In her Christmas Message, The Rt Reverend Cherry Vann, Bishop of Monmouth comments that “One of the most remarkable facts about the Christmas story is that the whole event is so small and hidden and seemingly irrelevant. God came to us in the smallest of ways.” She reminds us that, it is in “our smallness, our hiddenness and our apparent irrelevance that God comes; and not just to us, but through us to the whole world. It’s in the small acts of kindness and compassion, the hidden gestures of generosity and selflessness, the seemingly irrelevant lives of goodness and faithfulness,… Read more »
I think you have a genuine point, but as Christians we also have to say what is right and wrong. It’s perhaps the most difficult balance to find. It’s one I personally need to work on, and I thank you for your comment. Something I need to pray about.
I hear your point, David, but I disagree. I don’t think David H has missed the point at all. Much depends on perspective. Some may be content to stay with ‘gentle Jesus meek and mild’, and if that brings them comfort should they be hurting or an ideal against which they wish to measure their behaviour and find a restored gentleness and grace in their actions, then I see nothing wrong in it at all. Others may look to the redemptive power of radical living inherent in the small and concealed actually being the greatest gift that brings freedom to… Read more »
I am not hitting anyone David. I was asking Lambeth Palace to listen to those “gentle and generous words” not to score a point but as a plea for it to change course. I and many others feel utter despair at the state of my church and the last straw from my point of view was the appointment of a former head of MI5 to chair the committee to appoint the next Archbishop. There is nothing “gentle and generous” about our security services and the appointment gives completely the wrong message. The very best way of achieving a “gentle and… Read more »
The more you tell me of +Cherry Vann, the more impressed I am. What we think of as small or insignificant might be big and important to our Lord God, and vice versa.
As I think you imply, but don’t explicitly say, if various bishops and archbishops truly understood they wouldn’t be so slow to step back: they are clinging to something which doesn’t really matter.
Perhaps a small act of compassion and kindness would be to send greetings to Lambeth Palace, and pray God’s blessing on ++Justin and all who work there. And to send generosity and goodness to victims of abuse and suffering.
And the same point can be made about the events of what we call Holy Week. It was a minor irritation to Pilate, a sideshow, in which Jesus was marginalised and eliminated. Yet in the marginal figure on the cross we claim that God’s presence is most sharply and fully revealed. And according to the biblical record only the disciples saw the risen Lord . Very small scale and apparently away from the mainstream.
Susannah
30 days ago
Cherry Vann’s Christmas Message is precious – “one of the most remarkable facts about the Christmas story is that the whole event is so small and hidden” – and thank you, David, for flagging it up. It’s also apposite for me. I have decided to cease posting on Thinking Anglicans and other Christian pages because it’s no longer congruent with the call I feel to the hidden life and also, I realise it is damaging me psychologically. I am Carmelite in spirituality, and for 14 years now I have felt called to be hidden in prayer with my God. I… Read more »
So long Susannah, and thank you for your thoughtful contributions to what in some ways might almost be seen as a convent in itself. Your openmindedness has made it less of a closed community however. Blessings on all your journeys
Thank you,
I took have been wondering about reducing my time here – although not completely eliminating, and recommitting to Franciscan ways not Camelite.
I confess I don’t think I know as much about the Camelite order so I have now looked them up.
I pray you (and all who feel similarly called) will continue to feel blessed in your relationship with Jesus as you see him “with the lonely and forgotten, the sick and the dying, the lost and the misfits.” – a very humble yet noble calling.
Dear Susannah, Can I add my own best wishes and thanks as you move on from Thinking Anglicans and back into a quieter more reflective life. Edward Said talked about the Palestinian people being denied permission to narrate their own history and experience. I think the same thing can be said about LGBTQ people in the church. So often we LGBTQ people find that our version of our own history and experience is denied or ignored, and an alternative version is imposed by by straight people – even well meaning straight people. And so your ability to challenge that and… Read more »
Thank you for all your contributions to this site, Susannah. Whether or not I hav agreed with them, they are always offered with compassion and are all worth reading and thinking about. Please continue to hold us all, and our different searchings, in your prayer as you return to the greater solitude of the Carmelite Order and practice. I think we may al need to be held in this sort of prayer more and more. Blessings.
