I love stumbling on creativity.
On of the good things about the web is that is is a treasure chest of creativity, but much of the treasure goes undiscovered.
I love these worlds from Brueggeman who I believe is the best OT scholar there is:
In our secret yearnings
we wait for your coming,
and in our grinding despair
we doubt that you will.
you can read more of this Advent prayer here.
Yesterday I chose to pay £2 extra and travel on the High Speed service from Kent to St Pancras rather than my normal service to Victoria. This was partly because I was meeting Ian near Bank Tube (easier from St pancras) but also, if I am honest I wanted to go on it just for the experience.
Plush … fast and a great service … I hope I have more excuses to use it in the future.
This evening was another proud moment as Chair of Governors at New Brompton College. The production of ‘Hook’s Revenge’ an original script to the school was stunning, beautiful, funny and a simply amazing production. For someone who has been connected with the school for nearly 15 years now it ws fantastic to see the level of confidence, talent and commitment that was being shown tonight.
The staff and students are amazing and it is a real privilege and honour to be connected with you all – thank you!
One of the things I get to do on a regular-ish basis is meet up with Ian Mobsby who kindly agreed to be my mentor a few years back after my placement with Moot. Meeting with Ian is always a specal time as he is one of those people that can see the issues that are hovering and is not afraid to speak out, to challenge, to encourage or to kick up the backside of needed. At times. like most people, I need a combination of these.
Ian has great expertese and I consider myself really lucky to be able to spend a couple of hours every few months talking about what I am doing, where I think I might be going and what I need to be thinking about doing. The wealth of wisdom from this man is fantastic.
Today I have been encouraged and blessed as we looked at the values we as a community have been looking at, and how this has a danger of pulling us into head knowledge type orthodoxy when our gathering, if I am reading things correctly, is far more interested in orthopraxis, aspiring to live out our faith with integrity. The community, or gathering, have agreed some values, such as inclusivity, the importance of journey, mission and a few others. While I was thinking that we needed to be looking at what these mean, in other words ‘unpack them’, it became clear after speaking with Ian that, actually, we need to be looking more at how we live these out in our world.
So … as a community we need to be asking, ‘how can we aspire to live in an inclusive way?’ rather than ‘what does it mean to be inclusive?’ and so on. This may seem only a slight shift in emphasis but it is a shift that will encourage us how to live rather than talking about how to be it – and I think that is where we want to be. I think we want to be a group of people that live out our faith authentically rather than have head knowledge about what we are doing.
As we consider this as a community I think we will be travelling into some pretty exciting times.
I have just returned home from the privileged position of being the clergy person present at the Carol Service in the cathedral for Rochester Grammar for Girls. Lots of people said thanks you, but I merely prayed at the start and gave a blessing at the end … the students did all the hard work!
The service was beautiful and the students were a real credit to their staff, their parents and most of all to themselves. It was great seeing some friends there from Sarah’s youth group of the past as well as seeing my number one neice being the outstanding young person she is (and makes a fantastic head girl as well!)
Nights like this evening are a highlight of my life as a priest. A time when we can work with people as they look to celebrate Christmas and be available s they seek to make some sense of the Christmas story … which as I have said before is quite a strange and incomprehensible story. It was also good because I got to see my niece Rach … who if I have not said so before I am mega mega proud of!
Mondays are always quiet days and so it has been good to have the opportunity to be able to do a bit of reflecting on where I am at the moment.
I think relationships on my journeys are going well. I think people are starting to believe me when I say that I am not out to convert people. I think people are seeing that I am genuinely interested in them and their stories. The group I chat to mostly have noticed that, because I am there regularly, others approach me with questions and I think they think this is generally a good thing. One such question was about the possibility of lighting candles after a funeral. A guy I did not recognise asked if this was possible and I was able to help out. One of the regular people noted that if I ahd not been there regularly that person would have wanted to light a candle and spend some quiet time in the cathedral but would probably not do it as the cathedral seems quite intimidating. Me being ‘out there’ and able to tell the person what to do and where to go and so on, has been a help to this particular person.
I am also finding a downside of my everyday presence.
There are times when I do not know what to do. There are some incidents when jokes are made, especially about women coming in, or walking past, which are not the sort of comments I would make or encourage myself. I won’t go into them here but I am sure you can guess what I am on about. If it was people I knew well I would probably challenge them, but i do not feel I have a right to challenge these people because, afetr all, what right do I have to expect others to have the same values as me.
I don’t feel I should get up and move away, but I don’t wish to give the impression that I agree with some of the views. Sometimes it is possible to challenge with a witty remark, but sometimes this is not possible. Some have said to me ‘what would Jesus do?’ My answer to that is ‘I don’t flipping know!’
This is closely linked to the inclusivity discussion that the gatehring is having at the moment. If we have a value of being inclusive can we then put boundaries on the level of inclusivity. If we expect certain behaviours to be evident, or certain ‘standards’ to be reached are we really being inclusive?
In both the gathering and out in the world, how can we as Christians be both welcoming and inclusive and maintain integrity? Or does Christianity prevent the kind of all out inclusivity that I see Jesus promoting in the gospels?
Answers on a postcard would be really helpful as I reflect on this.
I’ve just said goodbye to the people that came to our 6th or 7th gathering – I lose count.
we took Advent as our theme.
The house has been noisy as people have been able to meet up again.
There has been laughter and shouting as the children have played together.
There has been silence and calm as we have lit candles and watched them float on water as we mentally hand things over to God.
There has been contemplation as we consider again the Christmas story.
There has been conversation and delight as we have eaten and drunk together.
I’m not sure where we are all going as a group – but this afternoon we were all able to meet God where we were, whether we are 5, or 55 so I guess something is happening.
this is my latest offering for Photo Friday, this weeks topic being Winter!
I’ve called this winter screams …. i think you can guess why!
It looks better here.
ITN have produced a Christmas Channel on You Tube with an iPhone app with support and funding from The Jerusalem Trust.
I’ve just found the free iPhone app and some of the videos look interesting and fun …. some don’t, but it’s a great idea to get people thinking other things that just commercialism over festive period.
The Shiny Headed Prophet 