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On being a vicar.

I think in many ways being a Vicar is completely different to what I expected it would be like.  I knew that it would be hard work – but it’s harder, more demanding, tiring and at times rewarding than I could have imagined.  I think the expectation to just be there and agree with everyone is a little daunting – especially as it’s certainly not what I believe a Vicar should be doing! I also wish that both I and others could be more patient with each other- in a multitude of ways.  I am the first to admit I’m not always patient but being on the other end of impatience is teaching me an awful lot!

I can’t really blog about the many and varied things I am doing – the majority are a priviledge and personal to the people I work with.  I do however get very fed up with the rota’s, publicity, endless paperwork, grumbles, building faults, grounds issues, grumbles…

Back at theological college we were warned to save thank you cards.  During my curacy I recieved so many that I thought it was a bit odd to keep them all- but I did.  Boy am I glad.  It’s a rare, rare occurance as a Vicar that I recieve a thank you, an affirmation or really a sign of support.  I did this week- following a wedding.  I have recieved them since becoming a vicar but there are particular individuals that are good at it and really the wider church and community relate to me as if it’s their ‘right’ to have a vicar- and not any vicar but a vicar that will do what they want.  That’s not neccessarily right or wrong in some cases but it’s not neccessarily right or wrong in others . It does mean that my sense of how things are going is very vague.  When you have a down and difficult patch this magnifies the grey matter and it’s hard to remember the important things like that fact that there is something you were called to this place to do.

I am finding it very hard to figure out if I am doing the right things, in the right places and it is increasingly cloudier to comprhend what my vocation is in this place and then there is my wider life and vocation- friend, daughter, sister, mother, wife.  To be honest there is never a balance and at different times I feel I fail different people.

This last while has been very hard emotionally and mentally- things are picking up after the summer sleep (that season that is really quite slow and depressing!) but there’s a whole new consort of issues coming out of the woodwork.  If I blog odd things that’s why!

I will perhaps be trying to start a few conversations about issues we need to work through in this place- Children and Communion and the like.

I do appreciate those who read and occassionally comment here- I find it stimulating and encouraging.  Excuse me if blogging gets erratic – I’ll try and find a groove that works alongside being a vicar without just blogging the sermons!

I do still knit you know….

Although I have mostly been posting about ministry things I do actually still knit a fair amount. It’s very therapeutic- often prayer time for me. It helps me to be still and I have a few projects that are cast on for particular people I am praying for- to guide my prayers. This cardigan, better known as the conference cardigan was begun on the Lichfield diocesan clergy conference this year. It was a wonderful time for me- mostly because of the sessions themselves. I felt enthused on so many levels not least to begin to love myself and my body more. To care for myself and to be confident about being a woman in my priestly ministry.

The cardigan is very shapely and fitted- it’s the beginning of being proud of me a little. The beginning of working on something I should have worked on sooner perhaps. So watch this space I may blog a little more knitting in future!

And another thing… (The trouble with working women)

I’m clearly on a roll here. Thought I’d jot down a few reflections on a brilliant two part documentary on BBC2 I managed to catch most of: The trouble with working women. Managed to pull off the neat trick of wading into hugely controversial waters, remaining light and entertaining, and raising really important thought-provoking issues, even if ultimately I’m not sure they were the ones the programme makers thought they were raising. It turns out that the trouble is less with working women, and more with working mothers. To conclude, as they did, by reflecting on whether women can ‘have it all’ and concluding it was all about women multi-tasking where men focused just on career seemed a step back from the level of reflection they’d actually achieved during the documentary, where one of the most acute questions posed was why female surgeons seemed to rise to the top of their profession at the expense of a family life, whereas the top male surgeon they interviewed spoke candidly about the anti-social hours he worked yet had a large family. The unspoken answer to the question seemed to be ‘yes, you can have it all, as long as your wife is prepared to run around like a headless chicken keeping all the balls in the air while you do it’.

