Mostly angry

I am mostly angry at the church today.

I am angry on behalf of all the women who were never ordained because it "wasn't time yet" and all those who will not be consecrated bishops. I'm angry on behalf of the lesbian and gay priests in relationships who have been forced to decide between honesty about their relationships or recognition by the church. I'm angry on behalf of those who have chosen celibacy when they might not have done so. I am angry on behalf of those people who have loving, sacramental polyamorous relationships and so are turned away, and on behalf of those who would best express who they are in a polyamorous context but do not because of the church's disapproval. I'm angry on behalf of those who courageously commit themselves to another in every way except legal marriage and are sent the message that this doesn't count, doesn't mean anything. I'm angry on behalf of anyone denied any sacrament because they don't fit into a tickybox, whatever the sacrament and whatever the tickybox.

For Christ did not come to condemn the world.

What are we doing as a church, what are we doing as the Body of Christ, if we condemn those who do not fit our received, preconceived notions of sanctity?
Lord, have mercy.

What are we doing as the Body of Christ when we draw a line in the sand and say that those who stand on one side of it are worthy, and the rest are somehow not in receipt of God's grace?
Christ, have mercy.

What are we doing when we define priesthood in such a way that some who feel called to it are excluded, not by their selfishness but by their integrity, commitment and honesty? What are we doing when we define membership of the church that way, or say that church membership is somehow many-tiered with one standard of goodness for laity (which is just a fancy way of saying "people") and another for clergy?
Lord, have mercy.

What foul deception is this, this idea that we get to decide who God invites to serve in one way or another? Oh, we have to take an active part in the discernment process, certainly. But "I don't understand your choices, so your experience of vocation means nothing" is not discernment; "You don't fit into this tickybox, so you can't possibly be obedient to God's will in your life" is not discernment; it is rejection, condemnation. This rejection, this condemnation holds the entire church ransom to fear, so that those who would ask the questions of discernment (try "What is God doing in this situation? What do this person's experiences, in light of Scripture, tradition and reason, say about God's will for them? How can the church encourage this person to grow to be who they really are, for the greater glory of God?" for starters), those who have open imaginations and loving hearts, can only do what is right by pretending that they don't know, making sure nothing is official. Of course, it isn't those who are fearful of anyone different from them getting authority who are blamed for "putting the church in a difficult position" -- it's those who are trying to make the best of a bad situation, those who have got their toe caught in the door and are trying to pry it open despite the crushing weight of all that fear, those who would rather display mercy than demand sacrifice, those who act with love and welcome in Christ's name despite being told they must condemn and judge, those who hunger and thirst after God despite being told in no uncertain terms to go away until they can behave themselves and conform to the received cultural norms -- those are the people who get accused of putting the church in a difficult position.

Is this, truly, the Kingdom we are invited to help build? I don't think so. It saddens me, sickens me, this scrabbling at boundaries, bickering over control of grace as if there isn't enough to go around. Do we really think the Holy Spirit follows our measly little rules?

And yet... Love is stronger. Love is stronger than fear, love is stronger than death, love is stronger than any of the hogwash the church might throw at anyone.

I just wish I knew what that means about what I should do next.

Filling what is empty

I've been volunteering at a local shelter one morning a week. It's a sort of floating church emergency shelter, at a different church every night of the week. Sunday nights/Monday mornings it's at a United Free church down the road from where I live. I'm on mornings because I work too many evenings to do those and frankly, I think my health probably isn't up to the overnights.

The guests are referred from a day centre; the shelter is given a list of people to let in. People not on the list are turned away unless there is space after a certain time. There are rules (no drugs, no alcohol, no weapons), there are boxes to tick. I don't know how I feel about this; I can see the point of trying to make it safe, but how do we help those who, through no fault of their own, cannot tick the right boxes? Lord, have mercy. And yet, the other week I heard another volunteer explaining to one of the guests how to get to the day centre, which boxes to tick. Clearly if there is space we take anyone we can.

