Author: wonderfulexchange

Kimberly Bohan is a priest in the Diocese of Lincoln, less surprised by angels than by being so far south.

conversion

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I had one of those moment today when I bought something thinking, ‘I hope no one sees me’. The offending item? A Josh Groban CD. Why oh why does someone with such a lovely voice allow such backing tracks?? I blame Classic FM.

But, it has been worth it.

One of the hardest hardest things to communicate positively to young people is a concept of repentance and confession. It can so easily play into the stereotypes of church being obsessed with sin and negativity.

So, how’s this for a starter? From a song called ‘Confession’:

I have been wrong about you
I thought I was strong without you
For so long
Nothing could move me
For so long
Nothing could change me

Now I feel myself surrender
Each time I see your face
I am captured by your beauty
You unassuming grace
and I feel my heart is turning
falling into place

mrs frankweiler

wonderfulexchange6 Comments

After a crazy week, Molly and I spent Sunday evening reading From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler. I had last read it in — oh, say, 1982?

If you don’t know it (which is an excusable state of affairs only for British readers), it is the story of two young children who run away to (‘run away to? how can you run away to?’) the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. They sleep in fancy beds, bathe in fountains and befriend a Michelangelo statue without ever getting caught.

There’s a lovely bit I’d forgotten near the end, when the elderly Mrs Frankweiler is assessing the mood of young Claudia just before sending her home:

I could tell that she felt happy. Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place, but there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around.

Not an elegant sentence, perhaps; but an elegant image nonetheless.

theological resourcer

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Molly took the TISEC curriculum into her own paws by deciding that no ordinand’s training in a rural parish was complete without a bit of midnight mousing. So we have reflected on:

  • critical and creative theology: practical application of the moral debate on euthanasia vs. suffering;
    ‘The lord God made them all’ (discuss in relation to your attitudes towards cat and mouse when both are under the bed at 4 am).
  • theological resourcer: clever cat… She passed with distinction at the mythical level 3.
  • servant ministry: lamps ready, garden gloves and catching-towel by the bed.
  • effective communicator: the mouse gained top marks here.
  • prayerful disciple: credit to the mouse again, I suspect (unless my first ‘Oh, help’ counts.)
  • collaborative worker: mouse leads cat into bedroom, cat catches mouse, I catch cat, cat holds on to mouse, I hold on to cat, encourage dropping the mouse and praise the mouse for not struggling and getting pierced. You see how it goes.
  • critically aware person: (always my best category, this) this included rapid assessment of pastoral needs & relative strengths and weaknesses, and planning likely course of action to achieve desired goals (cat and human asleep inside. Mouse alive outside.)
  • effective self assessor: well, the mouse failed, the cat made a good show, and I took top marks, with above goals (mostly) achieved within 5 minutes.

Now, time to check under the bush to see if we engage in prayers of thanksgiving for healing, or turn our minds to funeral liturgies.