Fringe Dweller

Post quake

2011-10-06T22:15:00.006+13:00

Several people have asked about Christchurch. Lets see well it has been a painful journey. My grandmother died two weeks before the quake, for that I am grateful. My other grandmother lost it and is in a home, my brothers partner was killed in the CTV building.

Church wise there are 26+ churches including the cathedral gone in Christchurch including my home church, the church I was Christened in, and my previous church. At times I am fine with what has occured, then at times I find my self shocked beyond belief, my jaw tight with grief and unsaid words.

God and I are closer though and I believe my faith is stronger than ever. I will try and attach a pic of my Church Holy Trinity Avonside and a piece written from the Women's Studies Network News Letter in March this year.

From Women's Studies News Letter

Back in college a month after the February quake, I still find it hard to comprehend what it is that has happened to my home in Christchurch. I, like many, was initially traumatised by the news of the earthquake. We waited desperately for news from home, the extent of the devastation still unfolding in the city.

Under the weight of constant aftershocks, anxiety and sleep deprivation, it became increasingly apparent that coping mechanisms in Christchurch were crumbling. The opportunity to be a part of the St Johns College relief team to the Maori Mission in Christchurch was an absolute gift. Before moving to college, I had volunteered in social service agencies for over twenty years and knew the city well. However, the

experience of ministering to community within the midst of an emergency, which in effect was still unfolding, challenged me anew to examine how I both experienced and reflected Christ in a disaster.

Although I had experienced the rolling aftershocks, and seen the impact on the city after the initial quake, nothing could prepare me for the shock of standing in front of

my home church. There I was, holding in the palm of my hand, a piece of what was left of the building, the place where I had prayed I would one day be ordained.

In that moment of contemplation, standing on my sacred ground, my solid ground, the words of theologian Jon Sobrino flooded into my being:

“There is a lot to do when an earthquake strikes, but the first thing- without which nothing else we do is enough- is to let ourselves be affected by the tragedy, not to turn away or soften it. This is not a way of promoting masochism, or demanding what is psychologically impossible. It simply requires an initial moment of honesty toward the reality.”[1]

Surrendering that moment towards the honesty of what was occurring allowed me to be fully present in my ministry.

During my time in Christchurch, the full blessing of my experience of Clinical Pastoral Education became increasingly apparent. If for no other reason than the removal of my initial hesitation at being alongside people in trauma, I was exceedingly grateful for those days ministering in Middlemore’s Psychiatric Unit. Yes, the physical building of my church had been reduced to rubble, but that little piece of it, which only

I knew was resting in my pocket, became a touchstone as I worked for the

next few days; my solid ground when meeting with those for whom there was little certainty. A gentle reminder perhaps, that though a building is a building, solid ground is not necessarily that on which I stand, but on that which is my sure footing in the realm of God. This love, that in those tired moments (when it would be easy to join those around me whom. had fallen into quiet chaos and fear) is the love on which I firmly stand. That grounding faith, in those moments, holding me as I hold those fearful and uncertain, as we stand together on the solid ground of God’s enduring love.

On the last night of our time in Christchurch I find myself once more standing in the grounds of my church with my father and my brother. In the last light of day is revealed the great church window, shining untouched through the rubble.

Such emotion bubbles up

on attempting to understand this trip

-this place

a liquefaction of competing thoughts - emotions

foreign, familiar

- pure and tainted.

Questions that few have the breath to answer

ambush the weary

demanding some logical pattern

amidst that which resists form.

How can one in such a place not ask what it is the land demands

when she rolls over in desperation

shaking loose the shackles of archaic churches

waking long dead church fathers.

To one born of old eyes

such questions find a safe harbour behind my teeth

until the only sound that feels safe leaving my mouth

- a lament, is cried into the ground.

“Where is your sacred ground?

Where is your place to stand?”

In the end all that can be done is to dig a hole

and give these questions up to the earth.

It is in the reflected in the at the end of a long day

arms of God where solace is to be found in this place,

through a pile of church rubble

a window unharmed displaying the colours of Gods enduring love

[1][1] Jon Sobrino, Where is God? Earthquake, Terrorism, Barbarity, and Hope (New York: Orbis Books, 2004), 7.

3rd Year approaching ordination

2011-10-06T22:11:00.002+13:00

I have noticed a change coming over St John’s College community as we approach the end of the year – and more importantly as many of us approach ordination. I have in past years been aware of the shift that ripples through this place. We are a community, we worship early in the morning, break fast together, study together, have Eucharist together, lunch together, we live next to each other, we socialise, our children are bought into the world and grow up here, they play together, and we all love and struggle and suffer together. In many respects I have never been so intimately entwined in a community as I am here. As such nothing that affects one in the community, can not at some level be felt by another. This year with so many heading toward ordination I wonder if the feeling is compounded?

Or is perhaps it is just my own fall into introversion as I approach my deaconing. In some respects it is odd to me to be leaving here to be ordained in another place, another Island away from my community. I will travel to Christchurch, God willing be ordained in the Church of St Michael and All Angels (as the Cathedral is no more since the earthquakes). I will work in the community, in the east of Christchurch for five weeks with quake survivors and then return here, different and yet the same.

As I approach ordination the questions of worthiness ripple and round the community and through me. We have become a quieter people at present. I am happy that some of the people from here will travel with my husband and I to my ordination, my dean, the priest in charge of my formation, students. People who have been an intricate part of my formation and journey. Two worlds for a short while will touch each other (I wonder what they will think of each other?)

In the meantime I notice myself caught between the difficulties of acquiring the documentation needed to be ordained when ones church has been destroyed and all records are in the red zone, and my own internal shift. I notice it most when I take bible study for the Pacific Island and African Women at College. There we enter Tambore time when we engage with scripture and the intimacies of human interaction across nations. In this sacred space I confess my increased need to nurture my community, to set up sewing sessions so no one to be deaconed or priested - however tight for cash (the perpetual student problem) without a stole.

I confess too my sudden desire to look at wedding dresses. Although I buy them at auction to cut up for stoles, I am aware that there is a subtext here, a mirroring of the bride of Christ, a sense that in my ordination I will be wedded to the Church in a new way.

Such are the noticings of this a woman on the edge of ordination, on an evening where there is a soft rain and the smell of blossom heavy in the air.

Reflection on Year two in Seminary

2010-07-17T17:19:00.002+12:00

I have lately become painfully aware of the transitions that occur in being in seminary. Whilst facilitating at the hermeneutics hui I had the chance to reengage with those from my Diocese. In some respects this was valuable yet it was also painful. Painful in regard to an awareness of the judgements externally of my seminary from those who have little or second hand knowledge of community life and the positive things which are happening. After a year and a half of intentional community building & the pursuit of theological excellence, to receive critical comments from people from home to both my fellow students and to myself, was painful and embarrassing.

There is of course always a cost in leaving the diocese to train at a seminary in transition when others are engaging in a different stream of theological education, however I was exceptionally proud of my fellow St Johns College students, in their leading of worship and pastoral care for those at the hui.

I am aware that there has been a transition in what it means to be a first year seminarian and a second year. Whilst this year I have really stepped up into leadership positions within college, here is also a a second guessing and self criticalness that has crept into my being, that was not so active before. A visit home in part highlights this with friends who have not seen me for some time more accurately able to see the change.

Lunch with a tutor however manages to bring some perspective as she is able to identify that what I am feeling (internally full of doubt, externally confident) is typical for second year students who are constantly under the eyes of Bishops, Deans, examiners, markers and indeed the self, as we strive to step into that new place of being.

It is easy through the day to forget the eyes that watch and yet there is an undercurrent you become aware of in every aspect of life being 'noticed'. It is within worship that I perhaps feel it the most as I become aware of the need to just stop and experience God.

These observations are not bad however, they just remind me of the need to:care for myself, spend more prayer time with God, perhaps make connections with people outside of seminary, get a new spiritual director.

Realignment

2010-06-28T08:07:00.002+12:00

The lost as yet unaware of their absence from Grace
see not the path they have strayed from,
nor the deep blue waters beneath which they sink.

Instead an SOS unsent
taps absently out from wayward fingers
the unconscious expression of a muffled intuition.
Come back baby
All is not well
the wise have long left to speak their truths into the earth.

I am aware for perhaps the first time in an age the need for wise counsel removed from the politics of the church, from personal agenda and bias.
The danger of immersing oneself in the smallness of the church community I suppose. And I am aware of at the craziness of a month in which:
15000 words have been written,
exams had,
a four course dinner for Bishops, Archbishops inc ++Katherine Jeffers Schori has been cooked,
meetings attended,
and today begins the facilitating of a group for the hermeutics hui looking at sexuality,
fly to Dunedin Sunday for week long Christology course before two days with family,
mtg with Bishop and back in time for tea and the new semester.

Is it any wonder that in the wee small hours I sit aware of the madness of the church with issues peculating around vying for allegiance. God at this point I choose to keep my counsel unto you, help me in the next few days stand purely in the love of you and your creation.

Falling into Easter

2010-03-31T09:27:00.009+13:00

I am struck on this day by the how even when feeling somewhat distant and detached from Church, Easter manages to pull me back, immersing me in the eternal passion narrative.
Last week I finished the icons for the chapel at St John’s College. As I have said earlier the process of being so close and immersed at such close quarters with the passion narrative I had felt as though I had been held in a constant state of grief whilst painting these. I had done Easter to death before we even arrived at it!

On Monday evening at evensong I released the icons into the hands of the college. Father Honoré took a blessing service adapted from a Syrian rite where the icons were anointed and blessed with holy water. As I sat in the chapel I was for the first time far enough away from them to really feel the power and impact of them as they were supposed to be viewed, in a church, at home ,in their natural environment.

I wept, not just for the grief of letting go of these icons into others hands, but for the transformation that sat before me.

The pictures you see here of the icons come from the studio where I worked. Hopefully I will have some of them in the chapel to add later.

We have been blessed in Seminary for the last few months to have six brothers from the Melanesian Brotherhood join us and journey with us through Lent and onward through Easter, I had spoken to one of them about icons before, but it was not until the blessing that he really understood what it was I was talking about. I was profoundly moved at the end of the service to have him hold my hand as we looked at the icon and later receive a request to create an icon of his 6 brothers who were martyred in Melanesia several years ago. A previous icon had been painted of the brothers but it sits in Westminster Cathedral far away from the brothers. I was, and indeed remain, deeply touched and in awe of the task of creating an icon where the figures are of those in living memory.

St John’s College continues to be a place of growth and wonderful challenge. The mix of cultures beautifully articulated in a gathering last night. Here a group of Pakeha, Maori, Fijian Melanesia and English students gathered with the Melanesian Brothers to watch a DVD of a passion play that they performed. So we watched a Melanesian passion play, performed in England, watched in New Zealand.
After, we gathered for Tenebrae before stepping out into the night with the moon bright above us.
Blessed be to you all this Easter
Megan

2010-02-25T20:00:00.004+13:00

Well the year has begun in earnest with a five day trip up into the Hokianga staying on the marae to follow the footsteps of the early missionaries here in Aotearoa New Zealand and then into two weeks orientation at college.

We are blessed for the next few months to have 6 of the Melanesian brothers with us at college. Today I had my first singing lesson with them. There complex harmonies are amazing. As a first time singer I of course am easily led astray but it was exhilarating.

Otago University is also new for this year. Although I remain in the seminary in Auckland I am now studying out of Otago.

So study so far looks like...
Contemporary Biblical Criticism
Hinduism and Buddhism
Ministry and Society in 21st Century
Early Christianity
Christology
Judaism, Christianity and Islam
Chaplaincy in Society
Maori.

Phew!

From a teaching perspective two of us begin teaching our first icon class for the year on Sunday. We are already over subscribed with others on a waiting list so it is gratifying.

I think that the fact that we teach it as a threefold venture of:
Prayer
Practical painting techniques
and theology, history and context of icons has been a real selling point.

Later in the term I am taking (as a student) an icon class with a woman who teaches techniques I have not used before so I am very excited.

Anyway, whilst we were away on our marae trip visiting missions, battlefields and marae we were called to write so here are a few poems from that. For those of you wondering about the snoring when you stay on a marae you sleep in the meeting house mattress next to mattress, snorer next to snorer.

No history highlight -swimming up a river chasing flounder into nets and eating them fresh for breakfast. And playing cards with the elders at night.

Someone to Watch Over Me

Tonight I don’t mind your snoring,
on the edge of sleep low feline rumblings
speak to me of comfort.
Of uncles long past,
of brothers lost,
and grandfathers
- once far away,
returned.

Together they remind me
that for tonight,
I am not alone.

Tonight I am surrounded by noisy ancestors
snoring up the rafters.

On Intoducing Oneself to New Waters
My Father told me
to understand a place
I must bury my hands in the earth,
speak without fear to the birds of the night,
and plainly with the birds of the day.

That in introducing myself to new waters
I would enter a courtship temperate,
with foreign oceans inclined towards possession,
- courting water is always delicate.

When overtures gentle,
to tides and eddies,
shallow and deep waters alike are complete,
only then may I advance tenderly...

Knee deep,
thigh high,
waiting,
for that moment delicious...

When...
permission given,
I may fall over into waters new
and be baptised once more
in a salty sway.

In water negotiations at least,
there is always more than one baptism.

In the Midst of an Icon Project

2010-01-19T05:14:00.005+13:00

Okay so 4am has become 5am as God and I listen to the noises strangely overlooked by the day. I am aware of being in a timeless place at the moment. As I enter the half way point in this icon creation project I am aware that it has happened before this feeling, on one level I experience an intense detachment from the mundane business of the world and yet on another an intense awareness of it's pain and suffering. For the few weeks as I have engaged in this icon project I have found myself bathing in deep gentle grief. When I am not looking at it as I paint I am compelled to immerse myself in it in my time away.

This manifests in odd ways like a current obsession with watching Grays Anatomy, so far I think I am up to programme 35 or heaven forbid extreme makeover. There is something about watching something where I can have a good cry, be it for joy and gratitude or another poignant death in a medical drama which acts almost as a pressure valve.

Each day to look into the face of a grieving Mary, her crippled hands empty as I paint her, has been a challenge. As I wait for the gold leaf to set I have begun my second icon in the series for the St Johns Chapel which is a lamentation. Jesus, dead, is pulled right up into the lap of his grieving Mother, John holds his hand tenderly and Mary Magdalene holds his feet.

Although I am not sure if it will be ready for Easter, I am determined to engage in a third icon of the Resurrection after these two. Then I think I will be released to paint anew. It will be interesting to engage in Easter this year as I would have to say in this project so far I feel as if I have engaged in it already.

On a late night (Megan is in one of her weird spaces) side note, the Holy Water I keep in the icon room evaporated the other day. It felt good to think that I and all who have painted over the last while have at some level been breathing the Holy Water in.

Maybe now I shall attempt some sleep and then comeback and edit this so that it becomes something more than the incomprehensible ramblings of a sleep deprived artist in the midst of prayer.

Blessings to you and yours

Megan

Immersing myself in icons

2010-01-13T11:48:00.003+13:00

For the last week I have been slowly immersing myself in my latest icon project. The project is a series of icons for St Johns College Chapel for Easter. Basically they will fit into a candelabra in a triangular space. The first is a grieving Mary, the second a lamentation and hopefully a Resurrection. Such projects have a way of raising me up and throwing me to my knees.
I had thought I had, after some time immersed in the agony of the Marion icon for Good Friday, nearly finished. However with the gilding I have come undone.

One of the down sides of living in Auckland is having to adjust to how the tropical climate interacts with both the God leaf and the size. As such I am about to go and for the second time sand of the Gold and begin again.
People are saying just leave it who will care?

Yet I know I will, and indeed more importantly that this is a holy task, that Mary deserves more than to be hurried over to get to the next steps. In the end I know I need to ignore those voices and concentrate on doing what I am lead to do with this icon.

Yesterday in preparation for an intensive painting time Father Honore' took a commissioning Eucharist for me in the chapel. It was a true gift. The exorcising of salt and water, the consecration of Holy water was all a real blessing. Now a bowl of the Holy water sits in the icon room for all who enter.

At moments such as this when I have opened myself up to be commissioned and set aside for this act I am aware in part of separating out again from the world, and stepping into a kairos time.

At present the gilding or re gilding of Mary is just another part of that process, of stripping myself of the once over lightly attitude of the world.

I know that I just have to stop struggling and let myself sink beneath the waters.
Thanks be to God

Meg in the sea

Elizabth and Mary sermon

2009-12-22T20:38:00.003+13:00

Sermon Fourth Sunday in Advent
Luke 1:39-45 Preached at Selwyn Village Church by Megan

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight Christ my hope and my redeemer.

Some years ago when I was teaching, one of my teenage pupils got pregnant. What was remarkable wasn’t another teen pregnancy, but that none of us suspected a thing. She was a big girl and each day’d begun wearing looser clothing until she couldn’t hide it any more and had to tell her parents.

After practising how best to break the news, she went into the lounge and said “Mum, Dad I’m a little bit pregnant”. [pause]

I’ve not heard of being a little bit pregnant, but I suspect she thought it would ease the blow.

After much bluster her father asked “How much is a little bit?” to which she replied “My waters broke this morning and my contractions are six minutes apart”! Needless to say, there wasn’t much time for her parents to get used their daughters pregnancy, to be angry, sad, excited even. Within four hours they’d become grandparents to George, a healthy and much loved – if unexpected, baby boy.

I’ve often thought about what it must’ve been like for that young woman to go through her pregnancy alone. For Mary, the risks of being a teenager, pregnant and unmarried were far greater than for my student. Mary didn’t just risk her parents disapproval she risked the condemnation of her community, and potentially death.

So controversial was Marys’ situation that even her husband to be Joseph, was, until the intervention of an angel, trying to find the best way out of what was becoming an increasingly dodgy situation.
A few miles away Mary’s Cousin Elizabeth, and her husband Zachariah, were, after years of being shunned by their community due to Elizabeth’s barrenness, dealing with their own miraculous call to parenthood. Mary and Elizabeth two devout women both pregnant under unusual circumstances – one too old, one too young, no wonder the neighbours were talking.

On the surface today’s Gospel reflects a normal meeting, two women delighting in each others pregnancy, yet at a deeper level we become witnesses to an act of profound and abiding love, and to a great commissioning where prophecy is made manifest.

Elizabeth – the local vicar’s wife, contrary to tradition and common sense, welcomes without question, or judgement the frightened Mary.
In her cousin’s arms Mary finds sanctuary, here her pregnancy isn’t some dirty family secret, but a gift to be celebrated.

Elizabeth’s unconditional love, recognises Mary’s goodness, seeing great gain, from what looks like great loss to everyone else. This ability of Elizabeth to willingly accept Mary with an open heart means that she too is transformed.
“And the baby leapt in her womb, and Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit”.

In this encounter we witness God active in both the world and the womb, as Elizabeth and her yet to be born baby John, respond with delight recognising the Christ child.

Both women bless each other as the transformed Elizabeth, prophecies’ loudly and with hearty voice, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed be the fruit of your womb”.

This act of unconditional love and blessing echoes through time, reminding us that there is no retirement from the wonder and work, of God.

Today God calls us to be his love in the world, to embrace a spirit of humbleness and hospitality, checking our judgements at the door.
Such thinking can lead to us discovering, as Elizabeth did, amazing things in ordinary places.

Several years ago when I’d just been made redundant at Christmas, I was at the supermarket feeling particularly sorry for myself when the Holy spirit gave me a wake up call. In the cue in front of me was a woman even more anxious than I.

With a little girl sitting in the trolley, she was furiously counting her groceries whilst trying to read a piece of paper gripped in her hand.
Her trolley contained the bare minimum.
As I leant forward I saw the piece of paper she was holding was a social welfare emergency food cheque. She had never had one before, and was trying desperately with one of those over bright smiles to hide her shame from her daughter and those around her.

She nervously handed the cashier the emergency cheque only to hear in a piercingly loud voice, “oh one of those, well you can’t afford all this” as the cashier proceeded to take out items from the woman’s trolley as she felt fit. [pause]

As the women eyes filled with tears, smile still bright for her baby went to pack her bags, I looked at what I had, and understood that God was offering, a chance to see the good in a person and bless them without judgement.
As I paid for my groceries I also got those the cashier had pulled from the woman’s trolley. The cashier in a patronising tone said”you must be such a good friend” to which I replied “No, I don’t know her”. [pause]

At this point though, I was faced with a dilemma, you see I’m sacred, scared that if I give the groceries to this woman that I may further shame her in the eyes of her daughter and in front of those around her.
But I know I need to act.
I think I circled her twice before I was able to approach her without anyone seeing. So I go up, and just begin putting groceries in her trolley, hers and mine, and I see not shame in her but a look of such wonderment, such love, that in that moment I am both broken, and remade at the same time. [pause]

I say, “Please take these because I know what it is to be in your place, and one day you can do the same for some one else” although I’m sure its not as coherent as that. And somehow we find ourselves laughing, and she reaches over and through tears touches my face blessing me.
Not realising that in allowing me to follow Gods call in that moment it is she, who is the blessing.

Today on this last Sunday in Advent, in the midst of the hype and excitement may we too be caught up in the blessing of Elizabeth and Mary, entering all that we do with spirit a love, acceptance, seeing the good and blessing of God in all the ordinary places.

Spoken in the name of the one that is to come.
Amen

Ministry for the elderly

2009-12-12T10:05:00.003+13:00

Well here I am after months...
I passed exams and am currently on field education in a 700 resident elder care village as a student chaplain. People here range in ability from independent residents in their own units and apartments through to hospitals and secure dementia units.

Most of my time is spent ministering to those in hospitals and with some level of dementia. It has been an amasing experience and I have found within myself a love and care for those living with dementia that I never expected. The challenge of how to nurture the soul life of those who forget I ever spoke with them moments after leaving sometimes has begun reshaping how I view God and Ministry.

Any way here are a couple of pieces I wrote as I contemplated meeting with residents and their families.

Monthly Obligations

You tell yourself,
– sorrow draped in angry shroud,
“It doesn’t really matter if I don’t visit for a couple of weeks or month’s maybe...
“It’s not like she’ll remember I came tomorrow”,
-That doesn’t change.
“By this afternoon she’ll be telling all insundry I never visit”
-that I never cared.

Yet in that moment
when you sit awkward on the edge of the bed,
primed to make the great escape at the first hint
of tiredness or distraction,
for her,
there is JOY!

As you begin the family litany
the hatched,
the matched,
–avoiding dispatched,
I see a spark
set deep in your mothers eyes,
that none of us can elicit when you’re gone.

At such times I ache to interfere,
to beseech you to look into that parchment face
to read the love written there
in a language only you can understand.

I wonder then, if you can see her lean a little closer,
her hand twitch nearer,
when I invite you to take it in your own
you flinch,

“I took it once... but she wept like a baby”, you protest,
so you don’t touch her now...
save it cause embarrassment
-to whom?

When you go
and she falls over into despair
a paid caregiver will rock her gently.

Until then,
I will resist the temptation to growl
“Hold her man,
she wont bite this forgetful mother of yours...
today she’s just a baby”.

Each Day Anew With Eve

Act 1
It’s hard to define this relationship
when each day I have to remind you
again
and again
who I am.

A little unbalanced in the extreme
when I get to keep the stories you tell
-the smiles,
and you get to remember nothing.

That painful moment in me lessens,
when you tell me once more
how glad you are we’ve found each other
-kindred spirits.

In your hand extended
I meet the confident teenager
-a wicked glint of possibility in your eye.

In another time I would have been honoured
to join you in
summer adventures long passed
but for today I will sit them on the shelf
beside your china tea cup
gathering dust.

Act 2

I am informed it is a ‘necessary cruelty’
to tell you each day
your beloved is dead
-not waiting up the way as you suppose
to take you home to a life of happy ever after.

