maggi dawn

beginnings and endings

my new book, Beginnings and Endings, comes out next week. you can order it now on Amazon UK or Amazon.com. or direct from the publisher's online bookshop

can women change the rules of engagement?

I followed a link from Dave Warnock (42) to this article: | Women change the rules of business. Wndered whether women might change the rules of engagement in the Church too. It's a slippery argument, because saying that women work differently from men is too close for comfort to a complementarian view of the world. But a dramatic change in gender balance would be enough simply to upset the way things have always been, so that men and women could find different ways to develop Church. What do you think?

"There is some evidence that women are willing to take bigger risks with their careers than men... often they can see no other way to find work, and a way of working, that suits them." She argues that women have a different management style. "These ways of working suggest that the old corporate notions - of business as war, of companies as machines, and of leadership as command - don't work for women, who are more interested in orchestration, empathy and relationship management."

Angels and Announcements

Greenbelt was (for me) a fab four days; my personal highlights were Duke Special, Dave Perry and Lucy Winkett.

It was also very wonderful and heartwarming to find the Big Top very full of people for my talk which was based around themes from the new book; thanks to everyone who came along! and for the great questions afterwards, which gave me plenty more to think about as I left...  and to the wonderful Tim who bought me lunch later. If you weren't there, my talk is here

The only downside was that (for reasons I know not) the books never arrived! but you can get Beginnings and Endings from Amazon very soon.

Greenbelt really is amazing. A place of hope in every way. Book in for next year right away...

Beginnings and Endings

My new book is just about to be published. Beginnings and Endings (and what happens in between) looks at the big themes of Advent. The book is laid out as short chapters, one for each day from 1 December to 6 January, to last from Advent to Epiphany. But you can just read it in one go if you'd rather.

Beginnings are important because Advent anticipates the coming of Christ into the world; because candles in the Advent wreath represent the signs of new beginnings through the salvation story - the journey of the Patriarchs, the promises of the Prophets, the announcement of John the Baptist and the conception of Christ. As well as writing about these themes, I also look at the way each of the four gospel writers begins their gospel. In literary terms, what does their starting point tell us about the way they are telling the story?

Advent is also about Endings, because it anticipates the second coming of Christ, and the end of the world as we know it. That's an idea shrouded in mystery, but it reminds us that every new beginning implies an end of something else.

Most of our lives, of course, are lived in between, with dozens of small scale beginnings and endings going on in and around our daily lives. Births and marriages, deaths and funerals, promotions, redundancies, retirements, graduations... all these milestones lead us through endings and beginnings. The characters in the story of salvation also lived through these, and we can trace through their stories some wisdom as we live through our own.

This book was a labour of love; lots of stories close to my own heart, lots of ideas I have carried around in my head that never had an outlet. It was fun to write (though Kathryn, David, Jason and Caroline, who read and critiqued the drafts for me will no doubt remind me of the moments when I said "why did I ever say yes to this???). I hope you'll enjoy reading it.   

available on amazon stateside from 21 september

greenbelt - see you there?

I'll be:

speaking on "Angels and Announcements - how do we listen to God?" on Saturday morning around 11 am-ish.

Signing the copies of my new book, which you will be buying... :) sometime on Sunday afternoon

Singing with Dave Perry in the acoustic venue on Sunday evening at 8 pm. Dave is a highly talented singer, guitarist and songwriter. Don't miss it. 

on a panel about spirituality at 10 am on Monday morning.

I hope, as always, to meet a few more blog-readers in real life! Do come and say hello.

Greenbelt

One of the themes in my book Beginnings and Endings is how we listen to God.  God doesn't have a "voice" in the usual sense of the word (you need a body to have a voice) but Christians always talk about God in human language - God's hands, God's mind, God's voice...

At Greenbelt I'm going to pick up and develop some of the themes about how we listen, intuit, perceive, what we think of as God's calling and guiding; how we pick our way between wisdom and and self-deception; how we embrace imagination without living in a world of fantasy. Come along and join in. It's around 11 am on Saturday morning.

The first copies of the book will also be available on pre-publication release at Greenbelt.

Stuff and things

Summer is a great time for de-cluttering. Why? For me it's the increased hours of daylight giving more energy, the feeling that the big outdoors is more realisable if things are in order at home, and as the summer wears on the prospect of a new school year helps too - the knowledge that stuff will accumulate (sports gear, artwork, reports, certificates...) so it's essential now to file what we need and chuck what we don't. Working on limited-term contracts are another great motivation to keeping stuff in some kind of perspective. Every time I clean up and put things away, the thought runs through my mind, "would I pay someone £8 a box to move this across the country?". If not, it goes in the recycling box.

There's plenty of advice and encouragement about on this subject. Paul Graham has written a great essay on Stuff, and Erin has begun decluttering the FLYlady way, so go and read up on her progress here: Peregrinations of a Pop Culture Princess.