Dear Susannah Thank you Your comments have been thoughtful, wise and incisive. You have not been “intemperate or overbearing”. All of us need to take heed to your example and examine our vocation. This Advent I have significantly reduced screen time and social media related time. I need to do more of that. Our Church and country are in a very bad place. We must all focus our time, energy and skills on the core tasks entrusted to us. For all of us who dare to call ourselves Christians have work to do that is not on here. Go well… Read more »
“all of us who dare to call ourselves Christians have work to do that is not on here.” You are right, Lottie, but I would argue that we also have work to do that is located on this Thinking Anglicans site. I know from people who have reached out to me privately via my own website that there are a huge number of people who read TA without ever posting here, and who value the many and varied comments on the site made by people coming from a more liberal and inclusive background. It gives them insights and information they… Read more »
I think it’s partly a matter of vocation. Susannah’s vocation is the cloister, while I am clear that part of my vocation is to be here on TA and other forums. But I need to balance that with reflection, contemplation, and more peaceful pursuits. We should all honour each other’s vocation.
I too can feel conflicted by engaging with communities like this, and I appreciate yours and others reflections of this question. I came across this quote today which may have a bearing (it is the last line that encourages me to stay) ‘(Moral) outrage is a particularly unproductive affect, yet it is one that offers considerable libidinal satisfaction. By “unproductive” I mean this: it gives us the satisfaction of feeling morally superior, the feeling that we are in the right and others are in the wrong. Now for this to work, things must not really change. We are much less… Read more »
Thanks.This has some similarities with my quote from Deleuze elsewhere here. The power of affirmation. History progresses not by negation and the negation of negation, but by deciding problems and affirming differences. It is no less bloody and cruel as a result. Only the shadows of history live by negation: the good enter into it with all the power of a posited differential or a difference affirmed; they repel shadows into the shadows and deny only as the consequence of a primary positivity and affirmation. For them, as Nietzsche says, affirmation is primary; it affirms difference, while the negative is… Read more »
About 5 years before the end of my active ministry we had a serious car accident. I could have retired there and then but instead took the decision that ‘something had to give’. What ‘gave’ was was almost everything ‘official’ in order to concentrate on my inner city parish – which already had a demanding agenda. What followed for the remaining five years was the most demanding but fruitful time. I’ve only been an occasional contributor to TA with nowhere near the depth of Susannah’s heartfelt insight but like her have decided ‘no more’. I have valued some of the… Read more »
Dear Susannah, I was sad for TA but not for you when I read your post. Your contributions to the debate about John Smyth were very brave and I think helped to dispel the myths that somehow survivors should just pull themselves and get over it for the convenience of the organisation. Also you have been generous in sharing your perspective as a trans woman . But above all you have retained your perspective that God is love and are always willing to share that too In the words of the traditional song- ‘Go well and safely, the Lord be… Read more »
Julie Rubidge
29 days ago
The people on the ground have been let down by their senior leaders. There is nothing new in that, it happens in every nook and cranny of society. When we suddenly have serious cracks in the wall of the turret of the Church however, we have an opportunity to see new possibilities. We can see the light of Christ breaking through, if we look. I have faith. As one of those at base level, I would like to pose a few wonderings as we look forward to the eventual appointment of a new Archbishop: I wonder whether the recent words… Read more »
At this sort of juncture it’s easy to pile on and blame “leadership” but this is not the army. Everyone has a responsibility to tell truth to power but deference is perhaps the default mode.
David Runcorn
29 days ago
I always value Bishop Nick Baines’ blogs and his Radio 2 Pauses for Thought. Last week he found a song line of Leonard Cohen’s summing up all he wanted to say – “the holy or the broken Hallelujah”. Baines continues, ‘his point seems to be that you have to have both. I know exactly what he means. I – and I suspect many other people – know themselves to be both: holy and broken. We don’t need anyone else to point out our failings and deficits – we face them every time we look in the mirror. And yet …… Read more »
In her Christmas Message, The Rt Reverend Cherry Vann, Bishop of Monmouth comments that “One of the most remarkable facts about the Christmas story is that the whole event is so small and hidden and seemingly irrelevant. God came to us in the smallest of ways.” She reminds us that, it is in “our smallness, our hiddenness and our apparent irrelevance that God comes; and not just to us, but through us to the whole world. It’s in the small acts of kindness and compassion, the hidden gestures of generosity and selflessness, the seemingly irrelevant lives of goodness and faithfulness,… Read more »
Doesn’t it rather miss the point to use these gentle and generous words to hit someone else with?
