unpacking what has been approved, and what the next steps are.  It all gets a bit complicated, and a lot of people are surprised that we could be talking about a final vote in 2014, whereas last year we were saying not until 2015.  This is mainly because the review stage has been agreed to rest with Synod rather than a review committee, and that speeds up the process.  But do take a look at the Y2WB site for updates on that.

Personal news - I'm in the third year of my curacy, and in London Diocese these are a maximum of three years long, so I've had my antennae up for any possible jobs that might be where God is calling me next.  I have been keen to stay in London and in the Willesden Area, where I am now.  I have absolutely adored being in London, the best city in the world, and I've enjoyed working with Bishop Pete Broadbent, who is a straight talker and intentional about including women, so works for me! :) And so it was fantastic news, after prayer and exploration, to be offered the job of Vicar at St Michael and All Angel's in Harrow Weald.  I will begin there after Easter 2014, and I can't wait!  As well as the church being the right place, as a family we feel very invested in Harrow, as that is where I've been for my curacy too, and have a sense that this is where God wants us.  My husband will continue to co-ordinate Harrow Street Pastors and be involved in the community and council work with the homeless that has taken up a good chunk of his time whilst we've been here.

Pilling - And so Pilling has erupted onto our consciousness.  I very much liked Mouse's response to responses on the report :). Mouse is a wisely creature indeed.  Having said that, I would like to tell you about some of my emotional response to the report.  My initial response on reading that we should look at ways of 'marking/blessing' same-sex relationships was that my soul responded 'Yes!' - this is not a logical, thought through response, it was a soul one, and I note it with interest.  I also note the discussions going on around the wording 'mark' or 'bless', but am not sure that's the point - if we 'mark' something in church, I rather doubt it is for the purpose of saying 'look - this is here', it is rather to mark it positively, to somehow celebrate it.

I've often in my conversations indicated that I desire conversation on the subject of same-sex relationships.  Conversations that are open to diversity of opinion on the subject, and certainly that go beyond our positional stances of shouting 'homophobe' or 'heretic' at each other.  I personally think that there must be something more positive to say to gay people other than 'go away you shouldn't exist' or 'be celibate' or 'break up', when they come to my parish asking what God has to say to them about their relationship (especially if there are children involved). Importantly for me, I don't think that the Bible is conclusive.  I am heartened to see David Runcorn as an evangelical engage with this ambiguity in the report.  And the reality is that, whilst I don't think women in ministry/sexuality is exactly the same question, any woman ordained in the Church of England will be VERY careful about taking some verses and using them to exclude/diminish someone else - how many times has that been done to her.... Regardless of whether she is conservative or not on the issue, ordained women I suggest will be rather more wary about certainty on this matter.

When I read God's story with people throughout scripture there are narratives of welcome, hospitality, boundary-crossing, love, soft-hearts, journeying, New Jerusalem, eschatology, complex family relationships, mistakes, legalism, permission to bind/loose, which I think need to be explored - in relation to this subject, but also how we do life with God in general.

So in response to Pilling, I welcome the conversation.  I will watch with interest the facilitated discussions.  In my own ethic I am committed to a Person, Jesus - this means that I am open to an ongoing journey with a rather undefined destination, other than to keep that Person close by.  And for those who wonder how 'evangelical' this is - I am passionately committed to scripture, but the true definition of an evangelical is, I believe, found in the concept of the 'Personal Relationship with Jesus'.  And in that I am unremittingly In Love.

Fulcrum - In light of the above on Pilling, and in long conversation with my friends and colleagues at Fulcrum, it has been with some sadness that I have made the decision to leave the team.  Fulcrum has been incredibly important to me over the last 8 years, and I have been on the team for 6 of those years.  It is fair to say that we have had much laughter, and a few tears together in that time.  I have great affection for the team and our work together.  The subject of sexuality has been one which we have gnawed on over the last little while and whilst there is some room for discussion, Fulcrum, as has always been the case, will be approaching Pilling from the position set out in their statement .  I found that I needed a little more room for manoeuvre in the upcoming conversations that will be happening.  I also, as you know, like to be able to think aloud on my blog, and wanted to have the freedom to do that without undermining what Fulcrum as a group want to be able to say and do.

It is somehow fitting that in Advent we are being called to a time of watching and waiting.

May you be blessed as you do so.

People of the Book



an exercise in missing the point

This post from ASBO Jesus is great for reminding us that our first love is a relationship with Jesus.  I've heard far too many times that our only way of knowing who Jesus is, is from the Bible.  But even the Pharisees couldn't work out what God was like from simply being those who read the Scriptures...

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.  Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. JOHN 5.39,40

So how do we as evangelical Christians, those who love Scripture, those who believe that this book is a radical life-changing story that can and should impact our faith journey, be those who know how to come to Jesus, through and, dare I say it, beyond, Scripture?

