Video: a month in Johannesburg 2018

This is the final instalment of posts about my series of adventures over the summer. The first was a vlog of my pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the second was a video about my time as a volunteer for a month in Taizé - and now, here's my vlog of my four week placement in South Africa.

In real time, it's Reading Week of my first term in second year as an ordinand. I've settled back in and everything seems to be going quite well.

LGBT ordinand

A sermon by a bisexual ordinand

 in a school chapel, 

speaking on LGBT history month.*

*including my story, bisexual nuns, Peru, Frida Kahlo, and textiles.

Video has no visuals, just the audio, as I was at a school, so cannot show the footage that includes the children. My audio equipment failed, so the sound is just the inbuilt camera mic - I recommend putting on the subtitles (button bottom right of the video) to follow more easily.

First term as an ordinand

My goodness look, she’s put up a text post, huzzah! I know, I know, I’ve been a bit lazy and just put up videos for a while.

But in the wake of my first term as an ordinand, I don’t think I can reflect coherently on how I am and how things are in a video. It’s been a packed 11 weeks, busier than I anticipated. I’ve needed to be easy on myself, and not get guilty about the things that I’ve felt I haven’t done well.

I didn’t know what to expect going in. I didn’t know how to organise myself with an academic degree – ‘doing some reading’, lecture notes, the library, ‘pre-reading’. Foreign territory, all of it. And since my last post about the retreat, we’ve had several deadlines for essays, which has been the real meat of the term, academically speaking. I was totally unprepared for that, and I’ve learnt a lot of lessons which will hopefully mean next term will be better.

Amongst that I’ve been struggling the sustain myself spiritually and socially, plus not been able to do exercise, and I even had to give up cooking in the last few weeks, and only eat in the dining hall. I ended up in a bit of a heap by the end. But I feel overall positive about the whole thing, which seems odd, but like I said, I’m being easy on myself. My first term of nine may not have been smooth but there were no disasters, nothing actually ‘went wrong’, and I’m still happy to be where I am.

I’m making friends, getting good marks back from the essays, getting on with my housemates, connecting with various clergy in the area. I’ve been on placement with a great chaplain and I’ve even given a sermon! I had visitors from the south a couple of weekends, there was a fantastic Christmas party to finish term and say goodbye to the deputy warden – trying to summarise the whole term is pretty tricky, but there are tons of positives.

But life has been very full. I have felt a little dragged along with it, getting on with things when I didn’t understand them 100%, didn’t have time to get to grips with them as fully as I would have liked, which for me is a stressful place to be in. I’ve not really acknowledged my underlying stress, and I should. I’m not ‘stressed out’ but I just have not felt grounded.

My tutor pointed out that one factor is not really having a lot of contact with my home ground kind of church – I’m spending most of my time at either much lower, at college, or higher, at my placement chapel; and I think she’s right that it’s had an impact. I was at St James’ on Sunday for the morning service and Nine Lessons and Carols, and there was a relief to be with people ‘like me’. Now I realise that this is partly an evolutionary hang up that we really must get over, but that doesn’t stop me feeling that way.

At least I have actually enjoyed building relationships with evangelicals and conservatives at college, even if it’s been an effort. And it’s not been as bad as it could have been, because said evangelicals have been very open; the way I put it is they may think I’m going to hell, but if they do they don’t seem to hold it against me.

Like I said, hopefully I’ll have more of a handle on my academic work next term, which means I can schedule in down time, exercise, socialising, and other stress release things. Plus some of this term’s stress sources should be a lot less stressful because I’m now more familiar with everything new, and I'll start seeing a spiritual director.

So, first term as an ordinand. Overall positive, lessons learned, hopeful in moving forward. God is with me.

PS How AWESOME that the new Bishop of London, my sponsoring bishop, is a woman!!

PPS watch out for my next adventure - I'm flying to Switzerland next week!

Towards Ordained Ministry course: Session Two

This post details my experience of Session Two of the Towards Ordained Ministry course. See my previous post about session one to find out what the TOM course is.

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I googled the speaker before this event, the Rector of St Bride's Fleet St, and I was looking forward to hearing from her as she seemed pretty awesome. Plus getting our teeth into the topic 'The Bible' from a priest's perspective was quite a fun prospect.

I wasn’t disappointed. She tackled what could have been quite a controversial topic very well, imparting wisdom without opinion in a very down to earth manner.

There were lots of anecdotes and five minute pauses for us to turn to our neighbours and discuss something before feeding back to the group.

