Author: Dana

This week we took a trip down Ouseburn beck to the Victoria Tunnel which runs for 2 1/2 miles under Newcastle city centre. It was built by the Victorians to transport coal from Spittle Tongues Colliery to the river Tyne, and fell into disuse in 1860 until the city engineers converted it into a WW1 bomb shelter.

Dark, damp, cold, and ousing ferrous oxide, the tunnel guide regaled us with stories of bravery and cowardice, and the horrors of war. We walked under the city for nearly a mile, making our way past blast walls and holes left from the bunks and benches that lined the walls. For many nights, the good people of Newcastle, and the bad, sat and waited out the bombing of the city. Nights were especially long when planes made their way across the Pennines to the north western ports and factories, and dropped their remaining load as they returned.

In every place of fear and darkness, Christians seek to bring light in the name of the Light of the World. In the Victoria Tunnel, nearly 100 feet below the streets, and directly below St Dominic’s Church, we found a small metal cross on the wall. I was moved to think of men and women touching it as they passed, praying for peace and salvation, for body as well as soul.

St Matthias, whose feast day we celebrated yesterday, was not chosen for his abilities. He was not chosen because he was the right ‘fit’ for the team or because of his preaching. He was not chosen because of his ability to relate to children or youth or the elderly. He was not chosen because he had an excellent academic background or particular skills for the role (Acts 1:15-26).

Matthias was chosen by lot, because he knew from his own personal experience that Jesus was alive, and that God had raised Jesus from death. He had been a follower of Jesus from the beginning, and was steeped in the language and ethos of the kingdom. It was for his ‘being’ and not for his ‘doing’ that Matthias was chosen.

A good and important lesson for me as I prepare to move on to a new ministry in a new place. Knowing Jesus though personal experience is the most important thing for my ministry. God will give the gifts needed to make that relationship know in the right place, and in the right way.

This week I have been thinking about what skills and gifts I can bring to ministry. There are a number of attributes that those called to leadership in the church should be able to demonstrate – for me, love and enthusiasm are two of the key components, as well as the ability to communicate and to handle conflict. But leadership must surely also include the ability to see the bigger picture, or the tenacity to search for it, if it isn’t immediately apparent.

In my current role, no one on the PCC has a clear overview of the changes in the parish, but the clergy probably have a clearer idea than most. The PCC know more than I do about the streets immediately surrounding each of their homes, and the changes and challenges that are happening. But there are few who are able to put that together into a bigger picture. The clergy have contact with people over the whole area, and of course, we benefit from the wisdom and overview of the church leaders in surrounding parishes.

This is quite a responsibility. If the church is there for the benefit of all, then the overview must inform how we use our resources for the wider community. For example, our church gardens could include a children’s area, which would benefit one group, but could be a quiet reflective space, which would benefit another. We need to continue listen to all the voices, even those that are generally silent, so that we can reach the better solution, one that leads us nearer to God’s heart.

Just before Christmas, the kind and thoughtful manager of the local Sainsbury’s gave me a tin of sweets to share as I thought appropriate 🙂 This week I found them, and faced a dilemma. With whom do I share these sweets? It was not a painful decision, but one that caused me to think about who I wanted to bless with Quality Street.

I could have given the sweets to the Initial Ministerial Education curates who had to attend a conference I was running on Saturday as part of their training. A Saturday! In a coldish cathedral! On a derby match day! Sweeties would have been a bit of a sweetener.

Or I could have given them to the social committee for the Saturday night raffle at the quiz. It attracts lots of people from the local area, many of whom don’t come to church. And it’s important that they are welcomed and looked after, and the evening is special. Sweeties always help that!

But in the end I gave them out after church on Sunday. I love my fellow curates, but they are paid employees of the church and training is part of the package. And I am excited about the quiz, but the Social Committee is more than capable of making the evening go well, without my sweeties.

But church on Sundays is full of volunteers – welcomers, and missioners, and cleaners, and those who are prayer warriors, and enquirers, and those who offer hospitality, and children, and adults, and the ill and the hurting, and every week, faithfully they come to worship God and serve one another.  They are wonderful, God’s amazing family, and they got the sweeties, becasue of their generous, loving, care.  Thank you all.

 

I’m home alone – my training incumbent is on sabbatical. One of the things I’m trying to do is to write down a summary of my weeks so that he knows what I’ve been up to! And I’ve decided to do it by blog. Hope you don’t mind!

This week has been an emotional one. There has been a confusion over church booking in March (hours of phone calls and a certain amount of blood and sweat!), a very sad funeral for a family friend (tears), and the news that I need hearing aids. I’m amazed at how many people have made jokes about my hearing loss. I’m know I have in the past; justice falls upon me for my previous insensitivity.

According to my Myers Briggs guru, ENTJs don’t like to appear incompetent. Tell me about it. My failing hearing, when added to a couple of asthma attacks and a tummy bug this week make me feel very incompetent (yes, some of you will rightly argue that this is not incompetence, but it sure feels like it when I have to say “What?” again).

Tomorrow starts a new week, one in which I define myself as someone with hearing problems. May God give me the grace to be vulnerable.

Yesterday I told a group of students that I preside well – the exact phrase was, I think, ‘I celebrate beautifully’. Last week I told a clergy chapter meeting that I find it very hard to remember names. Both statements elicited the same response – that saying either of these things is inappropriate.