What is it that makes some look at Scripture and proclaim goodness in apartheid, slavery, oppression of women, and others think that the Scripture (as currently understood at that time) is wrong. Those of us who love Scripture and believe that it cannot be ultimately instructing us to do wrong things, find a way around this.  We either take to a literal interpretation come hell or high water, or we decide that it is the predominant interpretation which is wrong, that Scripture needs looking at again because we've misunderstood it.

I confess that this is my approach.  But I think we all have to come to the reality, at some point, that we have to assess where our assessments of what we think the Bible says, are coming from.  It is my somehow intangible strange confusing wonderful unpindownable relationship with Jesus which tells me that I simply cannot think that the Bible says it's ok to buy and sell people.  But I still want to go to the Bible and say, 'Look, See, the Word of Life'.

How does that kind of approach not become horribly individualistic and relativistic?  The Bible says what I think it does.  Do you know - I don't know.  How did the new approach to the Scriptures of a small bunch of 1st Century Palestinians grow and spread like wildfire?

I suppose it has something to do with community - that Jesus is present in me by the Holy Spirit, but is also present in the community I commit to.  It has something to do with prayer - real deep contemplative basking in God's presence prayer, not the kind that is a bit of a shopping list, or asking God to change all the people that we don't like so that they become more like us.  It must have something to do with spending time with the people that Jesus would have spent time with; the sad, confused, poor and sinful.  It's getting to know the voice of God that whispers on the wind, so that we choose the right thing, even when there's not a Bible reference to back it up.

I think Scripture is wonderful, but our God is beyond them..oh yes God is (before you leap)....and how we figure out this life with God, together with the story of God that is captured in Scripture, is part of joy of this life of discipleship.

inspire someone today.....

i've been really pleased to see the stories of inspiration that sophianetwork have been putting up over the last few weeks.

it is so important for girls and women who have leadership skills, are affirmed in that part of who they are. too often girls who are leaders are told that they are 'bossy' and learn to hide this part of themselves in order to become more acceptable to the 'group'. it isn't just a church problem, although it is particularly in church that this behaviour is actively encouraged so that girls and boys know their place and the sky doesn't fall in.

i particularly liked the challenge give to us by sally hitchiner, in which she tells us how important a young male youth worker was when she was a teenager. one of the issues facing girl and women is how reluctant men can be to mentor them. whether it is as a teenager who finds that a twenty-something man shies away from her because of worries that it might be perceived as inappropriate, or the woman who isn't offered mentoring in leadership for the same reason. not to mention the informal leadership networks that revolve around going for a drink, to which women are not naturally invited.

whilst there are women who are our role models and mentors, the reality is that there are more men in the church who are in the positions of leadership and so it is really important that the men in our lives step up to the mark and be part of our story.

women as animals...

this is how the recent 'lynx' deodorant advert has portrayed women.

i have often been very uncomfortable with how women have been portrayed in the 'lynx' adverts, not to mention the idea that men are so dull as to only have this view of women - as unthinking dehumanised sex objects.

but this advert has now made the link with 'animal for sex' rather more explicit.




and so i decided this really was enough. along with godloveswomen and a few others on twitter, we complained to the ASA. this is the email i received in reply:

______________________________________________________________________________
Dear Rev Stowell

UNILEVER UK LTD

Thank you for contacting the Advertising Standards Authority.

I am sorry to hear that a recent TV ad by the above advertiser promoting the new Lynx “final edition” deodorant has caused you concern. We can intervene if an advertisement seems likely to be in breach of The UK Code of Broadcast Advertising by, among other things, provoking serious or widespread offence, causing significant harm or misleading consumers to their detriment. The ASA bases its judgments on the content of the ad and the medium, audience, product type and prevailing standards in society.

We received numerous complaints from complainants who raised a number of issues about this ad. The matter was sent to the ASA Council for consideration. In relation to the issue you have mentioned in your complaint, while Council acknowledged that the ad may not appeal to all viewers, it was considered that the ad was intended to be light hearted. It was noted that the advertiser was continuing with the over the top theme of the product's desirability to women in order to promote the product. Although it was understood that some viewers might find the content of the ad distasteful in this respect, Council decided that the ad was unlikely to be seen as degrading or objectifying women. Moreover, we do not believe that this ad would be likely to be seen by the general audience as objectifying men or that it would be likely to cause serious or widespread offence on this point. As a result, we shall not be taking any further action on your complaint on this occasion.

In addition, you may be interested to know that it was considered that the ad was intended to be light hearted and unlikely to be seen as mocking the Christian faith or belittling the biblical story of Noah's Ark. Council noted that Clearcast (the organisation which approves ads prior to their broadcast) had applied a scheduling restriction to the ad so that it would not be transmitted in the breaks surrounding religious programmes It was considered that the restriction was appropriate considering the ad’s theme and that the ad was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence as a result, in relation to this point.

