Home and away

Yesterday I stood in for my colleague at the weekday parish eucharist and a home communion at one of the local retirement blocks. I was joined for both by the ordinand who has been on placement with us for the past few weeks. In the midst of all the discussions we’re having about the future and my expressions of anxiety if we revert to being too churchy in our current activity, it’s ironic that I found it enormously comforting to do some straightforward ‘vicaring’. Both services were simple, intimate and undemanding. I was able to step aside from all that’s going on in my head and be properly present to these two little groups of people and offer some straightforward sacramental ministry. I found a safe retreat in familiar, churchy stuff and perhaps more importantly with relaxed and, frankly, uncomplicated interaction with some appreciative people.

I had a similar experience conducting a funeral Monday lunchtime. It takes care and attention to lead a funeral well. But a lot of the time, it’s not difficult. I know what I’m doing. It feels like a privilege not a chore. And again, the family and friends of the lady we buried were appreciative.

In both these sorts of ministry encounter you get an immediate sense that you’re making a difference. And an immediate sense of satisfaction of a job well done. It’s not a challenge to work out what you need to do. You just need to do it well and with real presence and attention.

Part of me is not pioneering at all. Part of me, yearns for the comfort of the familiar, straightforward and instantly rewarding. I’m not sorry. It’s human. It’s normal. I just need to remember and make sure I’m not too quick to condemn others for feeling the same. We all enjoy the comforts of ‘home’.

I actually don’t know if I’m a natural pioneer or entrepreneur at all. But what has driven me to this sort of role is that I believe ‘home’ as we’ve known it is disappearing. The generation of people who would wish to have a home communion in their retirement flats complex is passing away. Passing away, of course, is what will ensure there are always funerals to conduct. But the number of people for whom a Church of England, even a Christian funeral will be relevant is also declining. And those are just symptoms of the bigger change – church just ain’t working for the majority of people. It isn’t even on their radar.

There is an argument that says that evangelical and charismatic churches are growing, so it’s all about church having a contemporary style and a clear message. But I don’t buy the argument. The evidence is much more mixed I think. Churches of all traditions are experiencing decline (and growth). And at the end of the day, whether it’s happy clappy or smells and bells, a significant and growing proportion of the population just ain’t interested.

It’s easy to get depressed about all that. But I think this is a providential moment for the Church to experience growth in depth. To rediscover its roots and find that home isn’t all about the familiar building and the familiar religious trappings – be they fuddy-duddy or ersatz contemporary, it’s about being alongside others as they and we encounter the mystery we call God in our lives. It will ask us to give up our settled existence and become a pilgrim people again, finding that wherever we are ‘away’, we’re home because we’re there with the One who calls us out of the immediate comforts of Ur to find new life in new places.

In that situation, we will, I’m sure find that some of our trappings are invested with new depth, meaning and vitality and that some are left aside. As a community, the congregation formerly known as St Luke’s, of which I am a part, is right in the middle of that process of re/discovery. We’ve pushed ourselves out beyond our comfort zone and found that there are some things we can’t do without just at the moment. But it is a moment and I’m beginning again to dare to hope that in the midst of all this, we will forge some genuinely new and most importantly authentic-for-our-locality ways of being and journeying with God.

New directions

I know someone who got themselves in a right pickle by blogging about what had gone on in a PCC meeting. PCC? Parochial Church Council – it’s a Church of England parish’s very own baby church parliament. In other church traditions the whole membership of a local congregation takes decisions about the deployment of resources. In the Anglican setup, at least in England, these decisions are delegated to a small, elected, representative body: the PCC.

The Church of England is episcopally led and synodically governed. Basically that means that clergy have all the responsibility and none of the power! Which is a good thing, I think. No really it is. I aim to give away power and pursue influence instead.

Except tonight, the PCC gave genuine leadership itself I think. And I don’t think it will be a problem to blog about it – I’m bigging them up, not dissing them!

We finally, after a few days’ delay, met to kick start the process of discerning a way forward for our main activity. I was going to say, our main Sunday morning activity, but one of the options to emerge was that we should change the time when we meet. That suggestion came from me (and actually, initially from my colleague Alex, so I’ll steal no credit there).

After a short devotional introduction, and a bit of business, we began the process of examining where we’ve got to and where we might be going next. I was surprised by how positive we were about the first of those. There was no desire to roll back in terms of location or engagement or to attempt to work with a different ‘client group’. Young families are still the focus of our presence in Wilmcote House and Somerstown more generally. Measuring ourselves against each of the five values of a mission-shaped church, there was much to encourage us.