Intro

She laid her cards down from the beginning, encouraging that diversity is good for our understanding, and we all need to engage with the Bible for ourselves. She also told us a little about herself and her church, including the titbit that the first newspaper was founded by a woman.

Her story

When she got into it, she started by taking us through the place scripture has had in her own journey. It started with Anglo-Catholic Sunday school and RE lessons being simply Bible stories, using the KJV, the version that is “like, what God actually said”, which of course was tough to read, especially without help. She “didn’t know how to read” the Bible.

She eventually went to evangelical bible studies “because they did them better.” Then in her first year of theological college, the academic biblical study was “dislocating” and exploded her assumptions of scripture and informed her use of it in worship. She said she was “so grateful to go through that process”, and though she had to rethink a lot, it “all came back together”, meaning the initial loss turned into a profound understanding of scripture.

“Critical engagement” is key, because the power of scripture is in its “complexity” so ask the hard questions! And don’t skirt round the difficult bits.

“Living Word of God”

At this point she gave three examples of how scripture can be to us the ‘living word’.

One, having a “verse collide with your life” which can do things like make you realise your own emotion, and “unlock a situation”, effecting the external circumstances.

Two, reading something can give new perspective to overcome an internal struggle or a new direction after the resolution of an internal struggle.

Three, for 29 years she had to give between 4 and 7 addresses a week, and only extremely rarely did not speak to the lectionary texts. Of course she came across the same texts over and over, but they “always spoke to me in new ways”, and the texts she had to work, pray and engage with most led to “cracking” sermons.

The Bible is “gloriously subversive”, like the fact that it tells us it’s always the least suitable, the least capable person who is chosen to do God’s work - the ancient Abram, the argumentative and stammering Moses, the persecuting Pharisee Paul. When she went on a tour of Paul’s route through Greece, it “hit me like a ton of bricks” that his experience had, at the time, felt like a failure, and only God could see the big picture that we now see, of the success story.

The subversive-ness is in the call to humanity in all our brokenness and frailty, and that like Paul we should rejoice even if all we see currently is bad – we follow the crucified Christ, so we know that suffering is part of ultimate success. The Bible shows us we  have to think differently about what results look like”.

“Scripture is baffling”

Here she briefly touched on the stuff a lot of us don’t like, such as God obliterating whole nations in the OT, or being told we must hate our families and no one is good, in the NT. Her advice on how to engage was to inhabit the challenging texts in our prayer life, which might shed some light; and she reiterated that academic engagement can inform scripture in liturgy.

Interpretation

Following on from that, she did point out that the Bible does need to be interpreted, because when reading it, we’re “juggling” lots of factors, and it can have a big impact – just look at women’s ministry. But we can’t be blinded by the divisions over scripture that are currently fashionable, because they have changed radically over time.

For example, in the 1590s, weddings rings were a passionate issue of contention because they weren’t in the Bible. She’s a very keen fan of Richard Hooker, often cited as the author of Anglican morality, and alongside Cranmer and BCP, is the closest we have to a founding father – point being when he was writing his defence of Anglicanism, it included a huge amount on the use of wedding rings.

Another debate ran around the use of anaesthesia in childbirth, as ‘the Bible clearly states’ that the pain is our punishment handed own from Eve. You see, the engagement with scripture is not and will not ever be static.

But that begs the question, who do you decide to listen to? Who has the authority to interpret the Bible? It is personal and one must have a direct relationship with it, but there is a risk that we aren’t always well-balanced and it’s not always the Spirit that inspires interpretation! It is crucial to experience scripture in community and share and listen to reflections with others.

What is it

In a rather backwards way, she ended with how to define the Bible. It’s has two parts and an apocrypha, it’s made up of many genres, it’s the story of a promise and its fulfilment, written by many authors over a period of more than 1000 years.

We need a balance of acknowledging the process of a “fluid collection” of scrolls being shaped into the book we now have vs the reality that we acknowledge it as the Word.

It’s also a “very, very dangerous” book, look at poor Tyndale and result of his translation into English.

Looking at the Gospels in particular – we need them all!:

Matthew – set pieces, Messianic, polished

Mark – reader does the work, rough edges

Luke – tabloid, about people, engaging, Holy Spirit, the poor

John – like stained glass– need to see it from inside, mysticism, Christ’s divinity

The actual question

Finally she turned to the vow that was the title given to her for this talk, from the Ordinal – “Do you accept the holy Scriptures as revealing all things necessary for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ?” Going back to her favourite author Hooker, the Anglican understanding is not Catholic, who believe it is “not enough” for salvation, nor Puritan, who believe that it is the only source of guidance for everything not just salvation.

