Raw prayer

I heard today that a local youth I knew, Peter, died on Christmas Day, aged 17. He leaves his mother, Margaret and his father, Stephen. Remember them.

And as you remember, remember this...

At the bottom of the mountain, Jesus meets a boy with epilepsy and his family (I go back ot this incident often) and the father says 'help my unbelief', as any of us might, and the mother says nothing, as any of us might, and Jesus says to the disciples 'this comes right only with prayer' and that's what any of us might discover through the Holy Spirit at the bottom of any mountain.

Dying day

Tomorrow will be my dying day:
the day before yesterday was yours.
You didn’t buy a ticket,
you didn’t book a place
and yet there you were
suddenly at the front of the queue.
Never one to push yourself forward,
you had been propelled there
by a few ill-chosen breaths.
Of course it’s all behind you now,
while we that are left grow old
and still have to face the final hurdle;
waiting for the chance to catch a note
of that endless chorus you now sing
and hoping this will not break us.

For today, God of all,
give us peace, one more time.

JAL: 27.12.2009
In memory of Peter

Today

What sort of day will it be today? There's nothing like unexpected weather to create uncertainty in Britain. Basingstoke has been particularly vulnerable to this phenomenon but there's hardly a corner of the UK untouched by it, according to the news. All this dreaming of a white Christmas that goes on year after year has suddenly become the last thing we really want for Christmas now it looks possible. So what sort of day is our Advent day today? Here's a few possible descriptions:

Present day

Advent day
Waiting day
Snowy day
Weathery day
Slipping day
Sliding day
Travelling day
Biding day
Visiting day
Minding day
Thinking day
Deciding day
Going day
Staying day
Action day
Resting day
Living day
Dying day
Present day
Emmanuel day

Janet Lees: 24.12.2009

She's a woman

If you've not already seen the poet laureate's poem for the 12 days of Christmas you must not miss it. It is at http://www.radiotimes.com/content/features/carol-ann-duffy-the-twelve-days-of-christmas/
Well done Carol Ann Duffy. It's moving, it's relevant and it's really good. I always knew we needed a woman as poet laureate.
In these snowy Huddersfield days when everything is covered in a thick blanket of white such that you can be forgiven for thinking nothing else exisits outside the warm shell you have created we need this stuff to keep us active and concious. Note the 12 drummers drumming - drumming for Cpenhagen still. If we'd gone on a few verses we might have made it to 350 ringers ringing and got further than the delegates themselves managed to.

Year of the Nurse 2010

It seems that 2010 is to be the Year of the Nurse - so says the Nightingale Declaration at http://www.nightingaledeclaration.net/.


Of course this is dear to me having been the daughter of one and th neice of another nurse. Anne, my mum (died 2007) is on the left and Betty, her sister (died 2005) is on the right. Both were nurses as you can see.

Here's a piece I wrote about them both a couple of years ago, a month after my mum's death, which is influenced by RB and the story of Martha and Mary:


Two Sisters

There were two sisters.
One was married and one was single and they lived together in the home of the married one.
One was extrovert, outgoing, practical. She would invite many people to the house, make lots of food and feed everyone. She would also help people with practical family problems in sickness and in health.
One was introvert, quiet, reflective. She would prefer to be on her own, reading a book or the paper, listening to the radio. If you asked her for help she would give it willingly; the washing or the ironing.
They seemed quite different.
They shared the same profession both being nurses, but they practiced it in different ways. One was the career nurse who had managed wards and even a whole hospital (in the days when the NHS was like that). Her quiet authority had transmitted itself to staff and patients alike. One was a nurse alongside other roles in family and community, sharing her skills and knowledge with anyone who asked, mentoring young people, supporting old ones. Her practical action helped many to cope with life’s ordinary challenges.
But they were also very similar: generous with their time and resources, they both enjoyed music and reading, and were very faithful to each other.

I knew them both and they both influenced my life. One, the practical extrovert, was my mother. The other, the reflective introvert, was my aunt. I am like them both; practical and reflective. Theirs was not a competitive relationship: there was no ‘better part’. Rather they each made a contribution to the whole of life, lived in the company of the Life Giver, each one giving what they were, wholly vulnerable.

JAL: 19.10.2007

A ringing good day

Over on Jane's blog you can read about the plan to have 350 rings, bongs, bangs or hoots tomorrow for climate change: http://stranzblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/get-ready-to-ring-church-bells-across.html

I wondered how we could do this in a small village church in the north of England, one with no bells and few people. Last night we heard the mighty Huddersfield Choral Society raise the roof of the Town Hall with thi annual Christmas concert. All the old favourites were sung and some new ones. So it made me think: they had tubular bells - we don't have any of those. They had jingle bells - the little hand held bells you had in primary school - we've got some of those!!!

So here's the jingle bells theme adpated for climate change ringers everywehre:

A ringing good day

Bells ring out
Bells ring out
Bells ring out all day
As bells ring out around the world:
Protect the world today!

Bells ring out
Are you listening?
Ring out loud
Are you listening?
We’re happy today
To worship and pray
Working for a much fairer world

Bells ring out
Bells ring out
Bells ring out all day
As bells ring out around the world:
Protect the world today!

Drums beat out
Are you listening?
Beat out loud
Are you listening?
We’ll beat a loud song
As we right the wrong
Working for a much fairer world

Bells ring out
Bells ring out
Bells ring out all day
As bells ring out around the world:
Protect the world today!

JAL: 12.12.2009
To a well known Christmas tune

Advent and sin

It seems Advent goes with sin like kippers go with custard (i.e. it's not to everyone's taste). Sin has become one of those dated words fewer and fewer ordinary people use. Maybe we can't scrap it altogether (I'm sure a bishop or two would have something to say about that) but maybe we can find some more relevant words to use. Someone I read about recently suggested 'abuse' was a good word to swap for sin. I'll think about it.

Meanwhile what about RB for Advent? There's all that exciting stuff about the end times - a bit like the far fetched plot of a dodgy video game. Then there's John the Baptist - now you're talking.

We did some RB on John the Baptist at the weekend. Some lovely things about John the Baptist have come up in RB like John being a Baptist because that's his name. Good thing he wasn't called John the United Reformer then wasn't it! But the best memory I have of John the Baptist is the tin of dried grass hoppers my mum won in a raffle when I was about 8 years old. Yes, I know he ate locqusts but they don't do them in tins it seems. This lovely unopened but fading tin of dried grasshoppers is still on my shelf to remind me of John the B and all his austere ways. I'm not sure they've not passed their sell by date but speaking personally my austerity measures only go as far as nonfat milk (that's the stuff with the red tops).