We all know, though, that there are frustrations for some of our number – the lack of opportunities to encounter God in sung worship, the lack of extended Bible teaching and opportunities for corporate prayer, the relentless hard work required to do what we’re doing now and the smaller numbers we’re seeing on Sunday mornings these days.

I don’t share many of these concerns personally, but is undeniable that they are very much in evidence among us and that these have the potential to break our communion. Sorry if that phraseology sounds too grand. This is not on the scale or intensity of the things threatening to break the Anglican Communion. But it is clear that we cannot carry the unresolved tension any further without people feeling compelled to walk away.

So, we try and move forward together; to preserve all that we have invested in each other. At the same time, we were keen to preserve the relationships we’ve established with our new friends in Wilmcote House. I was concerned that in our desire to reinstate some aspects of worship as we have experienced we might be loading people up with some unhelpful ‘baggage’ or, worse (is it worse?) put them off completely so that they never darken their door again.

We had an involved, and at odd moments, difficult, conversation. But we managed to conduct it in a spirit of honesty, humility and compassion. At the end of that discussion, we formulated three options:

1. Integrate more familiar elements of worship throughout the morning.
   We would shorten our opening times. Instead of opening at 10 am, we would open at 10:30. As now, the first half hour would be set aside for welcome, breakfast and conversation. The next hour would incorporate singing, preaching and prayer alongside some more all-age focused activities.
2. Add a ‘service’ at the end.
   The start and finish times would remain the same, and the time between 10:30 and 11:15 would remain predominated by all-age focused activities, but the time between 11:15 and 11:45 would be a more concentrated and structured service of worship including the elements identified in option 1.
3. Move to the afternoon.
   Given that research suggests family activities are most successful in the afternoon, we thought we should consider as one of our options moving our activity to that time. This would involve an hour focused on hospitality and storytelling between 5pm and 6pm and then a contemporary music style service at 6:30 pm.

The master stroke that came out of our discussion was that the Wilmcote House families who are part of ‘us’ now should also be invited to participate in our discernment process. We could have invited them to come to our Tuesday evening gatherings that we have set aside for this purpose. But the suggestion that we should instead move our communal discernment to Sunday mornings for the next few weeks was recognised by all as the best way forward. It allows all ages to participate and allows the broadest possible participation in terms of residents, more longstanding members of the congregation formerly known as St Luke’s and some of that latter group who don’t normally make Tuesday evenings.

I am troubled by the possibility that we might be becoming more worship-shaped and less mission-shaped, slightly more stale than fresh expression, but I have to recognise the reality of where people are, what they’re able to give and what they need to receive. I just hope and pray that, whatever the final shape of what we do together, this is a necessary corrective to ensure we grow and develop as a pioneering community and not a withdrawal into more safe and familiar territory. That way lies our demise, I fear.

He ain’t heavy; he’s my brother.

So in the end it is the Tuesday homegroup that has given way for the PCC. I didn’t reinstate Sanctuary in the pub. I was knackered after camping with two sons plus lively borrowed friend of #2 son. Then early start Sunday to ensure I was ready for the Sunday Sanctuary, which involved me eating habanero chilli flavour ‘Death Rain’ crisps and real, live (actually dead and cooked) locusts. We were doing the plagues of Egypt, Horrible Histories style.

(Every time I try to type son on the iPhone keypad, it comes out as ‘sin’ — is there a message there?! And while we’re on stuff that’s got nothing to do with anything, someone nearby is playing Michael Nyman — my favourite composer. That’s apropos of nothing, by the way, thought you might like to know. 8-] )

Now my brother is coming to visit from the States next week. I will probably have to cancel Sunday night in the pub again as he, his wife and daughter are arriving that night. And then I’ve got an issue with our Tuesday evening. I set a discernment process in motion that includes these next few Tuesday evenings. But my brother and his family are coming to visit immediately following my step brother’s wedding. Do I:

1. Cancel Tuesday completely
2. Ask someone else to host a normal homegroup (cancel discernment gathering)
3. Ask someone else to run discernment process in my absence (gulp)
4. Tell my brother to amuse himself and stick to the plan (pretty sure anyone else in the group being visited by globetrotting sibling would cry off homegroup!)
5. Something else. Over to you, dear reader…

Best laid plans

With two members of the PCC at the last minute unable to come for what would have been a very significant discussion, I felt I had not choice but to postpone the meeting last night. So no options for a way forward yet. I am trying to rearrange something before Tuesday when the wider congregation meets to look at the first option.

