Tea drinking ... and waiting for the right moment

I'm a tea drinker. I do also drink coffee but given the choice I would really rather drink tea - plain, no milk no sugar and preferably not out of a bag.
Because even after Advent and Christmas all times are still waiting times, and because now there is time to drink in rather differently the words from the wonderful anderer Adventskalendar, we are reading the days one more time before putting it away. This evening I have turned it to a page with a photo of a splendidly chaotic Asian tea kitchen and come across this wonderful reflection from the 16th century on the right moments to drink tea, here's my on the hoof translation:

Moments that are just right for drinking tea

When your heart and hands are doing nothing
When you are tired after reading too much poetry
When one's train of thought is disturbed
When listening to songs and melodies
When a song has been sung to its end
When you're home alone on a holiday
When playing Ch'in and looking at paintings
In the middle of the night in deep conversation
Faced with a clear window and a clean desk
When the day is clear and the breeze mild
On a day with gentle rain
In a painted boat near a wooden bridge
When the children are at school
When you've lit incense in a small workroom.
Hsü Ts'eshu

Tea drinking is about taking time out, it's a longer drink that a shot of expresso and more satisfying. My favourite moment for drinking tea is in bed in the morning, listening to the radio - especially if Dr B brings it to me. My second favourite moment is letting the tea go cold, not drinking tea because I have fallen asleep again. Something I can't do unless the tea is actually there to go cold. Some of my favourite cups of tea are the ones I never drink but am nevertheless grateful for.
Meanwhile I realise that I have never known that strange thirst for tea from reading too much poetry, but I do know a thirst from a desire for poetry to be fulfilled - for that I am still waiting. In the meantime perhaps all of us should write a crazy list of moments in life that are just right for taking a bit of time out for a cup of something refreshing.

Between the past, present and the future at feminist theology

It is nearly two weeks since our feminist theology evening with the excellent Anne Claire Rivolet.
We are this year looking at "Between the past and the future, living in the present" at our encounters this year and Anne Claire invited us to have both a personal and biblical approach to the question of "living in the present"
She began by asking whether "living in the present" or "living the present" (the French is Vivre le présent) is the same as "consuming the present, building the present, suffering or being subjected to the present". What is the present that the God of Jesus Christ gives us to live?
She ended this introduction with the brilliant phrase "my faith inscribes me in a different time to my watch!"
She then asked us to think about the kingdom, God's commonwealth which calls us to be actors in the present. We then spent some time thinking personally about an image from our own lives that brought this idea together for us. Anne Claire also encouraged us to think of a gospel or biblical passage which heléped us see this more clearly.
As always we came up with come wonderful examples - livign in the present is looking at the wheat rather than the tares, to not look at the speck in others eyes or even the beam in our own but to focus on what is growing and good. some spoke of the joy of simple Christmas pleasures; of the joy of recognizing that one's church is outside the church and being in the present of unconditional welcome of the other...

My favourite story was of the heavily pregnant 42 year old single woman who distributes communion in her local Catholic church. Living in God's present, included fully by her church, carrying the future and knowing it will be her baby and God's child, offering a present taste of the kingdom to those receiving the host from her hands.

In this time of exchange I realised and was able to speak about some of my own recent pain and sense of hopelessness. The biblical image I chose to focus on was of the grain growing in secret from Mark 4:26 - to focus on what is growing now almost unnoticed until suddenly it is time for the harvest.
I spoke about how in recent months I had discovered how destructive of the present it is to live without any sense of the future, or any sense of having a role in making that future. As I said that with a heavy heart I also recognized how much this is the case for so many, perhaps even the majority of the world's population. Subjected to the adversity of the present without being given any real stake in the future.
I was also able to say though that in my personal depression something had broken through the previous evening, a kindly offer to take me home, an attempt to rebuild trust. Strangely it was only as I began to see the future again that I realised how much I had been missing it and weeping for it. Yet somehow the seed of it had been sown and was busy growing, I sense there is a long way yet to go until harvest yet I can see that perhaps the fields may turn green and then gold again.

