When the Church Said No - She Loves Magazine

She Loves Magazine is a brilliant collection of women's stories from around the globe and is a frequent inspiration to me so I am so happy to be featuring on their site today. I originally sent a more general article about the failure of the the vote on women bishops in the Church of England last November and its effect on women but they asked me to submit a personal reflection on what is was like to be a shiny and new female ordinand at that time. Answer? Tough.

Shelovemagazine.com/sarscreative.com

I have to say it was pretty hard to write. I spent a good twenty minutes staring at my screen and umm-ing and ahh-ing to my office mate about what I wanted to say. After the initial reaction of sadness and dismay shortly after the vote I hadn't really processed how I felt about the whole episode. There were certainly some things to work through to get these words on paper.

So do stop by and have a read and be sure to check out some of the other fabulous and inspiring stories on the site.

In which I know everything and nothing at all

Studying, what larks eh? Hours in the books, eons over essays and in our case a bewildering ninety minutes with our brilliant but brain fuddling tutor each week. You emerge, you hope slightly better informed, but more than anything completely, blatantly aware of you own huge inadequacies. Man, I love it! I can feel my wings spreading out with every passing moment, my mind stretching, my perceptions blowing wide open.

The whole process of coming into training has been a suspension of control. Rather than being able to plan out where my life is going and set neat little markers up so I can see where everything is and the way ahead now I just live day by day. Sure, I have hopes and dreams and a vague sense of where it is all going but the particulars and details are all in the imagination of God and I'm just doing what he has laid out on the table before me right now. Each day is completely spontaneous and entirely dictated by other people, it is terrifying and liberating. Every week I am asked to do something utterly bizarre that nine times out of ten I'm not totally convinced I can do. But then I do it and it's ok and my confidence grows.

What I'm learning is that if the future isn't meticulously planned out then there is nowhere else to live but the present moment. There is nothing but the opportunities that present themselves and then going for it with laughter and enthusiasm.

 

This week I spent an hour colouring talking about the merits of blue v.s purple hair with eight year olds, an evening dancing to the most insanely cheesy music man has every recorded to CD with a bunch of trainee vicars, mulled over the ins and outs of divine wisdom, plumbed the depths of my understanding of the mother heart of God and wore bright yellow shoes just for the fun of it. I find myself grabbing moments, grabbing life by the shirt collars, giving it a good shake and seeing what comes out.

As the end of term two beckons I'm so glad to be here. To be simultaneously discovering everything I want to be and landing firmly on my backside realizing everything that I'm not. Being a total idiot one moment and being more than I thought I could be the next. Knowing everything and knowing nothing at all.

Conflict? Bring it on!

At the start of each term we have an opportunity to study a practical topic in depth for a full week. This is such a luxury in an environment where everything is so fast paced and term very quickly turns you into a mini essay factory. I spent the last week learning about Conflict Transformation. I wasn't sure what to expect. I feared a lot of awkward role plays but hoped I would pick up some tips for coping with the inevitable differences of opinion that come up all the time in life. What I didn't expect was to spend a week having my way of thinking utterly challenged and to emerge seeing things in a new way, but that is what happened.

The course itself was based around a theory called 'IC Thinking'. You can see more about it on this website if you are interested and there are a number of good books available too through that link which explain it all in a bit more detail. The basic idea is that to have 'low IC' you see the world in black and white. In a conflict different groups form quickly and soon become entrenched. The other party is dehumanized. As the conflict escalates so does the feeling of 'them' and 'us'. Trust is broken down, communication fails. It seems there is absolutely no common ground between you. Sound familiar?

Though often undesirable this is all perfectly natural as when we are in a conflict situation the blood flood to the limbic region of our brain, the fight or flight bit, and we are literally on alert for our very survival. The trouble is in most conflict situations we meet our survival really isn't at stake and by the blood being diverted in this way it is taken away from the parts of our brain which do our higher level thinking and processing. We are biologically less able to be reasonable until we calm down. It all makes an alarming amount of sense, doesn't it?! IC thinking aims to raise our thinking out of the black and white, to see our shared values and work towards a solution that has something for everyone. It's being used with young Muslim men living in Britain who are experiencing a major world view clash. 

 

From the IC Thinking website https://sites.google.com/site/icthinking/

What I found most liberating about the process was an exercise we did where we were asked to stand on a line somewhere between two values which were in many ways opposite of each other but both good in their own ways. It suddenly dawned on me that I can't hold all values. I have a stance. I hang about the 'equality and freedom' end but does that mean there is no value in 'tradition and hierarchy'? Having the confidence to stand where I stand, to own that and to see that others stand elsewhere and that is ok too was a real lightning bolt moment for me.

One of the underlying principles of the course was that conflict need not be seen negatively. It can be a gift. Encountering other views challenges and widens my own. Seeing where my values cross over with those who are very different from me is enlightening. And it's all just more human. Rather than making anyone who thinks differently to me into the 'other' I can hear their view and I can even disagree but defend their right to exist and hold that view just as I defend the right to hold mine. Differences of opinion need not make us enemies. We do share common ground.

I'm taking away from this week the genuine, scientifically proven benefits of taking a couple of minutes to breath in tense situations. I will be doing a lot more of that totally guilt free! I'm taking away a desire to find links between my values and others, to resist the natural urge to compartmentalize others and their views. And I'm taking away new found confidence about where I stand on these things and a new sense of kindness to myself in that. Everyone stands somewhere, I stand here.

 

What a brilliant week!

Getting back to you

The space from college this holiday has given me that most brilliant of things – FREEDOM! (cue singing of George Michael, 'Freeeedom, I'll not let you down....', you with me? No? Ok then.). It has taken a few days but now, much like the girl in the Twinnings advert, I find myself 'getting back to me' as I float away on a sea of Vampire Diaries watching and cake eating induced bliss.