I realise this response may disappoint you but the advertiser is aware of viewer’s response to this campaign and we shall continue to monitor the response closely.

Thank you for taking the time to contact us with your concerns. Our website, www.asa.org.uk, contains information about us and the work we do, including the results of our investigations into other recent complaints.

Yours sincerely

Avghi Theocharous

Avghi Theocharous

Complaints Executive

Direct line 020 7492 2232

Advertising Standards Authority

Mid City Place, 71 High Holborn

London WC1V 6QT

Telephone 020 7492 2222

www.asa.org.uk

__________________________________________________________
and this is how i responded....

_____________________________________________

Dear Avghi

thanks for the quick response to my complaint. I am interested that you felt the need to explain regarding the religious content of the advert, something that I did not find offensive or make reference to in my complaint? I can only assume an assumption was made about my title 'Rev'.

The reality is that I am less concerned about the use of a well known biblical story than I am about the perpetuation of the idea that women are simply to be seen as objects for men to manipulate and seek power over!

I am therefore unconvinced by the explanation regarding how degrading the advert is of the humanity of women. The Lynx adverts have generally reduced women to unthinking sex objects, however this particular advert, now has added in the link with the animals on the ark (a story which is known in general culture, not simply a religious comment). In this advert women are compared with animals, they lose their own sensibilities through the smell of the deodorant and so are no more than objects.

I would like to take this complaint further and would appreciate if you could let me know how I do that.

kind regards, Jody

Reverend Jody Stowell, Curate, All Saints' Harrow Wealdwww.ashw.org.uk
www.radical-disciple.blogspot.com
www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk

_____________________________________________________

can i please ask you also to complain about these adverts. we still live in a world where women are deemed as 'less human' than men. the 'lighthearted' nature of this advert belies the story of women all over the world, who must experience the downgrading of their humanity on a day to day basis.

it may be that advertisers think that any type of manipulation is fair game, but is it really appropriate to send this kind of message, simply to sell a product?

smaller

i was reminded the other day how important this icon has been in my spiritual journey over the last ten years. on my first day at spurgeon's my doctrine tutor made us think about the images of God which we carry around with us and which form our ethics. i remember him saying that we all have pictures of God in our heads and he was just concerned that we have the right one. rublev's, for him, and then for me, is the 'right' one.

the doctrine of the trinity articulated in this icon has pretty much carried me through some rough times and given me great joy in a God who invites me in to a life of dancing and feasting and welcome - real welcome, welcome that gives room to the the person God made me to be.

i'm a bit sad that i've lost something of that joy over the last 8 months. i find myself at the end of the year with a somewhat smaller god than i used to have.

i find myself without the 'happy ending' to this yet, and a great desire to share that with somebody. we talk too much, sometimes, about our happy testimonies, or those painful ones which have already resolved. well, i don't have that yet. oh, did you see - i put a 'yet' on the end. it's so deeply ingrained. i don't even know actually, if there is a 'yet' in which the end will be a happy resolution. we'll have to see. do you want to walk with me on this journey? i can't promise it will be jolly. i can't promise that it will even be that frequent - as you've seen over the last year, to talk about life as an ordinand is something of a tricky situation, i can't, clearly, divulge specific information, and as much as i struggle, i know that there are just some things that you don't share. but, if you want real, well, i think that's what i can give you right now.

at the moment i am looking towards the summer holidays. these are coming as a blessed relief. i reckon that they will refresh me. i am slightly concerned that they will still leave me with a deficit of emotional exhaustion and so i won't start the year at the same place i started last year. as i am only just about holding on to sanity at the moment, i vaguely wonder what i will be like at the end of next year. this is not an idle comment. some people, i have become aware, do not survive this process. some barely survive it. not mad, bad people either, people who will be wonderful priests. i begin to wonder whether i will survive. thriving isn't even on the agenda. this thought sits in the back of my head.

as i look back and try to grasp the chinks of light, i remember that my deepest desire, the thing that i asked God for most, were friends. so i thank God for the six people who have become anchors in my somewhat stormy sea. college is stormy for four of them too, in ways i cannot share here. one day if i ever meet you in the flesh, i can talk about them as abstracts - but for now, be joyful for me that they keep me on God's behalf.

sacrifice and blessing

i've really missed blogging over the last couple of months - but the truth is that i have had little to say, well, no, better to say that i've had little that i could say.

my particular ordination process is not a little bit strange, quite a lot painful, definitely disorientating and displacing. here is a little reflection on this strange world.
____________________________________

last wednesday we had a wonderful ash wednesday service at 7.30am in the local URC. i presented myself to be ashed and prayed for, and my comment to the man who was praying with me was that i still feel called to ordination, but that the whole process is something that i'm really not enjoying that much, to which he replied 'that's exactly how i feel'. he prayed for me, and i prayed for him. it was beautiful.