Advent days

‘Advent is not supposed to be about ‘happiness’. It is about judgement’ said the Bishop of Repton. [1] Just goes to show what he knows about it. Seems to me quite possible that this rather limited view of it has sucked quite a lot of life from Advent already. There are many different days in Advent; some happy, some less so. But let's not rule out happy days from Day 1. And as for judgement, that's something we all need to learn: to discern when and where, as the days of Advent move from one to the next, just what the possibilities might be. Here are my prayers so far for the days of Advent 2009.

Mundane day

On a mundane day it’s easy to miss the thistledown
floating by on the breeze to settle and root elsewhere.
In commonplace spaces it’s easy to overlook
the uncommon, small and rare things under stones.
In ordinary time it’s easy to forget the extraordinary,
the celebration of sunrise that lifts me.

As tiredness seeps into me
and weariness weighs me down
it’s easier to make my litany
from a limiting list of negatives
than a liberating whisper of possibilities.

In the still moment, confirm in me
the possibility and the surprise.

JAL: for 01.12.2009
altered from 07.06.2009

Happy Day

Advent God,
As we wait out these happy days
welcome us in from the drafty doorstep
of the tomb lined garden
into the warmth of your company
to share the wine of your kindom.

JAL: 02.12.2009

Round and round the park

Round and round the park,
all three or a pair:
one lap, two laps,
then smoothie we can share.

Body-wise God,
keep us moving all our days.

JAL: 03.12.2009


Slow moving sun

All hail to you, slow moving sun
symbol of creation’s energy.
All hail to you, full setting moon
making dawn so awesome.

All hail to you, slow moving One,
plodding on with us daily.
From sunrise to sunset,
moonrise to moonset,
may we be Son-wise people.

JAL: 04.12.2009

Body days

Praise God with the gurgling tummy.
Praise God with the amputated limb.
Praise God with the cleft palate.
Praise God with the deleted chromosome.
Let every impaired one praise God.

God, you know me and my impairments.
You know what I remember and what I forget.
You know what I hear and what I miss.
You know when I sing in tune and when I don’t.
You know the rhythms of my body and when I’m out of synch.
You know my anger and my anxiety,
What keeps me awake at night
And what causes me to doze off in meetings.

When I’m feeling alive
and creativity is pouring out of me,
then you dance with me.
When I’m feeling dead
and despair is seeping into me
then you curl up with me.
When anxiety freezes me
or anger makes my insides molten
you are alongside me.

As I walk round the park
You keep me company.
When I eat with friends
You break bread with us.
My breath is like a warm fog
That fills me lungs
And permeates every cell.
My skin is like a blanket,
A coat that defines
my insides and outsides.

Each cell has its role,
Its DNA, mitochondria and whatnot.
When a pain comes
Help me to respond equitably,
Accepting my body’s message
Without anger or undue anxiety.
May my breath praise you,
My heart beat for you
And my body rise to you.

JAL: 05/06.12.2009
After Psalm 139, at Gateways into Prayer.

Tree Planter

Cosmic Christ, growing up in a carpenter’s shop,
meeting you death on a cross of wood,
bless these trees, ‘whips’ they call them,
that they may shelter and feed
the birds and animals around us
and give you glory in every season.


JAL: 07.12.2009
For the trees planted at Silcoates on 05.12.2009

Dismal Day

Weep, city weep.
Weep stones and streets,
houses and alleys:
weep now.
Weep with the Weeping One.
Who knows what makes for peace?
He knows and shows
the way to peace
for this and every city.

JAL: 08.12.2009
For Luke 19 in the Yorkshire Gospels.


[1] Quoted in the Guardian, 05.12.2009

The old and the new

We did some RB with both the Old and New Testaments during our weekend on Gateways into Prayer at Offa House.

This photograph of a lovely tree from the churchyard reminded me of the Psalmist saying 'hide me in the cleft of your rock' although obviously this is a cleft of a tree but similar. We did some RB on psalms and participants had quite a lot to offer. There were bits of psalms that were important to them:

I will lift mine eyes to the hills

God is our strength and refuge

The Lord is my Shepherd

You put me together in my mother's womb

and so on....

There were also less confortable but remembered ones:

My God my God why have you forsaken me?

May the wicked perish and of course the one about dashing the babies' heads against the rocks.

Some psalms we remembered had neither negative nor positive emotions attached. These usually contained some sort of memorable image like 'the oil running down Aaron's beard'.

Then we made up some music to go with psalms both those remembered and read from print.

We also did some RB with the gospel, remembering Jesus saying 'if you have ears'. How many ears can you remember from the gospel? Don't forget the one that gets cut off in the Garden of Gethsemane. We did some 'frozen poses' to remember these stories: think of a story and then freeze yourself in a position that reminds you of part of the story - sorry no photos of this!

Walking buddies

Three of us, the Always Helpful Two, Angela and Hilary, and me, have started a walking buddies scheme the purpose of which is to get us excercising in a gently but persistent way each day. Our route takes us around the circumfrence of Greenhead Park in Huddersfield, which is one mile. We try to do it twice which makes a week worth ten miles. Not as impressive as some of Bob's daily totals, but we're getting there. Our walk is supossed to be followed by fruit smoothies as a way of increasing our 'five a day' count but so far I seem to consume more of the smoothies than the other two. My plan to day is a smoothie in a cake: a low fat recipie that includes bananas, kiwi and blackberries. It smeels yummy just now!

Anyway all this has lead to a bit of creativity as you might imagine. You might recall that I rarely do RB with the Old Testament. Well here's a change then. Remembering the sort of pattern you commonly find in what is referred to as Deutero-Isaiah - that's from about chapter 40 onwards - I wrote this piece which is all about changing our deathly habits for more life-givign ones, which seemed to be the sort of thing old D-I was on about.

The playground of possibilities

Leave the outhouse of despair,

the barren barns damp with disuse,
the convoluted corridors of conceit,

where low lighting hides the true colours.
Leave all the gapping tombs and come outside
to the playground of possibilities.
Roll in the mud if you must,

swing from the trees if you will:
slide, slip and saunter, twirl, twist and waddle,
bounce, boing and be unrestrained in embracing
the recreational potential of humanity.
Do not acquiesce, accept or agree
to be tamed into the tram lines of timidity.
See the rainbow colours of life reflected in a puddle.
Hear the symphonic cacophony of sound echo round the park.
Admire the skipping squirrel and seek to emulate her glide and verve.
You were made for this;
the spitting image of your cosmic forebear,
it is written in every cell,
and this is the playground of possibilities
so come and play today!

JAL: 01.12.2009

Remembering the fig tree

One of the interesting bits about remembering the Passion Octave this year with many different groups has been the role of the fig tree. I wonder if you remember it?

