Categories: uncategorized
Date: 11 July 2005 08:48:49
i can't just leave that there forever, can I - although a bit of me feels like doing that at the moment. Life goes on - and that's the message to give everyone at the moment. I've been overwhelmed by kind comments after my last post and feel a bit of a fraud because my job wasn't dangerous or amazing, just very routine and my experience of events nothing mindblowing. But thanks for listening.
It's been a difficult weekend. We had people staying just fresh from a leadership conference at one of the big church groups. Suffice it to say it is the one I find hardest - as its stance on the ordination of women and its thoughts on some other big issues are so very different from mine. Ordinarily, that's fine - interacting with other christians who don't think exactly the same as you do is one of the great challenges of life. As my husband said, if there was a modern-day version of Revelation with different letters to different churches, the one to us would just contain different criticisms to theirs. We all get it wrong in different ways - and there's so much to learn.
But, after last week's events, I think I'd used up a lot of my resources. I felt drained, and lots of excited chatter about worship conferences and approved worship leaders, and looking at the photos of so-called "important" christians on their church website was too much for me. By the time I got to church on Sunday morning I was so depressed by the whole experience that I couldn't/wouldn't pray. I just stood there with my arms folded for much of a very long service. Which was a pity, because our church is lovely, and family, and there's so much to pray for in London in general and locally right now. I think what I needed was a nice safe anglican service with a bit of liturgy, some nice psalms and thoughtful hymns. But church isn't about that, I know.
By the time they left I was physically shaking, so great was my need for these people to go. I really hope they didn't know it. I tried very hard to listen to all their stuff, cook their meals and engage with what they were saying. But I was just so drained, and I don't always find all this church stuff easy. It didn't help that our upstairs neighbours (who are fab, I should add) chose to have a very noisy stag do upstairs until 2.30am, when Mr Fishsoup told them to calm down. I don't blame them at all, they didn't want to go out after the bombs, and they're both Irish (one southern, one northern) so I feel very sorry for them. From living in Belfast, they've been through so much of this before. One of them said to me yesterday: "London used to feel safe, and now it doesn't". But the two hours sleep wasn't great. Then we went to some lovely friends for a barbecue and back in the evening so I could write my column. I'm tired now. We were out friday night, too, having dinner with the in-laws. It was horrible coming through Kings Cross late at night seeing camera crews waiting for them to drag the bodies up. They were just going down there when we passed.
In happier news, the sun is shining, and we've got a much quieter week coming up. I'm also wondering what you guys would have thought of the incident in yesterday's service when the pastor told us all his thoughts about the Freedom from Religious Hatred bill which is going through parliament at the moment and someone stood up and openly contradicted him. I was astonished, but slightly impressed that someone felt so strongly they would do that then and there.