So what to do with the long Christmas vacation in Cambridge? Start writing essays? Catch up with reading? Put your feet up? All superb ideas, and maybe options I should have opted for... however, I didn't and now I seem to be continually wearing odd socks!
I decided that it would be good to experience ministry during the big Christian festivals this year. So with agreement from the Minister who supervised me over the summer and my College Tutor, I am now back on placement. It was a fantastic idea at the beginning of term, but maybe not anymore!
You would think that Christmas was easy, the story's the same every year and so are the carols. The Sunday School will have to do a Nativity and people won't feel they have had Christmas without Nine Lessons and Carols. Then you have the Luncheon Club's Christmas Lunch, the Women's Fellowship Christmas Tea and all the others. It is the season of no sermon writing and mince pie eating!
If only...
You may have three carol services on one day, but they all have to be slightly different, because you can't use that carol in one church and someone is singing a solo in another and in the other you can only find eight readers! There is the Christmas Eve and the Christmas Day addresses, which have to be short but pack a punch as this may be the only chance you get to share the message with some people till next Christmas. Then after all the lunches and teas, there are all the folk you need to visit before Christmas. Your days start early and finish very late. You loose the ability to find matching socks.
It sounds like Christmas really is a chore for a Minister of Word and Sacrament, but from what I have experienced in the past ten days, that is far from the truth. It's hard work, but it is also a huge privilege. To be able to take Communion to someone who is house-bound with Christmas greetings from the Church. To be able to share the good news of Christmas with people who may have just come to hear the carols. To do what God has called me to do is no chore but a blessing, even if it means I end up wearing odd socks.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Friday, November 30, 2012
A third of the way there
I have survived another term! Term number 4 of 12 is complete, which I guess means that I'm a third of the way to ordination! Gulp!
It does seem a bit strange to say that "I've survived", but some days that is what it feels like. If I'm not battling with Scripture, I seem to be battling with theology or trying to work out exactly who the guy with the beard was who said some when back in the depths of time something that shifted the sand on which the Church stands. I get to the end of the day worrying about whether it was Zwingli or Calvin who liked to eat cream cakes on a Sunday after preaching four three-hour sermons. Once upon a time, well 15 months ago to be a little more accurate, I had a job, a house, heating and a shower. Now I have a vocation, a rented flat, heating which needs supplementing with woolly jumpers and a bath! However, I do still seems to spend the majority of the day doing one of my least favourite activities: reading. (Another battle in my life - words!)
All this paints a rather negative picture, but where I am now is far from negative. The last 15 months has been a hard slog and that wont change. If it starts to get easy I think I might worry more. But not once can I say I have looked back to where I have come from and wished I was back there. Yes, some mornings it would be nice to walk into a warm bathroom and jump into the shower, or it would be nice to be spending the day collecting temperature readings from a potato rather than tying myself in knots over what Paul actually meant when he used the word 'righteousness' in his letter to the Romans. But hopefully one day soon I will again have a bathroom with a radiator and a shower, and really spending the day measuring the temperature of a potato is not nearly as satisfying as even making the tiniest bit of sense out of what Paul was saying about righteousness.
I know I still lack confidence in my own knowledge, that I would still rather sit and say nothing than say something that may be wrong. Every sermon I write, I doubt myself and worry that I may have strayed into some area of heresy which I am completely oblivious to. But I can now stand up in front of a group of people and share some of what I have discovered during the week with some element of confidence (though deep down I am a gibbering wreck). I can even have unscripted moments!
Theological college has changed me and will continue to change me, as will my ministry in the years to come. I can no longer (and at some level no longer want to) hide away in an office in the background. There of course will always be those moments when I wish the ground would open up and swallow me, but I'm learning that is ok. And maybe, just maybe, I am beginning to really make a start on understanding who God wants me to be.
It does seem a bit strange to say that "I've survived", but some days that is what it feels like. If I'm not battling with Scripture, I seem to be battling with theology or trying to work out exactly who the guy with the beard was who said some when back in the depths of time something that shifted the sand on which the Church stands. I get to the end of the day worrying about whether it was Zwingli or Calvin who liked to eat cream cakes on a Sunday after preaching four three-hour sermons. Once upon a time, well 15 months ago to be a little more accurate, I had a job, a house, heating and a shower. Now I have a vocation, a rented flat, heating which needs supplementing with woolly jumpers and a bath! However, I do still seems to spend the majority of the day doing one of my least favourite activities: reading. (Another battle in my life - words!)
