Good ridence

Right 2009, I've had quite enough of you, with your bloody cold weather, your recession, rising unemployment and falling investments. Your miserable news, your swine flu and your credit crunch.

"BUT wait!" screams our Annus horribilis "What about Barak Obama, the improving situation in Iraq and Susan Boyle?"

Pah! They could have been any year.

No, no, no 2009...you can just take everything about you and just *$@% off.

Right, I'm off to party like it's last decade.

Merry Christmas

To everyone reading this....

May you be blessed in all you do. May you know Christ born in you.

And may all you feasting and drinking leave you just a little bit jaundiced.

Hmmmm...can't think of a title for this one.

Freshly laid snow on the ground in front of the decorated tree.

Is doesn't get much more Christmassy than this. Today I sat in chaplaincy and no one came in all day. Coincedentally exactly what happened on the 22nd December last year. You know what? There's a real sense of achievement when you get when you actually manage to look at someone's entire photo collection on facebook. Each click, is this finally it?....No another one!

It's no fun on your own though, you can't play 'Hot or Sociable?' with those thousand pic profiles.

I think I might take tomorrow off.

Thoughts from the Graduations (Part 3)

2 Days of graduations. Lots of subjects mostly post-grads.

Last of the lot was Psychology. Lots of polite applause except for one of the PhDs who received a degree accompanied by raucous whooping from two members of the audience.

"Hmmmm" I thought "Pushy parents. That explains a lot!"

Thoughts from the Graduations (part 2)

The Vice Chancellors winter graduation dinner is sooooo much more enjoyable when you are actually invited.

This year is was beef. And a chocolate pudding. And my name was on the list.

Thoughts from the Graduations (part 1)

Overheard outside graduations:

"...and under his robes he was wearing Yellow socks!"

"NO!"

"Yes!"

I tried not to take her disapproval personally. Honestly some people are so colourist.

HA HA!

To the City Centre for Chrimbo Shopping. Upon my return to the car, I noticed this.



£500 of damage.

I can only assume that the note, left by the person who backed into my car, had blown away in the wind.

Of course this happening just before Christmas might make me feel all depressed.

BUT

SOD THAT! Actually, you know, I was planning to buy a new car in 2010 anyway so I've been saving up all year. Buying a new car would now be a silly thing to do, given what else has happened to me recently, all of which means I have a bit of money in the bank to fix my old car.

HA! You weren't expecting that were you, Cruel Fate? Noooooooooo! You were expecting some sort of hissy fit and lots of boo hoo-ing. You wanna piece of me? Well you can just take a flying &^%$. Your not even close to hard enough. I win! Ner Na Ner Ner Na! Raspberries to you, Cruel Fate!

Honestly, you consider yourself well and truly pwnt my ol' mucker!

Now you can just shove off back to the city of London to run that credit crunch.

Oh yes....I'm in a good mood today.

Le Weekend

Taking time out today to add a little something extra to the dock at the bottom of my screen.



Looks pretty good.



Yes I'm still doing that open source thing. I can't keep on about being made redundant all the bloody time. There's only so much time you can pass in your own anal passage people!

Update

For those who are interested, just over two weeks since the diocese made their decision the students of Southampton University have managed to raise just over 10% of the money needed to keep me in post.

Go back and read that line again.

Yes that's right. The students. Not a rich benefactor or parish, not a fund or a denomination. The students have provided a large amount of money towards their own pastoral care.

I should stress this is not 10% as a one off. This is 10% per year, until further notice.

Sugary Support

I have received so much support since 'the vote' but I think today's offering goes the extra mile.

The arrival of an anonymous present.

A package arrived addressed to 'The Chaplaincy Groupies and Chaplains, University of Southampton'



Inside we discovered some wonderfully delicious fudge.



And some coloured sugar mice. Guess which one I ate.



It had come all the way from Scotland. It made us all feel looked after.

Whoever you are thank you so much!

Back to Basics

Apparently in moments of stress we return to that which we know best.

I spoke at CU on Friday. It is not the first time, I have spoken several times, and I spoke of living by faith of trusting God for the future.

It is almost 20 years since I became a Christian. I was bought up, by a mother and a father who were mostly anti Christianity.

They did get me Christened just shortly after I was adopted at the age of 5. It was at that time I got all my infant immunizations (I was never taken to the Doctor before then as my father was worried the GP would see the bruises) It seems like my Baptism was part of the same process of bringing me up to date. I was Spiritually inoculated at the same time as I was protected against the measles.

In 1990 I was taken to a Church, Shinewater Christian Fellowship, by a woman I fancied. A student, as it happens, at the University of Kent. A week later in a house, Number 123 Victoria Drive I decided to pray the prayer and become a Christian.

Since then my journey has taken me to several different Churches. From SCF, I journeyed into the Church of England, To HTB when I lived in London, with occasional pop-ins to All Soul's Langham Place. I was a youth worker with Holy Trinity, Maisons-Laffitte in the Parisian Suburbs. For a while I was part of St Andrew The Great in Cambridge before ending up looking after an FE college as Chaplain in Crawley and then finally getting ordained.