During his comings and going around Jerusalem in Holy Week, Jesus is remembered for cursing the fig tree. In the first place he sees a fig tree that has no figs on it. He's a bit cross and curses it. Sure enough when they pass it the next day the disicples notice the fig tree has died.

Various people who write about written down Bibles comment on this small but perverse incident as the only ocassion Jesus is recorded as cursing nature. So what do you make of it?

In the various rememberings of the Passion Octave I've done this year a number of different patterns emerged. In the first example there was a group who remembered curing of the fig tree three times in Holy Week, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. This proved to be a real laugh: Oh no, not the fig tree again! Another group didn't have the fig tree in at all - the memorable fig tree had become the forgotten fig tree.

This week Jane drew my attention on her blog of Laughter and Liturgy (that's listed on the side of my blog page) to a parable of trees in recorded in Judges chapter 9 in the written down bible. This parables features a number of trees the second of which is the fig tree.

It reads: 'Then the trees said to the fig-tree 'You come and be our king'. But the fig-tree answered 'In order to govern you, I would have to stop producing my good sweet fruit'.' [Judges 9:10-11].

So I wonder if the link is kingship. Holy Week is a different kind of king week. From Palms to Cross and early morning Garden, Jesus is demonstrating ways of contradicting the kingship ideas of his day, and ours. In cursing the fig tree is he saying something about his own refusal to be co-opted into the schemes and plans of human beings. There's no fruit on the fig tree and there's no chance Jesus is going to agree to be king either. Yet at the same time, he goes beyond the kingship ideas of those around him and produces fruit for those willing to to see beyond the bare branches of the fig tree. It is the kind of image that contains the sort of paradox Jesus seems to have been good at: not what we are expecting, challenging our expectations and interpretations.

As we approach the Feast of Christ the King again this year (this Sunday) may be a bit of remembering of Christ the King and Fig-Tree Curser would be in order.

Psalm language

Although I have used the psalms for a great part of my life they are not the first thing I usually turn to in worship. Mostly because I often struggle to connect with the language. Images of God are limited in most translations: it's all Lord, Lord, and other images seem ancient and far away.

Psalm 127 is part of the lectionary today. It's short and whilst the translation I'm readying has Lord, Lord it's also about building and protecting cities. The second part has the image of children being like 'the arrows in a soldier's hand'. In Helmand today arrows are not much prized I suspect. How to pray with women and men serving out there when we all yearn for peace and wonder at the right action to take to get there? So my rewrite of Pslam 127 in a week that saw deaths of British service personnel pass that of any year since the Falklands. Maybe these words will not sit comfortably with us and maybe that's the thing about Pslams. Too much emphasis on the comfy ones and not enough attention to the uncomfy ones.

Revised Psalm 127

If God does not build the peace
the work of the peacemakers in useless;
if the Holy One does not protect the city
then what hope for those who stand guard.
Your work is useless;
the early mornings and late nights wasted.
Whilst your are sleeping
God nourishes you with love.

We consider children to be God’s gift:
a real blessing.
The offspring a young parent has
are like ammunition to a soldier.
A soldier feels satisfied with a full clip;
such a one feels ready
when face to face with the enemy
or surveying the ground for an IED.

copyright Janet Lees: 08.11.2009

Holy Haddock

Scientific name: Melanogrammus aeglefinus
Market name: Haddock
Common names: Haddock, Finnan Haddie

I wonder if anyone has a spare Haddock about their person they would lend me for a while? These excellent looking Haddock are just the kind of thing I'm looking for. And I know you'll wonder why.

In our house the phrase 'slap me round the face with a wet haddock' is one of those things we say when we want someone to wake us up or surprise us in some small way. It maybe due to my fish selling ancestors that this phrase has entered our reperoire - then again perhaps not.

I need a wet Haddock to wake up a group of people who have written a very irritating book. The book 'Evangelism in a Spiritual Age: communicating faith in a changing culture' is by Stephen Croft and friends and published by Church House Publishing for the Anglican Church (2005). And why do I want to slap Stephen and his mates round the face with a wet Haddock. 'Cos they need to wake up -that's why.

The book pretends to be a new way of thinking about evangelism. Oh who will deliver us from this dratted 'e' word? A bunch of well meaning 'e' folk have got together and written a well meaning book about 'e' (not the controlled substance that concerned Professor Nutt this week) in a spiritual age - that's now they reckon.

It begins with Yvonne Richmond (first Haddock for her) telling us how she gave up her more agressive form of 'e' for a gentler listening sort of 'e' and whoa how surprised was she to find that she developed relationships with people. If that was not enough we then get a long commentary on a research project (good research project, maybe a nice plate of Haddock and chips for the researcher) in which we find out that ordinary people want to ask six big questions (more haddock please). I'll leave you to guess which ones.

Then Mark Ireland (two Haddock for him, one on each cheek - he'd doubtless turn the other one anyway) tells us how to do this sort of gentle 'e' in ordinary churches at funerals and at Christmas and such like. What the Haddock does he think we've been doing all this time (I do not believe it)? 'Perhaps we need to stop assuming that those who don't go to church have no faith' is smuggly says on page 77. For goodness sake, you do not even deserve all this Haddock I'm throwing at you. What sort of ministry have you people been practising all this time. And published by the Anglican Church. Well quite frankly you deserve everyone to leave (my ancestors left in 1662 by the way).

So why read the book at all. All I can say in my defense is I was asked to for a CWM conference I am preparing to take part in during January 2010. The book seems to think there is some sort of fringe or edge to the church that people inhabit vaguely or fall off. I can't say I see it that way. During a CWM event in 1994 I had the vision of a church with no inside or outside. I refered to it at my ordination, when I got a roll of toilet paper and threw it down the aisle in a long stream and then ripped it up (I think that was after I held up my bra). Mr Ireland says the new Anglican liturgies 'intentionally allow latitude' (page 83). Unfortunately not quite as much latitude as that.

So for now I'm staying out - where ever that is. If the book did anything positive for me it reminded me to keep moving. Once the well meaning 'e' folk start to catch up with you and begin to espouse something that sounds warm and 'bunny cuddly' as a friend of mine put it, it's time to be on your way, looking for the cutting edge of the gospel out there, everywhere, anywhere. Haddock anyone?

The dream comes alive

Last week Delory Brown, better known to Vision4life contacts as Gaius from Welcome to Corinth, starred as Martin Luther King Jnr at the Lawrence Bately Theatre in Huddersfield. As part of Black History Month, this was also a local celebration of talent. The programme began with a young rap poet, Samuel Wyatt, who has won prizes for his poems. He was followed by a local choir, the True Colours Gospel Choir who sang some of the songs from the civil rights era.

The Dream Comes Alive was a fictional interview between MLK and Moira Stewart, played by Huddersfield actress Lindsay Pascall, and accompanied by archive footage of King.

