Anglican-Methodist Unity

David Gamble (President of Methodist Conference) and Richard Vautrey (Vice-President) made interesting reading yesterday. The Methodist-Anglican Covenant has been going somewhere since 1 November 2003, but the direction has not been clear. David re-affirmed the Methodist Church commitment to the Covenant, fine. But I am still waiting to hear such an affirmation from the Anglican Church. Even at the time of discussion leading up to and after 1 November 2003, many Anglicans still assumed that unity = Methodists becoming Anglicans. It is my understanding that the Covenant does not take us in that direction.

However, Ruth Gledhill was wrong when she wrote: "In 2003, in the presence of the Queen, who is Supreme Governor of the Church of England, the leaders signed a covenant affirming each other’s orders and sacraments and committing themselves to full unity." (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7023713.ece). As far as I recall, the Covenant says that we will in the future affirm each other's orders and sacraments, but at this point in time, I cannot celebrate Communion in an Anglican Church. I cannot, because the CoE does not recognise my ordination as being valid. On the other hand, the Methodist not only allows Anglican priests to celebrate communion, but when there is a joint Methodist-Anglican Church agreement, it is automatic that the Anglican priest receives full access to the Methodist structures, including voting rights. But this is not reciprocal.

Leaving aside the vexed question of the inequality inherent in the Anglican system, (and the way that bishops opposed to the ordination of women have been allowed to recruit new male priests who are also opposed, thus perpetrating this denial of the gospel), until Methodist orders of ministry (presbyterate and diaconal) are fully recognised by the CoE, the Covenant is as still as pondweed in stagnant water.

Meantime, there are more important things to do be doing. The work of the Kingdom is active, right where I am, where you are. Synods and Conferences can talk, it is the relationships we have that will make the difference.

Prayer letter - settling in

Settling in: We knew before we arrived that travelling with our dog was going to be “a good thing”. In fact, she has helped us talk to people from day 1. Our Italian has slowly improved, but she was quick to learn that “Che bella!” was usually directed at her. It seems the Italians are quick to praise and caress children and pets, so Gabrieli certainly feels right at home. With her, we are distinctive, and our neighbours quickly realized that we are not just tourists, but here to stay. However, without her, it has taken a few more months to reach the stage where we can smile, wave and “ciao” people as we pass by.

Prayer letter (2)

The local neighbourhood: We are sandwiched between the river and Santa Croce, just round the corner from the statue of David. The night-life is lively, with a nightclub and bar next door to the church, and a kebab shop and restaurant on the other. The streets are filled with people, and the area therefore feels very safe, if somewhat noisier than you might like at 2am! However, it was puzzling when we arrived because there appeared to be no shops. Instead great corrugated iron shutters obscured any clues of what lay beneath. Firenze is so hot in the summer (see above!) that anyone who can simply leaves the city, and that includes many local shop-owners. As August wears endlessly on and the heat diminishes into a hot UK summer in September, shops re-appeared, as if we were on Diagon Alley . We are not living in a graffiti inscribed, vacant lots, scruffy area, but instead can enjoy the small businesses – pet shop (Gabrieli’s 2nd favourite place), fruit & veg. shops, butchers and ice-cream parlour (Gabrieli’s favourite place). We are also a short walk from one of the Firenze markets with plentiful selection of meat, greens, clothes, household goods. It is a good place to watch the world go by (as you sip your cappuccino at the market bar): the group of Africans selling dusters, tissues and umbrellas, the stall-holders are Indians, Italians, Filipini, the beggars are Romanians and Italians, the shoppers are from everywhere.

Prayer letter - part 1

[Knowing how my followers are hanging on my every word, I thought I'd send out my prayer letter on my blog over a few days; although you may receive an email as well, sorry!]

I am serving as Mission Partner in Florence, Italy with the Italian Methodist Church. I am very happy to be here with my husband Robin and our standard poodle, Gabrieli (the Italian name is just a coincidence!)

First impressions may be misleading: We arrived into Firenze (Florence) in the middle of the holiday season. It was hot. It had been hot since we’d entered Italy (in our camper-van) on the 6th August. Sun is lovely on holiday, but it has a strange effect when you are living in the city. You selectively open windows and shutters, trying to keep the sun out, but find the breeze (there isn’t one). During the day, the apartment is so shady, you begin to feel nocturnal. No matter what combination of windows and shutters, open and close, morning and afternoon, it doesn’t matter. It is still hot. The apartment has beautiful floor tiles throughout, which we had imagined would be cold to our feet. They are now, in early January, but in August and September, they’re hot. The terrace is too hot. You have to walk the dog before 8:30am, or it is too hot. And you simply have to go round for the corner for gelato at midnight, because it is still…

104 days in Italy

You would think that living in a different country means that I’m trying out enough new things. But yesterday I tried one more. I’m very glad that we’ve been able to bring Gabrieli with us, as she’s been a great way to talk to people on the streets. It seems she is the only standard poodle in Florence and as such attracts a great deal of attention from locals and visitors alike. Of course, it means that if we walk down the street without her, we are completely anonymous, but with her we’ve met some of our neighbours in this busy part of central Florence.

