On Trinity Sunday 2013

Work wise I have been busy, there has been teaching statistics to Linguistics and slowly dealing with them. It has been time consuming on the whole and taken up more than I expected particularly as I had to learn R. Now R is not easy to learn, rather in its raw form it is a bit like finding your way around an unknown city where you have to ask strangers directions and there is no map. The problem is that you often do not know what is the next piece of information you need. Most software on the other hand has both your very detailed instructions and also menus that work some thing like a satnav and yes you can end up arriving in totally the wrong place if you just use them. Yes I can make it dance when I want to, but how much do I want to? Well maybe my need for a decent graphics package will encourage me to see if I can at least learn enough of it to draw good graphs! It has some quite sophisticated graphics tools. There is also a new system for booking courses that some groups are using. They want me to look at it but make the date for a Friday which is my day off. Then I have been busy with Human Nutrition, one paper has just been published but had a very efficient main researcher, one paper about to be submitted, in the end we called off trying to analyse the data in different ways and finally there is one paper where I and the other data analyst do not agree on figures. I am also trying to negotiate the setting up of extra NVivo courses.

I am also slowly being inducted into the chaplaincy. I have so far got through synod, had the talk with this years coordinating chaplain (Peter Cullen), got an SRB check form filled in and also had a request for my username so they could give me access to the shared drive. The chaplaincy is a lot bigger than it was when I was last in this role, oh and it is weird because I am both the newcomer and also experienced hand. Setting up for communion a couple of weeks ago I recognised the cloth they were using and I made a comment about being able to change how it was gathered as they were struggling to get it onto the communion table. Then promptly started untying the knot. The comment came back “Do you know this piece of cloth?” It is just like the question of how the pebbles came from St Columba’s Bay Iona, well I picked them up put them in a rucksack, then gave them to my parents to bring back. The thing that really gave me deja vu was the first communion back in the Octagon Centre. I struggled to get in due to building works but when I did, there in front of Meetings Room 1 was Cat the Methodist Chaplain and a whole lot of students, standing around just as the chaplains used to before Thursday’s communion. No communion is not back in Meetings Room 1 but for a while I really just accepted it was. Unfortunately I am not getting to the away day as it clashes with my next supervision.

Church wise I think things are settling down at church, I am trying to find out where I fit as I am finding it is not to the place I left. This is not due to a shortage of suggestions. I think at times they would like me to do far more that I am capable of. Some of the things are simple, the choir tried to recruit me, but I knew a prior commitment to the sound desk ruled that out and I get slightly worried about a choir that wants to recruit me. The other thing is in some ways Sarah prepared St Andrew’s too well for being without a minister. I am having to run a mild campaign to persuade them that being without your own minister does not mean being without any ministerial coverage and that there are ways that we may have a share of a minister. The problem is that as they do not believe they will get anything out of any discussions they are at present quite wary of discussions. They also are finding that Bob Heathcote’s approach which is to listen first and then propose difficult to understand. They want something that they can deal with and conceptually I think the idea of a collaboration has not been thought through. They want a detail so they can see how it might work. I struggle with this having been in various styles of groups of churches until I came to St Andrew’s. I suppose if you have only experienced one minister to a church model then anything else feels like a foreign country. There are plans for the anniversary service on 23rd June and there is a Mission and Care group in July. This month with the third Sunday being Pentecost and therefore a joint CTBB service I decided I would work that Sunday and go this Sunday. However next month is going to be tricky indeed with me really needing to be there for all Sundays plus some time on one Saturday.

Writers group has been going again which is good, it has become a place where I feel I am among friends and I concentrate on other things than thesis. At present we are partially preparing for the Broomhill Festival Reading where some of us including myself are performing. I am beginning to realise that I am getting to be write more competently, especially when people comment on how good the material is that I plan to read. Choosing it was difficult as I was holding back some of the material I have written for the reading in the autumn. At first people were hesitant to join in so we asked another group called the Tuesday Poets if they would join us. Now there are plenty of volunteers but the Tuesday Poets have given us male voices and as all the writers in the group at present are women this was something we lacked.

