Life Goes On

Yeah, so I know it's been a while. Sorry. There just hasn't been much exciting to report! I've been over here long enough that things others might find interesting has become commonplace--as lots of things in life do. I'll try and give you an update as much as I can.

It's church council season. Yay! Church councils have the potential to be very, very long. Thing Administrative Council and Council on Ministries all rolled into one. We only meet three times a year. Blimey. Had one on Monday night that lasted over two hours and another on Wednesday that lasted just under two. Usually, as you might expect, it's the stupid stuff that we get caught up on. Monday night it was a 20 minute discussion about what to do with some old carpet that we have. Wednesday night, we spent 20 minutes on insurance. So fun times. I've got two more church councils coming up in a couple of weeks. God save the church from meetings.

It's Harvest time over here. Not only are the farmers harvesting their crops, but we celebrate that in church. And each church has a harvest festival. I've done two already. I'll beg forgiveness from my seminary professors, but I have a confession to make: I've abandoned the lectionary for Harvest this year. I'm using the texts appointed for Thanksgiving (US style) and I'm using them multiple times. Have Harvest service, will travel. It sure has freed up some time in my week, especially on Saturday nights, since I've not had to write a new sermon each week.

Some weeks, the whole day off thing just doesn't work out as it's supposed to. Yesterday was the 'world's biggest coffee morning' and of course, I had to pop round to one of those. And some other things crept up that I needed to deal with, so I didn't get my usual day off. I recognized this fact early enough and so kept Tuesday free. Upon further examination of my diary (planner/calendar), I noticed that Wednesday morning was also free. Hmmm....a day and a half with nothing planned. Stick around Norwich or head further afield? Decisions, decisions. I took off. Not literally, but I did take a train to Canterbury for the day. Probably not the greatest of ideas, but it worked out. Felt like a mini-holiday. It's a 4+ hour train ride down to Canterbury, which includes a journey on the Tube in London. So by the time I got there, it was already after noon. But I made the most of it.

So Canterbury is the place where the Archbishop of Canterbury is based (shocker, I know). For those of you who don't know, the Archbishop of Canterbury (currently Rowan Williams) is the head of the Anglican Communion (which is all the churches that started from the Church of England...like the Episcopalians in the US). Wherever a bishop or archbishop is based, there is a cathedral. Woohoo! Big church!! And, I managed to secure accomodation in the Cathedral Lodge which is within the Cathedral precincts. It was awesome. I walk into my room, look out the window and see the Cathedral. Amazing. So of course, I visited the Cathedral while I was in the city--three times. :-) Once as a tourist, twice as a worshiper. I went to choral evensong (absolutely gorgeous) and an 8am Holy Communion service. Mom asked me what I liked about the services. I told her, "the fact that I didn't have to lead them." It was fantastic. I also walked around the city centre, did a couple of touristy things, but then came back on Wednesday. It was a good trip. Felt like I'd been away longer than I had, which is always a sign of a good holiday.

That's about all I know to report right now. Would love to hear from any and all of you....let me know how you're getting on.

Work/Life Balance

One of the biggest difficulties about being a minister at all, and even more so in England, is the distinction between work and home. In this country, I have no office in a church. My office is in my home. Not only does that make it difficult to know where one ends and the other begins, but as with most parsonages in the US, the phone can ring at any time and anybody can stop by at any time. Well, I've now had my first experience of somebody dropping by unexpectedly at a bad time.

I had a date tonight. (Everyone pause appropriately for the utter amazement of that fact in and of itself.) The gentleman in question has invited me over to his place for a meal and some NFL action (yes, an English bloke who likes American football--a rare find!). I was running a tad late, but on my way. I had gotten in the car, made it out onto the road, when a somebody in an oncoming car starts flashing their lights at me. I recognize who it is, wave, and wasn't going to stop until I notice she has pulled over. So I mutter some sort of expletive and turn around to go back. We pull into my drive. The second she gets out of the car, she starts sobbing. Fabulous. Now what? We go inside, the situation has some history that I'm already aware of, so this was just a continuation of an ongoing problem that this woman's been facing for a while. She told me the latest bit of the story and asked me to go check on somebody else involved. What option do I have?

I rang up my date, said I was still coming, but would be arriving later than expected. Thankfully, he was understading about it all. So I finished talking to this lady, went and saw the other person, and then went to dinner. Did I do the right thing? Should I have cancelled the date and stayed with the family in question? There's nothing I could have done to fix the crisis. I got the update on the situation, prayed with them, and said I had something else I needed to get to. I then promised to ring them in the morning (which I will).

Good boundary setting or bad pastoral care? A tough call, really.

Sin and Faith

It's a terrible thing when you're faced with your own sin. And when you're a perfectionist like I am, there's an insatiable need to fix the problem immediately. Which isn't really possible. Which makes the feeling worse. And one wonders how to step out of the spiral of unworthiness.

Tonight I behaved badly on several occasions. No, these errors in judgment are not acquittable offenses and I'm in no danger of being arrested. However, they combine previous patterns of behavior with a definite shift in attitude that I have noticed over the past months.

Considering some of the radical changes I've faced in my life since I graduated from Duke, it will come as no surprise when I admit that I've experienced a bit of a crisis of faith since I got to England. As I pointed out to folks at Wesley when I was home on holiday, when those familiar things of faith (hymns, liturgies, etc) , those things you depended upon to facilitate divine worship, when they are removed from the scene, it's almost like starting over from scratch. I have to search a little bit harder to find that connection with God. It's largely a good thing to experience, but not at all easy to say the least.

In making all of these adjustments--spiritual, cultural, ecclesial, etc--I have found myself to be completely self-absorbed. I have lost my deep sense of caring and awareness of other people. That's not to say that I have stopped caring for people or anything like that, but my desire for self-preservation has completely trumped any thoughts I might have had for others. I've lost my passion for social justice. Yes, I can still spout the political stuff and speak passionately about those issues--but I don't feel it in my soul anymore. And here I am on the other side of my first year and I'm disgusted with who I've become.

I've always compared myself to others--we all do it. But that comparison of late has become one of 'how am I better than that person'. And it's awful. It's not Christian. Yes, I can see vestigaes of this sort of thought and behavior in my past...but for some reason it's all come to light tonight. Thanks be to God, I guess.

I find myself asking God--'so, how does this whole forgiveness thing work?' This is a major attitude shift that's going to take a while to make. I want to look for the best in people (which isn't a natural inclination of mine, unlike some people who seem to come by this trait naturally). I want to stop judging people and comparing myself to them. This entails, in part, accepting myself as a child of God--perfectly acceptable in my own right without having to be better or worse than anybody else. I want to regain my passion for others. But I don't think that's going to completely come until I can reclaim some of the faith I seem to have lost somewhere over the Atlantic.

So prayers are appreciated. Don't know if any of this makes any sense. Feels like one long ramble. Don't even know if I should be publishing this...but call it a lesson in vulnerability.

More on the wedding soon (which went really well), I promise.