All Nighter

Well.. I was worried that I was getting old, coz I don't seem to have the energy to do all night study sessions any more. But Mark http://www.anapauo.org.uk/ came to write his essay here too and I realised I can stay up all night to work if I'm not on my own. I must have just been permanently tired for a the last twelve months lol.

Another 1500 words to go in about 5 hours, before....

HOLIDAY HOLIDAY NAH NAH
NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH
(to the Tune of 'Vindaloo')

or for the old skool football fans...

HOLIDAY HOLIDAY HOLIDAY
HOLIDAY HOLIDAY HOLIDAY
HOLIDAY HOLIDAY HOLIDAY
HOLIDAAAAY HOLIDAAAAY
(to the tune of ' 'ere we go')

Anyway, off to cornwall for a long weekend camping near the beach hopefuly in the sunshine(!) and taking in a family wedding, then back slowly via some other friends. Ahhhh.

Vocation?

http://jfreeman.blogspot.com/2005/06/please-read.html#comments has a link to a beautifuly written piece http://waiterrant.blogspot.com/2005/06/nunc-dimittis-three-priests-walk-into.html

It ressonates with me stuff about vocation, calling, aloneness, discovering our shadow side through our work. Just now I'm very challenged about where to go with it when we discover our shadow side in our work. Although this post somehow highlighted my aloneness, and the aloneness that can be felt in ministry and highligted by ministry, it also paradoxically made me feel less alone.

And I've chosen to be real on this post about how it's made me feel, coz that's the way I work. As much as is possible, and within the context of good boundaries that I'm still working out, I don't want to hide my woundedness from those I minister to.

A quote from Nouwen:

“No minister can keep
his own experience of life hidden from those he wants to help. Nor should he
want to keep it hidden”.

Nouwen H (1979) The Wounded Healer
London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd

Sponsored Virtual Bike Ride

http://www.sundaypapers.org.uk/?p=138 has a link to a fab and wacky alternative fundraising thing for Frontier Youth Trust http://www.fyt.org.uk/home.html FYT are a fab organisation working in an inclusive wholistic way with young people at risk of exclusion.

If you've always wanted to do a big sponsored event, here's a totally inclusive Virtual Bike Ride that you can do. Your level of strength, ability, fitness or time to give doesn't make any difference, and will not hold you back. Go on, you know you want to be a Virtual Cyclist and 'Virtually Cycle' to Greenbelt this year for sponsor money.

Social Policy and Young Parents

http://maggidawn.typepad.com has a heartbreaking and thought provoking post about parenthood and how our 'education' of young people that getting pregnant is bad can lead to women feeling so much that they want their 'life' before they have their baby that they leave it so late they have problems conceiving.

Having been reading social policy this term (and currently writing an assignment on it) it got me thinking about how this is contributed to by our government. If a young person is NEET (not in education, employment or training) the social exclusion unit have a very structured strategy to turn said young person into EET (In employment, education, or training). It would seem that in our world of targets, development, hoop jumping and achieving 'hard outcomes' there is little space for the developing of 'soft skills' or making space for individuals to take their life journey which is right for them. The government decide whether a young person is not following the 'right' life path and try to push them back onto it if they are not. While this is all very noble in terms of working to reduce social exclusion, it is all to their very structured and boxed agenda. In thinking through this my mind flicks back to Frieire and other liberation thinkers. If we try to liberate people by riding in to rescue them then we are simply becoming the new oppressor ourselves.

Maybe by trying to push young people and others to go through the hoops in society that someone has said are the 'right' ones and disuading people from 'bad' paths in life (whichever nominal cabinet minister decided which were good and which were bad) we are in fact oppressing them.

When we consider the young parent, maybe rather than trying to automatically 'get them into Employment, Education or Training', we should allow them to say that what s/he wants in life could be to be a parent and get their identity, sense of achievment and contribution to society from bringing up their baby? When we consider their contribution to society, maybe rather than measuring it in terms of benefits recieved or work output we could think about what society might gain from the unique contribution that someone who has the challenging painful fulfilling beauiful heartbreaking wonderful person building insight gaining experiences of parenthood at an earlier age than is considered normal or appropriate.

Would love to hear of people's thoughts or experiences on this.

Tags, Books, and Stuff

Right, this won't take long! I said I wasn't going to do this until I'd learned how to put a hyper link on here properly but to be honest social policy essays are more pressing than learning html just now... which I'd usually find as a good reason to do the latter. So for now, sorry about my ugly naked links which aren't nicely presented and coded.

Caroline at http://onepedestrianaway.blogspot.com/ tagged me on the what am I reading thing... so here goes.

Number of Books I own: A shelf full of big books, a shelf full of youth work and management books, a shelf full of theology books, a bedside table full of personal development books and a shelf full of fiction books which hasn't been added to or updated for way too long!

Last Book I brought: Generous Authodoxy by Brian McLaren if you count the last one to arrive from Amazon, or Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince if you count the one I pre-ordered but hasn't arrived yet.