sacrifice and blessing

this term i get to audit some degree modules, alongside my masters, both of which i enjoy very much, one is about church and sacraments and is taught by a URC lecturer and a RC lecturer, i began to realise over the last few weeks how diligent they are in using inclusive language, particularly when it comes to God-language, and how much i felt consoled by that.

sacrifice and blessing

the other module that i audit is, this term, about women's ordination. there's a man in my class who is a modern catholic, he says everything i could possibly want to say about the place of women in God's Church, he knows much more than me and says it very eloquently. i thank God for him in that place. he's a blessing to me.

sacrifice and blessing

one of the people who has been a good friend to me over the past few months is a man who is evangelical anglican. he is gifted in generosity, hospitality and sensitivity, he has given of his time when i've been stressed and fearful and has drunk gallons and gallons of coffee with me probably endangering his own health. in him i see jesus.

sacrifice and blessing

music meme

so maggi tagged me (great new blog maggi...) with the music meme - with music that has taken your breath away, so here's mine:

about four years ago, i found kendall payne - she's written an excellent album called 'grown' which has many gems on it, but the one i want to mention most is called 'pray'. i first heard it sung by a couple who were leaving for missionary work in peru and was struck by the beauty of these people who were praying for us, those who were left behind, and asking us to pray for them. it is a song which joins us all together, those of us who want to follow this jewish carpenter and don't know what we're doing sometimes, or who stumble along the way, but who will do this journey anyway and get it right, wrong and upside down along the way. 'i will pray for you now' she says 'for you have been my faithful friends', 'may the castles and crowns you build and place upon your head, may they fall, come crashing down around your feet'.

even further back, at greenbelt, i picked up an album by juliet turner called 'let's hear it for pizza' (yes really) and, again many many gems on the whole album, so much so that i've got to mention two :). first one called 'indian summer' which gives a slightly jaded view of the back packing/summer mission idea, when we can come and go in the face of such poverty, flipping from the streets full of children, to our comfortable hotel rooms. as i quite often feel slightly jaded about such things it appealed to that side of me, as well as having such wonderful lines as 'and i never stand to protest, or shout against injustice because my arse is made of marble and i've got lead instead of lungs, i'm a stunning work of art, i should be hung'.

the second one is called 'platonic' and is about friendship between a man and a woman. it makes me smile because it's one of my complaints about the evangelical sub-culture, that men and women are not really allowed to be friends, such is the fear that surrounds the idea. as i said to a friend at the weekend though, if q and i can't do friendship with the other gender then we are stuffed, as we both spend most of our time in their company. juliet pinpoints some of the fears with the language of ordinary life 'all those nights in the kitchen, when you thought we might be kissin, we were discussin mustard in the dressin......'.

so there it is for now - 3 songs that have stayed with me over the last ten years and which say something about my preoccupations and life, which annotate the brainwaves that escape from me every so often. i'm thankful to maggi for so many things, but right now i'm really thankful that she's given me something i can write about :)

so long and thanks for all the fish

you may have noticed that i'm not blogging much - i think i mentioned it before a couple of posts ago. i rather thought then that it would be a momentary 'blip', but it has turned out to be a little bit more difficult than that.

i like, nay, love, blogging. really, for me, it's just writing, it's journaling, it's journalism, it's comment and commentary all rolled into one. how wonderful.

except

right now, it's a bit difficult. and it should be difficult, don't get me wrong, but, if you've read any of my stuff before now, then you'll know that i'm a 'heart on your sleeve' kinda woman. i think this is a good thing. but i'm not so naive as to think that i can do that on a blog, whilst i'm right in the middle of a community, and that be a good thing. how do i write about the stuff i'm thinking, going through, loving, hating, wrestling with - essentially, all the things that i've been doing on this blog for the past two years - when it's a live, present, contextual reality? can I?

this is the question i've been asking myself - it must be possible, i've seen others do it, wannabepriest did it, and still does, i've also seen others get to a point where it just isn't possible.

so, why do i blog?

essentially, i think, it's about voice - voice within myself, voice into the world, voice amongst others, hearing of reciprocal voices. i don't always know why i blog, or what purpose it is, i'm not even sure how many people read this, i'm not a 'stat' rider, i don't pour over them to see who, what, how many. i would still blog even if no-one read - i think, but perhaps that's just silly.

so, for now, it's not 'so long and thanks for all the fish', but rather a continued 'journey to the restaurant at the end of the universe', with hopefully a few tidbits along the way - but, right now, i'm not exactly sure what they will be........