Interestingly, I am prepared to put aside the pub conversation this week to enable the PCC to meet this Sunday evening.

What does that say about the relative importance of that gathering?

Gimme five (although four will do).

The PCC have been considering a review paper that I wrote for them. On the basis of that paper and PCC members’ responses, the PCC will try and produce three options for a way forward at its meeting on Thursday 17th June, 2010. Three is more of a guideline than a straightjacket, so if it turns out we need two or four options, that’s what we’ll do. Over the course of the three weeks following that meeting, at our Tuesday evening gatherings, we’ll be looking at each of the options in turn and entering into a process of spiritual discernment.

That process, much like the way we approached it at our weekend away back in March, comprises 3 broad stages:

1. GATHERING IN CHRIST
2. LISTENING TO THE HOLY SPIRIT
3. GOING FORTH AS GOD’S PEOPLE

This process is adapted from Victoria G Curtiss’s Guidelines for Communal Discernment, available here.

1. GATHERING IN CHRIST
Our usual habit of eating together and sharing Communion will function as the first of those stages but perhaps to ensure the rest of the process doesn’t feel too confined, we might forgo having a pudding for these weeks! We will also try to start the meal promptly at 7:40, giving 10 minutes for people to arrive, say hello and get a drink. I will try and ensure we have finished at the table by 8:30. At the end of our Communion, we will hear the option being considered and be given a printed copy. We then move into the main exploration.

2. LISTENING TO THE HOLY SPIRIT
I have suggested we proceed as follows:

• Letting go
  I want to invite us all to approach our discernment prayerfully, letting go of any barriers to being receptive to the Holy Spirit’s leading. To do that we need in a moment of quiet to ask for the grace to lay aside our ego, preconceived ideas, biases, and predetermined conclusions that may limit openness to God. What we’re looking for is ‘holy indifference’. That means being indifferent to everything except God’s will. It doesn’t mean, ‘I don’t care.’ And it doesn’t mean we lose our values and convictions. It simply means we are called to be open and focused above all on what God might be calling us to be and do. (Much of this is word for word from Curtiss)
• Reflecting on the Bible.
  Listening.
  It would be tempting to select a text that offered some support to my own point of view! Or at least for people to feel that I had. I suggest therefore that we make the set gospel reading each week our text for that week. I think it would be helpful too to hear an initial reflection on that reading from different people each week. I am therefore looking for three people who will be willing on one of those weeks each to bring a short reflection (5-10 minutes) on that reading. It will require a little preparation, of course but I already have two volunteers.
  Connecting.
  We’ll follow that with a few moments in quiet, during which I’ll ask each of us to write down the one word or phrase in the reading or what was said following that spoke to us most immediately or seemed to capture the essence of what God might be saying to each of us. We’ll then swap those papers and read each one in turn.
  Examining ourselves
  We then take a few moments in quiet to ask ourselves the question: what might God be asking of me as I approach this process of discernment?
• Sharing our stories
  Again, in quiet, on one side of a slip of paper, we each write down one thing that concerns us about the option before us and one thing that concerns us. We share our concerns in turn. We all listen in silence. We share our excitement in turn. Again, we all listen in silence. One person records all the things that are shared.
• Pause for reflection
  We keep a moment of quiet for reflection on what we have heard.
• Discussion
  We take time to explore our response to the option put before us in conversation.

3. GOING FORTH AS GOD’S PEOPLE

• Choose direction
  As ‘president’, I attempt to gather our collective response to the option before us and shape it into a summary statement. We express our support of the proposal using the five finger method, as follows:
  5 fingers      I am fully supportive.
  4 fingers       I am mostly in agreement 
and am willing to support the majority.
  3 fingers       I have questions or reservations
 but am willing to stand aside;
  2 fingers       I am somewhat opposed and have concerns.
  1 finger        I cannot support this at this time.
• Rest with the direction
  We spend a few moments in quiet again, entrusting our exploration to God and praying for our continuing discussions.

Out of this process, the PCC, as trustee of the parish’s resources, will determine how we should proceed together, selecting one of the original options or another that may have emerged from our exploration. I’ll keep readers of this blog up to date with how this proceeds.