The day centre offers hot meals and so we don't do a cooked breakfast; rather it's cereal, toast with jam, tea and coffee, occasionally some leftover dessert from the night before. I spend the morning filling milk jugs, sugar bowls, coffee machines, insulated flasks, the dishwasher, the cupboards. Things spill and I wipe up as I go along, almost unconsciously, a reflex when there is nothing left to fill. I don't talk to people much, and I hope that doesn't make me seem aloof.

There are rules about physical contact, about agreeing to meet guests outside of shelter hours. I'm not sure how I feel about this; I do think loving and kind relationships are important, and that physical contact can be part of that. How horrible must it be to have nobody to hug you? But I'll freely admit I'm also relieved not to have to make the decision, relieved that what I might be willing to give has been put into a nice, safe box. Lord, have mercy.

This past Monday someone asked me if I'd marry him. I declined as politely as I could, aware that I am culturally way out of my depth. Another volunteer said that's fairly normal and is a sign that I'm being accepted. I'm not sure about that, but the conventional dating scene must really suck if you're homeless.

The shelter runs until March.

I don't have anything profound to write about it, not yet.

Maybe there isn't anything profound to say. People are homeless and I've decided to try and help meet some of their immediate needs for food and shelter during a difficult time of year -- in a very safe and cautious and organised and cowardly way -- and that's all there is to it. I don't particularly enjoy or dislike the work itself; I don't come back feeling all aglow with lovingkindness. I come away wishing I could do more, and wondering why the shelter is so warm compared to our house (which is a bit nippy in the mornings), and whether the pregnant woman will get some more stable support once her child is born (does she know the father? is he homeless, too? Is he kind to her?) or whether we're going to be dealing with a baby come January, and reminding myself to bring some jam along next week.

Leafy Suburb Church

Off I went to Leafy Suburb Church last night; I probably could have attended a service more locally, but I wanted to touch base with some people there. It takes me an hour and a half to get there and the same again to get back, and it's a rather fiddly journey with three changes. People sometimes speak of "thin places", places or times where the boundary between heaven and earth seems especially fragile... and I think I don't usually like that language, because the word "seems" is so easily dropped and then we start to think that one bit of Creation is somehow more holy than another.

But if I believed in these "thin places" I think Leafy Suburb Church would be among them, for me. I am particularly susceptible to a strong awareness of God while I am there, and even better, to a feeling of belovedness, a sense of being loved and cared for by God.

Some of that is because of the ministry of two women, one of whom was so very dear to me even before she started there, and one of whom I hardly know but who has been full of welcome. It pains me to admit it, but I do feel safer with women in charge. That isn't a reflection on Gentle Vicar who leads Nearest Church, or on the kindly, rather grandfatherly vicar at Long Walk Church, or on various other male clergy I have come across... it's just that I am slow to overcome past hurts. And so I thank God for women's ministry in general, and for these two women's ministry in my life.

Some of it is the choir. They have been as welcoming as can be.

The the choir were kind to me when I was in touch about a sort of secret project (long since completed). Last Easter I could hardly be said to have embraced Christian faith -- I'm still not sure about some of the essentials -- but on that Easter Sunday I did know, pretty clearly, that I really would rather be in the choir than in the congregation. I guess the choir knew it too, because I was welcomed with open arms. Now when I am there I sing in the choir if it is a choral service.

I started attending Leafy Suburb Church because I wanted to visit Ambassador for Compassion, and to do a bit of research for the aforementioned secret project... the "church" bit was rather secondary. The congregation were as friendly and welcoming as the choir later turned out to be. AfC made sure I had someone to sit with, but always people greeted me, and mostly they remembered me. At last night's non-choral service I was reminded of this by someone who doesn't usually attend the Evensong services I can get to; she came up and introduced herself, and without actually asking if I needed anything seemed to make clear that if I did, I could ask. It may well be that there is some committee or other that deals with whose turn it is to be welcoming but it didn't feel like that. It didn't feel stilted or contrived or something she was doing because it was her "turn"; it felt like the most natural thing in the world to happen there.

Even the building helps, I think. It's not a large church, but it is an old one, and those ancient stones feel cozy rather than constricting, comfortable rather than claustrophobic. We all have to sit rather closer together than we might choose to in a larger space and this is, I think, good.