To see your grief
Your stubborn chin raised in certainty,
-surely they must see that for today at least they are defeated!
Today their distractions
their redirections
will not pull you from your vision of a brighter day.

Instead you sit straight backed
coat on,
handbag at the ready,
Waiting for your good mother -long passed,
to take you home for tea
and warmth born of the inside out,
Her butterfly kisses the softest imaginable, on your cheek.

Good for you Eve
believe what you must
to get through this endless day.

Back in the World

2009-09-19T12:45:00.004+12:00

Well the Semester is in full swing and I am back in the world all be it in a somewhat soft focus fashion until next week brings new glasses (heha). Went to Vaughn Park for a retreat last week on Care of the Soul using Poetry. Although it was not hugely transformative it was nice to be around a group of creative women, to play cards and night and drift in and out of sleep to the sound of waves.

Vaughn Park is beautiful and I hope to return for more than one night next year. My taste for retreat running has been peaked once more so watch this space basically. Currently I am in the St Johns Library before I head down to teach an icons class.

Below some thoughts on watching discarded cloth caught on the breeze.

Centering on my heart
for the first time in a thousand thousand years
I am met by the slip of a child.
Emancipated from a tired washing line
de-pegged she flaps in the breeze,
beckoning me to come play in dappled places.

Over hill - through moonlit stream
beyond the hard green land,
until I am lead to
the space between heartbeats
wide and silent
to find a washing line
filled with the slips of a thousand lost adventures.

Kneeling I hold my childhood slip close
caress each starched line.
Dear God
how many dreams have whisked past my busy eyes unseen?

Blessings Meg in the wind

in the break...what break

2009-09-02T14:23:00.003+12:00

Just had a friend from home stay overnight on her way to Rome (big hellos to Benedict). Mid semester berak here although it is infact full on catch up study time here.

Not feeling very connected with God at the moment, too maxed out on pain meds for impacted wisdom tooth I guess. Was good though to sit and talk with a friend of such familiarlity that there was no need to be careful about ones words. She and I used to teach Icons in Christchurch so was good to talk with her about the group I am taking here at St johns. I am so proud of them (I know yes it is a sinbut they are all developing so well). Working on a Christ pantocrotor. Off to a retreat next week

meg

This week at St Johns

2009-08-18T08:10:00.003+12:00

Memorial Service for fellow ordinand Jens Richardon killed in hit and run, memorial for Eru Potaka Dewes, Memorial with pacific Students for 98 killed in Ferry sinking. Poignant rich, wept when Fijian women surrounded Bishop Halapua who was kneeling behind Eucharist Table as they knealed and sang and danced the Lords prayer. Not a dry eye in the house.

One assignment in on Liberation Theology Sobrino and Christology, another due in a day or so on early Church History in Aotearoa, Psychology of Teaching and Learning Test Monday and tomorrow night possibly going to present some poetry at College poetry night if it is deemed good enough by fellow contributors. Feeling some ambivalence at that and in truth at the morning so wondering if I really need this?

Politics continue so taking a step back to refocus the old remember why you are here. Husband slowly getting better. Soon have Christian Spirituality class which I did love but on this day feel burdened by when so much is sitting and waiting for me.

Positive notes birds singing, blossom out, Tui's in the grave yard outside my window here, beautiful. In tow weeks mid semester break so doing a few days on my icon projects for college.

Dear Lord please remove the Blah Blah blah in me. trying to get myself motivated to go to Eucharist. Normally fine. Today it will all be in Maori which I usually feel fine about but sometimes I miss at least some of my own language. And yes I am aware of the dangers in these politically correct times of saying such things. Which is why I have an edit button so I may remove my colonial oppression later. Perhaps what I really need is a good old fashioned wine with my friends. CHRISTCHURCH WOMEN I MISS YOU

Oh yes and I am day four without coke, have swaped it with coke zero after discovering full on addiction...it is not the same...

Coming Up For Air

2009-07-30T09:52:00.009+12:00

Okay my life in the last fortnight coming up for Air...

after a week of in and out of Accident and Emergency with Shawn we have settled down to the maddness of college life which includes :

Just finishing a week long preaching course...fantastic... new fav preacher Barbara Brown Taylor...totally reshaped how I look at preaching

Wrote new poem...

inspired to write some more reflections on bible ...
had Bishop Victoria up last couple of days at college had dinner with her thoroughly enjoyed that...

finished icon of John the Baptist photo coming soon...

Women's Studies commission meeting yesterday with representatives from around the pacific and here in Aotearoa New Zealand am to develop web page and poss news letter on that exciting...

Started varsity Bible in popular culture interesting tossing up between essay on Christian artists in NZ or the use of Blood in Vampire tv series as a Eucharistic metaphor...
Bought Trueblood ...loved it...wept at Eucharist in a moment overcomeness at the offering ...

got a book for my brother which I am reading first by drummer from Korn...

Missing my brother...

New lecturer at varsity on Church History who is actually passionate and excited about subject what a change...

Taken up a teaching paper at varsity..
being either a bar tender or waitress on Tuesday at Liturgical commission dinner to earn some dosh always nice...

Enjoying teaching icons...sharing teaching with art historian very interested in Orthodox view of eternity...

More to come peace and apologies for my slackness Meg in the wilderness...ps looking at changing the layout of this blog ...will see

Meg in the wind

Random Thoughts from a Wired bunny

2009-07-05T16:27:00.002+12:00

Exams are over what is done is done.
It has been an interesting time at varsity and although I am fairly sure I will pass the majority of the courses I am now working on the whole area of refining. Coming down from exams has been odd all the hype to stay focused in study with varying success for four weeks has left me now not sure what on earth to do with my time. This week the majority of college is heading off for a week long retreat which although sounds great I have deferred as Shawn has surgery this week to have his gal bladder removed.

At first I wondered why on earth college would offer retreats now of all times, yet looking at how we are all dealing with the come down from exams it actually makes total sense. So in light of me not going on retreat I have put myself on a self imposed retreat for the next three days to write an icon. I am surprised that the icon I have begun is one of John the Baptist this is a figure that I never envisaged doing so together in prayer ,painting and study we will investigate each other.

This is also an odd time for students as we have people all round the country undergoing discernment to come as students to seminary next year and we have people hearing about ordination and placements at the other end. Several people I was on the discernment weekend are soon to be ordained and although I know this is because they finished their theological education before applying for priesthood there is a wee part of me that feels a little left behind. I knew that by switching training and moving up here I would putting off ordination by a year or two I also knew that this was the best option if I was to receive a quality education that would best equip me for the future. In saying all that I still feel a little left behind.

Ah it is way it is, week after next I will be on a week long preaching course then back into varsity. I have just had my courses confirmed they include:
Jesus the Christ a Christology paper
History of the church in Aotearoa New Zealand
The Bible in Popular Culture
and my out of faculty paper a Teaching Education paper.

And at Seminary my papers include:
A Preaching intensive
Conflict Resolution and a
Spirituality for Ministry paper.

You know through all this I think I am missing home. It has been nearly 8 months since I left home. It is my hope that the other Christchurch Ordinand here will be ordained in September. If so we are booked in to take a 'Care of the Soul' retreat then I will go back home with her to her ordination. It will be good to put my feet in home soil again.

There you go all this pontification to realise that my manic space filling is actually about the big unwind, and missing home.

Please pray for Shawn and his surgery this Thursday and for baby Samuel Davy who has been in intensive care since his birth here in Auckland pray that the swine flu that is now in the hospital keeps away from him .

thanks Peace Megan

Theology Exams and Random thoughts on adaptation

2009-06-11T16:36:00.003+12:00

Well here we are one and a half days out from my first exam at Varsity. The last few months have been full on moving Islands, entering the seminary, going to varsity.

Whilst I imagine there are still adaptations to be had moving into this new life, those things that first were most obvious to me as different and quite frankly just wrong, have either disappeared or I have reached a state of neutrality.

I still miss the sung Eucharist, snow and frosts, but the sounds of crickets no longer annoys. The tropical insect life is not a fav I would have to say yet the tropical rainfalls I have come to enjoy.

Varsity has been interesting, and I find myself becoming increasingly conservative under their influence. How so you say? well at the beginning I was fairly liberal but nothing compared to what I have experienced there. In fact there have been days when I wonder if Jesus is ever going to be mentioned in a School of theology. I have enrolled in a paper 'Jesus the Christ' next semester which I am pretty sure should! mention JC.(grin)

What I have enjoyed the most at varsity is the general education paper we must take, my choice was one called 'Pandemics Past Present and Possible' the benefit has been that we have had over 25 different experts come to talk on subjects from Bio terrorism, the Black Death, Obesity and Swine Flu to Poverty and the Spread of Disease, Medical History and Town planning as a cause of contagion. I have exam for that on Monday.

The college is split into four if you like. There is the Methodist College, and Under the Anglican Church there is the the Polynesian Tikanga, Maori and College of the Southern Cross which covers Pakeha and a selection of students mainly from Africa.
Whilst I deliberately on an open forum watch my words when discussing the differences between tikanga ( it is not always politic to speak ones mind) I am aware especially with women in college of the difficulties and stresses placed upon certain groups.

One of the things that has made my time here in the last month a little easier is engaging in those things that bring me peace and engage me in the community so for the last couple of weeks I have begun an icon group. One of the tutors here is very much into icon history so she is taking a teaching segment each week on a relevant icon to the season then I lead in prayer some basic teaching then we paint. We have nine women in the group from all different ethnicity's and backgrounds which is exciting.

We have also started gathering aside from daily chapel to meet as students weekly to pray for transformation and hope in the college. This has taken some work yet to see more and more people begin to engage in prayer with each other as a way of building trust is something special. Of course coming from all different styles of worship and theologies this is interesting so for now we are structuring it with both structured and extemplary prayer. New things for us all.

Blessings to you and yours I am off to study if you think of it pray for me Saturday morning as I approach Greek my greatest challenge.

Peace

Megan

Okay so any day now its going to be sunshine and smiles (grin)

2009-06-02T11:22:00.000+12:00

Hi all
Greetings from a typical day in auckland ie it rained earlier, is sunny now and no doubt will rain again soon. Now that Easter is passed counting down the shopping days left till Christmas. Which as I write stands at 199 sleeps, 8 hours, 27 minutes. ( I know you were all wanting to know that )

It has been a rough few weeks here in Auckland, Shawn has been unwell which came to head last week when he had a seizure while we were driving and I managed to get him to pull over right by our Dr which was good as we managed to rush him in and were then sent to Accident and Emergency. I am eternally grateful to the Dean of College Jim White who when I phoned from the Drs office rushed down to the surgery and drove us in to A and E.

The upshot was they think an infection in his gal bladder and liver which sent his fever shooting through the roof causing the seizures. A few distressing hours of realising all the things you want to say to each other in the end is condensed down to simply saying I love you and a few more sleepless nights which culminated in me crashing and burning in my latest Greek test and all is well.

So infection under control Shawn is home having caught a nice cold in Hospital.
One highlight was seeing his insides on the MRI and the shocked look on the young serious Drs face when I asked if that lump on the screen was some kind of foetal twin"no Madam he said that is his Kidney"."Thank goodness" I reply " because it does bring up the question of Bigamy if it was, I mean did I marry them both?".
The poor Dr then thinking I was serious began to earnestly reassure me it was a kidney and not a foetal twin until he saw the consultant cracking up behind him. Such are the bizarre moments one has amidst the madness that is the hospital crisis and sleep deprivation.

My fellow students were wonderful picking me up late at night and getting me back to the hospital early in the morning. So all is okay.
We are building up to exam time here at Varsity so I imagine the tension will raise. (all prayers greatly appreciated)I have been watching the Christchurch weather with interest thinking how lucky to be so close to snow. (I know you probably think I am crazy but you have to love it).

Anyway more news to come just wanted to catch you up with the latest dramas I will post properly soon when things are settled and I am getting some sleep again. Things are hotting up here for the Auckland Diocese as they prepare for their electoral synod it is intersting looking at it all occuring from the outside this time. Please know I think of you often and you are in my prayers Peace Megan

In the company of Tammy and Johnny

2009-04-24T05:59:00.002+12:00

Today it is difficult to be here. It is lonely, and financially incrediably stressful. I have been up for hours stressing and now there is little to say save i miss people I can be real with, I miss God and I have fallen over into anxiety. Life continues excitements and essays due.
Tammy Wynette has somehow snuck onto my ipod so I am sitting here singing at the top of my voice to 'Stand By Your Man' , LOL sometimes all you can do in the night is call out to God and fall into the arms of Tammy and Johnny Cash. there are worse people to keep company with at such times.

So the positive report... here I paste my latest report home full of sunshine and light.

Jesus Christ has Risen!
HAPPY EASTER
Well what a month it has been here in Auckland. It has been fantastic not in the least because of you all (refers to people at my old work). From lunch with Ali B at varsity, care package and catch up Jane from work colleagues at the Selwyn symposium and Geoff (one of my own bosses) staying with us I feel like I have been given my fix from home as I have caught up with the ins and outs of Christchurch life.

Study has been interesting the last few weeks. The Liturgy paper at St Johns and Ministry formation are my current favs but Greek is still my nemeses.
I continue to be impressed with St Johns who responded to my and another students requests for assistance by organising for us a weeklong Greek intensive course this past week with a retired Greek professor who is one of the tops in his field. Within 24 hours or our request it was organised and we had met our tutor.

Easter at college was one of the most meaningful Easters I have had so far. Each service was designed by students under the oversight of the Dean who had taken a teaching series on the Great Triduam. Celebrating with so many children and families was lovely. From the Maundy Thursday service to the Stations of the Cross where we carried a huge cross around the grounds to the Easter Service the children threw themselves in the services. On the Easter night we had a huge bonfire which the children toasted marsh mellows on and listened to the readings before processing with the Pascal candle through the graveyard where Bishop Winston near raised the dead with his calls of Jesus Christ is Risen.
At the church door there was one of those magical moments where Winston banged on the door demanding entry in the name of our Lord and spontaneously all the children (around 40) who were around him yelled yeah open up!

A group of us had been involved in cooking the feast for afterwards which went from feeding an estimated 35 to over 70. All and all a great way to start the week.

This afternoon I head off to Greek and Shawn’s parents and our niece arrive for a week so it will be good to see them. It is for me the busiest month that they are arriving on but it will be nice to have the occasional distraction.

We Christchurch folk up here met together to watch the strategic plan DVD and discuss the synod which to all accounts seems to have gone well. ( Bishop Victoria launched her new strategic plan for the Christchurch Diocese at a special Synod).
You all continue to be in my prayers and thoughts thank you all so much for keeping in touch.
Peace
Megan

Into a New Day - from office girly to Seminarian

2009-03-11T21:40:00.004+13:00

I have not written for some time. My apologies for my lack of contact until now. With all the changes that go on in moving up here it seemed wise to wait a few weeks so that the highs and lows took on some perspective. And you were not getting the rantings of a woman in shell shock.

It was the wee small hours when I started this. Up with a chest infection I was gut twisted to open an email and discover the news of the death of a young woman from an old congregation who is the daughter of a one our Priests whom I had a bit to do with and his wife. A young woman killed in a freak adventure accident who had just started to fulfil her dream of becoming a vet.

The next few emails, ripples from my diocese that seems so far away now i am away at seminary.

At times I am floored that in a couple of weeks I have left my job, family, friends home, packed us up and we have travelled up and away here to Auckland.

The trip up here was like a release after we had been waiting with the tension of sad goodbyes and expectant hope. We were driven getting from Christchurch to here in several days. Yet there were moments of delight. To drive under snow capped mountains on the desert road, to witness the plants we know be taken over by new and exotic species, to gaze on the waters of lake Taupo, to navigate ourselves up here. And then in the morning on the motorway to have the first sight of Auckland to coincide too the song 'into marvelous light I travel'.

Getting out of the car however became a shock. Hitting town in the worst heat wave in 150 years with day after day of humidity in the high 90’s left me wondering what on earth I had done. I am after all a winter snow and rain girl in the tropics.

The house itself is lovely we are at the bottom of a lane of 6 fellow seminarian families all at St Johns. I mention the house because for the last 10 years we have lived a dark place in many ways, so to be here in a place clear and clean and new has been such a gift. The first day here we were visited by neighbours from Zimbabwe with muffins and another neighbour organised a meal for us with all the people in our lane as a meet and greet which was greatly appreciated.
Shawn adores Auckland and we have spent hours exploring this huge place in part in an effort to be cool driving and also I think as a way or orientating ourselves. A way of meeting the city and finding our place.

The cat although enjoying bringing me lizards to let go in the house is more in love with the fan than with me at present. Me I have been up and down and inside out which is to be expected as I adjust to being in a seminary and to going to varsity for the first time.
Dark moments:
realising I will never be cool or young like the many students in my classes.
Missing the familiarity and comfort of Liturgy that I know
Greek class
no real silence to be found

Light
Sitting on the wharf at Devonport at night looking back over the city
Blowing off the frustration of orientation with fellow hometown seminarian by floating in the sea in the middle of a warm rain storm
The house
getting to know folk
the generosity of those around us

Meg

More tomorrow

Meg -

Wow it's finally happened!

2009-01-30T06:02:00.002+13:00

Well it is about 5:30am here in a waking up Christchurch. I am in work as much because there is no way I am going back to sleep at this stage.

Today is my last day at work and as I sit here typing I feel tears wreaking my infrequently applied make up. I think it has hit home that I am leaving people who have become as family to me. In a couple of hours we will meet for a work farewell breakfast and as I sit here looking at my increasingly stripped down office I am aware that if I have learnt anything over this year of leavings it is that I am profoundly and deeply loved.

Not only by God but by my colleagues, my family, my friends. It is a humbling thing to experience as much because I suspect that over the year there have been others who loved me who I never allowed myself to acknowledge.

So here I am tissue in one hand listening to the Wellington Ukaleli Orchestra singing its a heartache preparing to leave.

In the next few days the packers come then next weekend we are all on our way to St Johns College. Tomorrow is my extended whanau (family) farewell, next Friday it is Shawn's family farewell with a couple of others in between.

So many farewells the cost of feeling the love I guess.

I give thanks to God who has moved so profoundly in our lives this week and continues to move.

Please pray for us in on our journey to the North Island

Megan

Realising your weird

2009-01-20T16:52:00.003+13:00

Okay so recently my husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. He being a Southern boy raised on navy bases and trailer parks we decided to go all out and celebrated southern style which basically meant Cajun spiced chicken, pork and beans. We tried to outdo each other with gifts, he bought me Bourbon (in a can of course) and I got him a packet of pork scratchings as a dowry reminder.

We sat there hooting with laughter at each other. Something which I didn't even realise was particularly odd until I retold the story over morning tea at work the next day in response to their questions about how we celebrated our anniversary.

Note to self according to the horrified looks at work laughter was not supposed to be involved,we were supposed to go out to a sedate restaurant, there would be gifts, a chaste kiss and some restrained thinking of England.

Me I think I enjoyed the laughter myself.

Two weeks till we head off to the seminary. I wonder if they like chili dogs up there? Meg

Time is Ticking and Sleep is Lacking

2009-01-14T10:19:00.004+13:00

Well time is ticking and sleep is lacking.

I am here today on 2 hours sleep. A combination of full moon, moving anxiety and general how do I get everything done. Positively I am now enrolled at University in what looks to be a very full on traveling time in the first semester (traveling to varsity daily) and a not so hectic traveling time in the second semester.

This of course does not include what is happening at classes wise at seminary. This year of study is as much about filling study prerequisites both theological and general education wise with next year there being more freedom of choice. So study looks at the moment like this.
Semester 1
THEO 103 Reading the Bible
BSTHEO 175 Introduction to Greek
THEO 100 Beginning Theology in Aotearoa New Zealand
POPHEATH Epidemics Past Present and Future

This health paper fulfills my requirements for general education and is so up my ally it is not funny. Call it non theology reward. As some of you know I have a few dark interests including criminal, forensic, and general psychiatry and the human response to epidemics and pandemics. With that in mind I think you agree that this course is me.

POPLHLTH 103G Epidemics: Past, Present and Possible
This course explores the concept of the epidemic – the emergence of diseases or conditions affecting many individuals at the same time. Examines epidemics caused by micro-organisms, environmental contaminants, lifestyle choices and self-harming behaviours. Covers infectious epidemics from black death to bird ‘flu, examines modern day
examples such as obesity, diseases of urbanisation and problem gambling, and explores the concept of social contagion, from nun-biting to alien abduction.

Course Objectives
• To demonstrate an understanding of the nature and cause of different types of epidemics.
• To have an awareness of the historical background of epidemics and an
understanding of contemporary epidemics in New Zealand and world-wide.
• To have a more detailed understanding of actions that might be taken by society to monitor, manage and prevent one modern epidemic.

What are epidemics?
• Introduction: Black death, Roman goblets and medieval nunneries
• Geography’s contribution to epidemiology
• Immunology: defending against disease

Infectious epidemics past
• Historical context
• Piercing memories
• 1918 Influenza epidemic

Infectious epidemics present
• Vaccine controversies
• If I was a vaccine preventable disease I think I would choose to be whooping cough
• Home Grown Solutions: Control of group B Meningococcal Epidemic in NZ
• Tuberculosis

Infectious epidemics into the future
• Possible pandemics
• Ebola and SARs
• History denied is history repeated
• Bioterrorism

Epidemics of chronic disease: Gluttony, indolence and melancholy?
• The obesity epidemic
• Type II diabetes
• The rise and fall and rise of the coronary heart disease epidemic
• Rise of chronic disease in Maori
• Smoking – a modern epidemic that is protracted, severe and legally sanctioned
• Depression: all you ever wanted to know
Addictions
• Rise & fall of various addictions
• Recreational drugs
• An epidemic of gambling

Environmental epidemics
• Sun exposure
• Road crashes
• Epidemics of urbanisation
• Falls in the elderly

Social contagion
• Nun-biting, mass anxiety hysteria and merphos poisoning in Auckland?
• Demons, aliens & Satanists

Conclusion
Bringing together the strands: historical, contemporary & possible future contexts in NZ &
Internationally

So there you go! I have for some time been interested in the Church response to crisis and am most interested in planning for how we as a church may respond to the next big health crisis.

Not much more to write I am afraid mind too sleep deprived

Blessings
Megan

Blessings to the High Low Places

2008-12-20T11:27:00.016+13:00

I know I know your thinking you never write you never call and here you are in the last few days posting like a woman unleashed. It is as much I suppose about a search for meaning, context and understanding.

As I write today I am again in work (I know it is a Saturday) I have icon class soon yet here I am just getting the last service sheets together for tomorrows recreated Christingle come Nativity service I have got together.

Okay todays context, outside of my window I am watching the rain bucket down on Christmas Shopers. On the headphones is a bazar mix of old Mary Mary renditions of 'Shackles" and all blessings be to Spanky who yesterday introduced me to Sufjan Stevens Holy Holy Holy. And yes I think you could do much worse than hook into YouTube and have a listen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-liS9e2IY8 .

And Christchurch being Christchurch we have sadly another murder of a young woman . I used to resist saying another prostitute is murdered because the sensationalism of her occupation made the reality of her humanity invisable. So between the creation of Nativity services I have been searching the net to see if there is a photo of her incase she is one of the sex workers I say hello to in the morning on my way to work. I recall the memorial of Suzie Sutherland of the letter her parents sent that was read out to this church full of prostitues, dealers, pimps, street people, her lovers and her friends. How many of them will be gathering again for Ngatai's funeral?

Seems a sad yet appropriate context to introduce my last meditation for Advent. Today if the rain would not wash it away I would write in chalk on the pathments of Manchester Street. To you who work on these streets please please be take care of yourselves you are important. You are loved.