Isn’t your rebuke doing the same?
I think you have a genuine point, but as Christians we also have to say what is right and wrong. It’s perhaps the most difficult balance to find. It’s one I personally need to work on, and I thank you for your comment. Something I need to pray about.
I hear your point, David, but I disagree. I don’t think David H has missed the point at all. Much depends on perspective. Some may be content to stay with ‘gentle Jesus meek and mild’, and if that brings them comfort should they be hurting or an ideal against which they wish to measure their behaviour and find a restored gentleness and grace in their actions, then I see nothing wrong in it at all. Others may look to the redemptive power of radical living inherent in the small and concealed actually being the greatest gift that brings freedom to… Read more »
I am not hitting anyone David. I was asking Lambeth Palace to listen to those “gentle and generous words” not to score a point but as a plea for it to change course. I and many others feel utter despair at the state of my church and the last straw from my point of view was the appointment of a former head of MI5 to chair the committee to appoint the next Archbishop. There is nothing “gentle and generous” about our security services and the appointment gives completely the wrong message. The very best way of achieving a “gentle and… Read more »
Thank you, Well it was that last line in an otherwise moving post. I hear your anguish and, believe me, I share it.
The more you tell me of +Cherry Vann, the more impressed I am. What we think of as small or insignificant might be big and important to our Lord God, and vice versa.
As I think you imply, but don’t explicitly say, if various bishops and archbishops truly understood they wouldn’t be so slow to step back: they are clinging to something which doesn’t really matter.
Perhaps a small act of compassion and kindness would be to send greetings to Lambeth Palace, and pray God’s blessing on ++Justin and all who work there. And to send generosity and goodness to victims of abuse and suffering.
And the same point can be made about the events of what we call Holy Week. It was a minor irritation to Pilate, a sideshow, in which Jesus was marginalised and eliminated. Yet in the marginal figure on the cross we claim that God’s presence is most sharply and fully revealed. And according to the biblical record only the disciples saw the risen Lord . Very small scale and apparently away from the mainstream.
Cherry Vann’s Christmas Message is precious – “one of the most remarkable facts about the Christmas story is that the whole event is so small and hidden” – and thank you, David, for flagging it up. It’s also apposite for me. I have decided to cease posting on Thinking Anglicans and other Christian pages because it’s no longer congruent with the call I feel to the hidden life and also, I realise it is damaging me psychologically. I am Carmelite in spirituality, and for 14 years now I have felt called to be hidden in prayer with my God. I… Read more »
So long Susannah, and thank you for your thoughtful contributions to what in some ways might almost be seen as a convent in itself. Your openmindedness has made it less of a closed community however. Blessings on all your journeys
Susannah, thank you for all you’ve contributed here over the years.Have a happy Christmas, and blessings on your new start in January.
Susannah, thank you for all your postings. Peace be with you and I wish you well for your journey ahead.
Bless you, Susannah, and thank you for all that has been.
Susannah, thank you for sharing of yourself on this site. I have valued your contributions. Go in peace.
Thank you,
I took have been wondering about reducing my time here – although not completely eliminating, and recommitting to Franciscan ways not Camelite.
I confess I don’t think I know as much about the Camelite order so I have now looked them up.
I pray you (and all who feel similarly called) will continue to feel blessed in your relationship with Jesus as you see him “with the lonely and forgotten, the sick and the dying, the lost and the misfits.” – a very humble yet noble calling.
God is Love, Amen.
Dear Susannah, Can I add my own best wishes and thanks as you move on from Thinking Anglicans and back into a quieter more reflective life. Edward Said talked about the Palestinian people being denied permission to narrate their own history and experience. I think the same thing can be said about LGBTQ people in the church. So often we LGBTQ people find that our version of our own history and experience is denied or ignored, and an alternative version is imposed by by straight people – even well meaning straight people. And so your ability to challenge that and… Read more »
Thank you for all your contributions to this site, Susannah. Whether or not I hav agreed with them, they are always offered with compassion and are all worth reading and thinking about. Please continue to hold us all, and our different searchings, in your prayer as you return to the greater solitude of the Carmelite Order and practice. I think we may al need to be held in this sort of prayer more and more. Blessings.
