Tired, frustrated, annoyed

When I arrived at Romsey Mill for my weekly reminder of life on the edge I was greeted by Gavin and Ruth complaining that I hadn't blogged about my work there for ages. Little did we realise how much material the afternoon's events would give us.

With the late afternoons becoming lighter it's now possible to take our group of Year 9's out to do something constructive, after a winter of being cooped up playing Wii Sports, Murderball and badminton. With a recent grant being made to the Mill we are able to continue work with Anglesey Abbey, a nearby National Trust property.

However, we nearly didn't get there. The minibus stopped twice on the way - firstly for a seatbelts reminder, the second time for Gavin to address some really unpleasant behaviour between certain individuals in the group. Take a mixture of bad language, misogyny and plain rudeness, use your imagination, double the result and you'll be nowhere near the level of what we experienced yesterday. After a brief pause to reconsider our life choices the journey resumed, and we eventually met up with Iwan, who works for the National Trust on their grounds and looks after their work with schools and other agencies like Romsey Mill. However, I imagine that Iwan's experience of my son's Year 4 class a few months ago is the other end of the spectrum from this group.

The energy from the minibus did not disperse when we got into the open air. Larger and larger sticks and branches were being brandished, and I was not in a mood for being polite. So when I told Andy* for the 'n'th time to put his branch-sized stick down (notice the 'told', not 'asked') and he refused to co-operate unless I said 'please' I simply pulled the branch from his hand. He went off in a strop, and I decided that this wasn't a time to discuss what I've recently learnt in Greek about my choice of the 'imperative mood'.

Half an hour later Andy was still in a bad mood. Apparently I'd made his hand bleed pulling the branch from him. Not that you could tell this from looking at his hand. I apologised and thought it was over. But no, for the remainder of the session he would not forgive me. I had sticks thrown directly at me, even after I re-apologised, and after Gavin had explained that it was now time to let it go. Gavin even at one point stood in the line of fire to take my suffering upon himself (in a literal re-enactment of Jesus), but still no forgiveness, not even by the time we got back to the Mill.

Gavin and I found ourselves asking 'why?'. Why the extreme bitterness between group members, why the irrational lack of forgiveness? Why are we doing this? We realised that we're doing this tough work because nobody else is, because we've chosen to do as Jesus tells us to - to work with the last, the least and the lost. That means that it's not always going to be easy, that sometimes we want to stop, but we can't - if we stop working with the marginalised youth nobody else is going to help them.

We each walked away knowing that Jesus would have a killer line to these young people. One sentence that would stop them in their tracks, that they wouldn't be able to answer back to, that they wouldn't dare question. But what is it?

*name changed

Sorry, I didn't realise you were serious!

An amusing incident, with a serious undertone....

This morning, just before our 'how to write a sermon' class began our lecturer/teacher/preacher Paul was trying to work out what time the session was actually meant to start. Was it 10am exactly, or 10.05, or what? Consensus decided that as it was already 10.06 we should start anyway, Paul cleared his throat and the background hum died down. All except for one voice which continued to converse with his neighbour. To preserve his dignity we'll call him Gordon.

Paul is quite perceptive, and noticed that there wasn't total silence. So he asked Gordon to say a short prayer to kick off the session. All adopted an appropriate posture and waited for the prayer to begin.

And waited.

And waited.

After a while eyes started to open, heads started to lift, before Paul pointed out to Gordon that he couldn't hear him....

"Oh, sorry, I didn't realise you were serious" (i.e. I thought you were just telling me to shut up!)

After we had composed ourselves Gordon did indeed manage a prayer, out loud, and we started the lecture.

But it raises a point. How often have we been asked to do something for God and we've not taken it seriously, or we've ignored it hoping it will go away? God is waiting for you to do it, prompting you to remind you that he's still waiting.....

Under Bishop's Orders

College Communion tonight was attended by the Bishop of Huntingdon, as our intern Katy Wehr was to be confirmed by him.