I find myself wanting to set a few things straight. To put some stakes in the ground to mark where I stand and what I stand for while I still have the objectivity that a bit of separation from everyday life brings. Something to look back on as I continue on this journey. Some signposts for the way. So here they are, some rough and early musings that have come up as I've 'gotten back to me'.

Right? Yeah right.

I've been known to get it 'wrong'. Say things in the the wrong order, say the wrong things altogether. Light the wrong candles, narrowly avoid setting fire to the giant flappy sleeved robe I'm asked to wear (I mean, what genius came up with that eh?). But stake one is this – there is no right way (except maybe the setting fire to yourself bit, I'm pretty sure that isn't right...). The right way is an action done with love, compassion, intelligence and integrity. Nothing else really matters.

The future is God-made not Church-made

Ordination is not a one way street to stress, a job you complain constantly about and never seeing your family again. That lifestyle is chosen, no matter what anyone tells me. I've never taken the conventional route. I've never been a slave to other people's expectations or what I 'ought to do'. I'm on an adventure with God, that is what the life of faith is to me. There are many roles and many ways of being in them and there is one for me, as me.

Brighter, bolder. More, more, more!

Quoting my old pal St Iranaeus: 'The glory of God is a human fully alive'. There is a feeling in what I've been taught in the last few weeks of diminishing yourself. There is a call to always blend in despite the major movements in the church being lead by those who did anything but. I was told this term that if I wanted to 'advance' in the church then I ought to wear black, to fit in with the 'boys' as it were.

But the thing is God made me colourful. And if I see ministry at its depth as a calling out to people to be fully alive, fully themselves in all their glorious technicolour, then how can I model that in black when I'd be wearing it to hide or advance? I must be colourful too. And luckily for me I'm not really bothered about advancing I'm bothered about being who God made me to be. Teen drama watching, Christmas obsessed, glittery nail varnish wearing me.

'It's not enough!'

There is a character in Gossip Girl called Cyrus Rose who when he hugs people holds on for the bit too long and when they try and pull away says 'Not enough!' My husband jokes that I am a spiritual Cyrus Rose. I have always had a deep hunger for the extraordinary. Having space from college has helped me to see what is extraordinary and what is just plain run of the mill. When I pray stuff happens. When I go to church I expect God to be there. When I say words I mean them. I've seen extraordinary stuff this term and that's what I want more of. Because anything else, well, it's 'not enough'!

So there we are. A few stakes in the ground. A wee manifesto for next term. And now I'm off to paint my nails and watch the Vampire Diaries. I am nothing if not consistent!!

…..And the mouse within

I didn't plan to write a part two to yesterdays post on this term but today has made me think otherwise. I've always tried to give a fair portrayal of how things really are on this blog. Ultimately this is because I believe whole heartedly in cutting the BS. I can't see any other way to really connect. Until we start to say with honesty where we are at, until we learn to live by the truth rather than the image we project, well, I'm not sure there's much hope for us. Much less in my line of work that has been know for centuries as a place of pomp, of hierarchy and of holier than thou. I don't know about you but I've seen enough of that. I'm looking for something more human.

Today we had a seminar on preaching. I'm excited about preaching probably because I love blog writing so much. That and because I genuinely love diving into the Bible which surprises me, shocks me, does my head in and encourages me in equal measure. But what I realised today in that seminar felt like the weight of fifteen bibles placed on my shoulders. Because, and here's the real secret, half the time I'm pretty convinced I can't do the things I'm being asked to do.

Now I know you're not supposed to say that. You are supposed to have the swagger of authority, to seem like you can hold the cares of the world in the palm of you hand and not even notice it. But I'm not like that. When I think about having something to say to people, something honest and relevant that stays true to the awesome and torturous history of this faith and the whole history of a nation, well, I feel very, very afraid. I feel like a gnat about to be splatted with the book I'm trying to preach from.

I've been known to call my being here a divine joke. Not that I don't think I should be here but that there is still an absurdity to it. I'm a square peg looking at a round hole and saying 'now how do you suppose this is going to happen?' It can be so easy to look around and think about everything I don't know. I can name about three hymns, all the ones people complain about because they are so old hat or sung too often. I have to rename the church silverware by names of Dr Who villains to make them stick in my mind and then very nearly end up calling a Ciborium a Cyborg out loud.

Ciborium or Cyborg?

Oh, I'm a trier, I really am, but sometimes I just want to sack the ritual and stand in the middle of a field to say my prayers that I make up right there on the spot. In the church God made rather than the one we create for him. Sometimes I need to sing Stevie Wonder to God and not something penned circa 1850. Sometimes I want to say I've had a bad day too, let you know that I'm a human being, that dog collars and robes don't mean a thing. We are all the same aren't we? We have the same beginning and the same end after all. The same hopes and fears at the bottom of it.

I don't say this to illicit cries of 'oh no you're more than capable'. Perhaps that is true, perhaps it isn't, perhaps it will become true with time. I say it to anyone sitting at their desk thinking 'I can't do this' or ducking out of what they feel they should be doing because of feeling too small for the task. I say it in the light of all the things I said yesterday. All the very real joys and triumphs of this journey. I'm saying it to be honest with you.

All I know I do have, and why the powers-that-be sent me here in the first place, is an irrepressible love for God. I don't really have any credit for that. It's like a power surge that I've found myself plugged into. One of my favourite poems is a very early, very simple Japanese verse. It goes 'Though one dams it and dams it my heart still breaks through like a swift river, saying how beautiful he is'. And that, my friends, is really all I have and I'm trusting it to carry me through.

I want that to be remembered as I tell my stories here and that's why I say it again now. Don't ever feel like you are too ordinary for the things you have in your heart to do. Perhaps it's the ordinary that will be the extraordinary thing. Who knows?

