Author: wonderfulexchange

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

bloggy blessings

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I am quite good at being a recluse.  I enjoy it.  And I have never indulged in it as thoroughly as I have over the last few months.

When I get enough time to be a recluse, then eventually I have enough energy to make time for my friends.  I know:  some of the people I care most about have still been dreadfully ignored, and oh-so-patient-and-understanding while I’ve gone quiet.  But others have re-emerged.  Friends from the States.  Friends from other parts of my life, who long endured the silence borne of an over-full diary and silly stress levels.  We have begun writing again.  And speaking.  And I have been amazed at how quickly friendship resumes, how deeply is it imprinted despite long neglect.

And finally, it seems, I have the energy to re-engage with some of what I left behind this summer.  Once upon a time, if I had disappeared from the SEC to watch kingfishers and bake cakes in Durham, that might have been the end of it.  No way back.  In Exile in Englandshire.  But the blogs change all that — even when my own blog is largely dormant.

For five years now, I’ve been nudging seasonal blogs into being:  Love Blooms Bright in Advent, and Beauty from Chaos in Lent.  Some of our readers didn’t know my life had changed, and asked if the blog was going on.  So, the blog that began in hopes of reaching people on the margins finally came back to catch me.

Dusting off a seasonal blog takes long than you might think.  It takes longer than I think, though I’ve done it so many times.  But still one needs to gather the team, encourage new bloggers, stir ideas with those who have written so often that all the obvious things have been done. The site needs updating, the Creative Cmomon’s license needs renewing, and of course the blog needs a twitter account of its own (@LvBloomsBright).  Indeed, I need a twitter account of my own (@wonderfulexchng) since my old one was tied to my previous location.   So, all afternoon there has been the familiar twooo of the tweet deck.  A few weeks ago it would have felt invasive and annoying, but today it has been fun.

I guess that means I’m re-emerging — though I suspect there’s a bit of the hokey-pokey about it.

And then, in a perfectly timed moment of encouragement, Mother ruth called me by name.

I’m looking forward to Advent, and so glad for the healing, redeeming round of the church year.

 

Love Blooms Bright 2011

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It’s the strangers who convince me… People I’ve never met, and know nothing about who write to ask if Love Blooms Bright will continue this year.  The truth is, I’ve been dithering.  Should I gather a group of people?  Should I do it myself (inferior product, but good discipline)?  Should I accept that life has moved on and Love Blooms Bright has completed its life span?

Dither dither.  But then people get in touch asking:  will you?  please?

So, here is my last minute bid for contributors.  Would you be willing to help produce Love Blooms Bright this year?  We’ve had such wonderful creativity and thoughtfulness from people over the years.  But most of us started not really sure if we had anything to offer.  So if you are even faintly interested, please get in touch.  We can support each other through it. Words, photos, art, quotations, poems… anything is possible.

And, since I have been so lamentably absent from the blogging world lately, would you please pass word on if you can? I’m going to try to gather a group of people by next Monday, 21 November.

Thank you.

This is the irrational season
when love blooms bright and wild
had Mary been full of reason
there’d have been no room for the child.

Madeline L’Engle

curiouser and curiouser

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Today was a cathedral day.  Autumn fog turned it into a shadowy cavern where the tourists eased into the stone.

In the absence of benediction, the rose window makes a splendid monstrance.
I missed the smoke, though.

And then, at the midday eucharist, I stumbled at all the usual places.

I just don’t understand Common Worship.  There are many things I struggle with:  the heavy handed sense of unworthiness and sin; the uncertainty as to when or whether one might hope for the invocation of the Holy Spirit; the peculiar reminder of Reformation wrangling that puts the prayer of our self-offering after the reception of communion.  But today, I found myself wondering what wisdom led the C of E liturgists to abandon the idea that we might be holy and reasonable.

The old old prayer of offering — which TEC Rite 1 and the Scottish Liturgy sensibly have as part of the eucharistic prayer, and which the Prayer Book and English Office have after communion — reads:

And here, we humbly offer and present unto thee, O Lord,
ourselves, our souls and bodies,
to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice

In the order of service we used today, that became:

Through him [Christ] we offer our our souls and bodies
to be a living sacrifice.

Is holiness just too tricky?  Is the sacrifice unreasonable?
(I grant:  sometimes the sacrifice seems unreasonable)
I cannot fathom why such a beautiful prayer would be reduced.

So I went hunting.  The full prayer does indeed have a place in Common Worship — at the end of Order 2, as a post communion prayer.  But watch what happens:

And here we offer and present unto you, O Lord,
ourselves, our souls and bodies,
to be a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice;
fill us all who share in this holy communion
with your grace and heavenly blessing.

[Is this a sort of epiclesis?  does it trigger the instinctive crossing?]
[then, where did this come from? –]

Although we are unworthy, through our manifold sins,
to offer you any sacrifice,
[unworthy, still?  having consumed the body of Christ?
the taste of Christ’s body still lingering on the tongue?]
yet we pray you will accept this
the duty and service we owe.  [Hello, Anselm]
Do not weigh our merits, but pardon our offences [so was the absolution void?]
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
by whom, and with whom, and in whom,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
all honour and glory be yours, almighty Father,
for ever and ever.

I’ve left out the Amen.  I just can’t bring myself to say it.  Not then, after all the confusion.  A doxology?  After communion?  Really?

I don’t understand this at all.

If you do, please explain.  If you simply want to gloat that you have a better liturgy, then that is permissible too.

eye of the beholder

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There’s a man across the green who looks exceedingly glum.  He emerges from his house, morning and evening, and walks across the lawn in an unfailing path of grumpiness.  Head down, collar up.  A look that says ‘I am not here.  Do not speak to me, please.’

But beside him, there is a dog:  small and stout and white, with one brown ear and a ringed eye.  The dog looks as happy as the man looks sour.

Once, just once, I saw the dog out without his human.  Doggie looked sore and tired, not his usual happy self at all. But then, the man came into view.  Doggie leapt up, scurried across the lawn and waggled his tail to the point of exhaustion.

I suspect the truth is this: The dog sees better than I do.
There is a fine and beautiful man who lives across the way, and the arrangement of his face and collar have nothing to do with it at all.