Its authority for an individual must come in two stages; first, one must simply trust, based on one’s heritage of tradition that acknowledges its authority; and then second, one must pray and study to discover its innate authority for oneself.

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The previous session was 

- Authority - Do you accept the discipline of this Church and give due respect to those in authority?

Future sessions will be:

- Doctrine - [I will miss this one] Do you believe the doctrine of the Christian faith as the Church of England has received it, and in your ministry will you expound and teach it?

- Ministry - Will you be a faithful servant in the household of God, after the example of Christ, who came not to be served but to serve?

- Spirituality - Will you be diligent in prayer, in reading holy Scripture, and in all studies that will deepen your faith, and fit you to bear witness to the truth of the Gospel?

- Mission - Will you lead Christ’s people in proclaiming his glorious gospel, so that the good news of salvation may be heard in every place?

Video: Living on a prayer

Less vocation-related, but a sharing of only my second experience leading a group religious discussion about prayer. See the video for my presentation, or the full text is below, followed by notes from the discussion.

Prayer is a big topic, but here at Circus Spirit, we decided to concentrate on “What is prayer?” and “Does it work?”

What is prayer? A year ago, I might have been able to give you a simple answer, when actually I didn’t really know.

Does it work? Again, a year ago, I would have shied away from thoughts of ‘the power of prayer’. I knew that I was supposed pray, but I also knew that I was absolutely terrible at it. I chose this topic in no small part to educate and motivate myself.

But improving at prayer is a tricky business. Priest Kevin Scully puts it quite neatly: “How does one learn to pray? By praying. Is there a way to learn more about prayer? Yes, by praying. What does one do if one experiences barrenness in prayer? Pray. How can one deepen a sense of the divine? By prayer.”

It’s a very subjective act, and I would put forward that ‘what is prayer’ and ‘does it work’ are both subjective questions.

That said, as with most human activities, there are a lot of similar experiences. Prayer is a common feature of most religions, and even people who don’t have a religion, pray, often in their own way and for their own reasons. People pray for all sorts of reasons and to all sorts of objects – to one divinity, to many gods, or to gurus, spirits or angels, saints or the dead, or concepts, like ‘Wisdom’, personified in the Psalms for example.

I talk to God. I talk to God with a reverence that I would give a leader and a boldness as if I were talking to a friend. My most common prayer is gratitude. My second most is generally a desperate plea for help.

This echoes a classic structure of prayer from my own religion, Christianity. It is often described as ‘adoration, confession and petition’; I was introduced to it long before I knew such big church words; I was introduced to it by a friend, whose advice was to pray the ‘teaspoon prayer’. TSP = thank you, sorry, please.

This is the way that I and many sustain our connection to God. Like any relationship, it takes time and effort, and whilst good to acknowledge where we know we’ve done wrong and ask forgiveness, the confession, it is also a dynamic of give and take – adoration and petition. As for petition, I ask for things, I do, because it’s not a one sided relationship where only I put in an effort.

And as for adoration, I praise God for the blessings in my life and the wonders in the world. Whilst I do try to show this gratitude in my everyday life, it is important for our relationship to communicate directly and put into words my gratitude.

Note, I did not say it was important for God, but important for our relationship. Often an intellectual barrier to beginning, growing and sustaining a prayer life is, if God, an all-knowing divinity already knows what I’m sorry for, how grateful I am, and what I want or need, why ask? Now, as a religious person, an easy answer for me to give would be ‘because God commands it’.

But that’s not good enough. That’s not enough reason, for me. So I found a few reasons why God might command it. As these are my thoughts, they are inevitably Christian-centric, and they certainly aren’t an exhaustive list. They may not even be right! But here we go.

Why would God command us to pray? If we were blessed without supplication, if we got good things in life having not asked at all, we could be tempted to assume independence. For God and humanity both, that is the opposite of what many feel are our true natures. They would say our natures, God’s and humanities natures, are of relationship; we can see it in humanity, because many agree that it is a base purpose and desire of a person to seek connection and intimacy, and we see it in God, in Christianity anyway, because God is a trinity, a single power in a status of eternal relationship.

