I, along with, I imagine, lots of other clergy in the Church of England, would really appreciate your prayers today. Can't bring myself to wear a collar, but otherwise trying to push through as normal.
I'm so tired of being gay in the Church of England. "What did you expect?" I hear you mutter. The honest answer is I could never have imagined it would be this hard.
Clergy friends: what do you do after a tough funeral? I think my current practice, I.e., 'drinks tea and stares into space for an hour' could be improved upon.
Out in Soho last night, surrounded by beautiful Queer people, we felt genuinely happy and safe, in a way we haven't for a while. A Church of England praying for there to be fewer LGBTQI+ people is not a Church of England I want to be part of.
An example of an interaction that can really improve an LGBT clergyperson's day:
"What about you, are you married?"
Me: "I... err. Yes, yes I am"
"Lovely. And what do they do?"
Me: **beaming** "She's a maths teacher". ๐
Imagine being a Member of Parliament who thinks Church and State are separate in England? Like being a bus driver who thinks buses are pulled by unicorns.
Some news! It's been announced that, subject to legal checks, I have been appointed Team Vicar - with responsibility for St Mary, Apsley End and St Benedict, Bennet's End - in the Langelei Team Ministry in the Diocese of St Albans. ๐น ๐น
I was struck by the silently murderous role the Church plays in this story and others like it, making gay people of Peter's generation believe themselves unworthy of love, and deserving of excruciating loneliness. It is abuse.
It would be really great if we could stop asking clergy to talk about their previous careers and experience gained from them. Some of us were ordained aged 24, and we were led to believe that was perfectly okay.
Rubber ducks were a BIG hit at today's baptism. Perfect focus/ fun for lively toddler and his big sister. I think they might be standard issue from now on.
Can't really believe I'm reading this, but it seems
@CoopFuneralcare
are offering memorial services for families who lost a loved one during lockdown, for ยฃ700.
If this is you, please, please get in touch with your parish priest and save yourself ยฃ700
We are 1 today! A whole year of making each other laugh, making a family, building a home, falling in love over and over again.
We have everything we need. We are whole. We are blessed. There is no fear in love.
Lots of my non-Christian friends have been messaging me about the Rochester crazy golf, asking me how I feel. Iโve been explaining that
(a) I think itโs totally fine. Literally.
(b) The argument is not re: desecration of sacred space, but is textbook middle-class snobbery.
Never mind COVID-19... JOLLEY-19 is 2 today!
I never believed that being this happy could be this simple, or this much fun. Happy Anniversary to us!
@jolleymaths
For clarity, the Church of England does not campaign against abortion. Abortion is sometimes the lesser of two evils, and necessary. That's the position. To campaign against safe, legal access to medical abortion is right-wing and also just nuts.
The visitation! Women sharing their miraculous encounters with the love and power of God. A feast that has come to mean something new and special to me.
This is one of my favourite depictions of it (Gwen Raverat).
Food is good. It keeps you alive. Burgers are lovely. Jesus wants you to love yourself enough to put food in your tummy and enjoy it. All happy people are very beautiful. Eating is a privilege and a joy.
Can't believe women in the Church are having to spell this out again, but it is perfectly possible to believe that women should be priests (here I am ๐) and bishops, and that there should be places and spaces for people who don't share this view.
My dear, brilliant spiritual director. I would never have been ordained, never have been able to look the Church in the eye, without her. Life, ministry, without Anna's wisdom and kindness? I don't know what that is. I don't know how it can be.
I'm always in awe of Funeral Directors, but never more so than at the moment. These are the most challenging circumstances, but they've not given an inch in standards or quality of care. Always ready with a cheeky grin and a Werther's Original when we need it most. Thank you ๐
Popped into
@waitrose
to buy anniversary flowers and champagne for tomorrow (3 years!). The lovely lady at the till gave me another, free bunch of flowers and wished us a happy anniversary. That's made my day โค
When you've done the age-old clergy funeral trick of holding it together until you get in the car, and then letting yourself cry all the way home, and then the funeral directors pull up next to you at the traffic lights. ๐คฆโโ๏ธ
I need to polish my black shoes, but I don't want to polish them because then everything will be ready for tomorrow, and never in any sphere of possible imagination am I ready for tomorrow.
The Church of England has a habit of making LGBTQA+ people feel like rubbish to be thrown away, or an indulgent additive for those who can be bothered to care. If you are feeling tired, listen to my friend
@JayHulmePoet
and be soothed. Change is coming.
Good disagreement is when I think that same sex couples should be able to get married in church, and lots of other people don't, and we disagree on grounds of our theological convictions. Happens all the time. Is largely amicable. Conversion therapy is different.
If you have any kind of influence, if you can help make this nightmare end for LGBTQ+ people, please, please help. Not all of us have happy, beautiful stories. Some of us would rather die than be gay in the church. Lots of us already have. Use your voice.
