Not a vicar

When he knew I was leaving a Pentecostalist minister, for whom I have a lot of respect, said,

I trust that you can cope with the fall out of not being a vicar, as I suspect there is little support towards this major transition. It is a huge change to go through.

Well, I'm sure I can cope but it's a kind thought.  The reality has been a total lack of support while I was a vicar and so there's not likely to be any when I leave.  Some people have had much worse.

I find I go shopping thinking to myself how good it is to be anonymous, not just that I don't know anyone but also that no-one will know who I am irrespective of whether I know them.

One day I hope to shop without bothering.

New life, new start, new questions

It's a new start.

I've moved from the small market town of Retford in rural Nottinghamshire to Newcastle upon Tyne, home of MadPriest and not so far from themethatisme.

I've stopped being a vicar. I haven't yet sorted out a new identity, but I'm pretty sure it won't elide job and life quite so thoroughly.

It will be strange, after almost 12 years, to squeeze the vicar out of me as water out of a sponge. It's not just the day to day work (some of which I might continue anyway) but the assumptions people make about vicars, the relationships that are possible and those that are not, and the spectacles through which I see the world.

I went to Church in Walker on Sunday. I was surprised to find a Common Worship 8.00am service. There was no reason why I should have been surprised except that I am accustomed to BCP at that time of day. It will no doubt take a while before I can stop looking at things from, so to speak, the front of the Church and learn to see from the pews (well, chairs in this case).

The walk there and back evoked a haiku:

Early morning light
body and bone long for warmth
willing the sunrise

Infinity

I cannot

reach the end of words :

when words are ended

                            so am I.

When

Balanced on sea-edge.

Between.

Land ground fine between

duration and oblivion;

unstable, edge-less.

Sea sand turning underneath;

an old new tide

erases my mark.

Cryptic comment

Do you think that, when you untie a knot, the string will have just one end?

Then why, when untangling problems, do so many people seem to assume there is only one answer?

Endings are beginnings are endings

It struck me that, if you were to write a novel on a blog, you should start at the end and work back. Readers would hit it at whatever point the story had got to, and then read on, which is of course backwards.

But anyway, endings and beginnings are indistiguishable. How about:

Japonica closed the door behind her and stepped out into the early morning. No-one was around and every single early bird was boasting loudly about the worm it had caught.

Japonica had finally got rid of hers. She pushed the house keys back through the letterbox.

She walked towards the station. The first train, she told herself, wherever.


Or:

Kelvin dusted the loose earth from his trousers as he stood up. He looked down into his father's grave, looked at the little brass name plate, the pale, cheap coffin, the scattering of loose earth across it. His soul was cold inside him.

He looked around. His aunt was hovering. He hadn't asked her to look after him. He was fifteeen. He was the man now.

Two grave diggers loitered just in sight, waiting for them to leave. As though they could undo their morning's work.

Two of her friends were comforting his mother. Her knees seemed bent, as though about to buckle. She needed her friends to hold her up. She was weak, he thought savagely. Weak.

At that point, as water turns to ice, his future was determined. All his uncertainty coalesced into clear, sharp purpose. He knew what he had to do. He would find the people who did this to his father and he would kill them.