A journey described as an introduction, a sketch and an invitation to share with others.
For as long as I can remember I have been searching for ‘meaning’. I remember teenage discussions with my father discussing philosophy and politics, and theology was always hinted at in the formation of values and as a foundational understanding. I grew up attending in a traditional Methodist church and in my teenage years I asked to see my elderly vicar to ask if he could explain to me the rational behind the language of the faith I was hearing every week. In my young arrogance I found his attempts to engage me unappealing and nonsensical ( I beg his forgiveness now!) and faded out of church attendance.
However this didn’t last too long as in my twenties in the turbulence of young motherhood, radical friendships and deep spiritual mentors I returned to the blessed silence of a Quaker meeting where I experienced ‘the other’. At the same time and I discovered Leslie Weatherhead’s Agnostic Christian and Tolstoy's novels and spiritual writings which fed an opening of theological debate. I also spent time with my past prima ballerina ballet teacher Susie Alexander as she lived her love of Jesus and followed his teachings to a flat in Tower Hamlets where I joined her for a breakfast candle and a piece of bread sitting on the floor with the babies in perfect contentment of poverty. Through these experiences and guides I learnt that Jesus teachings were practical. That they formed a basis on which to build a radically different life and that there could be a intimacy with God in silence and in all moments of the day.
In the middle of the nineties we moved the family back to the smallholding at Carters and I then came across the work of the priest, historian Ivan Illich and his book Deschooling Society. So much of what I had been hearing, learning and experiencing fell into place and we began a lifelong journey in deschooling, home education and building community through the highly successful Isle of Wight Learning Zone which continues to this day (https://www.iwlz.org). At the same time a marvellous Catholic matriarch opened her house to speakers and teachers and there I met Gerard Hughes who taught us imaginative prayer and I began to understand, much to my indignation at not being told before, that there was a rich contemplative life in the church! I was also at this time spending many hours in silence picking tomatoes each morning to help pay the bills. This solitude deepened my experience of the spiritual life and I returned to the Methodist church of my youth. The then minister gently and quietly listened to my spiritual ramblings and suggested that I train as a local preacher as the theological training might help to give a framework for my doubts and yearnings.
Local preaching led to ministry and church refurbishments, politics and the enormous burden of the life of a minister with five churches to juggle. On leaving the Isle of Wight with its traditional, liturgical Methodism I found myself in a very different church. The broad and rich diversity of worship styles and theological dialogue was fading and my ‘liberal’ theology was out of place. My MA studies (dissertation on Tolstoy's relationship with Gandhi) were taking me further into a world of stimulating theology and I was deeply involved with some others in the church and the local Muslim community in the multifaith practice of 'Silence as a Meeting place'. After struggling to perform worship entertainment for four years and finding that I was increasingly at odds with the biblical fundamentalism that was infiltrating our staff gatherings I reached out to the veteran minister Lord Leslie Griffiths and in a meeting with him saw that maybe I was in the wrong place. There was at that time enough of a broad church in the Church of England under Rowan Williams for us doubting and debating theologians to find a home so after a short and most enjoyable time at Cuddesdon under the mentorship of Martyn Percy I became a vicar…. With eight rural church this time!!!
There in the Salisbury Diocese with Bishop Nick Holton as our encourager some of us began an Ecochurch journey and my preaching and teaching was enriched by beginning to explore a PhD in radical theology/ post critical naïveté and faith in the ruins of meta narratives. However this had to be postponed on the cancer diagnosis of my father and we returned to parishes on the Isle of Wight and there continued the Ecochurch journey with my beloved rural churches. The small rural parish of St Helens achieved one of the first Ecochurch Gold awards in the country and during COVID this outreach blossomed into an eco market and community farm. Also at this time a member of our congregation, Dr Andrew Bradstock, mentioned that we looked like 'modern day Diggers'! Thanks to his excellent books on revolutionary religion and also the fantastic 'Three acres and a Cow' theatre company I began understand the struggle for access to land that continues to this day and returned again to a faith rooted in theology but flowering into action.
The Eco Market. The churches closed but shops stayed open so we opened a shop!
Dispute so much hard work we found that as a rural church community, committed to open and welcoming engagement with our villages, our voice was increasingly not heard at Diosisan and National level, as the ‘Save our Parishes’ movement nation wide highlighted. By now I was bitter and embattled and just seemed to be ‘cross all the time’ as we struggled to quantify our impact and develop complex business model mission plans. At that time our Archdeacon who is gay left his role after 3 years of homophobic abuse from the some of the Island church saying that, ‘Sadly at this time the CofE was not a safe place to be homosexual’. It was time to leave.
Our Archdeacon baptising in the sea.
So now once again I sit in the silence, cloistered in a tent on the land listening for 'the other', or as another inspiring theological guide Jack Caputo would say, being haunted and staying open to the Event. With a return to the thought
of Ivan Illich we find a wise guide and we are embodying our meaning in abundant subsistence living. I had not read or listened to Illich other than Deschooling and now in his body of work we are finding deep spiritual and philosophical wisdom that seems to have found its time. In Illich's dialogues on the Corruption of Christianity he talks about the fundamental early Christian practice of welcoming of the stranger and of leaving a bed, a candle and a piece of bread at all times ready to welcome anyone as if they were Christ. We hope that anyone staying at the Chicken House will feel this welcome.... candles can be provided!
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