It is all rather wonderful, in the sense of being full of wonder. I'm sure it isn't perfect, but the overall effect is such that going there stopped being just about seeing AfC quite some time ago. It has become something else, something halfway between retreat and pilgrimage, a place to sit and rest and a place to grow, a destination and a step along the journey. I leave with happy reluctance, feeling well-nourished, ready to go out into the world but also ready to stay in church much longer.

Thanks be to God.

So I did sit and eat.

I realised, talking to Kathryn last night, that it would be a matter of when I decide to receive Communion, rather than if.

Put like that it didn't make much sense to wait. What would I wait for? Being ready? Being worthy? Isn't that somewhat missing the point? If a dear friend sees that you're hungry and invites you in for a meal, you don't stand around on the doorstep with your coat on, wondering if they really mean it.

I'd like to write that it was a profoundly moving experience, that there was some shift in perspective at that moment. That would be dishonest. It didn't feel all that different from my more usual going up and receiving a blessing, except that the wafer stuck to my teeth. I had the same feeling of slightly nervous apprehension beforehand, the same creeping focus on one moment and one moment only and forgetting everything but the presence of God, the same pounding heart afterward. I'd like to compare all the various sensations and ideas and thoughts, take things apart and analyze them until I can find out how this is actually any different, but I can't observe from a neutral position. There is no double-blind test for sacrament. It's as gloriously mundane as every other part of this sacramental world.

And yet... I can say I feel a little lighter, somehow, more buoyant. There's a great deal of relief in just giving in. There was no wondering afterward whether I should have taken part, no throbbing regret about not being able to trust, no wrestling with myself over whether I'd done the right thing. That much, at least, was easy, and I almost wonder what I waited so long for.

That's how I feel now, anyway. It will be interesting to see how I feel in a few days.

Communi(cati)on

I had a rather lovely chat with Gentle Vicar today.

I explained some of my background -- the difficult, semi-nomadic childhood, the spiritual barrenness of my first experiences with Christianity, the venture into Judaism, some of the factors that made me re-examine Christianity.

We spoke of the changes at Nearest Church over the last little while. Six years ago it was a Forward in Faith parish, complete with flying bishops and no females allowed in the sanctuary. Now it is far more inclusive.

We spoke of many things -- of serving the community, of Creeds, of scriptural authority. It's clear that Gentle Vicar is my kind of heretic! I especially respect that he was willing to come out and say "I don't always know what I believe about X" instead of skirting around the issue with a more general "many people struggle with X". It takes a certain courage to be honest and vulnerable when faced with someone who will in all likelihood pick apart any discrepancies in what you say.

And he said, "What about the Eucharist?" and so I explained pretty much all of my last post on the subject. And I said I was willing to change my mind, but from my current perspective I don't want to take Communion until a) I am allowed according to what the Church says and b) I am in a situation where it is offered unconditionally. We spoke of what "member in good standing of a Trinitarian church" actually means (answer: nearly anything if you want to be technical) and why I'm not willing to fudge on that. We spoke of what is printed in the service sheet compared to what actually happens. We spoke of the messages it sends to others if I take communion or if I don't.

Gentle Vicar doesn't turn anyone away, whether they are baptised or not, confirmed or not, or have three heads, and doesn't give a fig what canon law says about it.

He noted that I had just said, earlier in our conversation, that within the C of E confirmation is not required. Baptised children are allowed communion; I would not be fudging, by my own standards of what the church thinks it allows. I'd be an edge case in many congregants' minds, but not in canon law.

So I'm at a point where my only quibble is that the offer of welcome is not made more explicit. Given the history at Nearest Church (and I've had some hints about this from others I've spoken to, as well) I think I trust Gentle Vicar to know when to take a softly, softly approach and when to do something rash like changing the wording of the notice in the service booklet.