The whole thing was full of suprising convention-challenging moments. The things that stayed with me were one of the founders of Spare Rib noting that they got it badly wrong because none of them had children; the suprisingly reactionary founder of the women’s refuge movement asking why we’re obsessed with senior executive posts when trying to evaluate whether we have equality in society or not; and the female executive of a small business stating tat she wouldn’t hire women of childbearing age because they’re inherently risky- likely to disappear on maternity leave, and that business would fight paternity leave provision tooth and nail because they need men of that age to continue to be predictable at being in work irrespective of having a family.

I was left wondering if the real issue was parenthood and why it is that women are socially conditioned to be the ones left holding the baby when the music stops. Can things change? Yes, with enlightened employers like the one they showcased, which basically takes the line that their staff are their prime resource and selling point to the customer, so staff retention is a high priority. On that basis they offer 9 months paid maternity leave, encourage flexible working, reduction of hours to work around childcare commitments, and do all of this with no negative impact on promotion prospects. The female executive they spoke to said when she was promoted to her current post she was pregnant and working part-time. Now if only we could encourage the church to put it’s money where it’s mouth is and follow best industry practice…

And as with the fight for equality for women within the church, I suspect focusing on top jobs and glass ceilings really misses the point. The issues that effect most women are bullying and harrasment and institutional issues connected with maternity leave and childcare. Counting how many women bishops there aren’t misses the point.

Mark

The Upside down Parish?

2001 Census Parish of Heath Hayes & Wimblebury

Age 0-4 = 7.5% of the population

Age 5-14 = 15.3% of the population

Age 15-19 = 6.3% of the population

Age 20-44 = 43.2% of the population

Age 45-59 = 17.4% of the population

Age 60-84 = 9.7% of the population

The national balance is that we are ‘top heavy’ with older and elderly people- so this makes the discovery of the 2001 census results for my area quite striking!  I am  vicar in the upside down parish…….

Stirred up but not disturbed..or am I?

The Wifi at the clergy conference was very hit and miss so I failed to blog.  There was so much to reflect on so I regret that hugely.  However, when the CD recordings arrive I’ll be able to do it all again.

My immediate reflections are mostly around how in the light of the enhanced and reaffirmed understanding of the body that I return to the Parish with, in that context, how an earth to I live and lead in a way that is both true to the body I have been given (read body as body/mind/spirit) and live as a part of the physical resurrected bodily presence of God in our world.  All of this in the knowledge that I am very definitely a child of a post-modern society when the majority (well to be honest almost all) that I lead are children of modernism.    Part of me wonders about the straddling of time that was talked of often on the conference- the both now and not yet that we live in as a resurrection body.  Realised and future eschatology etc.  Does that give me a potential for understanding how I can possibly lead?  It still leaves the gaping hole of how a Generation Y  (I fit there better than Gen X) priest leads a church dominated with Builders and previous generations.  I feel quite disturbed by the current chasm that I percieve…where to start exploring that?  I found the squished academic in me (!) and have started beginning to take copious notes on the area I’d like to research- many thanks to an inspirational Paula Gooder and Jo Ind for stirring up the passion in me to communicate systematics, Christology, leadership and a kind of post-modern feminism that I feel I have to offer.  Certainly time to start writing again and if I dare maybe that thesis will begin with an MA.

So I am perhaps stirred up AND disturbed.

So it begins…

the annual re-enactment of the passion of our Lord. We began well this morning commemorating the entry into Jerusalem, blessing palms and participating in the passion story. It was a fairly simple communion service otherwise and we even sang a new hymn ‘come and see’ which fitted very appropriately during the administration of communion. All of this after the vicarage Lent group drew to a close last night in watching ‘The Passion’- Mel Gibsons film. It’s a film during which there is much violence and suffering but several moments within that film really touched me. Most striking was the foot washing- something I feel is central to my own understanding of ministry and something I felt was very key in my calling to serve the church I am currently licensed to.

Then this morning one of my team gave me this extract from Tom Wright’s book ‘From the scriptures, the cross, and the power of God’.
‘I’m doing this for you – yes, you, not just the person sitting next to you. And if you let me wash you, the sad parts, the lonely parts, the messy and muddled parts, the parts you wish with all your heart could be healed.’

It’s a healthy reminder to me in my first post of ’sole charge’ that God seeks to wash me too.