Some things can be learnt – how to preside – others are innate gifts (or lack thereof). I can understand why some one might think I was boasting in the first statement (although I ascribed my ability to presiding well to those who have taught me), but I don’t understand why admitting something I can’t do isn’t helpful. We seem to be hung up about success AND failure in the church, and in ‘polite’ religious society, neither should be admitted publicly.

The resultant fall-out from this generates people who in any other walk of life would be incapable of doing their jobs well. If you know that you can do ‘x’ but you struggle with ‘y’, while your colleague aces ‘y’ but isn’t too hot at ‘b’, then when you next appoint to the team you look for someone who is strong on ‘b’, and might add a bit of ‘a’ to the mix too. A bit like accepting parts of the body of Christ who function well in as completely different body parts to your own. How we de-skill one another if we fail to acknowledge how we have been gifted – or not – in our service of the Kingdom.

I heard yesterday that a very fine priest, Janet Henderson, has resigned as Dean of Llandaff. She is reported to have found that the discrimination she experienced there made her job untenable. She was an excellent archdeacon, thoughtful, dedicated and reflective, and Janet undoubtedly faced misogyny in that role. I can’t imagine what she has been through that has brought her to resign.

I have been re-reading Maggi Dawn’s thoughtful and tear-inducing ‘Like the Wideness of the Sea: Women Bishops and the Church of England’. If you haven’t read it, you should. It tells the story of what prolonged anger and rejection has done to women in leadership in the Church of England over the last 20 years.

My own experience in the last 20 months includes lay and ordained men making it clear to me that they not only cannot recognise my ordination, but blame me both personally and as the representative of all women clergy for the numerical and financial decline in the Anglican church in the north east.

Today I am sad – for the women who serve the church as priests and deacons, whose ministry is still in a period of so-called reception; for those ordained and lay men and women who have left the church; for those women I know who carry the weight of unresolvable anger; and for the Church of England, whose mission is damaged by our internal strife. It’s another a sad day.

Last week the children in school asked for more ‘Jesus stories’, so this week I led assemblies on the Lost Son of Luke 15.  I learnt that ‘prodigal’ means wasteful, spending money or resources lavishly, recklessly, and with extravagance.  The Lost Son in his far-off land lived recklessly and lost all he had. But that is not all he lost.  He lost his home, his family, his friends.  He lost status, support, and safety.  He may even have begun to lose his mind – the children thought so – who would want to eat pig swill?

But what about the Father?  He lost part of his heart, his own son.

And who is the most reckless extravagant in the story?  The Son was surely wasteful, but the Father ran down the road to embrace his child, lavishly, recklessly and extravagantly offering himself and all he had back to his child.  Material care and vulnerable love were spent prodigally on his reckless  boy.

So I won’t be quite quick in future to call this the story of the Prodigal Son.  It is the story of the Prodigal, but for me that prodigal is God my Father.  It goes hand in hand with Sunday’s gospel of Mary’s extravagance with perfume, as she anoints Jesus’ feet, which propels us into Passion-tide, and the Great Story of ultimate self giving, vulnerability and sacrifice.

 

This ‘giving up busyness for Lent’ stuff is much harder than it looks. Sitting for 5 minutes each day (as much as I feel I can manage) has proved an unexpectedly difficult struggle. Not that I have too much to do – though it often feels like it. But becasue my mind simply hates to be free of an agenda, a task, a course of action.

So I have sat every day this week and wrestled with the impulse to pick up a book/sudoku/computer game, ‘just’ finish this task or that job, quickly make a call/text/list. Five minutes of wriggling and picking at my fingers and being distracted. Next week I’m going to try for nearly ten minutes – just think how much procrastination I will achieve 🙂

My other resolution – to read more – has been easier to achieve. Rohr, Mantle, McLaren and Thompson (Alligators in the Swamp!) have been inwardly digested in last couple of weeks. I feel better for feeding my soul and mind with a healthier diet than sudoku and candy crush. Now if I could translate that to a diet that didn’t include crisps and biscuits, I’d feel even better… But one diet at a time is enough.

The Church of England agreed many years ago that there was no theological bar to women becoming bishops. Parliament agreed many years ago that there should be no discrimination over sexuality. But despite this the arguments have continued, sometimes raging, sometimes just grumbles, but relentlessly, over women and sexuality. The tone of parliamentary debate yesterday resembled Synod – sometimes just poorly expressed arguments based on gut feeling.

The Church of England has tried to keep everyone on board, whereas Parliament has decided for the nation. The Prime Minister no doubt hopes that the issue diminishes in volume once those who are against see that marriage is not undermined. That is what happened over divorce. The church was adamantly opposed to remarriage after divorce, yet it has finally come to be accepted in the majority of the Church of England, when societal pressure removed the sense of threat to a ‘traditional Christian teaching’.

Should we reach unanimity in our decision making and keep everyone on board, or should power lead the way, until those who are against see that it was the right decision after all? It is an unanswerable question, but experience seems to favour the latter.

I think that the debate has been rushed through Parliament because of the Synodical vote on women bishops. I think there will be legal problems along the way because of that. But is it right that gay and lesbian people should be able to marry? Oh YES.