Fear and Trembling

'I came to you in weakness, with much fear and trembling'

So says the Apostle Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians (in the New Testament for non Bible geeks...) and so say I! Today, as I mentioned in my last post, was my first time leading a full service with a sermon in church, and in a packed family service in Barcelona no less! As I got ready to step up to the lectern I looked out on the congregation and wondered, for what must be the hundredth time, what on earth I was doing to myself. I practised all week not wanting people to feel my nerves and so be put off from what they were there to do but there they were, those pesky nerves, always bubbling up when you least want them to!

The church in one my MANY practice sessions!

People say 'fake it till you make it' but I've never been much of an actor. I had one terrible attempt at secondary school where I forgot my lines about two scenes in and and just kept repeating the one I remembered over and over again. Not my finest hour! But today, as I started to speak and felt the now familiar words forming on my lips from all my practice, I realised that the one thing I had going for me, bad acting aside, was that I really meant these words. I really wanted to welcome everyone there 'In the name of Christ' and really wanted to talk about love and peace and joy and blessing. Speaking those opening words made me smile and then I knew I was going to be ok.

The fear and trembling seems all right this side of things. It's the evidence that, finally, I am doing something that really means something to me. After the service, and gathering some feedback from the congregation, I went upstairs to my room, and the spectacular view it gives me over Barcelona, and had a little cry. Not because people were critical (except for my preaching speed which, quite frankly, is comparable to the speed of light! I'm working on it!!) but because they seemed to understand. They seemed to see my heart and what this means to me and, most amazingly, seemed to think that I have something to say worth hearing. I had a little cry because it is amazing, and exhausting, to finally care so much about something. It's amazing when what you want so badly to communicate gets through and for it to help someone.

I already know that I am going to miss this place. Its not unusual for me to get very attached to churches. Whether its the ladies that I learned how to set up the church with in Barton or the group I chose a new Vicar with, there are all these memories, all these things that changed me. One of the ladies asked me today if I would come back here one day to work when I am all fully trained. I laughed and said I'd love to but lets see what God has planned for me first. Still, the future aside, its strange to be in a place where you can feel yourself changing, when you know, even as you live it, that these moments are going to be something you look back on as important, even life changing.

Fear and trembling isn't really something any of us seek out but sometimes perhaps it is what is needed after all. Next week I'm preaching again and I'll be practising over and over again this summer if nothing else but to get that 'word per minute' quota down! I think I'll always remember this first time, though, and that happy little feeling bubbling up in me even if it was accompanied by much fear and trembling!

 

P.S if you'd like to read my sermon (second attempt at a sermon in my life time, mind you!) then you can find it here.

Spanish tales

There are certain things that are almost obligatory when spending some time in another country. The first of these, of course, is getting lost. I managed to do this pretty spectacularly on my second day here whilst heavy laden with shopping bags. I nearly reached the point where I thought I might just have to give it all up as bad job and accept that I was now homeless with nothing but a bag of macaroni and a bottle of Rioja to my name when I remembered someone mentioning that the road the Church is on is split in two as some bright spark decided to built a hospital smack bang in the middle of what was once one long street. Ten minutes late I found the right place, had a little chuckle to myself and promptly collapsed on the sofa.

I've also been treated to some of the curiosities of Catalan culture. On Sunday night on my way home from lunch (at nine pm, nine pm!!) I stumbled across a huge group of uniformed locals forming human pyramids in the town square topped, about five levels up, by a five year old in a crash helmet. Only in Spain! I'm slowly adjusting to the different timing of life. Lunch mid afternoon, dinner later evening and everything being done at a gentle pace. Being on the Metro is like being on the London Underground but running at a quarter of the speed. I haven't seen a single person run through a station since I arrived!

 

Relaxing on the rocks

 

By far the greatest part of this pace of life is the conversations you can have with people. Rather than a snatched half an hour where you barely cover the small talk topics of job and family long lunches and late warm nights give a chance to talk about things at a depth that is impossible when everything is on a schedule. I'm reminded that time where no one is looking at their watch is precious indeed. The only factor driving people to get moving seems to be that the metro, Cinderella like, stops at 12 or pumpkin hour!

So, getting lost and navigating meal times aside, I'm getting rather comfy indeed. Luckily the church is keep me on my toes with a big challenge of leading my first solo service in the church this weekend. Its both daunting and thrilling to be putting the first part of my training into action. Still, there's only one way to learn to lead services and give sermons and that's to give them. The great advantage of living above the church comes into play again giving me time to do an awful lot of play acting to empty pews before I 'go live' on Sunday. There will be a large glass of celebratory Rioja after that! See you on the other side!!

A Room with a View

Tonight has been one of those evenings, quite unexpectedly, when a moment, a single view, makes me wonder how on earth I have found myself here. The view from my window in Barcelona is pretty spectacular. The sea on one side with the city unfolding before it. The mountains on the other topped by a church. I can see the lights streaming out from what I'm pretty sure is the football stadium, lighting up the whole sky like some sort of night time rainbow. And right below my window is another sight I hadn't anticipated I'd be looking out on, a simple one with plain black lettering reading - 'St George's Church'.