So Lord, do this for the people around me, work through me this week but do it for me too.

The way God works though me…or so it seems!

This is a reminder to me for everytime I feel down and everytime I move to a new post! It’s something my husband has observed with me since I met him.  hmmm.  It almost seems unhealthy but it seems true.

The way God works with me is….

that he throws me in the deep end…….

I get the sh*t kicked out of me…

but….

somehow….

I come out the other end still sane…..

having done a lot of good to all the people around me…….

having grown massively through the whole experience…………

SO…………..

he can throw me into somewhere even deeper next time!

On further reflection Mark says God puts me in situations in which I have something to fight for, as it’s when I am most passionate.  He doesn’t let me pick the fights though- he throws me in the midst of ones that I really don’t want to have.

He’s on a role… so adding a bit more.  He’s Jealous.  Cos people really love me..and he said LOVE me (it doesn’t work like that for him).  Because they know I fight for them , not for me but for them.  I often think about stepping out of parish ministry but today Mark reminded me that this is what I am called to.  Even if it is sometimes like doing 10 rounds in a boxing ring.

This is the song he thought of whilst giving me my little talking to! Ha!  He knows how songs work for me…one day I’ll eductae him into knowing more than pop songs…the odd bit of Bach wouldn’t go amiss!  Not all the words on this work for me but I do like the song and it’s a good determined anthem for the mood of where I have been these past few weeks.

Fighter by Christina Aguilera.

After all you put me through You’d think I’d despise you But in the end I want to thank you Because you made me that much stronger When I, thought I knew you Thinking, that you were true I guess I, I couldn’t trust ‘Cause your bluff time is up ‘Cause I’ve had enough You were, there by my side Always, down for the ride But your, joy ride just came down in flames ‘Cause your greed sold me out of shame, mmhmmAfter all of the stealing and cheating You probably think that I hold resentment for you But, uh uh, oh no, you’re wrong ‘Cause if it wasn’t for all that you tried to do I wouldn’t know just how capable I am to pull through So I wanna say thank you ‘Cause it makes me that much stronger Makes me work a little bit harder It makes me that much wiser So thanks for making me a fighter Made me learn a little bit faster Made my skin a little bit thicker Makes me that much smarter So thanks for making me a fighter Oh, ohh Never, saw it coming All of, your backstabbing Just so, you could cash in On a good thing before I realized your game I heard, you’re going around Playing, the victim now But don’t, even begin Feeling I’m the one to blame ‘Cause you dug your own grave, uh huh After all of the fights and the lies Yes you wanted to harm me but that won’t work anymore Uh, no more, oh no, it’s over ‘Cause if it wasn’t for all of your torture I wouldn’t know how to be this way now, and never back down So I wanna say thank you ‘Cause it makes me that much stronger Makes me work a little bit harder Makes me that much wiser So thanks for making me a fighter Made me learn a little bit faster Made my skin a little bit thicker It makes me that much smarter So thanks for making me a fighter How could this man I thought I knew Turn out to be unjust so cruel Could only see the good in you Pretended not to see the truth You tried to hide your lies, disguise yourself Through living in denial But in the end you’ll see YOU-WON’T-STOP-ME I am a fighter and I I ain’t gonna stop There is no turning back I’ve had enough ‘Cause it makes me that much stronger Makes me work a little bit harder Makes me that much wiser So thanks for making me a fighter Made me learn a little bit faster Made my skin a little bit thicker It makes me that much smarter So thanks for making me a fighter Thought I would forget, Though I, I remember, I remember, I remember ‘Cause it makes me that much stronger Makes me work a little bit harder Makes me that much wiser So thanks for making me a fighter Made me learn a little bit faster Made my skin a little bit thicker It makes me that much smarter So thanks for making me a fighter

A First…but a sad one.

I can’t really say anymore…as I am lost for words.  But these little feet came from some simple orders of service for a simple graveside service.

Ash Wednesday in images

Here is my day in images used from Flickr (with creative commons).  Each photograph links back to it’s original and the source over at Flickr.  I may add more as I go along.

I may even try and take some.

By Teresia

by _SID_

by YTK23