All this paints a rather negative picture, but where I am now is far from negative. The last 15 months has been a hard slog and that wont change. If it starts to get easy I think I might worry more. But not once can I say I have looked back to where I have come from and wished I was back there. Yes, some mornings it would be nice to walk into a warm bathroom and jump into the shower, or it would be nice to be spending the day collecting temperature readings from a potato rather than tying myself in knots over what Paul actually meant when he used the word 'righteousness' in his letter to the Romans. But hopefully one day soon I will again have a bathroom with a radiator and a shower, and really spending the day measuring the temperature of a potato is not nearly as satisfying as even making the tiniest bit of sense out of what Paul was saying about righteousness.
I know I still lack confidence in my own knowledge, that I would still rather sit and say nothing than say something that may be wrong. Every sermon I write, I doubt myself and worry that I may have strayed into some area of heresy which I am completely oblivious to. But I can now stand up in front of a group of people and share some of what I have discovered during the week with some element of confidence (though deep down I am a gibbering wreck). I can even have unscripted moments!
Theological college has changed me and will continue to change me, as will my ministry in the years to come. I can no longer (and at some level no longer want to) hide away in an office in the background. There of course will always be those moments when I wish the ground would open up and swallow me, but I'm learning that is ok. And maybe, just maybe, I am beginning to really make a start on understanding who God wants me to be.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
The waiting time is almost upon us...
So week 7 started today... WEEK 7... just two weeks and term is finished and Advent is here!
Ooooh... Advent... Christmas...
Now I know Christmas seems to get earlier and earlier every year in the shops, but it also arrives very quickly when you study at a University that has very short terms. I have this term joined a choir (yipee, at last I am no longer just singing in the bath), and what do you have to do at the end of Michaelmas term? Well sing carols at a concert or in the streets of Cambridge (or both). And because I have starting singing Christmas carols, I thought that gave me a good enough reason for starting to practice Christmas carols on the trumpet as well. Ok, most probably won't be playing in public this year, but you never know, so it is worth being prepared!
This of course means if I start looking at Christmas carols, I also have to look at Advent carols (usually same chapter in the hymnbook anyway). After all Advent does come before Christmas: a point that sometimes gets forgotten. And as I have to lead worship over Advent, no bad thing getting the tunes into my head now. I do, however, have a favourite Advent carol: 'O come, o come Emmanuel'. Someone in my preaching class the other day did suggest a set of themes to cover the season of Advent which would allow the use of 'O come, o come Emmanuel' on every Advent Sunday! My first pastorate, beware, we will be doing this and I will be playing the trumpet! (Why not, I'll be the minister... I can do what I want... can't I?)
So Advent, that waiting place, that time to prepare and to look forward. A time we sometimes miss because we're too busy with Christmas. Well, this year, things are going to be different. I may be singing Christmas carols in November and going to Christmas dinners in early December, but this year I'm not going to forget Advent and the place of limbo it puts us in and the longing for Christ's coming (again).
Therefore, theme tune for 1st to 24th December: "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"
Ooooh... Advent... Christmas...
Now I know Christmas seems to get earlier and earlier every year in the shops, but it also arrives very quickly when you study at a University that has very short terms. I have this term joined a choir (yipee, at last I am no longer just singing in the bath), and what do you have to do at the end of Michaelmas term? Well sing carols at a concert or in the streets of Cambridge (or both). And because I have starting singing Christmas carols, I thought that gave me a good enough reason for starting to practice Christmas carols on the trumpet as well. Ok, most probably won't be playing in public this year, but you never know, so it is worth being prepared!
This of course means if I start looking at Christmas carols, I also have to look at Advent carols (usually same chapter in the hymnbook anyway). After all Advent does come before Christmas: a point that sometimes gets forgotten. And as I have to lead worship over Advent, no bad thing getting the tunes into my head now. I do, however, have a favourite Advent carol: 'O come, o come Emmanuel'. Someone in my preaching class the other day did suggest a set of themes to cover the season of Advent which would allow the use of 'O come, o come Emmanuel' on every Advent Sunday! My first pastorate, beware, we will be doing this and I will be playing the trumpet! (Why not, I'll be the minister... I can do what I want... can't I?)
So Advent, that waiting place, that time to prepare and to look forward. A time we sometimes miss because we're too busy with Christmas. Well, this year, things are going to be different. I may be singing Christmas carols in November and going to Christmas dinners in early December, but this year I'm not going to forget Advent and the place of limbo it puts us in and the longing for Christ's coming (again).
Therefore, theme tune for 1st to 24th December: "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
What is the priority?
As this term progresses, weeks seems to be getting shorter and shorter whilst the 'to-do-list' gets longer and longer. So when I sat down to plan my morning prayers, that I had lead this morning, at the end of last week, picking up a bit of liturgy I had sat on my computer would have been the sensibly and less complicated thing to do. However, why make life easy for myself, starting with a blank piece of paper is so much more fun!
