New Post - New Post....

Well here I am - an incumbent -a vicar in the C of E. I've been a bit blog quiet lately because it's very tempting amid all this change to pour it all out to the listening ear of the bloggosphere. I've been very aware though of allowing my first impressions of my parish to sink in and settle down before rushing to praise or criticism - and I sincerely hope my new parishoners are allowing me the same lattitude.
I'm also aware of the change in 'voice' too. I am what I am (and all that) but being the cheeky curate blogging impressions and ideas was one thing, and blogging as myself the vicar (licensee's name over the door now y'know) is subtly something else. There are those who seem (judging by content) to tweet and blog with the assumption that  none of their actual parishoners will be reading it. This is not the case for me, and I'm adjusting to myself as an incumbent in cyberspace as well as an incumbent in the flesh.
More to follow.

Big Day

This is it then - today I will become a Vicar. I will finally formally have the title I have used so often during my curacy so I didn't have to explain to people the difference between one kind of priest and another.  I can't wait to get my church keys and start having a really good root around, finding out where things are and what things do.

From what I've read elsewhere in recent blogs from others in similar situations (thinking particularly of Vernacular Vicar's) the biggest struggle might be pacing myself. The working day/week is as long as a piece of string. It's a great and lively parish which already has a lot going on and loads of pro-active members of the congregation. What will God's vision be for us here?  I take on board concern shared by a colleague this week who said "It's reached that point when I need to know it's our vision, a shared vision - not just mine."

Watch this space!

Weird Gaps in Time

Not a reference to an exciting new episode of Dr Who I hasten to add.  I haven't posted here for some time as I have been in the middle of a move. Moving from my curacy to my first parish as vicar. (note if you follow the link - that fella in the collar on the homepage isn't me ;-)

I am to be vicar (as of the day after tomorrow) - though of course not 'incumbent' - as we are all now licensed under Common Tenure. As we are all now supposedly on the same terms and conditions I am unsure why some posts are still advertised as 'priest-in-charge' and others as 'vicar' - this used to be seen as differentiating between a 'vicar' who was an incumbent with freehold, and someone for whom the bishop was not extending that privilege.

Anyway - we have moved house, said a fond farewell to a parish and colleagues who have given me a brilliant curacy, and have been dealing with new nurseries, a new school, a big fight with BT over broadband service and vicarage phone number and all the other joys of change.  It has been a limbo-like few weeks - suspended between one place and another.

I'm excited about the challenges the new parish will bring, giddy to think about what God might have in store for this place and these people.  I feel both well prepared (nearly 10 years now since all this vocation stuff started - and that was without a hitch or a hiccup), and also completely clueless.  I'm trying to embrace this too in a "Hey, God, look at my blank canvas - come and make art!" kind of a way.

I think the blog may get a bit busier the next few weeks.

One moment in time....

There is so much going on - and at the same time this is the quietest time of the year. Things are moving slowly it seems but the things that are moving are massive - like monumental icebergs.  I am approaching the big curacy/incumbency move. All preparations are going incredibly well really, but this does not dissipate the tension.  The depression - of leaving a wonderful curacy, and I think most importantly a wonderful colleague in my training incumbent who has given me more than I think I will ever be able to quantify - is beginning to ebb. The excitement of all the challenges and 'getting to know you's' that lie ahead is starting to build.
In the meantime I wait for my mum to get a 'suspected anneurism' checked out which apparently needed blue light hospital dashes on Friday night but now just needs to wait for an appointment, and my wonderful, funny, strong, generous, loving godfather lies in hospital not knowing himself or anyone else anymore, waiting for only God knows what to let go of this life.
So it seems strange to have only just realised (reading the worship programme info for Greenbelt and bursting into tears) that going to Greenbelt for the first time this year, at a moment that couldn't really be more pivotal if it tried, is probably going to be emotional (understatement).  For those who have encouraged me to go and who I will be seeing there - I kind of apologise in advance.