Brown had obviously done a lot of work to prepare for this role, which he did superbly. The cellar theatre is a small space and this was really the only drawback of the whole evening. Brown could easily have filled a bigger space and indeed it was a shame that he did not have the opportunity to do so. Speaking for alomost the entire time, with only questions interpolated by Pascall in her role as the well known newsreader, King/Brown began be recalling his early life and inspiration. There were many young people in the audience and everyone was hooked by his portrayal of the man who for some many epitomises the Black struggle. He then reviewed the main tennents of non violent resistance and ended with a glimpse into the future: what would MLK have made of the war in Afganistan?

Brown himself has an imposing physical presence and when he stood to give the final 'I have a dream' speech it was clear that he could have benefited from a bigger space in which to perform. The speech itself is well know and it was wonderful to hear the sentences rolling across the audience, including as it does so much 'Remembered Bible'. All together this was an excellent evening and if your local community decides to remember Black history month this way then look no further than Delroy Brown to fill the role. Failing that opporunity you can still catch his portrayal of Gaius on the Vision4life website: http://www.vision4life.org.uk/ (and go to the download DVD section).

Give us this day our daily potato

This year we grew our own potatoes.

They grew better on one side of the hills than the other.

The west side of the hills is wetter and the ground heavier. Also the potatoes seemed to get more disease and pests there. The east side of the hills was drier but being the north of England not so dry as to dry them out. As you can see we got some good potatoes. We also got some beans, cabbages, spring onions, tomatoes and other stuff.

We also had quite a lot of plums on our plum trees. Here is a poem about all of this gardening:

Plum picker

I’m not the plum picker
I’m the plum picker’s friend.
I’m only picking plums
till the plum season ends.

I am a
plum gatherer,
bean stalker,
potato lifter
wasp botherer
jam stirrer
pie baker
spud roaster
harvest admirer

Of course my attempts at growing fruit and vegetables, whilst they have made a difference to our health, are not on the same scale as that of women all over the world who have to grow stuff to live.

Heavenly gardener, give us this day our daily potato, yam or pumpkin.

As we marvel at the growing may we dig justly so that all may justly dig.

How can they remember who have never heard?

This must be the most frequently asked question about RB. At almost every event someone says 'But this won't work because ...' and it's usually because there is thought to be insufficient bible knowledge in the common pool for folks to engage in RB. In other words my opening generalisation 'There's a bible in everyone' is not true.

And of course, it's possible that folks saying this are correct. But then again it's not been my experience. In fact I think it's a red herring (enter red herring at this point - swims across screen and exits on the other side). The statement 'we can't do RB because there's no B to R' is just an excuse not to do anything.

RB is a risk. Maybe one day I'll find a group with no B to R but it hasn't happened yet. Personally I still think it's more of a question of how you R your B that what B you R. Of course some days RB goes better than others but for now I'll keep on RBing, at the very least because it's better than doing nothing.

PS When I published this post a free ad by Google popped up and offered me 50% off Red Herrings - now there's an offer it's hard to refuse.

Word of the week

Hannah is trying to teach me German in advance of our visit to Germany in August. My current favourite word is bloemenkohl (this may be spelt wrong).

Some little herb plants arrived yesterday in the post. These were a free gift. I am looking forward to planting them in my garden where broad beans, lettuce, cabbage, spuds and other goodies are currently growing. Alas no bloemenkohl though.

Watch out for catterpillars. Some ate my gooseberry leaves (!). Anyone who know what those might be, I'd be pleased to hear from you.

Remembering the Bible in Calderdale

Stainland and Holywell Green URC is a small faith community just over the border into Calderdale, and part of the Waverley Group. Today I took the Vision4life RB road show to their midweek fellowship group. About 12 people were there, mostly retired. We worked on Bible Scrapbooking (see Vision4life website for these instructions) using RB in five small groups.

Although not at first very confident, they soon got into this and produced five interesting versions of gospel stories. There were three different takes on the Holy Week narrative, one that emphasised Jesus carrying the cross, one that looked beyond Good Friday to Easter Day and one which saw the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday as the culmination of Jesus life. The two other groups remembered two other well remembered gospel episodes: Jesus calming the storm and the parable of the prodigal son. Hopefully we may have some photographs of these by the weekend so watch this space.

Everyone enjoyed it and felt able to contribute. One person was surprised how much everyone had joined in. Another said how much they liked working in the small group. Some made links between the Rb and episodes from life, including current events in the news and suggestions for prayer. All in all, another good example of how RB can reach the parts other ways of using the bible don't seem to reach.

Finished!

I'm pleased to say that the batik I started about 6 weeks ago is now finished. It represents the view of the bay and castle at Holy Island, where we did some RB back in April along the theme 'In my end is my beginning'. It was here that we remembered the post-resurection story of Jesus meeting the disciples at the enge of Lake Galilee with bar-be-qued fish. Kate Gray kindly brought along the fish and the smell (and eventual taste) added a wonderful dimension to our RB.

Boys and the bible

David Hockney has had a thing or two to say about boys and art in response to one of those daft Ofsted reports that makes you wonder if they could inspect their way out of a cupboard. The report includes a vibrant piece of 'computer art' pictured here.

He says "I was appalled when I read that school inspectors say boys are turned off art when it's too heavily focused on drawing and painting," he said. "It's a bit like saying schools shouldn't be bothering with grammar." Well, we all know they'd never stop teaching grammar, would they?

What about the bible? Are boys turned of by that? Lasty night I was at a session with the Boy's Brigade company section at Brackenhall URC exploring more of the remembered bible. Some great insights into Jesus passion as we remembered around the Easter story. Washing feet was 'just wierd' but betrayal was more recognisable, as was fear and wanting to avoid pain. The streets of Huddsersfield may not be the same as the streets of Jerusalem two thousand years ago, but in the small upper room where we met there was plenty of honest remembering.

Wacky in Wythenshawe

Playing with the Bible for the weekend at St Mark's Wythenshawe was a most creative time. Here are some pariticipants with their bible scrapbooking of the Easter story, from Palms to Pentecost.

You can find the instructions for bible scrapbooking on the Vision4life website. Why not have a go yourselves!

Work in progress

I've had a busy few weeks remembering the bible here and there. As a result of being away I've not been blogging but I do have other work in progress to share, so here's a bit of it.

Inspired by remembering the bible on Holy Island, this is a batik, a technique that uses hot wax to mark out designs on fabric (in this case an old cotton sheet from Oxfam that cost £1.99) in order to allow the artist to build up layers of pattern and colour. I'm about half way through it now. Watch this space...

