It's December!

It's 6.30 am, the alarm has gone off and I don't want to get up. At least winter is behaving like winter. We haven't got snow yet but there is an icy wind blowing outside. I have had a reasonable night's sleep which is an improvement as I have said before, bed hopping doesn't really suit me. One more night here then back to the north coast. I decided to give meditation a go last night. My only other experience of this has been the Wii fitness game - the one where you sit looking at a candle on the screen and don't move - and feel like an idiot! Needless to say I'm not too good at that one. But last night was different. I'm still reading Eat Pray Love and I was inspired to try again. What an amazing sense of calm! I shall have to work on this  - so any tips would really be appreciated.
The Curate tells me he has been helping to sort the church out for the Christmas tree festival next weekend. It will be good  to see all the trees decorated and lit up. When did these festivals start?  There are lots of them around the country now. As last Sunday was the first Sunday in Advent , the first Advent candle has been lit. I miss having the calendars to open now the boys have grown up. Perhaps I had better take one back for the Curate. 

Silence - friend or foe?

One more day and then I shall be back to my other role of the curate's wife. These four days that I have as working woman, should be a great solution to keeping a career going. It is surprising how many women say that they would like a break from the relentless pressures of running a home when they hear what I am doing. It is surprising how many career vicar's wives tell me not to give up my work. But  I have come to realise how life consuming the role of a vicar is and how much it helps to share this life. People ring up or call round at lunch time and in the evening, in the hope of catching The Curate in - but that's his lunch break or suppertime. The Curate finds the house very empty and quiet when I am away. I still live in our old house, from pre curate days. This is home, as we lived here as a family for nineteen years.  I love the stillness of this house and feel that there are times when I can just absorb the calmness if I try. Maybe I need to just step back and accept this is where I am at the moment and stop wanting something else. There is a wonderful quote from 'Eat Pray Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert where  she is told, "You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be." That really spoke to me!


In my last post, I described myself as a 'seeker' as I was always questioning God.It was interesting to read this in The Telegraph today:-
In his lecture, Lord Blair also emphasised the importance of doubt in religious faith. He said certainty of being in the right had fuelled religiously-inspired violence.
"Doubt is part of the mortar of a building faith," he said.
"Unless your faith has been tested by doubt, it is not faith but just an attitude, a retreat from the modern world.
"Doubt in the very nature of faith can surely be a useful companion to a necessary lack of shrill conviction that our own faith is more valuable than that of another."
This will cause some discussion I imagine but I understand what he is saying. However far I try to distance myself from God, I always find that He is never far away when I try looking for Him again. Each venture off in a different direction, challenges me to think through what I believe. Even during the time of The Curate coming to faith, his constant questioning of what I said I believed, turned my understanding of Christianity upside down and inside out. And then to cap it all, he came to faith and was baptised in  the Methodist church. This was a completely unknown environment for me and certainly moved me out of my comfort zone. The Curate thrived and I began to unravel.