However, after I decided that I could successfully wield the scissors on her haircut, she will be attracting fewer ‘che bella’ exclamations as we walk around. Those of you who know me, know that I am not good with things, anythings at all. One of the reasons that Robin does all the cooking is because he finds it painful to watch me splatting the food around when I’m trying to stir it. And so, quite honestly, I should have known better – particularly as the razor cuts short and the scissors are sharp.

It started well, the tail doesn’t look any odder than normal. The first back leg is also alright, but I’d clearly gained too much confidence on the second leg, just like the second performance of a play. Legs 3 & 4 sport yet more varied lengths. The head was going fine, until she moved. I decided to leave the ears to Robin!

Language learning has been a bit like that. You gain confidence, think that it is going well, and then fall foul of the next grammar rule. Some days I can gabble away and everyone seems to understand, the next day pronouncation doesn’t work, grammar becomes nonsensical, and nothing makes sense. Then there are the days when words I had forgotten in French become like a cracked record in my memory and I stutter onwards speaking a kind of franglaistalino. It is both amusing, and frustrating.

I make a living with words: I try in sermons to be interesting, in conversation to be attentive. But in another language, you fall back on the set expressions, you struggle to follow the basics, and completely miss the nuances. It is possible to find yourself nodding and smiling away, before realising that the story has become deeply sad and moving. It is normal to think that you understand everything, right up until the moment when a question is posed and you need to offer a coherent answer.

However, the largest blessing is that the Italians don’t seem to mind that I am mauling their bella lingua. People take time whilst you find the right words, and manage to understand even if (when) you don’t. They smile as they correct your grammar or pronounciation, and offer you some time for a chat, even when you’re making no sense whatsoever. There is no arrogance about good Italian or bad Italian, there is only a desire to communicate. This is probably because Italians talk a lot. But then again, so do I. In fact, I feel right at home.

Working out who's who

I'm been puzzling once again this evening over my church's address list. It is normal here for a woman to keep her maiden name. But some women it seems add their husband's name when they become a widow. And so begins a difficult pastoral situation - should I write "Famiglia so-and-so" on the envelope, if in fact there is only 1 person at the address. And how is it that women with different surnames seem to be living at the same address - are they sisters? are they widows? are they in fact at different addresses, and the one we have is wrong?

Those people in the UK who have a different surname to their husband/partner, how do you like mail to be addressed when it is for both of you? and could I really offend someone I haven't met by getting this wrong?!

Anyhow, this is just preamble to me suggesting that you take a look here http://www.methodist.org.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=churchlife.content&cmid=1697
at a funny bit of methodist graphics for your mobile phone. I will be downloading it, once I've worked out how!

Destination: Italy

It seems like more than 3 months ago that we bid a very sad farewell to Potters Bar, to a lovely house and 3 even better churches. Closing the door for a final time was an emotional moment, but it was lovely to spend a few days at my sister's, with my family before we crossed the channel. It surprised us to find that the actual moment of leaving old Blighty was also difficult, but then we opened the pictures drawn so carefully by number 1 nephew and so decorated Hilde (the camper van) for our 2 week epic adventure!

The beauty of the camper is the freedom to travel when and where you choose. Which was just as well, because in the final moments of packing, I'd placed all the official van documents safely in a box to be sent to Florence. Which I thought was fine, but Robin proceeded to explain that we were supposed to carry them in the van to be able to show them if necessary. So we didn't drive through Switzerland, as you need to produce documents at the border.

I like France, and it was good to drive back around the Champagne and Alsace region (avoiding eye contact with any traffic police!). We stayed for another fabulous night at "Bollenberg" http://www.bollenberg.com/, enjoying great good, a spot more winetasting and buying a small supply for Christmas. Clinking slightly, we visited only a few wine producers this time, conscious that we were, after all, moving to the Chianti region! But we have tucked away a couple of bottles of cremant for Christmas.

The temperature rose steadily as we headed south, so it was beautiful relief to spend a night at altitude as we drove over the mountains into Italy, using Col du Mont Cenis. We joined about 40 other campers of all shapes and sizes parked up above the reservoir. As we dropped down and took the motorway past Torino, the heat became impractical. Humans in the front were ok, but poodle in the back was suffering, so we tended to drive for about an hour, before parking up and trying to wait out the worst of the day. En route to Firenze, we admired a few Italian cities (Pavia, Padova, Modena), chiefly staying the shade of the loggias, and enjoying gelato and ice-cream.

And to end for today, a quick note about coffee: the French cafès couldn't make a decent cup, and the prices were ridiculous. What a relief to live in Italy!

Tomorrow: Italy, the first 84 days!