God of all nations

still alive but i'm barely breathin, prayin to a god that i don't believe in....

so, i didn't really mean to be mysterious the other day (rach :), it was just a comment on the sudden, and slightly unexpected sense of constraint i was feeling. it's similar to being in a church and having to be discerning about the things you say, and definitely the things that you blog about! but for some reason, perhaps it's the intense nature of college, it felt like that but much more oppressive. anyway, nuff said about that, i think.

onto my next thought. this week i've got to lead a discussion at our post-grad theology discussion group (yes, i know, it sounds eye-crossing, but it's really quite informal and there was port last time, and it's a mike thomson/richard bauckham tag team leading it, so, good good)

anyway, i somehow managed to allow myself to be volunteered to lead the discussion this week, with another student as we'd been asking the same questions about 'how it is that we actually know God (hence the title of this blogpost)

i think that my own questions stem from my experience of being in church family with conservative evangelicals and many many times thinking 'i don't know the same God you do'. i know, it's not PC to say that out loud particularly - and i most definitely am not saying that this is about being a christian or not - but that's how i've felt, and it felt like that when i was in that community, and it has continued to feel like that when i've had the odd conversation with people, or just been immersed in that community again (a day out at FCAUK for example).

so, i guess i've got a couple of options here, i could just think 'oh well, sod them' or just pootle along with my own little thoughts, in my own little mind, with my own little friends, who think exactly the things that i think. i could decide that there's no way to discern which version of God is the right one, so either do a dawkins and decide it's all the biggest load of crap, or sit with my happily relativised 'god in my pocket' entirely made in my image - or i could go a little bit mad.

or.........

or.....what?

at this point, i imagine (hope?) that some of you are wondering about the place of scripture in our ideas of God. and yes, i agree with you, that's my first marker on my journey. but.....you see ...how do we interpret scripture? who decides which interpretive model, hermeneutic, is the valid one? and if we then decide which particular hermeneutic is going to be 'ours', which interpretation derived from that model will we decide is valid? and where do we get our idea about what exactly is a valid 'idea' about God? scripture? but then we're in a cycle aren't we? our idea or 'image' of God in our heads determines our assessment of what someone says scripture says about God, which we then choose to assimilate into our thinking as a 'valid interpretation' dependent on which image of God is already there.

so where does my image of God come from?

speaking with someone else about this, he says, what about the community? (as in the universal community of God, throughout history - tradition)

so, the things that have been handed down, the traditional interpretations of who God is, are handed down, we don't 'imagine' things up ourselves (how arrogant!), we were not the first people to read scripture, to meet God, to 'think things' about God, to be persons of faith who sought to understand. the tradition gives us a framework and an anchor, within which and rooted by which, we are free to do our own thinking about God.

true.

but just one more question.

in our history there are different understandings of God. calvinism vs armenianism is not a 'new' discussion, trinitarianism was always a faith position, 'God is love' had to be wrestled with as a concept from the beginning.

even now, i wonder, do i ally myself with those who simply affirm my already formed views about who God is? do i wrestle against those whose view of God i, sometimes, find abhorrent, only because it conflicts with 'my' idea about God?

someone recently said to me, after a conversation on this subject, 'yeah, but maybe that's okay, maybe it's just being okay with you believing in the God who you know in your own head', to which i responded 'no, that's just not good enough, i want to know God, i want to know who God is, and i want to seek him until i know that i really know him.'

i think that this is my position, for the moment - to know that i don't know and to be okay with that.

but only if he doesn't turn out to be a big beardy storm god who hates me.

oh!......bugger.

voiceless

i am in a bit of a predicament (i wanted to say 'pickle' but didn't think it sounded right)

you may have noticed that i haven't been blogging as much lately, you might have thought that i've been busy, had other thoughts to think, and you'd be right....kinda.

there is sooooo much here to do, so much to say, so much to think and reflect on - but should i blog about it? there's stuff that i really want to say, to work out, to demand to be wrestled out and thoughts to be thought.

but the truth is that i feel.....a bit silenced.

what does a feminist look like?

apparently, at college, some people think i'm a bit of a feminist.

strangely i was a little surprised. 'why?' you may well ask. after all i'm not exactly 'lost for words' on the matter, i don't mind saying, for example, that our words in worship should represent all humanity. and lots of other things that strike me as essentially gospel practice, rather than distinctively feminist.

and i suppose that is something that i will continue to reflect on. i guess i've been on this journey for a long time. i've had space to make the connections, which, for me now, makes the thoughts that i think, the practices which i endeavour to do and promote, inherently gospel.

my point is that i never 'try to be a feminist', well, actually, that's not entirely true, there are moments when i think that the right thing to do/say/point out, will cost me and it is an active choice, but mostly the way that i am and the things that i say are just second nature. however when i am aware of the cost, it's a cost which, to me, is about gospel values, a cost which, as a disciple of jesus, i am bound to pay.