Being an edge case in the mind of most congregants, but not in canon law, means if I don't take Communion I appear to support the status quo, and if I do take it I appear to push the boundaries... I am in a position that is the opposite of where I thought I was. Of course, this isn't actually about what anyone else thinks, and 99% of them absolutely will not be paying attention to whether I receive a blessing or something to eat. But I value integrity and consistency of thought and deed; the messages I send and concern for what others think of me are not quite the same thing.

If I want to send the message that Communion is available to anyone who wants it, I should partake if I feel drawn to do so. Anything else is holding myself hostage from God until the Church does what I want, in much the same way as some parts of the Church attempt to hold God hostage. I can sit on my thumbs thinking up a thousand reasons why I'm not worthy, or throw myself on the Divine mercy and grace without which life would be hopeless.

...but only say the word and I shall be healed.

Sacrament and Inclusion and Eucharist, oh my!

I have been trying to think of a name for Nearest Church, now that I've decided they're as good a group of people as any with whom to throw in my lot.

I've been thinking a lot in recent months and weeks about the Eucharist.

My understanding of sacrament is that God's blessing is everywhere, and what humans call sacrament is just something that we do to become more aware of it. There isn't anything amazing about bread and wine...or rather, there is, but it isn't more amazing than a beetle or water or every single unthinking breath taken by every human on this planet. The entire world is sacramental.

But I recognise that though I believe God is in everything, I don't always manage to see God in all things. To this end, I practise. I pray because I want to praise God, thank God for the plenty of the world, and indeed to ask that God's blessing be upon those I care for. But I also pray because structured prayer makes my unstructured prayers come more easily. Regular engagement with God through, for example, sung psalmody makes my other work more prayerful. We get better at things if we repeat them. We get better at things if we practise.

And so it is with sacrament. Again, this is just my understanding, just my view through a scratched and cracked lens: the world is holy, but we don't see it as such. We are all entirely dependent on God, but we somehow forget that.

That's nothing new and people forgot it 2000 years ago, too. I struggle mightily with ideas around Incarnation, I am not always certain of Jesus' divinity. In fact, most of the time I'm not convinced.

Despite all my doubts, the message of the Last Supper seems pretty loud and clear to me. In context, bread and wine were the usual fare, but still of religious significance. Baruch atah HaShem, Elohenu Melech ha-Olam, b'rei p'ri hagafen: Blessed are You, O Lord, Master of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine. Baruch atah HaShem, Elohenu Melech ha-olam, hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz: Blessed are You, O Lord, Master of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.

That's about God creating everything that is: ha-Olam is usually translated as the Universe, but it's more literally something like "the all" or "the whole" or "the everything". That's about manna from heaven even as we wander in the wilderness.

At the Last Supper, Christ said "do this in remembrance of me". If I suspend my disbelief and accept, for the sake of argument, that Christ really is God... then why would He say that? Maybe if people had forgotten, despite the words being right there in their mouths, that God made everything and provides all that we have.

That wasn't the really shocking part. The shocking part was the bit about the blood. Drinking blood is a Big Major No-No in Judaism... Leviticus is quite explicit. My understanding is that it was associated with idolatry, and idolatry is Right Out. Drinking and eating humans was perhaps the most shocking thing you could ask a group of faithful Jews to do. "Take, eat: this is my body, broken for you."... bread brought forth from the earth. "This is my blood, shed for you."... the fruit of the vine, created by God.

Can you see where I am going with this? That Last Supper was a very powerful way of saying, "Hey, listen up! God created and God provides!" And the surrounding events, the incarnation and crucifixion and resurrection, show that God loves so much that God provides Godself. If you're a semi-pantheist like me, you might see that already, in apples falling from a tree or in dazzling sunlight or in Bach. And you might cling to that in times of despair, you might try to cultivate that hope in yourself and use it to comfort others.

Far be it from me to second-guess what God is trying to do. I don't have that authority. But I also have to make decisions every moment about what to do next, and I do have to guess what is right, I do have to try to gather information and weigh up the options and then do the next thing in the hope that I either got it right or will be forgiven. And so do you. And in so doing, you interpret... but I digress, as usual.