Last Book I read: I've not been reading for reading sake enough lately. I've been dipping in and out of books for writing assignments, but need to find something to read just for reading sake. Any suggestions anyone? I love the Harry Potter stuff, (nothing too intellectual there then). Thoroughly enjoyed Walt Wangerin's The Book of God about a year ago.

Books that Mean a lot to me: Some of the analogies in the Narnia Chronichles- especially the bit where Aslan turns Eustace from a dragon back into a boy in the Voyage of The Dawn Treader, and the end of the Last Battle where everyone realises that they're not the only ones in paradise and that paradise doesn't look the same to everyone. McLaren's New Kind of Christian trilogy.

Tag Five Others: Ooh, I don't know. Not sure that I have enough readers for it to be worth doing that... lets try

http://charityhamilton.blogspot.com/ Does your browser let you view here yet?
http://simontsays.blogspot.com/ Doubt very much if someone so busy will play...
http://pilgrim.typepad.com/steve/ Possibly
http://www.davidjeanneret.co.uk/ Hates chain letters... but this isn't *quite* a chain letter
http://www.thirdjohnfour.blogspot.com/ Possibly

Dreams for the Church

http://goodinparts.blogspot.com/2005/06/dare-to-dream.html has this lovely hymn on her blog about dreams for the church.

I dream of a church that joins in with God's laughing

as she rocks in her rapture, enjoying her art:

she's glad of her world, in its risking and growing:

'tis the child she has borne and holds close to her heart.

--

I dream of a church that joins in with God's weeping

as she crouches, weighed down by the sorrow she sees:

she cries for the hostile, the cold and no-hoping,

for she bears in herself our despair and dis-ease.

--

I dream of a church that joins in with God's dancing

as she moves like the wind and the wave and the fire:

a church that can pick up its skirts, pirouetting,

with-the steps that can signal God's deepest desire.

--

I dream of a church that joins in with God's loving

as she bends to embrace the unlovely and lost,

a church that can free, by its sharing and daring,

the imprisoned and poor, and then shoulder the cost.

--

God, make us a church that joins in with your living,

as you cherish and challenge, rein in and release,

a church that is winsome, impassioned, inspiring;

lioness of your justice and lamb of your peace.

Kate Comptston

I want to dream those dreams again. I've been told often that I'm too naive about the church, that she will never become more than an oppresssive institution, but I don't want to beleive in that. I want to believe in her, expect the best from her. I want to dream that dream.

The Church, The Affair, The Abusive Lover

I am committed to the church, in as much as s/he is a worshiping community of believers. I will not to slag her off, and I will try to be sure that my critique of her is constructive. As much as is possible I will try to maintain those commitments within this post.

http://jfreeman.blogspot.com/2005/06/affair.html sums up beautifully and poignantly how it can feel for a glb christian to have a relationship with a church which is theoretically inclusive but practically condemning and not welcoming. She compares it to an affair rather than a marriage. Where the lover, the church is so amazing and loving when s/he is with you, but is not willing to risk other relationships or other people’s approval to publicly affirm or be with you.

Just now to me the church feels more like an abusive lover.

I am committed to her and I love her. When things are going well I feel welcomed, loved and accepted in her arms. I feel free to be myself. I enjoy engaging with her, with the people within her. Having fun, worshiping, celebrating life and love, developing thoughts and ideas.
But all of a sudden, and it happens too often to be occasional(!) she will do something totally unexpected. I feel betrayed, beaten. The vulnerability which I offer to her is abused, my naked unprotected self which I offered to her as an act of giving and ministry is snatched, trampled into the mud, and then scraped off her shoe like a piece of sh*t. But each time, because I am committed to her, and love the people within her, I forgive. I think “it must have been my fault” “she won’t do it again”, and yet, as is the pattern of abusive relationships, the act of betrayal and hurt is repeated sooner or later in one form or another. Once again I find myself picking up the pieces of my heart, grieving for a community which I been ripped from leaving half my heart behind, and wondering how long it will be before I dare to trust the church with my true self again.

In an abusive relationship I would give up. It may take friends to encourage me, gently break to me the truth that I will never change her and must leave now before the hurt is repeated more deeply. I still believe in the church. I believe in her potential for growth, for healing, for acceptance, for relationship… I just don’t know how to learn to trust her again.

Why are there so many fantastic wonderful people tied up in the power structure of the established church who would be able to minister so much better without the hierarchical structures? Why does the church operate a system where power may be held and abused by a few? How can the church preach a message of love and inclusivity and yet be so rejecting?

God is it my place to challenge the church?

Please give me the courage to do so.

Is it my place to accept her?

Please give me the grace to do so.

And teach me to know the difference,

when to challenge,

when to accept

and when to walk away.

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

(second Part- The Serenity Prayer- Author Unknown)

God Bless the Quizfarm

Well, through various quizes I've discovered that I'm an emerging postmodern calvinistic amillenialist! big pinch of salt coming my way!