As our discussion moved forwards looking at how the present is the time of revelation, God is revealed in the here and now. Given to us in our own time. Our human time when it is penetrated by the time of God becomes an incarnation.
Much of what Anne Claire shared with us and encouraged us to share together showed how it is spiritual understanding, the work of wisdom and spirituality which help us piece together understanding and commitment to God's future-filled present. this made me think of the work of Sarah Coakley and Grace Jantzen, both working in the area of feminist theology and both insisting on the insights of mysticism and spirituality for theological understanding. A great shaem that neither of them have been translated into French.

Anne Claire is about to move from her responsibilities at the Ecumencial Centre for Catechism here in Geneva to become part of the Swiss religious broadcasting work based in Lausanne. She'll begin on December 1 so we wish her well with this new professional challenge and with her recent marriage. Our thanks to her for imbuing our present with a sense of God's ongoing future. That's what helps us go on living and find meaning in the here and now.

Sour dough or yeast? And can I still be baker ... random thoughts

When I was 18 and working in Germany I bought a wonderful baking book "Das ist Backen"and have spent much of the rest of my life reading it, translating recipes from it for friends and just enjoying going back to to look at the pictures. My mum still remembers me coming home from Germany with it and the ensuing kitchen chaos as I made "Schwarzweissgebäck" and special new year's "Glückschweinchen". It was my main source for bread baking recipes when I was a student (before I got a copy of Elizabeth David's wonderful English Bread and Yeast Cookery) but there were problems in store for me because I didn't understand anything about the German concept and reality of "Sauerteig". I had never really used rye flour or any kind of slow rising yeasts and it took me quite a while and lots of talking with friends who were bakers to begin to understand and create my own sour dough.
I was thinking back to those times as a student when I would bake twice a week and how my bread changed over time as I discovered how to use sour dough and really enjoy the flavour it gives to bread. This morning in our staff Bible studies at work we were reading parables of the reign of God in Matthew's gospel including one of my favourites of the kingdom being like the leaven that a woman kneads into the dough. Leaven is yeast but it's different from yeast. It's a slower, more natural way of raising the dough and it adds a different flavour to the bread. Here in France baguettes made with levain naturel really taste better. Industrial yeast produces a different flavour and a different crumb to the bread.
Sour dough, leaven, can even raise heavy, dense flours. The stiff-knecked, tough and dense dough of humanity can be risen with leaven - slowly, tastily, thoroughly. But either leaven or yeast require kneading, the work of the kingdom requires some elbow grease but is also a mystery. In the end it's not a question of whether I still bake bread (I live 30 metres from a great boulangerie so no not often any more) but rather about whether I allow bakerwoman God to knead the stiff-knecked stuff of my life. Will I give God's leaven the time it needs to mysteriously work in my life and in the lives of those around me?

Foot washing - the dream ...

On Maundy Thursday I always have crazy day dreams that the kings and queens and presidents and primeministers might be found at the local homeless shelter washing people's feet. Or that the CEO of a top company will wash the feet of the cleaning personnel - or maybe make coffee for the secretaries ...

These days of course such events would simply be part of the constant barrage of the celebrity round of photo opportunities.

Such gentle focused sensitivity, such practical sensuality in Christ caring for his disciples' feet, washing them and preparing them for the way ahead.

A crazy dream that the great of this world, the true leaders will have humility enough to care - enough even to care for the betrayer.

If I am not ready to take up bowl and towel I am not ready to lead.

I am useless - but this is a joyful post!

