Ember Card, 2011

Faith as risk

I've been training towards C of E ordination and a full-time paid curacy. Now that's in question. Here's the story, or its bones at least.

Selection is understood as a process of discernment - the object being to understand if the sense of call to ministry is experienced by the individual and recognised as appropriate and timely by the church.  My call came in 1984. How it came and how I was on the run for over twenty years is a whole other story. Buy me a beer and I'll tell you.

Right in the middle of the selection process, as a family we decided we were going to move to Cambridge. Our timing couldn't have been worse in so many ways: it was a costly move in a lot of ways, but also one which we experienced as totally right. This felt like a calling too - and not just to me individually this time.

It meant a jitter in the selection process, but Ely Diocese (Cambridge is part of Ely from the C of E's point of view) put me back just a couple of steps, not right back to the beginning. I was selected, and accepted at Ridley Hall (theological college) and by Sidney Sussex (matriculating college), hallelujah! 

Also costly, though. A couple of years of minimal (but still generous - who else pays people to train these days?) financial support, another tranche of downsizing. But we knew, at least, that at the end would be a curacy which would provide a family home and an income (stipend in church-speak - money paid to enable ministry, not technically a salary).

A seismic moment came last July, when I learned that that curacy wouldn't be in the Diocese. On reflection, this was an opportunity to rethink things that might have saved some trouble. Oh, the joy of rear-view mirror vision! However, after a couple of false starts I found and agreed a curacy: if you're on our Christmas card list you've had the details.

And now, after serious reflection and what I would again describe as call we have now agreed not to take that up. It's possible that something else will come up that meets our circumstances, but it's an unlikely possibility.

Where does that lead? Very probably it means finding work outside the church for the near-term. Lots of wise friends and associates are contributing to that decision; the key choice is something we'll have to make this month.

I'm excited and alarmed in roughly equal measure. I have strong marketing credentials and a passion for business, but now isn't a great time to be getting back into the market, especially after a two year break. 

My thinking at the moment is that I'll rebuild my portfolio career - combining work with small and startup businesses with projects for larger businesses in the technology space. And I know there's a great deal of risk in that. So here's my own challenge of discernment - is embracing that risk together with the risk of faith in Jesus Christ where God is calling me?

Somehow even the thought is energising, nourishing. And, yes, scary. Not very much like the comfortable talk of 'living on the edge' in lecture rooms. That would be a good thing.

Putting this on my blog feels like a big risk in itself. Because we've swapped tracks from a route where things are clear and safe from any outsider's point of view, to one that has a whole lot more questions than answers. Honesty is potentially rather costly.

So if you're the praying type, do feel free to adopt the Parsons family as a cause to place before God. And if not, well, say one anyway, what harm could that do?

The University of Cambridge and the Diocese of Ely are 800 years old

On the first Saturday of Lent Term there was a ringing of bells and a light show to mark the start of the 800th anniversary celebrations

Actually we went to an event (a lecture on the 'Horrible Science of Cambridge')  before Christmas that was also the start. Well, it's a big occasion, why not start a few times...

More photos are here and there's a video to give you more of a feel of what it was like here, then there's University stuff here and Diocese of Ely stuff (founded at the same time) here.

Mission is possible

Four of us have been on mission in Ely Cathedral this week. Not 'a mission' but part of the ongoing mission, working as day chaplains and talking to anyone and everyone who ventures in or near the building.

Ely is a small city with a big cathedral, thanks to the Saxon Princess Etheldreda, who founded a double monastery (for men and women) in the 7th century. It became a place of pilgrimage, leading to the building of a great Norman Abbey with Etheldreda's shrine, and the establishment of the cathedral and its diocese.

The cathedral church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity suffered a setback in the 1300s when one of its towers collapsed, but this led to a great symbol of resurrection with the building of the Octagon and its lantern that draws a quarter of a million visitors a year to the former swampy island.

The Victorians carried out major refurbishments, opening the inside of the building into one glorious sweep, installing the beautiful stained glass windows and building a beamed and painted roof that draws gasps from all but the fussiest (and most historically naive!) visitors.

More recently, refurbishments to mark the millenium included restoration of the Lady Chapel, a new enclosed processional walkway and a range of sculptures around the building. Well over a thousand years of praise and prayer are in the foundations of this church (buildings and people).

So much for the history. The present is the 'nerve centre' of Ely diocese, which includes Cambridge and Huntingdon alongside the many fenland towns and villages. Until a couple of days ago, that was my diocese: my 'sending church' is a Cambridge church, Holy Trinity, so I came to train as an Ely ordinand.

Ely isn't exactly short of ordinands, and I now know I'm not one of the privileged few who will remain but one of the large majority who are 'exported' - so my hunt for a curacy somewhere starts here. Or it will when we're past the grieving stage. Meanwhile, back to the week of mission.
Four of us - Jamie, Nick and Stefan and myself - donned cassocks and badges and met between us lots and lots of people. Our job in a nutshell was to offer prayer to and for all who felt in need, and to help all our visitors to relate the buildings and their history, Jesus whose story is told by those buildings, their fixtures and the daily pattern of services, and their own life and story. Not in a ramming-religion-down-your-throat kind of way, just being available, friendly and taking a few risks. It's genuinely a privilege to meet so many people from so many places near and far.

Looking up in the octagon there's a 14th century statue of the crucified and risen Christ, showing (assisted with Victorian paint and beams from every age in between) one hand raised in blessing and displaying the wounds that mark the brokenness he received from us and took into the very heart of God for us.

His blessing offered freely and his voluntary suffering are always the beginning of the Gospel. For our own issues we receive not always relief, not even an explanation, but always that loving, wounded hand reaching out to take ours.