Still remembering the bible: local and national

Yes, I promise I have been doing it - RB of course - since I last posted here. Often indoors, sometimes outdoors, it has been a week or so of creative RB and still some more to come with a visit to SW Synod this week.

Last week was Durham and Lindisfarne with the members of the Thames North and Eastern Synod Ministers' Spring School. Here are some of us eating bar-be-qued fish on the beach as part of remembering post resurection stories - yum yum.

This morning Clive James had a go at RB too in his point of view on Radio 4, with a reference to the Sermon on the Mount. Some of the members of the congregation at Moldgreen URC had heard that as we came to our own rememberings of a wide range of gospel encounters that leave us with scars. So it has been a moving time doing RB and as I get on a train to the SW tomorrow I will look forward to moving a bit further.

Cross-wards through the cross woods

On Good Friday about 20 folks associated with Waverley URC aged from 10-80 years walked 7 or so miles through West Yorkshire countryside to Castle Hill for a service of witness. They were joined at the hill, which shows signs of human activity since 4,000 BCE, by about 30 other less energetic people. Along the way we often went through small woodland areas. Just breaking into bud, these woodlands were small oasis of wildlife undergoing to natural process of regeneration. Last years fallen leaves were still a blanket in some hollows. Twisted roots and fallen branches, the odd dead hedgehog, all witness to the life and death of the woods. On this edge day there was a fresh awareness of the path between life and death as we trod our way through these woodlands. On the hill we heard the story of the hill far away and the Suffering One. Amongst those who gathered on the hill to listen, some were not associated formally with any organised Christian fellowship. These are the Good Friday people of our age, who walk cross-wards through woods and up the hill to remember and who still count.

Christ of the Easter Vigil,
as you hung on for us,
help us to hang on
to and for each other.
Remind us that we all still count,
in that endless crowd of witnesses.
Confirm us as cross people
as we take the steps that lead us
from death to life.

copyright Janet Lees: 12.04.2009

Remembering the bible with football fans

It was the morning after Shearer's first game in charge of Newcastle and the team had gone down 2-0 to Chelsea, when I preached my Shearer Walks on Water Sermon. Even in deepest Essex there was one Newcastle fan in the congregation. This is a suprise in a place made up of ethnic old Londoners, the majority of whom are Spurs supporters like me (there was one Chelsea fan there). The congregation was about one quarter members of the local congregation and three quarters family and friends of the baptismal party. I began the remembering the bible session with the Jesus life-line activity you will find on the Vision4life website. This is usually a good place to start. We had some good ideas: Wise men who visited the baby Jesus (one 5 year old remembered), the Last Supper (one 8 year old): as usual the children are quickest off the mark to shre their remembering as active learners. They seem less inhibited than the adults on the whole. This is clearly one of the main factors affecting our monogenerational ageing churches. We lack the energy and action that these younger ones contribute. Many of us can remember attempts to drive these kind of tendencies out of us as young people. Unfortunatley in most cases it worked and drove almost the whole generation out too. Those of us that did not go are left hanging on by our fingertips in the 'We don't do it like that here' churches.

Eventually we had a shared remembered life in which the Life Giver was also remembered for getting lost in a temple at 12 years of age, getting baptised, turning water into wine, feeding a lot of people with a small amount of fish and bread, telling parables and yes, for walking on water. Afterwards over the tea and coffee more inhibited adults suggested other rememberings including 'the one where he turned over the tables of the bankers in the temple'. So its true, even in deepest Essex, just down the road from where Jade Goodey was married those few short weeks ago, the Life Giver is still remembered and celebrated. Let's hope Alan Shearer lives long enough to keep Newcastle in the Premiership as well.

Well spotted

I'm spending the weekend in Hatfield Broad Oak, in Essex, with my Dad. I've just seen a seven spot ladybird in his garden and a comma butterfuly in his backgarden which is a few miles from the end of the runway at Stansted Airport. Comprising about half an acre of mature woodland it is currently full of purple and white violets, primroses and celendines. The Chestnut tree that I planted as a 12 year old child is breaking into leaf. This is one of the best times of the year in the garden, which has grown pretty much wild over the years. Dad calls it his nature reserve.

Jesus saves but Shearer....

... gets the job at Newcastle United for eight games only. However, the whole episode is replete with religious language. They say some folks take this game of two halves very seriously indeed. A BBC reporter said of the unfolding events: 'For these fans, Shearer walks on water'. More examples of remembering the bible? Is it possible to understand the image of Shearer walking on water without remembering who the description originally refers to? Also known as 'The Angel of the North', is Shearer only a God by reference to that other God-human, Jesus? Or is it enough that humans can't walk on water so we must be referring to Shearer's God-like qualities whether or not some minority group still remembers another water-walking bloke two thousand years ago? Bearing in mind the remembered events of the week coming up, I only hope Alan Shearer makes it to eight games and doesn't find himself nailed to the cross-bar in untimely fashion. He's a very nice bloke (even to a Spurs fan).

Still remembering the bible

There's this website about the bible: http://betterbibles.com/
and they've got a poll there about how often people read the bible.
Now, if I was clever enough I could find out how to put a poll on this website to find out how often people think they remember the bible. But just for fun see what you think when I ask:

How much of the bible do you think you remember?
A lot
A bit
Not much
None

[most people I've asked before think they don't remember any of the bible].

Do you remember any of the following:
The Lord's prayer?
How many days it took for God to create the world?
What happened on the first Good Friday?
What happened on the first Easter Day?

If you remember any of these, Congratulations! You are remembering the bible!! (Ok, so not all of it - try not to be so hard on yourself).

Do you remember things from the bible
often
sometimes
never
only when asked by polls like this on blogs like this?

Do you notice other examples of people around you remembering the bible?
In newspapers
on the radio
in films
on TV
in conversations
in your dreams
in other places?

If so please tell me about it.

Remembering the cross

Harry, aged 85, keeps this cross in his pocket. It was given to him 15 years ago by Constance, who died three weeks after she gave it to him. He keeps it in the pocket where he has his loose change and every time he puts his hand in his pocket he feels it there. It reminds him of his friendship with Constance, a disabled woman from Jamaica who he used to give a lift to church to each week, and of his committment as a Christian.
Baptised as an Anglican, he tried the Baptists as a teenager, before become a Presbyterian after the war, like his late wife, Ruby. Apart from when he had a virus last year for a couple of weeks, he never misses going to Waverley URC, where he is the oldest male member.

You can find plenty of these little crosses to make or for sale on the internet. As we approach cross-week I thought I'd make a video piece about crosses. I've been using some photos of crosses in the school assemblies I've been doing for the last few weeks. Today it was year 7 and they were a bit braver/less self-consious than some of the other groups, so a few people offered their views and opinions. On Friday there's an Easter bonnet competition.

