Slow starts

I haven't done very well - have I?! I was going to start blogging again and I have failed miserably. Why?
1. The world situation has left me speechless. As I have sat at my computer, images of Paris came into my mind. What words are there to say or write?
2. Everything in my world seems so trivial in the light of what has happened.
3. Writing is a luxury these days - I mean writing from the heart, contemplating, turning words over, erasing, rewriting that phrase.
4. Words are sucked from me in the form of weekly Pew News sheets, monthly letters and meeting minutes and agendas. - I don't write all of these - the Rector@6 is suppose to write some of these but so often I provide a template, an inspiration or a quote to get him going.
5. Editing takes up more time than writing - and I still don't see all the mistakes. I press the 'send' button and immediately want to suck the document back as I have spotted a lurking gremlin in the prose. I know that within minutes there will be one or two of those emails:-
'I don't like to mention this but...' or ' I'm sure everyone else will have pointed out.....'
Actually - I don't mind these too much because I just don't proof read very well some days. It's like a kind of word blindness and I can only see what it is suppose to say and not what it actually says!

Goodness knows how vicars write sermons week after week - sometimes two or three in a week. My mind is so full of agendas, rotas and news letters. - perhaps I would be better off not being the Benefice Secretary!

So how am I managing to write now you may well ask. I am writing this in silence, on a retreat day in mid Devon. WHAT! Me on a retreat! If you could only know how much I have wanted to try a silent retreat since we moved into the Rectory. To be able to hear that still, small voice of calm and not have it interrupted by telephone calls, emails and news sheets that have to be dealt with on a relentless, continuous cycle, week after week. There seems no time at all between the ending of one and the starting of the next. And I am only the secretary - who would ever want to be a vicar/rector/minister. You surely must be 'called' (and not by phone!). You can't think your own thoughts, or look out of the window, and peacefully contemplate the life cycle of a slug (unless of course they feature in this week's sermon).Who ever said a priest's task was just to 'be' - had no idea of the pressure exerted by modern technology.

We didn't realise how mad life was getting until I started seeing the Rector@6 coming in from a meeting/ coffee morning/ visit or service and checking the emails before he has even taken his coat off. Or seeing that he is checking his iPad messages mid sentence in a conversation with me. He has a permanently quizzical look on his face as if he is trying to keep too many plates spinning in the air. (He probably is.) And I was following suite, - not stopping for coffee, not standing and staring at the garden - not breathing! It dawned on us in the same week and we knew we had to stop.

So we have retreated - which turned out to be a silent day ( we hadn't been expecting that!). As we entered the ancient Devon Long house we were told the house was in silence until lunchtime - once we entered the rest of the house.  And I can breathe.......

I want to keep breathing and I hope, on our return to the Rectory, nothing will stop me breathing again. I want to enter into the Advent season with expectation and energy.

Well that lasted about ten minutes! On our return, late in the evening, we discovered the Christmas tree festival had been advertised for the wrong church in the local magazine and a completed baptism form delivered through the door, for a day when there was no morning service in that particular church. When the Rector@6 checked (by email- too late to phone he thought) the invitations had been sent out, 50 guests were coming - everything was booked....except the Rector!

Unexpectedly Awesome

Exactly three years ago today we learned that we were to move from Dartmoor in Devon to Deepest Dorset. The interview had been successful for the Rector@6 and we would be on our way, in the following February, to his first incumbency. I remember the interview days so clearly. I remember the sense of excitement and I remember what we were told. How different it all was! And how much harder it was than we expected. For many months, I wondered if we were going to surface...or survive. So I stopped blogging.

But we did survive and now I feel able to write again - although I wonder if I will be able to find the time. Life is so full, often random events clutter a day, unlike the ordered days when I was working. As well as the random events, I have two beautiful dogs and two amazing horses to sort out. The horses are an unexpectedly awesome addition to our family since we have been in Dorset. They make sense of being in the middle of nowhere, with no family or friend links, no nearby train links and no decent shopping for miles! They also tie me here!

This weekend has been more hectic than usual as we were supporting three candidates from our Benefice at the Confirmation service at Salisbury Cathedral. We don't often escape the valley to go to Salisbury - and Saturday was not looking promising with the rain and gale force winds but by the afternoon we drove the straight road to Salisbury with an awesome setting sun in the rear view mirror.

The Cathedral was bathed in the golden light when we arrived which just emphasised its magnificence. There was to be a rehearsal for the candidates and their sponsors (and the rector) while I could go off for tea in the Chapter House and view one of the best copies of the Magna Carta. (click  read more) I really wanted to go shopping in Salisbury but couldn't quite make my escape!

It was dark outside when the service began. It began in darkness in the cathedral with a reading from Isaiah 43:1-3a,6b-7. We all sang the Taize chant 'Veni sancta Spiritus' as Genesis1:1-3 was read. It was all very atmospheric. After the candles were lit, the candidates for baptism and confirmation were presented. They then moved down the central aisle to the magnificent font where the baptisms took place. Everyone then moved on towards the spire crossing where those to be confirmed, were presented to one of the three bishops. The congregation was encouraged to move through the cathedral with the clergy and candidates - it was an unexpectedly awesome experience!

At the end of the service the west end doors were opened and everyone followed the Bishops outside onto the steps of the cathedral. The night was clear and dry and there were distant fireworks exploding into the sky. Here we were able to group with all the people who had come to support from the Benefice - what an unexpectedly large turnout! The Rector@6 was thrilled by the number of people who had come to support the candidates form the Benefice.
And after everyone had left - The Rector@6 and I found ourselves in an empty cathedral! I don't know how it happened but people drifted away - others had gone to change in the vestry and suddenly we were all alone! You feel very small and very conspicuously in God's sight - now that is unexpectedly awesome!

It's Time!

I'm staring at the blank screen wondering what to write...is it too soon to return to my ramblings about adapting to life in the rectory? I have missed the comradery of Bloggers but I needed to focus on settling. I have woken this morning with the urge to write again - so much is changed, so much is changing. The Church of England seems to be changing. Our valley churches are changing. I am changing. Does this mean I am shaping up into a Rector's wife? I don't think so - I still feel like a square peg in a round hole but I need to write to remind myself of how far the Rector@6 and I have come since arriving in the valley for The Interview three years ago. I need to record the changes that have happened so that it might give myself (and others) hope. There have been some difficult times and the Rector@6 has even applied for a couple of jobs and he has got as far as being interviewed for one. We both knew it was too soon (was it the thought of escaping ....running away?). We both knew it was not right for us (the Rector@6 had even said that he would not accept the job at the interview - if offered - which it wasn't!). I'd like to say that we don't wake up on a Friday morning and turn on our iPad search the vacancy list in the Church Times ....but that wouldn't be true. This weekly scanning of the vacancy pages helps to remind us how fortunate we really are!