I'm just back from a residential in Manchester for my part time doctorate, which I extended to include a free Sunday and a visit to a church where I used to work.  I am very tired, it'd be good if I had tomorrow off too to recover, but it has been a good experience.

The 'three' days of study were quite intense but overall were productive and enjoyable.  There was a sense that the first residential had been pretty unsatisfactory for everyone - teachers and students - and that this was inportant to get 'right.'  I arrived with some apprehension, and very much feeling inadequate - everyone else seemed so much more articulate and advanced in their thinking.  Also, having been told by various folk recently I am either 'scary' or 'intimidating' because of a perceived intelligence or work output I was very self conscious and watching myself.  Made for an interesting experience!  For the record, I consider myself to be of broadly average intelligence but a hard worker with tendencies towards being a girlie swot and class creep.  Someone has to do/be these things, you should be grateful I am willing so to do!  I was once told by a prospective employer (when I was about 19) that I was " a pleasant girl who will suceeed by application rather than inspiration."  Well, the later two thirds are certainly true.

Anyway, enough self flagellation/adulation/whatever.

The input on action research was good, with an interesting and engaging speaker.  The "speed DPT" exercise was fun and the tutors had done a good job in splitting us up from our friends and pairing us up with those who had complimentary styles, skills and interests.  I found myself working with a very different person who was great at sparky ideas but lousy on process and task focus, who immediately related the fictitious task back to his real life research but could not manage a key word search on a library catalogue; we made a good team.  Perhaps because my interest is, ultimately, more about process than content, I entered the task with a different angle from some people, I don't know.  Did I understand what the DPT was about better at the end of the exercise?  No.  Did I feel more confident at tackling it?  Yes.  And the latter is surely the important factor here.  A veil of self doubt had been (at least temporarily) lifted.

Today's service was centred on the lectionary readings of Moses veiling his face, Jesus being transfigured and Paul's letter to Corinth that suggested that our faces are unveiled glimpses of God's love; that 'true love's true form' is glimpsed in our relationships, attitudes and actions.  The fairy tales of 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'Shrek' provided illustrations of how 'true love's true form' subverts expectations [though I remain unconvinced that Shrek is as subversive as others may claim].  It was a great sermon in a good service, and there was a real warmth about the whole experience.   It was good to see that a veil of suspicion and hurt that had once shrouded this fellowship had been lifted and that a genuine affection had emerged.  Some transfiguring had clearly happened in the last four years.

So, back home and getting ready for a 'normal' week back in Costa del Dibley.  Going away is always useful in lending some perspective, in seeing more clearly what is good about the 'here and now.'  There is plenty of work to do here, plenty of uncertainty and plenty that will continue to trouble and challenge me.  The issues have not gone away and the frustrations remain unaltered.  But maybe the fact that I have been renewed and refreshed, encouraged and enabled, will make a difference.  I hope so.

So, apart from wondering how many people will be how intimidated by my latest plethora of waffle, I am ready to relax, unwind, watch 'Waking the Dead' and then tomorrow return to my disciplined reading of atonement theories and practical theology, alongside a sermon on sacrifice, preparation for a meeting in Didcot and the Women's World Day of Prayer... no rest for the Hermione Graingers/Lisa Simpsons among us. 

I read this today, it refers to Barth, so it must be good!  It is also the best apologetic for practical theology I've ever seen (rather than the apologies for it that are all too frequently encountered).

Practical theology as worship

As we have seen, Practical theology and qualitative research combine to offer us a way of exploring the richness and complexity of creation. They move us beyond naive and simplistic assumptions about the world and human beings and allow us to explore the inner and often hidden depths of human experience.  Perceived in this way, we might describe this type of Practical Theology research as worship. It was Karl Barth who that the ultimate aim of all theology is worship (2002). Barth points towards the importance of doing theology with a spirit of praise and wonder; approaching the task as discovering the things of God with a deep sense of awe. As we seen in this book, theology does not relate only to the rational dimensions of human experience.  At a fundamental theology is always oriented towards the worship and praise of God. As we convert qualitative research and graft it into the service of theological action, it enables us to enter into some of the depths and complexities of creation; as we listen critically but openly to the voice it brings to us, we are drawn new understandings of and fresh perspectives on the divine drama. These new understandings should draw us into communion with God and inspire worship and praise at the intricacies and wonders of creation. It should not only us to understand, it should also enable us to love God and relate more closely to God, ourselves and to one another Matt. 22:3 7—40).

