Amy's Sabbatical, Adventures in the United Kingdom, # 2

Monday, June 13.

This was a day to just catch up on our jet lag, so we took it pretty easy.  We went into the city of Chester and walked around this wall that surrounds the entire city.  It is a walk of about 2 miles.  Sections of the wall  were built during the days of Roman rule in Chester and other parts were built in the medieval times. 


We also stopped to view the Chester Cathedral (of the Anglican Church). Built over thousands of years this cathedral is huge.  Tim, Huw, Evan and I just wandered around the cathedral.  At one point a priest came out and asked all the tourists in the church to pause for a brief period of prayer.  He offered a prayer for the people suffering in the world, for people travelling on holiday that they may be refreshed and renewed, and he asked us all to say the Lord's Prayer in what the language that we were most comfortable praying in.  It was wonderful to pray in this ancient cathedral.

Main entry way into Chester Cathedral

The church was established by Benedictine monks in 1092. And thrived until 1540 when the monastary disolved and  the building of the church ceased. In 1541 Henry VIII signed the Letters of Patent creating the Cathedral and construction resumed.   There is massive amounts of stone work that took thousands of years to build.  It boggles my mind to think of the history of a church that is so long.  Nor can I imagine what kind of work it must take to keep such a building going.  It is a thriving church with a worshipping community.  In the brochure it says it takes a million pounds to maintain every year.  Imagine that stewardship campaign!!!
  

Inside the Chester Cathedral

After touring the cathedral we stopped for some tea and cakes in the Refectory.  There is a full service cafe inside the church in the exact same spot where the 13th century monks used to eat their daily meals. 

Beeston Castle

Later in the day, we went back to Tim's house for lunch, picked up his dogs, a big black lab puppy named Lester and a mutt called Nancy, and took them for a walk up Beeston Castle.  There are old castles in almost every town in England in various states of ruin.  My son Evan says that this was one of the high lights of his trip.  I think he really enjoyed the company of the dogs.

Then dinner at Tim's house with his wife Ashlea - a chicken curry dish that she had cooking in the crockpot all day.  She put out some different chutneys and pickles, some hot and spicy, some sweet.  It was a diversity of flavors.  Wonderful!  Then we all watched the original version of the movie "The Italian Job," starring Michael Caine.  I must admit that I slept through much of the movie because I was tired.  Still suffering from a bit of jet lag. 

Amy's Sabbatical, Adventures in the United Kingdom

We arrived on Manchester, United Kingdom on June 12th at 10:20 am.  After flying all night from Newark, New Jersey, we were pretty bleary eyed.  Huw's cousin, Tim, was there to meet us at the airport.  Huw's father, Vernon Griffiths, and Tim's mother Joan Gordon,  are siblings.  Vernon came to the United States when he was about 20 to study at MIT in Boston.  There he met Huw's mother, they married, and after they both finished their degrees moved to Butte where Vernon taught at Montana Tech for a very long time.  He taught metallurgy.  So it is his relatives that we were visiting on this trip.

Huw's cousin Tim working the grill

After travelling from the airport we got settled at Tim's house, ate some lunch and spent time hanging out.  That evening all the family gathered at Joan and Gordon's house.  Joan is Huw's aunt.  We gathered for a barbeque, even thought it was raining pretty hard.  Joan and Gordon live in Waverton, which is outside the city of Chester.  We received a warm welcome.  Many of the relatives had taken this opportunity to travel into Chester to get together. Some travelled from Portsmouth, in southern England and others from southern Wales. We ate lots and lots of meat of all kinds - burgers, lamb chops and sausages. 

After dinner Huw's uncle Gordon, brought out his ukelele and a pair of spoons.  He taught me in the art of "spoon bashing," as he called it.  And we played a few songs together.  Before we left, he gave me a pair of spoons that he had used many times "bashing" because they are quite dented in the middle.  He made me promise that I would practice so that the next time we got together, we could play some more music.  He also advised me that it was probably not a good idea to "bash spoons" from the pulpit in church.  Gordon is quite the comic and seems to enjoy all the attention from his antics, but I got the distinct impression that his children and grandchildren had all been listening to his spoon bashing for many years and while they didn't seem to enjoy it, they did tolerate it.  The evening came to a close around 8:30 pm and we promptly went to bed - quite tired from all our travels.

