The Long Walk Home

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There is a blogpost stirring in my soul about our time at the lovely One Church Brighton. I’ve written on Facebook about my wonderful colleagues, I’ve been processing the last times with friends and places but there is this need in me to quantify what I have loved about our church over the last few years.

Wind the clock back 5 years. We’ve just come out of the end of our previous church. We are battered and bruised from the loss of some very wonderful intentional community we’ve shared deeply with friends in the previous few years. We are hurting, wondering where we’ll land. Wondering what our faith looks like now we can choose the church we will go to next. Husbandface is on the edge of his breakdown, teetering on the edge of health, we are about to plunge into the darkest points of his ptsd. We have no idea what lies ahead. We have two small crew members who take all our sleep and we are tired.

We return to the church I used to go to when I first landed in Brighton. But I am not the same. My faith has shifted, I am not the same. My world blew apart when I had son1. My faith has been altered, my understanding of God stripped down and I am leaning into different ways of relating to the divine. I’ve spent a year learning about spiritual direction on a course with the diocese and I’ve enjoyed so many different ways of viewing God. I buckle at the weight of conservative evangelicalism and the frustrations with the talk of grace but so many people feeling burdened and constrained, unable to express who they are in safety. I cry at the end of services at the narrow confines of this house I want to leave. I do not belong here any more but I am scared to leave, scared of the voices that will condemn me to heresy and hell. I am scared to choose a freer path.

Our friends come around for dinner. We talk and they speak of the church they have landed in. Of the freedom offered, at how it sounds like the things I hold dear. We smile and wonder and ponder stepping into another space. Family come and stay for the weekend giving us the excuse to check it out. We go.

We hear talk from the front of this place being a place where they are trying to learn how to disagree with each other well, of how we don’t all have to think the same thing as the minister in charge, of how he welcomes diversity and difference. We hear a man who wants to give his power away. We are hooked.

Son1 talks to us when we get home. He saw his people there, his Godfamily, who held him the second day of his life and have loved him and us endlessly throughout the years. He says, that will be our Church now then? We smile and nod. Ok. We put aside the voices of warning and step outside to enjoy the view.

We go back again and again. I stare at the ceiling marvelling at the God who appears in this space as well, in the spaces we were warned about. And yet this Christ who plays in 10,000 places is playing here. In our lives. I spend a good few weeks in tears marvelling at a place we can be us. We chat to the minister in our house. Husbandface does what he needs to do less these days, announces I preach and my history. I am grateful.

I am asked if I want to preach. I am slightly taken aback by how easy this seems. There is an open invite, a generosity which I love. It doesn’t matter that I’m a woman. For the first time it doesn’t matter that I’m a woman. I feel free.

Time goes on. Husbandface sometimes comes, sometimes we leave him in bed with his exhausted shaky body. We journey on. I lead a women’s retreat, I talk on parenting at a weekend away, we plod through the storm and still find our God holding us, reminding us of the hope for the ones who wait for the morning. I get a job with this beautiful place and spend the next few years loving hanging out with my colleagues, learning how to work in a place which holds space for people on the edge of faith, either about to head out the back door or experiencing shifting ground beneath their feet.

I have the privilege of sitting with people again and again as they find they can breathe. I hear stories of people disconnected from so many parts of themselves because of messages they’ve been told from churches. I watch as tears fall in relief of knowing that God is out here in this expansive space, holding out love and holding out life.

I love this church. Not because it’s perfect, there are many frustrations and hurts along the way of our journey here. Nothing is ever simple in a world of messy hurting people. But I have deeply loved the freedom I have found here. I’ve loved the willingness of Dave, our minister, to take a punt on someone random preaching and to have consistently encouraged and desired me to grow in confidence in what is in me. I have loved journeying with people in faith shifts, in holding out the bedrock of a God who loves and loves and loves again and who calls us to full life in all its messy wondrous glory.

I have loved the safe space for us to heal from many hurts, I have loved finding God in the cracks, I have loved the chance to serve this messy hard to define community.

We go aware of deep gratitude for such a lovely holding space in the darkest times of life. I am so grateful to the people of our church who were so good at loving us in the darkness, at noticing how husbandface was doing and checking in, at providing meals when we needed it. I am so glad of a space where I could use and grow in my gifts, in space to be me when so much of my life was about holding our family together. Church and work provided such a helpful space of purpose beyond the immediate pressures.

It’s been such a lovely chapter of our lives so far, of healing, being put back together and flourishing in our faith journeys. Whatever the future holds, whether we come back into the fold or stay away I will be forever glad of this holding space of hope.