Finally thesis for those who do not read my thesis blog. Well I have now submitted possible second drafts for all my substantive thesis chapters to my supervisor. One of them needs quite a bit of work but I am actually quite pleased with the other five. I am hoping that I can get the work done tomorrow. There is then just my introduction, methodology and conclusion to get to the same state. The introduction I think is fairly close to there, the methodology needs cutting by 50% and I have not written a word of my conclusion. The game plan is to do this over the next month or so. Then it is proofing in earnest. less Jean

From the weekend after the jubilee

I am going to do highlights rather than the whole thing, actually because I can’t remember far enough back to do a blow by blow account. The week before last was quieter. I suppose a highlight was going around for a meal with my friend Margo. I have sussed now what to take for her children to drink. Marks and Spencers still lemonade works a treat. Her son likes proper lemonade and her daughter does not like fizzy drinks so this suits both of them without seeming to choose one over another. Her daughter is Sam’s age and her son I suspect is between Jenny and Cait. He is also a proper book worm. It is pleasant to go out for a meal with friends and Margo is a good cook and her daughter a good baker.


Otherwise the Jubilee weekend was spent editing. alright so there was a migraine thrown in with that. I managed to reduce the chapter by over 4000 words, it still needs to diet further, not least because I am realising I have to include the way the congregations relate to the minister which is interesting, This past week I have really started the next chapter, although it was writing the relevant appendix. As with all chapters at this stage I am feeling quite a lot of trepidation but I am now at least confident that I know how to get there. This one is centred around worship, as such it will include the material I have already turned into papers. However those will also have to be substantially rewritten. The one on Cafe Church is going to have to be one on subsidiary and occasional services. That would alter the focus quite substantially. the one on hymns can probably remain largely intact. There will also be one on communion, not about who can have communion but about the actual liturgy used. There is definitely one of baptism which therefore leaves me with prayers and sermons and I may have little to say on those. Then I have to pull together the ideas around worship and what is going on with respect to identity.. This chapter should also build on the previous two.


The week was otherwise quiet and I was looking forward to having Thursday to actually get some development work done, it looked hopeful when I got up but over breakfast I developed cramps due to time of the month and when painkillers did not settle them I went to bed with a hot water bottle. I thought I would be up in the afternoon and indeed the cramps stopped quite quickly but then I went off to sleep and did not wake until after 2pm which is too late to go into work So I finally did the reading of a couple of chapters from a couple of books that I have used in my thesis. I had read about the chapters but had not read the actual chapters. One problem is that in one case I have had to use a collection rather than the original (in the other though obscure enough copies of the original were available for Oxfam to provide me with one).

Friday was a bit of an odd day, I did not settle very well for a variety of reasons, I eventually started to make Minerva (she is amigurumi that I created for myself. An owl (owlet) with an eyepatch and walking boots. I googled owl designs but did not like any of them really, was far happier producing a cape like cover for the back rather than the cartoon style wings quite a few of the patterns had. Birds do not use wings as alternatives to arms, and if she does use anything like hands it is going to be her beak. The aim was to produce something I could use to create a small image to use in work rather than my walking boots but it also gave me an example of what I do which I could take to writers group. Not sure if anyone will want one but it is something I can do with relatively low hassle. I think I may have to do further work to get this right. Maybe I need to print the photograph and then paint it to get what I want for the image.


Today I was at church, one of the Henstridges family was being baptised so the church was pretty full. I have noticed that people tend not to sit in the rows by the pillars. I sent an email before last weekend asking Sheila to look for elders to serve at July’s communion, as with not serving and not regularly being around church I find time chasing people to do things time consuming of thesis time. It was simply a reminder. My mistake was not making it clear. She interpreted it as me not doing table elder. I wondered why she wanted the case. This was a communication failure on both our parts. I guess I sounded apologetic because I felt awkward reminding her and therefore she interpreted that I was apologising for something. Whatever it is, it is a miscommunication and the responsibility lies with both of us. So now we have to stop people from panicking.

