You start to see the world a little differently When you turn it upside down

I sometimes feel like I’m looking at the world from a different place to people round me – I’m guessing this is not an uncommon feeling for a lot of people, I’m not claiming I’m unusual! In any case I’ve read plenty recently from others feeling this same sort of dislocation, both in established ministry and training, men *and* women…

This song makes me feel positive about it though! It’s been on my mind a lot recently – so this is for all of us who sometimes ( often?) wonder where our fit is!

Angels watching over me with smiles upon their face
Cause I have made it through this far in an unforgiving place

It feels sometimes this hill’s too steep for a girl like me to climb
But I must knock those thoughts right down I’ll do it in my own time

I don’t care
I’m half way there
On a road that leads me to straight to who knows where

I tell you what
What I have found
That I’m no fool
I’m just upside down

Ain’t got no cares
I aint got no rules
I think I like
Living upside down

Watchin people scurry by rushing to and fro
Oh this world is such a crazy place it’s all about the go go go

Sometimes life can taste so sweet When you slow it down
You start to see the world a little differently When you turn it upside down

I don’t care
I’m half way there
And I’m just soaking up the magic in the air

I tell you what
What I have found
That I’m no fool
I’m just upside down

Ain’t got no cares
I aint got no rules
I think I like
Living upside down

(Whoa Whoa Whoa)
You gotta slow it down
(Yeah Yeah Yeah)
But then you pick it up
(Whoa Yeah Whoa)
C’mon and try a little topsy-turvy back-to-front the right way round
Take it slow slow slow (You gotta pick it up)
Yeah Yeah Yeah (See you slow it down)
Hey Yo Yo Yo (Tell me something something)

I tell you what
What I have found
That I’m no fool
I’m just upside down

Ain’t got no cares
I aint got no rules
I think I like
Living upside down

I tell you what
What I have found
That I’m no fool
I’m just upside down

Ain’t got no cares
I aint got no rules
I think I like
Living upside down

Dad

This was the card I bought my Dad this Fathers’ Day.

When I was a teenager I got frustrated sometimes by his insistence that I could aim higher, improve my grades, shoot for the difficult goal. (no dad I really don’t want to do Maths A level… ever…) Perhaps with the innate laziness of youth I just wanted to kick back  occasionally!!  Looking back he wasn’t really nagging, but what he did was make me see I had a lot to offer and set the foundations for me to believe in myself  ( That bit took a while though….!). It wasn’t just school work either. He encouraged me across the board, and especially in what I was doing in church and  the beginnings of leadership skills that were learnt  in Scouting,  and in youth work.   I’m sure it has been his unwavering belief, not in my abilities per se, but in my ability to go for it that has helped me take big steps in my life, believing somehow  it would be ok.  Applying to Cambridge was certainly one, and then there’s the Very Big Thing I’m doing now!  I don’t think up to now I’ve been fully aware of dad’s part in this,  it’s been less about specific advice,  just that unwavering belief. Maybe it was seeing  this card and realising it was perfect that has helped me see the bigger picture – but  in any case, Thanks Dad, and Happy Fathers’ Day!

Why I want England to win the (soccer) World Cup

So  that some other cohort can endure  44 years of their lives being told ” ooh 2010, good year for football…” and I can reclaim my birthyear and cease seeing it on t shirts stretched over beer bellies…!

Though I have to say I was mildly tempted by this T-shirt – if it could be tweaked a little…

“Forever 1966,  -out of your league” would do it!!

It would be a jolly good party too, whatever your  ok my, opinion of the game!! and we could stop this everso slightly sad constant harking back to ’66…

1314, 1990? I’m saying nothing

Lightening the dark places

Sometimes life feels really tough, grinding and relentless. Stuff gets chucked at you and starts obscuring the light, all I can see is the stuff, like layers of black fabric,  up close and claustrophobic, suffocating, opaque stuff… push it away fora bit and the light gets through again, the relief is palpable, but now the stuff is round my feet, tangling, tripping, and more stuff gets chucked, and now there’s no light again, but no way of moving either… and is that the light at the end of the tunnel anyway or is it the train?..

Hiding away in this dark place I dig round and find those dark thoughts, haven’t thought those thoughts in a while… maybe if I yell them loudly someone will hear, through this stuff…

But even in the act of yelling, I know I don’t really believe them, I don’t really want to give them voice, and somehow, the help comes,  the dark thoughts fade a bit in the light as the stuff falls away a bit. It’s still there, that stuff, no one can take it away completely at the moment, but if there are gaps then what I see is the light, the way ahead, and not the covering of black stifling stuff.

