Another good varied day today.
After starting the day with centring prayer I visited Trinity School to meet with Juliet, the chaplain at the school. Bishop Christopher suggested we met as I am working with the staff at our Blackheath site and looking at how we might inclusivly introduce Eucharist as part of our worship in school.

I spent a great couple of hours talking with Juliet, we shared lots of ideas and it was really quite refreshing to meet with another creative person who is attempting to try new things in different places. I learned a lot from my time with Juliet and loved some of the ideas she has for working in schools …. and I am going to shamelessly adopt them (with her full generous permission of course!) Sometimes just chatting helps …so thanks Juliet for your time.

Keeping with the chaplain being I then spoke at the Easter Service at our Peninsula site. I used the Easter Banner from Mission Magic:

and it seemed to go down well with the children … and adults. And the secret … well, bobs, I can’t tell you!

Following that the working day ended with Mindful(l) our meditations session …. always a great way to end a day! Why not sign up here for next weeks meditation session.

The day of a team vicar / school chaplain can be a varied one!

I have been enjoying being challenged (again) by the daily meditations of Richard Rohr this past week.

This last week Rohr has been writing about Trinity. I was particularly reminded by Richard of how history has often fed people the patriarchal / supreme monarch / critical spectator and disinterested image of God.

That’s not the image of God I hold. It’s not the character of the God I follow. Richard correctly points out that we become like the God we worship. If our image of God is a God who separates and is prejudiced and discriminates then we become that person too.

I have for some time had a real issue with Augustine’s theology of original sin. In my reading ‘the fall’ comes a little while after God looks at the world and says ‘it is good’ before then looking at humankind and saying ‘They are VERY good’.

How can Augustine describe something created by God, in the image of God, labelled ‘very good’ by God to be embroiled in an original de facto layer of sin?!

If we view ourselves as created ‘in sin’ then our image of God is bound to be warped. It is quite difficult to believe in a God who loves us totally if we are then expected to believe that God sees us as full of crap and sin and stuff! To me … that does not hold with being created in the image of a loving and caring and fully engaged with us God.

Because God created us…. we are all loved and accepted totally by God …. just as we are with no need to change or be anything else other than the people we have been created to be.

This weeks daily readings have reminded me of this stuff which can be quite difficult to hold on to in a society that judges us according to how we look, how hard we workand how much we earn.
Every Saturday Richard Rohr gives a task to help us bed the weeks meditations …. I looked forward to Saturdays and it did not disappoint!:

Practice: Ecstatic Dance

God cannot be known by thinking but by experiencing and loving. As you read about the theological framework and practical implications of Trinity, I hope you will take many opportunities to explore this concept in your lived experience.

Here’s one way you might play—with a childlike spirit—and feel Trinity’s flow in your body. You may even lose track of where you, the dancer, end and the dance itself begins.

Choose a favorite or new piece of music—classical, world, contemporary; anything that calls you to move!—and find a place in which you can listen and move without inhibition, barefooted if possible.

Allow your body to lead, following the invitation of the music. Let your mind take a back seat and tune in to the sensations of each part of your body.

Feel your feet connect with the ground. Let limbs and joints turn and bend as they will. Swing and sway your head, shoulders, hips. Sink deep into your body, remembering what it is to be a human animal.

Dance until you are pleasantly tired and then gradually slow your movements, perhaps to another musical tempo. Continue moving in smaller, gentler ways: breathe deeply, stretch your arms and legs, roll your head.

Come to a seated position and rest in stillness.

So …. remember you are VERY good …. created in the image of a loving concerned and very involved God ….

so
go
dance
Ecstatically!