Cross-wise Christ,
with us still
in love, loss and memory;
as we approach your cross-week
keep us mindful of you and each other,
in life and in death.

JAL: 01.04.2009

Remembering the bible: art, humour and gender

When using Remembering the bible some folks accuse me of making the bible up. I'm not sure how these folks think we got a bible in the first place. How do they imagine memory works for 30-40 years after an event (about the time the gospels were written down after Jesus death), even with good oral story telling and oral memory strategies in an oral culture? Just what do they imagine we are referring to when we read, in the written down gospels 'Jesus said...'?

Well here's someone with a good eye for making up the bible: humous feminist Karen Whitehall. She makes collages from the gospel sotries using classical European paintings and photographs of actresses from the 1930-50's. This one is Palm Sunday. See her gallery at:


http://klwcollages.com/index.html


I was looking for Caravaggio's two paintings of 'the not last supper' (or the emmaus Road as some call it) to go with a reflection I am doing tonight and came across these. As a novice blogger it never ceases to amaze me what's out there! She does a good all female last supper with Great Garbo in the central place. It reminded me of an RB session a few years ago doing the Last Supper with an all female group of rememberers. Very moving stuff. Try it sometime yourselves if you can to explore something of what gender says about remembering the bible.

School repeats Crucifixion

Last night's performance of The Crucifixion by Stainer at Silcoates School was sung by a mixed aged choir of around 60 people, outnumbering the audience by quite a few. One of the best things about this school is the way it encourages people of all ages to work together in many different ways.

Although this particular cantata might seema bit old-fashioned (it was first performed in 1887, which was more than half a century after Silcoates first opened) it was actually a very powerful experience. It gaves us all a chance to revist the story, even if the words were not in contemporary English. Malefactors is a word I really use these days and there were one or two other 'Kenneth Williams' moments, but to hear the words of the Bible sung in recitative is an interesting way of topping up your remembered bible.

The last line, sung by the solo tenor, whispering away to silence: 'And he gave up the ghost' was amazing. Yes, he died. Once and for all. As do we all. Don't forget that. Don't water it down. Don't fudge it. Crucified, dead and buried.

Remembering the Bible in Blackburn

Yesterday Revidge Fold United Reformed Church hosted a Vision4life Day for United Reformed Churches in Blackburn. About 20 people attended and spent some part of the day remembering the bible together.

We began with pictures by Dinah Roe Kendall, whose work I have mentioned before. Her two pictures of Palm Sunday and the Family at Bethany provided a good starting point, as participants could easily relate to the vibrant images. You can get them from Piquant here:

http://www.piquant.net/PDFs/postersallegories.pdf

Then we went on to try some of the Vision4life Bible Year Menu activities. Remember anyone can visit the Vision4life web page, view the menu and download materials, even if they are not 'signed up'.

From the menu we did the Jesus life-line and later in the afternoon Kennings and Cookies.

There's a link to the Vision4life website at the side of this page. Some of the participants said...

'A day well spent, an eye opener'

'Reassuring and real'

'Thought provoking'

'Brings the Bible to life'

'Made me dig deeper'

Whilst I understand that 'not everyone would want to do this' if you think you know some people that do then please get in touch.

Meanwhile a thought from the way home on the Caldervale line, after St Francis.

Remembering, after St Francis

Make me a channel of your peace:

where there is chaos,
may patterns emerge;
where there are words,
sentences take shape;
where there are fragments,
stories unfold.

For it is in remembering we forget,
in forgiving we are released to forgive,
and in listening we are empowered to speak;
in fighting we discover our need of peace,
in hugging we gain courage to let go,
and in creating we set free the stuff of life.

[copyright Janet Lees]

Waving or drowning

There was a lovely programme on BBC4 last night about this picture of 'The great wave' by Hokusai of Japan. It turns out that it is one of a series of prints of Mount Fuji made by the artist using a woodblock method of printing in the 19th century. The full series called 36 views of Mount Fuji actually contains 46 prints and can be found here: www.man-pai.com/Grandes_series/Hokusai_Fuji36/hokusai_36_vistas_monte_fuji_e.htm

He made the series in his old age. The prints are just delightful and I find it quite hard to choose a favourite. Each one has such different colours and detail. There's a windy one with people's hats being blown away, in fact there's one for every possible weather or season. Just lovely.

A death in the family

It's now one year since we interred my mum's ashes in the churchyard of St Mary's Hatfield Broad Oak, Essex. It snowed that day and a few hardy villagers came to help us with the task. Today we learnt of the death of another Essex girl, Jade Goodey. I'll not be the first or the last to write about her. I was remembering the hymn by Dora Greenwell 'And art thou come with us to dwell' in which we sing

Thou bringest all again; with Thee
Is light, is space, is breadth and room
For each thing fair, beloved, and free
To have its hour of life and bloom.

I was also thinking of Madge Saunders, who's funeral was held yesterday in Kingston. I found a new photograph of her on another site in which it says she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.



This morning I heard about another well remembered woman. Constance had been a member of Waverley URC until her death in 1994. She had made a small embroidered cross that Harry, my informant, still carries in his pocket. He told me the story today. I hope to find out more about her in the next few weeks.




There's nothing else quite like a death in the family. We need our stories to nudge us further into life even when movement seems impossible. This week's entry in the URC Prayer handbook [still available from http://www.urc.org.uk]/ includes the story of Tony, a builder who built a business on pumpkin finance, a good thing to consider in these credit crunch days. The prayer for today on page 29 reads




Draw us to you,
God of all,
that in our dying
and our living
we may bring
glory and honour
to your name
as we seek to serve you
with integrity.

[copyright Janet Lees, for the 2009 URC Prayer Handbook 'Hush the Storm']

After reading about small fragments of the solar system

I've just finished reading 'Half of a Yellow Sun' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. You can read an exerpt from the book on the authors website, here: http://www.halfofayellowsun.com/content.php?page=excerpt&n=2&f-2
It is a book which has clearly made an impact on many folk who have read it. You can read some of the responses here:
http://www.halfofayellowsun.com/public/yourstory/guestbook.php
and even add your own.
I was given the book by my friend Sarah and it arrived the day after I had my PhD viva two weeks ago. I had only a hazy memory of Biafra, I was a child of about 10 when it all happened but I remembered words like kwashiorkor, although not well enough to be able to spell it without looking it up.
My own African memories are generally of Kenya and of Southern Africa. I have memories of Zimbabwe from several visits in the 1980s and 90s so I was glad when our friend Margaret had some poems written by her lat husband Brian Louis Pearce published this year. Called 'Voices Spits Silence', you can get it on Amazon. The poems were written during 1997-8 when Brian worked as a librarian at the Bulawayo Theological College. They are brilliant.
I also got an email today from Gerald West, my former supervisor at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, where I first learnt about Contextual Bible Study. You can find there stuff here http://www.ukzn.ac.za/sorat/ujamaa/resources.htm
All of which focused my thoughts on these small fragments of the solar system as you can see:

Words come back to us


Words come back to us,
names recur,
memories spring up like new grass.
You live through what you write
and so do I;
hanging on each word,
tongue trying each name,
hands holding each memory.
Neither sticks nor dust,
spirits rise to dance around us.
I join in
hoping the dream will outlast sleep,
hunger or dementia.
But the power of the wind
will blow the dust away
until it collects in another corner
and fertilizes other words.