Similarly, many would say that God desires communion, like a Father finds an unreadable scribble given by his child precious beyond measure. It cannot be denied that people’s experiences throughout the millennia have been of a divinity that communicates. Now you may not think any of the experiences were supernatural or divine in nature, but you can understand the conclusion of some of those who do think they were divine, that God communicates because God does want to hear from us directly, even though it has no impact on what God knows. It is not the content of, nor even the scribble itself that the Father cherishes; it is the act of giving, and being given the scribble that bonds the child and parent.

As I said, a relationship needs effort, and cooperation on both sides. For a lot of people, prayer opens our hearts so God may work on us; we have to open our end before God can easily get through. This is also a reason we need to pray to an all-powerful God – even an all-powerful God would hope to work with a subject that is willing and open to being worked upon. I’m not saying it’s necessary, but you can understand why God would prefer it that way.

Christianity also has a tradition of meditation, which is attempting to reflect on revelations of God; and a tradition of contemplation, which is simply bathing in God’s love.

An answer to the question ‘what is prayer’, in comparison to these two similar states, meditation and contemplation, might be that prayer is focused time of sometimes monologue, and sometimes dialogue, that we may be aware of grace and blessing, and aware of our own wrongdoing; a time to remember to be grateful, and to be repentant. To my mind, prayer is pure attention, an expression of our response to life and the world.

David Macintrye wrote of prayer in the 1800s, and he quoted someone called John Laidlaw who said “A sense of real want is the very root of prayer”.

But if that’s the case, what’s with all the tat that often surrounds prayer? What’s with prayer beads, mandalas, prayer mats, icons, bells to get God’s attention, using scripture to pray, and all the millions of words of written prayers, whole books of them?

Now this can be answered in two ways, and applied to all props, costume and ritual in religion – firstly, humanity is a bit rubbish left on its own to contemplate the ‘other’ in the world; most of humanity needs tools to help it focus, otherwise ‘pure attention’ is corrupted by the distraction of something shiny, or delicious, or naked, that seems must more important and certainly more interesting. Nothing wrong with shiny, delicious, naked things, but if you want a relationship with God, if you want to connect with that ‘other’ within you and all around you, if you want a chance to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, you have to pay attention.

And secondly, prayer can be a sensual experience, not just about what you say. The words may be intensified by the tactile motion of running prayer beads through your fingers. Or if you’re not speaking but ‘listening to the silence’, an atmosphere enhanced by pungent incense, or an environment with rich beauty for the eyes to feast on, or an icon of a saint whose life story speaks to you of God; even the colourful, embossed cover of a book of holy scripture which glorifies its contents – if you’re listening to the silence, that experience, that living in the moment of stimulated senses, the experience itself of the coming together of beauty, that experience can be a wordless prayer

So the need for ritual is common, even in silent spontaneous prayer.  In Islam, there is an understanding of two areas of prayer, the spontaneous, and the official to be recited. Most rituals offer some form of written prayer.

There’s private written prayer, such as a prayer diary, or prayers written on the prayer boards in churches. There are official prayers, in the aforementioned books of prayers, or prayers of intercession at public acts of worship that are composed in advance for the occasion. Prayers can be danced, said, sung, said in tongues, chanted.

And of course there are religious structures of daily prayer. Official practice, either mandated or not, is for Muslims to pray 5 times a day, Jews to pray 3 times a day, and for some Christians to pray 8 times a day (though most prescribe 2 as a more reasonable practice!).

Prayer does have a spiritual core, but it is often most effective when it has a practical element. That is why it is a practice, and we are often called to incorporate it as part of our lives, not just let it sit isolated and separate from our lives.

I’m going to end by quoting Richard Sibbes, an Anglican theologian from the Elizabethan era, who has a practical answer to why we should pray. He said “It was a rule in ancient times, “Lay thy hand to the plough, and then pray.” No man should pray without ploughing, nor plough without prayer.” Which is a pretty way of saying life is not worth living without attempting to find its meaning, but wrestling with that meaning is pointless without also living.

Amen.

Points raised in discussion afterwards:

- pray to live, live to pray

- change perspective from if I don't get get what I ask for, God isn't listening

- God can still get in if we are closed

- sense of 'in the moment'

- prayer provides refocus, leads to perspective and can have effect

- prayer, meditation and contemplation can be linked and feed into each other

- not just we speak to God and God speaks to us, the conversation can overlap in the 'Spirit praying within us'

- all-powerful God's power is love and love is not coersive

- the act of prayer can generate the words, rather than the reverse

- should not feel guilty about petition

Video: Can I provide wisdom?

Can I provide wisdom? A response to this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyLYDcdGRlA