The Farmer and the Head Mischief

A school is a very different place when the children are not there! So after Mass this morning it was nice to have a tour of Moorlands School today to meet the staff and children. My first visit had been a Governor's meeting and there was a distinct absence of children then and no real idea of what the school felt like! Today though was different! A quick coffee in the staff room and then a wander from class to class, seeing children at their work (and play!), having a quick conversation with members of staff and children alike. 'Are you a Head Mischief?' asked one little girl. I knew what she was asking...but I was neither a head mistress or 'a head mischief!' It reminds me of one of my visits to a primary school when I was a Curate in Barry. 'Are you a real farmer?' I was asked in the playground. I didn't, at first, know what the little boy was asking. Me? A farmer? Of course not. At least, I don't think so. Was it something I was wearing? If I turned to look behind me would I see a flock of sheep that had sneaked up behind me in a Disneyesque fashion?! Ahh, farmer! I quickly told him that, 'No, I wasn't Farmer Dean. I was Father Dean. Now he had to work out what that one meant! But soon he was busy rescuing his ball from the drain! Perhaps he never gave it a second thought!

This afternoon it was another school. This time the more auspicious surroundings of the Cathedral School in Llandaff to work with a group of Year Sixers to plan a Mass for a Chaplain's conference (to be held there in February). The task today? To explore what we would do if we could change the world! There were many different propositions! From having 'Chocolate Friday' when everyone in the world was given chocolate (why stop at Fridays I thought?!) to making sure that everyone had a job or a home. Perhaps the chocolate idea wouldn't be too favourable in the eyes of the recently announced £1.4m strategy from the Welsh Assembly to tackle obesity in children aged 7 to 13 years - but perhaps it was an apt suggestion from a pupil in a school where Roald Dahl was once a pupil!

It's been many years since I picked up a Roald Dahl book to read. In fact I only ever remember reading one or two when I was a child. At the moment I am making up for lost time and making my way through the Chronicles of Narnia (none of which I have read before!) I started with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and have just started The Magician's Nephew but even though they are very slim volumes, simply written for children, I always seem to be ready for sleep as soon as I clutch the pages! It's where I'm off now I think. So it's up the stairs I go, clutching my C.S. Lewis! Maybe I'll get to the third chapter tonight before I fall asleep! I'm not sure why I'm so tired...maybe it's all the farming I'm doing!

On the Buses

I am impressed by their missionary zeal, their rapid response, their colourful collection of words clinging to the sides of buses up and down and across the country. The people behind the Humanist Advertising campaign which splashes a moving message across our towns and cities simply reads: 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.' I don't see the problem myself. The campaign was began in response to various Christian advertising campaigns that have appeared in the same place (and whose webistes promised 'non-Christians an eternity of torment in a lake of fire.' Ouch!) I'm not sure what worrying or lack of enjoyment I experience as a result of actually believing that there is a God, mind, but the Atheist advertisers have, in my mind, every right to spread their message. 'There's no God.' 'Probably' Or as Richard Dawkins says, 'Almost certainly.'

Since I gave up my car a couple of years ago I have spent much time on buses and trains and have rather enjoyed the experience. There have been a few occasions of frustration caused by late arrivals, non arrivals, delays and missed buses but apart from that I quite like travelling by public transport. For the most part things work well. The journey gives me time to think or read or grapple with the crossword or catch up with some work or watch the world go by or, rather, watching the world watching me go by. Criss crossing through each other's lives, all going somewhere, anywhere, moving on, moving away. I wonder how many of my fellow travellers worry about the existence of God or if their lives are only half enjoyed because they just don't know what or who is out there or up there or if there is anything or anyone anywhere that makes it all worthwhile.

A Christian bus driver has refused to drive a bus that carries the campaign. I see his point but I won't be waving the next bus on because of what message it carries. Rather, I shall see the irony of being carried along by a bus that proclaims that there probably isn't a God. After all, I shall be planning my school assembly (to be delivered to a mixed bag of Christians, atheists, agnostics or 'couldn't care lessers') or writing a homily or grappling with the crossword or watching the world watching me go by: making my way through my day, through my life, trying to get somewhere. Like everyone else on the bus. Or maybe, just maybe, I shall be on a bus telling me that 'Every little helps' or one that entices me to try the new Flame Grill Burger from McDonalds. Either way, I hope I shall arrive safely.