That’ll ’ave ’em flocking in.

This is a poster I came across at Portsmouth and Southsea station. It’s great to be inspired by some cutting edge compassionate evangelism like this Someone obviously thought this would be a good idea! In fact if everyone who is the least little bit proud is an abomination, that’s me stuffed! Now I know it is in the Bible, but honestly, of all the things this lot could have chosen as God’s message for people getting off a train at Portsmouth and Southsea station (which is dreary enough as it is) they chose this. Well done! Good work fellas!

Which way(s) now?

So enough of me and my angst (for now ). This week the PCC meet to kick of the process of reviewing where we’ve got to with what we’re currently doing and how we might develop. The discussion will be in two parts. The first part takes us through the values of a mission-shaped church, as we have been paraphrasing them. The second is about trying to determine what options there are for taking things forward.

PART ONE: Where have we got to?

Are our Sunday and Tuesday gatherings:

• INSPIRED BY GOD?
  Are we* all drawn closer to God?
• RELATED TO CONTEXT?
  Are we* connecting with the locality and its culture?
  Are we* relating to the right context? (Are we where we’re being called to be?)
• MAKING A DIFFERENCE?
  Are we* making life better for the community we serve?
  Are we* making enough of a difference to enough people?
• CHANGING PEOPLE’S LIVES?
  Are we* active in calling and helping each other to become disciples of Christ?
• BUILDING COMMUNITY?
  Is all that we* do characterised by welcome and hospitality.
  Are our* ethos and style open to change as new people join?

* To what extent should we consider newer members from Wilmcote House as being part of our community in these questions? Is it us/them, or we? That’s not an entirely straightforward question. The way we have responded to newer members needs in practical ways suggests the members of the Congregation Formerly Known as St Luke’s (TCFKASL) see these newer people as part of our community. And the way they have got involved in helping to make our Sunday mornings happen suggests they have a sense of ownership and investment in who we are together. On the other hand, these newer members have not yet taken the steps (such as baptism) that would allow them to officially participate in the governance of the parish.

Where do we go from here?

The original vision for TCFKASL, that I laid out last summer, is that we would become a mission community, spending a period rooted in particular places in order to found new, indigenous and eventually self-sustaining congregations in Somerstown. TCFKASL would be sustained in its mission spirituality by forging and living a shared ‘rule’ (in the neo-monastic vein) in our Tuesday gatherings and our everyday lives.

• How does that look now that we have begun to engage?
• Is the original vision still sound?
  If not, how do we go about forging a new vision?
• How do we change what we do now in order to address its current shortcomings and to allow for the emergence/evolution of our vision for our place in this locality? This might include consideration of our target group, the location of our activities, their timing, format and frequency as well as how we make best use of our current resources and personnel.
• Do we need to change what we do now radically or more gradually?
• What different possibilities are there that we can agree to take forward into the discernment process with the wider congregation in the coming weeks?

It’s just that you’re dead for such a long time.

WARNING:
Here follow some things you’re probably not supposed to say.

I am resentful.
I resent my kids. I resent my job.

Got your attention? Then perhaps I’d better clarify. There are moments — my weaker moments — when I feel resentful. Trouble is, as time goes by, I don’t feel like I’m on a trajectory to fewer weaker moments. As I get older, I feel I am subject to a sort of creeping curmudgeonliness. I’m not that old of course (I turn 39 this month). But as Indy said, it’s not the years, it’s the mileage. And with three kids and a challenging ministry, I’m clocking up plenty of miles, and wondering how long I can keep up this pace of life — especially as I’m essentially a lazy sod.

As the t-shirts say: It’s not that life’s too short, it’s just that you’re dead for such a long time.

I’ve always been kind of conscious of mortality. So, for instance, I’m not entirely comfortable in the company of people over 50. It’s not that there aren’t people over 50 that I like. There are. Some of my best friends are over 50. It’s just that there’s this question grumbling away in my mind and one day I’m afraid I’ll ask it out loud:

‘What does it feel like to have more of your life behind you than ahead of you?’

And I’m very conscious that the time is fast approaching when I too will cross that line. And as time’s wingèd chariot draws near, I have begun to feel a little unsettled and a little, well, resentful, as I said.

How can I possibly say I resent my kids? I have childless friends who would dearly love to have children. They know it’s not a bed of roses but honestly, they’d give their eye teeth to be ‘blessed’ in the way we are.