A trip off and a biblical journey

Just back from a wonderful 4 days in Paris.  I say this not in the self-satisfied tone of someone who pops off passport in hand in a regular basis. This was my first trip out of the country in 9 years. It was the first time me and Mr Vicarage have been abroad together - in 15 years together.  We were celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary and it was absolutely blooming brilliant.  Paris was everything you'd expect - totally wonderful. Some of the greatest joy came from successful navigation, working out which metro line to get on and where to stick the ticket!  Have returned tired but happy to be greeted by an Amazon delivery - AJ Jacobs The Year of Living Biblically which is already shaping up to be funny, challenging and inspiring.  He's spending a year living by the rules of the Bible, trying to work out what he can do, to whom, when and where.  Like arriving in a strange city, without reference points - looking at what other people do and trying to work out what you need to do yourself. I'm looking forward to finding the bit in the book where he gets the feeling I got when I worked out which Metro to get on!

Your Kingdom Come - Your will be done

Attended two fascinating things this week which have come together in my mind to bring inspiration.  The first I've already mentioned on here - study day about prayer with Dr Paula Gooder.  We focused on the Lord's Prayer, looking at where it appears in the Gospels, how it's been tweaked in liturgy, what the tweakings do to the meaning of the prayer and trying to get to the bottom of what Jesus was on about.

The thing which has stuck most in my mind is the sense that this is not a simple or easy prayer, it speaks of end times, of the coming of the Kingdom, and one of Paula's conclusions was that we should have thought very hard about all that, what we think it means and what we believe, before we casually rattle through this so familiar prayer.

Then  last night I had the pleasure of welcoming Stephen Sizer to speak at the Minster where I work. At the invitation of the Friends of Sabeel (Sabeel being the Ecumenical Centre for Liberation Theology in Jerusalem) Stephen had come to speak to us about Christian Zionism.  It was stimulating to hear Stephen very clearly make his points about different strands of Christian Zionism, their political impact, and their impact on the ground. We're talking about unsound theology and flawed biblical interpretation perpetuating conflict in the Holy Land and standing in the way of any peace process.  It was fascinating and having heard him speak I would recommend any of Stephen's books on the subject - find them on Amazon.

It took me back to Paula's words earlier in the week because the apocalyptic strand of Christian Zionism has a very clear vision of what praying for and working for the coming of the Kingdom means.  I was left with the sense, as I so often am, that those of us with more moderate views are making ourselves complicit in oppression and injustice because we don't speak up enough.  Stephen quoted Desmond Tutu's words about the apartheid in Israel/Palestine - the suggestion being that we need to take the kind of action against the Israeli state that we took against  South Africa to change things there.

Overall I was left with the sense that we're not very eschatologically switched on in mainstream Anglicanism.  When we pray for the Kingdom to come as Paula suggested we really need to have thought through what that means, because it could and should affect everything we do. Otherwise we are hijacked in public perception and private inaction by those whose vision of Kingdom involves death and war, oppression, injustice and hate.  I will keep voting and praying for the Kingdom of peace, love, justice and reconciliation.

Pop is prayer - or more essays I will probably never write

As mentioned in the last post I had a brilliant day today learning more about prayer.  One of the very last questions that came up was about the 'modern world' and how the language of prayer which the early church was steeped in is a world away from our secular culture which has no prayer language.  I was impressed (as we always are when people say stuff we were thinking ourselves) when the speaker said that there is modern prayer language, it's just often not knowingly directed at God. She mentioned specifically the love song as the vehicle for God language.

This is such a fascinating area for study, conversation and exploration.  Just think about it for a bit - how many songs have you heard, loved, sung long to, songs of love fulfilled and love twarted - that say things like 'I would die without you' 'I am incomplete without you' 'there is a hole inside me because I am not with you' 'I would change everything I am for you'. Now, I'm not being funny, but on what date with a partner are these pearls dropped in? I say this because as the lecturer today suggested, much of this language is the kind of thing you would in reality run a mile if someone said to you. It is too big, it is too much, it is too far. Much of the love song language does not speak of healthy mutual loving relationships between two equals.  I don't underestimate the depth of human loving here, but I think if you're reading this you may already have a song in your head that you think "yes, that makes much more sense if you think about it as a cry to God."

I'd also take this into other areas of popular music - I could go on about this at great length but for now I just suggest you have a look at a this as a very simple example - it's a psalm isn't it???? Gleekerama.