I am here again Lord.
No matter how much I tell myself this year it will be different I still find myself on this night frequenting these High low places.

Not that you ever try to stop me, “We all have our way of sitting Shiva with those who wait for the light” you say.
For me it is to be pulled to the edge places.
To bear witness to humanities yearning for the new dawn.
When I was younger I frequented the Great Cathedrals of the world, circled spires and lay across great arches. At other times I would find myself in the belfries of humble worship, in houses no bigger than the stable in which Christ came forth clothed in a woman’s blood.

Be it a mega church or humble house - as on this night as in the very first night, I come to watch over the prayers of those drawn to the light.
To see their prayers as smoke curl from their lips carried high into the arms of the creator.

On this night I come down low, hover over those in prayer and finally settle next to a pillar I watch as the everyday drama of prayer- humanities hymns to the silence unfold.

Few see me, the occassional babe in arms - fingers reaching out - faces alight, the old blind priest still going after all these years.
He pauses beside me “So unearthly thing” he says “Have you come today to take me to my creator?”.
I smile it is the same question he asks of me every year “Not tonight old man”, he is after all not mine to take.
“This night I come to hear the prayers of the faithful and the lost”, he humphs and shuffles along.

Tonight there are prayers both sublime and rediculous.
To the side sits a woman hands clasps tight she prays for patience, that her fear for the future not be spat out at her husband recently laid off. In the front sits the old man begging to be taken, so he may be reuntited with his beloved wife gone long before.
For the out of place woman with three toned hair the prayer is for a friend found facedown in the river, while the eight year old one seat back practices looking unimpressed as she prays that tomorrow she wont be made to sit next to her aunt that dribbles at dinner.
As the numbers gather there voices build

Lord make me pretty,
Stop me from drinking,
Give me pajamas with feet in them,
Help my son in prison,
Give us enough money for presents for the Children,
God I hope it was quick,
Take away my grandsons asthma,
Give us the contract at work,
Don’t let my husband find out what I have done,
Give me one more day I know I can win back the rent,
Take my daughters cancer away,
Let me know if you exsist,
Tell me is this all there is?
Help me tell my mother I am pregnant again,
Make the news happy today,
Find my boy a job,
Remind me why I stay,
Just take all this away,
What should I make for Christmas dinner,
Im so tired,
Just do something,
Thank you…

That stops me

Thank you! It is not just the words but the intent that pulls me close,
so heart felt, so full... ripe.

Ah but the intent... that spins me back to the night in the stable when we kept vigil. For that moment when our bodies shuddered at the cries of birthing , and we angels in the rafters clung together praying with the same need heard again here tonight.
Please let the child king would be born with breath.

The Birthing Prayer of Mary rang in our ears as she called out...
"May it be your will, Adonai my God and God of my ancestors, that you will ease these pains for me,
Make me strong,
increase the strength of my baby boy.
Ease my birth,
Birth me to motherhood Abba as I birth our babe,
Bring him out into the air without harm.
Make him be of good fortune bought into this life,
Fill him with peace,
Make him healthly and grow him to be an honourable man, as is the father you have provided on earth,
May my child find grace in Your eyes and in the eyes of all your creations.
May this child's life fulfill the verse:
"God sets the childless woman among her household as a happy mother of children. Hallelujah."
May my husband and I raise this child to serve You.
May we merit to teach this child your holy Torah,
to have peace and comfort, honour and rest.
Guard us, my baby and I, that we will not come to harm.
May You strengthen my courage, my strength, and my might, as it says:
"My Lord, my life-breath is revived.
You have restored me to health and revived me." Amen."

And then in the midst of this panting prayer there came the moment when
tears and prayers were released and fulfilled. When pain before us was transformed into sobs, then gulps, to gasps…and then all three at once all overarched with such sweet delight and thanks that we could not help but call out to the world in glory and light up the sky.

Not that they noticed. For them it was not the wonder that woke the neighbour and turned wise men towards Bethlehem, it was the miracle of a babe taken in his fathers arms and held up to Yahweh in blessing.
It was the tiny curled fist and the widest yawn that transfixed a mothers eyes, calling each movement to the attention of his earthly father.

And to the world a King was born that night, the fulfillment of joy and prophecy.

Thousands of years past and here in a down town church I am reminded of that moment in a prayer of thanks by a lone woman in prayer.

The baby in her belly is a gift unexpected, joy personified.
Perfect even in its imprerfection?
But they know this already, she still clasps the brochure in her hand, down syndrome…

Yet even in this reality her prayer turns not to ‘please God fix my baby’,
but to thanks for the gift of life inside her.

Many will walk away from a baby not perfect in their sight even though all are perfect in the sight of their creator.

Some will stare at one who does not look like the others.
Others will see sorrow and punishment for Gods perfect gift seen through the eyes as imperfection.

But in this place, on this day, in the midst the prayers of demanding
The pleases,
And the shoulds,
And the makes,
And the whys,
And the help,
And the do God,
And the don’t.
In humanities imperfection, the timeless miracle continues to unfold, seen once more in the face of a new babe in arms reminder of the coming of a new day.

As witnessed by an angel on this night and in a woman consumed by the thankfulness and blessed by the love of God

Blessings Megan

To the Outskirts of Bethlehem

2008-12-19T11:14:00.011+13:00

Today looking out of my office window on the forth floor the rain splashes down (my favourite weather) and I am listening to a nostalgia trip with Faith No More's rendition of Easy, Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah and the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra.

Yesterday I posted one of the meditations from my Advent Series. One of things I have thought about is what it was like for Mary and Joseph on the way to Bethlehem. What they said to each other, how well they knew each other. Any way the follow piece came from those ponderings.

I try not to say too much - to be annoying.
After all we don’t know each other that well… not as husband and wife.

Although in someway he has always been around, be it fixing our roof, or laughing out loud with the other men at a wedding feast.
Not ours though.

When the match was made I would peak from behind the curtain to see what he ate, how he prayed and provided, to imprint on my heart what it was that made him smile.

Just as my mother did before her wedding, I would look to his callused hands to see how soft they became when he cradled a child.
These are the things a woman in my village look for in a man.

Now though in this place - at this time, I am no longer sure of this stoic man who walks beside me.
Away from my mothers arms I am unsure how angry he may really be,
Yet no harsh words has he aimed in my direction.
No doubt has he cast on my claims out loud.
And for that gracious God …
I am most grateful in your choice of husband for me.

Last night we camped along the road side with some of his cousins, I heard them joke about how lucky he was to have such a pretty young wife.
But then I guess they don’t know what the rest of his family think of me.

Today I find myself even more grateful for the presence of my silent saviour. For without his care of me, and belief in our sacred charge, my fate would be that of the women we pass on our way.

The outcast, the lost, and the dead.

He has saved my life, - and aside from being kind of old, I know I am in the safest place possible out here on the road to Bethlehem, and away from the rising ire of those who once held me dear.

He says little - speaks more encouragement to the donkey on which I sit than to me!
At first I tried to make conversation, but what is there to say that can encompass that which is both too big and so small.

In the every day do I say “Excuse me husband but my butt has cramp and I am wondering if you can have a look at my toes and tell me if they indeed exist it has been so long since we met”

I sigh, and for a brief moment my stone faced husband smiles “My Miriam who would have ever thought I had married such a quiet wife, if you keep this up I will be the envy of all the men of Nazareth!”
We laugh for a moment and as night comes it is with relief and affection that I let such strong hands lift me down. Such a man you have given me to father our son on earth dear Lord.

Camping on the outskirts of Bethlehem surrounded by the cooking fires of fellow travellers we pull back the tent flap so the stars and the moon may shine down upon us, Joseph knows the stars by name.

Peace at last.
On the edge of sleep feel his hand on my belly “Sleep Miriam mine, God has gifted me you both to care for, and tonight at least all is well in the world.

Blessings on the Journey

Megan

I like this place on the hill

2008-12-18T16:05:00.002+13:00

Here is the meditation I wrote that was published in the Advent Christmas resource Hands of Light. I was imaging what it was like to sit on a hill and watch the story of Joseph and Mary unfold.

I like this place here on the hill.
This crevice in the rock carved out by thee and me has been my shelter from heat and rain all the days of my life.
From here I can see all my sheep.

My people in the village try to beg me to come down in winter,
but more than a night by the fire and I am restless for my place in the rock.
You gave it to me so that I may watch over them.
So I may provide meat for worship and feast days,
so I may witness dramas and miracles.

It is not lonely up here on the hillside,
both people and sheep I know and address by name.
But when it comes to conversation, it is the sheep that make more sense to me.

For two cycles of the moon there has been trickery swirling over the sleeping folk below. Yahweh’s work it is sure, strange and wondrous dabblings true - the outcome uncertain.

What is known to us all, is that soft moments
between the house of Joachim and the house of Joseph
have become sharp and distant.
My father always told me
“When women pass each other without pause for conversation,
turn and run for the hills for the very earth itself may split open and swallow you up!”

Three times this night I have watched Joseph-the-tree, gentle up to the door of his betrothed only to walk away without seeking entrance, shoulders bowed.
On such nights the sounds of a prayer so soft, so full of aching, that only the angels themselves could decipher the words is whispered against the rock.

Few may know the reason for such pain,
but not one person in the neighborhood sleeps undisturbed,
as prayers rich with questions too raw to be spoken loudly,
make their way through the night.

Yes there is trouble in the houses of Joachim and Joseph,
and that means trouble for us all.

In light of this it takes a long time before Joseph-the-tree makes his way up the track to my place in the rock. A man without stealth or guile, he stumbles and grunts, announcing his presence before he appears at my fire.
I sooth my now restless sheep “It is just Joseph-the-tree disturbing your sleep. Rest all will be well with the world”.
There is anger in his eyes at my words,
yet split open it gives way to the sorrow I have witnessed bend this upright man.

Such conversations as with sheep are demeaned by speaking,
and so we sit and watch over the restlessness of those below.

When such emotions do form into speech, they sit in his mouth for a long time.
“But I still love her”

It is said.

So that is what Yahweh has been up to!
‘But I still love her’
In the defeat is shown the way forward, there is still love.
Who in rightness with God, can not find in his heart, forgiveness for one so blessed.

As we sit I recall to Joseph how it was when I was first called up here to care for the flock.
It was not the life I had planned, yet “the needs of all were important” said my grandfather “sacrifices had to be made”.
I spoke of how I had rebelled and in anger struck out at these dumb creatures. This was a story new to Joseph; to him I had never been anything but old and bent.

“There was one sheep in particular that goaded me. A ewe stubborn and wild. She was one of my uncle’s prized animals. Prized or not, all I saw was a stubborn sheep that ran me all over these hills for no better reason than she thought I needed the exercise. When a storm would come she would force me out into the rain to search for her, when wild beasties came close she would run towards them until I was sure she wanted nothing more than to see me dead!”. That raised a smile.

“As my feet got harder and my legs stronger I would look down at you all below less and less with envy. Here I saw things in a new way. I could see who spoke to whom, or who didn’t … I saw the young women of the village laugh together as I never could see when I was amongst it all ... I saw the spirit weave in and out of our lives … and I saw how the villages would wave up to me- there faces reassured that they and the flock were cared for and watched over.”

“The sheep were, well, still sheep, yet more and more I realised how we would come to depend on each other. They warned me, as much as I protected them. Not just my life revolved around their well being, but all our lives.”

“Then one night, on a night very similar to this I returned from the village to discover that that pesky ewe had once more gone missing. It had taken me longer to return than usual as the path I normally took had slipped away. Already I knew that this would be where I would find her. Sure enough as I got closer I saw her she trotted faster and faster in the opposite direction.

I knew the path that she was heading toward was no more, if I chased after her she would fall to her death. Yet if I did nothing it still may happen. What was I to do? After all this sheep had caused me much pain since I had come to care for her”.

Joseph poked at the fire as I paused for effect.

“But you know I could not let her die, in her own way she had become a part of my day... if she died, I may have an easier life, but the whole flock would be diminished”.

“Well what could you do? You’ve said you couldn’t chase after her!”

“Nothing so I fell to my knees and I called to her- angrily at first and then gently...”

“Pesky sheep” I said
“Stop! Come to me,
if you go down there you will die and there are those who will miss you…
if you run that way you will fall down the hill and uncle will be mad…
and I will become lazy…
we need you pesky sheep…
your flock needs you…
I need you!”

“And she came back?”

“No not at first,
she made me wait so long I thought she had died.
And I am not afraid to say that I sat in that sheep track and I sobbed like a babe…
I sobbed for what I had hoped for that was not to be …
for the sense of responsibility that caring for these blasted sheep placed upon me…
and for the fear that sat inside me daily that I could not carry it...
most of all I sobbed for a stubborn sheep
that had yet to tell me her name.”

“But she came back …tell me she didn’t die!”

“Yes she came back and I held her tightly and I cried into her fleece”

“And she loved you and let you lead her back?”

“No she ate my breakfast and walked back with me following behind.
Trust my friend takes time to develop”.

The fire crackled as Joseph-the-tree stood and looked out in the night.
“Go to she who is most blessed tree man, you have a journey before you I think”.

All night I stayed awake watching the village as it fell into a peaceful sleep.

Just before dawn Joseph and Mary, the daughter of Joachim headed out with a donkey towards Bethlehem. From my crevice in the rock I saw them pause and wave. I waved back. On this morning all was well with the world.

A mix of here and there

2008-12-15T16:43:00.003+13:00

All prayers greatly accepted today. I wait, still not accepted into varsity as institutions quibble over acceptance of marks for courses. This is no easy place to sit in the middle of waiting. I have done all I can but at the last post I feel not pipped but more than a little bound.

The season has hit me, the grief and the joy. Today I am asked to pray for a mother whose baby girl is born with a heart defect and dies. Such grief for a family who had looked so forward to a first baby at Christmas. So much investment, so many prayers now seen as lying fallow.

Then a young girl eight months pregnant is bought to my attention as a father in law demands her marriage now because although she is a sinner the baby deserves to be born 'clean'. I think of her and look over at my Nativity icon on my noticeboard. Some things never change Mary.

As I come to terms with being a hoarder and having to pack up house I can not help but look at the place I have grown up in. Christchurch the dark city of New Zealand home of pilgrims and prostitutes.

And I wonder...

I wonder if the darkness that is this city
Will sit in my blood when I have left this place
If the fierce light of late night scuffles will rise in my eyes
As it has in so many others when pressed against a wall

There is a price to pay for living in a feral place
A payment made at birth
This darkness so familiar so a part of us
Once clearly seen, we can but spend the rest of our lives
trying to outrun it.

Today I put in my resignation for work, next week I will go to the Blue Christmass and weep. Then fortified it will be onward into the light.

Blessings Megan

Its a Heartache

2008-12-09T09:55:00.003+13:00

A very short post. An old friend of mine was on a film shoot in Wellington and sent me this link to the shoot. Turn up the music and enjoy the sounds of 'The Wellington International Orchestra'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqynAAYdLW8

May you be filled with smiles

Shalom

Megan

A new place

2008-11-15T09:29:00.006+13:00

As I wait for my supervisees to arrive for my next meeting I find a moment to catch up on my trip to Auckland this week where I attended the Womens Studies Centre Council meeting. This was my first real hands on experience of the three tikanga church. As the meeting was held at college it gave me the opportunity to see where I will spend the next three years living/worshipping/studying at St Johns College.

It was lovely to meet up with people I had not seen for some time. Staying with a friend who indulged my tourist need to see the city at night. And then on another soft evening to I head off with a fellow Christchurch student currently in Seminary to St Helliers bay, where we sat overlooking the harbour eating fresh fish and catching each other up with college life.

The college itself was beautiful to the extent where I became a total tourist out with the camera every time I saw a lizard or a parrot in the garden.

Aside from the Womens Studies Committee this was a chance for me to meet with the interim Dean to discuss college. Me being me I had an interesting moment of Meganisms when I found myself answering his question of "are you multilingual" with "Oh yes I speak anglo-catholic and evangelical!". Long pause follows...

The Women's Studies Committee was my first real opportunity to experience the three tikanga church in action. For those of you either not Anglican or from overseas here in Aotearoa New Zealand we have three ArchBishops who jointly represent the church whilst individually representing the Maori, Polynesian and Pakeha strands of the church.

It struck me as I type here today that my response to the multilingual question the day before was not as silly as it sounded. The WSC meeting allowed me to see how although there are words in common that culturally we all came at issuses with different understandings. This was particulary noticable for me in the women from different pacific countries. In some areas workshops with words like leadership and empowerment were fine to use in a title, where for others they were a total no go. For some people you went directly to individuals if you wanted them to get information, in others any information must go through an intermedery such as the Mothers Union or the AAW. I can see that there are many different languages and nuances for me to learn over the next few years.

A fractured day

2008-11-10T16:44:00.002+13:00

Well an interesting time at present..although as I say this there have been few really uninteresting times when I think about it. Lets see since the last post...
I have been falling in love again with the DVD 'Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus' this week and listening to a mixture of Beck (a birthday gift) a little childhood nostalgia with some Gordan Lightfoot, and finally much to the annoyance of all around me a mix of disco classics and Christmas music...sigh what a troubled child I must be.

The sorting has begun on what to take to Seminary, oh I wish I hadn't been such a hoarder! I finished my meditation for the Advent publication coming out shortly. In the end I did a meditation based on a shepherd who watches over the houses of Mary and Jesus just after the Annunciation. I have begun tossing around the concept of a book with a theologian friend of mine where she would write a teaching piece to a particular Biblical story and I would write a meditation.

Today I had coffee with a friend of mine with a brain tumor we spoke about another couple of young women with terminal cancer one who died yesterday and one for whom each day is a gift to us all. We talked about grief and hope about intervention and leaving. About how she wasn't scared of dying she just didn't want to leave people filled with grief. We talked planning funerals and having fun. And her joy that her friend who had just died was baptised a couple of weeks ago.
A gift in what has otherwise been a fractured day.

Tomorrow I am up at St Johns College for a meeting on the Women's Studies Centre and to meet with the Dean to talk about next year.

God thank you for the pain and the joy, the laughter and tears and for living in a place where the hard thing is having such an abundance that we throw things away.

Expectations on Ordination Training - Oh My!

2008-10-15T13:02:00.005+13:00

Well my local ordination training group met the other night in what was a rather full on session on training for the future. I would have to say that the bar training wise has certainly been raised!

I was reminded of when I was studying Gestalt Psychotherapy years ago and the saying of one of my teachers “There is a knife edge between fear and excitement”. I think most of us had elements of both, yet I am left with an overall feeling of excitement.

My understanding- which by the way was hurried and I am sure missed things, is for a graduate level knowledge of:
New and Old Testament
Basic Greek, Hebrew or both
Church History covering: Early Church, Middle Ages, Reformation, Anglican Communion – formation, Modern Church

Systematic Theology
Christology
Pneumatology
Sacramental Theology
Moral Theology and Christian Ethics
A sound knowledge and comfortable use of the Anglican Liturgies and NZ Prayer book
Age specific ministry i.e. children and young people

Three month internship full time in a parish before ordination.
1 CPE or chaplaincy experience
1 cross cultural experience overseas
Leadership skills both in being and raising up leaders was emphasized as was the importance of people skills.

Expectations upon us personally were also raised in the sense of:
Doing the daily offices – which is pretty much a given anyway
Having a regular time of meditation
Having regular spiritual direction
Regular church attendance and taking of sacraments
To live a life of careful stewardship of creation
Regular giving
Looking after the body God has given us – right eating drinking exercise and rest. As well as moral codes to live by.

As I said earlier I was nervous about the fact that in the head space I was in I may put my foot in it. And although I didn’t quite stuff it up, referring to the study of numerology as opposed to Pneumatology I hope was overlooked!

We did do some interesting Bible study with the Bishop and later some visualization on what came to mind when we thought of ourselves in ministry.

So although I will miss people here and the thought of having to pack a house of crap up is daunting from a study perspective I am so excited about the future and training for ministry.
Now all I need to do in the next fews days is finish my assignment on Isaiah and write a meditation for a publication being put together here for Advent. With a cup of tea in your hands prozac and a prayer anything is possible!

God Help Those Around Me

2008-10-10T11:20:00.007+13:00

Today is a day when I am putting my foot in it. Nothing I say seems to come out the right way and I can see myself leaving a path of clumsy destruction in my wake. My bumbled apologies seem only to make things worse and I would seriously consider locking myself away in a dark room and sleeping if the majority of staff had not decided to take the day off and leave only one person to cover reception.

To be honest it’s probably not just today. My uncoordinated verbal bumbling has been going on for a few days coupled with a less than gracious attitude that has simmered beneath my tight smiling exterior for people who seem to annoy me for no other reason than they are breathing and I am a total wench at the moment when stressed.

This weekend we have the Diocesan Ordination Training. Bishop Victoria is coming this evening to speak to us for the first time as a group. I would rather be a little more in charge of myself at what is a pivotal meeting for us and our future. When all else fails I think it is perhaps best to resort to silence and a really big can of V.
Lord give me the patience,
The words,
The wisdom to shut up,
And blessings upon all I stumble over in the days ahead.

Meg stumbling about in the wind in search of sanctuary.

My Kingdom for some space

2008-10-09T16:10:00.001+13:00

Well there is certainly a lot to think about at the moment. People around me have as much as possible adjusted to us moving to Auckland. I am aware of the little community builder in me that at such times thinks of what it will take to settle in comfortably there. Shawn has found a church for himself, being a part of the vineyard movement he is in Wimber heaven with 7 churches to choose from.

What sits with me at the moment is a desire to find a creative community either some where to paint or learn. Ideally I would like to find a fellow icon writer in Auckland. One of the painful sides of leaving Christchurch is that I will not be able to study under Father Acardy here who had agreed to teach me the traditional Russian way of icon writing. I have some grief over that as I saw in his work something extraordinary.

So I am trying to be patient and not jealous that he is talking about having a school here in Christchurch. If anyone knows of a teacher of icons in Auckland please please let me know.

Aside from that I now have a hectic study schedule (see below) which I hope will make sense as to why I have not written here for some time. Blessings

Megan
HS101 Assignment 3. Due Date: 15 October 25%
Write an essay of 2000 words: First, outline the historical background within which Second Isaiah ministers. Then, describe the major themes found in his writing (Isaiah 40‑5 5). Finally, what is his central message?

MM102 ASSIGNMENT Three DUE DATE: 28th October 20%
Completion of 2 worksheets which will be based on questions related directly to the course reader.

NT101 ASSIGNMENT ONE – Part Two
DUE DATE: 10th November LESSONS 8‑14 15% Course Log

NT101 ASSIGNMENT FOUR DUE DATE 15th December 40%
For Sandra Schneider’s the challenge facing New Testament interpretation is to find a way(s) that "can ground a reading of the text that is unreservedly critical, on one hand, and that interacts meaningfully with the personal and communal spiritual life of the believing reader ..." (Sandra Schneider’s Revelatory Text, 13).[Select one of the following texts and show how a new reading or interpretation is possible when new critical questions are asked of the text from a particular perspective (hermeneutic). Show that you that understand the questions raised by the hermeneutic which you chose and then demonstrate your understanding by applying that hermeneutic to the scripture passage:
Either: A Liberation Hermeneutic: Luke 6:20‑26 (make brief reference to other linked texts/verses in Luke)
Or: A Feminist Hermeneutic: Matthew 15:21‑28 (make brief reference to other linked texts/verses in Matthew)
Or: An Earth Hermeneutic: Matthew 6:9‑14 (make brief reference to other linked texts/verses in Matthew)
Or: An Earth Hermeneutic: the use of heaven/earth imagery in a particular NewTestament book

HS101 Assignment 4 Due Date: 24th November 35%
This assignment is intended to help you get your head around what you have learned this year. It should be longer than the previous assignments, but its length depends on how much you want to say. You may structure it in any way you like, but follow the advice in the EIDTS Study & Writing Guide. You are expected to reference your quotations correctly.