Chatter after an autumnal week

Its funny how having a single item on some-days can make the day seem overloaded, this is the way I felt around having an appointment for S. S is an overseas student who is researching the economic effects of AIDS in I thin Sub-Saharan Africa. A good enough research topic and one which would be interesting to here the results from. The problem is that I don’t believe a single one of his results due to the input of data being so poor. I have not seen him for a couple of years and I learnt he was relying on my keeping a good copy of the data (I had done so but more because I am pretty methodical over keeping data) rather than because I felt I ought). Anyway it was writers group on the evening and I was just hoping my selection would work for the reading. I got there and realised my either/or option had been interpreted as two separate poems so had to do a quick shuffle of papers. Secondly one of the poems I was reading for the first time (although I had sent it around the group the previous week) and I really wanted the groups feedback on that. They liked the selection so I decided to stick with it. Anyone got any idea how you select work for a reading because after five attempts I still don’t know.

I have it agreed that before a supervision I can have one work at home day to spend on my thesis (I think it might technically once a month but as I don’t always take one supervision I am not too fussed on that. This time I found that the only date I could take it was Tuesday, so I did and because my piece was already written for the supervision and with the proof readers and I was feeling the need for reading, I sat down and spent most of the day reading. I finished one book on the theory of what Religion is called Crossings and Dwellings by Thomas A Tweed. This is not because I need to define religion but because his understanding of religion picks up very much the ways I want to talk about congregational life. The theorists who share your metaphors are often worth reading to see what others have done with them. Then got onto Ravished by Beauty by Belden C. Lane  which is an attempt to try and iterate a Reformed ecological spirituality. No my thesis is not interested in ecology but I am interested in the way he has built a spirituality as I have to do that.The reason Jonathon Edwards was not picked up is the book has gone into hiding and I hope it surfaces soon. Actually reading days are also good mental health days and I have felt a lot livelier in work since.

Wednesday I had a course on teaching statistics. Not that I am planning on teaching statistics but I do need to keep contact with the statistics teachers in the university to do my job and this course which was part course, part social was a time to do that. One of the problems with my job is that the department has some measure of responsibility towards providing the statistical software that is widely taught, but nobody tells me what they are teaching so I normally find that we have a package on site only when people want it on the network and there is some difficulty so the people call me in to liase. I was at that from about 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. or later. Partly because there is a definite need to tackle a masters course that is causing problems and there were at least three different perspectives all agreeing that this needed tackling.

Thursday I went on another training course, this time actually for personal development as it was about influencing people. Useful if only because I am beginning to understand what I might need to do to be more effective in that side of my job that requires me to develop things. I am really good at one to one support on research issues but I also need to find ways to create cooperation so that more effective ways of providing support are forth coming. On the afternoon I spent dealing with a number of queries from Human Nutrition. One member of staff is failing to communicate with me there so I am finding she expects things and I have not done them because she has not asked. I therefore have a bit of a panic on this coming Monday, suvivable but I am sure I will find the time to do it.

Friday was my day off, first priority was to get the words written up for thesis, another 2226 words typed and you can hear more about how it is going on my thesis blog . Actually I find it interesting the way blogs attract interest. The blog this goes on is open and generally chatty with a lot of posts on it. However I have a third blog where I post occasional musings. This has a far lower postage rate, but has a much higher hit rate, and has been very high the last week or so with over 300 hits and I can’t find the link to it. I must admit the post linked to I linked to on Ship of Fools actually both the highest hitters have been posts I posted to say something at more length than I felt comfortable doing on a Bulletin Board so linked to from the ship.On the evening my writers group held its annual reading. This was held at Bank Street Arts Centre which is a bit out of the way behind the Cathedral.  It is a strange mix of buildings and feels a bit like a set of houses around an enclosed courtyard but none of the buildings that would have been the houses feel particularly substantial. The floors are on all sorts of levels and on an evening to get to the room where we hold the reading you need to go in one entrance, down a flight of steps to the courtyard and up another flight of step to the second entrance. All the steps are in the courtyard. They also have a cafe/bar which serves alcohol, coffee, cake and such on am most odd basis. The room we were using at the time had an exhibition of entry to Sheffield International Arts book Prize. These were actually quite intriguing and if people go during the day you can just walk in off the street and see it and other exhibitions.