The term that was

I can't quite believe it but I am in the last week of my first term at vicar college. I was doing some reading today about education in Ancient Greece and the author described how the program for students involved working both body and mind intensively. With all the cycling up and down the world's largest hill (fact!) and the mind bending demands of the Oxford course I feel like this might have survived a couple of millennia and made its way into the ethos of theological college. Hmmm.......

And what else of these first few months? The study is as cool as I thought it would be, no scrap that, it's cooler. I'm reaching new levels of geeky with each passing week. The topics are fascinating. One minute we're in 13^th Century BC on the exodus out of Egypt with Israel (or not, depending on what you make of the research!) and the next we're in the courts of the temple with the Apostle Paul listening to classical rhetoric and the dawning of a new world faith.

College is maddening and brilliant. I'm pretty sure that once the dust settle on this term I'm going to start to realise what has already changed in me. Every week has something new and challenging, whether that is visiting at the hospital or leading a service, reading at church or figuring out the truly mystical inner workings of a church sacristy (the place where they set up all the holy stuff to you and me!).

I am still most definitely an alien on Planet Christian but now I'm in an even stranger place that is Planet Church of England, nay even weirder Planet Theological College! And what a crazy place that has been to be these past few weeks. I'm baffled by something at least once a day (women bishops anyone?!) but then I'm touched by something just as often. I'm learning the art of 'just turning up' when I really don't want to and knowing those moments when like a wink to God, the author of the sense of humour, I can bend the rules a little.

I probably know less now about where I think I'm going than when I started here. I've definitely been drawn to things, sometimes quite brilliantly unexpected things. I've had little hints of where this might all go, what kind of church or community might be the right place for me. What I might be good at and what it might be as well to avoid. But mostly I've learned not to look too far ahead. There really is too much going on today for that and that is pretty darn cool.

Wave your flag

All this book learning is turning me into an extremist. Now before you send the men in white coats (or some other more sinister government agency) round for me, let me explain myself! I'm talking about extremism for good ends, extremism for equality. I'm getting more and more riled up about it, sitting here at my kitchen table with piles of reading for my latest essay around me.

Being a woman in an institution that fundamentally discriminates against me may seem like utter lunacy to most people. It probably is really but as I've said before I have this odd attachment to it, this bizarre thing called church, like holding a broken bird in my hand and I just want it to get better with everything in me.

Having an attachment to the Bible probably seems like an even greater lunacy (here come those men in white coats again) but I've always loved it since I picked it up for the first time seven years ago and read it cover to cover. Yes, it contains the verses that are used to bash me and many other over the head and into submission but if someone hits me over the head with a spade does that make the spade the problem or the person who is using it all wrong?

So what is getting me particularly excited is having this time to steep myself in the New Testament. To dwell in all those sticky passages, all those places people get hot under the collar about and to find there, with great excitement and the companionship of some fabulous scholars, that this faith, this book, this message, is fundamentally one of equality. Yep - race, sex, background. Forget it. Irrelevant. THAT is how it should be.

Of course this isn't the first time this has dawned one me and likewise I've got it massively wrong many times, said so many dumb things, made dumb judgements, that I wish I could take back. But now I'm finding the hard evidence for this very real conviction, that I so want to live out, from much more intelligent people than me. It is utterly liberating.

Now you're probably thinking, 'Equality? Doesn't look much like any church I know.' Trust me there is a great irony in making these intellectual discoveries alongside being at a University where the mantra is 'you are the elite!' and a church where status is way too often everything. Here we are again with the broken baby bird. With a nasty nip when you try to help her. Oh yes, there is some healing to do but I feel like I am making foundations, in my life at least, for everything I attempt to do in that area with all my own frail, fudged up attempts.

So there we are, waving my flag, Extremist for Equality!

Tired and Inspired

I've been itching to write a blog post since I started college on Monday. But as it is this week has been planned down to the last minute, nay second, with meetings, tours, warnings, encouragements all neatly packaged into twelve hour days. Tired doesn't cut it!

The church in Cuddesdon - the site of much damp, chilly prayer this week! (from www.oxfordcitybranch.org.uk)

 

Tired, yes but also inspired. Every corner of college is a piece of history. Samuel Wilberforce, founder of the college and son of the great emancipator William Wilberforce, looks down on us as we eat our meals. The wings of the building are named after past principals, vice principals and benefactors each with their own fascinating story. All of them innovators, lots of them the thorn in the side of their contemporaries because of it. Each of them standing up for something different, for higher ideals that they refused to compromise.

Samuel Wilberforce, what a legend.

The history is as winding as the staircases. I'm captured by it, a bit entranced. Ready to be a tiny little bit of the history of this place and very thankful for it. The library is a slice of heaven, volumes and volumes lined up around perfect reading nooks all looking out onto the rolling hills of the Oxfordshire countryside. Study has begun in earnest, my first essay is due next week, but I'm smiling to myself as I leaf through the reading list. I'm finally here at last!

Today we visited some churches, barely a few days in I can't help but wonder about the end when I'll be back in the community, ordained with a ministry of my own. We visited a couple of churches near Oxford ending up at Dorchester Abbey. Every ordained role is so different, every community so unique and for the first time I feel inspired by the people I meet. I want their jobs. I've never felt this way. I've always been the one in the training rolling my eyes and thinking 'man, I DO NOT want your job!' and despairing that I feel that way. Wondering if I will ever find my 'thing'.

But oh am I tired! My legs feel like planks of wood from cycling up and down the hill. I have a cold coming and I know it's only getting tougher, busier, more challenging from here. But I AM HERE! For the first time I have a bubbling excitement at my work, a rising hope in me for the future. I've got a secret smile and that wonderfully happy-making feeling sneaking up on me in quiet moments that this is exactly where I am meant to be.

Loved

So we've arrived. We are in the new house and semi-unpacked. The decorating has begun in earnest and the place is already shaping up just how I imagined it (A post on that to come of course!). You'd think this would make for a great week but quite frankly it's been a bit of a 'mare. I can't say I ever find change that easy but this time it has been accompanied by the dawning realisation that after all the talk, all the interviews, all the explanations it is finally happening. I am going to start training for ordination.