Spoon bashing with Uncle Gordon

Amy's Sabbatical, week 2

Day one on the big journey.  We started this morning with a shuttle to the airport at 9 am.  We flew from Missoula to Denver, Denver to  Newark and then from Newark to Manchester, United Kingdom.  Huw, my husband has family here.  Huw's cousin Tim was here at the airport to greet us.  It is a cold and wet June day in Manchester.  Later today we will have time for a gathering with all the relatives.
We didn't sleep much on the plane, but we are not too tired.  Looking forward to the big adventure.

Amy's Sabbatical Week 1

Here we are in week one of the sabbatical. It has been both wonderful and strange. On the first day of my sabbatical I felt a bit unmoored. While it was wonderful to not have any specific schedule or time constraints, it was also very strange. I found myself asking, "Who am I when I am not a pastor? Who am I when I am not working?" That is all a part of the discovery....

Bear taking a break from our walk up Crazy Canyon

So during this first week I have been going on long walks with my dog, Bear, up Crazy Canyon. Walks where I can just meander around and lose track of the time. In between the rain drops I have also been weeding the garden. The weeds come out quite nicely in this soft wet ground. And when the rains have been falling hard, I have been reading. My first book is one loaned to me by John Garrity ( a member of UCC) titled "With or Without God; Why the way we live is more important than what we believe," by Gretta Vosper. Gretta is a pastor ordained in the United Church of Canada and is the founder and director of the Canadian Center for Progressive Christianity.

Here's a Quote:

"The world is seriously in need of clarity around what values will help us create a sustainalbe future and what values will compromise aour ability to get there. In the early church, the values of love, forgiveness, and compassion drove the work and lives of those known as Christians. This is a legacy of the church, and it must once again become the agenda by which it chooses to live. Not what we belive. Not our isntitutional survival. Our focus must be waht we can do to challenge, edify and support individuals as they seek to live virtuous and responsible lives. It is vitally important that we stop fumbling the ball; that is, if it's not too late."

There's some food for thought... Gretta is advocating moving away from all the institutional stuff that tends to divide us as churches and focus on the values that unit us.

More to come....

Take care and remember the sabbath and keep it holy!

Snap Shots from Church School

Sometimes the prayers of children are so sincere and true, they touch the very core of my being. This past Sunday, I invited the children to prayer the same way I do every week. I told them that we can tell God all the things that we are thankful for, things that make us sad, things that we are happy about and things that we might be worried about. The children always offer up prayers of gratitude - "Thank you God for my friends," they pray, or "Thank you God for my family." Those are the two that are most often offered up to God. This week though, one little voice piped up and prayed, "Dear God, help us to end all the wars." And then shortly there after another voice prayed, "Please help all the people in Japan after the Tsunami." And that's exactly how I wanted to pray - please help us end all the wars, and help the people of Japan... Children know what's going on in the world, and there is nothing more true, or more sincere than a child offering up a prayer to God.

Notes from a pastor's life

Last week I officiated at two memorial services - which is highly unusual. At the first one there were several young children in attendance, grandchildren of the man who had passed away. After the service was over and the reception was winding down, I went into the sanctuary to put away all the AV equpment we had used. The little children were running around the sanctuary squealing with laughter, sliding under the pews, running up and down the long aisles. They were having a grand time. One of the adults was appalled at the behavior of the children and swooped them all up and told them to get out of the sanctuary. The sanctuary, in her mind, was not a place to play.

But I thought, after the sadness of a memorial service, God must have loved hearing the laughter and the squealing of the children. Although I understand the need for solemnity in the sanctuary, at times, I also think it is wonderul that children can feel free to be who they are in this space of worship.

Halloween Sunday

Last Sunday, on October 31st, I witnessed the power of community. It began with Prudence Smith, a member of our church who must be close to 90 years old. On Sunday as we were munching on "witches fingers" and "eyeballs" (gross, just gross!) I asked her to join me in going through the haunted house put on by the Middle School Youth. We walked through it together, hand in hand, watching out for creepy characters popping out of nowhere and hands reaching out for our feet. When we finally made it through the darkness and landed in the light, she looked at me wild-eyed and said, "How in the world did they do that?"
She was clearly impressed by the the youth's haunted house, and I was impresseed by her willingness to walk through it. There is something powerful about having people of different generations enjoying each other's presence. There are few places in our lives where that happens any more - but Halloween Sunday at this church was definitely an expereince of that. It was marvelous and wonderful. It was all the best of what a church community can be about. Now I just wish I had some pictures to go with it!