So I see Communion as this sacrament, this thing people do, to remind themselves that God is God and God is With Us. And I'm not sure whether this is a sacrament ordained by God... but the part of me that sings thinks so. The part of me that reasons thinks that if it is, that doesn't exclude my views of the entire world as sacramental, because God doesn't exclude.

Therein lies one of my difficulties. For, you see, the official position of the Church of England seems to be that this sacrament is only open to those who make a commitment. I know some of you reading this go against that, and welcome everyone to the table, baptised or not, confirmed or not, and I applaud you. But in the large majority of churches and in what I can find of official documentation, the stance is this:

Baptized persons who are communicant members of other Churches which subscribe to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and are in good standing in their own Church shall be admitted to Communion in accordance with Canon B 15A. (from General Notes on Communion, Common Worship)

I'm not going to go dig out Canon B 15A because the above is already legalistic enough. I've blogged about this before. The message sent is "You can have God's grace but only if you believe certain things." Technically by those rules I could go and receive Communion, as I did when I was a child. But the fact that I am included if I fudge things a bit does not make it a less exclusionary message.

I don't believe those things, or I don't think I believe them the way the larger church community would have me believe them, and so I go up for a blessing. I can appreciate that it is also important for people to have some way of identifying that they belong, some rite of passage, some way of making their commitment clear: but I don't think that should be a higher priority than hospitality, welcome, and the reflection in liturgical action of free access to grace! When did our identity as "believers" get more important than our mission to love the world on God's behalf? Lord, have mercy...

I go up for a blessing. I don't hold the belief that such a blessing is any less sacramental than taking Communion would be. There isn't some sort of hierarchy of sacrament here, not from God's point of view, and if the Church would like to imply otherwise I say the Church is wrong. I get... nervous, for lack of a better word. I don't feel dread, as such, but certainly an element of awe. My heart pounds. I often shake a little afterward. I don't identify that reaction as an indication of innate holiness or sacredness, but rather a result of my very human senses being susceptible to the focus on that part of the liturgy. The entire service is built around that moment, and that affects me even if I don't eat the bread and drink the wine. The ground is no more sacred than any other, but the fact that everyone is there to notice it makes all of us notice more easily.

I go up for a blessing. But I'd like to take Communion. I think that experience might, if nothing else, help me to understand Christian belief better than I currently do, on a level which no amount of rational thought will make clear.

I think I'd like to take Communion every week. When I was growing up, it wasn't part of our tradition to have it every week, and my experiences of church at that time were very much tangled together with experiences of upheaval. The treatment I had from my stepdad would be considered mild by many social workers but nonetheless, I was terrified of him. Because of that terror, that fear, I couldn't accept the messages of hope and forgiveness he preached on Sunday mornings. I certainly couldn't be anything other than numb to most of the liturgy. Only some of the music got through. I think if Communion is going to help me, if Communion is going to make me more able to proclaim the Gospel (summary: God Loves All) in deed and in word (more on that in another post!), it has a better chance of doing so if it's regular. I don't know -- for God, anything is possible -- but I suspect that I need the continuity, the consistency. There's a lot of damage to undo, still.

But I can't have that, locally and officially, unless I make a commitment.

I have no problem with making a commitment to love and serve God to the best of my ability. There doesn't seem to be any other sensible way to live! I was acting, at least in part, on that commitment when I left church, when I spent my years exploring Judaism, when I visited with the Unitarians, and indeed in my more recent involvement with Christianity.

I do have a problem with taking communion where it isn't offered freely to all who wish to receive. I recognise that the Church is doing what it thinks best, but I am deeply uneasy that if I were to partake, it would be seen as an endorsement of a policy which I find exclusive and misguided. I don't know if doing that is serving God, no matter how great my need might seem. I also don't know that my need is so very great, if I'm already capable of seeing sacrament elsewhere.

Gentle Vicar, the priest in charge at Nearest Church, is.... well, very kindly. We've spoken in passing a few times, and one of those conversations was indeed about welcome and generosity and grace, among other things. He'll be going on sabbatical in a few weeks and returning just before Lent. Today I made an appointment to go and talk to him before he goes away.