I have been thinking about how utterly useless I am over recent days. Because I am an ordinary self-doubting human being (and female to boot) this happens regularly (at 15 minute intervals most days!). However, on Wednesday evening last week I realised that I had overstepped the limits of normal uselessness (or should that be usual uselessness?) and become not just virtually or practically useless but actually useless. As things go this is hardly progress ...
After a difficult day I came home to my husband who said "there's been a phone call from Lyon for you." I went pale and felt rather sick ... I knew what was coming.
About six months ago I agreed to take a service in Lyon - didn't write it on the calendar, there'd be time to talk about arrangements later. Then of course Stephen's illness happened and I've sort of lost three months ... until the phone call I hadn't realised just how much this was the case.
So I had to face up to saying no sorry I can't do this, to letting people down, to feeling horribly guilty, to asking colleagues to step in for me, to trying to find a way of getting up at 5.0am on the morning that the clocks went forwards and getting to Lyon and blah and blah and more encounters with my virtual, practical and actual uselessness.
I hate forgetting things and letting people down and I've had some unpleasant hours over the weekend worrying about it, thinking about a last minute sermon, then just accepting that I wouldn't be going and worrying about whether they had found someone as I hadn't heard anything back from them.
A Monday night phone call from Lyon brought me solace - it had all been fine, they'd found someone easily, but my contact person had been away for the weekend!
So this has been an interesting exercise in realising my own limits and being a little less disorganised; in asserting my own needs to spend time with my husband; in recognising I am not at all indispensible. Sometimes I really must let go of things rather than trying to do more.
And you know what, something strange happened on Sunday evening - even before the phone call from Lyon - I felt as if a weight was lifting, a much bigger weight than that of my uselessness. Perhaps it was the weight of my striving and desire to be effective and efficient, perhaps it was the weight of being perfect or always saying yes. Anyway I realised that I am simply a brilliantly useless human being, just like everyone else: virtually, practically, actually and brilliantly useless.
Psalm 139 would put it rather differently, saying "I am fearfully and wonderfully made".
So I am frustratingly, brilliantly and joyfully useless. And that's good because as the weight lifted I had my first decent night's sleep in about three weeks. Wonderful.

A card, a bottle and proverbial "merci"

I returned to my office one day this week to find a card and gifts on my chair - wine, chocolate and some carefully chosen words. I'm very lucky to have such good friends and colleagues - even luckier for my waistline that several others joined in eating the chocolate. The local organic wine was perfect for Dr B's gentle birthday supper.
On the card was a personal message framed by two proverbs:
"The cleverness of one alone is a shallow well that dries up." (From Uganda)
"Where a woman reigns the streams run uphill." (From Ethiopia)

I've been thinking deeply and painfully this week about how getting human beings to work together is one of the most difficult yet rewarding things. Human beings are social animals yet sharing and being and working together, how our common and uncommon projects evolve is a kind of alchemy that can perhaps only be called a work of the Holy Spirit. Or perhaps it can only be called that if it works. At events and in projects where things and people "gel" something special happens, together we become more than the sum of our parts and when it all works we glimpse something greater than ourselves, the kingdom of God perhaps.
I'm grateful for those moments this week that I have been part of something bigger, moments where a bit of heaven has been opened. Together our intelligence can fill even the driest of wells.

Beauty, calm and birdsong

It's a perfect summer's evening sitting in my garden after a glass of red wine and supper on the terrace. The swallows are flying and other birds are singing gloriously, the sky is turning that wonderful blue it goes just before the sun begins to set. Soon the bats will come out and the sky will begin to turn purple around the edges. There's a bit of noise from the airport and road, a lingering smell of someone's barbecue but the lush thunderstorm-fed greenery and the birdsong easily win out. A time for calm and unwinding, thinking and simply drinking-in this beautiful urban rural night. The first clouds are just turning pink and the blue is changing as I write. I feel blessed.

Suddenly noticing beauty

Waiting for the bus this evening I suddenly noticed how very beautifully formed one of the enormous pine trees was. The branches and greenery looked perfect against the midsummer late evening sky and the way the point tapered upwards just really pleased me aesthetically. I must have tood at the stop hundreds of times and not noticed that tree in that way before. So tonight I drank in its beauty and gave thanks that I had rather longer than usual to wait for the bus.
We want the world to change but often we need to change the way we see things.

Jesus is fast asleep

We went to church in Divonne this morning and it was very restorative, truly good for the soul. Madeleine, a lay preacher, had prepared a very thoughtful service and a good sermon about the calming of the storm and Jesus being fast asleep in the seemingly out of control boat that is the church! As she saw us arrive closely followed by the professor of systematic theology of Geneva university she laughed and told us we had better sign up next time the minister is on holiday.
I had not been back to the Temple in Divonne since new heating was fitted and I realised that it was the very first time I had been to a Sunday service there taken entirely by someone else (i.e not me). It was of course not perfect but I was deeply moved simply to be there, to hear the words to have time to think, pray and sing, and to enjoy the thoughtful links between the liturgical texts and the Bible readings.
Janet wrote about going to church the other day and I realised just how different my experience was to hers. I was not at all the youngest person present, we ranged in age from around 5 to 85, so at 45 I was in the mid range. Of the 26 people there I reckon possibly only two were purely French.
I realised this morning that singing in French speaks to a very deep part of my soul. It was simply one of those ordinary moments when everything fitted together and I felt I was in the right place at the right time. If going to church can give you that then it's a very special thing, it helped me into the week ahead and helped me relativise some of my panicked angst about nothing very concrete. The sleeping saviour in the boat woke up and calmed my inner storms. Perhaps rather I was woken up to learning to trust a bit more and let go a little more.
All this and beautiful sunny day with views of snow-clad mountians and time with my beloved. Reasons to be thankful.

