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...

I was ordained as a priest on Saturday 26th September 2020. A delayed, scaled-down affair compared to the pomp and circumstance of my deaconing last June but an extraordinarily intimate, gentle and personal experience instead. And an experience where, once again, the Spirit came and made his presence felt among us and in us and all kinds of feelings were felt.  I feel, somehow, that this moment marks the completion of something. It also marks the start of lots of other things but there is a completeness about stepping in to this next chapter. When I finally admitted I felt God's call to ordination, I knew I felt called to the priesthood, rather than the diaconate, so this was the culmination of all the seeking, praying, talking and working over more than 5 years. This sense of completion became more and more acute during last week's pre-ordination retreat. I'll explain.....  Over 4 years ago, a wise man (who also happened to be my Diocesan Director of Ordinands, faced with ...

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, ...