in the end words can be a bit slippery, they conjure up images, they represent symbols which mean things to us, different things to different people - the word feminist can mean ballbreaker, it can mean a call to arms, it can mean someone who recognises the history, it can mean someone who has hope for the future.

whoever you are and wherever you come from this word can mean all manner of things.

so....does it mean you?

method in my madness

a lot of my thinking at the minute is caught up in how we 'do' theology. i've been surprised at the idea that theology might be considered abstract, irrelevant. i guess i've had some great teachers over the last nine years who taught me, explicitly and implicitly, that beliefs and practice are inseparable and that what we believe about God inevitably controls what we do. what i believe about the doctrine of this, that or the other will never simply stay in the classroom.

this piece was written in response to a piece of contextual theology that was read and discussed in a classroom. it was written by heather walton and was about her experience of infertility and staying in a hospital with other women. she ends her piece by asserting 'this is how theology is done'. whilst i agree that people do theology from their context, i rather worry that we can become snobbish about certain contexts being unassailable, unquestionable as places to do theology.

____________________________________

A true story.

That may have actually happened.

It claims to have depth that abstract theology cannot. That theology done in the place of sterility cannot.

But is there ever such a place? Even the bearded theological professor has pain, has the deep secrets that he does not want anyone to know, has the fear.

God is the God of the fruitful vineyard and the fruitless fig. And you may choose who is who.

The things that we might think are ‘dead’ may be found to be living in God. It is only in the close scrutiny of doing, that we might find a latent fecundity.....or a pseudo-fertility.

Do not be fooled by the words, whether of the creative or the academic: poetic and beautiful, or droning and dull. Again, you may choose which is which. In either place the logos, the spark of life, may set you on fire, or, if you like, the seed may germinate, crack open and in its death give itself over to life, budding, green, new and vulnerable.

At any point it may not survive and may end up in the ground to become the muck that feeds the next new life. Or it may grow and grow and grow to be tall and proud, it may offer protection for the next new life to grow...or it may overshadow and steal its food.

Conception may happen in the dark of the night, in the strip light of a hospital room, or in the minds of students as they soak up the words dripping out of the professor. Birth is not inevitable after conception in any of these places. But it may be that something grows in the secret place.

The mind is the womb from where practice bursts.

How and where can theology be done?

Before the beginning was the Word.
Existing, being, living.

In the pulsating, pulsing place of life.
Theology is done.

Creation formed by a crying out.
Waking, seeing, thinking.

In the clumsy, chaotic, consummation of life
Theology is done.

A people gathered, in the smelting pot
Suffering, weeping, stumbling.

In the dirty, dreary, doing of life
Theology is done.

Women and men, acting out belief
Conflicted, confused, impulsive.

In the constant, continual, conversation of life
This is how theology is done.

prayer well

ridley has a quality about it - that's about as articulate as i can get about it. and i'm beginning to realise just how much that 'quality' is founded in the place of prayer in the life of the ridley community.

the simeon centre which is based at ridley, is a centre of ignatian spirituality, it is one of the main reasons that i felt excited about ridley at the interview day, and today i was reminded just how exciting it is.

prayer is something that is central to my own discipleship - not because i'm a particularly super spiritual pray-er, or because i think i've got the prayer life thing sorted, i absolutely do not. what i mean is that i know that without prayer i cannot do this. and by 'this' i mean life.

when i was going through a particularly acute period of anxiety, i quite literally could not have got up in the morning without starting with prayer. i know that this is my life blood, because it's all about jesus.

i can't wait to spend some time deepening this and enjoying the jesus-like people of the simeon centre, who live this 'quality' and can teach me more than i can imagine.

one thing i would like to learn over my time here is how to make prayer 'central' in a church that i might end up being vicar of in the future. how do we catalyse the prayer life of others? most people find prayer hard at some time or another and this is true of communities too. and quite often prayer becomes the thing around which apathy, guilt, insecurity grows. alternatively there's the legalism which can strangle anything like real life out of prayer. how do we help disciples and communities of disciples (the thing we call church) to want to pray, or at least to want to want to pray? without that being about yet another thing that we can 'beat' each other at - that is genuinely about care of each other on this road we're on.

so hopefully these will be things that i can see happening in ridley over the next little while and can drink deeply from.

wonderful idiots

the last few days have been a rather strange whirlwind of socialising, networking, encountering and listening.

i have had sometimes the most bewildering range of emotions - excitement, fear, anticipation. most of these have been expected, but some have taken me a little by surprise and as i start to watch others around me i am reminded how complex we all are. how different. how distinctive.