The stories may be found at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/7832647.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7813812.stm

What day is it, again?

The people you meet. The three individuals who came to the morning Mass (it is still a nice surprise to see who finds their way to the daily Octave Mass - today, two older ladies: Stella who is, I am discovering, a regular weekday worshipper, and Peggy, a lady I met for the first time a couple of days ago and who remembers worshiping in the old St Francis Church and whose statue and altar have, in addition to her, found their way into St Saviour's. And then there is Sue, whose face is a familiar one from attending the regular diocesan youth events with her husband and High School son). After Mass I spend some time sorting a few things out in church and I meet a collection of people wandering up the Church path. One of them recognises me - she works at St Teilo's School. The rest are her visitors looking for names on the war memorial outside. They find the name they are looking for, and I hear the clicking of the camera as I leave them to their business of remembering. An elderly lady in the queue behind me at the Co-op Store asks what day it is. I pause awhile not being able to recall the actual day of the week. We are, for a little while, united in our confusion. I have no excuse. Age is on her side.

Later that afternoon, a phonecall. I have forgotten a funeral visit, and I rush out of the house, grabbing my coat and scarf and remembering the old lady in the Co-op store. What day is it, again? I rush across to Grangetown to meet someone whose elderly mother has died and whose funeral is next week at St Saviour's Church, and, for the duration of my rather brisk walk, I wish I had never abandoned my car several years ago! The son and his wife accept my apologies graciously. His mother had been born and brought up in Splott and had, in fact, been baptised at St Francis' Church. We talk awhile. Memories. Sadness. Some laughter. Leaving the couple behind I walk back across the bridge on the Taff Embankment. A lady in a red car beckons to me. She is a worshipper from St Dyfrig and Samson's Church and kindly stopped to give me a lift over the bridge and back to the house. She is on her way to her son's house in Splott to walk his dog, and she takes a slight detour to deliver me safely home.

When I get in I check my diary to make sure I haven't missed any other appointments or that there aren't any looming over me and which I need to pay attention to. But the rest of the day is free, it seems. I double check to make sure I have the correct day. What day is it again? Ah yes, Tuesday. The 30th. In my mind, the lady in the Co-op smiles at me. There is a twinkle in her eye. Age is on her side. I wonder what she remembers and what she forgets and if we have more in common than just forgetting what day of the week it is. And I wonder too if, one day, I will stand in the middle of a shop asking the person in front of me what day it is and if I will remember forgetting a funeral visit.

Home is where...

Back to blogging, I think! It's merely an excuse to do something constructive after sitting at the computer for over an hour trying to find some work to stimulate me, and discovering that I'm not really in the mood! I spent a a few hours the other day filing and refiling and so, apart from a miscellaneous pile of junk that seems to cling to my filing tray from one re-sorting to the next (and which should really be thrown out)there is nothing that I want to do. There are plenty of things that I could do but nothing that I want to do, which means that anything I choose to do will take twice as much time and twice as much effort. I am a great advocate for putting off until tomorrow anything that can wait! And so that is what I shall do!

On Wednesday I will be licensed as priest in charge of Roath St Saviour's. My ministry will change somewhat, I am certain - but that is a good thing, and I am looking forward to it. One can soon find themselves meandering through ministry and, whilst that is a good image (reminiscent of the Israelites wandering or meandering through the desert!), it cannot go on for ever! Having said that, God speaks in his own time and in his own way - even through our meandering lives and thoughts. In fact, I am reminded now that the footnote to this blog page involves something about 'meandering thoughts and roving reflections.' Journeys don't always appear to have any direction. In fact, there is nothing better than just wandering around sometimes, going for a walk nowhere, enjoying the scenery, or allowing your mind to wander! There doesn't always have to be direction to a journey. In fact, even when we do have some direction to our journeying, and we reach our destination, we always end up back home!

So, wherever God is leading my meandering life and meandering thoughts and meandering miniscule ministry, I hope I will end up back home! And you know what they say about where home is!

The Colour of Words

Earlier this year, during my Sabbatical, and between much coffee supped in Cardiff Bay, I penned a few things including several thousand words worth of short stories. They weren't particularly good but they did allow me to spill random words and images onto paper (well, onto the screen of my laptop, actually). Not knowing what to do with the stories I have finally succumbed to giving them a home on the internet. There are so many inane, banal and random words on here already I thought a few more wouldn't really make much difference!