Help isn’t taking the stuff away, help is listening to the darkest thoughts and helping me bring them to the light, where they fade, and eventually die. Help is parting the black stuff so I can see out, and see the light. People who can do this are angels in disguise, I am grateful I know them, more than I can say.

I  know I don’t want to be anywhere else, doing anything else. In my deepest place I know that this is the right place; it just hurts to be here right now.

Twordinands Two

There’s been a bit of movement in the world of the Twordinands – some of it clearly caused by work avoidance (you know who you are…) and some of it by the vagaries of Twitter who seem to have recently lobbed rather a lot of posts off random accounts. As this culling has happened to the righteous and the unrighteous, Ordinands & Clergy, alike it seems that we’ll just have to live with it for now but it seems rather unfair on Sarumcassock and Pergamum whose twitter listings seem to have been zeroed (Aliaswhensmile’s tweet count was zeroed, but she seems to have enough friends & followers to keep her in the running! And mine went from 5000+ to 800 ish which has lost me a couple of %!)

I will redo this earlier than otherwise if I see that Twitter sorts its stats out.

Other interesting things to note: Do you get a fast track if your name is Taylor, or Jonathan, or both?! How many or these tweets are theological in nature? ( and aren’t you glad there’s no way of grading based on that..)and what extra marks do you get for getting a colleague so addicted they jump from newbie to 72% in 2 months?! I’ve added in real names ( as found on Twitter) and colleges where I know or they are listed.

As ever, do let me know if you know of any other twittering ordinands, several of these guys get ordained Deacon in the next few weeks too and so will be eligible for the Twurch of England listings! Pray for them!

 

Twitter name	Real name	College	Previous grade	Current grade
Sadbuttrue	Simon Douglas	Queens	94	93
Jamesctaylor	James Taylor	Oak Hill	Not previously graded	90
Phillipsc	Chris Phillips	Cuddesdon	89	89
Fibrefairy	Angi Nutt	STETS	90	88
Ordinandy	Andy Campbell		88	88
Revisingreform	Rachel Marszalek	St Johns	81	81
Jonjontaylor	Jonathan Taylor	Trinity	81	79
chrispfox	Chris Fox	Trinity	76	77
Hammermatt	Matt Wallace		75	75
Evordinand	Michael Smith	STETS	Not previously on twitter	72
Ordinand	Jon Swales	Trinity	72	72
gilkay	Gill Stanning		65	69
aliaswhensmile	Sheena Williams	STETS	67	63
danatoakhill	Dan Henderson	Oak Hill	Not previously graded	61
sharpcity	James Sharp	STETS	54	53
mtaylor169	Matthew Taylor		39	34
andrew_kingston	Andrew Williams	STETS	31	34
pergamum	Jonathan Lowe	Trinity	41	10broken twitter
Sarumcassock	Craig Roters		62	10 broken twitter

Playlists!

Ecclectic as ever, I’m not going to even attempt to analyse this lot, but here’s a very small taster of my current faves playlist.

and this last is just a taster as I can’t find any of the tracks on Youtube, but there are one or two that are firmly in my listening diet at the moment

Always a woman…

I’ve had a bit of a liking for Billy Joel’s music  for a long while since my group of friends  each all  had ” my song” of his in the VIth form! ( Mine,  it will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, was ‘My life’, and my best friend was a Roman Catholic called Virginia…’nuf said.. but I digress). Fast forward to 2010 and I am a big Fyfe Dangerfield fan, so I was always going to love this John Lewis advert quite apart from the brilliant concept.

It set me  thinking though; I’ve heard several comments about how the song isn’t appropriate, it’s not flattering to women, why would JLP want to associate their customers with  this ” description” of  a woman!

I could google and find out exactly what Billy Joel was getting at when he wrote it, was he describing one uber b*tch or is it more general than that? But I haven’t and I’m not going to, whatever his intentions it’s made me think about what it might be about – and about how we still expect or want this perfect idealised view of people, and especially of women. The visuals in the video are gorgeous, but highly edited, in all senses, they portray that perfect daughter/wife/mother image to which women are supposed to match up. The contrast with the harsher words of the song is perhaps quite marked…

Or is it? the impression I get from this song  is of strength, and of an acceptance of humanity  - ” she’s always a woman to me” – despite all our failings, our inadequacies and the way we hurt each other, beyond all that we are real people with so much capacity  for love and strength.