Not that I was actually starting with a blank piece of paper per se, because as I have found the busyness of term taking over life and seen others beginning to become swamped by work, the words 'cast your burdens upon Jesus, for he cares for you' have entered my head. They are of course Biblical (I am an ordinand after all), but not a direct scriptural quote. I think I possibly learnt them from a song (as that is where I seem to learn most of my almost scriptural quotes I ever remember). But what to do with that - well link it to an image of course!
Now this sounds all very simple, and actually it was, apart from the fact that I needed the image to be the size of 2A0. Surprisingly, I don't own a printer that prints that big, neither does the college - so 36 sheets of A4 and a role of sellotape later, my image appeared on the floor. This was excellent work (well almost), but it also consumed quite a lot of time. Time that I could have been using to read or write an essay, I spent on my knees in chapel sticking pieces of paper together. Do I have my priorities wrong?
As I have sat and reflected today I realise that I didn't have my priorities wrong. Yes, my essay of Righteousness is not going to write itself, but leading the Community of Westminster College in an act of worship, however short, is just as important. For this not just an academic community, it is also a worshipping community; something that is easily forgetting in the stresses and strains of academic life.
Besides which it part-fueled this evening's theological discussion in the pub! Result!!
Not that I was actually starting with a blank piece of paper per se, because as I have found the busyness of term taking over life and seen others beginning to become swamped by work, the words 'cast your burdens upon Jesus, for he cares for you' have entered my head. They are of course Biblical (I am an ordinand after all), but not a direct scriptural quote. I think I possibly learnt them from a song (as that is where I seem to learn most of my almost scriptural quotes I ever remember). But what to do with that - well link it to an image of course!
Now this sounds all very simple, and actually it was, apart from the fact that I needed the image to be the size of 2A0. Surprisingly, I don't own a printer that prints that big, neither does the college - so 36 sheets of A4 and a role of sellotape later, my image appeared on the floor. This was excellent work (well almost), but it also consumed quite a lot of time. Time that I could have been using to read or write an essay, I spent on my knees in chapel sticking pieces of paper together. Do I have my priorities wrong?
As I have sat and reflected today I realise that I didn't have my priorities wrong. Yes, my essay of Righteousness is not going to write itself, but leading the Community of Westminster College in an act of worship, however short, is just as important. For this not just an academic community, it is also a worshipping community; something that is easily forgetting in the stresses and strains of academic life.
Besides which it part-fueled this evening's theological discussion in the pub! Result!!
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
It's like being in a scene from "Mona Lisa Smile"...
I thought I'd take a break from reading and put my mind to more reflective use. Now, if I felt like being a real swot, I could of course get on with next week's homework for Pastoral Theology and start a narrative theological reflection on something or other. But since I have absolutely no idea what I'm meant to do and currently can't be doing with reading another slightly obscure text to try and work out what I'm suppose to be doing - I'll blog instead!
Now, as some of you out there know, I'm dyslexic. Which means, though I'm apparently a visual learner, reading is really not one of my strengths, and when I see page after page of words I get slightly disheartened and start wondering what's on telly. And of course in lectures, when we do get handouts or even the odd powerpoint, they are general pages and pages of words. This is why my first degree was in engineering - very few words and lots of pictures!
But this year, things have changed slightly - I've found a paper which involves pictures! To be precise it is all pictures (well there is talking from the lecturer too, but all the same there are no words on the screen). Being that the course is entitled 'Icons and Images', I suppose I shouldn't have been so surprised, all the same I did find it very amusing when in the first lecture the lecturer walked in to the class with a box of slides tucked under his arm.
I don't know how many of you have seen the Julia Roberts' film 'Mona Lisa Smile', but at that point this lecture started I was transport to a scene in the film where the Julia Roberts who is teaching art history to a group of girls is going through picture after picture, exploring what these pictures represent, what the artist is trying to get across to observer. I never thought I would every find myself in such a class, but every Tuesday afternoon this is now what I do - look at picture after picture, being taken on a journey through religious art and iconography, learning to see what the artist is trying to show me. I may not agree with some of the theological aspects of the art, and I definitely can't get my head around veneration of images and icons. But I'm being to appreciate how artists have tried to depict pictorially things that even the most esteemed theologians struggle to put into words.
So here's to images and icons - my picture-based theology paper, when I get two hours off from looking at words (bliss).