In what way were the people of Israel different after the Exile?
Consider the following: religious institutions, literary concerns, political structure, attitude to other nations, social situation, role of prophets, attitude to women, self-consciousness, etc. Choose some of these issues and explain how things differed before and after the Exile.

MM102 ASSIGNMENT Four
DUE DATE: Dec 31st 2008 20%
Write a 1500 word Book Review on the Course Text by Cornfield, Margaret Zipse. (1998). Cultivating Wholeness. A Guide to Care and Counselling in Faith Communities. New York, Continuum.

MM102 ASSIGNMENT Five DUE DATE: 20th January 2009 25%
If you were writing a comprehensive theology of pastoral care giving, what biblical resources would you use and why? (This topic must be dealt with thematically, not by simply quoting endless passages from scripture) 1500 words

MM102 ASSIGNMENT Six DUE DATE: Feb 10th 2009 25%
In what ways could you give pastoral care during a rite of passage in your particular cultural context? What will be your pastoral theological understandings underbidding the provision of this care? 1500 words

An unsettled day

2008-10-01T10:45:00.002+13:00

Yesterday something very disturbing happened. Well more disturbing than usual. A friend of mine who is a priest got home to find his house had been broken in to. What was really disturbing aside from the brake in, was the desercration of his crucifixes. Some had been smashed, some hung upside down, some had had things done to them and were flushed down the toilet. It was an odd break in, only a bottle was taken, the person who had broken in had however totally smashed his lap top in a frenzy. Everything else was left however i.e. cell phone etc.

It is the desecration of the crosses that has really unsettled me. My husband went to be with our friend as he waited for the police and to pray and do some clearing, and another priest came to bless the place later on that day. I have spent some time in prayer over this. Not just for my friend but for the person who did this. For the darkness they carry (be it psychological, spiritual addictive or all three) that would throw them into such a frenzy of hatred at the face of love.
God have mercy upon them; forgive them, and the face of love work deeply within them leading them to the light.

Moving to Auckland

2008-09-25T16:08:00.002+12:00

Those of you who know me will know that I have been for some time struggling with the challenge of studying, working, community work, discernment process, being involved in church etc.

I have just heard that I have a scholarship starting in Feb 2009 to study for three years at St Johns College in Auckland. In truth I am in a little shock I think – not at the logistics of moving my house, my husband and my cat to Auckland, but in the leaving. We have had a lot of uncertainty in work and parish shifts this year and at this moment I am aware of the grief as well as excitement of leaving as well. I am sitting here not sure what to do with myself.

Telling my family was interesting. My mother was great although now I know she hasn’t stopped crying since my phone call. It is funny how even at my age the childhood desire to please can pop its head up when we least expect it.

So people whom I know there you go! Care parcels greatly appreciated. Please know that I will and am excited but when there has been such anxiety for so long to hear leaves me not sure how to respond. Pray for me
Blessings

Megan

"To Me...To Me..."

2008-09-16T10:49:00.003+12:00

Recently in the madness that has been the last month during Spiritual Direction I had one of those moments where you are seemingly transported beyond yourself.

Towards the end of our session I was encouraged in prayer to open myself up to what I wanted to say to God and indeed what God wanted to say to me. Two things came through, the first was a yearning whereby I had a real sense of God missing me. It blew my mind that God could miss me!

It has left me with a sense of how it is I hold God at bay as I go about my daily life, and left me asking what it is I place between God. This is of course something that I am going to have to unfold more, however it was a gentle reminder of how easily I turn off from the reality of God being ever present.

Then as we were sitting there in silence I had the oddest vision.

There were no kittens, puppies, harps or clouds. Instead I was on a battle field surrounded by a thin mist. All around me were the sounds of swords clashing and fighting, of horses screaming and people dying. Underneath all this madness I was aware of the constant smell of death.

It seemed as if I were all over the battlefield.

At one moment fighting here, at another over on another front fighting there, carrying water here, dragging bodies there, always though I was in this battle against an enemy in the smoke and fog. In this battle I had many roles and many views, I was exhausted and alone, unable to see those who fought with me.

Then through it all there came a cry that cut across all other sounds.
It was the commander shouting out “To Me, To Me!”
Suddenly there was a focus and a call greater than the call to rise up the sword once more. It was as if all of the me’s (remember I was in many places) heard the call simultaneously fell back to that call “To me”.
When I/we did this we found ourselves outside a tent surrounded with smoke.

Although it ended here the sense was, that now it would be okay the Commander may send the now me singular out again, but we would not be alone he would be with us. We would not be scattered, we would know where and who we were, and indeed why, we had direction.

Although I have had such moments before, they have never been so military based. Although this surprised me it was at the same time right.
That evening as I sat in the installation service the reading came of a tent in the wilderness over which the spirit rested. I sat there with my jaw dropped to the floor.

Lifting Women’s Voices in Prayer - Calling Women Prayer Writers

2008-09-15T08:58:00.002+12:00

Hi folks

this came across my desk the other day and seeming extremely worthwhile to those of a female creative spiritual bent , I have placed it here.

Lifting Women’s Voices: Changing the world through prayer is part of a grass-roots effort to unite Anglican women from all corners of the globe in prayer. A group is working to compile a new collection of prayers by women from throughout the Anglican Communion. They are inviting Anglican women to help create this prayer collection!

All interested Anglican women are invited to craft and submit a short prayer for publication. The final submission date for prayers is 15th Oct 2008. Prayer texts can be e-mailed to prayers@cpg.org or Rebecca Hills at rebecca@scm-canterburypress.co.uk.

Lifting Women’s Voices: Changing the world through prayer will be published in the late spring of 2009. All royalties from this project will go directly to the International Anglican Women’s Network and the Episcopal Relief and Development fund.

The aim of the 'Lifting Women's Voices' apart from creating a resource is to reveal how Anglican women worldwide are deeply connected by global issues, even across cultural and economic divides—and affirm that nurturing womens inner lives of prayer, offers all the courage to care and advocate not just for ourselves, but for sisters everywhere. This collection of original prayers from the worldwide Anglican Communion makes connections between women’s personal lives today and global concerns of women. They show the connections between a woman’s prayers for her child in the West and the plight of child labour in the third world.

The extraordinary process of prayer gathering has already facilitated the sharing of stories and concerns of women from all over the world and we would very much like you to be part of this process by sharing the news of our project and getting women from your diocese involved.

The book will feature a foreword by the US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, and the editorial board includes, among others, our own Jenny Te Paa.

In Search of a Theologically Juicy Human Experience

2008-09-15T08:52:00.004+12:00

Today I am trying to get my head around bringing together the latest edition of the Ministry Times (I will post the link later). And what I am noticing reading through the content here is something lacking.

There are some interesting pieces which so far look like this:
*Ordained a Servant for Christ’s Sake – + Victoria Matthews
*Ordained a Priest - A Study Reflecting On Ordained Priesthood
*Supervision Pieces
*Pakeha Identity -Naming and Framing it for Anglicans in Aotearoa
*Training in Supervision

But I am missing something this time and I am not sure if it is the human nature piece or that I am looking for something really theologically juicy.

Of course this raises another question for me which is: Is my dissatisfaction with the content anything to do with the magazine or is it me who is wanting a human nature experience or indeed something theologically juicy … or in fact a theologically juicy human experience?

Such are the wonderings at this stage of the game.
Blessings
Megin the wind

The Charge to Us All

2008-09-09T11:34:00.002+12:00

Well Synod is over for now and although there were some positives I think we are all aware of how at times processes can get in the way of getting work done.

Last Thursday we had the Synod Service where Bishop Victoria delivered her first Charge as the Bishop of Christchurch. She clearly and succinctly outlined for us where the priorities were for the future.

Anyway click here to read the charge for yourselves, certainly a charge that has left me both excited and with much to pray on.

Blessings

Meg in the wind
http://www.chch.anglican.org.nz/main/bishopscharge/

Late night musings on the Installation of Bishop Victoria Matthews

2008-09-01T15:13:00.008+12:00

If you were looking for signs and wonders as an Anglican in Christchurch, you couldn’t have gone much farther than the Installation of Bishop Victoria Matthews in Christchurch on Saturday. After weeks of flooding and horrendous storms the day cleared and in the walled garden of The Community of the Sacred Name the Sisters informed us that the Victoria plum tree had broken into blossom that very day.

If it seems like I am waxing lyrical then so be it. It was a day when not only were you aware that history was being made, you were a part of it. Never have I seen the Cathedral so full or been apart of so many voices raised in song and prayer.

What was interesting to me were the moments where not only were individuals moved but where as a corporate body there was an indrawn breath. When she stripped down to her alb and prostrated herself in supplication there were many who in the long silence of prayer were moved to tears. To witness her total subservience to God, the total giving of herself to us as Bishop was enough to move the most hardy among us (well nearly move them).

When I really began to notice that this was something different was earlier however among the speeches of the local Iwi (tribe Kai Tahu) and when the Representative of Te Hui Amorangi O Te Waipounamu Bishop Gray spoke. My Maori is pretty warn at the best of times yet in my desperate attempts at translating I became aware of a level of invitation to relationship that was unprecedented certainly in my hearing. When translated in part at the end in English once more it was reiterated the heralding if you like of a new relationship within the three tikanga church. Her mana and that of her supporters was acknowledged and she was in that speech claimed as one of our own.

There were moments when not only was tradition acknowledged, but when the Bishop herself gave us a hint of what we may expect for the future. When asked to respond to the question by Archbishop David Moxon “In selecting, training and ordaining, will you be thorough and discerning?”
Instead of replying with “I will God grant me wisdom to care for those ordained” she added “and for those in discernment responding to Gods call”. As someone in the discernment process I was at that moment aware of my place in all this, as were the several ordination candidates sitting in front of me.

When it came to administering communion she walked (to the tune of Canada’s first indigenous hymn) towards the expectant clergy and passed them by, she walked towards the dignitaries and they too were passed by, she walked towards the mass of us at the back, and we too were passed by as she walked out of the Cathedral and administered communion to those seated in the square outside.

For more intelligent musings than my post installation and pre-synod organizing brain can handle here are a few sights of interest that can tell you more.

In anticipation for the future happy first day of Spring

Meg

http://www.anglicantaonga.org.nz/News/Tikanga-Pakeha/installation
http://www.stuff.co.nz/thepress/4675917a19753.html

Hey there

2008-08-23T13:21:00.002+12:00

Okay firstly yes I am still alive but for the next few weeks the madness of organizing a Bishops installation and a synod when we are down on staff will absorb me to the hilt.
Bishop Victoria arrived last week and next Saturday will be installed as 8th Bishop of Christchurch something many of us, myself included, are greatly looking forward to. At the moment I am trying to get my head around an assignment due days ago that seems to make less sense the more I look at it.

Study at the moment has taken a back seat and I am now I think working on a constant catch up. I am intensely aware that working two jobs and studying effectively is not something I am able to do so some decisions coming I think so I may get back to being able to focus on my study and ministry.

Soon I will be back here writing if only as a stress relief. Positive things on the horizon aside from new Bishops include contributing to a publication with a meditation on the holy family. Last night coming out of work I looked at my husband and said I just cant go home my head just won’t clear so we did what we haven’t done for a long time and headed off into the evening we drove over to Lyttleton harbor and watched the boats come in with snow on the hill tops then we drove around the harbour up through the hills through Gebbes Pass and home blowing the week out of my head. I had forgotten how precious it was just to get away of only for an hour and have the space to ask such questions as what have you been reading love?

So I am about to go to take icon class then back to study

Bounce bounce life is an adventure I have just found out that somehow my ability to add pic has returned oh happy day

God at this precise moment ROCKS as I am filled with joy

Peace

Megan

Dont assume you know more than you do

2008-07-21T15:26:00.000+12:00

OKay so I thought I could fix my blog
Now I have no graphic on the front page, I have changed some wierd format and lost all my links and REvgalpal webring information

Unholy thoughts

any ideas a blessing
M

Reporting from the Eye of the Storm

2008-07-18T15:10:00.000+12:00

Okay Life outs
I am aware that my posts may have seemed pretty dark lately.
Delayed reaction I guess of supporting a group of people in pain. And my dilemma of how to reconcile being a part of a church that sometimes wounds people and gets it wrong, and how when that happens people whom I imagined better of, scatter rather than respond and risk stepping into a sticky and painful place.

I am painfully aware of peoples support through lack of response.
If I have learnt anything it is:
• the importance of keeping doors open,
• of not backing away from those in pain,
• of the importance of my colleagues who have had the courage and gift of stepping forward so there are at least two of us in the fray.

I give thanks for my vicar for his calm wisdom and check ins. And now that the catch up I had made in my study has been lost through this, the need to find the mental resources to get back and try to make sense of my next assignment in a time when such things seem of little relevance.

There is a break for breath here.

I am not sure how this will play out. My mouth still feels dry for the Eucharist. I wonder what it feels like to do nothing at all, oh sweet desire.

Then again I could be at Lambeth! Meg reporting from the eye of the storm.

Finding the words

2008-07-17T16:51:00.000+12:00

Today I have put head phones on.
Let music take over the twisted arguments that surround me
I play the music of the faithful fullbore
Let their words of belief and struggle
Speak for me
Fake it till you make it
Lord have mercy

To others in the same turmoil as me
I am going well
I can advise
Advocate for them
Make demands they have no strength to make themselves
It is only when a cavalry of one appears – a lone rider we would drag from the horse and hold dear
that my own trauma is revealed
She asks what I do
and I can no longer find clear words to say
I am unmasked
I am seen
And in the seeing my own desperation
My own ache is pinned to the board

So I search to reconcile injustice and love
Human weakness and perfection
I have yet to find the way

On the white board at work
I write
'Remember God'
A day later is added
'Remember each other'
Today
'Do not close your doors'
When I wonder if secretly in my calling to God
I write on my own whiteboard
'Please God remember me'
Your forgotten servant
Lord Have Mercy

Perhaps of no sense but to thee and me

2008-07-15T15:24:00.000+12:00

If I were to explain to you how I am right now -
what the impact of all this is,
I would simply say
I have stopped taking the Eucharist.
That some dark grief has stepped between my hands and the cup.
Lord have mercy

I suspect I have entered a dark place
Not because of anything other than words on a page tell me it is so.
I still have a few words left
even if they do seem as though they should come with subtitles.
Touch for some reason, (that made total sense to me before)
has taken on a new significance,
stepping up to fill the places abandoned by words.
There is solace in the feel of solid objects.
The bark of trees brings comfort to the palm of my hand,
the wood of the healing cross under my pillow
reminds me of one whose agony leads the way forward.

To look at those suffering around me
And choose to stand with them
in the murk that is both fear and anxiety,
is to be invited to a place of excruciating beauty
and devastating love.
And I am transformed by them.
They are after all as family, so how could it be any other way?

To not loose myself in the fears of a damaged people
who can but call out “… each to their own”
is to plead that somewhere a door remain open to their voice
And to hear myself over and over again ask
Lord have mercy on me a sinner
Till I may come home to the cup

Blessed are those who stand in the storm

2008-07-04T16:34:00.000+12:00

I am drawn back today (by an uncertainty in future directions) to the job I had before this one. I recall it especially I suppose because besides the fact that it was my birthday it was also the day I was told I was to possibly be made redundant. For eight months a multi national toyed with us over who would go, who would stay.

Until the banality of it was such that it became something that not only did we live with, with some numbness, but that we integrated in some twisted way. How else were we to live with the weekly leaving collections from 400 to 40- last one out etc.

And here in a moment today, I am caught once more with that feeling of helpless anger. On one level I have a rather clinical overview - the 'Oh how interesting to find yourself feeling this way in the face of change, is that a suppressed issue I see arising?' And in another I am aware of standing in a time and place of change where unknowns can be reinterpreted with disastrous results when left in the dark too long.

On a positive note I am going home tonight to indulge in celebrating the 4th of July with my Husband and Friends (he is a southern boy.) We shall eat chili dogs and pecan pie and watch with rare and blessed indulgence my favorite documentary "Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus" and watch Delicatessen after that.

For those who have not seen "Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus" really suggest you do. Here is the website for more information http://www.searchingforthewrongeyedjesus.com/. For those of you in Christchurch New Zealand you can hire it from Alice in Videoland.

But it is time for me to take myself and my future anxiety home.
Blessed are those who stand in the storm

Megan the ambiguous

Fearing not I became my enemy the moment that I preached

2008-06-10T16:41:00.000+12:00

I haven’t written here for a long time.

A lot has happened, conferences and the meeting of the new Bishop, workshops and ponderings on the Holy Spirit and Revelation. Looming assignments and reoccurring thoughts.

A couple of weeks ago I recieved several emails from people asking why I have not written on my blog about the controversies here and there over women and ordination. I have thought about this long and hard. You see in truth I have written many postings on this. However they all sit dusty in the edit file of my blog unpublished and full of pain and anger.

The other night I heard this saying from I think an old Bob Dylan song which summed up in a small way why I have not entered the debate on line.

“Fearing not I became my enemy the moment that I preached”

You see it is not that I am not passionate about woman’s ordination but that the tactics and bruising that occurs to all of us when we enter into debate without first dealing with our own pain and sorrow and indeed without building enough of a relationship with those whom we are to speak with over this leads us…leads me… to a place where there is potential for harm rather than healing for division rather than discussion.

For those of you who think me weak in this stance, fair enough maybe you are more robust than I, yet it is easy to spit out faceless posts in such a forum without a sense of responisbility or consideration for those who may read it and indeed I would say to sit... really sit with this and pray is both essential and indeed profoundly uncomfortable. And indeed in no way the easy way.

My apologese for any spelling errors but I have yet to find a real life person who can sit and look at this with me and tell me why my image icons my spell check icons etc have disapeared.

Prayers and Blessings

Meg in the wind

New Old Places

2008-05-16T15:08:00.001+12:00

This week I have been trying to reclaim my study back from the ether. This basically entails me reading through Joshua and Judges. It is a sobering section of the Bible where I increasingly find myself pondering on such things as:
Why when they had such a sense of God helping them out in battle etc did they continually fall back to Baal?
What was the attraction of Baal?
When the Ark of the Covent had been used in battle previously what happened to it in the time of Judges?
Let alone the uncomfortable questions that sit around the area of the killing of every man, woman, child, goat, kitten and puppy every second chapter.

Last night I was invited to the new local Russian Orthodox Priests house to observe his Icon group. Father Arkardy spent many years as not only as an Iconographer, but also as a restorer of Icons in Russia. The infamous words of Judy Garland came to mind on entering his house with the sudden realization of “We are not in Kansas anymore”. I am very proud of the woman in my icon group, of the journeys they have taken, of the work of the spirit that so often and so clearly moves through them and indeed me when we work.

In seeing how Father Arkardy works however I am struck by the impact of what happens when you approach the Icon from a cultural perspective with each act carrying significance each stroke a reason. When you are grinding your own paints from precious stones, laying linen over the board not just because of a need for strength but because it symbolizes the wrapping of Christ as a babe in swaddling and indeed in a shroud at death you are drawn to a new place. We talked backwards and forwards sometimes in broken English, sometimes through the translator, and in this conversation there sits an opportunity that when he teaches again I may be able to study under him. This will mean a radical undoing of bad habits on my part I am sure. Yet sitting there watching each stroke I felt once more drawn in to the icons around me.
To this almost soporific place where I am called to step out of time, to slow myself until I find that new rhythm and we begin again.

On a totaly different subject when I go to post I no longer have any way to add graphics sigh... any suggestions there is not even an icon to click on any more

With a cup of tea in your hands anything is possible

2008-05-13T08:39:00.002+12:00

On my wall here at work there is a post card of a far off looking determined woman that reads "With a cup of tea in your hand anything is possible" a simple statement which as I write this takes on new meaning.

A lot has happened lately which is inevitable when you don't post regularly. Life has been as always full on. Everywhere there is change for me at the moment from Church to work to family to friends. There seems little place for stillness in all this movement.

The move to my new Church has been interesting the liturgy is similar but it is the small changes that make the difference. For example the different tunes to sung responses can throw me for a moment in the liturgy.

The part where I am the biggest woos is at the cup of tea afterward. I am reminded of a talk earlier in my training on how space works to build community. It is a little harder here with round tables where people sit in their groups rather than stand where you have to bump into others. Yet that too is a very much dependent on the age and mobility of the community I suspect.

I have discovered however the ultimate community building accessory for any new church going gurl that being the husband.
On Sunday Shawn joined me for Pentecost and it was interesting seeing the difference it made being a couple in people coming up to talk afterwards I am not sure how my staunch southern American shaved headed husband would cope with being described as a gurls accessory but it is all in a good cause. Anyway they are a nice group of people and I am reminded that it takes time to find your feet in a community. It will be in the small group situations where relationships really begin I think.

Such thoughts inevitably run beyond where I am to how as a church do we make visitors welcome?
How do we open ourselves up to those new to the church?
How do we provide the space and encouragement that may lead to a return visit?
Do we do the brief obligatory hi, have you come here before? Do you live in the area? conversation and then feel that our duty is done?
And perhaps most importantly how do we recognise when we have become inwardly facing? When we are focused more on those comfortable relationships we have with each other, rather than those out on the edge with new comers. I know myself at times I have been all the things I have warned against, most of the time for no other reason than I forgot to notice or was enjoying those around me. I hope that I remember these weeks on the edge, the moments of warmth when I am met by parishioners. And when I find my feet that I am reminded of the importance of the milling places where those most comfortable on the edge meet.
Remeber with a cup of tea in your hands all things are possible...

In and out

2008-05-09T14:22:00.000+12:00

Hi

yes i am alive just come back from organising and working at Clergy Conference. now sleep!!!!!!!!!!!

blessings

Megan

A new Church a new adventure

2008-04-18T15:48:00.002+12:00

What has been happening?

Well this Sunday I begin at a new church Holy Trinity. It also happens to be the same day my Diocesan Ordination Training Group are visiting Holy Trinity as a part of our bi monthly experince of different forms of worship.

My soon to be new vicar has asked if I will stand up at the end of the service in a bit of an "Oprah" moment and have an introduction question and answer session before the congregation. All very out there!

In the mean time I was asked if I had any prayers suitable for a service which would include teenage girls for this Sunday in light of the horrible week we have had with teenagers here.

For thsoe of you from over seas in the last 2 days we have had 6 teen agers and a teacher from Elim Chrsitian School in the North Island killed in a flash flood on an outdoor pursuits weekend and a local teenager Marie Davis abducted 10 days ago found dead in a river.

So here is what I wrote feeling totally inadequate to the task I would have to say and aware that all over the country others such as me will be struggling to find words both appropriate for the occassion and the age group.

We pray for those who have been taken unexpectedly,
For Marie Davis for the young men and women from the Elim Christian school,

for Floyd, Portia, Tom, Natasha, Anthony, Tony, and Tara.
Holding in our prayers, their families, their friends and all who grieve.

Lord of the unexpected
There are times when I am lost
When this place,
your creation,
can suddenly feel unsafe.
Out in the world,
on the streets,
life goes on,
when I want to stop it for a moment, and ask you why?
Why someone with their whole life before them is taken in an instant?
Why it is that those most beautiful in your sight suffer?
Why it feels like nothing will ever be the same again?

In homes and in class rooms,
for families and friends
there are moments and memories that will never be made,
family occasions that will be incomplete,
text messages meant to bring a smile that will never to be sent,
empty spaces in class rooms,
forever left unfilled.