Dust-dancing Spirit,
whirl us up with your energy
that the heat of memory
may become the fuel of life.

JAL: copyright 18.03.2009

Growing up in a religious family

Some of us do and it is good to hear the voice of one young person, Deborah, who has her own blog: http://deborahdrapper.com/

She also has a rabbit as you can see.

She reminds me of some of the young people I meet when I was researching the views of young people growing up in religious families for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. You can read the report and download it at

http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/religion-beliefs-and-parenting-practices

Last week we did two seminars on this research in Oldham for practitioners working with children. Next week one more in Sheffield. If you are interested in hearing about the research and its implications for front line staff or for faith communities please contact me.

Meanwhile today was my first Assembly at Newsome High School and Sports College [http://www.newsomehigh.kirklees.sch.uk/]

Today was year 9. The deputy head asked me some questions about Lent and Easter, the significance for Christians of this time of year, and the meaning of common Christian symbols associated with Easter like the cross. Three more to do over the next few weeks.

Celtic fashion week

I wonder whether breastplates will feature on the cat walks of Milan, Paris or London this year? This mornings the BBC Radio 4 service was from Belfast and included a version of St Patrick's breastplate [http://prayerfoundation.org/st_patricks_breastplate_prayer.htm]. It made me think that breastplates were all very well for St Patrick but what about contemporary fashion? So I have settled for a t-shirt. The version of the poem with which I am familiar (which dates from at least the ninth century) includes a remembered core gospel as well as the works of the Creator and the Spirit. Only problem with my St Patrick's T-shirt version is I'd need quite a big t-shirt to get it all on.

St Patrick’s T-shirt

I’ll write it here, the Trinity
The three in one, the one in three.

I remember Jesus born in a stable,
Baptised in the river Jordan,
Broke bread, shared wine around a table,
Died on a cross and then rose up
Appeared to friends, the stuff of fable,
Ate again the ‘not last supper’.

I’ll write it here, the Trinity
The three in one, the one in three.

I recall God’s created wonders,
All around me air, earth, fire, water;
And forgiveness for our blunders,
Misuse or pollution of the same.
I recall the Spirit’s action,
Interpreting and then translating
Languages of very faction:
Dancing with diversity.

I’ll write it here, the Trinity
The three in one, the one in three.

With me – Christ!
In me – Christ!
Behind me – Christ!
Before me – Christ!
Beside me – Christ!
Beneath me – Christ!
Above me – Christ!
Winning and restoring Christ,
Quiet and confirming Christ,
In heart – Christ!
In mouth – Christ!

I’ll write it here, the Trinity
The three in one, the one in three,
Always here, upon my chest,
In remembering this, my life is blessed.
But I do need a bigger T-shirt.


copyright Janet Lees 15.03.2009
A version of St Patrick’s breastplate.

Still remembering the Bible: the not last supper

About a week ago there was a poll about books people had not read (!). It seems that 65% of people lied about books they had read. Anyway one of the books people lied about reading was the Bible. Charlie Brooker wrote about this in the Guardian on Monday [http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/09/charlie-brooker].
He says
'Potential partners who genuinely adore reading the Bible on a daily basis traditionally don't mention it until later, when they've invited you back to their place to unexpectedly nailgun your hand to the wall while loudly reciting a selection of their favourite parables from memory.'
Now this was not a technique I'd seen referred to in any daily Bible reading notes I've ever seen, nor a method of RB I'd tried myself. I wasn't sure wether to invite him round and see if the same effect could be produced with my staple gun.
However, it did illustrate once again how the Bible keeps getting into the news, even in this rather odd way. As for 'reciting their favourite parables from memory' - Hurray! They have favourite parables in their memory.
On Monday evening I meet six young people at a local Boy's Brigade group. We got started. One said he had a Bible: small red one with New Testament written on it that he got at school. No one else owned up to having one. Anyway I asked them if they thought they remembered anything from the Bible (well from the story of Jesus life of course, I am a gospels woman). No they said. So we got the string and pegs out. Forty minutes later they had remembered this:

Jesus was born in a stable.
Before he was a year old the king tried to kill him but he escaped.
When he was 12 he got lost in a temple.
When he was an adult he went into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights, then he met some fishermen and he told them to fish on the other side of the boat, and they got a net full of fish, and then he went into Jerusalem on a donkey.
The night before he died, he had the last supper with his friends.
He was crucified, but a couple of days later he came back to life.
And then he had another supper with his friends so that was 'the not last supper'.

So there it is. A core remembered gospel generated by 6 teenagers in 40 minutes with a piece of string and some pegs. Not a nail gun in sight. Brilliant!

An inspiration: tribute to the Revd Madge Saunders

The Revd Marjorie Prentice Saunders 1913-2009

Arriving in Sheffield in 1965

At home in Kingston, Jamaica, 2002

Outside Sheffield Cathedral, 1960s

Ordained at St Mary, Jamaica, 1975

I heard from Kingston, Jamaica, this morning that Revd Madge Saunders died in her sleep last night. She was 96 years old having celebrated her birthday last week. Her funeral will be held on 21st March.

I meet her in Kingston in 2002.

Madge was one of those pioneers of whom we say such great things without really knowing the depth, height, and breadth of it all. I continue to stumble across connections to her life and ministry in the most unlikely places.

She did some of her training at St Colm's College, Edinburgh. Her signature survives in the chapel book against her birthday.

She served at St James Sheffield from 1965-1975 heving been the first and only black woman to be ordained at a deaconness in the Presbyterian Church of England. She took leadership of the congegation when her colleague, Revd Robert Gillespie, who had been instrumental in bringing her to Britain, died.

She returned to Jamaica to be the first ordained woman minister in the United Church of Jamaica and the Calyman Islands. Her long and active retirement saw the inauguration of the Madge Saunders Centre, a conference and youth training centre, on the north coast of the islands, as well as many other activities.

In 2002 folks from St James Sheffield visited her and paid tribute to her important ministry in Sheffield: her work for race relations and amongst young people, which had inspired three generations of Sheffielders.