Congrats to the Methodist Church! And very good that an opt-out clause is included. Let's have something similar in the C of E.
If you don't want to, no-one's forcing you. ๐
I normally get v annoyed with all the CT bashing. But I work *hard* day in, day out to encourage people to know they are loved immeasurably as they are. This sort of thing is not helpful.
Very excited that my priesting and 1st mass will be on 4th October! It's such good news. Thank you to everyone who has prayed in this strange time. ๐
A year since I stood here nervously waiting for the wardens to lead me up the aisle to the Bishop. I am remembering Anna, on the right, turning to smile at me. I miss her today as every day.
Thankful for this silly, fun, scary new life and this call that refuses to go away.
The interesting thing, of course, about converting one's Civil Partnership to a Civil Marriage is that it is backdated, so technically you've been married all along.
There was priesting news this afternoon! Still working details out and making rough plans. Also crying with joy/ panic/ disbelief, and drinking gin.
Prayers appreciated. ๐
I started wearing glasses full time 3 days ago and my observations are thus. They steam up:
- when I am out walking in the cold
- when I blow on a cup of tea
- when I open the oven
- when I come in from outside
And the rest of the time they just need cleaning..?
I've been a priest for 4 days and I have this thought: I wish I'd known sooner that preparing for this ministry is a gradual process of becoming one's truest self. The idea isn't that you drag yourself, broken and bleeding, towards an unattainable goal.
Always baffled by how relatively invisible gay women clergy seem to be in comparison to men. Are there fewer of us? Do we sometimes enjoy the privilege of invisibility? Who knows. ๐
My pastoral advice to LGBTQ+ Anglicans over the next few weeks is to choose your engagement with the news and social media wisely - do what you need for your well-being.
Bask in the love of God and rest in the prayers of the Saints. ๐ณ๏ธโ๐ ๐ณ๏ธโโง๏ธ
Shortly after the worst thing in the world happened earlier this year, someone said to me "Even the darkness is no darkness to God. He can make of this something new, something beautiful". I didn't believe them at the time. But they were right.
This morning during my sermon I pointed to our large, empty, dark crib and said "if your heart feels or has felt like that, then it is the perfect place for Jesus to be born".
Of course, I am a priest forever. And because of my priestly ministry I know that life is rarely black-and-white. God offers mercy, and forgiveness, and kindness, a second chance for love. To appoint ourselves judges higher than him is to stray into very dangerous territory.
Spent 10 mins sitting in the car between visits, just letting my thoughts turn over: power play, and lies, trust, homophobia in this institution.
This is mentally an absolutely exhausting time to be gay, partnered, and newly ordained.
The point is not that there's no such thing as sexual/ marital sin. There certainly is, as clergy well know. The point is that same-sex relationships, and permanent commitment thereto, are not an example of such sin.
Round of applause for my wife, who perfectly followed my instructions for a chocolate peanut butter birthday cake with blue icing ๐ (and made me a ๐bacon sandwich before work)
3 years! โค๐พ๐
'What excessive promises, giving yourself away to get the other. What a thing, what a gift, always given before it is known the cost or the reward'.
- 'Little Women', Greta Gerwig (2019).
For those of you wondering how sexual harassment of female surgeons can occur *in theatre* - may I present to you a letter in todayโs
@thetimes
Nowhere in any prospectus I read did it say โexpect to be sexually harassed/assaultedโ
This letter is shameful and shameless
In my emails this afternoon there's a letter from my Bishop about the ordination retreat. 'The retreat will conclude with the Swearing of Oaths, Bishop's Charge, and a *cup of tea*'. ๐ Very pleased that the quintessence of our Anglicanism hasn't been compromised!
I havenโt seen the comic relief gay wedding, Iโm *way* too tired, but I have seen a lot of straight married Anglicans talking about how much it hurt them to watch it. I really hate to be impolite but... if you think thatโs pain, you need to check your privilege.
In other words, the cure for burnout isnโt self-care. The cure for burnout is all of us caring for each other. No amount of โself-careโ can stand against the flood of unceasing demands and unmeetable goals that keep us constantly striving and sacrificing'
Once again so thankful for the recordings on the Daily Prayer app. Not having to pray on my own, in my study, in the cold, is a huge blessing and especially this week when all the grief rises to the surface. ๐
Today at the midday eucharist, the person administering the chalice addressed each of us as 'Beloved of God' and I realised I've been forgetting that is who I am. Who and what are clergy when we are having a break from our work?
The 'information for same-sex couples' section of the Weddings bit of the
@churchofengland
website is horrendous. "You might just need space for yourself to pray โ some churches or cathedrals are left open at certain times so anyone can go in." Really...?