Yet in all the questions,
the “What ifs”, and the “Maybes” Lord, there is thanks,
Thanks for the joy each of them brought to those around them,
for the smiles and fun times they were a part of,
for the friendships they enriched,
for the talents and gifts they shared.

We give thanks that at this time-however sad,
we are reminded of how special life is,
how precious are those with us here today,
and that unfailing you stand with us in grief and in gladness.
Amen

______________________________________________________

God of our darkness and our light
Watch over those who at this time must be strong for others,
Be at their backs Lord when the burden is too great
Give strength to trembling arms that hold up others,
Forever whispering soft words of morning for those who minister to the night.

Bless all of you who are struggling to find the words

Megan

“Announcing your plans is a great way to hear God laugh”.

2008-04-14T16:24:00.004+12:00

Well after weeks of my build up to leaving my parish yesterday it finally happened.
It was one of those times where the saying came true of “Announcing your plans is a great way to hear God laugh”.

I told myself, that I would not cry, I prayed that I would have courage, be graceful and composed and indeed for a few seconds I really was. Yet each moment through the service I was aware was my last as a part of this community. Being Lay Minister I told myself I should be all those things I prayed for and my priest just told me to be honest. So when it got to the Eucharist I knew all prayers would not be answered.

At our church when we take Eucharist everyone comes and stands around the table in a large circle and we all stand together until everyone has partaken. It is a way of taking Eucharist I find immensely powerful and stunningly moving. One of the other vicars Jim was presiding so David and I were chalice bearers. I am not sure if this was by design or not as this was also the culmination of David and my time in Spiritual Direction (4 1/2 years weekly is a long time). So I take the chalice and go to the first person and I am washed over by this wave of grief, of mine, of others, of the blood symbolized in the wine I carry, and I just start to cry. Not huge sobs but a steady trickle of tears that wont stop. Each person I go to is a parting and I look at them and see in some too tears, some for leaving, some for their own pain laid open before God. Beside me David (how does he keep so cool) just paces it with me. And as I go around hands start to touch me as I pass, to support me as I go around. And it is done. As we clear the table I hide behind a pillar, and blow my nose once more blessing the maker of waterproof mascara. Then at the end I come forward for the Release and Blessing as written below.

Completion, Release & Blessing
the Parish Priest addresses the Theological Student…

Priest: Megan, you have shared with us in this parish of St Luke,
as fellow pilgrim on the Way, and as Theological Student in the testing of vocation.
What do you now ask of us?

Megan: Release from the community, and from the ministry I have been exercising.

Priest: What do you seek?

Megan: The will and the glory of God.

Priest: How do you seek it?

Megan: Through the completion of my baptism, by following Christ crucified and risen.

the Parish Priest addresses the congregation…

Priest: My friends in Christ, we give thanks to God for the loving service of Megan.
You hear her request;
will you now release her from this service?
All: We will, by God’s grace.

the Priest places a Crucifix in the Student’s hands…

Priest: Megan, see the sign of the Cross; bear this sign always in your hands and on your
heart, as Christ’s body in the world. Amen.

Priest: Let us pray;
Christ our Lover, True Light who enlightens all people:
Shine, we pray,
in the hearts of all who seek after you,
that we may clearly see the way that leads to life eternal,
and may follow it without stumbling;
for you are the Way, O Christ,
as you are the Truth and Life;
and you live and reign for ever.
All : Amen.

Priest: Megan, by the laying on of our hands
we bless you for all that you have been to us,
and for all that will be required of you in the future.
Go with our love and our prayers,
and may all things belonging to the Spirit live and grow in you.

Go with our thanks,
with our forgiveness,
and the love we express by the touch of our hands.
The blessing of God be with you always.
All: Amen.

The irony of course is in that moment feeling the hands of my community touching me, praying over me, wiping my eyes like a child, holding me (the rebels saying no we wont release her in the service) I finally feel that I really am loved and valued and a part of my community all on the day of goodbye.

The Amen’s are sung (my favourite part of the whole service besides the Eucharist) and I for the first time just listen and hope I can hold this feeling within me as I leave. Next week a new congregation a new beginning.

Peace

Nonsensical Musings from the tired Triduum Bunny

2008-03-26T16:10:00.005+13:00

Well as an irreverent Friend of mine would say in response to "Jesus Christ has Risen",

"Well that's one more for Sunday lunch then".

The Great Triduum is over. From the foot washing to the veneration, from night vigil to the 5am preparations for the dawn Easter day service around the fire.

Back at work of course there is the 'What did you do for Easter?' to which the reply is 'You know Church' . 'What every day? isn't it like a holiday?' After this time coming back to work almost seems like a relief from an intense time in all honesty. I was pleased to go through it with the people of my community. My priest making sure I was either assisting or in some way involved in every service (I'll teach her as much as I can before she leaves here).

Most people now know I am leaving, no more "oh no or why?" comments. One woman said on Sunday 'Well do they need you?' and actually I don't know.

And that's not really the point. I am not sure what I will be to my new community or them to me. They are an older congregation which will be a challenge for me. I have often lamented on missing people of my own age with which to worship. But I guess this is the difference between joining a community as a parishioner and joining a community as a part of formation. Staying with the uncertainty and all that.

I heard the Bishop Victoria interview today, for those who missed it you can catch it on http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon . I thought is was much better than the botched edited TVNZ job the other day . I would have liked the interviewer to not spend half the interview trying to find sensationalist angles from unnamed sources. (Makes me ashamed to grow up in a media household). I am just looking forward to having her here and meeting her face to face.

This weekend it is tomato soup, pasta sauce and relish preserving weekend.

Peace to you all and deep stuff later.

Meg (the tired Triduum bunny)

Jesus Christ has risen Alleluia !

There are moments when I am lost.

2008-03-17T17:14:00.002+13:00

There are times when I become lost in a moment when new or rich significance rises before me. Or ponderings that may or may not lead to something bigger occur. One such moment happened on Palm Sunday. I was crucifer for the service (the person who carries the cross). As we walked on the streets to church waving fronds I was aware of the shocked look of passes by in their cars. What’s this? Strange Anglicans on the streets! Just as we were to begin a comment was made about us shy Anglican types how we were not used to being out there in such a way and I was saddened. I had I guess visions of throngs of faithful celebrating through the streets came to mind.

Inside I recalled the words ‘We become the symbols we carry’ All very heavy when the symbol you carry is the cross. As I sat down I looked at the people around me and I wondered how many of them prayed in certainty of a living active alive God listening tenderly to them. Did they have a sense of God working in their lives, even though it may not be in a way we expect. Or was it formula until the real tragic moments came to the fore and people desperately called out to God?

I wondered what the role of priest was not in praying for people but in guiding the prayer life of the congregation, of how an individuals approach to prayer impacted and what that may mean. And I wondered if in our polite Anglicanism we risked in a safe psychological God missing out on a wild dangerous passionate demanding God.

As for here the news is out that our new bishop is to be Bishop Victoria Matthews and I now know where I am moving too on the 13th of April (not long now and I will be off to Holy Trinity) so the separation continues with folk.

For this moment I am killing time with you all before I head over to the Cathedral where several of us are joining some folk from the Court theatre where we will be involved in the recitation of poems from author Michael Justin Davis’s book ‘To the Cross’. I am reading the anointing woman (bit of a theme at the moment)

The Great Triduum looms blessings to you all may we all be turned upside down this Easter.

Meg

Baptism the Naive Questions

2008-03-11T16:34:00.001+13:00

I am just taking a break from some research material for tomorrow nights women at the foot of the cross series. All very full on. I never realized that when women were crucified they faced the cross. Yes it has been a slightly painful research afternoon.

Any way on another topic, at the Diocesan Ordination Training at the weekend we looked at Baptism. At one part we gathered together all the questions asked around Baptism not just from ourselves but the naive questions that are asked by people looking at getting their children baptised who may not have an understanding of why baptism is important besides the social convention of ‘getting the children done’.

These questions fascinated me and I have included them here:
What times in the Church year don’t we do it?
What should one wear to a baptism? Are hats appropriate at a Baptism?
Has baptism always been practiced in the Church? Were there periods when it was not?
Is it like my child has a magic charm protecting her?
Can baptism be ‘undone’ by Church law?
What are the responsibilities of the church to those who are baptised i.e. we say we will do a lot but do we ever really follow through?
Why aren’t we allow to give people the Eucharist who are not baptised? Shouldnt we take any chance we get to share the body and blood of Christ?
How far should we educate a family just interested in a family occasion?
Why fonts over full immersion?
Why is baptism not allowed to be administered by anyone?
What are the implications of not baptizing
Is Baptism ever refused?
What should I look for in a God parent? And how seriously is the role nowadays anyway?
Isn’t God big enough to accept those not baptised?

Some interesting and thought provoking moments came to me over what as church communities we declare at baptisms in the area of support and nurture verses what we actually do. I think there is some ongoing powerful learning for me in this.

Any way being Lent it seems appropriate that I have begun the honoring and ending of various relationships at my church as I am to move on soon which has been painful yet good. Especially the conclusion of a four year relationship with my Spiritual Director a relationship which if you will excuse me feels too sacred at this tender time to reflect on in this open space today.

Sermon on the molehill

2008-03-06T15:38:00.002+13:00

Well as the great man says 'it is done'
Sermon finished over. in the end it was after putting out my back a weekend of desperately trying to get it together and doing an okay job in the end.

In reality I did not think I really nailed the main points but as far as learning exercises goes I am sure it has some way to go. Its always annoying when the rest of the week you finally get to nail it in your head anyway. I am wondering as someone who is so audio centered (thanks years of radio) if it would be good one day to invest in a wee recorder as I find the stream of consciousness aspect of me rather helpful when let loose.

This week has been one of anti-infamiatories, gatherings, and full on evenings.
On Monday evening I went to a 25 years of ordination celebration that was such a gift. Today a lunch time talk on substitutionary atonement, tonight training parenting counsellors and last night was the first of my two weekly Lenten series at Theology House.

In that we explored the world of the Anointing Woman. The attendees themselves were of interest to me. Being in a family where were cover the length and breadth or Christian expression being accessible has been something I have strived for, to move between worlds has enriched me. As I looked at those gathered last night I became aware of a huge diversity, 3 Anglo catholics, 2 Unitarians, 1 Catholic, a Presbyterian, and a bible study group of four from an evangelical Anglican church was us. Apart from sounding a wee bit like one of those ...There was a catholic and Anglican and a .... situations I became aware of the importance for us of finding a language we could understand and use as a basis for discussion, without actually loosing myself or what I was saying in any watered down language.
I think I did this, although others may tell me differently. I was aware of seeing this odd mix as profoundly precious, especially for those who rarely went outside of their church for teaching.

So I guess that seeing who turns up next week will be the proof in the pudding when we look at Women as witness at the crucifixion

Ever onwards Megan

Confidence goes on silent retreat

2008-02-27T15:25:00.003+13:00

Today I feel stuck, well all week actually. This Sunday I am preaching at my church. It is the first time I have preached there, and I am filled with this feeling of total inadequacy. That here I will be weighed in the balance and found (as my form three social studies teacher Miss Mann would say ) Most profoundly wanting my dear girl!

Each angle I go down feels weak and facile. This is a community used to highly thought provoking complex preaching and I am struck by a sense of dread of me standing up there going 'umm.... today's sermon is kind of about love...maybe and sin...oh are we allowed to say sin?... ummm oh yes there is forgiveness and blindness, and stuff... and Jesus rocks'

Visions about starting out saying that it's all about the vibe... have become more frequent and the after sermon formation discussion has gone from something I was looking forward to, to something that I feel totally sick about. To have my confidence go off for a silent retreat on me isn't helpful. Thoughts of practicing a dramatic faint are not off the cards.

It all seems so odd when last week I stood in the Cathedral no less, preaching on that which I am most afraid in myself, and here where I should feel supported and upheld by my community I instead feel isolated and as though any minute I will be thrown out of the church doors and told never to come again.

Just to clarify this is not how the congregation are this is purely what is happening to me....I think... I know... rationally...sort of.

So anyway this is how it is surprisingly this week in the life of this woman on the edge.

God if you can help bring it on, Jesus if you would like to open my mouth on Sunday and let the words pour out then all power to you.
Otherwise comments, suggestions, pre-prepared sermons, prozac and prayer gratefully accepted.

Meg

For paintings just begun

2008-02-21T16:39:00.003+13:00

There is a painting not guite begun that sits in my study
an outline that itches to be filled
made fleshy ripe,
the lines of her tightly coiled body
ask to be given strength
definintion
life.

She has sat as a sketch so long
with knees drawn up to chest
head burried,
that I wonder somewhere
why it is she still holds my attention at all?
feminine
hidden
waiting

if there were words to paint along her spine they would be few
'Lord Make me a stone'
the outline
whispers at the dawn,
we have been studying together
all night
she and I

God unwrapping me
me unwrapping God
Maybe though she just wishes form
so like me she can finally find
a place to rest

Gluttons to the left of me Gluttons to the right

2008-02-18T09:53:00.006+13:00

It is done.
Last night I preached, leading a reflection for the first (and you never know maybe last) time, in the Cathedral. The subject given to me of gluttony has caused much humour to those around me.
I am aware within myself that I never mentioned this to my family (aside from my husband) aware that in facing the fear and doing it anyway that I didn't want to have to be concerned with what others may think with any 'oh how could you, how embarrassing ' etc.
Gluttony is one of those things we notice, we see, we comment on, yet at the same time try to cover up or change in those closest to us.

As the 'big woman' in this generation at least of my family, I have been profoundly aware of the push me-pull you battles in others and indeed myself. Of being out there with people in the world in one respect, and hidden in another. Of my family being proud and supportive of me but also aware of the social stigma as well for them of my size. Speak to most big women (and I suspect men) where you are not surrounded by other big family members and you may well hear the same thing.

Recently I was invited to talk about the culture of size on a popular blog here, I notice I haven't taken up that invitation (sorry Steve) as at the time it seemed all a little too raw. But God has other ideas about us facing issues.

At the time and when I was approached to lead a reflection that later turned out to be on the subject of Gluttony I thought long and hard. Did I want to be one of those preachers who avoided the readings they felt uncomfortable with? Did I want to be that person who was holier than thou, and able to see faults in others whilst ignoring my own?

Of course I did!
I mean come on who wouldn't? It's safe, it's comfortable (momentarily) and yes in the end painfully hypcritical and harmful. So I said yes and I am glad I did. It also worked as a wonderful distraction from the electoral synod that was on at the time.

My reflection came as a part of the evening Choral Service which involved some amasing plainsong. And becasue of the electoral synod there were as far as I could tell, no clergy there.
The congregation was made up of about 180, many toursits drawn in to the Cathedral by the singing.

The supporting readings were

'Do not let yourself be seduced by the delights of the riches of the world, as though they contained something useful on account of vain pleasure. Worldly people esteem the culinary art, but you, through fasting and thanks to cheap food, go beyond their abundance of food. It is written: "He who is sated loathes honey" (Prov. 27.7) . Do not fill yourself with bread and you will not desire wine.' Amma Syncletica (Desert Mother)

and

As he let the empty gourd fall from his hand and was about to pluck a second one, it came into his head that he was now neither hungry nor thirsty. And yet to repeat a pleasure so intense and almost so spiritual seemed an obvious thing to do. His reason, or what we commonly take to be reason in our own world, was all in favour of tasting this miracle again. Yet something seemed opposed to this ‘reason’. It is difficult to suppose that this opposition came from desire, for what desire would turn from so much deliciousness? But for whatever cause it appeared to him better not to taste again. Perhaps the experience had been so complete that repetition would be a vulgarity like asking to hear the same symphony twice in a day. C S Lewis

so here it is my Gluttony Reflection

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight oh Lord my strength and my redeemer.

On hearing that I’d drawn the topic of Gluttony as this evenings reflection two things became clear. The first was that God has a wicked sense of humour, and the second, was that we preach the things we most need to hear ourselves. And I suspect when we address the true meaning of gluttony that there would be very few people around today who hadn’t fallen at one time or another under its spell.

Gluttony’s place within the hierarchy of the 7 deadly sins isn’t simply a warning against overeating. The real power of gluttony is in its ability to invade the space within each of us that we need to be filled with God. The Sabbath space where you and I are called to stop and rest in God.

Gluttony as an attack on the soul, is epidemic in our culture. It is both pervasive and persuasive, manic and enticing. In the reading we heard earlier by CS Lewis we get a sense of just how enticing gluttony can be:

‘As he was about to pluck a second one, it came into his head that he was now neither hungry nor thirsty. And yet to repeat a pleasure so intense and almost so spiritual, seemed an obvious thing to do. Perhaps the experience had been so complete that repetition would be a vulgarity - like asking to hear the same symphony twice in a day.

Gluttony represents the addictive patterns, and behaviors, that entangle us daily in a cycle of need and response. Gluttony requires us to swallow whole, without discernment or consequence. It embodies instant short term gratification, that stupefies the brain, and entraps us into a cycle where it becomes more comfortable to fill up, than to empty out,
before God.

Here Sabbath space is abandoned for short term stimulus, be it food, drugs, ideas, religion, tv - what’s going to happen to our Tracey on Coronation Street. Anything when swallowed whole with insatiable need, and without time for true digestion and discernment, has the power to wound our relationship with ourselves, our loved ones, and with God.

By constantly filling up we work to blunt our aching, our need, our yearning,
our hunger for God.

To release the hold of gluttony, is to step into that place between need and response. To claim our disquiet without self-medication, and sit with that unease before the Holy One.
And it is here that we may begin to reclaim our Sabbath space.

The yearning for Sabbath space with God isn’t new.
In the first 600 years after the death of Christ, tens of thousands of men and women left homes, families and communities, to head into the desert in search of God.

The irony (as true then as today) of those who sought to replace worldly distractions and stimulus with, ‘holy distractions and stimulus’ wasn’t lost on the desert fathers and mothers.

A favourite saying of 5th centaury Egyptian, Amma Matrona was:
“We carry ourselves wherever we go and cannot escape temptation by mere flight,”
this 5th Century Desert Mother knew the women who came to her for guidance well. Similarly our reading from Amma Syncletica (in who we find one of the earliest examples of Spiritual Direction and templates for a monastic life) we find a woman who recognized the dangers of both distraction and obsession in those who sought her counsel.

For the novice in the desert, the battle to be released from the compulsive possessiveness of gluttony, was often the first of many, as expressed in this reflection ‘On entering the desert’.

Lord I ache
it feels like I have searched for you so long
and in so many ways
what have I done that I can no longer hear you?
I searched all night till my feet bleed sand,
thought I saw your eyes in the night and imagined,
maybe, just maybe, I had finally done enough to be with you
But it was a sand cat
And when it blinked I was reminded a thousand thousand
times of my presumption.
for my sin
Lord have mercy

Lord I repeated your psalms today
Rolled them one after another off my tongue till my throat ran dry
Then I called your name at the day,
heard my voice bounce of valley walls a hundred times
The silence in between ached
It too, like me craved to hear a word
A sound
A whisper
And that’s how it began
a word
a Psalm
a whisper
But the belly demanded more and I screamed and screamed
But all I heard, was me,
Saying too much
Saying too loud
I cover my mouth
Weak in my will,
Christ have mercy

Lord I begged for food today
when I should embrace the hollow spaces
growing between my ribs,
I fought great battles,
had hunger for dinner,
ate crickets and old fruit
Thought of you and fell down.
If I could just stop the rumbling below
Maybe that which is underneath,
The dark me,
The raging me,
The terrified broken-unacceptable in your sight, Me
may disappear
But instead the wound just aches to be before you.
For that which I have kept hidden
Powerful Lord
Vengeful Lord
Graceful, Loving , Laughing Lord
Have Mercy
have mercy
For just a moment in this magnificent day
May I stop
and feel your mercy

In the invitation to stop and unhand gluttony may we recall this prayer:

Gentle loving God, I desire to be still and know that you are with me and within me.
Grant me the wisdom to allow my soul to be quiet and confident, trusting that you are doing better things for me than I can ask or imagine Amen

Meg

You know the old saying - we preach the sermons we need to hear ourselves...

2008-02-05T14:24:00.000+13:00

Back to the Dots
On my manic wall calendar there are four orange dots of interest, one challenging, two thoroughly enjoyable for me and one I am open to going either way.

The challenging dot indicates an invitation to lead a reflection/meditation at the cathedral which seemed just fine until I discovered that they were at that time leading a series of the Seven Deadly Sins and on my day is scheduled gluttony!! I am trying to look at it as Gods cosmic joke! As a big woman to lead such a topic is…a challenge which I shall accept. Although finding that opening line is difficult and has raised some interesting options. I guess starting with the old AA motif of Hi I am Megan and I’m a glutton is a little tasteless for a reflective service. Anyway I shall when I get my head around it post it here I have no doubt. The two dots which I am looking forward to are two evenings I am running on woman at the cross.

As the Blurb says:
Woman at the foot of the Cross- a Prayer meditation series that looks at women both as anointer and witness at the crucifixion.

Week One - On the way to the cross – inside the house of Simon Peter and the anointing woman.
The story of the anointing woman is both haunting and engaging. Although who she was has been open to debate, the power of this extraordinary act of humanity is undeniable.
Through prayer, meditation, discussion, and encounter let us explore this evocative and immerse ourselves in the deeply evocative image of a woman of courage and humility.

Week Two –At the foot of the cross- women as witness at the crucifixion.
Through Marks Gospel we are told of the many women both named and unnamed who witnessed the crucifixion of Christ. The impact of such an event is one we can only begin to comprehend. Although the names and accounts of most of these women have never been told, the very mention of their presence signals the significance of them as witness at the crucifixion.
Together through prayer, meditation, discussion, and encounter let us explore the points of connection between the witness of the passion of Christ and our place our place of witness today.

The third of my orange dots is preaching at St Lukes which I have not done before. My nervousness is I guess being around people I know rather than strangers and the old wanting to do the opportunity justice.

In between all these there is an electoral synod 4 workshops to organize an ordination and commissioning and chrism service to print a discernment weekend and two conferences to do the prep for. Now about this gluttony issue…

In search of...

2008-02-05T14:16:00.000+13:00

I have just finished (some what late) my training and learning Covenant for 2008. Looking at the expectations of the year I would have to say a cold sweat has fallen over me. I know it is doable especially if I knuckle down. So to aid in focusing I have just done the wall planner complete with large red dotes marking assignments and orange for preaching and teaching. It is something I notice in myself at stressful times the whole issue of organizing manically. This of course looks good but involves the follow through to make any real value in the exercise.

As I look at my year planner it is the absence of things I notice. Like I haven’t put in swimming classes at all. Sitting behind everything is the blue dot on the 20th of April which is the last day at my parish.

The other day I was talking to my priest who asked me if I would know by that day where I was moving to as it would be good to be able as part of the service at the end to pass me over if you will to a representative of my new parish so people would have a sense of placing me in good hands. At that point I had one of my less glamourous moments of feeling this clot of grief settling in me and made a dive to the tissue box. When I walk out that door that has been so healing for me I know the parish will then meet to continue with their parish review ‘where to in the future’ with an awareness that I am not a part of this.

One of the things I am aware of as I branch out visiting Churches is that there are some really interesting places out there yet the stumbling block seems to be me. Each church has aspects of what I would like (and yes BTW I know I have to be open to Gods call) yet none seem to have them together. This is an indication of me rather than the churches I am visiting. And that whereas I had to a point an element of choice in my past churches now there are others involved and issues such as training etc to consider.

So the journey continues and at the end of my search I shall hopefully have a clearer idea of where I am going.

One day at a time

Mother Aubert

2008-01-30T08:28:00.000+13:00

Over the last few days I have been on a residential study workshop at the Sisters of Compassion house in Wellington. Knowing nothing about the place imagine my delight to find myself in the home of Mother Aubert the women who is said to be New Zealands first saint. In my list of one day I will…Mother Aubert holds pride of place on my list of New Zealand icons I would like to paint. It was truly an honour to be at the place she founded and indeed where she is buried.

