Here I am.

Spoke to Sweetie about this vocation stuff, the other day. He is pretty spooked, but it went well. I did promise him I won't ask him to change his beliefs or come to church services, that seemed to reassure him some.

I talked to Gentle Vicar, said I'd been thinking about attending the area Vocations Day. He was completely unsurprised, and said he'd been meaning to ask me when I was going to start looking at vocation more seriously. A clergy friend, someone who has known me longer, who I love dearly and trust implicitly, was similarly unsurprised. She and one or two others have been brilliantly supportive, each in their own way.

I dropped off the application form for the vocations day the other evening.

It's all feeling frightfully real just now.

Meanwhile I'm nearly done the book I was asked to read as part of confirmation preparation. I have a lot of work to do where I am in addition to preparing for whatever comes next. I can't ignore the possibility of vocation to something different any longer, but I can't run away from where I am, either.

I'd better get used to it, I suppose.

More and less

Lent approaches and I've been thinking about giving things up, taking things on.

I don't want to let this just become about self-improvement. That does seem to be the gist of a lot of it for some people, and I'm not sure that's right. When I start to think about dietary changes, I can very quickly end up with a list that would have me eating perfectly, but making so many changes that I wouldn't really be contemplating God at all, because I'd be too busy avoiding fried food/sweets/meat/trans fats/processed food/etc. There's fasting, and there's neurotic behaviour.

I also don't really want to get into competitive self-denial, not even in the guise where I end up competing with others to get the self-denial "just right" rather than taking things to extremes.

I have the same trouble taking on spiritual practices. I go from "might like to try praying differently" to "keeping a Rule most monastics would find a bit on the strict side, while living a fully-engaged secular life" in about two blinks.

So I'm going to give one thing up, and I'm going to take one thing on, and I've given them both a lot of thought, trying to make sure this is about a journey toward God, not about perfectionism. I've only really told one or two people about these things and I'm not telling anyone else what they are. Even making this post is probably too far toward smugness. Enough.

However, I am going to devour me some pancakes tomorrow!

So there.

Then were we like those who dream.

I said I had more to write. I wasn't joking.

I'm someone who likes to figure things out by talking them through, writing them down, thinking about them. Sometimes I don't even really know what I feel about a situation until I've put it into words.

Last Wednesday night/Thursday morning I had a pretty strong dream.

I'm used to weird and crazy dreams of one sort or another. I generally think of them as my brain's maintenance subroutines, and best not interfered with unless they are causing me undue distress. I am hesitant to give them significance. I want to be able to explain things, and dreams are all too often inexplicable.

This dream was different. In this dream, things I've been trying to understand became clear. The answers were there all along. In the dream I was asked to write them down, and I did. I almost never have words in dreams, let alone write them. Words are for the day, the light.

When I woke, I remembered what I'd written. So I wrote it down. It still makes sense.

I was asked to write down what the church is, what I'm supposed to do there. I wrote:

1) Togetherness/unity in Christ.
2) Unconditional service.

For 2) I meant unconditional service of all people, serving God through serving God's children.

For 1) I meant the Eucharist. And it's so obvious -- there is only one bread, I've said that how many times? -- but I think, on the whole, I get so caught up in 2), in service to others and the community, that I tend to push aside 1).

So much else was going on, Thursday and the days surrounding it -- tidying and cleaning in preparation for a house inspection was just one of the things on my plate -- but this, this came along anyway. And I can't ignore it, and I can't ignore little itches, insistent scratching about vocation, priesthood even, any longer. All the same, I felt less stressed about the whole thing than I have in a while. There's plenty of time, you see, and other things this week make it quite clear that the work I'm doing now is just as important, will not be rushed.

The problem with dreams is that if I tell someone "I had a dream about X and now I feel very strongly that I must pursue Y" they will think I have come rather unhinged. I have, of course. But who'd be sane by this world's rules?

That doesn't help in talking to Sweetie, talking to spiritual directors, talking to all the people I'll have to talk to if this leads where I think it will. Explaining myself. I like explanations because I can use them to explain myself to others. If this is what I think, there's going to be a lot of 'splaining to do.

Even typing that, a part of me thinks "If? What do you mean, if? Surely you mean when?", and I stop, and take another breath, and somehow, there are no words.

More house stuff

We had our house inspection today.

It takes a certain special something to be that rude, that condescending, and that oblivious to having just walked dog poo into the carpets we spent hours cleaning earlier this week.

But we did "pass" the inspection, so we should be left in peace to the quiet enjoyment of the property. As a bonus, the house is looking cleaner than it has in a while and, while I think it was well within what is legally acceptable before, I am happier with it in its current tidier state.

There is so much more that I could write, but I'm tired and I have work in the morning, so I think it's time to head bedward.

Home away from home

Off I went to Leafy Suburb Church for Evensong tonight. As I always am, I was glad I went. Leafy Suburb Church has been special in so many ways.

My first piece of liturgical music was sung there by the choir, in honour of Ambassador for Compassion. The choir let me sing with them, too, and though I'm only there about once a month I feel part of things, part of a sort of community-within-a-community. It's not the belonging, I think, that gets to me. I think it's that I emphatically don't belong and yet am still welcome that's so powerful. I can't come to most of the rehearsals, I don't live anywhere near the parish, I can almost never be there for the main events of that church, and yet what I do have to offer is accepted, openly.

When I first spoke to the vicar about writing a piece of music I was so scared, so scarred by previous experiences. You know, I don't think I'd willingly spoken to a priest for years, never mind initiating contact. The first choir rehearsal I went to, to figure out what the choir might be able to do, I was so nervous, so unsure what to expect. At the first service I went to I was uncertain and uncomfortable, so uncomfortable about participating in a Christian act of worship.