The words probably won't mean much to many, if any, but they are there all the same. I think, in some way, they allowed me to spill some form of spirituality out (or, rather, to express one). I'm not certain what they mean or what they say or how they express anything that seems to lie inside my unconscious, semi-conscious, sub-conscious, small-brained mind but there they are. The stories seemed to take on a life of themselves and so whilst taking responsibility for everything contained within them, I also absolve myself of anything and everything they continue to say. They are their own beings with their own life and their own dimension and when I re-read them I really don't know where they came from.

If you read them please be kind to them. They are quite vulnerable beings really! They came to life between coffee cups ("I have measured out my life in coffee spoons"), written in the early morning or late at night, and so they emerged, thin eyed and blinking in the half light, not sure who they were or why there were there in the first place.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go through certain half deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh do not ask 'What is is it?'
Let us go and make a visit.
T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The Colour of Words

Computers and Cleaning

I am beginning to make the most of the Listen Again feature on most radio web sites but in particular Radio Four. In fact, I have managed to turn a friend onto Radio Four. Those who are unfamilar with it may make rather strange assumptions about what kind of radio station it is: but it's rather like a slice of life: comedy, debate, news, politics, drama, magazine programmes...oh yes and the shipping forecast (which often lulls me into sleep at night!) Yesterday I listened to two different programmes: one featuring the author Jonathan Coe and the other an interview with Will Self. The subject of using a computer in writing emerged. Coe said that it contributed to the creative process and made writing richer. Self decided that it it didn't do anything for the process and he has reverted to the traditional typewriter which means, he says, he has to do all his thinking and much of his writing before he actually writes.

I can see the sense in both those comments. The time of reflection and creativity happens away from the desk when there is space and time for the mind to wander. But often, there is something amazing when you sit down to write and things emerge that you had no idea were there in the first place. I'm sure it's the same for the many clergy (and others) who will are preparing to preach tomorrow. Some will think it through first. Others will sit at a blank screen and just see what happens! As for me, well I have no idea how this blog entry will end. I was just stimulated by this thought of two succesful and rather different authors valuing the different processes of writing: the computer is both in and out.

Perhaps I should have thought about what I was going to write before I decided to take a break from my cleaning, and pretending that writing a blog is more important than sweeping and mopping my hallway and hoovering the stairs. But I've never been one for housework. It's nice when it's completed, but the process of getting there is one that rather bores and tires me. Next week, the house will be back to the same state as it was two hours ago! Since I'm sat at my computer maybe I should have a little look to see if there is anything else I can listen to again. Or perhaps, the best thing to do would be to Listen Again and carry on with the sweeping at the same time. Or maybe, just maybe, this time away from the cleaning is giving me time to decide on how to creatively tackle the lounge. I think I like that idea the best!

Serendipity

Tomorrow I will have been back in work for a week. In fact, on the Friday I had gone to Belmont Abbey for our annual Youth Department retreat. It's only an overnight stay and it's not really a rigorous retreat: it's a healthy combination of reflection and recreation. It was good to start back with that. It put me back in touch with the people with whom I work and was a reminder that I now really had to get back to work.

It hasn't been that easy, mind! Monday morning was spent replying to e mails that had built up over three months, and sorting through paperwork, and by the early afternooon I was, well, bored! So, there was only one thing for it: stop working! I decided I needed to ease myself gently into my duties! No point in overdoing it. But I know that by the end of Sunday, and our first 'e' event since I have come back to work, I will know that my sabbatical is well and truly over.

However, having said that, I think that the experience of my Sabbatical Leave will give me more of a healthy balance in the future. I have decided that many of the things I did and achieved on my sabbatical I will continue to do in some small way. I will read more, write more and make more time to go to the theatre and do other things that I really enjoy. I have recently revisited Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters and was struck by the last lines of the first poem, Fulbright Scholars: 'It was the first peach I had ever tasted/I could hardly believe how delicious/At twenty-five I was dumbfounded afresh/By my ignorance of the simplest things.' Just like my short time at Belmont Abbey, there needs to be a healthy balance of reflection and recreation, work and play, intensity and relaxation, sacrifice and serendipity...and the odd peach!