Now logically I know that this is cause for celebration, that many good things as well as challenges are on the horizon. All that planning, prayer, thought and preparation have been for this end. But all I have felt this week, as I have been painstakingly unpacking each box, is 'What on earth have I done?' Suddenly I'm overwhelmed by the feeling that I might fail, no that I'm going to fail. I'll not be strong enough or clever enough. I'll let people down, worse than that - I'll let God down.

All the logistical problems associated with my STILL not being able to drive feel insurmountable, There is a big hill between me and the college that I am way too unfit to cycle up. I don't even know how I'm going to get there on my first day. It feels like a giant neon metaphor for this whole endeavour, all I can hear is 'You can't do this' and I'm inclined to agree.

And so tonight, after the first day I've had at home to just potter about the house, I sat down in my arm chair, unpacked my favourite cushions, brewed up an earl grey and took my shaky heart to God. After all these years of praying, all these years of 'getting to know' who God is, even being an advocate for how loving, how all together wonderful God is I still found myself creeping towards him on my hands and knees saying 'I'm going to let you down' and expecting a rebuke for not being strong enough.

But what did I get? A reminder of the journey so far, of the great big yes I have given to every challenge thrown in my path and the still, strong voice telling me that that means something. And even more than that the reminder, like a flood of light into the soul, that nothing else matters than what I already have, I can be loved no more than I already am. Every thing is going to be all right.

The challenges haven't gone away, I feel no more confident in my ability to get this right but I feel like I'm standing on the rock again. Knowing that succeed or fail I already have everything I need. And isn't that the point of this whole ministry lark anyway? Love, acceptance, some solid ground? For all of us? It is good to be loved, necessary. And with that love there is just enough in me to say another quiet yes. Let's do this. I will climb that hill.

If these walls could talk

This morning as I was doodling in my Scribble Diary one of the spaces to fill was a speech bubble with ‘If these walls could talk’ written above it. This is what I love about the Scribble Diary, it prompts completely random thoughts that often have legs and helps you to consider things a little differently. And this one really got me thinking.

 

We’ve been in our current house for three years now. It’s a house converted into two one bed flats on the end of a lovely terrace. We live in the bottom one and it’s got a little patch of garden around it where I took my first tentative steps into fruit and vegetable growing, so many happy afternoons spent there. But what about these walls? The more I think about it the more I realise how much has happened here.

 

lovely little house...

Perhaps the walls would talk about the day we moved in when it wasn’t a ‘we’ arriving but just a ‘me’ as Ben had to stay up in Aberdeen for another three months to finish his teaching placement. After the movers (and my ever handy Dad) departed I sat down and wondered about this new place, feeling half forlorn to be without Ben and half desperately excited to be in this beautiful city at the start of a new adventure. I had no idea what a big adventure it would be! A few hours later one of my best friends from home (now just an hour away) appeared on my doorstep with a bottle of wine and one of the main features of that house was born, it was an open house, full of laughter and friends. By far my favourite thing about it.

 

Perhaps the wall would talk about the day I came back from church in deathly silence. Silence isn’t something I do very often! They might say that the silence lasted for two weeks. Every time I tried to talk about what had happened at that service the words stuck in my throat and not a squeak came out of my mouth about it. My brain was whirring and I kept myself busy but Ben knew something was up.

 

Perhaps the walls might talk about the first prayer that came out of my mouth after those weeks of silence. About the flood of tears as I said to Ben ‘I think God wants me to be a Priest, isn’t that ridiculous?’ He smiled and said, ‘No, not at all.’ And so a long journey began of interviews, job changes, new people and places. There was more laughter, more tears, everything all at once, a rollercoaster.

 

Perhaps the walls would talk about when the house became an administration station for the church. About my desperation as I scanned the clergy list and realised I had no idea how to address any of these people and one week to get them invitations to come to the institution of our new Vicar. Perhaps they would tell about team work making the dream work as Ben helped me sticker hundreds of envelopes and convinced me that after a long six months of looking after the church while we were Vicar-less that I could jump this final hurdle, exhausted as I was. Perhaps the walls would talk about vocation tested, about the last stamp going on the last envelope, a job done.

 

Perhaps they would talk about darker times. About someone climbing through our bedroom window who wasn’t invited. About me coming home and finding glass everywhere and possessions gone. About not one but two sets of police officers being kind and calming. Neighbours and friends, shoulders to cry on. Perhaps they would tell about my final forms for my final interview that were due in the day after we were broken into. How a large glass of wine and a cheerleading team in the form of Ben and our upstairs neighbours got me to put pen to paper and get them finished despite my head being anywhere but on interviews.

 

Perhaps they would tell about the day the letter arrived, the shock as I sunk into one of the kitchen chairs and read the words‘recommended for training’ and thought ‘what on earth is going to happen to me?’ They might tell of the cassock arriving and getting its first whirl before the mirror or the quiet afternoons, a breeze coming through the window ruffling the pages of the latest theology text book as I tackled the mammoth reading list from college.

 

And now they would probably talk about boxes. So many boxes. We live in an obstacle course! They would talk about paint and sewing and people making plans. And now this house will have new inhabitants, new stories to tell. We head off soon for another three years in a new home, for another great adventure. After everything that has come in this place what will the next three years hold? I’m looking forward to finding out!

Four Days

After today I have four days left at work. FOUR DAYS! I’m off from tomorrow for a week and then to Kent we go to catch up with family, do some bargain hunting and participate in some general seaside merriment. Then it’s back home, pick up the keys for the new place and we move! All of this is tremendously exciting and just slightly nerve wracking. I am categorizing my wracking nerves, thus:

Country gal

I was chatting with a fellow student-to-be yesterday about my interview for Vicar-dom and mentioned that the location of the interview freaked me out because I’m not a fan of rural locations. He laughed as our college is right in the middle of the country. This had occurred to me but now the time to start is creeping up on me and the boxes are all packed for village life I’m starting to stare longingly at Starbucks and the cocktail bar about two minutes from our front door and think crikey! What am I going to do with myself?

