Dear lovely Twitter friends, humans and dogs, I’ve been putting off writing this as it feels so final. My beloved husband of 36 years died on Sunday. I am devastated. It helps to remember that there’s goodness here, so thank you for your love and prayers — I need them.
@AugustineSDR
God bless you and thank you for your Twitter friendship. I’ll hold you in my heart as I pray the Divine Office. You and I both crossed the Tiber; remember me as you cross this next and greatest river. Till we meet!
My dear husband’s funeral took place today, giving added poignancy to the Ash Wednesday/St Valentine juxtaposition. Friends, neighbours, former parishioners came to support us. Beautiful, but oh - my heart is broken.
Here's a Blue Tit! 😀
With lots of people staying at home, please post your favourite Blue Tit photos in the comments under this post, just pictures you have taken yourself! 😀
Hopefully this thread will cheer people up during the current dark times.
🙏😊❤️🐦
@davidowenauthor
I remember at a similar age having a wonderful idea for a story and asking my father “is there any way you can write a story without actually *writing* it?” Sadly he said he didn’t think so.
Stayed up far too late to finish this extraordinary, wonderful book. Now I’m sad to have come to the end but delighted to have spent time in Reynard’s strange and beautiful world. And learnt some delicious new words. Thank you so much
@AnneLouiseAvery
I’m on a SWR train. We’ve just had announcement that face coverings must be worn on all connecting services from (I quote) “Wimbledon: Underground, Overground…” BUT NO ONE JOINED IN! 😥
Good night, lovely people and lovely dogs.
I wish you the very best for a peaceful and restorative weekend.
Sleep well, sweet dreams.
#hoorayfordogs
#beagle
#wildatheart
Twitter friends, thank you for all the loving kindness in response to my tweet the other day. A difficult situation is knocking the scabs off some old wounds which feel a bit raw. Can’t tell you how much your prayers mean. Thank you. ❤️
I went out this evening to have another go at photographing Swifts.
If you've ever tried this yourself, you'll know how hugely frustrating it is!
However, I managed to get my best ever Swift shot, so the frustration was worth it! 😁
#TwitterNatureCommunity
@ChrisGPackham
🐦
Wide awake at this ridiculous hour. Grief so raw. Trying to offer it up for all those keeping a similar horrible vigil. Prayers and kind thoughts would be so much appreciated, dear Twitter friends!
Look what I’ve got! I can now contemplate the prize-winning posterior of
@ChukkaBennett
with my morning coffee. And share it with the world at a Zoom meeting!
The government is ending its Covid-19 Plan B measures in England & face masks will no longer be mandatory, My advice as a doctor & public health specialist is that people should continue to wear face masks (ideally a FFP2 mask) when in indoor spaces outside their home.
So this happened yesterday! Here I am next to Talos in Cambridge market place. Please excuse the hot & dishevelled look — it was *very* warm & humid.
@abfrancis1
and dare I tag
@burgonsoc
?
#arugrad
Day 2 of my story
#OfGodAndMe
I learnt to read early, and adored books. One series above all had a lasting influence: Narnia… I recognised the wild holiness of Aslan as something I somehow knew to be real.
To paraphrase the words of the late Hubert Gregg (I think - and I'm really showing my age in all this, aren't I?): "If you have been, thank you for reading." ❤️
@silverpebble
I hope I’m not too late to this party. Been struggling with low levels of mood and energy, and my dodgy relationship with time, this w/e; didn’t manage a walk but this is from our garden in Surrey this afternoon.
Day 1 of my story
#OfGodAndMe
Rather surprised and honoured to be among those invited to share their stories here! Well, here goes…
I’m an only child, born in rural Northamptonshire. We weren't a churchgoing family (nominally Anglican), but the existence of God
My predictive text has learnt “Alleluia” today! 😂 and “risen” when I type “Christ is”. A very happy and blessed Easter to everyone. Alleluia - Christ is risen! 🔥🕯
I found that the "everywhere" that God is includes affection, fun and not taking oneself too seriously, and that was an important lesson for me to learn. Well, it's Wednesday already and here I am only just leaving school and off to Cambridge. I'd better hurry up tomorrow!
Realised I forgot my morning meds today. If I say they include
#venlafaxine
I know there are some here who’ll empathise: brain zaps, anxiety and close to a gibbering wreck of tears tonight. I know I don’t usually post things like this but I’m encouraged by those of you who do.
I relish the ridiculous in life. And so I have to report that I also discovered the delicious world of Anglo-Catholic humour among the friends I made at that church. There's nothing quite like it (and there's plenty of it here on Twitter).