Self giving to the end, she sold a bigger house a few years ago to raise funds for school bursaries for young people to attend high school. She said she only needed a small house.

Her story is told in part in Daughters of Dissent and in This is our story: Free Church women's ministry. I'm sure we will continue to discover more about her.

Please remember her and the current work of the United Church of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands [http://www.unitedchurch.org.ky/]

Food for thought

Having finally ground our way through the BBC's Masterchef contest last night (courtesy of 'i-player': http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00hzdnj/MasterChef_Series_5_Episode_32/) we food-a-holics in the Lees-Warwicker family, in common with many of our companions in the West, need another food fix (writes novice blogger as she eats toast!).



I was therefore delighted to read the article by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in yesterdays Guardian Weekend, about her soon to be published Settler's Cookbook (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/feb/28/yasmin-alibhai-brown-cookbook). Her recipe for Dry Potato Curry reminded me of one we ate when I first visited India in 1984 and her story of return to Kampala was very moving.



So I dream about fusion food, of which we make a lot in our household. First there's Italian fusion and French fusion, products of my time spent as an au-pair in both France and Italy in my late teens and early twenties. I had thought it strange that an 8 year old child should eat pasta three times a day until my own daughter showed everysign of preferring to do the same. As for France, it's in everything from the herbs and garlic to the salad, cheese and wine, and of course the chocolat.

Then there's Asian fusion. This mostly means combinations of spices and red lentils, commonly called lentil mush in our household; another thing Hannah would eat daily if at all possible.



There are earlier attempts at fusion food that have fizzled out. For a while when I lived in Palmers Green about 20 years ago I ate a lot of pilchard lasagna but it rarely if ever appears on menus here these days. It was cheap. I joke about making soup with turnips but actually I hate them. Hannah's good on fairtrade fusion cookies. That's cookies with anything fairtrade in them. They feature on the Bible Year Menu on the Vision4life website in the Kennings and Cookies activity. Why not give it a try?



Then there's British fusion, which I mostly learnt from my mum and gets embellished by all sorts of stuff from anywhere. Last night we had our first Yorkshire Triangle Rhubarb of the new season. you can find out all about it here: http://www.yorkshirerhubarb.co.uk/ruhbarb_triangle.htm

But most of all of course, there's bread pudding: mum's piece de resistance. Once again Guardian Weekend featured a recipe, but it didn't seem to be the one I remembered. These days toast sees off stale bread in our house so there's little opportunity for bread pudding even if I could remember it. Maybe I'll give it a little thought.

Remembering which bible

There's a weekly programme on Radio 4 at certain times of the year, called the News Quiz. Chaired by Sandi Toksvig, an irripressible Dane, it is a great source of examples of the RB. It happens quite often that RB comes up in the group's discussions of obscure news items. This week it was Leviticus and whether the bible was funny. Now we could get sidetracked by that but I suggest you just download the podcast from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4

The subject of todays blog is remembering the Hebrew scriptures, another challenge from Jane, who has been remembering Bable with a multilingual group in Switzerland. In the 15 years of so of working on the RB method it is true to say that I have been selective about which bits of the bible I've remembered with people. There are many reasons for this

1. RB is not about remembering the whole bible - a rote pedagogy - but about the bits that matter to you at the time and how remembering them challenges the status quo;

2. RB is a contextual method - it is about remembering the bits that seem relevant for that context - and in the context of 21st century Britain and the margins of urban living that is the core of Word of Mouth, the 'bit' of choice was the gospel - the central Jesus story;

3. RB is a personal method - as Jane notes in her blog about Babel, our own stories are essential to our rememberings. So Babel was great with multilingual bridge builders. But I am a gospel woman. I am passionate about the story of the Tomb Quitter, the Name Caller, the Life Giver. So that this the core of my RB.

It is not the case that I have never used the Hebrew scriptures for RB. There's some illustration using the book of Ruth as a basis for RB in Word of Mouth, and that's a story I have often used in multicultural Britain. I have sometimes used other bits depending on the context. It's great to hear about more people doing RB. Please share the stories of your rememberings.

Word of Mouth is still available from www.ionabooks.com

Getting bloggin

Bob has started a blog. After a conversation about blogs he started one today. You can find it at http://therevbobsdiary.blogspot.com/ although as it's only just started there's not much to see yet. But there will be. Watch this space. This is Bob as he appears on his blog.

We took a walk to Castle Hill and saw the bus stop to Nazareth. We had some fish and chips and came back on the 368. The bus driver was very talkative (we were the only people on the bus most of the way) and told us how dangerous Scar had been in the ice and snow. We saw some bits of Huddersfield we'd not seen before. The snow has nearly all melted and what is left is very dirty. In some gardens you see a melting blob and a discarded scarf; signs of previous creativity.

Women, leadership and the church

Jane has been blogging about this so I thought I should get onto it too. She has 'blogged my memory' so to speak. Yesterday I meet women who are in leadership in the church. One told me about the bible studies she had facilitated using some of the RB methods that are on the Wision4life website. Another I had last seen in her kitchen in South Africa 15 years ago, at the end of our exchange period in 1994. She's now in ministry in Kent. I came home and read a bit in the Guardian about women clergy in the Church of England by Riazat Butt [http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/12/women-in-the-church]. There were some interesting bits:

Of the 512 male clergy who left in 1994 when women were ordained as priests, 72 came back. What's that story?

Of the 8,423 stipendiary clergy a smaller proportion are women (1,543) than are the nonstipendiary clergy (2,588 of whom 1,247 are women). What's the story? We had a similar disproportion in the two different streams in the URC at the time we wrote Daughters of Dissent (that's it on the right: about women and leadership in the URC).


Then there were a few thumbnail sketches about the ways in which women clergy currently exercsie leadership in the Church of England, including the story of one who now chairs several important committees. The URC also does committees and we have tried to balance committee members by gender. however, what we have not dealt with is work load by gender or any other criterion.


I also wondered about the story behind the story. For women clergy to lead committees is one story but why do we need ordained clergy to lead committees? All denominations do this: clog up the church beurocracy with ordained clergy. Why? Particularly when most mainstream churches also struggle with the availability of ordinaed leadership at local pastoral level. Why do we need priests or ministers, women or men, to chair committees? Of course you are hearing from a total meetings-phobic person here. I can understand that knowledge and skills in theology and ecclessiology etc may be required of a committee chair, depending on the remit of the committee. But to struggle for all those years for ordination of women to the priesthood and then celebrate by chairing a committee, however prestigious, well I just don't get it. Please someone, tell me the story of that.


Daughters of Dissent by Elaine Kaye, Janet Lees and Kirstry Thorpe is still available from the URC bookshop via the website http://www.urc.org.uk/