In reality we can hop on a bus and be in Oxford in half an hour but I am one of these people who gets a bit out of sorts if I can’t walk everywhere. Blame that on being utterly spoilt growing up in Windsor where everything is on your doorstep and perfectly lovely. I’m thinking I need to embrace it, lots of country walks and all that?!

Wild Card

You know on those house programmes where they show people a load of houses that meet their requirements and then for laughs put one at the end that is like nothing they’ve ask for? I’m feeling a bit like a Wild Card as I enter college. Probably because even going to a theological college is a serious Wild Card in my life. How could it not be when I only went voluntarily into a church for the first time seven years ago? I never thought I would be here.

But I am trying to embrace the slight randomness of my being there. As I’ve said before I think that is kind of the point. It’s wonderfully unexpected and though my experience might not be conventional they have a bit of oomph behind them for that. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t really, really think it was the right, no make that only, thing for me right now. More than anything I know I’ll achieve very little trying to be someone I’m not (and I find that basically impossible, what you see is what you get and all that!) I may not know my alb from my surplice but I must be there for a reason, right?!

Essay fear

And lastly it has suddenly occurred to me, do I remember how to write an essay?! This is further compounded by the general doom-saying associated with my course about how hard it is and how people basically DIE when they do it. As far as I can see most people are still standing and I was firmly informed at interview that for the sake of the future church and women EVERYWHERE I need to get myself educated to the best of my ability so I can represent (innit) my kind. As a fully signed up flag waving champion of equality I can hardly back down from that challenge, now can I?!

So there we are, just a few teeny concerns there! I think I need to sit and build some sandcastles for a while, get windswept and eat a ’99. Until next week...!

Zambia -and as for me….

Our trip ended with a brilliant day of animal tracking where I had the opportunity to fully indulge my inner idiot crawling along the ground trying not to scare antelope (much to the amusement of the team who declared Ben and I ‘properly insane’). We then had a couple of hours alone in the game reserve. We were dropped off half a kilometre from each other, our watches removed and told the van would be back ‘at some time, later.’ After such an intense time it was really quite brilliant to have time to process and reflect before our long journey back to the UK and where better to think than in the sunshine watched some Zebra have a wander?

And what did I make of it? All those wonderful experiences, all those amazing people? I’m still processing it all now to be honest. The first thing that really struck me was how much I enjoyed leading the team with Ben. I loved seeing them grow and develop as they took on, and overcame, new challenges. It was freeing to have a focus beyond myself, to be watching and observing and cheering others on to their goals. I knew the team would be good fun but there is something really brilliant about teenagers that makes them such great company. An amazing sense of fun, to be sure, but also an openness to life, a willingness to be affected and changed.

Being back home I miss the company, the laughter over the campfire and each day being so utterly extraordinary. I was instantly fed up of TV and computers. My Blackberry is off a lot more these days. I’m craving conversation much more and finding the constant bombardment with news and social media hard to take. I keep thinking of my spot on the veranda where I sat whenever I got a minute and read a book or just took some thinking time.

I realised how infrequently I take the time to stop and just stare into space when I’m at home. There is always entertainment, a magazine to be read, a TV programme to catch up on. As one of the girls put it ‘instead of watching someone else life on TV or reading about someone else’s life on Facebook, you just actually live your own life.’ Your focus is on who you are with, on what is happening right now rather than what someone else may or may not be doing elsewhere.

But biggest of all is the imprint left by the people I met. People like Donata and Foibe. I’ve been given renewed energy and enthusiasm for the journey I’m on. At my interview for ordained ministry one of the interviewers gave a morning reflection which ended with a sentence that has really stuck with me ‘God will give you people for whom to care.’ I think all of us sitting there, offering up our futures to an unknown ending, craved that. I’m encouraged that when I had people for whom to care I felt more alive than when my only real care is myself.

The people I met were the most extraordinary example of service I’ve ever seen. Walking for miles to feed someone else, suffering hardship and taking it on with a level of determination that I’ve not seen matched anywhere else. I truly felt like I was in the presence of the spirit of God, with people who understood what it really meant to walk in the footsteps of Jesus – quite literally in Donata’s case! And all this lays down a big challenge for me. I’ve always hungered after the extraordinary and felt that life in the footsteps of Jesus has to more than a few hymns and turning up on Sundays. It always has been more than that for me but seeing faith in action in Zambia shows me that there is so much more.

At the moment I have more questions than answers. I’m working out what all of this means for my life here in the UK. In a way I’m holding on the tension of travelling between two different worlds. Holding on to the feeling of inequality, holding on to the challenge of radical service, holding on to the desire for quiet in the noise of my world. Because I don’t want to transition right back into what I was before. I want to be changed by Zambia.

Last week I read a verse from Jesus’ famous speech, The Beatitudes in Matthews Gospel. It says:

‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.’

Righteousness is an old fashioned word to us today but it basically means right-ness, justice. On the last leg of the mountain climb me and a group of girls were walking together in the baking hot sun. Our water had ran out and there was no access to any more until we reached our camp three hours away. I have never been that thirsty in my life. When we finally hit the stream we were straight in there, drinking out of our hands, desperate to quench our thirst.

Thirst isn’t a comfortable thing so to thirst for righteousness is to seek it with the same desperation that we looked for water, as something you need and cannot live without. These difficulties in adjusting back to life here and these hard questions that are putting a spanner in how I usually spend my time and the norms I live with feel a bit like thirsting for something. So I’m waiting expectantly knowing that there is something more than sticking my hand in my pocket and giving a tenner that is to come from this trip.

