Like the Wideness of the Sea by Dawn Maggi;

Author:Dawn, Maggi;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: women bishops, church of england, ordination, maggi dawn, wideness of the sea, theology, personal reflection, church and society, church leadership, church ministry, women's issues
ISBN: 4889938
Publisher: Darton, Longman & Todd LTD
Published: 2013-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

23 Augustine, Confessions 11:2

24 See Beckford, R., God of the Rahtid (London, Darton,Longman and Todd, 2001), pp.38-65

Chapter 3: A Personal Story

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver, ‘The Summer Day’

So far I have ventured a little into theology, and into some ideas that frame our spiritual disciplines. Long-term decisions made by the Church cannot be founded on anything less than solid theological thought; decisions cannot be made to please individual people. But - returning to the idea of reason as lived experience - there is also a place for taking account of the way in which our theological and spiritual structures actually play out in real life. Experience is not enough on its own to guide the future direction of the Church, but it does provide a valid critique of theology and spiritual disciplines. For that reason, I think it worth relating some of my own experience of living with a calling before ordination was an option, then being one of the first women to begin theological college after the 1992 General Synod vote, and why I eventually felt that to fulfil my calling I had to work outside the Church of England.

Long before 1992 I was aware of a sense of calling. Since my teens I had been a natural leader with gifts in language, theology and the arts that fitted a preacher and a liturgist, and the nagging feeling that I should be doing something with it was like an itch that wouldn’t go away. But the opportunities to explore those gifts within the Church were limited. As a teenager I discussed with two vicars, and then a bishop, what I might do with my sense of calling.The first vicar smiled benevolently and told me that vicars always needed good wives. The second vicar and the bishop took me more seriously, but both explained that while there were few restrictions on women who undertook missionary work, the best they could offer in a parish was practical contributions in my spare time, like organising rotas or teaching Sunday School. I tried some volunteer mission work, based first in London and then in Norway, but after a couple of years I realised that any long-term usefulness I would have was not going to be within any official structures. So I set about using my gifts elsewhere, and worked in the music business, singing, writing and working as a recording artist in a variety of different settings. During this time, I rented a flat in South London in Gilmore House, which, though I did not know it at the time, was the house in which Isabella Gilmore had trained her early deaconesses. I toured and performed in all kinds of ‘secular’ venues, and increasingly I found myself working in religious broadcasting, or as a session musician for various well-known recording artists whose work was principally in contemporary worship. I played and wrote music for a variety of TV shows, and did a lot of work for BBC Religion for its radio programmes.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.