The listener quotes her as being ‘a proto-feminist, uncowed by the church’s patriarchal hierarchy, a nurse tested on Crimea’s killing fields, a healer whose natural-remedy formulas are still in use today, a passionate advocate for Maori and a saviour of orphans and women in the face of church opposition. She founded New Zealand’s only indigenous order, the Sisters of Compassion.By any secular understanding of the word, Aubert is a saint, particularly for Maori’.

One of the things that haunted me whilst I was there (besides am I ever going to be able to answer all of the bazaar questions this study biso raises?) were the photos around the walls. Photos of the abandoned children, the disabled, the neglected that she took on in such huge numbers. There were several of young nuns in the nursery's with babies in baskets and an obvious love for their charges.

Below one of the photos it said something along the lines of “Summer fever hit very hard this month, we lost 9 of our babies”. I stood some time looking at these women who had given up in their calling the traditional role of women at the time of wife and mother. I wondered what it was like for them to nurture and love these children who died in such great numbers back then. To move between attachment and distance. I wondered about the transference that bounced around those walls and what it was that kept them so strong in their faith.

I will never know the stories of these women there hopes, fears, loves, and losses, but in those photos sat the faces of the shunned and despised , and in the centre there was Mother Aubert the women who followed prophecy, who took herself off to the Vatican when members of the church here would curb her acts of compassion with the ‘unacceptable’ and stood before the then pope gaining his total support for her mission.

A simple blog here can do nothing to give the her the tribute she deserves but my hope is you look her up on the net and have a read about this awesome women of faith

http://www.teara.govt.nz/1966/A/AubertMotherMaryJoseph/AubertMotherMaryJoseph/en

It's all about...

2008-01-21T14:38:00.000+13:00

It was always about the blood he had said
and she agreed
-she had been leaving bloodied footprints on uneven surfaces
for as long as she could remember.

It was about the calling they had said
and she agreed
-she knew all too well what it was to peel back her day face
and scream out to God on a dark night.

It’s all about sacrifice they lectured
and she agreed

-she was after all fluent in burnt chop syndrome

and held a masters in invisible.

It’s all about love she said
and they agreed
-and added a list of conditions

Go on Say something! You know you want to

2008-01-18T12:49:00.000+13:00

Okay so every now and then I meet someone who makes a comment on something that they have read here that makes me believe that actually this is not just me chatting with myself. So just to make sure that is the truth I have a question for you that I hope you feel free to post a reply to, as well as a question just for the sake of a good ponder.

Q1: If you had to move to another church community tomorrow, what would be the three most important things you would look for in choosing your new spiritual home?
(Note: no extra brownie points will be given to those saying ‘it’s not about what I choose it’s about where God sends me’, we will just take that as a given!)

Our pondering question is…
If you were a stranger visiting your church or faith community for the first time, what would either attract you, or turn you off making this your regular place of worship?

Nativity Icon

2008-01-15T11:23:00.000+13:00

Here is the Nativity Icon I did for my family this year. It is a very pretty Icon to do and I am struck as I begin the Lamentation Icon which is my most ambitious icon (over a metre long) by the stark difference from doing a mother and child full of richness and hope and moving to an icon of sorrow where the babe in arms is replaced by a mother cradling the head of her dead son in her lap.

The image is a little blurry as it is a scan of a photocopy but you get the idea.

You know at times like these I wonder if I am a little odd in today's church. I am not quite sure where I fit, as though I have been placed out of time somewhere.

I am struck as I begin the lamentation icon that in April I will leave my parish as I move to experience other faith communities in my training. There is a real grief for me in this as a lot of healing has occurred for me there and I am aware of experiencing each parish event with a sense of last times. Each celebration is a little grief I guess as I detach and let go.

The adventurer in my is excited about new experiences and meeting new people yet there is also the other part of me that feels pushed by the unfamiliar.

Maybe time to go jetty jumping again.
Meg

Latest Icon

2008-01-15T08:54:00.000+13:00

Hi there

really short as I am about to zip up to mass. Saw I am Legend last night ...disturbing but more about that later. In the mean time here is the pattern I am basing my latest icon on (there will be differences).

I am waiting for a photo of the Madonna and child I did for my parents at Christmas to arrive and indeed the photos we took at icon school the other day of the first stage of this the creating of a pattern.

Hellooooo

2008-01-14T14:18:00.000+13:00

Yes I am alive and all rumours that I had been kidnapped by a renegade faction of the Church with the intention of forcing a coup and installing me as the next Pope are seriously exaggerated. I mean there's the whole being Cardinal first after all.

First day back at work and I am trying not to ask why? why was I not born wealthy where I could travel the world writing icons moving in and out of communities and settling in lonely cabins in snow filled forests or nestled into wild coast lines?

Okay so this is a brief posting(yeah right) high lites, low lights and insights of the 'festive' season.
Low lights
Friends 12 year old son out salmon fishing with his dad on New Years Day catches his first Salmon then a short time later falls over dead. Family left wondering what kind of God lets this happen. Second low light old family friend dies after heart attack, his wife is Christian with AoG he is not. Wife is left full of anxiety and terror praying to God please please let him go to heaven "he is a good man even though he is not saved' her words not mine.
Two very different responses to grief and indeed to God.
Two family occasions over Christmas both where I am the focus of you Christians have done this this and this wrong in the world you are hateful bigoted etc all veiled in polite terms and said by family 'friends' nice introduction to Christian bashing by loved ones. Not sure how to deal with this one it is an ongoing process for me.

Highlights
Having lunch with an old long haired self confessed Jesus freak and look alike, who over spinach pie debates prophecy and the challenge of change as leaps of faith. Then after lunch takes me jetty jumping in Lyttleton Harbour, big drops into thirty feet of water where you can't see the bottom. Where we jump again and again until I have the courage to take off by myself hurtling off the end of the peer. The two of us like kids yelling out in the name of the father and the son and the 'Splash". Has it really been so long since I have smiled with such abandon?

Insights
Christmas morning wrapping presents with the tele on, children's cartoons on all about Christmas all variations of I was poor and lost, on the naughty list and then Santa came and it was lovely and I got a new family and we are all loved and perfect, and singing around a tree, and we all had mountains of food and presents and dad and mum didn't get drunk and fight and we were cherished. Not a Jesus insight. It was for me a rancid joy. Here there was image after image of sugar and spice and all I could think of was the kids who would be watching this for whom this image of Christmas was unobtainable. Who would be wondering 'how come my Christmas is not like this?' 'If I was better maybe I would have this maybe, maybe, maybe.'
And I am left just thinking this is obscene, if it weren't for Jesus what would this holiday be?
There are a couple more insights but that will come in time, in the meantime I have fulfilled my long short posting quotas blessings to you all

Meg

And in the midst of Termoil comes a babe, the light of the world...Thank Goodness!

2007-12-24T11:24:00.000+13:00

Okay so in this time of Advent we hear of pain and suffering prophecy and hope...and through it all, this evening will burst through the light of the world, the Christ child. In keeping with the Advent Christmas theme I have lived out my own creation and destruction scenario over the last few days. Which has lead to madness, at least 15 new ticks on my confession checklist and the odd smoldering creativity. But that happens when one almost burns down a church...

So this year I refuse to get caught up in Christmas madness in Advent. I pace myself am even feeling kind of cool about it then two days ago after completing two icons for gifts two disasters strike.

When leaving the church where I have been painting, I blow out a candle only for it to reignite, catch alight and when found (thanks be to God) it has burnt through the carpet and down to the floor. Way to almost destroy a 150 year old historic building.

Then the next day (before I have heard about my arson attempts) I wake up and go to use a new spray to coat my newly completed icons only to have them start bubbling the moment the spray touches the gold leaf protector and in a matter of seconds they are destroyed.

I don't know which made me sicker both in their own way I guess.

I sat in the church when I heard, in what is now been renamed the smokers chapel because of the smell and just wept. Actually more sobbed, I don't think I have felt such belly tears in years. Where it physically hurts to breathe. And I am not sure if people being really nice about this makes it better or worse!

So what so you do well besides as many good works as possible in supplication well you spend the last few days, day and night re-doing the icons. And here is the annoying bit, within this I find an interesting piece of flawed theology I had ingested once upon a time reemerges in a seemingly innocuous thought that wafts past whispering dark words of wondering ... that maybe the destruction of the icons had been a punishment for setting fire to the church, an eye for an eye or an icon or two for a church smoldering. And there is an attraction in such twisted thinking, in a paying of a price. We are after all in a time now of illumination.

The Light of the world who within our darkest night never dies away... drat another thing to take to Spiritual direction.

Blessings to you all this Christmas see you later

Meg fire starter extraordinaire...

BTW finished the icons

Be still and Know that I am God

2007-12-13T15:16:00.000+13:00

Okay this is ridiculous I have started over 5 different postings and put none on so this partial one i will post just so I can convince myself let alone others that I am alive!

"Be still and know that I am God"

It's a line that I haven't been able to get out of my mind all day. Which is kind of interesting as the pressure of 4 services (one very complex), an over worked team, and the end of year madness, creeps in around me, I find that I am humming or singing this with an edge of ever increasing mania. At least it is not a song like Copacabana by Barry Manilow I suppose.

Such meandering on a 35 degree day leads me to two thoughts.
The least relevant of the two takes me to a job I had once working night shift in a factory so I could study in the day.

In our lowest moments of mind numbing monotony we would forgo the humane and try to infect those around us with the worst catchy song possible. Yes we were very bored, and had already dispensed with any deep theological or political discussion some time back.

Not only in our lack of humanity were we happy to infect our co-workers, the real challenge was then to see how long it took to spread down the factory line. In the more surreal moments you could look up and see a production line of people all humming "I will survive" and moving in time.

So here I am sleep deprived aware somewhere that everything has taken on a vaguely manic tome with these words going round and round in my head, each line repeated three times:

"Be still and know that I am God,
I am the God that healeth thee,
In thee O God I put my trust".

At such times I can not see this as coincidence, instead I see it as one of those times when God finds what ever way possible to break through, to call me into consciousness of self and the divine. I think of it as being called or invited into relationship.

When I stop long enough to ponder this I am aware that this has happened before in similar ways. Each time I tell myself I will not let such stress in and around me, that allows that pool of absence to grow within. Yet here I find myself again, humming unconsciously the words God wishes me to heed, time to be still it will all be okay.

We the bereaved are not alone.

2007-11-28T16:41:00.001+13:00

I have been thinking about grief, both mine, the grief of those around me, and indeed the collective grief we as a community share.

As Christians we are called to stand in a place of grief and transformation in the crucifixion and the Resurrection we are given a template for living through such times. For dying to old ways to transformation into new.

The other day just before staff Eucharist I got a news alert saying that they body of Emma Agnew had been found. Somewhere we all knew she was dead yet we hoped against hope I suppose as the days of her disappearance lengthened that she would be found alive.

Then of course there are the feelings of horror the deep sadness of what as a community we have become and I would also have to say that although her deafness was not something that held her back in life, it seemed to add an edge of vulnerability to her story that touched our own sense of vulnerability I guess.

My family have for many many years had a connection with the deaf community in one way or another, from my Fathers creating the news for the deaf to our own family members with Margaret our foster sister. Funny to find that it has been over a year since Margaret died suddenly in the states. A brilliant musician I have over the last few weeks as Emma has been missing thought a lot about her and about Margaret. About her horror of losing her hearing, losing her music and how it was to have those signals, those warnings she had relied on daily in sound had been taken away from her.

The comments in the community over this have been interesting. One hearing woman I spoke with found comfort in discovering that although Emma did not have speech she could at least scream. The thought of her not having a voice had haunted her for days.

Another was horrified to find her self saying 'at least its not another toddler', words she wished she could take back the moment she said them. All were touched by the horror of what must be unfolding for the family and indeed Emma in her last moments.

I was on prayers that morning and we dedicated our service to Emma, her friends and family and the people who had been touched by such a tragedy, a tragedy which is all too common.

I really thought that I had it together until I opened a prayer cycle that said today we celebrate . the 'International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls. As I prayed for this I looked out the window where clearly seen was the Police building where the press conference announcing the finding of Emma's body was concluding as we prayed.

So I pray for all those who suffer mutilation and violation,

for those sold into slavery or who simply disappear,

for the abused ,

the hopeless,

the fearful,

the forgotten,

for all those named and unnamed known only to God

and for those of us left with dark twisted questions

and inconsolable grief.

In the words of another awesome deaf woman, Helen Keller,

may we remember:

We bereaved are not alone.
We belong to the largest company in all the world –
the company of those who have known suffering.
When it seems that our sorrow is too great to be borne,
let us think of the great family of the heavy-hearted into which our grief has given us entrance,
and inevitably, we will feel about us their arms, their sympathy,
their understanding.

Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world.
So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not in vain.
(Helen Keller)

Amen

Generally ramblings on Icons

2007-11-23T08:39:00.000+13:00

Well the Desert Mothers Course into the Wilderness has come to an end and tomorrow I am beginning to co-lead a new icon group concentrating on the The Nativity Icon.

Here are some photos of two icons I have recently finished. The first St Veronica I have recently re worked. Unfortunately the reflective surface of the gold leaf has meant that taking photos has been difficult but I hope you get the idea.

The second is the icon of Mary of Egypt I have commented on here before. She is in a different style.

I also as soon as I find it on my computer have one of my portraits which I would like to take some photos of.

Many people have found Mary of Egypt ugly or more to the point 'not pretty' which is kind of the point.

But then you don't live for 49 years alone in the desert seeking God and not be transformed.

The Icon course we are starting to teach tomorrow will be interesting. It is very much a taster, a way in for people where icons are concerned.

It has been advertised like this:

For centuries people have been drawn to the unworldly images of Icons. Unsettling and enticing, these creations have been called the windows of heaven. This Advent you are invited on a journey of discovery as we explore the creative power of the nativity through the art of Icon writing. A course suitable for beginners, each

week we will meet together in prayer as we create our own icons in anticipation of the coming of the Christ child.

Now to live up to the advertising blurb!

For my Christmas Icon project I am tossing up between several icons. I would like to do a large John the baptist with wings. I have a small Joan of Arch to finish and sitting in the back of my mind are some of the advertising posters that have come out about Elizabeth the I and how good they would look transformed into say a Joan or Arch. The other morning I was talking on the Cathedral on the Air programme and what struck me also were the people in the last 200 years who at some stage I would love to create icons of. Mother Aubert comes to mind, some of the awesome women from the Community of the Sacred name. So many possibilities. I would be curious to see who others would see as impactful in their journeys and someone whom you may paint an icon of.

In the end I will give it over to God and probably find myself in some unexpected place as so often happens.

Peace to you all.

Megan

Sermon preached in Hanmer Anglican Church Yesterday

2007-11-19T10:01:00.000+13:00

Sermon at Hanmer Anglican Church Nov 18th
Luke 21: 5-19

May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight oh God our strength and our redeemer.

When I was invited by the Diocesan Ministry Adviser to preach here today I would have to say I felt rather honoured, then I read the title of today’s Gospel “Signs of the End of the Age” great! Here was a sign one that said very clearly “Be careful what you wish for”.

In Luke Jesus’ tells his disciples of his departure and of the chaos and persecution that will follow. He talks of portents and signs, of destruction and betrayal. Of bejeweled temples rendered as to dust, of false prophets and persecution. I often wonder what a stranger who following the signs to church today would make of this text:

"Nation rising against nation, great earthquakes (5.4on the Richter scale here in the last fortnight), famines, pestilence, fearful events and great signs from heaven.

If that isn’t scary enough, for those contemplating Christianity Jesus then says about his followers (that’s us by the way.)

They will persecute you, deliver you to prisons, you will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death.

Not exactly the fluffy message of hope for those contemplating Christianity. Advertising campaigns entitled “Come join the family of Christ and be persecuted” generally don’t tend to get the Fair Goes Commercial of the Year Award.

Such persecution was then, and indeed still is in many parts of the world, very much a reality. If we let them, these first destruction filled passages can overwhelm us, leave us afraid, and in times when our own worlds fall apart, leave us fearful of a personal, communal, or global end of times. We are after all, a people of signs, we use them unconsciously every day, and at times of great suffering we seek them out like never before.

Luke was just such a seeker of signs; he after all lived at a time of great persecution. Luke the gentile, the physician, the seeker, was a man passionate about discovery, a man desperate to understand this Christ, who had entered his heart and refused to let go. A man who not only understood signs but also at times how these signs can overshadow the message.

And to be honest I myself, at times of stress, am no different. I too seek signs. This church has become very much a sign for me. A year ago after a when my mother and father in law nearly died, God being God, decided I didn’t have enough stress in my life and placed before me the possibility of ordination. Did I leave my relative comfort for a life dedicated to the service of the church? With so many questions buzzing around my head, I came, here in the middle of winter for a weeklong silent retreat.

The signs as far as I could tell were actually pointing in all directions. I needed the time to clear my head, to dedicate my time, to listen to God. Actually what I really wanted was a reason, a direction, I wanted a decision an encounter with God to me through the madness.

When you come on such a retreat there’s a time of settling into silence, of getting into a routine. The Reverend Boss with all her tenderness and care guided me on this retreat; we met here in church, four times a day in prayer and for Eucharist.
And this was good; I’d have to say it wasn’t long before I began to feel rather holy. I could do this; I had the look, it must be a sign...

It was the second night when sitting here in semi darkness the church door flew open and a man stumbled in. As I practicing being particularly holy at this moment kept my eyes firmly on the Gospel (least I miss a sign) as this man, who was weary, wild, hungry and homeless and pretty ripe, stumbled up the isle and joined us in prayer.

Settling back into silence our calm was once more disrupted when his cell phone rang loudly through the church to the tune of “I’m too sexy for my shirt”. About this time any shred of piety went out the window.

The man shared with us that he had come here because once many years ago he had been in rehabilitation at Queen Mary hospital and with it gone he had looked for a reference point, a sign- for him a steeple. You see he knew that where there was a church, this church, there would be church people who would take care of him until he’d recovered enough to carry on with his journey.

His turning up presented your vicar with a bit of a dilemma. The bed she would normally give him to sleep in was taken by me. In the end she gave him her nursing sister look – a look she told me she had used to drop a junior Dr at 50 paces. She told him he was welcome to sleep in the church but that “nothing what so ever was to be damaged or taken or there could very well be hell to pay”. And then she opened her heart, she fed him, made him warm, and we made him up a bed down there at the back of the church.

In the days that followed in the midst of my own inner turmoil, this man would join us through the day, sometimes in the early hours still in his sleeping bag he would hop his way up the isle to join us in morning prayer. Always reading a little slower a little more carefully than us, I remember his Amen would echo just that little bit later through this church.
I came to value his presence; one of the things I loved was that all his uncoordinated messiness that spilled everywhere around him on the outside, pretty much reflected how I felt on the inside.

Yet In the middle of his own life traumas (that were extensive), this mans faith and expectation that he would be cared for, and fed by,
the body of the Church,
by Christ’s body,
by us,
was a gift.

Half way through my stay he left, heading off up north to find some friends who would give him a bed for winter. The day he went I walked him to the place where he hoped to hitch a lift.
“You don’t say much” he said to me.
I smiled, I was after all on a silent retreat.
“Sign of a listener”

On returning here to this church that evening I found Anne sitting as she had every day as she journeyed with me on this retreat. She told me with tears in her eyes how the man whose name I can not to this day recall, as he left had handed her a till receipt from your local supermarket. She had given him money for a feed but both of us had feared the very real possibility that the money would be spent on alcohol or drugs. He had given it to her as he left so that she would see that he had been trustworthy, to show her that he had spent the money on food.

We sat here the two of us that night in silence, humbled and blessed by a simple sign, a piece of paper from a man who understood what it was to have to embody the second part of our Gospel reading where Jesus not only speaks about the destruction and mayhem we will all live through, but gives us a message, a sign of hope that in him we can live through such times in faith.

Make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. Not a hair of your head will perish. By standing firm you will gain life. In the original Greek by standing firm you will gain sozo -breath, Life, salvation, .Body, mind and spirit by. staying the course experiencing the sorrow and the joy you are delivered lifted above trouble

In a till receipt, in an unguarded moment, in times of desolation and turbulence, Christ offers us his hand as a sign of peace,
We need merely reach out and take it.
Amen

And next...thinking about too much

2007-11-14T11:09:00.000+13:00

There are times when words come to me in the dead of night. Lines that I sometime scribble down in hope that in the cold light of day they actually

a) mean something, and

b) are actually as good as I thought they were at the time.

From here, I more often than not kick them to the curb, sometimes though they become poems or journal entries, short stories or film scripts.

In the early hours of this morning as my husband and I lay awake these words circled around my tongue. There are a couple we care for greatly who at the moment are faced with an agonising grief, all we could do in the end was lie there and talk softly to one another and pray for miracles and blessings. The horror of the event washed over me again and again and I frequently found myself in tears. The words were not great or profound they were simply

"I am struck by an unbearable grief
Silent to all but young mothers in closets,

and old spinsters in ruin.

It curdles milk in the breast
And sends us screaming silent dark into unlit alleyways and cruel places"

At such times I find my prayer to be closer to begging. There is a pleading quality in my tone as I beseech God for a miracle for those I love. Please Please Please I hear myself say. I list the qualities of these people in hope of making the case for divine intervention stronger, yet even in saying this I know that God knows all of this, all the reasons that this pain should not be so. And also God knows the little girl in me that aches for the heavenly Father to make things all right. For miracles that fit my desires to be fulfilled, and that in doing this, this trying to direct or control God that I end up missing Gods working in and around me and indeed in and around my friends.

It is easy at such times to get angry at God, to hear myself saying all those things that I have sat with other people in distress saying. To demand a sign, a wonder. The irony today is that I am preaching this weekend on Luke 21:5-19 the ultimate signs, wonders and temples falling and persecution and betrayal.

In the end of the text I see the words "Even so, every detail of your body and soul—even the hairs of your head!—is in my care; nothing of you will be lost. Staying with it—that's what is required. Stay with it to the end. You won't be sorry; you'll be saved."

In my Ordinands training group we mull over the text and in the translation from Greek we find not only will you be saved but that the same word means life, breath, psyche, and soul. Jesus never said there wouldn't be pain and suffering, in these words I see not a proclamation that we will be saved from suffering by God but instead I hear a call to stay with that pain, to be with that suffering, to lay this before God because here through all this I know that in somewhere through this I will be saved.

It's just a 40th Birthday Nothing to get upset about

2007-10-30T14:43:00.000+13:00

You know you are turning 40 when you can't get it together to write on your blog.

Yes it is true, at 10 past 8 this morning I turned 40. Over the last day or so I have had a range of responses from people including:
"You are joking there is no way you are 40" Bless them bless them I say!
to " well it's all down hill from here" which was accompanied by a series of brochures from aged concern.

I don't care what you say the glass half empty or full, in the end it is a mile stone I would rather were not here. Usually I just embrace such things to the max yet with 40 it is different. Now the expectation is a mix of seriousness, ticking clocks and a penchant for tragic 80's hits entitled "Life Begins at 40 you wonder why you feel so naughty".

Enough I say! Life wasn't supposed to be like this for me at 40! I was supposed to be super cosmopolitan artsy girl with a baby on one hip and a film script in the other. I would travel the world and come back to New Zealand to my wonderful little cottage in the city or disappear to my imaginary batch on the west coast where I would watch storms unfold over turbulent seas, safe and cosy with a coal range and a wide screen tv.

At the traditional dio office morning tea I was asked what wisdom would I like to impart from my 40 years experience. A disturbing question at the best of times made even more so when the question is asked by the bishop.