some of us are introverts and some extroverts - this is the classic dichotomy isn't it? over the last few years i've become less and less convinced about it, particularly because in many ways i'm your typical extrovert, i'm a social animal and always have been, however having spent so much of my time on my own to study, and perhaps it's a little to do with cherishing time alone when one has small children, i've begun to relish the time that i get to spend on my own too. i need headspace. but, in the end, i can't get away from the fact that i love people, i love hearing their stories, telling them mine - my default setting seems to be that of the anthrophile.

so i see the more introvert struggle with the constant 'noise' of community, which seems to assault the senses in a whole gamut of ways. this, i think, is to be expected. however, what i hadn't really anticipated was the way in which my own extrovert nature would react. you see i'm quite a 'heart on your sleeve' kind of woman. i'm quite open about my own peculiarities....most of the time. and in vicar college i'm sure that this is the way it's meant to be. after all over 2 or 3 years you really can't hide who you are, even if you want to. but the thing is that it's all a bit artificial. and i find myself slightly unsure in this bubble of forced community - how much to share, who with, and when.

it's also been slightly interesting having some people comment on stuff that i've written either here or on fulcrum (in a nice way, well mostly) - i admit to finding that a bit disconcerting. i could lie to you and say that of course i'm totally used to it - but i'm not. the truth is that most people have never heard of fulcrum (yes, it's true - i suffer no pretensions), and, shocking i know, but some people couldn't give two hoots about local church politics, national church politics, international church politics or the covenant, windsor process, gene robinson, GAFCON, FCAUK, etc etc.

i guess what i'm saying is that i have no desire to pretend. absolutely non whatsoever. i am constantly surprised that i've ended up doing everything i'm doing. i am sometimes a blethering idiot. i, rather too often for my own liking, say things that probably should have been left unsaid. when i'm nervous i'm much more likely to suffer from verbal diarrhoea than to clam up. i sometimes feel wildly free and sometimes excruciatingly shy.

and i'm okay with that.

i'm absolutely wonderfully, excitingly, amazingly terrified. and i would be highly suspicious of myself if i couldn't articulate that. it's very tempting to pretend. tempting to give off the aura of knowing what's what. but i don't.

so there :P

dna

yesterday i went to an awesome day conference, helpfully put on in the church that i'm attached to for the next two years whilst training at ridley.

it was called 'fresh expressions and the sacraments' and was organised by dave male (fresh expressions guru) and the speaker was maggi dawn, which was brilliant.

the day was broken up into four sections; what are sacraments for? what is communion? (the particular sacrament that was being discussed over the whole day) liturgy of communion - in which we wrote our own liturgy and celebration of the eucharist using that liturgy.

a great mix of verbal speaker stylie and audience participation, with plenty of chance and encouragement to ask questions.

i am particularly interested in this because i want to do a kind of mix and match parish/pioneer ministry training. ridley are open to this and seem to have the things in place to enable me to do it, although i think i'm a little bit of a guinea pig in this area. after going to this conference, however, i even more strongly think that this is something i want to do. i feel really strongly about the growing mutual exclusivity of the parish vs pioneer priest. this is something that is unnecessary and really unhealthy for all parts of the body.

so there were loads of questions and thoughts that i came away with, which i thought i might explore a little bit here over a few posts.

so, number 1. i made an observation about some of the reasons that people get into fresh expressions ministry. there is a strong pull away from the 'one man band' type model of ministry, away from the apparent exclusivity of clergy vs laity and from the general stuffiness associated with the idea or image of the parish priest. in some ways i wondered if this was part of the 'dna' of the pioneer priest. on talking with one guy he verbalised it as pioneer ministry being full of people who 'don't want to be a vicar, and so this is a way to do it' - by which i took to mean that a lot of the young guys who feel called to ministry, think of their image of the local vicar and thing 'i don't want to be that' and so head towards pioneer ministry as a kind of anti-position.

my own vision of ministry which encompasses both comes closer to what i see maggi doing. as she called it at the conference, it's about 'blowing the dust off the old' and 'digging deep to the treasures underneath'. there's something about traditional parish ministry which has a deep rootedness about a community formed in continuity with that tradition. we must look to draw on this deep rootedness for the good of fresh expressions of church.

there doesn't seem to be any doubt that a lot of young guys/people don't want to be the image of the parish priest that they might have in their head, but for me, i don't have that image. this expresses itself in two ways - first, i didn't grow up a christian. i became a christian at 14 and yes, the vicar at the time was a bit old and stuffy, but this was also the era of youth ministry, soul survivor and school's ministry. vicars could be cool. secondly, i'm a woman, no matter whether i have an image of the stuffy old parish priest or not - i ain't gonna be it. whether i want to be or not. by definition of my gender, i don't fit that image.