And so that was Zambia, better, more life changing that I could ever have predicted. But I do have one prediction this time that I’m pretty confident of – that was not my last time in Africa!

Zambia Part 5 – Donata‏

I really have to devote an entire blog post to Donata because quite frankly a whole book on her life wouldn’t be misspent. This woman is amazing. We met Donata on one of our last days at Ndubs when she brought her school, a disabled school that she founded in her name, for a day of activities and fun. I’ll start with a little of Donata’s life story and I’m sure you’ll be as wowed as I am.

The lady herself

Donata was orphaned aged ten and then went to live with her grandfather who also passed away shortly after. She suffered from polio in her first week of life and so she herself is disabled and struggles to walk. At the point of destitution she was found by a Catholic priest who took her to an orphanage run by some missionaries. There she was educated and cared for and eventually she married and had a family of her own.

Like all women in Zambia Donata didn’t escape the loss of children. Three of her children died including her son who died recently at the age of 26 leaving two small children behind. It was as Donata reached her fifties and her children were all grown up that she started to think about wanting to give back for the blessings she received by being taken in by those missionaries all those years before. She describes her life’s work as ‘one big thank you to God for looking after me.’

And that thank you became the Donata School for disabled children. The lot for blind, deaf and physically disabled children in Zambia is intensely sad and before Donata began her school none of these children in the area were being educated. This only compounds the hard lot they have in life and makes accessing medical care and other support all the more difficult.

Donata funded the school (you can see a video of their new building built by the UK charity Build International here), and continues to fund it, by walking from farm to farm begging on behalf of the children. She walks for two weeks at a time, sleeping on the road. When I stared at her, mouth open at this level of extraordinary tale, she said ‘Well, the Lord Jesus walked from place to place all his life and so can I’. Have you ever seen service like that?!

A few years into founding the school a particularly unexpected arrival appeared on Donata’s doorstep, a little boy. He was deaf and both his parents had died. His extended family, not knowing how to cope with him, left him with Donata who, though unable to fully provide for all her own needs, took him in. He is now a strapping sixteen year old, full of life and even better full of dignity. That is what Donata does best. The children performed a poem for us in sign language called ‘Disability is not inability’.Never have I tried so unsuccessfully not to cry in my life!! Donata’s unceasing commitment to these children and her constant instilling in them that they are valuable and precious no matter what challenges they face is truly fantastic.

Not satisfied with all the many children she has in Zambia Donata took me and Ben under her wing and pronounced us her English grandchildren! She loves the Queen and was seriously excited that I grew up in Windsor. If anyone deserves a letter from the Queen then my goodness this women does and I’m on a personal mission to get one for her. The school is very much on my heart and I’m mulling over what I can do best to help them. If this extraordinary story has tugged on your heartstrings then do check out the Donata school website or drop me a line.

Zambia Part 4 - Miloso

Our second trip from Ndubaluba was out to the area of Miloso. The purpose of the trip was to do some practical tasks to help people and projects in the area and just to visit some people and spread a little sunshine. The first day was spent visiting patients who are part of a home based care initiative run by the Miloso Community Church. They bring basic care and food supplies to people cut off from medical provision and as we drove out to the villages via dirt roads, sometimes directly over the bush, it was immediately obvious why such a scheme is needed.

The first person we visited had been complaining with stomach pains, leaving him unable to work, complicated by his developing HIV/AIDS. He had never been to see a doctor because the hospital is several hours walk, no one in the village has any kind of transportation and he’s not up to making the journey on foot. He had been suffering from the same condition since 1992 and has taken nothing but paracetemol for it.

The story was pretty similar with each patient that we visited. Desperate situations that go on way too long but thankfully supportive communities and families who rally round and support the person. The stigma of HIV is being reduced now that it is a much more openly discussed topic. This in itself is a wonderful breakthrough.

At the second family we visited the patient was an eight year old girl called Memory who also has HIV/AIDS. The family was very different from the first we visited. There was silence there, almost a cloud of sadness and Memory clung to her Mum, desperately shy. The effects of HIV/AIDS meant that she is under developed and unable to speak but since receiving antiretrovirals she has started to say a few words and is more able to play with her siblings and the other children in the village.

Memory and her mother playing with the hula hoop she loved

It took a bit of coaxing but the lure of a skipping rope and hula hoop had the children come out from behind the bags of maize and they were charging around with us in no time. One of the most touching sights was Memory running along the dust path rolling the hula hoop with an enormous smile on her face. The hoop belonged to the Ndubs but the team bought it off them so they could give it to Memory. Money well spent when we saw the smile on her face to be left with it.

Our final patient was an elderly lady suffering from what seemed to be the effects of high blood pressure but again she had only been given paracetamol. She had been suffering with intense migranes for eight years. It’s hard to comprehend that level of suffering. We painted her house, introduced her grandchildren to the wonders of bubbles and cooked the family dinner.

We love bubbles!

It felt like so little to offer but they commented that our being there raised their spirits, simply by being remembered by a world that seems to be racing on without them. We split into two team for the day and the other group encountered a lady who was unable to have an operation because it cost £25. The kids immediately pulled out their pocket money and gave it to her. For that lady the future has changed. Even the lifting of Memory’s spirits with a hula hoop felt like something. It might be a drop in the ocean but what is the ocean if not a collection of drops?

The next day we embarked on a practical project plastering a room in a recently built house for a teacher who would be teaching at the new secondary school. I quickly learned that I cannot plaster, AT ALL, but have some skills in cement mixing. It was hot, hard work but satisfying to finish and that evening we were treated to one of the greatest moment of the trip for me so far.

We set up a campfire and the word spread to the local villages that it was an open invitation. Soon people started emerging from the bush and tentatively taking a seat with us. We sang some songs and the Miloso Church Choir absolutely wowed, and happily upstaged (!), us with their singing. Sitting there, under the stars listening to these beautiful voices was one of those moments where I almost descend above myself and thought ‘I can’t believe I’m here.’