Happy new year ... and all that ...

The news tells me that at least 200 children are amongst those killed in the current war in Gaza.
The Geneva Zimbabwe Advocacy blog brings news of the daily catastrophe that Zimbabweans are living through.
This week I held a friend in my arms wishing her happy new year - somehow I try to make this a special hug, to make my hands communicate to her the compassion I have for her situation. Just months ago her brilliant son took his own life.
Another friend is in hospital again, her cancer has returned ...
Other friends have returned from spending Christmas with family of their nephew following his murder.
I received an email telling me gently but firmly that a friend and her husband are separating.

Others worry about their jobs and their pensions, want advice on what to do next, how to write their CVs, as their organisation cuts back and restructures.

Sometimes holding things together is hard. But then that is God's work not mine.

Postcards to another country

Looking at the lovely andere Zeiten site I came across these lovely cards which have the intriguing title in German Karten nach Anderland which can mean cards or maps to another country. they sound really lovely and are an ivitation to think in a different way while you're travelling, they include prayers and meditations as well as things to journal about and cards to send to friends while you're travelling to invite them to share your experience as you travel to another country.
It made me think of the World Social Forum's slogan - another world is possible.
Advent is about waiting for that very different country where Christ's kingdom will be born. It's also about trying to follow the map to that very different country. I think these cards are a lovely idea.
And remember um outro mundo é possível!

Maggi Dawn on the role of the minister

Maggi Dawn has posted a heartfelt piece about the difficulty of ministry and it rang very true for me today.
There is something insidious and terrible about ministry, regardless of whether or not you do it as a paid occupation. There is this thing that happens, once you get the reputation for being good at it. People all over start to depend uopn you for far more than you're able to give, and you can (if you're not careful and don't surround yourself with people who will tell you loud and clear that you're losing the thread) start to believe that what they need is you. Sometimes I even wonder if this is what killed Jesus in the end. At least I think it's what makes sense of his habit of walking away, disappearing up mountains or down to the sea.

Maggi ends her post with a poem by Mary Oliver and in the comments Erin says "Eugene Peterson writes that the two temptations of clergy are to be managers or messiahs."

At the end of another busy day as I muse on what it is I really want from life I give thanks for powerful, honest voices out there who are talking about how difficult it is to minister. It is probably just as well that I didn't yet blog while I was on the ERF's ministries commission. When I think about about the extraordinary people and yet often very painful local situations I visited in those nine years. I also think about the difficult task of managing people in any situation. The word "alchemy" comes to mind - somehow the most unlikely combinations of people work; sometimes people and situations who look made for each other turn sour quickly. The clergy move on - they have no choice but to do that if a parish no longer welcomes them. They live out in the impermanence of their own lives our Christian inability to live together. It sometimes takes local churches a very long time to learn from such experiences. Bonhoeffer still has much to teach us in the church and in society abaout "living together", or perhaps it is rather that we all have much to listen and learn about on that front.

Cosmos verses chaos and finding meaning in beauty

We read and compared the creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2 with the young people at KT yesterday, meditating the ordering of cosmos out of chaos, the beauty of creation.
To try to understand the different ways we appreciate beauty, we climbed up to the organ loft and met with one of the organists, Joëlle Gouel, who gave us a taste of the various sounds the instrument can make, and tried to get them to guess the century of the music she was playing or the story behind the music.
None of the young people admitted to particularly liking the organ before we met with Joelle but seeing the instrument in action and learning about how it is made, had quite an impact on them. Later they spoke more freely about their own music - and we discovered we have the makings of a small jazz band.
Towards the end of our time together we made small creations out of clay, spoke about them and read and then sang Psalm 8 together around the first candle on the Advent wreath.
Meanwhile I highly recommend Joëlle Gouel's excellent book "Les Chants du Pèlerin" which offers an overview of hymnody in French, including hymns she's translated herself from beyond the francophone tradtion.

