Cat heaven

Good morning God,
I really miss Velvet this morning.

When we took her to the vets last night to put an end to her pain and suffering, it seemed like the right thing to do, but was it? Did we have the right? Is there an afterlife for cats, a heaven where she is finally free?

She was one of those who never stood a chance. As a result of being terribly abused by her first owners, she never learned to trust humans. In 12 years, she never once sat willingly on a lap and she only tolerated being stroked when and where she wanted, once a day, just before feeding!
But she seemed content with us and over time had managed to make a space in our home and in our lives that she knew was her own which she was comfortable with.  As long as we asked no more of her than she was willing to give - all was well.

We saw the first signs of the cancer in July, and it has been a rapid decline since then.
Her tumor was on her face, blocking her nostril, closing one eye, giving her, in the early days at least, a sort of sleepy lop-sided look, as though she couldn't quite bring herself to wake up.
And the weight just fell off her.
We could do nothing but watch as our beautiful british blue, was ravaged by this insidious disease.
There was no comfort we could give - she still didn't want to be touched or stroked, we could not give her oxygen or help her to breathe and we failed to find a food that could tempt her to eat.
We knew that we were not prepared to let her 'suffer' - but how do you know when the time is right?
Were we taking her to the vets because we could not bear to watch, or because it really was the best thing to do for her?

It's hard enough to make such a decision at the best of times - but, if you don't mind me saying God, it seems particularly cruel to have had to make it at a time when my health has been so problematic.

Like Velvet, for the last three weeks breath is something I have no longer been able to take for granted - it has been, and still is, hard fought for following a serious chest infection.  Although the infection has cleared up and I am managing to work, my breathing is still not good and by the end of each day I am completely exhausted by the constant effort of just trying to get enough air into my lungs to live another day.

When the infection was at its height - there was a time when I almost wanted someone to end my life - the pain and terror of not being able to breathe was more than I thought I could bear, as was watching Brian's distress at not being able to help in any way...
Was that memory what persuaded us to take Velvet to the vet yesterday..?

Projection - when one problem or situation is projected onto another to create enough distance to allow the more personal or difficult problem to be either dismissed, or dealt with.

Anthropomorphizing - attributing human traits and attributes to animals or objects..

Prayer - the gift you give of honest enquiry.

I believe I will live after death - and yes, I believe we made the right decision for Velvet - she is at peace, freedom from her pain and her suffering was a gift we could give her. But what I don't know - and what I need to know at this moment in time (even if it is just projecting or anthropomorphizing) is  whether there is an afterlife for cats.

What say you God?

Ministerial whining?

Good morning God,
It has been seriously suggested to me that I rethink my vocation, that I have misunderstood what ministry is and that I should look to leaving the Church if all I want to do is whine about my working conditions. It has also been implied that I am taking a pop at the Connexional team, that I am out to slur them and make mischief or worse at their expense..

What on earth could I have done to have blotted my copybook so thoroughly?

Oh, yes,, that's right, I have dared to suggest that the Church considers practicing what it preaches, and updates the working conditions for circuit ministers as laid out in CPD so that they are a better reflection of its theology of grace.

Perhaps I should have been prepared for it God, but I have been astonished by some of the responses I have received over the last week. In amongst the many replies recognising the need for the Church to have a debate about current working conditions, there have been a small but significant minority who have decided that anyone who wants a change in their 'terms and conditions' must somehow be less of a minister...

To those who say ministers are not employees -
Hurrah... I too believe in the Covenant relationship and do not want to be an employee. The expectations of the Covenant vis-a-vis our working conditions are already spelt out in CPD - updating them will not suddenly make us employees.

To those who say ministry is who we are, not what we do -
Agreed again.. but let's not lie and say that ministers don't need or enjoy our days off or holidays like everyone else! Updating the conditions in CPD will not make us LESS ministerial by encouraging us to have a more realistic work-life balance!

To those who think I'm having a pop at the Connexional team..
Huh?
The fact that ministers who work at Methodist Church House or outside of circuit ministry usually have contracts which stipulate a 5 day working week is cause for thanksgiving not ridicule - surely!
To make mention of this is not some subtle or perverse way of saying that I think the Connexional Team dont work hard enough.
To ask for the same notional working conditions for circuit ministers is simply to point out and ask for an extension of existing GOOD PRACTICE.

To those who think I have lost my vocation...
Asking for a change in working conditions does not mean that I am only interested in putting my material interests before those of my flock.  As someone who has been involved in the training and theological education of many of our ministers, I'm just not prepared to ignore the fact that too many ministers are falling sick and leaving the Church because they cannot live up to the increasing demands of some circuits based on current expectations.(not my own circuit I hasten to add!)
A small change in CPD could make a big change in how some people feel about their ability to minister. To watch over one another in love is part of our shared ministry.

In 'What is a Presbyter' we are told that

A presbyter is a ‘whole' person, interconnected with others through family, friendship or other close relationships
and
A presbyter ensures that his or her family and personal commitments are not neglected

The same is true of Deacons..

To ask that CPD is updated so that this is implicit in our working conditions is not whining - its practicing what we preach.
Isn't it?

35 hour working week for all ministers?

Good morning God,

A 5 day, 35 hour working week for all ministers - yes even CIRCUIT ministers? Is it possible, is it desirable? As promised, here's the text of a circuit memorial which, if adopted and sent to Conference, might at least persuade us to examine the working conditions of circuit ministers.
What do you think God? I know, I know, we would all do the work anyway, but if we felt we were only supposed to be 'working' 35 hours a week, we might at least give ourselves permission to stop after 48.. instead of the usual 60-70..
It might even encourage more lay people to become actively involved again - or even consider ministry as an option if they saw half-decent working conditions..


Anyway.. here's the first draft to be put to our circuit meeting.

Text of memorial: The xxxx Circuit draws the Conference’s attention to the increasing number of ministers leaving circuit ministry for reasons of stress, finance and poor working conditions and asks Conference to address the issue directly by implementing the following changes to ministerial working conditions without reduction of Stipend from the start of the Connexional year 2011:
1) Standardise on a notional 5 day, 35 hour working week for all ministers.
(These are the working hours of ministers based at MCH)
2) Remove the 12 quarter days per year
3) Require Circuits to comply with the European Working Directive and ensure that no minister works more than 48 hours a week when averaged over a 17 week period.

Background or supporting statement:
Ministry is a vocation which demands sacrificial giving of time and energy. As the Church has declined however, more and more is being asked of few and fewer ministers. The review of the pension scheme has highlighted the fact that there has been a significant increase, year upon year, in the number of younger (below 50 years of age) ministers retiring early on the grounds of stress. The call for a ‘Year of Jubilee’ at Conference 2010 is further indication of the extent to which the whole Church is beginning to feel pressured. For the Church to flourish and grow it needs a ministry which is energised and refreshed not permanently tired. It also needs for ministry to appeal to a new generation as a vocation which, whilst it may be both challenging and dynamic, is nonetheless still doable. It is our belief that the current Conference ruling (given below) is no longer able to achieve that objective.

The Conference recognises the impossibility and the undesirability of too strict a rule on a minister’s or deacon’s use of time, such as a sessional apportionment would entail, and it also recognises the economic restrictions which make the ideal unachievable; but it considers that the application of the principles of any person’s need of rest, recreation, exercise, fellowship, and above all a full family life, would require:
1. 35 days’ holiday each year, plus the equivalent of statutory public holidays. Such entitlement would include five Sundays free of duties, of which at least two would be consecutive Sundays and, for ministers, one Local Preachers’ Sunday.
2. A break of three consecutive weekdays (if possible away from home) each quarter.
3. A minimum break of 24 hours each week, without structured work and if possible away from the manse.
4. A period of up to an hour’s break each day for recreation and exercise.
5. Where there is a Sunday between Christmas and New Year probationers should be free on that Sunday.
The Conference recommends each minister and deacon to cultivate a hobby from the outset.

God's Clearing House

Good morning God,
I wonder how many of our seminaries will be contacted as part of the UCAS clearing process today, after all, every one of them offers degree programs, from Foundation Degrees, through to Bachelors, and even Masters and Doctorates.

This could be a great opportunity for us.

We could advertise for students by suggesting that a failure to obtain the grades they needed for university might just be God's way of 'calling' them to the ministry instead.

No, I'm not being facetious.

We have long since stopped expecting the countries brightest and best to join the ministry. (if we ever did of course) Historically it was once expected that the oldest son of the landed Gentry would inherit and manage the family estate, whilst younger sons would enter the Army or Navy or the Church!
Now, to be truthful, we no longer expect or even try to attract young people of university age into the vocation.

Madness!

Instead of retreating from the younger generation we need to be courting them: advertising our degree courses, pushing our vocational degrees, even attending the milk-round of graduates and offering them further vocational training to complement their degrees, if they will take a fast-track to ministry.

We should be thinking about our failing Churches and Circuits in the same way that the government thinks about failing schools. It takes good management skills, entrepreneurial ability, marketing and business skills to turn a failing Church into thriving centre for the next generation's growth in grace and holiness. It's time to start fast tracking student ministers in the same way that the state fast tracks student teachers. We need young people, with the necessary skill base who are prepared to take on the challenge of real leadership, to use all the gifts and graces that God has given them, to turn the Church around and bring it kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.

Perhaps getting the wrong A level Grades is just the start - try a different sort of degree...

NO - we don't need the young person to be an exemplary Christian first, we don't even need them to have faith - we need them to want to do the work, to want to have faith.
Wesley's lack of faith didn't stop him doing the job.. He was told : Preach faith until you have it, and then, because you have it - you will preach faith..

So for all the young people out there who don't have the grades they needed and who want a real challenge in life: Contact one of our seminaries: Not only might you get a place on a degree course, but the way might be open to a whole new way of life that is deeply rewarding and endlessly fascinating!

You too might be heading up a charity with a turn-over of over of anything from £50,000 to half a million pounds or more a year, managing a highly skilled staff and using your position to make real changes to the local community and perhaps even the world - all within just a few short years of your graduation/ordination...

May the Lord lift up his face..

Good evening God,
can we talk frankly for a moment? I need to be honest about something that's really bothering me..
it's my face, or rather,  the fact that the face I see in the mirror these days isn't a face that I recognise as mine, and that's something that really is beginning to bug me. What's disturbing me is how quickly other people have grown used to this face - as though it is mine, as though this is who I am now...

I've never been particularly interested in my face before now, I've only put make-up on once or twice in my entire life, and as for my hair, well I've been as happy to cut it myself to get it out of my eyes as I have been to pay someone else to do it for me. So I think I can truthfully say, my problem is not based on vanity or or any need to look a million dollars (who wants to look that green and grubby!)
I'm not concerned about looking 'pretty', I just want to look like me, to me, again.

Please don't misunderstand. I am truly grateful for the miracle of life. I do know how amazing it is to still be here after surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. I am well aware of how petty this must sound to some people! I am alive, so what if it means that I don't look like I used to, surely that's a small price to pay isn't it?

Yes..

and no.

There is something about the image of ourselves that we carry around inside our heads which is intensely personal and definitive: It doesn't just shape how we see ourselves, it affects how we relate to others on a very deep and spiritual level. It took courage to wear a wig when I lost my hair through chemotherapy, but it actually takes more grit and determination to simply face the world each day looking like a stranger to myself. The insecurity it generates is quite astonishing.

The bottom line is that I can't rely on this face to communicate all the love and compassion I have for the people I meet: I don't know how well, if at all, this face is able to reflect the light of your love, the gift of your grace, and the joy of your presence.  I don't know how to lift up this face..

Did you?

I mean, did you, when you took human flesh, know how to look out at the world through a face that was not able to express all that you wanted it too, all that you needed to say, all that you truly felt inside? Did your face as Jesus, feel strange to you, alien to you, less than who you really were? Did you feel you were able to sustain relationships, form new ones, communicate love, grace, hope and joy just as you wanted to?

or was this why graven images are forbidden, is that why they can seem so empty, so undesirable?

I am grateful for the fact that deep inside, I know who I am.
That for most of each day, I am able to forget that I do not look like me to me, and so am able to simply be me..
I am grateful too for that amazing prayer, and for the promise it offers to people like myself who may, or may not, recover the outward image of themselves in this lifetime and so have to trust that they reflect your face instead:

The LORD bless you

and keep you;

the LORD make his face shine upon you

and be gracious to you;

the LORD turn his face toward you

and give you peace.”’

Thanks for the rant

Wife Hunting

Good morning God,
One of the joys of being able to keep a church open every day during the day, is the opportunity it provides for prayer and pastoral ministry to the whole community.

Given its size and location, New Malden is a surprisingly diverse community. It is currently dominated by three specific groups;
White Europeans (including a growing number of Eastern Europeans),
Koreans (New Malden has the largest community of Koreans in Europe) and
Sri Lankans (mainly Tamil).

In our cafe we also have a regular table set aside for a group of Syrian Orthodox, Iraqi refugees.

On some days, it can sometimes seem as though the whole world has come to us to share in the warmth and hospitality that the Church is able to offer by its presence on the High Street.
It does, however, also pose some interesting pastoral conundrums - when cultures clash and faith is challenged to think differently about prayer and action, morals and ethics.

This week, for example, I was asked to pray with a Christian Tamil gentleman who had traveled to New Malden  from Denmark in search of a wife for his 25 year old Son.  "Only God can help me in my search",  he explained, "so it makes sense to start here - would you please pray that I will be successful and find for him a wife who will travel back with me to Denmark?"


Although I know that many Christian cultures still practice arranged marriages,  it is not something that we encounter very often in the Churches here. Throughout most of the Western world, people presume that marriage is the union of two people who are already in love. The idea of someone else choosing our life-partner for us challenges our presumptions of freedom, individuality, autonomy..

