12th DDO interview

Had my latest DDO interview today. Again, a positive one with much food for thought, reflection and prayer at the end of it.

Things are now starting to move forward a little. The DDO has concluded that I am now ready for the next step - so will will be taking that forward in the next week or so.

I thought that I would be anxious about this, but it just seems that the relaxed, settled feelings that I have been blessed with, have continued. A gift for one, who is by nature a worrier and frets at things, when they do not move on quickly enough.

The next step will be a Diocesan Panel, but with some more paperwork to go through before that stage. After that? I'm not pre-empting anything. God wants me to wait on him, and I am content with that.

The Church system seems to many to be slow, convoluted, demanding, challenging and outdated. I tended to agree with that when I first entered the process. Now my view has changed. Being on this journey has allowed me the time and space for a reflective, prayerful, spiritual journey of growth and development as a Christian, which will leave me better placed in discipleship, whatever the outcome of the process.

Such a gift is not to be sneered at. It deserves to be accepted as a gift, freely given by God, to test us, to strengthen and to support us. If we do, the outcome will always be a better person, ready for whatever God might intend for us in the future.

Thanks be to God for all of his Gifts in my life.

Visiting

I spent the majority of my adult life from age 17 to age 60 serving in Uniform as a member of the Army. I am often asked about service life and am always happy to explain it, as I experienced it.

I was asked to visit someone to speak to their Grandson about service life, with a view to his understanding more about Army life in general, and the Territorial Army in particular. My later service was with the TA, where I had responsibility for recruiting. I met the young man at the house, and spent a pleasant hour providing information on the TA to him. I gave him an idea of his particular options to maximise the use of his existing skills within the framework. We also spoke about the options for him to move to the Regular Army in due course, if that was his longer term aspiration.

Afterwards, I was asked by his Grandmother to stay for a chat. The chat turned into perhaps what might be considered a pastoral visit. It involved me listening a great deal to what was being said, responding when questions were asked, with those answers I felt able to give, and promising to follow up those that I could not answer. We were then joined by her son, who talked to me at some length, finishing with the statement that he was considering being confirmed. He is 49, and thought that it was about time he made some commitment. I was able to assure him that it was a positive thing to do and to point him towards our next series of Confirmation classes starting later this year.

All in all, this was a meaningful session. What had started out with my visit to help the grandson, turned out to be to provide a listening ear for some of their concerns. I leanred that sometimes, what appears on the surface, might well actually be a sign of a deeper need, for a listening ear. It was good that during our conversations, they were able to provide their own solutions to the things discussed, just airing them with someone from outside the family seemed to be the solution.

On reflection, I can also see that I drew something from this. The fact that they felt that they knew me well enough to trust me and to be open and to share some of their history and worries, seems to me to be affirming and to provide some acceptance of my role in lay ministry within the parish.

God is the God of providence, placing people in places and positions where they might be able to support others in need - in this case the need appears to be two-way, for the family I spoke to and to help my own journey towards discernment.

And an additional outcome - an invitation to be a guest speaker on Army Life and my journey to a small group in May. The Army saying is 'never volunteer for anything', it seems to me that God volunteers you without any help from anyone else.

Lent Course

I am taking part in a Lent Course again this year. It is part of the excitement that I always feel at the start of Lent, something I cannot explain, but it just seems to re-envigorate me in so many ways.

The course is on discipleship, which is a theme throughout my diocese this year, and the resources provided are excellent, and well presented and used by the Vicar and Curate who are running the course.

I have already shared with and learned so much from the other participants, but considering we are a five parish benefice with over 360 on Registers, I am wondering why more are not taking part.

Reflecting on those I see and meet regularly while visiting the various churches in the benefice, I seem to be missing some, I anticipated would be there, but have been pleasantly surprised to meet others that I did not know, or had not met, who are here. Establishing relationships of friendship as people relaxed a little and let down their guards is a fulfilling experience, and somehow the new relationships being built by our shared experience just seem to be ones that I will come to value more and more in the future.

The eye opener always for me is when people share part of their journey, which are inspirational, particularly as they describe how they have come to where they are now. Reasons for attending varied, but a common theme seemed to be, that they felt pulled or called to attend. God working within them and through others to bring a disparate group together in friendship,community, worship, study and prayer. Now for me, that is what being a Christian is about.

