Vicar's Family in Training » Musings

Mountain tops and washing up

admin — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:05:37 +0000

I missed last week’s VFIT support group’s curry night, going instead a High School Musical Evening. That is, an evening of music at the High School which oldest VKIT attends, as opposed to an evening of Disney’s High School Musical. Thankfully. And it was great; shame about the curry though.

Anyway, this week I shall, as often happens, be away for the Wednesday evening support group get together. Which is something of a relief, since it’s a communion service. Now, this seems to me like something of a busman’s holiday. Our spouses are training to be vicars, some of us go to unfamiliar placement churches at weekends, (and even get used as props in sermons) and for relaxation, one option is more of the same.

I find my reaction to this somewhat concerning. If my wife is training to be a vicar, shouldn’t I like going to church? Wouldn’t it help? Well, aside from the fact that my Myers-Briggs type is apparently pathologically opposed to going to church, the more serious response to this is to ask why?

In Chester P Michael and Marie C. Norrisey, Prayer and Temperament (Charlottesville, VA: Open Door, 1991) these two look at Myers Briggs types and attitudes to church. One sentence grabbed me when it said that those with “S” and “F” combinations were characterized as being free, unconfined, compulsive, not tied down by rules, loving action and crisis-oriented. It goes on to say this combination “combines an active view of God speaking in creation through the senses with a need for other-centered action and acts of service.” Gosh – maybe this is why I have frequently felt much closer to God when on a mountain top (or washing up) than in church, and maybe it goes some way to explaining why sitting in a pew on a Wednesday night does not hugely appeal. With that in mind there are a couple of photos in this post, each of which is clickable to get to a larger version of the same.

Ah well, back to comforting VIT who is suffering from a surfeit of Christmas Carol Services (including the college one tonight) when she’d much rather be contemplating ADVENT, which of course, it still is.

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Away a lot

admin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:02:11 +0000

I have perhaps already alluded to the logistical challenge of being a VFIT. Many people have jobs which take them away from home, and many of those have both partners doing full time jobs. So we are by no means unique. But VIT and I are renegotiating the way we interact with each other over diaries – it’s not easy but I think it will be OK. In fact I think it may end up better than before.

A related aside: if there can be such a thing. The government is taking our local railway company back into public ownership on Friday night (the 13th…). I think that this will be a good thing, although it does mean new ties for the staff, new logos, trains and stations will need repainting again etc etc. But in case the new company decided to take away the online booking thing, I thought I should look up how much I have spent on train fares in the last 18 months. A shocking £12,690. I wonder how much of the next lot will be spent on new ties.

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A priest remembered in Belgium

husband — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:59:26 +0000

In my previous post I mentioned it had been an odd week, this half term. VIT in college, me with the kids. The second half of VIT’s week has less in the timetable, so my week has sort of returned to normal – i.e. I’m away from home. In fact I am writing this heading home on board a National Express Train which takes longer to do less distance than the Eurostar I took early this evening from Brussels. In the meantime I’ve been to Hendon and Leuven.

Leuven was interesting since it was just two weeks since the Pope has turned Father Damien, a Leuven boy, into a saint. His wish had been to be buried in Hawaii where he had lived and worked with lepers. And indeed this happened. Butin1935 the Belgian government asked for him back, and so his remains were moved to Leuven. In 1995 he was beatified, and at this point what was left of his right hand was sent back to Hawaii. There’s a picture of him here looking not unlike VIT’s grandfather.

Anyway, all up and down the streets in Leuven are billboard size photos connected with Fr Damian. There are photos of his gravestone, his body’s return to Leuven, all kinds of things associated with his life proudly displayed in the street, to celebrate his canonization.

I wonder who will remember our VITs when they’re gone.

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It takes me back, and confuses me…

husband — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:51:02 +0000

I had a surreal experience last night.

We went for tea (that’s an evening meal to anyone southern reading this) in Coverdale Hall. A pretty decent mass produced steak and ale pie with some very oddly textured mashed potato (I think there was wallpaper paste in it) followed by some kind of pudding with warm lumpy custard. The latter landed like a brick in my stomach about five minutes after leaving the dining room. But hey, it was food and none of us had to buy it, cook it or do the washing up.

That wasn’t the surreal experience though.

I sat there with VIT and one of her colleagues, a former air traffic controller with some great stories to tell, judging by the “737 nearly lands on a Chinook” one. Opposite was my 15 year old VKIT and next to me, wriggling almost continually except when he was running up and down the dining room, was the 7 year old one.

Now, I am used to VKIT talking about essays she has to write, deadlines she mustn’t miss, deadlines she nearly missed, deadlines she has missed (exceptionally rarely) and so on. She sometimes comes home with her friends, and like any GCSE student, discusses schoolwork with her friends.

What was surreal about last night was that my wife was doing this. She and ATC person were discussing the mission essay, when it had to be in, how long it was, which books they had to read and so on. THIS IS NOT NORMAL. THIS IS WHAT SCHOOLCHILDREN AND STUDENTS DO. Ah yes, but my wife is a VIT and therefore this is normal.

Weird though, because I last heard her saying these kinds of things more than 20 years ago, and that was when she had a notice above her desk that said “Have you done your Greek today”…

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