And now for the blog post. 

In most transition times, or times of big news, there is a communication ripple. First people close to you hear, then others and then wider groups you are part of.  Then there is the wider catch all that previously might have been the Christmas Card list (if you were into such things) and now appears to be your facebook contact list, or email contact list or however you collate the info of people you love and care about but don’t see on a daily or weekly basis and therefore haven’t heard your big news. Those people you’d love to be in direct communication with but life has a habit of getting in the way.  

Cue a revisit to the chat me and the husbandface had when we were just housemates on the day my first nephew was born. We drove to church together and he questioned why my brother hadn’t sent a blanket text out as soon as his child was born. I explained the etiquette of news sharing, personal is best for whoever you can, family are first in these situations etc etc. He then said randomly, ‘so if we got married you’d be the one to know this stuff’. 9 months later we did happen to get married and yes I do know this stuff. 

It should be said though, pandemic life is a bit of a curve ball and we haven’t been able to have this chat in person with as many people as we would have liked, so if you are hearing this in this fairly impersonal way and would have liked the actual conversation/personal direct communication, I am sorry. 

Ok, onto the news. 

We are about to move to Northern Ireland for a year or so. 

There’s a sentence I would never have thought we’d be saying. We sat down a while ago, drank a bottle of wine, watched the final episode of Mare of Easttown and, as I watched small town messy family life sharing pain and joy together, I turned to the aforementioned husbandface and said I think we might need to go and live near your sister for a bit and share our messy life with her, hang out, pour out some love and maybe be able to give her capacity in her running of her brilliant archery business, looking after her son and caring for her and husbandface’s Daddy. We laughed and then couldn’t get the idea of our of head. We played with it. We realised we couldn’t answer any of the questions or concerns until we’d actually gone. The idea didn’t go away. I looked around at our abundant life and wondered what it would be like to go from that place of abundance rather than cling to it. We felt the urge to love and be loved in the same place as family. We talked about it with the boys and they were up for the plan. We held the idea close until the summer and then as we drove home from our amazing holiday over there made the decision to buy a house.

We plan on renting our Brighton base, we’ve bought a house in the lovely village of Dundrum (subject to all the legal stuff going through ok) about a 6 minute drive from our family. We’ll then hopefully be able to rent it out as a holiday home when we come back and have a base to stay in when we go over there.  All things being well we will be out of our house by the end of October. It’s all starting to feel a little bit real now. That’s really only 6 weeks away. I quit my job last week and will finish on the 31st October.

We’re planning on throwing all of life up in the air when we get there and finding new rhythms and routines to feed our souls. We’ll be unschooling the boys, I’ll have a couple of days to write and finish my spiritual direction course and the husbandface will carry on his remote working around that. We’ll hang out with family, have our boys doted on, help out with the business and generally share more of our lives together. We’ll be living near the Mourne Mountains (insanely pretty) and on the doorstep of a beautiful nature reserve. I think we’ll be ok for amazing walks and beautiful scenery to fill our souls.

I am excited, scared, intrigued, hopeful, delighted, in awe, overwhelmed and more. I plan on watching the West Wing through the autumn as I have done in lots of major transition times (literally I watched about 10 episodes in labour with Son1 and the whole thing during those long breastfeeding nights with both the boys). I plan on leaning into the God who doesn’t change and who lives over in Northern Ireland and has good stuff for us to be involved with and people to love and be loved by. I plan on writing and breathing and delighting in my course. I plan on helping my boys, I plan on learning what it is to live in a different culture and land. 

So, there you go. That’s our news. Come visit. It’s a wonderful place. I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures of the beach near our village to make you jealous of where we’ll be living, a poem from Ted Loder which sums it all up so well and Red from Shawshank whose excitement at a new adventure I echo right now.

I Tremble on the Edge of a Maybe

O God of beginnings, as your Spirit moved over the face of the deep on the first day of creation, move with me now in my time of beginnings,

when the air is rain-washed, the bloom is on the bush, and the world seems fresh and full of possibilities, and I feel ready and full.

I tremble on the edge of a maybe, a first time, a new thing, a tentative start, and the wonder of it lays its finger on my lips.

In silence, Lord, I share now my eagerness and my uneasiness about this something different I would be or do;

and I listen for your leading to help me separate the light from the darkness in the change I seek to shape and which is shaping me. (Ted Loder)

Apparently it takes a while to create a new website, so until we do that I’ll be posting here as normal… It’s time for another round up of books I’ve read in the last few months. There are some treats here. Enjoy!