1/4 Sad about this. Not so much about the restoration of the Obligation, but because we’ve missed an opportunity for deep theological reflection on what “being present”, “in person” etc. mean. Attending Mass online is not, or need not be, “virtual viewing”: that is …
Key points to note:
““Virtual viewing” of Mass online does not fulfil the Sunday Obligation. It may, however, be a source of continual spiritual comfort to those who cannot attend Mass in person, for example those who are elderly & sick, for whom the obligation does not apply.”
Day 7 of my story
#OfGodAndMe
First, thank you for the lovely responses to yesterday's instalment. ❤️
And now... those who know me or have followed various tweets of mine might have felt there was a name missing from my story. Yes, Ignatius of Loyola! 😇
Day 5 of my story
#OfGodAndMe
Well, yes, sorted (see yesterday)...
We had a new vicar at our church and I'd got to know him quite well. I went to see him to tell him about my plans to do a secretarial course in the autumn (he knew the backstory)
Day 3 of my story
#OfGodAndMe
Our Anglican parish church was what you might call “middle of the road”. There was certainly no Latin! Neither was there anything to match what was evoked by the late-night polyphony or to connect with “Not A Tame Lion”.
@CarlBovisNature
Thank you for sharing. Citalopram didn’t suit me either; now on Venlafaxine - better, although some side effects and bad reaction if I miss a dose. I am so grateful that medications like this exist, and sad when people see taking them as a “failure”.
I recently found a journal I kept at the time, in which I wrote I AM NOT GOING TO BECOME A CATHOLIC. Well, we know what happens when we say things like that to God! And so on 14 April 2000 (my 41st birthday) I was received into full Communion with the Catholic Church.
@silverpebble
And you *do* make Twitter better. The black dog does that - I like to think of it as burying bones rather than eating. Creativity will be unearthed in its own good time, and may be the richer for it.
Once being asked “where is God?” I confidentlyanswered, “heaven” — and was astounded to be told I was wrong. The answer, apparently, was “everywhere”. I was astonished and puzzled, and this small exchange stayed with me. I’m still discovering ever deeper layers of truth in it.
My father offered to pay for me to do a secretarial course at the local tech so I could find a "proper job". I got a place for the coming autumn, and decided I'd look for some more voluntary things to do at church. Not what I'd imagined but at least everything was sorted.
🤔?..
I am realising that one of the deep blessings in my life is that in my work and friendships I’m in contact with people of faith, who truly believe Christ has vanquished death. My thinking and feeling are so scrambled right now; it’s such a relief to lean on them.
There is much I miss and still grieve, but I have not for a single second doubted that this was the right course. And the rest is history.
Oh, wait - do you think there's something/one I should have mentioned? Final episode tomorrow, Twitter willing.
The villages in Midsomer Murders seem to manage 1 priest per church with no difficulty. Has anyone ever looked into how they fund their clergy? It's clearly a very effective model which should be adopted across the CofE.
It’s official at last. Got the letter today. Graduation will probably not be until next summer, but that’s no time at all after spending 7 years working towards this!
There is no possible reason to end the legal requirement to isolate if you test positive for Covid. Coronavirus has not stopped being a highly contagious deadly disease. Clinically vulnerable people have not stopped existing. A politically motivated punt that will cost lives.
Liturgy sustained me. The words and actions (and the "smells and bells"!) expressed the feelings I couldn't access in myself. I experienced a growing sense of rightness and belonging.
I'm aware all this so far has made me sound very serious, but I do love laughter...
I wrote a Halloween story for
@PenhaligonsLtd
! Miss Ida Penhaligon & the Hall of Mirrors! Join Miss Ida on the 31st October 1893, as she makes her way through a dark London peasouper into the most unexpectedly magical & fragrant of places....
Day 4 of my story
#OfGodAndMe
And so I left school and set off for Cambridge, to read Classics at Girton. I'd never been away from home for any length of time before: what struck me hardest was suddenly being somewhere nobody knew me. Who was I? Who did I want to be?
So here I am - and grateful for my dear Twitter friends who've invited me to share my story. Thank you. Doing this I've reconnected with some significant memories, particularly the childhood "God is everywhere" one, which seems to fit well with the Ignatian "God in all things."
used as a classroom during the week (I was also school chaplain). Some years later I moved on to become the full-time Chaplain of a psychiatric hospital, which is an excellent place to learn practical theology. By then it was the 1990s. What would happen next..?