interestingly, this makes my position perhaps more flexible. i can fit into the parish thing, and draw on it, but not be tied to what 'people expect' in the same way that a man might. don't misunderstand me, i'm not that naiive, of course people will have their expectations of me, but my own need or vulnerability to those expectations is not linked to matching up to the man who went before me. i'm not drawn to the fresh expressions thing as an 'anti' position. i'm not concerned with being associated with the term 'parish priest'.

how much is fresh expressions a renewal movement of the parish system? and how much is it a completely new system? how does the 'dna' of the ministers who get involved with it influence the way that it goes, the tracks that it takes and the ones that are consigned to the sidings? i can see a 'two-track' communion happening within fresh expressions itself (very topical!), in which there will be those who see the value in the parish system and are willing to dig deep to uncover the treasures and seek continuity both historically and liturgically, and those who, still seeking those treasures, will seek to keep that continuity in ways separate to that system.

++rowan calls it a 'mixed economy' between parish system and fresh expressions, but it needs to understand that there is as much breadth of identity amongst the frex stuff as there is throughout our parishes.

and it's good to have a mixed economy, as long as the pound can be spent in the euro shop and vice versa.

article

just re-published a piece on fulcrum (previously on sophianetwork)

sophianetwork.org.uk

tomorrow i'll be attending a consulation day with sophianetwork, see below for information
_______________________________________

How can organisations and churches be places where both men and women thrive in ministry? Our consultation last year highlighted concerns about a lack of opportunities and support for women in Christian ministry. Is that a true reflection of what’s happening in the church?

The Equality and Human Rights Commission have highlighted five areas of persistent inequality in society that affect both men and women: the income gap; supporting modern families; public services; tackling violence and sharing power. Do these inequalities also exist in the church and in Christian organisations?

Come and share your experience, learn from others and help us find a way forward. To include input from Andrew McCracken and Mandy Marshall from Tearfund on their recent gender audit, and from Sally Nash on skills for collaborative ministry from her book.

When: Wednesday 1 July, 2009
Where: CPAS, Athena Drive, Tachbrook Park, Warwick, Warwickshire CV34 6NG
Time: 11am to 4pm
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.

We still have a few places so RSVP to Sharon Prior if you plan to come.

women who preach

reading through some stuff on sophianetwork, i came across this post on preaching tips.

the one that jumped out at me was this one:

'2. Develop your own style – don’t try to be like anyone else – you’ll be rumbled. Don’t be taken in by the popular blokey, shouty, stand-up comic style of preaching. Is that really the most effective way of communicating?'

in fact i had just been thinking about preaching styles and how my own experience of preaching has formed how i preach myself - and i'd been wondering how much i like that fact, or whether it inhibits me a bit.

recently a couple of people have said things like i preach with 'humility' and that i am 'softly spoken'. i had almost equal and opposite reaction to these comments. so often people are complimentary about those who speak with 'authority' (although i'm never really sure what that means), or who are passionate about what they are saying. i'm not sure how humility or mellifluence fits in with this idea of 'authority'.

i guess i am growing in my own style, growing up into being happy to be whoever i am when i preach, but it's sometimes quite difficult when there's such a lack of role models - not that i'd want to preach like anyone else, whether they're male or female - but this point about the 'popular blokey, shouty, stand-up comic style of preaching' really pinpointed something for me, because it really isn't my style and i had wondered if that was because i simply don't like being shouted at from the front of church myself, because of the experience of that being manipulative and coercive. however it seems that this is something that a few women have picked up on enough to say that women (and men?) should be released from this role model.

so is this a female thing? a style thing? a culture thing? a 'me' thing?

no hands

i nearly fell on my arse today. my dorney lake bike route was quite muddy and slippery and i found that my front wheel kept flipping out meaning that the handling was a tad unpredictable.

i found myself quite enjoying this, as i tried to keep the bike on the straight and narrow, or at least on the path....and upright. there was the possibility that i would actually fall off my bike. in fact, if things went really wrong, there was even the possibility that i would end up in the river, unlikely, but possible.

as is my wont, i ended up on a bit of a tangent in my thought processes. i found myself pleasantly surprised that i was, in fact, exhilarated by the quite real and imminent likelihood that i would fall at some point. so that the idea of falling didn't take away the excitement of the ride, but enhanced it. i guess this is fairly obvious, after all it's why we like rollercoasters isn't it? but on a rollercoaster, i'm quite sure i'm not going to actually fall off the side of the track, whereas on my bike, i really wasn't that sure.

as i do my life, i guess i want to be the sort of person who chooses the muddy bike rides over the rollercoasters. don't get me wrong, i love rollercoasters. but they're kind of like neutralised life aren't they? all those signs telling you not to raise your arms or jump out of the car or throw up on the person behind you.

but i suppose that in life, it can be that those signs might just as well be in our heads.

i mean when was the last time you tried to ride your bike with no hands?

how afraid are you to fall?