Advent Signs in Food for Life

One of the meditations for Advent last weekend was to slowly eat a piece of bread, to taste its goodness and reflect on your need to be nourished. Today my Advent star box invited me to eat a bowl of rice with steamed vegetables as a meal and to consider those who think themselves lucky if this is the only food they get today.

Pictured with this post is the cover of Food for Life: Recipes and Stories on the Right to Food. It's published by the Lutheran World Federation edited by Karin Achtelstetter and Miriam Reidy-Prost with the recipes tested by the muti-talented Geneva-based Argentine cook Gabriela Vilardo. You can read more about it here. You can order the book by following the links at the bottom.

For me food is a desperately complex issue, as it is for many women battling with weight, cravings and guilt. I'm not just a fat woman but also a fat woman who preaches, encouraging others and myself to live more responsibly. An instant's look at me tells you I'm not taking enough of the medecine I preach about so freely. So another level of guilt is added - my size being a counter-witness to the life-giving Word I seek to share.
So as the world food crisis deepens, I wait for more justice for the millions who do not have anywhere near enough. I also wait to lay down my burden of guilt about food and to learn to concentrate on what truly nourishes me. And I give thanks for spiritual discipline that at least allows me to evoke my lack of nutritional discipline.

"Food for Life: Recipes and Stories on the Right to Food", published by the Lutheran World Federation, Geneva, ISBN 978-3-905676-62-4, price 25 Swiss francs/15 euros + postage, order from cmu@lutheranworld.org

Web: www.lutheranworld.org/What_We_Do/OCS/OCS-Cookbook.html

From Advent to Epiphany - a renewed attempt at spiritual discipline

Earlier this year I was inspired by Steve Taylor at emergent kiwi to blog for a month on signs of the kingdom. I found it helpful as a way of grounding and focusing my spirituality and theological thoughts.
So for Advent I thought I would try it again, trying to blog five days out of every seven between December 1st and Epiphany about waiting, preparation, change, and light. We'll see how it goes. Since becoming an adult I have tended to feel something I might call emotional cognitive dissonance in the run up to Christmas. So doing this is a way of trying to feel a bit more connected to what truly nourishes me.

The resources I'll be using for personal meditation will come from the beautiful star box by ALTERnativity (any spiritual exercise that involves eating a chocolate has to be worth a try!) and the Ruth Burgess Wild Goose book Hear my Cry. I'm also reading Maggi Dawn's Beginnings and Endings.
There are also some wonderful resources available on the web and I hope I'll have time to discover those as Advent progresses. Here are some to get your started:
I like the idea of the things from Proost, especially the Advent calendar and comic by Si Smith, but haven't had time to look at them in more datail yet;
Sanctuary are also involving people in writing Advent meditations, perhaps you could offer to write something for them as part of your advent devotions?
Sacred space provides exactly that in many languages and not just for Advent but all year round. The prayers seem to be having problems loading at the moment so click on the printer frinedly version.

Fat nuns skating - a first Christmas card

I received my first Christmas card today, this rather sweet picture of rather fat nuns skating. It came from a lovely woman who sends me a card every year since I took her husband's funeral, over ten years ago. Her card reminds me what a privilege it is to be involved in people's lives at times of joy and tragedy like this. It humbled me too, to be remembered. It's easy to forget the impact you can have on the lives of others. Her husband's funeral was a joyous, weepy, jazz and sadness personal event. I can still remember his face from the photos she showed me.
Her card to mark Christ's incarnation reminds me how powerfully the gospel speaks to us in times of personal tragedy. Being able to remember a funeral with thankfulness and joy says something too about resurrection.