I am looking forward to the next three weeks, and the build up towards Holy Week, this time I will for the first time be attending the Chrism Mass in Canterbury Cathedral - and I look forward to that enormously.

Another bonus of the Lent Course has meant that I am in Canterbury early enough to attend Evensong in the Cathedral - letting the words and song flow in and through me. Wonderful worship.

Another DDO meeting

I haven't posted here for some time, so perhaps a brief update is deserved. I have continued on the journey, working as directed by the DDO and both he and I can sense progress in terms of growth as a Christian and an expansion of my engagement with wider issues which effect the church today.

I had my 11th meeting with the DDO on Monday. The meeting was positive and went very well indeed. We seem to be at the stage of engaging much more on deeper beliefs and understanding, particularly on areas which impact on the nine criteria for Ordained ministry.

I have produced the written work requested as well as some additional reflections on things, which might have been to much, but which drew the wry comment that future meetings would need one hour for the face to face and another two hours to read the output. Very tongue in cheek.

I found myself sharing stuff, which I had thought about and reflected on. I also asked some questions about areas which I wanted more information on, particularly other roles for NSM within the diocese - not just assistant priest in a parish. I got the answer that I expected - that given my age, those roles were very restricted, but we could explore them post-curacy (if I get that far).

An observation from the DDO which pleased me was that he could see some real development and expansion from my engaging with topics about the wider church, its problems and issues and had taken the time to reflect on them. He said that some of this could be attributed to my engagement with the internet and other Christian Blogger's. It will prove useful when answering questions, if I go forward for the Diocesan Panel and National Selection.

I have been given a copy of the Bishops report on Human Sexuality, which I need to read and provide a written reflection on for next month. I have also received a copy of the full report prepared for the Anglican Communion, which might prove to be of help in this reflection.

So another step in the process, which I am now, really enjoying - this thing that comes to mind is that whatever the outcome, this has been a worthwhile journey of growth, of maturing as a Christian and an inspiration to share so much with an excellent priest, who is mentoring me in preparation to face the Diocesan Panel.

I say it a lot, But God is Really, Really, Great! :votive1:

The Penalties of a Mobile Lifestyle

Being mobile seems to be a fact of life for many people today, especially for those in the Armed Forces. I have been reflecting on this recently.

I spent so much of my adult life in this sort of position. Moving jobs and home every two to three years, family having to cope with new places, countries and people, schools and communities. Service life is pretty disruptive, especially if the family follow the flag and move, rather than settling down in one place.

Mixed into this is the disruption of the individual service person on training, exercises or operations. You move your family to Germany and then disappear for a great part of the time on these commitments. Often spouses and children suffer a form of grief due to the constant re-locations, loss of friends, absence of partner or parent, and just lately the pain of reductions in pay and allowances, removing choice of where children may be educated.

Relationships become strained, small things are magnified out of all proportion. Separation and isolation affects both partners and children; husbands, fathers, mothers become virtual strangers to their families. Coming home after a difficult tour is traumatic, and mutual understanding is often impossible. Welfare support is available, but the fault lines often run to deep for any hope of saving a relationship.

So leaving for new places and new jobs while an exciting prospect or even an adventure, can also be a cause of breakdown in families. Resistance to such change fractures marriages and relationships and ends in separation and divorce. Been there, got the T-Shirt.

Latterly, in the last twenty three years, having settled, only changing jobs three times and never relocating my home base, I held a successful relationship, found God and have been blessed with my family and establishing long term friendships. Something I lacked in my very mobile lifestyle.

I feel for those thousands of families still in this position in the services, particularly with the prospect of the loss of thousands of jobs and homes due to defence cuts planned over the next three years. How do we thank our veterans and the families that support them; we cast them out on the street, certainly with some compensation, but without a lot of real support. It is estimated that up to 68% of the current homeless are ex-servicemen or women. I Remember the words of Rudyard Kipling's famous poem 'Tommy'. Nothing has changed really.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGClrsAN2aY"

The Bishop held a meeting at his home last evening for candidates currently in the process of discerning a vocation. Also present were diocesan DDO and staff and staff from the diocesan ministry training scheme.