Saturday my parents came over, I decided that I needed to know what they wanted to do and they said that was to buy wool for mum to knit a jumper for dad and would therefore like to go to John Lewis’. So I thought fine a single leisurely trip down town, especially once they decided they would like to eat out. Getting to John Lewis’ was easy, and fortunately there were only a limited number of patterns for men’s jumpers. So it only took half an hour to find a pattern. Then we had to find a wool, it had to be double knitting and dad wanted green and brown fleck. The only problem was that the only such wool was over £5.00 for 50g, yes it was very nice but that meant the jumper would cost seventy pounds. Mum baulked at that and suggested that we bought a jumper instead. This I saw was a non-starter with Dad for whom Mum knitting the jumper was at least half the point of getting the wool (knitting helps keep Mum’s brain and hands busy). So we put the wool down then went downstairs to buy socks for Dad, he wanted longer than average socks, eventually we found some black ones that would do. Having done this we went to find some lunch, ended up in Yates Pub opposite, very high marks for having food Dad was happy to eat (salmon and salad), very low marks for the amount of noise but with the volume such that you could not keep going over and over the knitting problem. At the end of the meal I spelt out the problem to them and we agreed we would go back and get Dad a green flecked wool instead of green and brown (I had spotted one earlier).  The other options was to try another wool shop or to buy Dad a jumper. So then back and re-found the pattern, got a ball of wool and handed it to the assistant (I was a bit deliberate over who I took their purchases too as I knew one lady really did know what she was doing). However disaster struck there were only thirteen balls and the pattern called for fourteen. However this assistant is canny and she checked the length of the wool, the length on the recommended wool was 120m per 50g, the length on the wool we chose was 150m per 50 g so we only needed 12! Phew. After that my shopping took very little time at all.

Today I was at service at St Andrew’s. Kirsty Thorpe  was preaching. She was peaching on it being 400 years to the day of the publishing of KJV. This certainly pleased Elizabeth Draper who told me at least twice how much she had enjoyed it. There must have been around thirty in the congregation although I suspect that numbers were reduced somewhat as one of Margaret Falls holidays was going away that afternoon and not all members are as committed as Jean and James who were at worship in the morning althoughgoing away on the afternoon. There were about thirty in the congregation. I feel a bit as if I am being pulled in all directions, the sound desk would like me back on the rota, the choir would like me to join and I also am aware that I fulfil a valuable role just by being a member of the congregation and listening to one or two people. The mix in worship was less widely spread than at Harvest although there was still a couple of faces I did not recognise. I am still too recently back to know whether they are new faces or faces that have come in the last four years.

After lunch I went to a healing service at Endcliffe Methodist Church. This service had been prompted by the slow recovery of Matthew (Jo and Ted’s foster son) whose heart stopped suddenly at the end of August just after they had got back from holiday. Medics have no idea what caused it to stop and it took them a while to get it going again and so there is brain damage. Matthew has also had a number of chest infections that have impeded his recovery. The service while acknowledging the prompt was not solely for Matthew and there were around thirty to forty people there. I ended up talking afterwards with one of the members there I knew through work and learnt that they are now a small congregation so I suspect there were quite a few people like myself who had come to pray for Matthew, Ted and Jo.  The service was quietly organised with lots of time for personal quiet prayer although I still had capacity (hunger?) for more. Once I have actually got myself to stop and be still I often don’t want to leave it. Songs were modern charismatic, which is what I expected and I suspect that there are still issues over the expression of anger but there were no big promises and just lots of time to pray, there was not even a laying on of hands although you could come up for prayer at the end. I walked back with Jo and Ted as they live on one of the possible routes home. While still on Endcliffe church steps we were accosted by a very drunk young man who just wanted to tell us he was a Christian and did so repeatedly although he seemed to think it left him free to denigrate others who were rude about him. Later on we were accosted by one of Matthew’s former school mates (junior school) who wanted to know how he was and had been praying for him (Roman Catholic).