But all this talk of de-cluttering, for me, needs some balance. I have my boho side too... I sing and write and paint a good deal, and life would be fairly joyless for me without acres of paper and paint, an easel somewhere in the corner, a row of guitars to play. My walls are hung with paintings and photos, some by me, some by freinds, and just a few (as occasional treats) by jolly good and nearly famous artists.

There is a place for things - well chosen things that bring aesthetic or sensory pleasure are part of the joy of living. Things become a problem if they imprison us, or if the things we own begin to own us. But de-cluttering isn't a call to rid oneself of everything that is lovely; more a call to make sure that precious and lovely things don't lose their power to speak to us because they are surrounded by a chaotic mass of unnecessary clutter.

another story from Isabella

A story Isabella Gilmore told about one of her deaconesses:

"The clergy were able to rely upon the help of a deaconess in visiting and making inquiry into any special case. One of the clergy remembers how a young well-built man came to the vestry asking milk for his wife and baby.

"Why are you not at work?" At that time there was plenty to be had.
"I have lots of jobs to go to if I could get my tools out of pawn."
"How much are they in for?"
"Three and six."

"Cheaper for me to give you three and sixpence to get your tools out of pawn than to give milk for a month."
"Oh, that will be all right, you shall have it back."

So he gave him the money.

Shortly after he met the deaconess and told her what he had done and asked if she knew the man. Shaking with laughter and placing her bag on the pavement, she inquired, "Do you know what he is?"
"No."
"A house breaker!"

being the answer to our own prayers

O Lord, give us a mind that is humble, quiet, peaceable, patient and charitable, and a taste of your Holy Spirit in all our thoughts, words, and deeds.
O Lord, give us a lively faith, a firm hope, a fervent charity, a love of you.
Take from us all lukewarmness in meditation and all dullness in prayer.
Give us fervor and delight in thinking of you, your grace, and your tender compassion toward us.
Give us, good Lord, the grace to work for the things we pray for.

St Thomas More, 1478-1535, Patron Saint of Lawyers

on mission and community

Isabella Gilmore, the sister of William Morris and founder of the Rochester order of Deaconesses, wrote about how to establish a ministry in a new neighbourhood when neither you nor your work is known. She wrote this a long time ago, but the principles hold good for the 21st century, because they are about forming relationships and building community.

"Visitation needs love, care, insight into character, patience, wisdom, and hopefulness. It is a slow business; perhaps six or seven visits in a morning, or in a day. I am speaking now of working in a new quarter, where your work is unknown and you are unknown. Your first business is to make friends, and this is not always easy. If you can get a foot inside the door, or better still a chair to sit down, the task becomes easier. Let your new friends talk to you; your turn will come later. Only be ready to do the right thing. Don't try to teach them too soon; let them teach you. You want to know all about them, but you cannot find it out all at once; sometimes you will have to wait long for confidence to be given. It is enough if at the first you are not repelled, and you may thank God if some loving, gentle woman's work is put into your hands to do. Once they know and trust you, you will have no trouble to enter the door; you are certain to be wanted.

From Isabella Gilmore, "The Training of Women", 33-4

re-imagining leadership

I've been invited, along with Doug Gay, to take part in a Blah Learning day. The subject is Re-imagining Leadership, in the context of "emerging" church. 15 September in London. Here's the info: mootblog.

What questions would you be asking? What do you think the issues are? Does the emerging church want leaders? Are leaders inevitable when structures grow?

Christianity and Church

I blogged the other day that it is almost always the case that you canot be authentically Christian unless you are part of a Christian community. Why? The reason, I think, is that the gospel demands engagement in relationship. It has an individual element to it, but it is essentially a social religion.

That's not to say, of course, that "the church" as we know it always lives up to its calling. Bleached-out churches that suck out all emotion and enthusiasm are a tragedy. And power-abuse churches that control people's lives are a travesty. Yet retreating from church doesn't solve the problem, because it's also true that an individualistic and isolated faith rarely reveals the true nature of Christ. Edward Schillebeeckx wrote in The Church with a Human Face,  “The crucified but risen Jesus appears in the believing, assembled community of the church. That this sense of the risen, living Jesus has faded in many [churches] can be basically blamed on the fact that our churches are insufficiently ‘communities’ of God...”

Traditional church structures are a stumbling block for some. Among groups that identify with ideas like Post Evangelicalism, Emerging Church, Alt*worship, and so on are people who simply want to pursue a progressive model of church. But there are plenty more who have taken refuge in something that is not-quite-church, after conventional models of church have let them down, not just failing to provide relationship, but imposing unhealthy forms of relating.

So what do we with the call of the gospel to become part of the Church, if our experience of Church thus far is just too bad to overcome? The answer to this dilemma, I believe, is not to abandon the idea of church, but to rediscover what it means for church to be fully a community. This applies equally to denominational churches that have lost their way, and to new groups that are afraid of being too committed for fear of getting hurt again. The answer in both cases is not to withdraw, but to create community. And this will not come to anyone without cost and some degree of hurt along the way, because it's in the nature of creating community that it is both challenging and expensive to the individual. A community that doesn't challenge your ego and upset your equilibrium from time to time is probably not getting to grips with the faith.