He opened the service by asking us to turn our mobile phones back on, with a request to get blogging and twittering, in order to match the Queen who updated her website today. So here I am; however, I'm so tired that I can't really write much, apart from that I really enjoyed the service, which was a really special occasion for Katy.

In order to meet his request for technological wizardry here's a short video I shot on my phone whilst operating the sound system
(Parental Warning - video includes people in a church setting enjoying themselves, exhibiting the sort of behaviour that TV likes to portray as weird, such as using modern instruments and raising hands in worship)
(Quality warning - the picture quality is rubbish!)




Tomorrow we're off on a prayer weekend away with most of the first years and staff. The depths of rural Norfolk beckon.

Whimsical looking vicars

There's nothing like a good reality shock to prepare you for what's ahead.

This is the time of year when the 'tat fair' hits Ridley. In other words the day when the suppliers of clergy paraphenalia visit to flaunt their wares. They're mostly focussed on clothing, but there is also the opportunity to buy packs of candles, palm leaves (£15.84 for a 7ft branch), purificators, incense grains, fibreglass stations of the cross, holy socks (yes, really), hymn boards, monstrances and augustine albs. And before you ask I don't know what all of those are or why I would want many of them.

I went not because I needed to, but just to give myself 12 months to get used to the idea. I had a nice chat with one of the ladies about people's expectations of you and your robes, and what it says about you. Even if you don't do full robes every Sunday, do you wear them for weddings and funerals, and does it make a difference to what you wear for these events if the people are churchgoers or not? A hoodie-with-dog-collar might be useful in some circumstances, but entirely inappropriate in others. Plain blue shirt or grey denim today? Cerise or lemon? (oh, that's the ladies section...)

I've got a nice selection of catalogues, with pictures of vicars modelling shirts and looking whimsically into the middle distance. I've seen all styles of clerical shirts, T-shirts and hoodies (made to measure in any colour or style of my choosing). One of them looked more like a Brownie uniform than a vicar's shirt, but it's nice to know that it's available. I've seen stoles, cassock albs, surplices, and Fairtrade shirts, but I've declined the opportunity to try on. Not just yet thanks. Some first years are in total denial and won't even go in the room until their final year.

For some of those in their final year this was a big reality shock. In 4 months time they will need the outfit for their ordination service. One of my staircase colleagues has simply limited herself to a hoodie and a single clerical shirt - it's all she can face at this stage. For the final year students it's beginning to hit home that something big happens later this year, when the academic side is over and it's time to hit the streets.

More tea vicar?

It's taken a while, but it's finally happened.

Each Thursday afternoon at 4pm the staff and students gather in the Common Room for 'Common Room Tea'. Staircases take it in turns to do the catering, which varies from home-made cakes (practice for us judging at summer fairs?) to packets of chocolate biscuits, to plates of fresh pineapple and melon slices.

But this week, for the first time ever, with snow on the ground outside, we took tea with cucumber sandwiches and scones.

Just one minor detail - the crusts had been left on the cucumber sandwiches, but they were very nice crusts.

Coming soon to a church near you

I can reassure you that the congregations of years to come have nothing to fear. Your future curates and vicars are as childish as anybody else when the snow falls. Emerging from Staircase Prayers this morning we were bombarded with a hail of snowballs from students and staff alike. I was just the test case - they were waiting for Principal Andrew to emerge. This appears to be some form of training for those who will be placed in northern counties where the local unchurched rabble stand outside snowy churches waiting for the vicar to leave the building.

[in the interests of appropriate academic practice I should state that some of these photos weren't taken by me, but I can't be bothered to find out whose they are]





On the left my snowman impression. The horns are a temporary feature, due to interaction of snow, cycling helmet and spiritual conditions. They've receded now.








On the right a Christmas card picture of the chapel.

Below the Royal Marines finest, Fred Frederick, fails to hit the target (apparently a rare occurrence):

By the way, Principal Andrew let it slip to me that he's been reading this blog. Watch out, here he comes again......look as if you're paying attention.

'Hello Sir. I think you'll find all is in order. Just practising writing for the church newsletter'.

p.s. be warned - Andrew can return snowballs as well he receives them.