Around 30 candidates attended, which helps you appreciate that it is not just you! Lots of others, from all ages and backgrounds, are in the process of testing their vocation at different stages of the journey. The common denominator perhaps being that everyone's journey has been different and unique.

I met and spoke to many different people, and at the end, I struggled to remember my own name, let alone those who I had spoken to and socialized with. I also share many inspirational stores of how people came to where they are now.

Some that I spoke to, commented on the the length of time it seemed to take for them to both understand that they were being called and then plucking up the courage to actually speak to their Vicar about it. I also noted that some were a little impatient with the church seeming to take a long time in the discernment process. I could recognised this, remembering my own impatience at the start of this journey, but having received the gift of relaxing and waiting on God am content. This is a state which seems to hit different people at different stages of their journey.

Most motivational of all, were those present, who later in life had had the call and had gone on to be selected, trained and ordained and were now involved in training or supporting candidates in training, They resonated with me, especially those whose background was not necessarily academic or with a degree or background at that level.

One candidate is a lorry driver, which seems to me to demonstrate that God is indiscriminate in who or when he calls people. God calls who he will and needs for a particular tasks or times So there is hope yet for me.

What did I get from this meeting:

Along with the benefit of meeting so many other, like minded people, I shared wth people from diverse backgrounds, most of whom I would not normally meet. From lorry driver to the Bishop himself. The bishop’s ability to speak to any single person for a prolonged period, was limited by the numbers involved. It seems to me that this sort of meeting is most useful to all of us - it helps you to appreciate that you are not struggling on your own - others share the journey, so prayer for each other and the Bishop and Diocesan staff who are sharing the journey is really important. I came away from the meeting refreshed and affirmed that I am in the right place at the moment, the discernment process is not just about testing a vocation, it is also about growing and learning about yourself and absorbing Jesus much more deeply and centrally into your whole being.

Episode 2 - Victim of Crime

Following my earlier post http://ukviewer.blogspot.com/2011/01/victim-of-crime.html on this topic, new developments have come about.

I waited patiently for the copy of the forged cheque to be sent to me within the stipulated 7-10 working days. Having had nothing by this morning, I actually rang to inquire where it was. Eventually being put through to the fraud department.

They said that they could not send the cheque as the image was too poor to be copied? Nobody had thought to ring or to let me know.

I reiterated my disappointment with their service for a number of reasons:

1. Broken promises.
2. Lack of communication.
3. Lack of a sense of urgency.
4. Concern about the account, now over £400 overdrawn with charges.
5. I had not had my statement either.

They came back with:

1. We apologise, but we have not in fact commenced a fraud investigation following your earlier call.
2. Your account is now frozen. You cannot issue cheques or draw cash unless you visit a branch with ID.
3. Once we put the phone down, we will not be able to talk to you about this account, unless you attend a branch in person with ID.
4. We believe that someone ordered a cheque book using your bank details, which are considered compromised, we will have to open a new acccount. We can't tell you how long this will take, it depends on the investigation's outcome.
5. We will write to you when the investigation is concluded, perhaps within a couple of days, more likely in a week or so.
6. If fraud is considered proven, we will refund the money taken and any charges that have been applied to the account.
7. Reporting it to the police was not something they did. They have police liaison who they only use if they think that there is a reasonable chance of a successful prosecution???
8. I could, if I chose to, report it to the police, although they were unable to share information with the police for data protection reasons? Even with my permission.
9. I can't speak to those conducting the investigation (nor could the agent I was dealing with) but they could call me at their discretion if they thought that I could help them?

By this time, my normally calm exterior was becoming a bit frayed, asking to talk to a manger elicited the response that there was no point as they would not know the circumstances and could not answer my questions.

In the end, I had to take a deep breath, grit my teeth and accept the situation, not that I am satisfied with them. The main frustration is being left in limbo with no communications from them - I am having to be proactive to remind them 'hey - there's a problem here - I've been ripped off - what are you doing about it.

So, the banks can please themselves. Their security systems are compromised, my bank account is frozen and I have to wait on their convenience to find out what is going on. I have now taken this to the police and financial ombudsman, to see if they can help the bank get a move on.