We then sang a song together in Bemba and in English called ‘There’s no one like Jesus.’ It’s a real Zambian favourite that I remembered from my last trip. There is something remarkable about sitting down with someone on the other side of the globe, where you have seemingly nothing in common, and talking about God. It’s truly amazing as you realise you have the same struggles, the same hopes and that there is something tangible in the nature of God that they have experienced too. There is nothing more unifying than that. We prayed together in our different languages and my perceptions of who God is and what he is doing in this world blew right open all over again. It was amazing.

Finally we spent our last day in Miloso at the local primary school where our team taught for the day. There are 1,500 children in the school and five classrooms. The teacher teach in shifts with eighty children in each class. They split them into groups of forty and teach from 7am to 12.20pm and then from 12.30pm to 5pm. Yes, that’s a ten minute break ALL DAY. Imagine the marking, imagine the lesson planning! These people are heroes.

Miloso Middle Basic School, that inside of the tyre on the right is the school bell!

Many of the children we had met in the villages or over the campfire were at the school and we were greeted like old friends before being thoroughly destroyed on the netball court. Those are some skilled children! I was hugely encouraged to see these posters on the walls in the classroom and reminded again of how fundamental, how life changing, education is.

Amen.

It is here that norms begin to change, that rights for women and children that are so vital for development are discussed. Here the first seeds of change are planted. The secondary school will be another major step in the right direction.

While wandering between classrooms I also came across this little gem which I have adopted as my house motto, thanks Miloso School!!

 And that was Miloso, a remarkable few days that I would re live in a heartbeat.

Confidence 101

I’m reading a great, if rather ominous sounding, book at the moment called ‘The Seven Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership.’ No, it’s not some hideous diatribe against women leading - in fact it’s quite the opposite. A no holds barred account of the issues common to women taking on leadership roles in male dominated environments (so basically, everywhere in middle/upper management!)

A pretty scary cover!!!

The author of the book, Kate Coleman, is clearly an exceptional woman. Not only did she have to tackle sexism as she went forward as a church leader but also racism as she is a black. No wonder she has developed such an excellent understanding of the obstacles and challenges for women leaders. The book proposes that the issues men and women face when taking on leadership roles are different. Whether this is to do with genetics (I’d argue largely no to this…) or the social expectations that shape girls and young women the book argues that there are certain self-defeating tendencies in women that can sabotage our leadership or our chances of ending up in senior roles.

Unsurprisingly, the book covers seven areas that the author has found particularly affect women. It’s quite sobering reading. A lot of the areas are to do with self-esteem, or rather lack of it. I suppose it’s not a great shock, given that women have been treated as second class for the majority of history, that we should still have a few hang ups about ourselves. And of course there are still a lot of social pressures on women to behave in certain ways and the leadership theories and manuals have historically been written mostly by men and so tailored towards the needs and issues of men in leadership.

From a Christian perspective the book raises some interesting points. The most powerful of these for me has been appealing to Genesis 1 and the account of Adam being alone as ‘not good’. The image of God was only complete in humanity when both male and female were created and worked together to ‘rule over’ (they were commanded to rule, rather than he) and care for the earth. Where one half is missing the image of God is incomplete.

There is also a raft of statistics about how women at senior levels improves the performance of companies and even that recent studies in the Church of England have shown that churches most likely to grow are run by young, female Vicars. When we were looking for our new Vicar it was a constant battle to pull people away from the male vicar, gaggle of kids, Volvo and a Labrador picture.  Ironically this is what we got, minus the Labrador, and he is brilliant - there is nothing wrong with any of those things - but there is another picture. And it can be a darn good one if we take these studies seriously.

When I was on placement recently I worked with a brilliant church warden who told me he had no problem with me being female and leading a church but he did have reservations about me being young. By the end of my placement he sent me a letter with his heartfelt hopes that I would be successful in getting into training for ministry and even said ‘I want you to be my Vicar!’ Perceptions can change but we need to stand up and stand tough to do it. This book is an excellent tool for doing that.

Cassock Woes

On Friday the letter from my college arrived complete with details of the items I need to purchase before the start of term. I'd been warned that some 'clergy dress' was required but I hadn't bargained on how expensive it was going to be. After a quick browse of stockists it quickly dawned that I was to be the Ron Weasley of the 2012 Cuddesdon intake and be bringing some decidedly dodgy looking robes with me as there is no way I can afford new ones. A desperate search for 'make you own cassock' unsurprisingly didn't yield many jems either.

Having been dressed up in a cassock and surplice (black coat with a big white sheet over it basically...) at one of my placements before my interview I knew what those were but was promptly lost when mention of a 'Cassock Alb' came up. Luckily my premier purchase of the year, nay decade, came into it's own again – The ABC of the Church. Think a child's dictionary but with all the obscure details that you can imagine coming up in a 2000 year old institution. And what is chapter 5, why a dictionary of Clergy Dress! This book is going to SAVE me!

I used to be unconvinced by special dress for ministers in church but I've changed my tune. Being part of a more traditional church has widened my perspective. It doesn't have to be jeans and t shirt to be relevant. In fact there is something about church being a bit different from what you encounter every day that appeals to me much more now than it did before.

Special dress is hardly required to stand before God, he takes us as he finds us I've found, but where it's used it's about reverence and respect, a nod to the amazing heritage of the church and a sign to the world (in my currently uneducated opinion!!). Like the dog collar its a statement about who you are and what you have been commissioned to do. It hints at the specialness, the majesty of God. I'll be proud to wear it. Proud and a little intimidated! It's often said that a bride is most likely to freak out when she puts on her wedding dress. The realization dawns of the huge commitment she is about to make. I'm anticipating the same feelings when my cassock (and alb!!) arrive.