And yet all along the way I have been met with friendliness, acceptance, love. That meeting with the vicar was exactly as informal as I needed it to be; that first choir rehearsal was entirely unremarkable. That first Evensong service was uncomfortable for me but it was somehow okay that I was uncomfortable, and the vicar said "God loves us to bits" in her sermon. The first time I sang in the choir it felt like coming home, and every time I go back I come away feeling a strange lightness. It's always bittersweet, knowing I won't be back for a month or maybe more, but I am always glad I went. And occasionally, I find the same feeling at other places. There were bits of Greenbelt that were like that, and K's vicarage is, and taking Communion for the first time in so many years certainly was, and I went to a midday Eucharist at a city cathedral a few weeks ago where I nearly cried with the sense of welcome I felt. But Leafy Suburb Church was the first and I guess that makes it sort of sticky, so that every time I go back I'm reminded.

I don't think that the issues with the letting agents are going to go away and I will still be mightily pissed off if I end up having to move -- either in the next month or two, or this summer after our contract expires. But I am much-comforted tonight by a small community in an unremarkable leafy suburb which, for me, has been a model of what church can be like, and which reassures me I have another sort of home than the sort over which letting agents and their ilk can have any say or sway.

Thanks be to God.

Waiting

We decided, more or less by default, to take a "gently gently" approach with the letting agents. Oh, the Scrabble magnets on the refrigerator say some pretty rude things about them at the moment, but we haven't written any exceedingly polite letters about our right to quiet enjoyment of the property, and we haven't rescheduled or cancelled the second inspection, due this weekend. We're trying to be philosophical about the "opportunity" to give the house a good spring clean. I'm mostly coping, but feeling stressed at times, especially the nights Sweetie isn't home.

Meanwhile, life goes on, Lent approaches fast, I have realised that I am working long enough hours to become inefficient and need to place some sensible boundaries on things. I'm looking for a new spiritual director, having spoken in some depth to people I consider spiritually astute about my experiences; I think I've found some good guidance on this, closer to home than I expected. I also realise I need to return to a regular journal-writing practice; not necessarily the public one of blogging each day, but some sort of time putting my thoughts into words. I've done this on and off for over a decade and I am always happier, healthier and more "productive" (though not always in ways that are immediately apparent) when I do it. Of course, correlation is not causation and it may be that when I am well I return to the journal because I finally have the energy to do so. So this week I've been writing in spare moments, and I think this is good. I will see where it leads.

I'm considering studying theology more formally, by distance learning. There's a course that might be suitable. I can't really justify it yet; my musical career (hah!) needs a lot of attention before I'll be self-sufficient and I can't really afford the money until then, but I'd love to do it.

I want to be planting my garden, it's planting time here, but I have to wait until I know whether we can keep living here. Still, I've done some things in containers. It's something.

House and home

I dislike renting a house.

I dislike not being able to add solar panels, better insulation, windows that don't leak, floor materials that wear better, adequate kitchen cupboards that have doors that close.

I dislike knowing that if the landlord decides he doesn't want to rent any more, I will have to move.

I dislike inspections every six months in which a letting agent can decide to make my life difficult or easy based on the "condition" of the house. Inspections of any kind make me nervous anyway, due to unpleasant childhood episodes, but house inspections are frightening enough that I've wriggled out of being home for the last two, leaving them to Intrepid Anthropologist.

On Wednesday we had one such inspection. Previous ones had been all right, we aren't perfect housekeepers but the place isn't filthy, but I was still worried. And this man who didn't even give his name came into the house where we live, our home, and declared it unsatisfactory in all sorts of ways. He actually said "I don't know how you can live this way" to my face.

I repeat, we aren't perfect housekeepers -- but the place is by no means filthy, and we certainly aren't causing damage to the fabric of the property.

And so now we've had a nasty letter from the letting agents, saying there will be a re-inspection for which all of us must be present (why?), demanding various bits of the house are "professionally" cleaned (professional cleaners are, as my housemate points out, just people with materials, experience, and not much better career prospects), saying we must put the garden back in its original state (I've put in some raised beds for growing veg -- the plan is to take them with me when we leave -- on previous inspections they haven't been a problem) and so on. The letter is unpleasant in tone and it isn't even grammatically coherent.

I have a sneaking suspicion that what is actually happening is that the landlord wants the house back, he wants it back before the end of our contract, and the letting agents are trying to get us out by 5th April and have us clean the place from top to bottom first so they don't have to.

We do have friends who work in housing law; as I type this, Intrepid Anthropologist is on her way to visit them to discuss what is and is not reasonable and what part of the letting agent's actions constitute interference with our quiet enjoyment of the property.

But even if that goes well, even if we clean the place from top to bottom before the next inspection (5th March, at least we've got a bit of time, though it will interfere hugely with work), it seems likely to me that the letting agent would rather have us gone than keep us -- if we argue we'll be "problematic" tenants -- and we'll end up moving house again by this summer at the latest. And that, in turn, scares me. I cannot tell you how much I loathe moving house, and doing it because someone else has decided I must is very much worse than it being my own decision.

Your prayers, if you're a praying sort, would be appreciated.

I know that it is unlikely I will end up homeless. I know that even if I were to end up homeless I would, ultimately, be okay. Love is stronger than death, I keep telling myself, so this ought to be a piece of piss. It's a struggle to keep that in mind with this sort of upheaval looming. Emotionally I am veering between trying not to fret because I'm fairly powerless anyway, and a sort of paralysis around the things I can do that might make a difference (mostly, lots of cleaning) because they might not be enough anyway. Ultimately, I do not get to decide whether I stay here: someone who sees me as a source of income, as an object rather than as a human person, gets to decide.