Now, as some of you out there know, I'm dyslexic. Which means, though I'm apparently a visual learner, reading is really not one of my strengths, and when I see page after page of words I get slightly disheartened and start wondering what's on telly. And of course in lectures, when we do get handouts or even the odd powerpoint, they are general pages and pages of words. This is why my first degree was in engineering - very few words and lots of pictures!
But this year, things have changed slightly - I've found a paper which involves pictures! To be precise it is all pictures (well there is talking from the lecturer too, but all the same there are no words on the screen). Being that the course is entitled 'Icons and Images', I suppose I shouldn't have been so surprised, all the same I did find it very amusing when in the first lecture the lecturer walked in to the class with a box of slides tucked under his arm.
I don't know how many of you have seen the Julia Roberts' film 'Mona Lisa Smile', but at that point this lecture started I was transport to a scene in the film where the Julia Roberts who is teaching art history to a group of girls is going through picture after picture, exploring what these pictures represent, what the artist is trying to get across to observer. I never thought I would every find myself in such a class, but every Tuesday afternoon this is now what I do - look at picture after picture, being taken on a journey through religious art and iconography, learning to see what the artist is trying to show me. I may not agree with some of the theological aspects of the art, and I definitely can't get my head around veneration of images and icons. But I'm being to appreciate how artists have tried to depict pictorially things that even the most esteemed theologians struggle to put into words.
So here's to images and icons - my picture-based theology paper, when I get two hours off from looking at words (bliss).
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Time to make a list...
Ok, now I really know term has started again. The grand idea of long mornings drinking coffee and slowly reading my way through Calvin, Barth, Winnie the Pooh (opps the secret is out) has gone, and now there is an ever growing list of class reading to do, seminars to prepare for and don't even mention the word 'supervision' - it makes me come out in a cold sweat! How did I ever manage to complete a degree in Engineering, when now with only 10 hours of lectures on my timetable I don't seem to know how I'm going to get everything done and in on time!
Ah yes, its the first week panic! And after a day like today, which seems to encapsulate approximately half of my teaching hours for the week, I really shouldn't try rational thinking. Rational thinking when tired becomes very irrational very quickly!
So it's time to make a list...
Ah yes, its the first week panic! And after a day like today, which seems to encapsulate approximately half of my teaching hours for the week, I really shouldn't try rational thinking. Rational thinking when tired becomes very irrational very quickly!
So it's time to make a list...
Now will someone please take the list away, it scares me!
Sunday, September 23, 2012
And life changes again...
Tomorrow I officially start my second year at Westminster... the summer is over and its time to get back to the books!
Where have the last three months gone?
It is quite strange to think that it has been three months since the college was full of students and I was living in a routine of chapel, lectures and supervisions; but then over the summer, apart from a couple of short breaks, I haven't left the college. And the college hasn't been quiet and deserted over that time, there has been a constant flow of people through the doors. We even managed to have a fire alarm at two in the morning! My daily routine may not have revolved around college-based activities, but I have still lived as part of the college community and I think most days I have found myself walking the college corridors.
So being 'back at college' is a misnomer for me or is it? Yesterday, I met someone in the college corridors and they said to me 'how does it feel to now be a second year?" and that was when it hit me... life is about to change again! I am going to be seen as someone who has some idea of how things work, know where things are and what it means to live as part of the college community.
Well, I don't I know how everything works and I definitely don't know where everything is (I'm still trying to learn where all the light switches are). As for living in the community, well maybe the best advice I have on that one is that nothing can ever be described as normal and things are forever changing.
So life is about to change again, but if I learnt anything last year, life is always changing. It's not always a walk in the park, but it's what makes us who we are. So bring it on, I'm ready (I think)!
Where have the last three months gone?
It is quite strange to think that it has been three months since the college was full of students and I was living in a routine of chapel, lectures and supervisions; but then over the summer, apart from a couple of short breaks, I haven't left the college. And the college hasn't been quiet and deserted over that time, there has been a constant flow of people through the doors. We even managed to have a fire alarm at two in the morning! My daily routine may not have revolved around college-based activities, but I have still lived as part of the college community and I think most days I have found myself walking the college corridors.
So being 'back at college' is a misnomer for me or is it? Yesterday, I met someone in the college corridors and they said to me 'how does it feel to now be a second year?" and that was when it hit me... life is about to change again! I am going to be seen as someone who has some idea of how things work, know where things are and what it means to live as part of the college community.
Well, I don't I know how everything works and I definitely don't know where everything is (I'm still trying to learn where all the light switches are). As for living in the community, well maybe the best advice I have on that one is that nothing can ever be described as normal and things are forever changing.
So life is about to change again, but if I learnt anything last year, life is always changing. It's not always a walk in the park, but it's what makes us who we are. So bring it on, I'm ready (I think)!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)