The Forgiveness Project- Marina Cantacuzino

A collection of stories where forgiveness has played a crucial role in lives, either as the one forgiving or the recipient. A book utterly needed in our age, a book which explores the complexity of forgiveness, which highlights the care to be taken but also the astounding changes forgiveness can bring internally and externally. One to ponder on, meditate on and let your brain wrap around the depth and power of forgiveness. 

Grown Ups- Marian Keyes

I really enjoyed this sprawling trawl through a Irish family, the interconnection of their lives, the choices they make and the humanness of them all. A pretty fun read. 

How to train a Dragon- Cressida Cowell

I read the whole series to Son2 over about 2 months. I started loving them about 5 books in when she really got into her writing groove. The first few books are a bit similar and fairly irritating in the constant use of fat as a descriptor, and don’t even get me started on ‘Big Boobied Bertha…’ Thankfully Cressida seems to figure out this is pretty irritating and drops most of the annoying content and settles into a fantastic quest of love, sacrifice, friendship and what it really means to be a hero. 

The Vanishing Half- Brit Bennett

Really interesting book about twins from a town inhabited by light skinned African Americans. They both leave town together but part ways when one of them sees she can pass as white and heads off to live life as a white woman. It’s a fascinating exploration of race, of identity and what happens when the truth comes out to the next generation. Really recommend. 

The Three of us- Ruth Jones

I can’t remember much about this, other than it’s a book that follows three friends over their lives, through the things that undo them and challenge their friendship. Pretty good easy read. 

On Looking- Alexandra Horowitz 

Husbandface bought this for me a year or so ago on my birthday and I’ve only just got around to reading it. It’s a really interesting book documenting walks the author takes with various people in her local area, each of them help her see the familiar in a totally different way and change the way she thinks when walking and looking at the world around her. I remember wanting to look deeper as I walked as a result of reading this. 

Wild- Kristin Hannah

This beautiful novel about the connection between a lost girl found after years living in the woods and the psychiatrist who helps her had me in many tears. A lovely story of hope in the darkest of circumstances. 

The Preaching Life- Barbara Brown Taylor

A collection of essays and sermons from Barbara, really fun to read. I loved her gently profound wisdom. 

Days of Wonder- Keith Stuart

A novel about a girl and her father and their relationship as she lives with a fairly debilitating illness and he learns how to give her independence and trust her in the midst of that. Pretty good. 

The Anthropocene Reviewed – John Green

This is my must read book of the year, I adore John Green and the youtube channel he runs with his brother Hank. They are committed to decreasing world suck and curate a community dedicated to doing that amongst celebrating nerds and the difference we can make to the world. I love this mans writings and his thoughts, I love his beautiful reflections on life, I love his hope, I love that I looked at the world in a different way after reading this book. I loved that I cried through many of these essays. I love that he wrote essays reviewing things on a 5 star rating, from Diet Dr Pepper to the song You’ll Never Walk Alone and a whole load of other things in-between. Really you must buy this book and enjoy the beautiful wonder for yourself. I give it 5 stars.

Home Stretch- Graham Norton

A pretty good novel about an accident shaping the life of a man and his family over the course of his life. I really liked this.

Nothing But Blue Sky – Kathleen MacMahon

A beautifully written book about a man reflecting on life after the death of his wife. Contains a whole load of ponderings on what it is to be human and to love. Wonderfully written as well. 

The Truants- Kate Weinberg

Billed as similar to The Secret History this novel follows a student caught in the spell of a tutor at her university and the compelling pull to go against the norms and accepted routes of the social conventions around them. Pretty good but not quite as good as The Secret History… 

Thin Places- Kerri ni Dochartaigh

A memoir of Kerri’s life from the trauma of growing up in Derry/Daire/Londonderry to her working out how to live with that trauma, with a particular emphasis on how nature has put her back together. A beautiful read and a really important read in adding to the understanding of what it is to grow up in the divided world of Northern Ireland. 

Let Your Life Speak- Parker Palmer

I adored this short book reflecting on vocation and living out of who we are. I loved the questions he explores and the sense of freedom and love that comes out of the inner journey. Often the inner journey can be dismissed as distracting us from love, rather than seeing it as the essential path to being able to love each other freely. The question posed which stayed with me from the book was ‘Whose are you?’. It’s a question that turns over and over in my mind. Whose am I and am I living out of that reality? Really worth a read. 

The Dutch House- Ann Patchett

A beautiful novel about a brother and sister and the events surrounding the house they grew up in. One of those really satisfying reads, following them over the course of their lives and seeing how they were shaped by the events of the past.