Word of the day - Alltag

I love the German word Alltag, but it's not always easy to translate. Daily grind is one possibly, everyday life another. Alltagsgeschichte could be history of everyday life or history from below or history of the people - depending on the context.
I thought of this word one evening in the week, coming home too late from the daily grind there was a hand-delivered envelope waiting for me.
It was a simple note from a former parishioner who I never knew all that well when I was her minister. She said some kind things. It had obviously cost her alot of emotion to write - the note had two dates on it ...
Looking back at the week I realise how easy it would be for me to forget the letter, because of the daily grind, because it's easier to dwell on awful, difficult and desperately sad things, or on my own feelings of guilt or inadequacy about everything I have not managed to do or be.
Receiving a beautiful letter like that is rare, a call to lift my nose from the grindstone and celebrate both the ordinariness and the extraordinariness of our wonderful human existence.
Sometimes I feel unexpectedly blessed.

A plural God allows for plural and profound expressions of faith

I came away from teaching catechism today profoundly at peace. The four hours we spent with the young people went well and some of the paintings of intangible ideas like friendship, solidarity, love, equality ... were very moving. The prayers the young people wrote as we meditated Roublev's icon of the trinity were unexpectedly profound.
I realised how at home I am in that sort of work and how good it is for me to be able to have some roots in the local context. I think I came home feeling at peace because I felt at home in my church and in the way it encourages young people to discover God for themselves without forcing or insisting. I felt we were helping them discover their own tentative language of faith and prayer.
Perhaps it also helped that we tried to learn how to juggle with tangerines in our lunch break!
I came home feeling gentle contentment and a sense of connection with God, people and the place I live.

The simple blessing of catching a later bus

This morning I was blessed by a friendly conversation. Just someone asking a question and my thoughts came out in words and I saw that I'm struggling through difficult decisions more than I realised. If I had been 45 seconds earlier at the bus stop this morning and I would not have bumped into my listening angel, who said very simply she would pray for me. It was not said lightly or cloyingly and I realised I hadn't heard those words for a long time.
This evening I was further blessed by reading Maggi Dawn's post on taking my own advice.
Maggi wrote to friend:
"Regardless of what is sensible, and regardless of what you think you "ought" to do, which of the courses ahead of you makes you feel alive, makes your heart open wider, makes you feel hopeful and as if the future is opening up not closing down? That is the route you should go."

Earlier in the post she wrote about consolation and desolation in Ignatian spirituality:

Ignatian prayer, which has among its principles the idea of consolation and desolation as modes of discernment. Ignatius defines consolation as "Every increase in faith, hope and love, and all interior joy that invites and attracts to what is heavenly, and to the salvation of our soul, by filling it with peace and quiet in its Creator and Lord." Desolation, he says, is "What is entirely the opposite of consolation … darkness of soul, turmoil of spirit, inclination to what is low and earthly, restlessness arising from many disturbances which lead to lack of faith, lack of hope, and lack of love. The soul is wholly slothful, tepid, sad, and separated, as it were, from its Creator and Lord."

Thanks to my morning angel who walked me to my office and my evening angel whose blog I lurk on, I do feel some real consolation. I also recognize what a privilege it is to have decisions to wrestle with.

Reflecting on blogging kingdom signs

Thanks to the Prodigal Kiwis pointing to Steve Taylor's idea of getting members of his congregation to journal about signs of the kingdom in the their daily lives, I was inspired to do the same and have just come to the end of the month's experiment.
I shall miss it but I sense a certain liberation and achievement - is it already month - did I really manage (more or less) to submit to this kind of spiritual discipline for a whole month? Less mundanely, writing about a specific theme and trying to open myself to seeing God at work in my everyday life has been good for me. It's helped me recognize both how splendidly varied and rich my life is, but also how good it is for my soul, for my relationship with God to dwell on smaller things - the play of light, the colour of sky, the texture of friendship. As I've already mentioned it's also helped give me permission to feel and to see how alot of my anger, angst and general worrying can be transformed and used to further the work of the kingdom.
The exercise has also taken me back to reading some books which had a deep impact on my spirituality 20 years ago - Charles Elliott's Praying the Kingdom, Fulbert Steffensky's Feier des Lebens, Dorothee Sölle's Die Hinreise - it's good for me to read those again.
I already miss reading the Opawa bloggers but I look forwards to maybe one day getting people in a community I'm involved with doing something similar.
Thinking about how God may be at work has also shown me that communal prayer is not just an important part of my day but actually offers me essential structure and support for the way of the disciple. It's good to work in a place that gives me that possibility.
Meanwhile you can still keep up with Georgina and Dan on their kingdom blogs, or even try it yourselves.