Maybe resent isn’t the right word. It’s not that I don’t love my children. I love them fiercely. I only have to think about what it might be like to lose one of them to know that. But there is just this niggling sense that our lives are so absorbed in theirs that we’ve lost ourselves a bit.

We waited a few years before starting a family. In that time we had a couple of memorable holidays. But I can’t help feeling that the world offers such a breadth and richness of different experiences and that we’ve missed our chance to really travel and experience the world.

Some of you reading this might be thinking that there’s always the time when our children have left home. Actually I’d dearly live to share some of those experiences with them.

But it’s not just that. It’s actually a concern for my children and the sort of life we’re modelling for them.

We’re putting ourselves to not a little trouble to try and ensure that our eldest has the opportunity to go to a secondary school that will give him the best chance to make the most of his ability. We will do the same for his brother and sister when it comes to it. But not just so that they can do the same for their children, if they eventually have families of their own. I want them to get something out of life for themselves. To have a life. To do stuff. To have interests. To experience the world. Raising children is one of the most rewarding things one can do in itself. But I think there might be a difference between living for others and living through them. My faith calls me to be committed to seek to live in a way that puts others’ needs before my own. But life is also for living — life is a gift to be enjoyed in all its fulness. As the old lyric goes: ‘I did not put you here to suffer/I did not put you here to whine/I put you here to love another/And to get out and have a good time now’ (Rainmakers: Let my people go).

Living a miserably selfless life now because there’s heaven to come seems to me to be a denial of that gift. Enjoying life doesn’t seem to me to be at odds with a life of faith. It’s just that lots of enjoyable things require resources!

Which brings me to my second resentment: my work.

Being a stipendiary priest in the Church of England isn’t a bad gig. It’s not a proper job for goodness sake and we’re a lot better off than most of the population of the world and a lot of people in this country, even. But it’s hard not to cast an envious eye over at friends whose earnings give them the freedom to go to the places they want and do what they want. It’s not about getting more stuff. I really don’t much care what car I have, for instance. All right I would quite like an iPad and an iPhone 4 and… and… Okay so maybe it’s a little bit about stuff.

This is all sounding so shallow. Well believe me, I do have hidden shallows. Sometimes they’re not even that well hidden.

I guess what I’m getting at is that I thought having the chance to be a priest would just mean I didn’t really care about what other people get to do by virtue of their earnings. But it turns out I do. And I guess I want to have a life, and I want my kids to have a life in their turn, that isn’t just about the kids. The loss of other opportunities because of the choices we’ve made is not insignificant.

I don’t expect any sympathy for my middle class, middle-aged angst. It’s all a bit pathetic. But maybe sharing this waffle might just make someone else feel less bad about themselves if they’ve got these feelings too. Does any of this ring any bells for you?

Power to the people!

Another 70s TV reference! Robert Lindsay as ‘Wolfie’ from Citizen Smith.

So when the PCC of St Luke’s agreed to relocate our main Sunday activity to Wilmcote House — one of the local tower blocks — it was, at my suggestion, for the period of one year. We agreed that we would review before the summer break.

And here we are. That review is about to take place. And it’s clear that some members of the congregation formerly known as St Luke’s are wanting to ask some pretty searching questions about what we do. Let me be clear: that’s a good thing. I should be welcoming it. I do. But I also feel somewhat nervous about it.

Why is that?

Perhaps there are two reasons.

FIRST: THIS IS MY BABY

It isn’t of course. This is not my church or my mission. But its current form is an expression of a vision I’ve been articulating – that we would become a mission community, spending a period rooted in particular places in order to found new, indigenous and eventually self-sustaining congregations in Somerstown. TCFKASL (The Congregation Formerly Known As St Luke’s) would be sustained in its mission spirituality by forging and living a shared ‘rule’ in our Tuesday gatherings and our everyday lives.

So I’ve got a lot invested in this enterprise, emotionally, spiritually and, dare I say it, in terms of my reputation. Now some of you more saintly readers of this blog will perhaps be shocked that such a consideration as the last of those should even feature. But there it is. I admit it. I have an ego. It matters what people think. It’s not decisive, but it’s there. Perhaps because I acknowledge it, I’m better able to mediate against its less favourable influence. Time will tell.

By suggesting that we keep the arrangement to a year, I was attempting to save us from getting stuck in yet another set way of being and doing. It was my intention that the arrangement should never become fixed, but always provisional, under constant review. The funny thing is that I think of all of us involved, I have become the most ‘stuck’ in what we’re currently doing. I do genuinely think we might need to give it a bit longer to see how it might work. Even though this is the annual review, we’ve actually only been going for seven months.