Oddly enough I have lived in the roof of a church before and I loved it. I loved the coming and going of people below, the sound of the band rehearsing, and a two minute walk down the stairs to church wasn't bad on a Sunday morning either. But I never really anticipated that I would be staying in a church in this capacity. That I would ever, in my lifetime, be standing up on a Sunday morning in front of a bunch of people I don't know and saying prayers or giving sermons. It still has somewhat of a surreal quality about it. How did the atheist biology graduate end up training to be a church leader and in Barcelona of all places?

I think these moments are good, though, and that they come all too infrequently. Or perhaps we only allow them to come all too infrequently. A change of scene helps. It somehow throws everything into the light, making the ordinary clear again for what it really is, pretty darn extraordinary really. Its nice to be reminded that taking risks is worth it. Every thing that has brought me here has been a series of risks. The risk of entertaining such a mad idea in my world as faith and God. The risk of going into an unknown and unfamiliar church (someone tell me when that is going to change?!). The risk of looking foolish, often. The risk of seeking after doing something that I really, really love. The risk of being told 'no' when I thought I had found that thing and a million other risks besides.

All I can hope for is that these risks will continue to be worth it as they have been so far. At the very least they have made life rather interesting and it strikes me that it is a wonderful thing to be surprised over and over again about where you end up. As I wrote in my last post it sets the future wide open and full of unnumbered possibilities. I just hope to be looking out of another window in ten years time and thinking 'How on earth did I get here?!' That seems like a very good thing to hope for indeed.

The Feisty Fly

Well here we are, the eve of my big trip to Barcelona! I can't believe it is finally here, the chance to explore a new city, a new people and to test out some ideas and inklings for the future. In the run up to this next adventure I have been reading a great book called The Mind Makeover by Sharron Lowe. In particular I have been struck by her chapter on smashing out of your comfort zone. This is, of course, particularly relevant when you are about to hop on a plane with just an address on a slip of paper and hopes of a good time!

Lowe gives a great example about comfort zones that I hadn't heard before, that of flies in a jar. If you place flies in a jar with the lid of you can pretty much guarantee what will happen, they will fly away. If you then cover the top of the jar with clear plastic film then they can only try to escape, unsuccessfully. Interestingly when you take off the film, after one day of trying to escape, the flies no longer make a bid for freedom. They no longer believe that there is life outside the jar and so sit, comfortably, in the confines of the jar for the rest of their lives.

 

Source

 

For me that sounded worryingly familiar!! It is so easy to get caught up in the narrative of the world around you, even the one you have created for yourself. It happens at every age but turning 30 seems to be rife with this kind of thing. Suddenly life ought to look a certain way because 'that is just what people do.' The partner, the house, the kids, the good job, the nice car - the whole shebang. But what if that doesn't happen for you? And what if you are not sure if you even want it? Then you simply find yourself living 'unsuccessfully' under rules you never even made in the first place.

Being in Church ministry is wonderfully liberating in a way. It comes with its own 'glass jars' and you have to be a very feisty fly indeed to get beyond them sometimes. But it does also offer the opportunity, even the expectation, to fly free, live differently and chase after what is out of the ordinary. Its very exciting to be on the cusp of that again. To be looking out and thinking 'Well, this is wide open.' Now its just time to muster the courage, ready my wings and fly up to the top of that jar. Who knows what is on the other side?

I'm back!

Forgive me for very much sounding my age but, where has the time gone?! One minute I was hot footing it to Florence for Easter celebrations and the next I am in my garden basking in a gorgeous English summer. It seems like the last few months have been swallowed up into some time bending parallel universe of books and essays and trying to write an awful lot of words in a very short space of time.

But now exam season is over and a whole new season is beginning. This week, perhaps at this very moment, the powers that be are meeting to decide my fate with regards to my first Vicar-ing job which I will start in a years time (assuming they don't kick me out before then!!). They are actually quite a good bunch and I'm pretty sure they have the measure of me so I'm confident if they offer me a job in this area then it will be one that fits. But at the same time we are still looking out into the big wide world beyond Oxfordshire and wondering if that is where we are heading.

In the short term that is definitely where I'm going as in just nine days I'll be arriving in Barcelona to spend three weeks at the Anglican church there and, like all good self respecting students, spending ten days after travelling around Catalunia. I can't wait to see church in action is such a different context to my own and in a place where so many nationalities and traditions are represented. It seems deeply right that church should be a place where you have to get over yourself and get along with those who are on a different page from you and even better where it is a necessary part of being a diverse bunch. How interesting is that for starters? And what a great lesson for making community work in each and every setting.