There is a strong strand of thinking in our society that  polarises the image of women, if you’re not perfect then you’re  completely  imperfect,   it’s the madonna /whore , good girl/bad girl dichotomy which  has been explored by many writers over the years,  girls and women with spirit and creativity, in other words those who don’t fall into the box of acceptable femininity, have been so often marginalised and criticised and feared not just by men, in fact less by men I think,  but by other women too, and this is the issue for me, and why I have reflected on this song so much. It has been other women who have criticised the use of this song for this advert, not men, who I think  are more likely on the whole “get” the whole humanity picture of women that is portrayed here, it is so often women though who find it hard to climb out of the either/or box of defined femininity. I guess largely this is about aspirations, or expectations that have been placed upon us in childhood and adolescence.

Unsurprisingly this attitude still exists in the church too, where perhaps women have been expected to behave better, be better and in ministry somehow prove that they are “better” than the men in order to be accepted. Maybe? Often a slip up has resulted in “well what did we say…” but you know what – I think we ( women) have to take ourselves off our own pedestal here, we have to stop getting quite so annoyed by the criticisms, stop thinking we need special treatment, if we want to minister and serve as the other half of God’s image in the world we have to do it alongside, not expecting positive discrimination or special consideration. Two halves of the whole can’t work on different levels. We’re not in ministry to be better, but to complete the whole.

This reflection did not start out in any way  to be a feminist diatribe,  in fact deeply the opposite, I want to be able to celebrate the humanity in my femininity , to accept that I am not perfect, nor, this side of death, will I ever be. I want to celebrate the fact that those nastier sides of me can be changed and worked on, that I don’t have to stay bound by them, but that the broken and messy me  can, does and will make me a better person, a better priest, a better parent,  a better pastor because it gives me an understanding and insight into the other broken and messy lives around me. I want to be able to know that my friends and family despite my flaws and feistiness can look at me and say

~ she’ll bring out the best and the worst you can be
Blame it all on yourself ’cause she’s always a woman to me~

because ultimately this is all about relationship, our reactions more than the other’s actions, our acceptance of each other, our  flaws and failings, and seeing the human made in the image of God, male & female, at the root of it all.

Monday, 31 May 2010 The Visit of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth

I meant to post this yesterday,and to mark this commemoration, for the simple reason that there is one verse in Luke’s account that has been very special to me for many years, and for several reasons. One of them was about having children, after some horrible experiences before Ruthy, and the other was the promise that the call I tentatively felt, that I believed God was speaking to me about  would be in  some way fulfilled.

In looking up that verse now in several versions I find it’s marked and tagged in almost every bible I have!

this is the NIV the version I first encountered it in

Luke 1:45

Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished

Gotta have a pocket or two

Today’s Yesterday’s, (I’ve just realised the time!!) mini project was an internal pocket for this bought ( I know i know) bag which was otherwise fabulous ( colour, size, feel…and it was Fairtrade too, from a women’s development project…) anyway, it had no pockets, and to be honest I was scrabbling around for small stuff more than I had been in my big Ikea print bag ( so boo hiss to those people who were rude about the size of it, you know who you are…. ) -and writing this has made me realise I didn’t blog about that project… I thought I had…!

I made a lined, zippered pouch, it stands alone so if I ever want to I can remove it and it’s a makeup bag or pencil case or whatever… and then I slipstitched it to the ( single layer) bag – it does show a bit at the back, but not hideously. It’s lightly padded wih a fusible fleece which while it makes it a tad bulkier does make it ideal for my phone & ipod and other more delicate bits & bobs.

So that’s only one pocket… a narrow pen/specs pocket may appear tomorrow…. the eternal quest for the perfect internal bag configuration continues

40

The psalm for Morning Prayer today is Psalm 40

I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.

He brought me out of the roaring pit,
out of the mire and clay;
he set my feet upon a rock and made my footing sure.

He has put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God;
many shall see and fear
and put their trust in the Lord.

(Just added in the Wordle I made a year or so back after I happened to be flicking through my flickr this morning!)

I got distracted from MP to listen to this,  an awesome rendition of this psalm that has been a favourite since my teens!  Ps 40 has a lot to say to me today, I’ll be playing this track in the car this morning.