The last few months have seen a number of amazing occurrences. Literally at the moment I've realised I need something (and usually can't afford it!) it has suddenly been provided for me. Within hours of receiving the letter from college I had an offer of an old cassock and surplice – for free! The kind benefactor is my size and height so I'll be in style rather than giving Ron Weasley a run for his money! Hurrah! Thank you God!

All my strength

I've had a taxing morning. Mondays for the last six months have been blighted by the dreaded driving lessons. Everyone has told me that at some point it will click into place and my confidence will come. Well, yes. But then the next challenge arrives and it feels like square one again. My current nemesis is large roundabouts (shoddy lane discipline on my part, yes, drivers feel free to silently seethe against me. I'm the idiot cutting you up) and dual carriageways. What's even more frustrating is that 99% of the population seem to be fine with this particular skill. The accident I had is always looming in the back of my mind. Right now it all feels insurmountable.

This is further complicated by the fact that for me driving is inextricably linked to the process of going forward for ordination. If I weren't doing that I would be still be happily (ok, well slightly grumpily) walking to work. I need a car for college, for placements, for the next step in my life. When driving is hard (or studying, or leading in church or any other skill I'll need for that matter!) I quickly look up to the looming mountain of responsibility and think – 'if I can't do this, then....?'

When Jesus was asked what the most important part of the law was he said 'Love the Lord your God with all you heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength.' (and love your neighbour as yourself, we forget that one easily eh?) To me this means giving the very best of what I have to God and where he is calling me. All my mind to study, all my strength to the journey, all my heart to the process, all my soul in prayer. And arguably all my mind to big roundabouts and all my strength to slip roads.

At the end of today's lesson I ended up in a bit of a heap and uttered those often thought but rarely vocalised words – 'what if I can't do this?' And that's the big fear isn't it? That when you push yourself to the max, using the very best of what you have to offer, then what if it's not enough?

Here lies the comfort of the comfort zone. It's a false comfort really because who wants the wake up call one day that life has passed you by and you've no idea what you've done with it? I don't. And so I find myself somewhere in the middle, with the fear of failure hanging around like a bad smell as I wistfully look back at the comfort zone (ah, what did that felt like again?!) and on the flip-side looking to the future with excitement, pushing the boundaries, sometimes succeeding sometimes not.

Because if you don't push yourself to the limits then you can't really fail. You can always say, 'I didn't really try anyway'. When things go wrong, it's not you it's your circumstances. It's harder to say, 'that was my fault, I'm still learning. I've not go this down yet.' I can see myself saying that so many times over the next few years but it takes such confidence, such strength to say 'that was me' and still believe you can do all the things you know you have to. That is plumbing the depths of strength.

I know I'm not alone. The one who call also equips. (As an aside I actually found myself genuinely jealous that Jesus was born in the time of donkey travel the other day when praying. A donkey on the A40?!)

A novelty donkey picture to lighten the mood. These chaps live at The Donkey Snactuary (http://www.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk\)

Right now I'm having a wistful look back at the comfort zone, tomorrow will probably look brighter. But that's the journey I suppose, one foot in front of the other. All my strength...

You’re doing what?!

Telling people that you are going to be become a Vicar can be both extremely fun and a bit daunting. How I feel about it very much depends on my mood. If I’m feeling ready for a dose of hilarity and can take it in good spirits then I approach the task with relish, drop the bomb and (as I tweeted earlier) watch as the person goes through the typical stages of shock, hilarity and it all (hopefully) ends in happy acceptance.

 The daunting side comes when you’re feeling a bit tender. This is the ‘feeling a bit ill today/didn’t sleep well/am wearing a weird old jumper because it’s wash day’ moments where some well-meaning person says ‘so what do you do again?’ Oh for being an accountant! God bless them people ALWAYS have questions. It’s a big lesson in what it must be like to wander round in a dog collar. All of a sudden you ARE the church. It is open season on questions which is normally fine, great even, but some days you just want to be anonymous and ‘normal’. I can see myself taking very solitary holidays in the Outer Hebrides (actually make that a Greek Island…) when I’m fully Vicar-ed up.

There’s also the occasional time where someone recoils and you see the thoughts ‘Oh no, I didn’t realise you were a religious fanatic’ float through their mind. This despite the fact that they’ve known you for quite some time and you’ve not displayed any signs of lunacy yet. Or the moment you announce you have exciting news people exclaim ‘YOU’RE HAVING A BABY!!!’ and then seem genuinely disappointed that no, you’ve actually found your lifes vocation. Because of course we all know there is nothing interesting a woman can do in her late twenties but have babies. SIGH.

Some of the best reactions I have had include a Brazilian friend who stopped me in the street and said ‘I hear you’re going to be a Vicar! Bless me! Bless me now!’ I actually considered mumbling some completely insufficient prayer but decided to go for ‘Give me a few years (and an ordination service) first!’ And then of course there’s the usual ‘You’re the Vicar of Dibley!!’ as lamented by Liz over on her blog…

But then there is the good side. Witnessing a widening of perceptions right before your eyes. The confirmation that though it’s different it can also be good. And best of all the ‘I’d come to church if you were my Vicar.’ (BTW I will hold you to that….!) 

There’s been some furore this week about the impending vote on women being allowed to become Bishops in the Church of England. I read a piece in The Guardian about it and in the (dreaded) comments section someone wrote something along the lines of ‘Women would do better to just not get involved in this insane organisation and focus their energies elsewhere.’ 

I feel positively gleeful to be doing the exact opposite of that. To be a living representative of what we say each Sunday - ‘I believe in the church’. And even if I would give my right arm for this vote to go through I would be part of the church either way and do everything I can to work with respect with those who disagree with me. That’s the kind of community I want to represent and it is the community I encounter 99% of the time. So long live the ‘I’m going to be a Vicar’ chats if it blows the conversation open and there’s always that Greek Island when I need to retreat….!