Wanted someone not gay/bi or straight, neigher lay or ordained, enquiries within!

I posted a status on Facebook which seemed to have galvanised the troops into a series of responses -

"Dr W has said very strongly that I need to talk to someone about my disintegrating faith & my broken heartedness about all things vocation. But she has also clearly stated the someone should not be gay/straight/bi, neither ordained nor lay, and definitely no one I'm likely to snot if they mean to me. Does anyone here translate spaniel as Poppy seems my best bet!"


Thanks troops you all very lovely, if not slightly bonkers. The main point of my status was the hilarity which Dr W's requirements caused. However on a serious note thank you for the lovely messages. I have a fantastic spiritual director who I trust immeasurably and a great team leader at work. My frustrations with the church denominations will, I have no doubt continue ad infinitum. A church which markets itself as the church of the state, should in my humble opinion play by the rules, or in this case The Law as we in the real world like to call it. But hey as it has successfully discriminated against women for a few hundred years, who knows how long it will be before us weather causing, genocide raising gays are allowed to ooh I don't know, not break the law of the land and get married in a church.

 As for getting married and being a vicarette well, the bookies have better odds of me being elected president of Russia. Them on t'other side of the coin who are obsessed in worshiping gay instead of God are not any better, but to be honest and here is the crux of the whole thing - kids are being slaughtered across this globe as I sit here typing this wittering. They are being blown apart and those that survive the bombs and missiles will I imagine die a slow death from infection because with no electricity or fresh water there will be no way of sterilising equipment and storing drugs. But hey who cares about that sort of thing when the civilised (and I use that term very loosely) world can pull each other to pieces about who sleeps with who in their own beds.

If I thought for one instance that people would stop killing children across the globe if I didn't share my be with the lovely Dr W, I would say fine, bunk beds it is! But that is never going to happen because people are slaughtering kids because of many things not because of who I choose to love. However as a loving couple we can give so much back to a world of hate and pain,


we can be the ripple makers in this world and be a part of something that says it doesn't matter who you are, or what you believe, we are human and we are humanity in the flesh.

A final thought (stolen ruthlessly from my boss at work): Everyone has spiritual experiences, for everyone is spiritual. Some people then go on to make a religion out of these experiences. Very understandable. Tidies them up. Puts them in a box. Instead of saying, "Here are my experiences" they say "Here is my religion." All boxed and sorted. The trouble with boxes, however, is that they tend to be airless and things inside get stale. Religions can very easily become boxes, and places of airless decay. You are spiritual. May religion serve you. Not kill you.

Out of the mouths...

This evening I was having some rare 1-2-1 time with my daughter, her little brother had gone to bed and was asleep in under 5 minutes, so I took Elsa down stairs with me. I gave her a chair to sit on whilst I finished off some baking. She has a sheet to fill in for her move to Year 1, so I read out the questions one at a time and she pondered and then answered me. One questioned asked who her friends were in reception. Elsa rattled off what seemed to me to be the whole class. I said we could probably write that she thinks of all her class chums as friends but who did she play with or go to when upset. She listed a few names which we agreed to write down. Then she said a little shyly and of course "X is my boyfriend". Having gripped the bench whilst taking a sharp intake of breath, I said, "sorry, what?" Elsa again said "X is my boyfriend. Well he will be one day." Whilst I was working out my next move, she then said, "of course I might have a girlfriend, like you and mummy are girlfriends, which would be nicer, but I guess what really matters in all of this is, that I fall in love with someone who falls in love with me, it doesn't matter if they are a boy or a girl".

And in that instant I wished my daughter was standing up in front of the General Synod having the discussion with me in front of them, because there is more wise, genuine love in that child, than in most of the adults I know. In the book Through the eyes of a child: New insights in theology from a child's perspective,  there is a section which reflects on the voices of children in the wilderness years, how "the thinking and practice apparent in conventional religious circles usually suggested children's spiritual resources were deficient in comparison with those of adults - until they had learnt and internalised the prayers, the practices and the beliefs of the tradition".

I couldn't be further from this thinking if I chopped off my own head and offered it for use as the football for the world cup final tomorrow night!! This 5 year old daughter of mine, has shown me (yet again) such grace, unconditional love and wisdom that I feel blessed to have her ministering to me. Ministering to a minister in exile, because of the adults in this world whose obsession with the practices and beliefs of tradition, override that most basic commandment 'to love'.

I sat down with Elsa and we shared a bowl of grapes together and then I snapped a piece of chocolate in  half and we ate that together in silence. She then said, "I love you mummy and I love our chats." As one who is exiled from the table because of standing by that commandment 'to love', this grape and chocolate spontaneous Eucharist tonight was quite possibly the most soul  nourishing communion, I have ever received.
May we all become like children and thus enter the kingdom of heaven.

On Children
 Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.