PLN

So here's my little plan...

I will go to Nearest Church Mon-Thurs and say/sing Morning Prayer at (or near to) 8.30am. I won't tell anyone there that I'm doing this; I'll just do it. I never see anyone about at that time of morning when I go there to practise, and with the foreboding mornings getting darker and darker I don't think that's going to change anytime soon.

If it is working well for me after a few months I will talk to Gentle Vicar and see if he (or someone else there) wants to join me or put it in the pew sheet or whatever. If it doesn't work I'll try something else.

Fridays I'll try and get to Long Walk Church.

The Other Stuff... I need to sit with it for a while.

I met two lovely people on Friday, strangers, new friends. Without knowing me, without knowing how deeply they were scratching, they said some things about vocation which made me think. One was in the context of lay chaplaincy one of them had done, about what a privilege it was. The other was that anyone who finds a vocation to ordained ministry is an easy thing, a thing they say they've always been totally sure of, probably shouldn't be trusted.

I realised that "not ordained ministry" now holds the same slot in my brain as "not Christianity" once did.

I have a friend or two that I sometimes talk to about sermons as they're in the process of writing them. I realised only last night that, er, I really enjoy those chats. I find joy in reading the text, finding the truth in it, finding the love in it, finding God in it, and figuring out how to try and portray that. Something in doing this strengthens me just as much as making a meal for beloved friends does (and yes, I'm aware of the Eucharistic implications of that).

So, the "you really ought to be ordained at some point" comments from friends are not new, not new at all. I don't know exactly when they started. I know last summer, sitting at the piano playing Bach, I imagined it as a possibility -- and quickly discounted it, frightened at the upheaval. This week there has been lots of reinforcement, and I'm noticing or accepting that there may be something there after all. Or maybe not.

But mostly right now I need to wait. I have other work to do right now, and a huge pile of complications which cannot be written off as trivial.

Philippians 4:4-9 this morning at Nearst Church; a favourite of mine, I think, though something I don't do so well at practical aspects of it. Maybe that's another thing to work on while I wait.

Goodnight, beloved.