Then I thought actually it is very simple
'take more risks,

go on spontaneous road trips,

love as deeply, dangerously, and adoringly as possible,

create great works of art that only your loved ones could love,
and make sure that every now and then you catch fish yourself from the sea and cook and eat it right there over a smokey fire on a rocky shore.

What more can I say I need to remember to practice what I preach

Happy Birthday to me

It's odd to discover you are odd

2007-10-23T13:48:00.000+13:00

It is an odd experience to discover that by the worlds standards you are odd.

This weekend on an invite from the neighbours we headed off to a 40th birthday BBQ. As I am about to turn forty on October 30th (yes I have begun the therapy) it was interesting to see how this ritual unfolded and indeed put myself in the position of having to make conversation with strangers.

It is very easy to get comfortable with your friends and to forget that how people outside of your circle view you may be as a little odd. When people asked what I was doing I told them honestly about being a part of the Diocesan Ordination training towards priesthood. It was there that I for the first time came across the the look of people keeping an extra polite neutral face whilst various fantasy's, questions, judgments and expressions zip through their minds.

As the people we were with were predominantly catholic by schooling and unchurch in adulthood, there was some confusion over the term priesthood until some bright spark said "Ohhhhhhhhhh like the vicar of Dibley" - thank you Dawn French. The conversation flowed fairly well yet I was struck that to these people I might seem a little odd. Training for ordination, creates icons, into sacred art, talks to people who sleep on park benches, shaves her head... I guess it all sounds a little other worldly (that or really nerdy).

One women kept looking between my husband and I and finally asked..."So do you have to be celibate?". Whilst part of me was thinking where is this woman from? I was also aware that we must seem an odd breed. And that this was anything but a silly question as this woman struggled in her mind to redefine a whole set of predefined rolls and terms. Years ago in my ardent political feminist teenage years, to come across someone such as myself would no doubt lead to fantasy's of kidnapping and reprogramming said Christian away from a den of misogynistic patriarchal oppression. Not - I have to admit that I really knew what a misogynist was for sure, but everyone around me said that was what they were so it must be true.

I guess the sad thing for me was not being put in a box or being seen as potentially a bit strange (because they were really nice and generous people) but that to be a part of a church community was seen as an oddity. To want to know God, to serve others was strange. That these things were seen as a barrier to friendship least heaven forbid I try to convert them!

One couple who we talked to for some time has invited us to join them next week at a bar as they celebrate ...yes another 40th birthday. As I was leaving I overheard the woman say to the hosts.. "oh yes they are coming next week... and you know she actually likes a drink now and then same as me!

And you thought I was a nerd!

what can I say in 5 mins?

2007-10-15T16:55:00.000+13:00

Okay what can I say.

Life is full on at the moment, my husbands father is due back into surgery and we are not sure he is going to make it. Around him (now very much a broken patriarch) the family disintegrates, comes together briefly and scatters again.

Yet the person who is with me today is Bernie from Dunedin. Strong Catholic who has suffered so long with cancer to the point where his ears have long ago fallen off and there are holes in his face his whole body riddled.

His response has been to give himself to science whilst alive. He has told the Drs at Dunedin hospital to do every test they have ever wanted and to try any procedure, not to extend his life but so that someone else may benefit from their learning.

Bernie may not make it through tonight. But God is waiting in anticipation to catch him the moment he falls.

For both Harold and Bernie and their families your prayers would be greatly appreciated

Blessings

Megan

Day 5 the last day of Fasting

2007-09-28T13:02:00.000+12:00

An extra long blog to make up for my absences
Okay it's day 5 spiritually and physically cleansed I know longer have cravings... which is why I am spending my lunch time down here writing my blog and not in the cafeteria where it is chocolate biscuit and real coffee day and what do you know someone put on a lunch.

Actually this has been a really powerful experience for me. After three days of headaches and withdrawl, an extremely unbiblical attitude to my co workers, and general lethargy, Thursday and Friday have been my most productive and thought provoking in some time. Of course I am not sure that what I produce makes sense and I may next week look at the course outline I have been designing and cringe but it feels okay. It has been important I think to take this time and to dedicate it to this course which hopefully is going to run over the next four Wednesday nights. The course is called:

"Into the Wilderness - A prayer meditation series on the early Desert Mothers and our journeys of encounter in the urban wilderness" at Theology House.

I say 'going' to run because I am not sure if we have the numbers to go ahead with it.
Here is the intro and outline.

For centuries men and women have journeyed into the desert in search of the divine. Here you are invited to explore the urban desert as we take time out to actively cultivate
a burning love relationship with God.

Across time these deeply soulful women, full of passion, insight, caring, (and occasional divine madness), reach out, to us in ways disturbingly relevant to today. Through their stories, sayings, prayers & meditation we’re invited into the world of the Desert Mothers .

Session One
Into the Wilderness – How on earth did I get here?
In this session we look at how the remarkable women of the 4th and 5th Century came to the barren places, and how we too, by accident, calamity or design, find ourselves entering the fertile wasteland
of the soul.

These women entered the wilderness re-calling through cleansing, acts of compassion, fasting, and prayer that which was of the greatest importance, the real work - the work of the soul.

Today is not that different, through the traffic jams and meetings God calls us to enter the desert, to remove that which gets in the way of our love relationship. Our desert may look radically different but still we are called to re-prioritize, to return to the centre.

Session Two
Hymns to the Silence - Is there anybody Out there?
In this session we hear of the some of the experiences of women in the wasteland and look at what happens when we give ourselves over to the possibility of silence.

Amma Matrona said “We carry ourselves wherever we go and cannot escape temptation by mere flight,” this 5th Century Desert Mother knew the women who came to her for guidance well. The act of meeting oneself was essential in the life of the Desert Mothers. Facing up to oneself was not (as is so often today) obtained through the noise of continual dialogue, but by letting go into the silence.

In this fertile ground of waiting on God in silence and prayer one came face to face with their raw selves. For some This was a place of madness, for others of joy, loneliness, temptation, doubt, and abject terror. To come up against oneself, was to face ones transgressions and place them before God.

Session Three
If You remember me — Did I ever really know you?
In this session we are encouraged to look at how we do or don’t encounter and experience God. We will hear the remarkable stories of faith and encouragement from women who spent their lives serving and waiting on God. Amma Sarah said “If I prayed God that all people should approve of my conduct, I should find myself a penitent at the door of each one, but I shall rather pray that my heart may be pure toward all.”

The experience of God is different for each of us. When faced with ourselves, the
temptation is often to bolt rather than stand under the gaze of the divine and be open the challenge of experiencing God anew. How the Desert Mothers related and communicated with God was just as varied and challenging. The records of their time spent in prayer and reflection has left us with a rich legacy of insight and inspiration on the work of the soul.

Session Four
Coming Back to you -Where to now?
In this final session we reminded of the words of Amma Syncletica who said “imitate the publican, and you will not be condemned with the Pharisee. Choose the meekness of Moses and you will find your heart which is a rock changed into a spring of water.”

After gathering for an agape meal we will gather in prayer. Here to focus on the words of Amma Syncletica reflecting on those places within us both the rock and spring of water.

Our own urban wilderness awaits us. Not just concrete and high rises not just meetings
and business, but rich and abundant ground for us to reflect, refresh and engage in the
continual act of coming back to God.

At this point you look in shock realising that this is just what you have always been looking for! and rush off to enroll at theology house.

Actually scurrilous advertising aside even if this doesn't happen there has been something powerful in returning to these women over this week. At one point I was caught with the image of a family meeting for the last time with their daughter before she went to the desert and I felt humbled really at my winging and pettiness and at their strength of faith. 5 days nothing really.
and this was what I wrote (post fast I may look in horror and remove you never know). I kept thinking about for all the thousand of women who went into the desert in search of God how we have so little. How many of them dried up and blew away on the wind. Gone within two generations.

They hardly remembered I was here.
And that was my own family.
One Brief visit from my father, proud somewhere?
Confused yes!
The leader of our family
unsure with me now.
His little girl KHaB'iYB,T'Y D'B,aRT,oA
whose motivations he can not condemn,
but out here, in me, there is no place for him.

Out here, there is no power but god and silence,
sun and the wind.
He no longer has a way to control me,
or indeed to wrap me in those safe meaty arms
and make me giggle like a child.
Never again will I hear him call me
the sweetness of light,
or to feel his snores bounce of walls-
Our mother joking when we grumbled
‘At least I know where my husband is at night’

They hardly remember I was here
My mother, just cried when she came,
and I cried too
tears deep and wide.
My father joked ‘we had broken the drought’ -
my mother and I’
that my family need no longer pray for rain
But we knew the taste of last
We kissed tears off each other
Whispered and laughed
Tried somewhere, hurriedly in the remembering of family stories,
to let each other know that they were loved,
important,
vital even
at first…
before he came.
We tried to hold on to the colour of each others eyes
To clutch the feeling of skin as we rubbed each others hands over and over,
so cool on such a warm day.
In the end, no more to say
Just breathe deep,
capture and hold the fragrance of each other.

Before silence
I hear them as they weave there way down the valley
My father chiding my mother
Telling her she 'should be proud,
if it wasn't a sin'
His voice lurching between annoyance and placation
His last words telling her to stop looking back
least she be renamed Ildeth
and he end up with a pillar of salt for a wife.

Blessings to all fellow fringedwellers from the urban wilderness

Meg

Day One of 5 day detox fast

2007-09-24T17:02:00.000+12:00

Had great expectations of writing about the importance and spiritual depth found in fasting
however at the moment I am just struck with nausea and one hell of a headache.
Usually I would be on about coffee 9 by now instead I am on water and some horrid soy by product.

All of this I know is good for the body and the soul

I wish to apologise to any of you who I may meet over this time
as I am an ingrate at this point and not the most pleasant pixie to be around, a good thing my boss is on holiday

God give me grace, patience and friends quick to forgive

Meg

Who is this that comes to us in our dreams?

2007-09-10T16:27:00.001+12:00

The other night in my dreams I was visited by a wild woman.

I was in the Cathedral at a grand refurbishing opening. Along the back walls were random quotes, words and names of holy people all carved into the stone and gilded. Along much to my amusement with one of the craftsmens favourite country singers.

After a redundant attempt to help set up, I sat on a pew against the back wall. A few chorus’s of triumphant classical music began - all very rousing stuff, then the Bishop begun an oration, a great thanks to all who had been a part the refurbishment.

Suddenly from the glass doors at the side of me there came a great booming, the place shook and out of the corner of my eye I saw a wild woman. I was aware of not wanting to look directly in her eyes and a sense of conflict where as a Christian it was my place to welcome her in whilst at the same time her feralness, her fierceness made me hold myself still least I be … well I’m not sure what.

As the whole place froze she slammed her fists against the glass shaking the Cathedral and screamed at us all to “Still your heads” “Your minds are too busy” “Stop screaming in your heads”

And then I woke up.

It may not sound much to anyone but me, but I woke with that profound sense that I had to listen to this one, that this dream was important.
If I go along with the thinking that each person in a dream is an aspect of ourselves then there is an instinctual, the intuative femanine part of me that is demanding that I stop the performance, that I attend to the madness, stress and business in my head. That somewhere she can hear me screaming when I can not. That in the pomp and circumstance I risk loosing something essential. Her call to me so loud that the very dust is shaken from the stones of this refurbished Cathedral.

This may sound crass afterall we are always for intereted in our dreams than anothers but if anyone has any insights I would be interested.

Here we Go Here we go Here we go

2007-09-06T07:07:00.000+12:00

Okay several major events this week. One which has kept me glued to the computer in a work sense all week. One that will have me glued to the tele in another

Synod verses the world cup
both intense
both bruising
both a situation where the saying "it's not about winning it's about how you play the game" is something that is secretly followed by 90% of us muttering "yeah right".

When its over there are those for whom the victory lap will echo for... oh miliseconds, before talk of strategies for next time will come into the fore, before reruns will have us re-examining the form of suspect players, and new team line ups will be tossed around.

Lord help me I have become a cynic. You see if I am honest I still actually believe at some level that it's not about the winning. That we miss the point, and no I am not just saying that because that is what I am supposed to say. This year I have been sequestered back at HQ as 'office support' and I find a sadness in that. You see in all the dramas of Synod the feeling I am most often left with (besides moments of outrage and mind numbing boredom at the accounts sections) is a profound mix of love and grief.

Love because this is the place for better or worse that I see my strange diverse family together, where I catch up with people I haven't seen for an age, where I move between worlds and care about how those worlds work together, about how we care and come before each other. And grief because of how quickly I see the ego come into play, how seemingly without effort we move to an offensive game, of how our humanness gets in the way of our humanity.

A while ago during a controversial period I suggested that all clergy who wished to fight it out, be made to go and do the most unmentionable jobs possible, to care for those for whom even Mother Teresa would be having to suck it up to go to, to clean up vomit and diarrhea to minister without words to the worst of our societies creations. Then and only then when they have done this to a point of being brought to their knees, would they be able to come back to the table and talk. Funnily enough the clergy at the table at the time got rather uncomfortable although there were a few lay people rather over enthusiastic about the idea, that is until I widened it to include us all.

Families can be difficult especially when your own personal ministry through your work is to serve them all. Maybe that's why in the rugby world cup my favourite games are not between world heavy weights but between teams such as Togo verses Japan. Both teams know that they have little hope of winning the world cup, what I see in them is the delight in actually getting there, of being together in all their diversity of skills and experience, of being able to learn from each other and take that learning home, to take part and be proud of that, what they have archived and each other.

Here We Go... Here We Go... Here We Go...

Being Broken

2007-08-31T14:23:00.000+12:00

On Saturday my icon class was visited by two of the monks from the Little Brothers of St Francis. As I was painting, I was half listening to the people around me sharing their stories as to why they had chosen the particular Icons they were painting. One thing I like about the people in my Icon class is that they, like me, are broken. In fact it is that brokenness that in many ways is our greatest strength.

One young woman shared her story of struggling with a brain tumour and how her icon had given her focus and courage recently when we almost lost her. I remember sitting with her in hospital, breathing with her through such pain that left her screaming and tearing at her flesh. Her Icon had sat with her on the window sill, a reminder that she had something to finish and that someone else before her knew what it was to live in agony and had screamed out to God. I don’t think I have ever heard such raw prayer as those screams. Gut wrenching in their desperation they were almost too much to hear.

Other people too shared different stories with these men, of how the art of icon painting had enriched and moved them, deepening their love relationship with Christ. The Desert Fathers are very much a part of the life of the Little Brothers of Francis tradition so when Brother Geoffrey and I spent time together my love of the Desert Mothers was something that we automatically had in common.

In the next few weeks I’m preparing a prayer meditation series on the Desert Mothers. In light of that I have been writing an icon of Mary of Egypt. It’s an unusual icon in aching. As we sat there Brother Geoffrey looked away and said “Those eyes are so intense I can hardly bring myself to look at them for long, and I was reminded of those agonising prayers of my friend almost too desperate, too raw to hear.

To paint or write such a challenging icon takes its toll, to be up close and personal with an image of a crucified Christ, a grief stricken mother, a skeletal aching saint is to be called into relationship with God in a way that challenges you to expose your pain as well. Every agonising raw scream of the heart it says may be placed here, you just have to let it out. In my time painting this Icon of Mary of Egypt I have been intensely aware of past pains and sufferings and how I too have a place to lay these down.

The irony in this, is that this week I have been struggling with a piece I want to write for a fellow bloggers site on Christianity and body image. I have begun it many times and written it from many angles. The one that seems most real, & most genuine is the one that at a personal level exposes my humanity in all its flawdness the most to the world.

I can hear my Spiritual Director now saying "And that surprises you how?..."
Weather or not I practice in such fullness, what I preach? well…watch this space

Beeseaching the Stone

2007-08-22T10:15:00.000+12:00

There are times when I experience God in a raging storm. Like one of the mighty willow trees I pass on the way to work. Here in the midst of the storm I stand with my back pressed back against the ancient trunk. With the fury battering around me I am reminded that the base of the tree is solid, has my back, and although not totally sheltering me, gives me enough support to be able to face, to endure, the storm that whips around me. It gives me a place with which to look out at the fury with new eyes.

Such images at times of stress hold me in what ever is going around and at times pull me back. There is also crucifixion here I am after all standing against a tree.

Sounds all very poetic, very Byronesque (note to self: develop tubercular like symptoms, practice swooning and acquire large silk white hanky for maximum effect). In reality it is often a lot messier and takes me a lot longer to remember that God is in the darkest night, in the cruel lesson and the raw… not just the sweetness of light.

Such images I am reminded of today when I came across this.

Beseeching the Stone

She had waited as women for a thousand years had waited at the Rock.
Wind slapped, hand warn, sea-spray-salty to the tongue.
Driven by calling rather than design.

Most often the migration fell to the soulless night.

Creeping out of weathered shelters along cliff top tracks huddling into crevices,
Before a porcelain dawn they came,

fell to their knees and pressing themselves against the rock - beseeched the stone.

Lips scuffing against lichen – in familiar manic tomes whispering,
staining the granite blood brown with the thumping of hard heads.

“Rock what am I to do?”
“Rock how may I serve you?”
“Rock how long must I be Grey?”
“Rock is there room for colours beyond just you?”
“Rock how can I ever be enough for one as ageless as you?”
“Rock how am I to be all I can be for you?”
“Rock tell me what you want for me?”
“Rock sweet Rock tell me what to do”
“Rock I came back to you!”
“Rock I danced for You- did you see?”

and the Rock sitting with only the top peaking out of the earth in the stillness of an in-drawn breath asks back the same question.

Ave Maria

2007-08-17T16:38:00.000+12:00

On Sunday we celebrated the Feast of Mary at Church. It is one of my favourite festivals and one not often acknowledged now besides a casual passing remark in the Church.

In part I guess there is very much a feeling of too much adoration of Mary being dare I say it Popish. Lets not set her up as the Mother of God, lets not venerate her as one, and sadly in our throwing out the mother with the bath water lets not acknowledge her as the Theotokos the Christ bearer. What happens in our turning Mary and dare I say women in general in the bible to curious footnotes or the good old Christmas favourite, is that we end up blocking a way back to God for many.

When I first came back to faith it wasn't God that clinched the deal it was Mary.
To come before God seemed too overwhelming on a first try, but here in Mary I found a way in. As someone who had spent a lot of time in the feminist movement the thought of a male God was quite frankly terrifying - after all you know what Christians have done to woman over the years. I think of it almost like people think of a genetic memory, that somewhere at a fight or flight level I held a sense of distrust and weariness of Christians. Of course this all becomes very confusing when the very thing you have been taught to beware of, is the very thing that continues to pull at your soul. And somewhere you know that if you don't go there, the real healing that needs to take place will never occur.

When I finally, after a sleepless night, found myself manically walking through the streets of Christchurch, driven by the knowledge that somehow I had to make a connection with God or I would be lost, it was Mary that pathed the way back in. After trying Church after church (closed) & finally finding an open one, I was left with a cold chill. I am standing on the threshold of this Church not even sure how I got there, very much aware of the doorway in which I stood being a portal to something new. On one side the old familiar 'drowning here' life, a step into the church and there a life fraught with danger and unfamiliar dangerous people with strange ideas.

This is not a logical moment, it is an instinctual one, one of intimate need and calling. Either way possibly destruction. As I stand there still in the door way my eyes become accustomed to the light, and there she is, a statue of Our Lady of Walsingham, Mary. What tiny biblical knowledge I have resurfaces and I see her not as the Mother of Our Lord, or any fancy title, but as the young woman in fear, met by an angel, given a challenge. The young woman placed in a situation where to say yes or no, is intensely dangerous. In her I found someone I could relate too, someone I could understand and who could understand me. A tentative step later and I am through the door.

The Visitation

He comes to her,

midnight blue meets bold as light- courageous day.

He pries the fist from her mouth
gently
finger by finger

Releasing lips he whispers thoughts of revelation
swallows whole... sweet words of decent
This is our secret little girl
our silent revolution.

Into this absolution... black... soft...uncertain

crashes the first and final son

Sometimes You Got to Go Where No One Knows Your Name

2007-08-13T14:41:00.000+12:00

It strikes me today that sometimes you just have to go somewhere where no one knows your name.

This weekend at ordination training I spoke of my feeling of being churched out. I was encouraged to hear it was a common experience. Time pressures and the change of role meant nothing is the same as before. I realise there are different expectations on me now; I no longer fit into my community the same way as an ordinand, although how I fit in has yet to be defined. My behaviour is a little more scrutinised and I realise that what my church community has been, will never be again. I guess we are all looking at each other in a different light.

On Sunday I ended up at my husbands Church, I go to an Anglo Catholic Anglican Church, he to a 3rd Wave Vineyard Church. One of the things I notice when I go to different Churches is that I look for the people on the edge, to see how people who don’t fit with the norm are embraced by that Church. (And yes I do wonder about my own agenda of looking at this when I too have been feeling on the edge).

Anyway I was struck yesterday by a man I have often seen on the streets of the city, an older man who looks a little different, raggedy clothes, walks with a limp, whose hands are crippled, who has that air of someone so profoundly wounded that to look too deeply into his eyes would make you weep. To see him in the context of the Church though was a delight, here he was beaming, being greeted with genuine love by those around him, standing tall and fully immersed and involved in what was happening. His is a story of utter joy and abject sorrow. Institutionalised within the medical system at an early age he was so badly beaten there that he was permanently disabled. Yet here he was a man who I am told that on their recent men’s camp, put young men to shame with his courage and enthusiasm, a man whose share presence lifts you. At that moment who the leaders of the Church were was turned on its ear for me. Here in this man I saw the last become first. Someone who emulated what it was to be broken and raised up at the same time. His very presence let other broken people (and lets face it that's all of us) know that they had a place there. By simply being himself he gave permission to others to step forward in weakness, and authenticity. 'If he can do this, and the sky doesn't fall then so can I".

And what do you know, to my surprise I too find myself compelled to step out of the known and go forward for prayer at the end of the service. Standing there in the this foreign place, I realise that there is a relief in not being 'the ordinand', in not being known, or indeed needing to find the words. When I am asked what I want prayer for I pause all I can say is that, "I just need a moment, somewhere where I may break".

Hello God is anybody out there? Churched out

2007-08-09T13:16:00.000+12:00

Ever get so Churched you get Churched out?
This is how it feels to me at the moment, almost like a disconnection where God is concerned… well not with God but where I experience God. One of the dangers of working for the Church, and going to Church, and studying Church, and socialising Church… is that there are times when I want to scream at all things Church to just get over yourself and back off!

This is a full on time, we are fast approaching Synod and all around me tensions are rising, people are wound too steps too tight on the sensitivity front , factions are aligning and consolidating and dissolving, administrators are being stretched to the limit and me I am watching this bazarness unfold before me with a vague sense I should be interested.

In the past when things were stressful, Church was my solace rather than the protagonist. I am usually a full on liturgy girl, the way it holds me, the shape of it, the taste of it, the way that it acts as an access point for making a connection with my community and with God in the Eucharist is profound for me. This week though something has happened, I feel like I have overloaded somewhere and God feels a distant presence. In Church on Sunday the absence of feeling was so intense that I almost ached. I did my reading, and then sitting there what kept going through my head was “What am I doing here?

And I left, just snuck out before the Eucharist. Now understand me here, the Eucharist for me is central, it is everything. It is what fills me up, it is where I bring my brokenness before God where I gaze at God and God gazes back. Then the next morning at staff Eucharist I once more made my apologises. At some distant head level I find this curious, I watch my self in meetings, teaching all those things as if I were in a play.