I hope I don't cry. I pray I don't chicken out and talk about something else instead.

I wish he weren't going, because I could really do with some guidance over the next few months, and as warm and welcoming as the community at Nearest Church is, I'm not sure any of them would read this and have any idea what I'm talking about. I'm sure they'd be supportive, but it's kindof vicar territory, really. But I hope he'll be able to tell me more about confirmation/reception/whatever in this diocese. I think that is eventually something I will want to explore further. Certainly some sort of prayerful study with other people is something I'd like to get involved in.

A long time ago, long before I started attending church or praying the Office or blogging here, Ambassador for Compassion suggested that perhaps spiritual direction might be appropriate for me. Advice from AfC is always something I take seriously, since so much of her previous advice for me has been so very, very good, even if I've been unable to recognise it at the time.

I've not mentioned it here previously, but I did get in touch with someone from my diocese about it; that wasn't the right route as most of the diocese is not really in London, so I got in touch with the good folks at SPIDIR who have recommended someone to me. I haven't met her yet. I have no idea what to expect. I have no idea what I want. But I have an appointment to meet her in the not-too-distant future... and I know that she sings. That gives me some hope.

In the meantime, I bought some strawberry plants at a table-top sale at Nearest Church today, and I'll be going along for the sacrament of the Fundraising Quiz Night this evening.

Home sweet home

We have signed the necessary bits of dead tree, and each been granted a set of keys.

Future Housemate shall henceforth be known as Intrepid Anthropologist. "Home" is now our lovely rented house in Upper Suburbia. There is much work to do and not nearly enough time, but it is ours to shape, for as long as the tenancy allows us to do so.

We celebrated with tea and cake and our first guest, Sweetie's father, who has kindly offered to donate some cutlery to the household. Not just any cutlery, mind you--cutlery he made himself, in 1954. It is a very special and very appropriate housewarming gift.

There are (at least) two fruiting plum trees in our road, and a handy stepladder in the kitchen. This pleases me greatly.

I got soaked through on my way back to the station. I don't mind.

Moving

In a spirit of preparation I am packing a suitcase. Sweetie, Future Housemate and I are meeting with the letting agent today at 1.30pm to, hopefully, sign contracts and get keys for our new home. I won't take the case with me then but I will want to have it ready to go.

It's interesting to do this, to figure out what I need in a new place to make it start to feel like home. In a spirit of more procrastination than preparation, here's a list of what I think I'll take:

My kettle. I love this little kettle! I pulled it out of a skip in Islington in the summer of 2004 when I didn't have a kettle and had been using an ordinary pan to boil water for tea (and washing-up, since the electric immersion heater I had in that bedsit was a much more expensive way to heat water than the gas hob). Took it home, cleaned it up a bit... and found that it works, it doesn't leak, and best of all it has a wonderful two-tone wail to let me know it is boiling, not piercing as some of the whistle kettles are but reminiscent of a distant train. I don't know what Sweetie and Future Housemate will make of it, and they may prefer to use a more modern electric kettle instead, but for that very first cup of tea in a new home it wouldn't feel right not to be using my much-beloved kettle.

Tea things, of course. Some mugs (enough for all three of us and at least one for a guest), and tea, and sugar, and spoons and a teatowel or two and I guess we'll have to buy some milk. A saucepan and a few bowls won't go amiss either, but that's more a practical concern than anything else.

Clean sheets for the bed; a pillow, and my duvet if it will fit. The flat I'm living in at the moment has become harder and harder to deal with, in housemate terms, and so I don't want to sleep there any more nights than I have to. My little rabbit, who I've had since I was small. And all the other sleeping things, and getting up things: towel (yes, I am a frood who knows where her towel is), toothbrush & paste, and so on.

A bit of piano music. I'm very much looking forward to having a piano in my home again after many years without. I can play some by memory but I want to set to work immediately on some of what I've been learning. And the other instruments I play need to come along, too, of course, though I can't fit them in the suitcase so I might need to make a few trips.