As I've been sending last minute emails to my hosts I feel a bit like one of the apostles of biblical times (ok, except for the email bit....!) eagerly anticipating to meet the 'saints in Barcelona'! Ready to spread my wings, get a bit lost and learn something brand new. So who knows what is in store over the next few months. I know I'm going to be giving A LOT of sermons. I know I'm going to meet some great people. I know I'm going to get an insight into areas of church life that I've only ever imagined before. I know I'm going to turn the big three zero! And I know I'm going to be taking you along for the ride. Ahhh it feels good to be back!

Back to Life in Italy

I spent the Easter weekend in Florence, officially the best city in the world as voted for by....well...me! Life has been rather hectic of late. It's all piles of notes and exam timetables, MOT tests and driving practice. I was very much in need of a rest, yes, but more than that of being shaken out of what was feeling like a stifling routine. I wanted to be surprised, a bit uncomfortable. To see something new.

And what better time to embark on that kind of thing but Easter, a time of new beginnings, certainly a time of surprise. In England I have always found Easter celebrations to be pleasant, if a little bland. For me I've been waiting to experience something that really captures the occasion, that celebrates in a way that is as outlandish as the Easter story itself. Something extravagant and colourful and brand new.

 

Florence did not disappoint. The day began with a parade of about a hundred people all dressed in national costume in every colour of the rainbow, some waving the Florentine flag, others throwing flowers into the crowd, one of the Priests up front with a cross. Everyone was beaming. The bells rang out over the city as four white bulls were led the crowd each wearing a head dress of flowers pulling behind them a dark red 17^th century cart over nine metres high.

 

The service, played out to us in the crowds, was in a language I didn't know (Italian, Latin?!) but I recognized some parts through the responses of the congregation as the same parts we have in our services at home. There was something beautifully familiar about it, something joyful about people in another language, a whole other world really, speaking the same words I do week in week out. Pressed up together in the crowd I grinned at the people around me who spoke to me in Italian to which I nodded and laughed, completely non the wiser but not too worried about it really.

Finally, the service over, we heard the wizz of the (wooden!) dove running down a wire that ran the length of the cathedral out to the cart. All of a sudden the cart was alight, firing off fireworks into the sky. It was like nothing I had seen before. Not like English fireworks that are all colour and spectacle, but just banging and bright light and sparklers flying everywhere. It fitted the moment somehow, it was loud, in your face. There was nothing to do but laugh and clap and whistle.

 

So Italy, well, it didn't let me down. It fed me very well indeed, it blew my cobwebs away by its sheer exuberance and it made my Easter great. Now its back to the books but with a little something extra in my tank.

Happy Easter to you and yours! x

Little Girl in Barcelona

Last year about this time I went to a conference called 'Talitha Koum'. Translated this means 'Little Girl, get up!' and is from a gospel story where Jesus restores a little girl to health and draws her back onto her feet again. It's a powerful story and it was a powerful conference with the aim of saying to a generation of young women: wake up, step up and go into the future that is waiting for you. Lead, be bold, have confidence in yourself.

For me that event was a big deal. I was a couple of terms into college and still feeling shy about being there. I'd arrived fresh from six months of running a church, alongside the church wardens, after beginning an admin job and being promptly told two weeks in that I was on my own as the Vicar was retiring! Suddenly I was the one filling out the marriage registers and booking in the Baptisms. I planned the services, fought with the printer each week over the news sheets, assisted at funerals and even had the great joy of swinging open the church doors for the entrance of the bride on a good friend's wedding day.

But despite all this the feeling of finally stepping into a role as daunting as offering leadership to a church congregation, many of whom are infinitely wiser and more experienced than I am, still left me decidedly wobbly. Who am I to stand up and give a sermon each week? Who am I to help shape the future of a community, to develop and to train people? I felt decidedly like a little girl in some oversized robes. And yet I had been selected for this role and in many ways prepared for it. I really needed to be told, 'Little Girl, get up!'

Now I look at the role I am going into a little differently. A place of leadership in the any organisation is one role among many and no more valuable than any other. Leadership is about encouraging and enabling. If you have felt like that scared little girl (or boy!) then you are in many ways even better equipped to lead. You understand what holds people back, you know what it is like to have obstacles and you know how to overcome them and how to help others do the same. I have been invested in and theologically trained to a level where, quite frankly, my brain is swimming. But I know I am enriched, that I am always pushing on to be better at what I do, and that what I have been given is a gift to be taken out into the places I go next.

So the next adventure for this little girl is another spell in a church without a Vicar but this time in Barcelona. I'm very excited, with just a little bit of wobble, and busy reminding myself of the things that I've been given in these last few years that I can take with me into this new challenge. My tutor reliably informs me that by the end of my exams in June, when I will be heading off to Spain for those few weeks, I will be at be my intellectual peak so if nothing else they will hopefully get some good sermons out of me!

 

 

I'm also reminded that this is just the beginning and soon I will be going to interviews for my curacy (an assistant vicar type to you and me!).The challenge is set, then, and I'm getting ready to go. It looks like this little girl just got up!!