But I pressed the browse the entire quiz library button and decided to do the 'what religion is the right one for you' quiz- I had to do a tie break question between Christianity and Budhism, but then those who know me well may have expected that anyway!

Time for bed before I get into any more trouble!

---

Monday Morning- Nikki Adds...

Oh, I forgot to mention, paganism came a close third! I'm sure my evangelical friends will be glad of something to fill up their intercession and evangelism times with. ;-)

Awe and Wonder II

http://www.sundaypapers.org.uk/ has an interetsing conversation going on at the moment about the evidence and proof for God, something that my unlce who sent me the link on http://thinkingthejourney.blogspot.com/2005/06/awe-and-wonder.html has pointed out that we have none.

I looked back over the astronomy pictures on the link today though. I think that the difference between myself and a rational, scientific thinker, is that for me the existence of the infinitude of space matters, because I love the 'wow factor' the 'awe and wonder' brought about by seeing an amazing picture of the cosmos of which we are a tiny part. I'm not so interested in the bit of blurb below which tells us all about the picture and how the phenomenum we see appeared.

To apply this to God, I guess I am more intreseted in the intrinsic knowledge in myself that makes my heart miss a beat and makes me stand in awe and wonder when my spirit connects with The Divine than I am in the proof and evidence and explainations from God. I'm not saying that either is bad. Maybe this is one of the differences between the spirituality of a scientific age and the spirituality of a post modern age?

Am I so very different?

We’re currently working on a multi cultural module at university at the moment. For our assessment we are asked to interview someone of another world view and write a report on the interview.

I was honoured and surprised when a classmate came up to me after I’d been thinking out loud in class about spirituality and suggested that s/he interviewed me for the assignment as I have a ‘different world view’ to the Christian one! It got me to think though, in my search for the authentic truth of the good news have I really strayed that far from the straight and narrow?

I believe that God created the world by His spirit, the Ruach breath of God, and that we are made in God’s image by His Spirit breathed into us with our every breath. But when I suggest that sitting quietly and listening deeply to ourselves is the same as listening to God, as he lives within us, it is suggested that I am a heretic.

I believe that Jesus came to save the world from Sin and bring the Kingdom of God on earth. But when I suggest that the sin that he came to save us from was more about the sin’s we do to each other as humans, and the way He saved us from them was more by showing us an example of how to live rather than making an eternal appeasing sacrifice that magically makes everything better when we say the magic words, people begin to pray for my soul.

I believe that everyone is made in God’s image, with something inside that intuitively years for connection with something greater, yet when I suggest that those of other faiths or none are finding their own connection with God but expressing it in a different way, I am challenged as to ‘Why I bother calling myself a Christian’.

Is all this really so very wacky? So very wrong? Am I just being a product of my engagement in a pomo society who don’t see definites? Am I just looking to justify my permissive liberal theology by thinking it through? Am I really so very different?

Awe And Wonder

I've been chatting with my Uncle recently about spirituality- and what the different 'bigger things' are that we connect with as humans. One of these for me is that 'greater other' of the universe. I remembered hearing about a discussion in which teacher were less and less expected to instill a 'sense of Awe and Wonder', but must rather meet targets and teach scientific facts and processes. When do we stop speculating and calculating in order simply to look at something with Awe and Wonder?

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html has an astronomy picture of the day each day. (Thanks for the link Ollie) When I started to scroll through these picutures, in captured that sense of Awe and Wonder in me (as well as provoking envy of those with a bigger monitor!!).

What are the different things which we can connect with which our greater than ourselves to create that sense of awe and wonder? Do they have to be overtly religious in order for us to say that connecting with them is a spiritual experience?

I Turn To You

I Turn To You

(by Mel C)

--

When the world is darker than I can understand

When nothing turns out the way I planned

When the sky turns grey and there's no end in sight

When I can't sleep through the lonely night

--

I turn to you

Like a flower leaning toward the sun

I turn to you

'Cos you're the only one

Who can turn me around

When I'm upside down

I turn to you

--

When my insides are racked with anxiety

You have the touch that will quiet me

You lift my spirit You melt the ice

When I need inspiration

When I need advice

--

I turn to you

Like a flower leaning toward the sun

I turn to you

'Cos you're the only one

Who can turn me around

When I'm upside down

I turn to you

--

Where would I be

What would I do

If you'd never helped me through

I hope someday,

If you've lost your way

You could turn to me,

Like I turn to you

--

I turn to you

Like a flower leaning toward the sun

I turn to you

'Cos you're the only one

Who can turn me around

When I'm upside down

I turn to you

--

I turn to you

When fear tells me to turn around

I turn to you

'Cos you're the only one

Who can turn me around

When I'm upside down

--

Father today I turn to You and to those you have placed around me. Embracing the day and her tasks, I turn my face towards the sun, leaving my shadow to stream behind me, I walk into the light.