SECOND: WHAT ABOUT US?

I am nervous because in part the motivation for some of the questioning is that perennial question ‘what about us?’ I don’t blame or condemn people for that question. It’s a perfectly legitimate question. I’ve been saying for all those months we’ve been operating and for several before that, that if we engage with God in God’s mission we will be fed. And I’ve been saying that if we engage with children, like whom we are invited to become, we will meet God. I’ve been saying it. But for some at least, the experience hasn’t lived up to my rhetoric. There is a degree to which I wonder whether people have been as open to those sorts of experience as they might. But the fact remains. What I said would happen for people has only happened really for those who already found spiritual fulfilment in those ways.

So my nervousness comes from the desire I hear being expressed to pull back from the ecclesiological edge to somewhere a little more familiar. It worries me that the new people we’ve got to know could be sidelined as longstanding Christians look for more of what they’ve known in their church experience.

This is such a difficult balance to tread. In one sense, I am tempted (alongside my recognition that ‘I’m a failure’) to see this as a failure of my leadership. I have not managed to persuade people or demonstrate to them in our shared enterprise that the presence of God is to be found and that this is of itself worship and offers opportunities for discipleship. I am actually not so sure of this position as I once was. I need to look into the Tradition and recent experience to explore more deeply how it is that a mission community on the edge is spiritually sustained.

But on another level, I think I can allow myself to recognise, without blowing my own trumpet – well all right, maybe just a little – that this paradoxically represents an endorsement of my leadership. Because alongside the mission stuff (and in fact not separable from it) is the community stuff. I have worked hard to foster investment in relationships that are open, honest and trusting. People expect and feel safe to share how they’re really finding their journey. And in looking for and implementing ways that we can share in communal discernment, I have encouraged this community to develop a flat structure and an ethos of shared responsibility.

We find our way forward together. So that’s what we’re doing. We are going to try to find a way forward together that allows space for people to be resourced spiritually in more familiar ways as well as engaging in adventurous mission.

Cirque d’humanité

Am I a weirdo? Does anyone else feel moved, almost to tears, when watching a circus? I remember watching the main show at the Millennium Dome (now the O2) and weeping.

I think it was something then about the sheer beauty of it. The Moscow State Circus on Pompey’s Southsea Common didn’t quite have that same quality. But it was breathtaking at some points. I think what moves me is the humanity. Human potential is on show in the most awe-inspiring way.

The performers are like superheroes. The feats they perform are phenomenal. And yet. They are clearly human beings. They aren’t superheroes. They sometimes get it wrong. And there are moments where you can just tell they’re as unsure they’re going to pull it off as the audience members are. Or at least this one is. These are ordinary people who have been willing to work tirelessly to develop their strength, stamina, suppleness, balance and co-ordination to a very high degree.

Some of these things will be on display in the beautiful game over the next few weeks, of course. But though I love football and I’m really looking forward to the World Cup, I don’t remember being moved to tears by the sheer humanity of the display. There are tears when you support England. But they’re not for that.

Maybe it’s because I know that football players are paid obscene amounts of money. It’s as if the humanity and passion of it is sullied to a large degree by filthy lucre. I don’t doubt these circus performers would like to be rich. But I’m pretty sure they’re not. They’re travellers. People of the road. There’s something about the fragility of the economics of a circus and the performers who work in it that makes the humanity of it all the more poignant.

They’re a small community, living and journeying together and doing things with their bodies that you wouldn’t think possible. But possible they are. And so they communicate something to me of the beauty of human potential. (Dance often has the same effect on me.) They inspire and confirm the thought that each and every person I meet is amazing and has the potential to do amazing things.

It inspires me to disbelieve the things I know children in some of the schools I work in say about themselves or have said to them (not by the schools but by the wider culture). They feel that they’re no good. They’re not. The enormity of their potential makes me weep.

And yes, I am cast from that same human stuff. So I too am encouraged to strive to be more than my last post suggested I thought I can be.

I probably have booked a place in pseud’s corner with all that, but to be honest, I don’t care. I’m happy to be thought pretentious. Whether this makes sense to anyone else or not, I don’t think I can stop myself from shedding the odd tear at the circus. Where are the clowns? Send in the clowns, etc.