Singing New Songs

I did some curacy training recently at which we were asked to ponder some big questions. One of those big questions was, "Do you feel good enough?" This is an issue I have long pondered over many years. I kind of know what the answer should be but God seems to take me on a different journey each time I ask myself the question.  This time, the journey took me along all kinds of paths, meandering around personal and ministry stuff, all bathed in the shadow of the news and the coverage of how women are treated and what, if anything, we can do about it.  And, as I meandered alongside this big question, a phrase met me:  "Stop trying to be a good girl and be God's girl."  This sounds obvious but to someone like me who has always tried to be "good", it's actually something of a revelation.  There is a difference.  So I wrote another poem to try and articulate this.....  Good Enough Be a good girl. Don’t make a fuss.   Be a good girl. Stay sma...

Last week, M and I got back from a week’s pilgrimage in the Holy Land, starting in Be’er Sheva, moving through Bethlehem, Jerusalem, the wilderness and, via a dip in the Dead Sea, on to Galilee, Nazareth and Capernaum. It was wonderful, challenging, exhausting, exhilarating, hope-filled, sobering, humbling, uplifting, energetic and gentle.   It will take me a very long time to process all that I saw, heard and experienced along with our fellow pilgrims – nearly all of them ordinands from my college. However, with 10 days or so having passed since we got back, I’m starting to feel like I can put some shape to my overall impressions of what God was doing in me over there.   It all feels important and like I will never be quite the same as a result of this journey so this blog seemed like a good place to share a few of those first thoughts*….. On our second full day, two moments of clarity hit me in the crowded, busy, ornate Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, ...

I've had a week or so to think about my first Holy Week and Easter in my new church. With essay deadlines just beforehand and a busy schedule, it all felt quite intense. But the intensity I felt didn't come from the busyness. I seemed to feel every conversation, every talk, every hymn and song much more keenly than I would do normally. The sense of walking through the week from Palm Sunday to Easter Day was very real - following the steps of Jesus as he went, inescapably, to his crucifixion and then the joy as he rose again on Easter Day. I have felt like layers of meaning and understanding have been peeled back slowly and deliberately this year more than ever before. On Maundy Thursday evening, there was a communion service with washing of hands (rather than feet), followed by stripping of the altar and the rest of the church and then a silent Watch.  My wonderful and thoughtful supervisor, knowing that much of this was quite new to me, invited me to help throughout the se...

I have to be honest, I’ve never been particularly comfortable with the idea of Black Friday. Please don’t misunderstand me – I love a bargain more than most people and have no issue with saving money by buying something you need on a day when it’s cheaper than it would normally be.  But I’m just not sure about the consequences of having a day set aside for it. Fights in the shops over the last TV in the pile were hard to watch on the news a couple of years ago. And I find myself having to delete the emails that keep pinging into my inbox this week, so I don’t get distracted by that brilliant deal on the juice extractor, or grooming set, or rowing machine or <insert any number of other items that I neither want nor would ever use here>. It’s not the bagging a bargain that I object to (I’m a student again, don’t forget! To misquote Matt Smith’s Dr Who – "Bargains are cool…") but I don’t think I’m the only one shifting uncomfortably in my seat at the way we see...