I'll bring my phone and charger, partly because it would be madly impractical not to, but mostly because staying in touch with my people is important. Too much isolation makes a home stop being a home, for me. The computer fits into this category too, but as there will initially be No Internet in the new house, it may just as well stay behind for a few days.

A rag and some soap for cleaning anything that needs it. I'm told the place has been cleaned before our arrival and certainly when we viewed it, it wasn't in bad shape. But there is something satisfying about finding the bit of dust that has been missed, about wiping an unnoticed corner of the countertop and saying, "There, there, house, I live here now and I will take care of you." (Those of you who know me well are laughing at this point and probably opening a book on how long it will take to become unbearably messy. That's not the point!)

Books. It might not seem like much but there are books that seem to make a place home or not. One has my grandmother's poetry in it, it is really like taking a piece of my prairie birthplace with me. I'll put a few others in too: short stories by Ursula LeGuin, perhaps a beloved cookbook or two. The number and type of books doesn't matter quite as much as their presence.

I've been praying Morning Prayer from the C of E website, and I can keep doing that through my phone if need be, but I want to start engaging with the books more: being spoon-fed liturgy by the internet is all well and good (especially when I am running late and the only time for me to fit the Office in is when I am on the bus or train...) but so is looking at various elements, especially the readings, in a wider context. So I'll be taking my copy of Daily Prayer, which I've scarcely touched since I bought it, and a NRSV Bible (I also have a Jerusalem Bible and a King James; I don't know yet which I prefer, and suspect it depends on the situation). I want to go to Morning Prayer at a local church sometimes but I doubt I'll be able to do it every day, and I want to establish the habit at home too. When we viewed the house there was a little table in the room that's going to be mine, and I'll put the religious books there. Also there will go my little oil diffuser/burner/whatever it is, the sort with a candle in the bottom and a cup for smellies in the top. I'll take that today too: there's much to be said for having matches and candles anyway, in case we have any trouble getting the utilities started (though this is arguably the very best time of year to have such difficulties).

Though I am not Jewish and I'm not even really very Jew-ish any more (I'll talk more about the difference some other time), I do sort of want a mezuzah. The Shema is still important to me, in a way that stops everything else even when I think of it. But I also want our home to be welcoming and comfortable for any and all who might visit, and I don't think overt religious symbols in communal areas will help much with that. I'm not sure what I'll do about this. I think maybe something to hang on the inside of the door to my bedroom would be appropriate. I'm waffling over whether I want the Shema or the Summary of Law. Some sort of illuminated text of either of them would be good. But I digress: this isn't something I'm putting in my suitcase today, it's something written on my heart.

The other ingredients that will make this place home definitely won't go into my suitcase, because they are Sweetie, and Future Housemate (I'll have to start calling her something else soon!). Their hopes and dreams for this place, along with mine, will do more to make it home than any of the objects I'm putting in a suitcase today. But the objects can be an expression of some of those hopes and dreams.

What makes a home for you? If you were going somewhere new and relatively unknown and had to take just the bare essentials to make a place feel like home rather than hostel, to make it feel like a place you could invite a friend or stranger rather than a place where you are the unfamiliar guest, what would you pack? Who would you take with you? Why?

The last couple of days have been truly wonderful. I got safely to my destination and was fed and watered and really, what sort of hostess but a fabulous one leaves a bar of FairTrade chocolate where I am sure to find it? (I've been saving it for the journey back to London.) The dogs are lovely in their enthusiastic doggy way, the cats are more circumspect but an absolute delight, and the humans here, the humans here are fantastic! I have been made to feel so very welcome and I am grateful to have been given this wonderful gift. The time away from London but still among friends, the mental and physical space to work with the companionship of knowing others are at work in the same house, has been a retreat of sorts, right when I needed it most.

I've not been online much, my computer doesn't want to play nice with the wireless here. That's just as well, really.

I've been thinking about sacrament and ritual and blessings and our human perceptions of same a fair bit, but the thoughts aren't really getting as far as words yet. I love that sometimes in said liturgy (and rather more often in sung worship), it feels to me as if something significant actually happens. I don't know whether that perception has any link at all to objective reality, but I know that looking for a church in Upper Suburbia, one of the things I will look for is whether that sense of awe is possible.