Dear Susannah Thank you Your comments have been thoughtful, wise and incisive. You have not been “intemperate or overbearing”. All of us need to take heed to your example and examine our vocation. This Advent I have significantly reduced screen time and social media related time. I need to do more of that. Our Church and country are in a very bad place. We must all focus our time, energy and skills on the core tasks entrusted to us. For all of us who dare to call ourselves Christians have work to do that is not on here. Go well… Read more »
And a big thank you to those whose work is to run Thinking Anglicans, and help inform discussions and action in the Church.
“all of us who dare to call ourselves Christians have work to do that is not on here.” You are right, Lottie, but I would argue that we also have work to do that is located on this Thinking Anglicans site. I know from people who have reached out to me privately via my own website that there are a huge number of people who read TA without ever posting here, and who value the many and varied comments on the site made by people coming from a more liberal and inclusive background. It gives them insights and information they… Read more »
I think it’s partly a matter of vocation. Susannah’s vocation is the cloister, while I am clear that part of my vocation is to be here on TA and other forums. But I need to balance that with reflection, contemplation, and more peaceful pursuits. We should all honour each other’s vocation.
I too can feel conflicted by engaging with communities like this, and I appreciate yours and others reflections of this question. I came across this quote today which may have a bearing (it is the last line that encourages me to stay) ‘(Moral) outrage is a particularly unproductive affect, yet it is one that offers considerable libidinal satisfaction. By “unproductive” I mean this: it gives us the satisfaction of feeling morally superior, the feeling that we are in the right and others are in the wrong. Now for this to work, things must not really change. We are much less… Read more »
Thanks.This has some similarities with my quote from Deleuze elsewhere here. The power of affirmation. History progresses not by negation and the negation of negation, but by deciding problems and affirming differences. It is no less bloody and cruel as a result. Only the shadows of history live by negation: the good enter into it with all the power of a posited differential or a difference affirmed; they repel shadows into the shadows and deny only as the consequence of a primary positivity and affirmation. For them, as Nietzsche says, affirmation is primary; it affirms difference, while the negative is… Read more »
About 5 years before the end of my active ministry we had a serious car accident. I could have retired there and then but instead took the decision that ‘something had to give’. What ‘gave’ was was almost everything ‘official’ in order to concentrate on my inner city parish – which already had a demanding agenda. What followed for the remaining five years was the most demanding but fruitful time. I’ve only been an occasional contributor to TA with nowhere near the depth of Susannah’s heartfelt insight but like her have decided ‘no more’. I have valued some of the… Read more »
Thank you for your contributions, David. I hope you continue to enjoy your retirement.
Thanks for all you have contributed, Susannah; I have very much valued this and wish you many blessings in years to come.
Dear Susannah, I was sad for TA but not for you when I read your post. Your contributions to the debate about John Smyth were very brave and I think helped to dispel the myths that somehow survivors should just pull themselves and get over it for the convenience of the organisation. Also you have been generous in sharing your perspective as a trans woman . But above all you have retained your perspective that God is love and are always willing to share that too In the words of the traditional song- ‘Go well and safely, the Lord be… Read more »
The people on the ground have been let down by their senior leaders. There is nothing new in that, it happens in every nook and cranny of society. When we suddenly have serious cracks in the wall of the turret of the Church however, we have an opportunity to see new possibilities. We can see the light of Christ breaking through, if we look. I have faith. As one of those at base level, I would like to pose a few wonderings as we look forward to the eventual appointment of a new Archbishop: I wonder whether the recent words… Read more »
At this sort of juncture it’s easy to pile on and blame “leadership” but this is not the army. Everyone has a responsibility to tell truth to power but deference is perhaps the default mode.
I always value Bishop Nick Baines’ blogs and his Radio 2 Pauses for Thought. Last week he found a song line of Leonard Cohen’s summing up all he wanted to say – “the holy or the broken Hallelujah”. Baines continues, ‘his point seems to be that you have to have both. I know exactly what he means. I – and I suspect many other people – know themselves to be both: holy and broken. We don’t need anyone else to point out our failings and deficits – we face them every time we look in the mirror. And yet …… Read more »