Singing New Songs

Sunrise over the Sea of Galilee There are some songs that follow you as you wend your way through different parts of life. Songs that are significant at key moments and keep popping up, as if they are there as a reminder to take notice of what you are experiencing.  There is one song that I first met years ago and which I have gone on to sing hundreds of times in different versions  and which has often marked an important moment in life. No matter  how many times I sing it, never loses its signficance.  This song is  Time to Say Goodbye , by  Francesco Sartori and Lucio Quarantotto. I first heard it in 1997 when I was staying with a close friend who was living in Germany at the time. It was a huge hit there, sung by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman, and was played everywhere. I remember heading back to my home in France and making a beeline for the shops (because we didn't do streaming or downloads or, frankly, even internet then!) and buying the...

It feels hard to believe, but today was my last Monday at college of this academic year. One whole year has passed already and I am halfway through this particular New Song. The next New Song beckons - I watched my Twitter feed this weekend fill with pictures of new deacons and priests ordained in cathedrals all around the country and that will be me next year, assuming all continues to go well. The conversations with the diocese about curacy have started and I find myself gulping down a mixture of anxiety, excitement and disbelief that, in a year's time, I will have moved church, left college, bought a cassock and a dog collar (or two), and be setting off on the next part of the adventure. To be honest, I still feel new. I still can't quite believe that this is my path now. It was not expected. It was not anticipated. It was not an ambition held for years. God has led me this way and I have to trust he will continue to lead me. I am following where he leads because ...

This week saw my first New Testament Greek lesson. There were about 50 of us intrepid early risers gathered in Lecture Room 2 at 8.30 on Monday morning, the rest of our cohort having decided (possibly wisely) to take the extra hour in bed, rather than get up to do a purely optional course. And, by the way, my journey felt even more of an adventure on Monday morning, thanks to a fabulously eccentric (award for understatement of the century) man on the Victoria Line Tube train.  He was wearing what was clearly a home-made cone hat made of foil and coke cans and brandishing a stick wrapped in the same kind of thing. I was only on the train for 4 stops or so but in that time he had managed to hold forth, in a high-pitched, slightly odd voice, about what "space" was and how the doors aren't just closing on the train but they are closing to heaven and we're all too late. As I got off at Victoria, he was just starting on a monologue about what peoples' eyes were do...

Ever wondered what the definition of bleary-eyed looks like? Look no further..... This is me pondering my New Normal - at 6.45am yesterday morning, waiting for the train to London. I will be doing this journey every Monday in term time for the next two years and so, although I wasn't outside the front door, it still felt right to mark my "first day at school", in the now time-honoured fashion. 6.45am doesn't sound too bad when you write it down but it felt much earlier than that, as I'm not a great morning person at the best of times. Getting up and getting going has always been M's strength, not mine, and so my 5.50am alarm yesterday got short shrift and a few choice words from me and a quietly knowing chuckle from the sleepy form next to me! The early start was worth it, though.  I really loved my first full, proper day at college.  I think it's probably safe to say that everyone took things gently for us newbies but we did have real lec...

This was our view of Liverpool as we sailed back in to England from Belfast last week. We took the overnight boat and woke up to a beautiful dawn sky, full of promise, ready for a new day. Ever since we got back from our wonderfully relaxing, happy, family-focussed holiday, there has been a sense of anticipation of what is now imminent.  The "after Ireland" phrase was no longer applicable - we were now almost at the point of everything beginning.  And that week is now here. The dawn has come and "the day lies open before us", to paraphrase the Morning Prayer liturgy. This afternoon saw my first proper act as an ordinand, albeit not a particularly difficult one - going for coffee, cakes and Evening Prayer with the Bishop of Coventry and other new ordinands from my diocese. There was lots of discussion of college start dates and patterns of work/study and calm, reassuring words. I think the thing I appreciated most was Bishop Christopher's care...