BUT
Isn't marriage all about the renunciation of those things? The loss of I in WE, the willing abandonment of personal freedoms in favour of shared responsibilities, the death of self for the sake of something new.

The difference is, of course, that some cultures still consider marriage to be a part of their social and religious duty rather than just a personal privilege. They believe that those who can marry should, for the sake of society; not least, to ensure that children are raised in the best possible environment.
Marriage is not about what 'I' want, or even about what 'we' would like to do, but about what You command and the world needs,

Considered in that light, it is far too important to be left to the whim of an often fleeting emotional or physical response to another individual. If it is to benefit society, and enrich the life of the whole extended family then it needs to be carefully, prayerfully thought through.. and who best to choose the partners than those who know the young people best?
You - and of course, the parents!

Whilst I could never condone a forced marriage or an unwilling marriage - I believe there is much to be said for an arranged marriage based on loving trust and mutual consent.  Following conversation, and a shared service of holy communion, I found that I was genuinely happy to pray with the father in search of a bride for his son. What's more,  I trust that our prayers will be answered and that you will guide him to the family of the young woman who would be willing to commit herself to the new life waiting for her in Denmark.

It is indeed, a great privilege to be able to share in prayer with people from all over the world, not least because the requests that others make of us are such an amazing invitation from You to rethink our own requests.

A five day week..?

Good morning God,

I was reminded this week amidst all the comments about Clergy Burn-Out of my first Superintendent (You never forget your first!) In the first three months of my ministry, he took the trouble to go through my diary with me, and make sure that I took things out as well as put things in. He would point out, for example, that I had a ladies fellowship meeting arranged for Tuesday afternoon, but had set aside no time to prepare for it - were these women not worth the effort - or did I think I would prepare in my sleep? Similarly for Church meetings - when had I set aside time to re-read the minutes of the last meeting, to pray about the work to be done, to seek God's guidance - or was that supposed to happen sometime in between the opening devotions and the apologies for absence?
His gentle but insistent reordering of my diary, helped me to shape not only my time but also my theology of Church order - invaluable!
Later on, as we developed a team ministry in the Circuit, we would meet weekly at 8:00am and the final part of our business was to share our diaries as part of watching over one another in love. This also had the amazing effect of teaching us what work we were each engaged in, how to play to one another's strengths, and how to avoid duplication. There can be no doubt about it - opening the diary to scrutiny reduced the work load.
BUT
It's not common practice, most ministers seem determined to hoard their work-load as though it is treasure from heaven (which it certainly isn't!). Very few ministers seem confident enough to celebrate a lighter week as a Godsend, leave alone ask for help with a demanding week.
There can be no doubt in my mind that collegiality is better than legislation when it comes to the provision of appropriate pro-active supervision. We shared diaries because we cared about each others work load, as well as the work of the Circuit. We worked as a team because that was what Circuit ministry was supposed to be all about. We also learned the hard way that it only takes one unwilling person to destroy a team.
Given the increasing sizes of circuits and the demands placed on lay and ministerial staff alike, it becomes harder and harder to realistically watch over one another in love - leave alone create and sustain an effective circuit (ie team) ministry.
So what to do?
I think that Micky Youngston and others are right - now is the time to debunk the myth of ministry being of necessity a 24/7 job and recognise that it is the calling that is 24/7 not the work!
It's time to insist first and foremost on realistic working hours for ministers. If the European time directive is good enough for other vocational professionals like doctors and consultants - then it should be good enough for ministers. No more than 40 hours per week maximum. And - YES - ministers should have two days a week off - if possible to be taken consecutively!
A radical rethink of ministerial working hours would undoubtedly serve to re-engage the laity - or better yet - help us to set realistic priorities. Do we really need yet another meeting for the carpet in the Sanctuary or to set the calendar of social committee meetings for the year?
Above all this however, it would send out the message, loud and clear, to ministers  and laity alike that the work of ministry should not be so demanding that the minister is unable to take the time to grow in grace and holiness, to fulfil their calling which includes their responsibilities to their families and friends.
I know that few ministers would be able to hold to 40 hours, but changing the working hours would make it possible to hold us accountable for 40 hours - and questions could then rightly be asked about any excess!
It might make ministers more willing to share their diaries, if they didn't feel that every hour from 8:00am til 10:00pm had to be spoken for. It might encourage greater honesty about unrealistic work loads, and help to stem the tide of those leaving the ministry for better paid, 5 day a week posts. (It's worth noting that Connexional posts are only 5 days a week rather than the Circuit based 6 days!)
It's time to draft circuit and district resolutions to Conference, to send a message loud and clear - along with personnel files for ministers, we want decent working hours.
But above all this God - what we really want is a means of watching over one another in love.