A bizarre birthday...

As the sun comes up in Cambridge, I can do no more than sit and reflect on my experiences of yesterday which went in to making up one of the most bizarre birthdays ever. It may not have been so unreal if I had had only my first assessed service and Greek, things you may expect for it being a college day, but then there was everything else!

Starting with my assessed service--it was nice to have my tutor say that it is one of the most nerve-racking preaching engagements, bar Federation Worship (luckily I will never have to lead one of those). Spending the whole week quaking has really not been healthy!  But it was a really humbling experience and I think I am still in shock over the comments I recieved. Standing up at the front of chapel was a definite 'in God's strength, not mine' moment, but that is what is should be, otherwise I really am doing the wrong thing! Though sometimes I still wonder 'how did I get here' as I stand at the front leading worship, it is an honour to be able to lead people in something that lets them draw close to God and worship His amazing goodness.

To the rest of the day, I'm just lost for words. It was one with as many ups and downs in it as I think I've experienced in the first two terms! Maybe it all has to do with the joys of community living, or the fact that some of us have essays due in 11 days. To be trying to participate and even chair meetings, when you've been spending every waking moment in front of a computer writing and every other moment worrying about how many words you still have to go, is possibly a little foolish - but then we are part of the Church and we do sometimes have some very silly ideas! Unfortunately, things do go wrong at times and get messy, that's life. There are some days, though, I wish it didn't have to happen to me on such a regular basis!

Where is home?

So after a week in the garden of England, I'm back in the academic world... oh how I've missed the library!

It has been a bit of a strange week, for it has been very possible my last week as Maidstone being 'home'! Ok, I know that I haven't ever lived in Maidstone for more than a few months, but it has been home, even when I had my own house in Newcastle. Not to say that the other places I have lived since I was 18 haven't also been home, but there has been something about Maidstone. Maybe it has been because that has been where my parents lived, or maybe, even though my parents have only lived there since I was 18, it has always been a place that has been a big part of my life, as it was where my grandparents lived, as well as other members of my extended family. So this raises the question... what makes a place some where we can call 'home'?

Is home where our family is? Is it the place where we live? Is there a combination of things that makes a place a home? So as I sit in my flat in Cambridge, with my parents moving to the other side of the country, I wonder where home is now? Watch this space...

Another fine mess I've got myself into!

Another week gone, the vacation quickly slipping away and back to the village chapel to preach! Now I know I'm not a Methodist (well, not any longer anyway), but I do like going to the village chapel. I have been going there since about the age of three, so now standing up at the front leading worship is almost as bad as having to stand up and lead worship at college! But as a place to lead worship it is fantastic! It is your traditional Methodist chapel, they'll sing anything and with great gusto! I wish some of our URCs were a bit more like that.

The gospel reading in the lectionary for today was doubting Thomas and how we have to believe without seeing or touching the tangible. Some thing that is easy to say, but to actually do is so much more difficult. It more easy to go into a doubting Thomas mode, than catching hold of faith and taking the next step forward. But this is the challenge for those of us that stand up at the front on a Sunday, we have to take the Word of God and turn it into something tangible - something that our congregations can reach out and take hold of, so that they can believe! A very scary challenge, and one that comes with great responsibility. Oh my... what have I got myself into?!

Waiting in disorientation...

So here we are at Easter...we've sat in the upper room and shared a meal, we've heard Jesus' despair in the garden, seen him betrayed and arrested and now we stand looking at him hanging on the cross. But what next? Will anything happen next?

Ok, Easter Sunday happened and there is the empty tomb, but when it all happened the disciples didn't know about Sunday, they didn't know about Ascension or Pentecost. All they knew was that Jesus was dead!

Lucky me has two services to lead (one being my first assessed service at College) shortly after Easter and both my scriptural texts are about the disciples waiting and feeling disorientated, not really sure what the last few years have been about and what to do next. So I have been thinking about this 'waiting in disorientation'. On the Saturday, the disciples sat and waited, on the days following Easter Sunday, the disciples sat and waited. Waiting for something to happen, their world had been blown to pieces and they needed some idea on how to put it back together, to move forward from the events that they had just witnessed. And so Brueggemann's 'orientation-disorientation-reorientation' principle is as applicable to Eastertide, as it is to the Psalms, as it is to events that many of us face in life. How many times do we go through this process, I know I have: candidating for ministry and arriving here, good recent example!

And so I sit and wait for what will happen next, hoping that its reorientation rather than further disorientation!