hideous hymns, vocal vicars and theatrical thuribles. Religious Chat Thread Number 6!

[nickelbabe]

Welcome to the Religion Chat thread.
We're mostly Christians, but all are welcome.
a lovely soace to talk about church life, spiritual journeys and stuff in general.
It's not about debate, it's about chat.
Come oldies and newbies!

this is the previous thread

Btw Nickel I am nearly finished making my list of books. I haven't forgotten, I promise! Hope you had a better day -- have been praying for you.

niminy :( That's downright rude of the DDO if nothing else, and confidence isn't always the best thing - pride before a fall and all that. I'm so sorry you feel so crushed. sending love and prayers.

Ooh niminy i know the feeling! Wish we could both have a BAP soon! Would make things a bit more straightforward.
Not on from DDO, I've heard good things about her before!

Thank you, both. I'm feeling a bit better - had a bath, and ds1 made some brownies, and I've had a glass of wine. It's entirely likely that something happened completely not to do with me - like having to rush to the loo (I'm always having to do that as my pelvic floor is so pathetic ).

Blue, I did bump into someone I know though who is in her first year of training, and she said, about discernment that it totally messes up your head but once you're through it you realise it's in a good way. (Or something like that, something may have got a tiny bit garbled, blame the brownie and wine!)

That's very true niminy. When dh didn't get through his first BAP it was absolutely devastating, a really dark time for us, not knowing what was going on, feeling we'd discerned wrongly and heard no call, it was utterly horrible. But we look back and see God's hand in it - the timing, the life experience, all sorts of things, but at the time we were a wreck! Going through the whole process can be a very difficult thing indeed.

Keep on keeping on, you two, wonderful women of God. :)

What's a BAP? Blue, are you planning to train for the ministry too? Not at the same place as Niminy? Don't despair, I'm sure you will have more opportunities to win them over!

Yes would like to train too! I'm planning on applying for a assistant chaplain job at King's College London and if I get it, we'll hopefully be moving in with MIL in Cambridge, so will be in same diocese as niminy and will transfer to same DDO hopefully!

Please think of me, preaching this morning for the archdeacon and also need to tackle difficult work problem with church wardens! Not exactly a good combination!

Blue hope it went well this morning. Church wardens - one of those 'can't live with them, can't live without them' categories

Very exciting to think of you being in Cambridge! The DDO's good, I think, and incredibly smart. Everyone has some people they're more on the same wavelength with than others, and that goes for clergy as much as anyone else.

Hi Jayne a BAP is short for Bishops' Advisory Panel -- it's like a two day, residential interview where they make a final decision about whether you can train for ordination.

I've had a really good week, thank you for asking - if it weren't for those calculations, I would have been feeling really positive about the future.
it's just when.you take this week out of all the weeks, it's exceptional and not enough. next week will be back to normal, me sitting waiting for people to come through the door.
lotsof people have been lovely, giving me ideas of what I could do to help - most are ones that either I already do or that I've tried and have failed.
some are downright stupid/thoughtless, like "have you tried diversifying and sticking otger things?" (what you mean more stuff I have to pay for and find sonewhere to put in the already overcrowded shop when I'm 6grand down?) and a brilliantly absurd suggestion from the lady who rents a room.upstairs on a Wednesday: get a new carpet in a brighter colour! yes, because schools and customers can obviously smell new carpet frommiles away and will want to visit because it (and I can obviously also afford the money to pay for a new carpet that will be dirty in a couple of weeks anyway) She meant it would brighten the place up, but most people who cone in the shop comment on how lovely it is, and surely the problem is not whether the carpet is dark blue? those who come in say it's lovely, I've got nearly 75%conversion (proportion of people coming in vs people who spend) and my average spend is just under £10 per transaction. that's not the problem, it's getting people into the shop that's the problem!
and everyone says they're praying for me. which makes me think we're all supposed to be working towards God's great plan, that he's going to answer our prayers in the besg way for us. but I've spent my whole life getting shitted upon, my nental health has taken a proper beating and everything always goes wrong for me. so if the one thing that has been constant my entire life (reading and love of books) is not part of God's great plan for me, then I just can't believe he's got my best interests at heart.
nothing else matters to me.
so he'd better have something amazing in line for me, or i'mgoing to be furious on judgement day.
it's ridiculous: I'm not cut out to be an employee, I'm obviously no good at being my own boss. I don't know how i'll
cope being in the town with my failure plastered all over the building, taunting me. I won't be able to face that part of town, I won't be able to think of books as my friends any more and I think i might just have to crawl into a corner and die.
it's not just a shop going under, it's everything that life holds for me. without my little bookshop nothing else will feel worth having. it was going to dd's legacy - she's complicit in my dream.

nickel :(

I have no words, advice is not what you need right now anyway.

Just prayers, and much love

Yes - prayers and love coming your way, Nickel

Just checking in. Sorry I've left it a while again.

Nickel - Praying for a long term solution for you.

All ok here. Interested to hear of you going to confession HiddenHome. As I mentioned before, it's something I struggle with but I am starting to feel like I want to go before Lent is over. I wonder whether it would be ok to take 9mo DD in with me?

....

sorry, ignore me

nickel I didn't realise things were that bad.

SESthebrave Yes, I made it to confession after a false start. I first visited a new place with dh and ds2, but felt too nervous and just went home

I then visited the retreat centre and I know the priest there, so I had confession and felt great afterwards and am still feeling that way. I can't rationalise why I'm feeling like this, but it is just a wonderful feeling getting it all off your chest then being absolved.

ds2 had his first confession last week in a lovely church service with the rest of his class. It was just amazing and everyone was so happy. The looks on the children's faces after they returned to their parents after their confession was just wonderful. Our priest sat at the back near the alter and each child went up one by one, then some adults went up too

neither did i! :(
I was holding on to moving in the summer, but that's scuppered those plans.

Anyway, I've hoovered now, so I'm just waiting for all the customers to arrive - i might even dust later (when dd has woken up), because the smell of furniture polish attracts customers too, i've been told

(it's me, nickelbabe btw )

hiddenhome i've never understood the desire for confession, but I can see it's one of those things (especially in children) where it's so good to get things off your chest, when you're feeling guilty about something :)

Is your shop somewhere busy so people just wandering by stop in? Is it due to the recession? Lots of shops are struggling up our high street.

nickel, you are indeed Unique and Amazing :) Any reason for the namechange?
Been thinking of you.

hey, i'm always nickelbabe!
I ncd because i was doing an AIBU based on the Prodigal Son

UniqueandAmazing - (love the name!) for me an important part of the sacrament of reconciliation is also the preparation and examination of conscience. I realise things about my behaviour and what I do or don't do so much more and already since I've been contemplating going again, I've found myself adjusting my behaviour in small ways that make me feel so much better and more positive in my relationship with God. I know also though that to gain full benefit, I need to see the priest for absolution. It's not that I feel I need to tell a priest my sins but I need to verbalise them before God and the priest is His representative. Actually saying stuff out loud and then hearing the words "I absolve you..." with no feeling of judgement is very powerful. I just need to get over my counselling fear and go and do it!

MHD - hello! How's things? Are you recovered from your op?

hidden - sorry, got sidetracked

unfortunately, my shop is in totally the wrong place ?(because of shops closing down at this end of the street), so not enough passing trade.
this town is laid out in such a way that our main shopping street is one long line, which stretched about a mile! so people tend to stay up where the banks and Post Office is, then go home. I'm right down the bottom end :(

SES that's a beautiful way of looking at it :)