lurchersontheedge

water and sand do go together sometimes

One of the dangers for Lent is that we try to take on too much. We can fall into the trap of giving up something that we enjoy and in many ways helps us be who we are. (This is not always the case) We can also take things on, sometimes too many.

I am trying to find sometime to read every day, and also write. Writing something in this blog every day is part of the discipline. I also need to produce a couple of proposals for publishers as well, but that is not Lenten discipline, it is keeping a promise. My initial intention was to read a book a week. I have now had to rethink that. Reading should not be a route march on to the next piece of literature. It is meant to cause us to think.

I am reading H is for Hawk at the moment. This morning, I came across the rather wonderful phrase: ‘solitude is the cure for loneliness’. I have still chewing on this phrase a couple of hours after the words beginning to sink into my being.

Those who are solitary are not usually lonely. They have discovered how to be. Lent is for that. Discovering who we are. Surely that is one of the things Christ was doing in the wilderness. Of course, in the wilderness, he was not completely alone: the wild animals were with him, as Mark’s story of Jesus puts it, and the angels ministered to him.

That is enough for today. My faithful hounds remind me that they need to be fed.

Ashing done, although as I type, I can see some of the ash still ever so slightly on the tips of my fingers: a reminder perhaps of my mortality. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return were words that I repeated a number of times as I was marked and marked by the sign of the cross.

Today is about beginning to slow down and edging towards a pattern for this season. I am also old enough now to know that this pattern will take time, and what worked last year may not work a second time. Then again, maybe it will.

I have nothing in the diary today and tomorrow. I need to learn as I edge towards a pattern not to allow things to miraculously appear in the timetable.

That involves not being busy, which is a key part of a feast.

One of my desires during this holy season is to create space.

At Messy Church in Morawelon last week (10 February 2015), we created a prayer tree. It was painted by an ordinand (someone exploring whether to be a vicar or not), and leaves were placed on it with the names of those who the community wanted to remember and pray for.

How do we create space in often frantic and frenetic diaries?

I think the first step is to remember to take a breath. Simon Parke seems to sum up this well and a poem he has written: http://simonparke.com/blog/post/feeling_my_path

Create space and breathe a little today

I have neglected the blog a little. I could use my traditional excuse of being too busy, and with it promise that I will try harder to post more in 2015. Therein lies the challenge, I choose to be busy. I do not have to be busy. My diary does not entrap me without me allowing it to do or colluding with it. I am sure much of my busyness comes from a desire to be needed. I don’t have to feel guilty about taking time off, walking the dogs, spending time with family. I allow myself to be dictated to.

What I am going to attempt to do is say no a little more. I have been warned. It would have been easy to say: you have been warned. But that would be to sidestep the responsibility that is mine.

There you go: an epiphany type moment.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here's an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,100 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 35 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

My archdeacon said recently that ‘I was born to be the vicar of Holy Island’. I will take it as a compliment: all good remarks need to be embraced when someone is in ministry. On 22 August, I will have served 6 months as the Vicar and Team Leader of the Bro Cybi Ministry Area. You can find the official record of what has been happening here: http://bangor.churchinwales.org.uk/news/2014/05/bro-cybis-journey-1/

I think ‘born to be’ is a little too strong, but at present I am called to be the vicar of this glorious place, just as previously I would say that I was called to be the vicar of Bartley Green, a place of much gladness and one that I did not actually want to leave.

Six months in: what has happened?

I think there will be an official blog entry with a list of achievements coming soon. I think the most important thing we have done is to have begun to listen to each other. It is not a task that come easy to most of us. Listening and vocation go hand in hand. Vocation, I think, comes from the word “voce”, “voice”: we need to hear. In order to hear, we need to make space.

That is probably what the last six months have been about: making space.