All change

Now gone to a good home!

Today has been a difficult day in lots of ways. A final service in my title post, where I just about managed to retain my composure and although I know I gave the final blessing, I'm not sure exactly how.

Then lovely cards, flowers, astonishingly generous gifts, and  a lovely feast even although it's Lent. I know I have friends here who I will be sure to stay in touch with, and to think of how much I have grown and changed and learned priest-craft ( is that a word?) in the almost four years I have been curate in the parish, is humbling.  But somehow it doesn't seem real.
Somehow, part of me thinks I am getting up in the morning to say Morning Prayer  in St Alban's. But I won't.  Well I will say Morning Prayer.  But alone, in my study.  Because a house move is not imminent,  it all feels a little as if I'm not leaving at all.
But something happened today which felt much more real. We had sold our climbing frame on a well-known internet auction site. It was a gift from my parents when we moved to Basingstoke (The Big Move South) and our children were both under three.  It has been a feature of our lives for nearly 12 years.
And now it's gone. 
It provided hours of fun for our children,  and many of their friends over many years. It was a great asset to the garden.
And now it's gone.
More real than the end of my title post.  More real than the move to a new place.
Our children are now amazing young people,  growing up,  and with us for only a few years more.
The other changes will kick in and become real over the next few days and weeks.

  But this one is real now. 
All change. 

Endings and beginnings

Signs of new life are all around.
And today there's even some sunshine!

Today as I was sitting at my laptop writing my final sermon to be preached tomorrow in my curacy parish, I received an email with the rota for the services in my new one.
It feels odd.
The format is different.
The service pattern is different. 
The other names on it are different (although it really helps that there's a good friend already there - for a while at least) 

It's concrete (or at least paper) evidence of the change that lies before me.

I have long prayed for this change. A new role that allowed my children to stay at their school at least until after public exam courses are over. A context completely different to the one in which I served my title - I'm moving to a much more affluent parish, to churches with large congregations and a growing staff team. A job that will allow me to study and perhaps teach. But having the paper evidence of this change in front of me somehow makes it more real and simultaneously scary and exciting.

There are a lot of challenges in the weeks ahead. Uncertainty over when we might move house is the main one. Reading, thinking and exploring various opportunities for further study is another. I feel like I'm entering into a time of uncertainty, although it seems that much is already settled.

As I was preparing for tomorrow's sermon, I came across some words of Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, who is one of the three people remembered by the Church of England's lectionary today.

“We have taught our people to use prayer too much as a means of comfort – not in the original and heroic sense of uplifting, inspiring, strengthening, but in the more modern and baser sense of soothing sorrow, dulling pain, and drying tears – the comfort of the cushion, not the comfort of the Cross.”

I wonder if I've been thinking more in terms of the comfortable, cushioned road ahead (in spite of previous experience telling me that it is always anything but) instead of the way of the cross. I need reminding that a comfortable life with everything settled is not what Jesus promised his disciples. Change and uncertainty are part of the package. Learning to deal with that will be part of my discipline for Lent.

Lenten Garden

Sadly, I wasn't thinking ahead enough to take a
"before" picture, but here is "after".

Yesterday was my day off. It feels a bit odd to have a day off this week as I only have another few days left in the parish, with my final service being on Sunday. After walking the puppy, I took it into my head to do a job that had been annoying me for too long, and I cleared and cut back some climbing plants (botanical skills are zero I'm afraid so I have no idea what they are - only that there is - was -  far too much of them)
About 20 minutes in, I was regretting ever lifting up a pair of shears, but I battled on, and eventually the plants were well and truly pruned. Now I confess, I don't know that they'll definitely recover but I do know that I undertook the same exercise two years ago, and having to repeat it is ample testament to the vigorous nature of the plants. They were so vigorous in fact that they were preventing other things from growing - and so my spring bulbs, of which I am excessively fond, were shaded out and covered up, and as a result will not be the display I was hoping for when they were planted.

This is some of the material cut away.

Cutting away lots of plant material the morning after our Ash Wednesday service gave me plenty of time to think about the spiritual pruning that is traditionally called for during Lent. A time to deliberately and intentionally spend time with God and seek spiritual disciplines to cut away from our lives whatever may be unhelpful and preventing other beautiful things from growing.

 Lent will be odd for me this year as I find myself between posts. There will be time, I hope, as we prepare to move house and I prepare to take up a new post in a completely different context, to engage with some pruning of unnecessary things so that other things will grow. Disengaging from my curacy post has felt quite a lot like pruning, and it has not been a painless exercise. I am aware there is yet more to do, perhaps as the administrative and organisational functions which have taken up so much time of late are handed on, I can re-engage with other spiritual ones, recollect and redefine my identity as priest and child of God. I hope I can end Lent as ready for the resurrection as my garden is for new spring growth.
And remember that I will certainly have to repeat the process again next year.

18 000 mile curacy service

This week we had an interesting day of IME (Initial Ministerial Education) training. This is what the Diocese provides to those who have been ordained and are curates in a parish. It can be difficult or it can be quite fun. Today I wasn't sure what to expect as both curates and training incumbents were asked to draw a picture of the curacy so far.
Here is mine:

As you can see, I never won art prizes at school. But I'm the one on the diving board, juggling the items in blue at the top of the page. My family are closest to the pool, cheering me on but also looking at the clock. My Training Incumbent (TI) is the red squiggle at the steps acting as coach - being close beside me but ultimately unable to do things for me. There's an audience, signifying the public nature of the job, and a panel of judges, signifying its accountability. The diving board has an end. sometimes I feel like I can dive off, other times like I want to go back from whence I came. God is the board, but also the pool which is deliberately only bounded on three sides.

I confess I had been a bit sceptical about this exercise but found it quite revealing and affirming. My TI had drawn a positive image of growth and development, and commented that my picture wasn't as confident as I often seem. I can certainly talk a good game, but on the inside it's a different matter.
So far, so good, I think is probably the headline.

Whether I'll want to dive off the end of that board and whether I'll belly flop if I do, is another matter altogether.