Video: Penultimate term as an ordinand

Video: Belgium trip 2019 (and new motorcycle!)

Also, in case anyone is interested, here's a close up of my new tattoo which makes a couple of appearances in the video. I got it in May 2019, a year after my first one (the rainbow on my arm). It is based on a design from the east window of the St John's College chapel of an ancient symbol for Christ called a Chi Rho. So now I carry the New Testament Christ over my heart.

And I am now the owner of my own motorcycle! This is me half way home to Durham having been hanging out with some RAF chaplains down south for a few days. His name is Jimmy, and he is a Suzuki GSF600 Bandit. And yes, hanging out with the chaplains was pretty cool too, but no, me on the motorcycle did not mean it was all like Top Gun.

Continuing the Great Adventure to Holy Orders - Two years into training

The actors training alongside me at drama school used to say that their experience of their time there was akin to being broken into small pieces then reassembled bit by bit. I've got to say, my experience of theological college has been very similar.

In my BAP paperwork, I said my hope was that “my formation will be an anvil to God’s blacksmith”, but it’s more like my formation is the workshop for God’s mechanic. I’m up on the axle stand, and I am being sort of taken apart in an act that is actually creative rather than destructive. Some parts are taken out of the whole and worked on separately, or replaced entirely. Some parts are being serviced, renewed and polished, revealing the potential that was already there. Enhancements are being added, new buttons put into the dashboard to access new features, but the essence of the car is not changed. Same colour, same design, same history, same owner, but renewed purpose and updated manual.

Hopefully, this is a similar process to the one described in Colossians 3, that we have "stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator". Only time will tell.

I'm coming to the end of my second year as an ordinand, and I have one more academic year to go. I have started conversations with London diocese about curacy, but I have yet to be told if I will be released or not. I have another jam-packed summer ahead of me, including 4 weeks in a parish, and hopefully some placements with military chaplains, but also I've scheduled some actual 'holiday' time, which is better than last year, as well as personal spiritual retreat. Next year, I will write a dissertation, and finish my BA degree, as well as prepare to move and start curacy.

It is so weird to still be here, in Durham, at Cranmer Hall. Not that I mean I'm surprised I haven't been kicked out, but it's just unusual for me to be in the same place with the same people for so long. And even though the community make-up has changed, and it'll change again come October, life is all still basically the same, and that is very unfamiliar territory for me. I might be talking about curacy, but it's still a whole year away; the future has never been so far. Suddenly I'm the one radically changing, not my circumstances. Since coming to Durham, I have gotten two tattoos and a motorcycle licence, and that's just scratching the surface. 

I have delved into the Bible in a way completely unknown to me; I have settled into my relationship with God in a manner unfathomable before; I have realised a passion for writing prayers and preaching which has astonished me; I have fought against more biphobia than I have ever experienced in my life; and I have truly picked up the mantle of my future and set it on my shoulders.

But I'm still up on the axle stand, I still feel like I'm in pieces; my capacity to love is growing, my pastoral ability is being enhanced, my vocabulary has been almost replaced it's so different, my commitment to being a Church of England Anglican has been renewed, my potential as a leader has been revealed, and new features include obscure biblical references and unlikely friendships have been added. But at the moment I do not feel like a cohesive whole, and parts of my life and my self sit around me, only strung together by the barest of threads.

The same as this time last year, my mental health has not be so good, making this lack of cohesion harder to bear, but I've made it to the end of term, and now I have a series of interesting projects and trips over the summer to recharge me to get through the last three terms of my degree. And God is constant through it all.

I've still got a year to go, and details of my future to confirm, so I have hope and faith that I will be made ready in time, and I'll set down off the stand ready to hit the throttle into curacy, to warm up the tyres and get to grips with the upgrades, so that I can journey well in the rest of my life in ministry. I am in pieces but not in despair, and I am being held by the Spirit, the college, my friends and my family.