I am not sure what else to say really…
What I know though is that if I have any desire at this moment it is to earth myself. To stand on the port hills and let the winds carry my scream, to fall on my knees and bury my hands deep in the earth, to sit with my feet in a tidal pool for a day till my toes become like yams and the water has run its full cycle.

All suggestions greatfully accepted

Just where I am

2007-08-02T13:07:00.000+12:00

For the last few days I have been on the edge, of a series of cluster migraines.
Sometimes it’s a case of bang they are there, nothing to do but ride it out, at others it’s the gentle nagging that manifests in over sensitivity, a distortion of light, and a stepping just out of phase with reality. Here there is a vague tension and an inability to get what seems clear to me out into the world in any way that is concise let alone coherent. Even what I am writing today has taken three times longer and needed constant editing.

It can take some time with these to realise that something is going on. Funnily enough as much as the pain and the night vomiting are a down side, there are moments in the lead up and wind down, which I value.

Last night I interviewed Steve Taylor for a local radio programme (more on that when I am more with it). Listening back to it I found myself to be waffly and vague (one of my least great moments). I was also aware at the dinner and meeting I attended afterward of falling into that place where it is as if I have stepped out of phase with reality, I am aware of what is going on but it is as though it is being played out before me. Insights occur here and intuitions.

Something else odd happens in this place for me, it is a place of great inspiration. Here is where I am called to paint, not just icons (which require so much precision and form) but where my wilder paintings occur. This is where my fingers are used as much as my brush, where unearthly landscapes, pained portraits and images of Mary falling into the arms of shadowed angels appear on the canvas. This is where words fill my mouth to bursting; tumbling out in what rarely at the time makes sense but certainly feels right.

These paintings, these poems, will be the raw beginning to something new.

On the internet I see them called migraine auras. Hildegard of Bingen is the Patron Saint of these as she suffered both migraines and visions. On this day I see people such as Salvador Dali, and Georgia O'Keeffe also had these times and how they were a great source of inspiration for them. Not that I am as talented as them

With such Saints and mentors as these this is an interesting place to be… now I wonder how church will look today in such a space.

Nothing profound today simply a statement of where I am…

In the Fertile Dark sits the Dream

2007-07-30T12:33:00.000+12:00

It’s been a month where everything has raced. Over the last couple of days I have fallen into the world of Harry Potter. I am discovering at such times when I am propelled along by the story that I miss an awful lot. A rollicking good tale is all very well but the share pace can mean that the subtly, the moments of significant impact, are lost as we are suddenly thrust forward into the next drama.

Now to a point with Harry Potter this is intentional. The constant hunting and being hunted doesn’t allow one to slow down- keeping people transfixed for 600 pages with excitement and danger (this is an art in itself). What I am noticing now, is that I want to go back to places where I was momentarily moved to the tissue box and absorb them and the impact of them slowly, to allow the story to unfold in its fullness. And indeed discover what I missed and how that effects the telling of the story.

Just as I respond to the inevitable Monday morning question of “How was your weekend?” with “it didn’t really feel like I had one” I find such pace, such over stimulation and the need to “fill” space/time damaging.

Is this how I approach God? What does it do to my faith to indulge in such a fast paced, once only examination of something which is precious beyond all measure.

Recently I was at a talk by Bosco Peters when the comment made was: “We searched for meaning, the danger with young people today is that they search for stimulation”.
Young people gently aside, I wonder if I indeed fall into that. I say I crave stillness but aside from painting (my blessed icon group) and small moments in the week, I find more often than not a desire for more “bigger, stronger, faster, better?

At the moment I have two assignments due! (It’s okay Meg of course you can study, teach, be a wife, and work full time toughen up). One of the assignments asks that we find a passage in the First Testament that moves us. I find it intriguing that at a time when I feeling like a Koala-Bear-on-acid, the passage that continually calls to me is the beginning of the creation story in Genesis

Translation1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Translation2
First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don't see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God's Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.

Translation 3
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
The earth was barren, with no form of life; it was under a roaring ocean covered with darkness. But the Spirit of God was moving over the water.

This moment, this beginning of the greatest story ever told,

stills me in the madness. Here in the cauldron before creation is where as an artist I am drawn, where I find breath, where my dreams, my creations take form. And here there is no place in the inky blackness for the hunt or the hunted- for the manicness of life, only room to float under the surface of the inky blackness as the Holy Spirit hovers above me, igniting me as she goes.

In the fertile dark sits the dream
Eternally begotten of the Father

it flows through the edge of sleep
Wraps us in still deep pools of possibility

Such places reshape our waking
Our faces forever changed in bathroom mirrors

Nothing Deep today

2007-07-26T14:11:00.001+12:00

Nout deep today
I am too busy being romanced by soft evening winds
and the tease of a spring in the middle of winter

Even assignments nag from my desk
Harry Potter has priority now

How as a Church we hold the role of Mother

2007-07-20T14:34:00.001+12:00

There are times I would rather avoid church. Times when to slip out during the peace seems a more dignified option than shattering into a thousand pieces on the floor in front of an alarmed looking congregation. Of course God is rarely interested in us being dignified, in fact being broken and bringing our brokenness to the Eucharist is what we are continually called to do.

The times I refer to are when we read the stories of women whom “God had closed their wombs”, times which are invariably followed by miraculous stories of said women, Hannah, Rachel etc praying really hard and hey presto having finally (in some way unknown to the rest of us) getting the magical formula just right, being blessed by God who according to Psalm 113:9 " maketh the barren woman to keep house and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD."

Okay that’s a little simplistic and this is a tender issue for me… as a woman yet to be blessed (and yes I notice the language I use) with a child, I am profoundly aware of how motherhood is held up as a pinnacle of achievement for women not only in society but also in the church.

Such Bible stories read and talked too without sensitivity can leave one raw and exposed.
I remember sitting in Church when the reading and sermon were based on the story of Hannah. It was a bad week, I was trying to celebrate with one side of the family the news of a new baby (number four), whilst another part of my family grieved over the unlikelihood of them ever being grandparents (not having children never just impacts on you).

As the sermon began I glanced at the women around me. On one side a young women fighting cancer that had left her sterile, another grieving her last unsuccessful IVF treatment, whist on the other side sat one woman who’d adopted, with the last woman in our row for reasons much to tender to broach, too was without children. It felt at the time almost as though we had been made to sit together as examples of women who’d somehow 'let the side down'.

The sermon to those unaware of the impact of being without children, would have seemed totally acceptable with a feel good factor of 5. Yet aspects of the sermon left our row sitting rigid with guts twisted. At one point the women preaching shared how proud she was to be a woman, “how only a mother of five beautiful children and a grandmother of a further five children could know a true sense of accomplishment as a woman...”
After that I don’t recall much, the rest of the sermon was pretty much along the same lines. I do know that at that point there was much gentle touching of knees and hands in our row, and for me a deep sigh.

I have no doubt that if challenged the preacher would have been devastated at the impact of her words. This was not a conscious act on her part to cause distress.
On this day I watched as women around me measured themselves- however much they knew it was a futile act, against the story of Hannah. To weigh themselves in the balance and be found wanting.

Even I in a disserted Church later cried out to God “what more can I do, how much more do you want me to suffer, what more do you want from me, cos you’ve got it all ...”

In the end such thinking becomes damaging, one can get caught in a loop of:
“If I only do this…
Maybe if I hadn’t done that…
I am not good enough for God…
Am I being punished…?
I am unworthy…
Is my faith not strong enough…good enough…?
If I pray more…fast more…give more…

You can see where I am going with this.
Our prayer becomes a defilement and judgement of self, and in turn we risk projecting onto God an image of an angry fickle tyrant, who sits in judgement playing with our emotions and punishing on a whim. Not an image of God one would like to companion you through the dark night of the soul.

A God of love and compassion, who aches for relationship with us, and waits with infinite patience and expectation beside us, I don’t at such times always remember or indeed recognise. I said earlier that God is rarely interested in us being dignified, and that bringing our brokenness to the Eucharist is what we are continually called to do. And here we were this group of women all in pain, all for this moment (a moment that has never been repeated) in the same place at the same time. Able to, when pain struck, gently through the touching of knees the slipping of hands into hands, breathe and break together.

Such a moment of awareness does not however let us off the hook as Church.
I am in no way advocating that we do not honour and support women in our communities as mothers far from it! Or indeed women who by choice choose not to be mothers.
For me this is about:
being aware of our congregation,
of the impact of our words,
of how our experience colours how we interpret and share that word
to ask ourselves how as a church we interpret the role of women
how that interpretation of role is reflected in all that we do and are,
…and what happens to those who do not fit that role for what ever reason.

Recently I read a prayer written by Lynne Taylor of Opawa Baptist Church for mother’s day. I have included a link here to it because I see in her prayer she has looked at her congregation and sought to understand and honour the struggles and longings of the women of her congregation
http://www.emergentkiwi.org.nz/lynne/archives/001443.php

I leave you after what has been a too long post with a request for your prayers for the women around you dealing with an as yet unfulfilled desire for children, and with an anonymous prayer from one of the 1 and a half million sites on the net that asking for prayers of women aching to be parents

Lord, Give me Strength...
To keep my cool when another period starts.
To keep my chin up when a co-worker announces her pregnancy.
To have a good relationship with my friend in spite of her ability to conceive easily and not be jealous of her.
To endure my sister-in-law's comments about toilet training.
To keep from crying when I see neglected children around me born of parents who find them a burden.
To forgive my doctor when he keeps me waiting for two hours for a consultation - and then can't remember my name.
To make the right decision about treatment.
To maintain a good relationship with my husband in spite of all this.
Not to scream at the well meaning person in my congregation when they ask yet again “Do you have children?”
To step back from fear when that question no longer is asked
To endure the vestry who always expects you to do things because "you don't have any Children to worry about".
To not fall apart if one more person asks, "Why don't you adopt?" Easy, right?
When I feel like avoiding friends who are pregnant or with newborns because you just can't handle the situation at that moment.
To not feel like I have to apologise to family for not fulfilling their dreams of the future.
To allow myself to reach out to those in my community and be vulnerable with those who are safe in my brokenness

We are the embodiment of stories most potent.

2007-07-16T13:14:00.000+12:00

We are the embodiment of our story. The way we talk, the way we catch our breath, what causes us to howl with laughter or hold back tears is all influenced by our story. And indeed the big stories in our lives, the stories of great wounds and epic challenges create a template by which all other stories are invited to follow.

I have for some time been interested in what happens to us when we look at our lives as story. How does the retelling of one particular story over years change our history, as intensity shifts and understanding evolves? Where do we hold this sorrow? How does our belly react to that joy?

How often do we see a person and reflect on how their lives are etched across their faces. And what is etched across mine for all the world to see.
I ask myself how understanding the Christian story alters how I now tell the story of my life.

Such questions are large for me at the moment as I embrace the complex world of Hermeneutics and indeed question not only the influences I bring to my interpretation of Scripture, but also to the Story of me.

Several years ago when I first wrote the piece below I had just begun to identify the Holy Spirit as Feminine and indeed beyond those qualities attributed to scripture I personally had begun to relate to the Holy Spirit as very much a creative force that moved in and through me. Reading this I am encouraged to step away from the madness and and in an unguarded moment see how this story has evolved.

She wrote on me the Mother of the unformed word
Carved love songs and agonies into my flesh
She made me living word
And loved me when even angels turned their backs

She wrote on me the Mother of the unformed word
Word made flesh she nuzzled every story thread
Followed it with her teeth
Every revelation partially read she tasted

She wrote on me the Mother of the unformed word
With printers ink and captains feathers
she carved stories of tall ships
and small coves across my back
And wept rum when she had finished

She wrote on me the Mother of the unformed word
Of Unthinkable confessions

and dark tales in deep places
She sung sea shanty’s like lullabies
and whistled through worn down teeth

She wrote on me the Mother of the unformed word
Earthing me madly.
Mapped each sorrow, each delight
On completion her she paused

and whispered ideas for her next novel into the cove of my back
“A love song baby, something delicious-twisted sacred and pure”.

At this moment I am surprised how much I miss you

To have hair or not to have hair

2007-07-12T12:22:00.000+12:00

If there is one thing everyone woman should do just once in their life its shave off your hair. Day 3 and I'm already thinking that it is getting just that little bit too long! I find I have much darker hair stubble than I remember (all those years of hair dye). I am also told that I look like a Buddhist nun. Did I say it feels just so good? I can't stop touching my head.

Aside from the very funky experience of heightened sensation, I am noticing that people treat me differently. Once people know I’ve shaved off my hair in support of my friend going through Chemotherapy they open up in new ways. I don’t think I have ever had so many people share either their own battles with cancer or those of families and friends. My hair loss is also confronting for some people. Some people turn away quickly least I think they are staring. One woman went into total shock when she saw me and can hardly look at me. It turns out that a dear friend of hers had just lost her hair. Seeing me in the flesh (her friend lives overseas) has bought home what her friend is going through with out her.

Older men (once they learn that I haven’t left my husband and embraced lesbianism) seem caught between wanting to come up and touch my head all the time and to avoid looking me in the eye. After a challenge by the Bishop (a cancer survivor himself) we who have shaved our heads, have begun gathering sponsorship and donations for the cancer society for our de-hairing, which is kind of cool. The Bishop now seems interested in giving people markers to draw on my head. Hmm a new kind of evangelism perhaps.
“I became a Christian ask me how!”

Yesterday I had coffee with my friend who has lost her hair, it was the first time we have seen each other bald. She has such a lovely head! I avoid wearing a hat unless it’s cold, so yesterday after sitting in discomfort in a very hot wig my friend looked at me and took it off. We sat there hairless together drinking coffee. She is a remarkably courageous woman.

Church this Sunday will be interesting (the downside of being in a small congregation where everyone knows everyone), it would be easier to sneak off and lose myself in some large congregation somewhere…but we shall see.

The journey continues… I have begun wondering about tattoos or better still scarification now that would be interesting.

And yes I have to confess the photos are not me sigh....

Today I Shave My Hair Off ...Lord have mercy

2007-07-10T10:35:00.000+12:00

Okay so this is it! In an hour I am shaving off my hair.
Tis a far far more stupid thing I have do than I have ever done before...

No not stupid, exposing, and Out there yes! Stupid no.
I realise at this moment that I love my hair. It has been with me for some considerable years and been an expression of much that has happened in my life.

Weird things go through my head like "What will my mother say" and I had this morning a moment where I remembered as a child being fixated with WW2 stories especially those of Holocaust victims. And of one photo which I have been trying to find but can't of a few young french women who had been punished as collaborators and were shaved. The WW2 photo shows the women clutching their babies born of German solders, and being chased through the streets.

They say that people get hair cuts or tattoos, piercings etc usually when something major has happened in their life. In my teenage street youth working years I had Mohawk (I cant believe I did that ) and then long blueblack Gothic tresses. After I go married I cut my hair throwing away long curls for short mature and modern. When I was accepted as an ordinand (not that long ago) a friend of mine took me celebrating by... you got it once more cutting off my curls. And today it all comes off, shaved.
Will my husband ever snuggle me again I wonder?
The difference today I guess is that it is not my major life crisis that is compelling me to do this but that of my dear friend.

I can do this. (shut up Delila its just hair)

From One Extreme to Another

2007-07-09T14:18:00.000+12:00

On Sunday I went with my husband to church. This may not seem much of a deal for most christian couples, but when you worship in Churches as diverse and different as my husband and I, it can be. I worship at an Anglo-Catholic Anglican Church with fairly liberal tendencies. My husband worships at the local Vineyard church.

Both of us search for ways to embrace our differences and indeed to worship together occasionally. For me the experience of visiting my husbands church can be a little over exposing to the say the least. My church has an average gathering of about 40 people on a Sunday, it is a huge beautiful Gothic structure where there is only one person younger than I in congregation. We embrace silence, contemplation, liturgy, prayer and sacrament.

I imagine if someone were to take my photo when I visit the vineyard church I would look a little like the BBC journalist released last week after months of isolation and thrust in front of the worlds media. For a start even though I am told a lot of people are away sick, there are people everywhere. Children dart in and out babies crawl in the isles and everywhere you look there are pregnant women. (I am not sure whats in the water there!)

Such noise and vibrancy can be bruising for me. Worship for me is usually a gentle deeply sacred communal experience, where as this is a full on shout to the Lord occurrence.

Certain questions are raised for me when visiting the Vineyard church.
Is there a critical mass?
How do you make a connection with people when there are hundreds of them?
Where does community building occur?
How are you able to recognise people are in need, or indeed present when there are so many people?
Where is the stopping to be Still in the presence of God? and indeed is waiting on God in silent expectation important?
Is there Liturgy here? Is it important?and does it get in the way.
And what would happen if I were to turn those questions around and ask them of my community?
Oh yes and did I ask what was in the water?

Its all a bit daunting for this child. Yet there are times like this when daunting is good. It is important for me and I think for us all to get out of our comfort zones, to experience the spirit moving in a new way.

It also helps us to go back to our own churches and investigate how we view and indeed are viewed as Church.

There is much I admire in our local vineyard church. There commitment to the poor in the community is awesome and I would have to say that the men's group has provided a richness and support that has been a gift to my husband. I know that much of the networking and community building that does occur happens through home and study groups. And when the spirit moves, man get in the way!

And there is much that I admire in my community. The intimacy, the mission work for people in the community, the liturgy, the fellowship. Sure not on a scale like Grace Vineyard but every bit as important.

To move between these worlds I can not help but be forced to compare the two but to put one over the other is to ignore the spirits way of touching people in a magnitude of different ways.

And as for our political differences...well that's another post entirely.

So what questions am I left with when I enter my own Church? I'll tell you next Sunday.

In the mean time a question for you?
When was the last time you experienced Church outside of your comfort zone? Enquiring minds want to know.

The Cost as a Woman in Following Christ

2007-07-05T14:55:00.000+12:00

There are times when old non Christian friends look at me with their heads tilted sideways. "How is it that you can do this?" they ask, " be a part of a religion that has been responsible for the pain and suffering of hundreds of thousands of women?"

Some are angry, have I let the sisterhood down, some I suppose see me as a sell out - we don't tend to do coffee anymore, and others, dear sweet others, fear that I shall be damaged following the Christian Way. That the cost of following this God will be too high.

And to a point they are right. There is a cost in following Christ. It always makes me smile people who assume that once you become a Christian life becomes easy. I would have to say that since I became a Christian I have had anything but an easy life. Of course there is a cost.

The thing is the cost of not following Christ for me is now even higher. As a woman in New Zealand Anglican Church I am lucky that I have the freedom when called to express my ministry in all its forms to a point (there are churches here who although will not state it publicly will not have ordained women in their parishes).

I remember when I was a fairly new Christian being taught to serve. I had been shown the ropes and then got to serve for a staunch elderly retired priest who after mass (I think I may have lit the Gospel Candle first or some other deadly sin) marched me into the vestry where I was told in no uncertain terms that I would now be told how to serve in the proper Anglo Catholic tradition. He looked me up and down and sighed "you are a girl but I suppose there's nothing I can do about that"

Looking down at my chest I too sighed, nope no hiding these. Actually I ended up learning a lot from that priest, I think we both had to work on tolerance. At that time however I was profoundly aware of the cost as I struggled against the structure of the Church, stuck out my elbows and tried to find my place. What did it mean for me as a woman to follow Christ, what did it mean as a women to be a part of the church?

One of the first things I learnt and indeed sadly have yet to see much if any change in, was that as an intelligent women in her 30's there was no place, no social support, network or ministry for me if I didn't have children providing the sacred entry pass into a "parents" group. Unless you had a child you were an anomaly. Even women in that age group who were interested in investigating what it meant to be a Christian beyond the role of parent were invisible.

Today (hence the topic) I found a piece I wrote in those early days, and here it is...

She never knew how high the cost would be to keep her witness low
Her love song to the Lord whispered in dark feminine places

Play nice
Be sweet
Set up for the next service
and while your at it make us a nice cup of tea love

She never knew how deep the divisions they demanded in her would cut
How much of her they were prepared to carve away
How a half women could be better than one at all?

Play nice
Be sweet
and while your at it pass the scones woman
and if your really good well let you wash up afterwards

She never knew how high the cost would be to keep her witness low

So why stay? It would have been easy to walk away, to tell myself I will follow Christ in my own way. But God often has other plans for us. Around the same time I wrote this, a wonderful woman sent me this piece by author Dorothy L. Sayers, a friend of C.S.Lewis

"Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross.
They had never known a man like this Man - there has never been such another.
A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them; never flattered or coaxed or patronised; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as 'The women, God help us!' or 'The ladies, God bless them!... "

There is a cost in following Christ sometimes it is great, sometimes it is hidden. I am not sure what the cost is for me at the moment I just know that the cost of not following is far greater.

Vanity Thy Name is Mine

2007-07-04T16:41:00.000+12:00

The last week or so I have been having dreams where I am going bald. For days now I have resisted the temptation to surf the plethora or dream dictionary websites to find out what it could really mean. That is until today when I discovered that such interesting facts that, I was scared of getting old, I was probably feeling unattractive, and considering that I wasn't intelligent.

So after I took a course of botox...
Anyway what I am aware of is that very soon I am to lose all my hair. There are a couple of special people dear to me fighting cancer at the moment, one of whom has just begun chemotherapy. Several of us have decided that when my friend begins to loose her hair we will join her in shaving ours off too. I kind of think there is so much of this journey I can not take with her I can at least join her in this. Her hair is so precious to her, and I am discovering so too is mine to me.

I don't consider my hair often, its just kind of there really. But loosing it feels suddenly very exposing, I am aware of the social stigmas around hair, of how I look at women without hair. I wonder what messages I have told my self in passing, what assumptions I have made.
And how I am a little scared of what assumptions people will make of me...
My vicar is also having his hair shaved off but as a bloke I do think it is a little different (although that could be because I am married to a man who blade shaves his head). I have been trying to convince my vicar that in the mean time it would be far more noble to let us wax his legs $10 her wax strip - but for some reason he's not so enthusiastic.

Anyway so in the next fortnight I will lose my hair. I look in the mirror and wonder if my friend looks at hers in the same way.

I just know Im going to look like a bowling ball

Bring on the hats

Dont Fault Others for Your Fear of Tumbling Into Something New

2007-06-29T14:22:00.000+12:00

Okay so here is my dilemma.

There is this calling which I respond to (finally).
This Discernment of calling which I fall into, and now after months of being in the discernment process I am discerned for priesthood and what do you know, I'm paralysed! Discerned for priesthood one week, signed up for study a BTheol in distance education the next (oh yeah I learn best in group situations by the way) as well as working full time.

In some strange way its like watching oneself dissolve before your very eyes. I've done tertiary study before but the courses were always practicum based, now I am here with these assignments looming and I can't even focus to study! My brain races a thousand miles a minute, every sentence raises more and more questions and possibilities and then hell there is the stuff that is so dry the pages fare crumble to the touch.

I feel thick in all of this theological language which leaves me spending most of my time in my Oxford dictionary of Theological terms trying to understand what inevitably turns out to be something that could be said in far more accessible terms.

Okay so I am sabotaging myself here, scaring myself really. There have been times over the last week when I have sat at my laptop weeping at my lack of understanding. Okay to be fair I have had a bereavement, a cold, and now blessings a stomic flue.
BUT COME ON MEG GET IT TOGETHER.

No profound poetry here no gentle words of God, cos quite frankly the warm moist salty God of my understanding doesn't seem to terribly interested in the Historical Critical or Literal or what ever way of dissection. Just of nudging me in the night, sitting with me when I am in my bathroom vigil and I wonder what on earth I have done in saying YES God pick me!
Have they made a mistake?

In a moment of watching Deadwood my current favourite dvd series I hear the line "Don't fault others for your fear of tumbling into something new" and just think buggar.

Any assistance or comments for those experienceng the terror of study greatly accepted and appreciated.