The Thing That Excites Clergy

I grant you that it is the only day in the week that we work, and I grant you that in normal circumstances the work that we do fills only some of the day. It is properly hard being a cleric - such arduous lives. 

Some of you who are reading this and are ordained, or indeed any of you might know what I am referring to. It is that sense of excitement as Sunday approaches. Whether we are leading worship, partaking in it or just observing (itself a useful pastime) - Sundays approach withe a sense of happy anticipation for many of us. 

Perhaps it is just me!

It is often that time when our whole (or a larger part of) community gathers together. Yes, it is a time for gossip and that can often permeate the first verse of the first hymn, but it is a time when we gather as the faithful children of Christ to worship and adore. Some of us, if we are of that tradition, may find renewed sustenance in the Holy Matter of the Eucharist, or simply the release of happy chemicals in the blood when we sing for all we are worth. Compelling times, mostly always happy, with friends and those of a like mind - so why wouldn't we look forward to it. 

Enjoy your Saturday wherever you are reading this - tomorrow is our day once more. 

What is The Price of a Smile?

You don't need to say it, I just know. Go on, you missed me, didn't you! It's alright, I don't mind you saying so!

Enough of that. I am back in the saddle after a week away with the family and the wife's family in a wooded place without cars where food is costly and the coffee strong. I have cycled up hills, climbed unimaginable heights, spent so much time swimming that under this black shirt I still look like a flabby walnut, have eaten more food than Mr Creosote, slept more than I have in years and won an immoral amount of money at poker (imaginary poker, imaginary money, computer game on the gadget). All in all, a good week has been had, and as I sit here in the middle of my first proper day back, it is a clear blue day and the sun is bright and warm. Kids, I am on top of the world.

I have a choice. I could have written one of about eleven currently embryonic blog posts that clutter my blog-cortex. I choose not to, because I simply want to record how I feel being me in this moment. I think my choice was also made when I saw how many grumpy blog posts were in my Reader, and knowing that I am apt to collude and add to their number, have opted not to! As an aside, what a miserable whining lot us bloggers are at times?! Anyway ...

I want simply to say that I feel great today. I have over a hundred emails wanting something from me, but I don't mind. I have a couple of acute pastoral conundrums to wrestle with, and that is alright too. The garden has sprung into life and needs taming. The cars are be-speckled with the gloop of country roads and need cleaning. All this is just fine. Lent is fast approaching and I have to fully resolve how I will observe it - but that just doesn't seem to matter. I am feeling good, the world is bright, the colours are more radiant, I am capable of anything, nothing can stop me this day. In this day I have received so much already, and the price of a smile? Simply the cost of being glad for what I have. 

Lent Course 2010 [Blog] - Part I

The Emotions of Jesus Christ

As part of my own Lenten observance this year, I decided that the element that commits me to learning would be usefully expressed through this Blog. I am creating, therefore, a little Cyber Lent Course, as much for my own purposes as yours, and as something of a 'notepad' as I work on something that perhaps might be presented in my ministry at some point in the future! If you are reading this, please recieve it as a work-in-progress and not as a polished piece!

~~~

In the world of bloke-dom, the emotion is a fickle friend. Blokes are often accused of being insensitive, uncaring, laddish or silly (well, me at least). My experience is quite the contrary. I, ond others whom I know to be like me, are emtional creatures - we care, very passionately. We hurt, perhaps in private, but very deeply. When we are amused, our whole being is held hostage by laughter! Howver, blokes are not ruled by emotions, and part of our being is that to a certian extent, we can disconnect with how we feel inwardly. even if is paert of an expternal mask. As part of my plain and honest wrestling with myself and who I am (sorry, that is almost a smug and certianly self-centred thing to have just typed), I have wondered what kind of emotional creature Jesus himself was. My belief in the Incarnation means that I have to accept that Jesus 'did' emotion like all of us. He must have known happiness, sadness, jealousy, disappointment, annoyance, fear, disgust, and yes, Jesus will have had to have been capable of attraction and the amorous emotions. This inevitably lead me to ponder the good old Bible, where I quickly discovered that Jesus' emotions are not readily referred to. Yes, dear reader, I will have to go digging - and when I find what I seek, I will present my unearthed treasure here.

But first, some of the methodological stuff, so you know what I am doing! For me, I don't get hung up about such things (it is the 'pragmatist' in me), but some regard it as important, and I am all give give give, me!

When discussing emotions, I have a vast list from which to choose. As I only have one Lent in 2010 and only one lifetime, that list needed a little pruning. I discovered a geezer called Paul Ekman who did a famous study on emotion, but emotion as it is associated with facial expression. His work later took a swerve towards the subject of 'trust'. However, his greatest use to me here is that in 1972 (the year of my birth, sigh) he created a list of the 'dominical' emotions following observation of a tribe in the middle of a vast ocean (or something like that). His list comprises anger, disgust, fear, happiness sadness and surprise. While he expanded on this list in the 90's, this seems to me a good list to work with for this purpose. So, my next post will be on the subject of Jesus Christ and Anger.

There you go; follow this if you wish, or don't if you have better things to do. If you ever encounter my ministry in future years and get given a flyer about a Lent Course by me on this subject, you will know where it all started. Lucky you!