From Practical Theology and Qualitative Research, John Swinton and Harriet Mowat, London, SCM, 2006 Page 259

The Barth they refer to is Prayer Karl Barth, Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 2002

Anyone reading this involved in pub churches?  Our new venture, COMPASS, sets sail in May in the lounge of the pub down the road and will be monthly.  Suddenly I have been cited as an expert on this model of church life which is scary, we aren't going yet!  Are we the only Baptist pub church?  Surely not.  Are we the only pub church with a TT minister?  Probably!  (Which kind of reminds me of a joke about St Peter ordering mineral water when Jesus and the disciples went into a pub - but I don't tell it very well).  Anyway gentle readers, if you have any thoughts to share on what helps and hinders, I'd love to know them.  Just trying to work out how to enrol on an elementary miracles course so I can do the necessary with glasses of water in order to keep the expenses down! 

For Sally, who is doing work on lone parents and church, here is a poem by Kathy Keay...

God of the Single Parent

By

Kathy Keay

Blessed is she who belongs nowhere

Because she is with child

But without husband

For You will be her Life Partner.

Blessed is she who only has one pair of hands

To do six tasks at the same time,

Urgently.

You will send her unexpected help.

Blessed is she who must provide for all

The needs of her children

And for her own.

You will surely defend her cause.

Blessed is she when the children are in bed

And in the silence of the evening

She craves for adult company.

You will fill her home with your Presence.

Blessed is she when others speak falsely against her

And when she is required to listen to all manner

Of dreadful afflictions

Which will come upon her children

Because they are the products of a single-parent household.

You will delight in proving them all wrong

Because she puts her trust in You.

For You are the God of the Single Parent

Who knew what it was like

To live against the expectations of society

And said

The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to

Such as these

From Kathy Keay, ed. Laughter, Silence and Shouting: An Anthology of Women’s Prayers, Harper Collins1994 page 82

I recently mentioned I had done some work on single people's experience of church (back in 2002).  I have uploaded the summary of that work which was published in the Baptist Minister's Journal which can be found here and the full thing (12k words plus loads of appendices and a mega impressive bibliography, if I say so myself who shouldn't) here

I also rediscovered some poems I'd collected on the theme and here is just one of them...

Singleness

Is the liberty

To be me,

To do what I like

When I like,

To travel

Unencumbered

The highways

Of the world

 

 

Singleness

Is the discipline

Of freedom,

The privilege

Of having more time

For others,

More responsibility

To give myself,

More space

To share.

 

 

Singleness

Is the pain

Of children

Never born,

Of being outside

On the outside

Of the family,

Mysteriously virgin,

Threatening to others.

 

 

Singleness

Is aloneness

In my one-person family,

The open door

And table,

The discovery

That I am loved,

Valued and of value.

 

 

Singleness

Is the ache

Of rejection,

Bereavement,

Desertion,

Of having

No living body

To throw my arms around

And love me

For myself alone. 

 

Singleness

Is the ability

To close my front door

On the world,

To enjoy my solitude,

Listen to music,

Paint,

Be at peace.

 

 

Singleness is my beginning

And my end,

My laughter

And my tears,

Myself and God,

Complete,

Loved and loving,

At home and free,

Celebrate with me!

By Betty Hares, From Mary O’Brien and Clare Christie eds. Single Women: Affirming our Spiritual Journeys Westport, Connecticut, Bergin and Garvey, 1993.  More can be found here (but please be careful with copyright, Nicola Slee's unpublished work was used with her permission as part of my dissertation work)