That journey started when I put my faith in God and has continued with him.

Now I am forced back on to the back foot, it is to that first faith I return. To the God of the Bible, in whom I first put my faith. To the Gospel in which I found freedom. To the person of Jesus Christ at who's feet I have spiritually sat.

we now begin a long process as the Bishop seeks 'wider ownership' of my post, with the resulting funds, I fall back simply into trusting God, and to that first faith I had.

I find myself asking why I do this job.

The only answer that is of any importance has to be this:

I have to do it for God.

Faith/ Unfaith

Today my assistant was called to Scott-Joynt Island (it's like Tracy Island only its a bit more ecclesiastical and has a lot less cash) for a meeting at Diocesan HQ. This is known affectionately in the diocese as OAP (for Old Alresford Place) which just says old and clapped out in my ears so I'm choosing to go with more of a Thunderbirds metaphor which speaks of the sort of dynamism that is the hallmark of the Winchester Diocese I know.

I also had a chat with the head of student services.

There are a couple of things I have to note following on from that.

Firstly the funding for my post has been cut, the post has not. The trouble is this kind of sounds like the same thing, but isn't. When you are made redundant in the real world they take away your job and thus save the money.

But in this case they are actually trying to find alternative funding, if they can find alternative funding I will stay in post.

This is not redundancy. Several people read my post on the diocesan synod and assumed it is all over. The noises that my assistant heard at Scott-Joynt Island indicate that is not necessarily the case. Having said that every clergyman I speak to seem to want to give me a large wadge of realism. They always seem to want me to think about where I would like to be Vicar of next. Why are vicar's so full of unfaith?

The students have now raised about £1k

The students are revolting

Day 1. The rest of my life.

Something has happened to my students. The chaplaincy has taken on a life of it's own.

The first day the students decided to set off the reading for morning prayer was Jesus sending out the 12 disciples. I felt him say to me, come on if I can entrust the mission of the entire church that bunch, you can let the students do what they do.

They put a lot of effort into the facebook group and the petition, but I was wondering if following on from the synod decision if that might not be game over.

No.

The students have started fund raising.

The students it seems are not going to sit around and wait for the University or the church to cough up for their chaplaincy they have already started to collect money from among themselves. I am told that a day later and they have already raised £400.

These are students, people with literally no income. Frankly this level of commitment -substantially higher than the 88p being asked for from the rest of the diocese- does slightly put others round here to shame.

There is here real resentment to the diocese the students seem to feel pretty strongly let down by them, and by the Bishop. This saddens me.

The students are going to start up a trust fund rather than simply pass money on to the diocese. Something I personally have advised against, but I think it is a symptom of their general disillusionment with the Diocese. They want to ensure they have a say over things in future.

As for me, I'm not sure what it would mean for me to be supported by my 'congregation' rather than the diocese. What would it mean for me to be supported by students?

Obviously it would mean that when I left University and got a job, I'd have to pay it all back!

But apart from that I notice I have a sense of excitement. I am now moving from the old certainties, I will get paid, this much, no more no less, and live in this house because and only because I am a priest. I am finding there is a real peace and freedom in living beyond that. This is a snap shot of the future. Even though parish ministry is very secure employment now, one day, long before I retire it will no longer be.

Finally I began, for the first time to relate to those Anglo-catholics who are just about to be off to the ordinariate. They are on the same journey as me. They like me, may have to take a pay cut, or find there is no financial support at all. They like me, may find themselves having to move house.

Like me, they must have a mixture of concern and excitement, and genuine faith as they realise that they have no idea where they will be come Christmas 2010.

Of course, I could get overly carried away with fraternal felicitations, I am doing this because I love my students and Jesus, rather than because I hate women and the modern world.

What happens next

Do you ever watch the news and then a few months later think...I wonder what happened there? Often even if the end of a story is covered it is on the inside pages and you miss it.

I was on the local news on Saturday, and on Sunday. There was a piece in the Times they decided not to focus on me although I had quite a few conversations with their reporter. I am in the Church Times (lovely picture apparently) and the Tablet may want to chat to me (so far they have spoken to the president of Cathsoc).

But the story is already dying down. It is a personal sadness to me that instead of focusing on the story of 1,000+ students who want a chaplain -in this day and age 1,000 students, why isn't that news?- the news people have focused on how upset I must be and how awful this is for me personally.

Now of course the news people will go away and the story will die a death.

So I have decided to use this blog to tell of what happens next. After all I don't know any unemployed vicars. I only know Vicars who have been forcibly removed from office or who have left in despair, but I don't know any who want to do the job, are in good standing with the Bishop and still not getting paid. That of course will change in the future, and I may be the first in a long line of vicars on the dole. So if you've ever wanted to know how a story ends, or what becomes of a chaplain when your church doesn't pay its parish share, then pull up a chair and spend some time. Indulge your morbid curiosity.

In the meantime I'm going to change one or two thing around here. Starting with that line about being dooced. Seems rather surpassed by events.

Also has anyone ever actually met Dave Walker, in his photos he looks tall and thin...is he? There is a reason for my asking.