Busy with PhD

Lets see what the last fortnight has brought. A week ago on Tuesday I got to doing another interview for my PhD. For this one the recording lasted over two hours which means it is going to be a difficult on to transcribe however a lot of it was interesting. This couple naturally talked at a more theoretical level than most people. He was a former church secretary and it was clear that he had thought about what was going on in the church. One of his objections was the diminition of the role of elder within the church and how elders should be far more the leadership within the congregation. I still have to copy the recording onto my computer and the file will be large. Maybe I let my computer do it while I am at writers group tomorrow

I have been to two housegroups as well. One last Wednesday and one this. They are at present studying Romans and people seem to be happier to talk about what is going on in Romans rather than on James which they had earlier. I wondered partly if the non-talking earlier was due to me being there but the leader of the group complained to me about it as if it was always there. I think he now expects people to phone him with queries, but I suspect they won't although they may talk with David Legge. There is still the old mentality of the minister being the authority on such matters, much as David may not like it. Actually I think there is something more going on. I would guess probably in the 1970s but maybe either earlier or later the church was faced with a generation of young people who took a quizzical look at the faith rather than accepting it authoritatively from their elders. I know many people always did, but there was a change in society with respect to how open one could be. What concerns me is not directly what happened to the young people themselves but what I noticed happened to the middle aged. They did not start doubting their faith, but they lossed confidence in themselves to talk and express it. Therefore they withdrew from situations where these questions were asked. I don't believe it has caused a whole sale collapse of the church but it has caused a change in the character of the church. The church today is far more conservatives than it was. People seem to be looking for people who are coping with the questioning and on the surface the conservatives seem to do this. This is showing itself in a number of ways in my thesis (more later).

The weekend St Andrew's Chesterfield was having one of its busy weekends. It had a gift day on the Saturday, which was held in the Michael room. For those who want some idea of size the Michael Room is a long thin room and must have about the same area as my lounge, perhaps my lounge is bigger. The gift day is solely within the congregation. There were two small tables that seat six max up for coffee. and a tray with the coffee on plus a smaller table for the treasurer. The room was thus full. They previously had dropped in individually to see the minister in his study, this year no one bothered about dropping in so David came out to chat. On the evening they had a quiz. It was organised by Rosemary and Ian who are not the usual suspects. What was not obvious was that the quiz night was openned to all Chesterfield churches and there was a good turn out from Rosehill Group as well as Holymoorside. It was not the sort of quiz I am good at, the wrong questions all the way through but we did not come last. Teams were created on the night. David and I tried to set up a microphone in the hall but it just played to the echo and therefore people were less audible.

Sunday they had two services but as I was writing I only went to the evening one. It was a Just Desserts and at the start of these David normally has a colouring activity for the children and discussion questions for the adults. Well he had both ready this time. The first question on the adult discussion paper was on whether Jesus knew he was going to be crucified. That was talked about. The next line mentioned the children's colouring activity and that is normally skipped adults don't colour things because Children do. Well almost every single adult did the colouring activity this week. I can suppose a variety of reasons such as: joint table (normally separate)= shared space, type of activity (decorate a cross with what is important in your lives), a method of avoiding the questions on the paper. It was intriguing behaviour. If I had done it or one or two had done it, it wouldn't have counted but everyone but one did it and there were about eight to ten adults all told.

The weather has taken a turn for the better a couple of days recently I have gone out in only a thick jumper. I would not do this if it was for a whole day but if just for about an hour then it can be pleasant and there is really not much risk of rain. On Wednesday at prayer group we sat out in the garden. Rosie who normally tries to get us out whatever the weather was sceptical but St Andrews Sheffield garden is so sheltered that, although it would have been difficult to sit out anywhere else in Sheffield, there it was very pleasant.

I have only had a half day off with migraine this last fortnight. The rest of stuff has been much more slight although I did miss church today. Telling a lie actually I decided as I was feeling over pressurised last night that I had better not go this morning and just catch up on what I had not done which was partly write other visits up. However as is typical of such situations I then threw a mild migraine this morning which was over by 11:00 a.m. but that was too late to go to church. The dispiriting thing is finding new things to try to see if the migraine will diminish. I have found that lavender, geranium and majoram essential oils put on an evaporator seem to help and I went to a cranial osteopath on Friday to see if they could do anything. He commented that my back was very tense (tell me something I did not know) but also at one time asked if I had had any other head injuries, none that I can recall. It was Cathy who seemed to be good at hitting her head when we were children.

This last weekend has been a cooking and baking one. I have made dhal and cooked rice. Also made a ginger cake which is an experiment as it has very little sugar in it and I replaced half the flour with buckwheat flour. I wanted to use oatmeal but Tescos did not seem to sell that. I thought I had got it with micro oats but that turned out to be oats for making porridge in the microwave. So Mum and Dad as you eat porridge I will send that back with you if you do not mind.

Oh Gell St Park has lots of wild daffodils all flowering at the moment.

This week I am off to Birmingham to see my supervisor. Otherwise just a normal week.