We have bought a car. Cue champagne - music - lights!
Very second - actually thirdhand - but a CAR.
It has felt like climbing Mount Everest - just getting to the point of decision - but we are there and it is done. (For those into MBTI - my partner and I are both INFP - need I say more?) I am exhausted emotionally (Drama Queen) - just because this is unfamiliar territory and we knew we needed an impressively good deal. It has worked out well, I think; I hope. I would never have imagined I would find it that difficult though! Weird. It's a car not a major life-transforming event!
Ironically I don't find shifts in a psychiatric hospital; sitting by the bedside of someone dying or even accompanying people as they make personal and spiritual connections exhausting to anything like the same degree. Maybe it is to do with what is familiar and what I am comfortable with. Maybe...
We now have the highly pleasurable task of deciding with the family what her name is to be. I have a sense that she is female and as she is a deep green I am already toying with earthy names - Gaia (which might well wind up a much loved colleague who will think I am being wacky!) to Meadowsweet (too twee)? Peaseblossom? Good provenance but a tad fay? Maybe Hilda or as she has been purchased on the commemoration of Elizabeth Ferard - the first English Deaconess - maybe Ferard? I daresay my son will favour naming her after a Star Wars or Harry Potter character. We will have fun establishing her identity and will be sorry to say good bye to Hector - our trusted Land Rover - but we need space and 7 seats! Retreatants need comfort - and so do we.
It does make me mad the way technology is increasingly utilised to reduce consumer choice. Even if you try to buy a relatively uncomplicated car - there are still various things that can only be fixed by the manufacturer's own franchises because the replacement part interfaces with this and that; needs to be assessed using the latest computer software and then realigned once it is installed. The guys I feel sorry for are the independent chaps who are highly experienced mechanics and have a passion for motor cars but are disenfranchised from undertaking these tasks because they do not wish to join a franchise. I met a smashing one today who looked over the car before we bought her. A passionate person with a love of cars.
We have been reading 2 Corinthians in morning prayer recently and I realise I must be mellowing. I usually get quite miffed with S. Paul's letters and his extraordinary capacity to apparently encourage whilst actually being rather autocratic and manipulative (no projection there then!). This morning's reading made me smile. I suddenly had a flash of insight and felt desperately sorry for Paul. The poor man is battling with his ego, conscience and desire to hold community together. He is trying so hard to make it all right. I found myself, as we fell into our customery period of silence, wondering if he had ever felt able to take his own spiritual advice.
I have been second marking assignments for the Theological Institute today which has been great fun. After Practical Theology/Spirituality - Ethics and Church History are favourites of mine. Today I was marking mostly level one Church History and they were highly imaginative and inventive responses to the assignment. I wished I had been undertaking the task as well!
I have been trying to get together a reading list for those considering life in community. In recent weeks I have read:
Homan, David., Radical Hospitality: Benedict's Way of Love (2007) Wild Goose.
Once you get over the American 'shine' in the presentation it makes some powerful points about incarnational living.
Bell, John, Hard Words for Interesting Times (2003) Wild Goose.
I loved Bell's chapter on The Guardianship of Creation and Midwifery for Pensioners.
Tutu, Desmond, God Has A Dream: A Vision Of Hope For Our Time (2005) London: Random House.
Tutu has such an engaging style - and his Epistle to contemporary society and the Church is moving and evocative.
Johnson, S., Who Moved My Cheese? (1998) London: Random House.
Don't bother to read any of the introduction - make straight for the story which begins on page 25. The story concerns the discernment of a group of laboratory mice caught in a maze. It is a wonderful approach to discernment based on understanding and acknowledging our preferred styles of relating to decision-making. It was written as a managerial tool - but should be embraced for its delightful, gentle insights into how behaviour affects outcome. It can't all be blamed on the Holy Spirit.
And another one by John Bell:
States of Bliss and Yearning: The Marks and Means of Authentic Christian Spirituality (1998) Wild Goose.
I am still reflecting on an excellent talk Bell gave which is reproduced in the book on Matthew 7.21 - "Not everyone who calls me Lord..."
Bell calls this section 'Tricky Bits in the Bible'. The understatement works.
There's also a very interesting section called 'The Discipline of Waiting' which is especially powerful for me. I have spent significant periods of my life being able to do a passable impression of a caged lionness!!
Found another property by the by at Lochgoilhead. The house has a chapel. Oh, no I hear you groan...
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