The deities of trees, streams and weather seemed closer than the stern and serious God I heard about, although I don’t think I ever made that connection. But I learnt *wonder*. I did go to Sunday School for a while because my friends went. I don't remember much of it. Except…
On 14 March 1987 I was ordained to what I intended to be the permanent diaconate. I might not be able to explain very clearly what "ontological change" means, but - oh - I know what it feels like! At SSH our formation had focused on diaconal ministry
And then one day I happened to visit a neighbouring church which was firmly in the Anglo-Catholic tradition: incense, music, vestments and ceremonial filled my hungry senses. This was what I had glimpsed in Narnia as a child, but here I could live it,
Day 6 of my story
#OfGodAndMe
(Apologies - a bit late as Twitter has been doing strange things today!)
When I ended with “it was the 1990s” last time I could have added “let the reader understand”. If you were around in the C of E then you may remember
I'm surprised to find that what I miss most desperately is being able to preach God's word in a community I love and where I am loved. But I am certain that the discernment I made with God's help was absolutely right for me. I still try to live out the promises I made
And so, as a "new pot" I went to my title parish, Portsmouth Cathedral. On the Feast of St Thomas the Apostle 1984 I was admitted to the Order of Deaconess: a lay ministry for Anglican women created in the 19th century, with successive generations of bishops arguing
My Czech mother, although of Catholic heritage, had had no church upbringing, but she once told me that as an anxious new mother she would pray in front of the statue of Our Lady in the village church where I had been baptised, asking her to help her care for me.
My parents were sure it was an adolescent phase, but, well, I’m still here! Of course the heady feelings of joy and fervour eventually evaporated, and this left me anxious and confused. Was I losing my faith? I had no one to share this fear with.
I got to know a number of people on the edges, who lived in the Cathedral parish but didn't see themselves as "Cathedral people": the lonely, the "different"... and I was very grateful for their fellowship - offers of conversation over coffee or gin - when I felt lonely myself.
The Principal's sermon on our first night offered the image of the bread in the Eucharist: we had been taken, we would be blessed and given out, but now - we should expect to be broken. True formation involves being remade, like the misshapen pot in scripture.
'Blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.' Luke 1
As we celebrate the Assumption we celebrate the promise made to every single one of us.
Take some time today to listen to God's promise for your life.
... And I heard that I had been recommended for training two weeks before the beginning of term at St Stephen's House, Oxford, where I'd been advised to apply and got a place. My immediate concern was to buy a kettle and some new bedlinen! And so began two years of formation.
I welcome the dark half: time for wisdom, reflection & refreshment after the heat & glare. Holy month indeed that leads us in.
And I’m loving your book - thank you!
In Anglo-Saxon England, September was known as Hærfestmonað, 'harvest month', or Haligmonaþ, 'holy month', perhaps because of rituals celebrating the end of harvest.
Here's an extract from 'Winters in the World' on the month when summer gives way to the dark half of the year.
at my ordination to be always "faithful to serve and ready to teach". After I became a Catholic I launched out into a freelance practice of spiritual direction, supervision, retreat giving etc. and was invited back to teach on the Ignatian Spirituality Course - still doing that
not just read about it and imagine it. There was teaching, too, about *how* to live it, and a wise priest who encouraged me to pray with poetry. (He introduced me to TS Eliot; school introduced me to GM Hopkins. Both are still my prayer companions.)
freedom the Exercises gave me. When I made them, my "Election" (the "choice of a way of life") was to renew and deepen my ordination vows as a deacon, and for a long time I felt this meant I could not become a Catholic - hence my long struggle before I could even accept this
to begin one's ministry! A rich liturgical diet, including the enthronement of a new bishop, but also the opportunity for hidden pastoral encounters with those who choose to worship in a Cathedral because it offers a certain anonymity.
SSH offered all that is best and worst about community life. Some hard lessons, a good few tears, a lot of laughter, and love. What I valued most was the bedrock of deep spirituality and the constant rhythm of daily communal prayer.
since that was what all of us,men and women, would have in common. That was a blessing, along with all I had read about the ministry of deacons in the early Church. I had been called to this, I had no doubt. I used to say I had "deacon" written inside me like a stick of rock.
now after a short break teaching elsewhere. And I have my role at
@Community_of_SD
. I've been giving the Exercises and working with Ignatian spirituality for some 20 years! And now I'm pursuing a doctorate at
@MBITheology
, researching into how the Exercises,
I had friends in the village but spent most of my time joyfully alone in a world peopled by my imagination. I was able to roam on my own across the fields around our home, in the company of creatures of my own creation or from the tales of Greek and Norse mythology which I loved.
2/2 Perhaps now I can put that ghost to rest. I’m posting this not out of rancour, or looking for sympathy, but because I think it will be good for me to write it where others will read it.
#impostersyndrome
still hovering around, though!
Anglican ordination. If that was so, then "partial" must imply the possibility of "more" - the Ignatian "magis"! That realisation did it, and one day I came home from walking the dog in tears and announced "I'm going to ask to be received into the Catholic Church".