The Charge to Us All

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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”.

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

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 !