Sekr1t Pr0ject continues apace. I have a draft of something I can use, now, and so in some sense one of my goals for being here has been met. I'll do a different draft too, I think, and then let them sit a few days and see which one I like best before doing any serious editing. Many thanks to those of you who have helped with the project in one way or another--yes, you will get to see the results if you ask. And if you come across something that strikes you as perfect, don't hesitate to send it my way, as I am still open to ideas. Sorry if that's too cryptic for those of you not in on the sekr1t. It's a surprise, you see.

Housing continues to be source of mild stress, in that the letting agents are asking for documentation that I can't get to them when I'm not in London and didn't realise they needed before I left. But I still have hope that it will work out in the end.

The dogs took us for a long walk in the wood this afternoon (there were trees! and sticks! and other dogs! and grass! and dirt! and wind! and mud! and roots! and flowers! and butterflies! and birds! and sun! and shade!) and are now having some serious naps in various locations. I am starting to think the dogs have got the right idea... but I think I'll pick at a bit more work before I try to do too much else.

Placeholder post

Too many things to think about, let alone to post about! My brain, at the moment, is all about big ideas, general concepts, broad careless strokes of a chunky brush dipped in searingly bright colours. It's in my practising, my teaching, even composing (such as it is) is coming at me in big forms and harmonic structure rather than melodic line and fine nuance.

Typical, then, that this week in my academic work I need to write a report on Big Project, a meticulously detailed report of what I learned and how I learned it, complete with appendices, tables and charts. As someone who normally does that sort of learning in a more organic and intuitive way, I'm struggling a little to identify these things, but as a teacher and a musician I can do self-scrutiny well enough; as someone who thinks the structure of the assignment is not actually that helpful to the learning process I'm resentful of having to jump through the hoop. But the biggest problem is really that I keep getting distracted by big ideas.

The way I usually work through ideas is to talk about them or write about them.

Things I would like to write about, right here and right now, but for which I really haven't got the spare brain cycles:

-How my spirituality/beliefs relate to teaching music; how I can be more generally supportive of the families I work with, through music teaching and not in any overtly religious framework; how to pray about teaching
-I've touched on it a bit before, but more on music performance and spirituality and my current understanding of the relationship between the two
-Chronic pain and how I deal with that and various other physical and mental health difficulties. I'm not actually sure I can do this without turning it into a whinge-fest or completely destroying the fragile anonymity I'm trying to maintain here.
-Words and meaning; images and meaning; sounds and meaning. In the beginning there was the Word, we're told--but do we mean the word, or do we mean meaning itself? And how does this relate to our being made in God's image, and being creators of meaning ourselves?
-Psalmody and how/why it seems to work so much better for me when chanted or sung; the line between speaking and chanting, and between chanting and singing. I'd quite like to do lots of research into chanted/sung psalmody in the Jewish tradition and how that relates to the worship patterns of the early Church. And I'd like to get to know it all so much better, and find or help create an authentic, aesthetic and accessible sung/chanted Psalmody for English translations. Yes, lots of work is being done on this already; I'm essentially playing catch-up, in an academic sense. Meanwhile I keep singing them in Morning Prayer, and one day indeed pours out its song to another as in Psalm 19 this morning.
-Material poverty (of others) and asceticism (the temptation to it in myself, and a certain pointlessness). I really haven't ironed out my thoughts on this.
-FaceBook, Twitter, blogging, other ways of keeping in touch and building communities online and how I see (and how I use) these various tools.
-Food and prayer and (especially shared) meals, and an assortment of thoughts I've been having on these recently; Eucharist and sacrament within and without standard liturgy; this also relates to creating a welcoming home, and to being spiritual/religious in a pluralist/secular society, creating rituals that can be shared and meaningful without excluding anyone or making them feel uncomfortable.

The assignment will have to come first, I'm afraid. And I've got a busy week in other terms as well, so need to be careful not to commit to too much yet. But I might be able to write about one of these by Saturday-ish. Which would you like to read?