Video: Holy Land trip 2018

Right, one year down, two to go! I will write or video an update about my third term and how I'm doing come the start of second year, but for now I will be uploading videos of the adventures I've been having over the summer!

Just to give you an idea, I was in the Holy Land for a week, then I went to Taize for five weeks. I spent a week in Scotland with friends, I was at Greenbelt (and talking on a panel of all things!) and soon I will be flying out to Johannesburg for a month long placement!

Hopefully that excuses my lack of updates. You can see I'm busy doing ordinand-y shenanigans. 

So without further ado, the first video of my pilgrimage to the Holy Land!
(It's a tad long, but trust me, stick around for the hilarious ordinand double-act sketch!!)

Video: Oralsong! (aka Ordinand life update)

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!

Video: Love the Lord with all your bits

Video: Named, Known, and Called 2017

Video: Being an ordinand - settling in

Video: I am an ordinand...WHAT?!

I would have uploaded this ASAP but our college house has not had working Wifi so I write to you now from a week into being here at Cranmer Hall, Durham.

As you can probably tell from the title of this post, I'm not really very relaxed about being an ordinand. It's still weird, and scary, and unbelievable, after such a long time getting here, actually being here doesn't feel like it should be happening. Surely there's another hoop to go through? Surely I'm not truly ready to claim the title 'ordinand'.

The implications of coming to train are vast and varied, and the thought that I am actually going to be a priest is only one. New city, new house, reduced money situation, being away from my friends, taking all the opportunities available to me, being a student again, living with other people again - it's been exhausting dealing with it all at once. I'm lucky that I've moved a lot over the last few years, so the move is less dramatic, but there's still an emotional wrench of moving from the south east to the north east, with a different rhythm to the city, learning to find my way around, not living on my own any more, not using public transport every day...oh, and the temperature. I am a delicate English rose, and working out how much clothing I need every day, investing in thermal underwear, and finding out where nearby sells electric blankets, all makes for a tad more stress.

I've already fallen down in my self-care. I failed to remember how I know I operate, that I need intimacy with God, with close friends, and with myself, to balance my mental health into a good state. Plus this week has involved a lot of meeting people, forgetting their names, and working out which ones will be more work to get on with than others, which is a drain even on an outgoing extrovert like yours truly. So I had a slightly emotional night last night, which I am in the process of remedying, so no harm done. But lesson learned, the hard way.

We've had introductory talks, a prayer day in the cathedral, a day of lectures from a world expert on Thomas Cranmer, a college freshers' fair (I signed onto the mailing lists of LGBT+ Soc, FemSoc, and the theatre society), many cups of tea in the common room, and matriculation when I was thrilled to have my first outing in a cassock and used my cloak to boot.

A lot of the induction this week has been like any other university - like the police officer telling us not to take drugs, and the fireman telling us not the cover our smoke alarms with clingfilm - just with more Christianity, and advice/info being spoken into our proto-clergy situation, like the dual nature of our focus, that our academia is merely half of our time here, and our spiritual lives take as much precedence. This of course echoes ministry, giving us good practice.

I will be honest, the academic side terrifies me. I was pretty good at school work, though not essays, and this is my first degree to do 'proper' essays, as opposed to the self-reflective ones from my previous degree. Doing reading, spending time in the library, it's all alien and I'm not confident in my own ability to do very well.

At least I'm on the way to making friends here. The house is finally settled, with only an ice cube tray to source  (for the gin and tonics you understand). I like the fact that I have an uphill 15 minute walk to college everyday, and morning prayer to do, evening worship to join as well. I've managed to arrange a space in my room for my prayer stool, so I can kneel in front of my small standing cross. I'm being good with my diet, taking heed of the warnings against 'the Cranmer stone'. I'm also damn pleased to have my comfy armchair in the living room!

Blimey. I am an ordinand. We'll see how this goes.

Video: Open Days at Theological Training Institutes