Getting back into the flow of writing after a short break

Yes that is my desk, it at times gets clearer but then books and stuff land back on it! I should perhaps admit that I also have a main computer on a different table just off to the side where I am doing most of my writing. I am at the stage where the effort to clear the desk is more than I can find time to do at one swoop while doing thesis. The book shelves are actually getting more sorted and when I am finished I am promising myself a proper sort out.

Anyway this weekend I have actually had quite a good session on writing up, that is I think I have achieved in the last two and a half days what I intended to achieve. That is I have managed to get a draft 2 version of the chapter on flows and it has started to hang together. I have also started the reorganisation of the chapter on community. That means that next weekend if I continue working fluently I may manage to get that also into draft, which makes it totally reasonable to have a good go at the chapter on worship.  I still need to loose words but not many.

The big challenge is the chapter on methodology. Actually now that I have my examiner I suspect that is coming more straightforward and I should actually manage to do it. Oh I have found something out, that like driving, I get less easily distracted when writing if I have music on.

Actually I suspect supervision was a turning point. That is my brain has taken the step of think that I am actually in the last stages. That means three things: firstly to some extent my concentration has improved, I have actually started looking through the process of submission and secondly I am actually beginning to think slightly more realistically about what will come afterwards. One thing I have discovered is that I can submit in any font I want to as long as it is clear. That in some way has got the visual part of my brain working. Now do not get me wrong I do not want an outlandish font, but I do want to give it some consideration.

Another query, I seem to recall somewhere that Marilynne Robinson talks of her own congregation as her village. Unfortunately I suspect I picked this up off the radio, does anyone know a reference to anything similar.

Supervision on what turns into a lovely spring day

Daffodils out at Birmingham Uni

It was grey and threatening this morning when I left Sheffield. Rain clouds hung heavily over the city centre and the air contained a light drizzle as if they were not quite sure whether they were packing up or just testing to see how we’d cope with some more rain. It was just enough to keep my brolly up most of the time as I walked down to the station. When I got to the station I found I had booked the wrong train, but decided to get the train I thought I wanted instead of the one I was booked on, and I managed to get a table seat in a quiet carriage which is my ideal situation. However whereas I normally find that the train is one point that I really get a chance to read, today I was anything but focussed. Not quite sure why as there are a range of contesting items. Easter was hectic, not only was I trying to get what time I could for writing my PhD, I had three chapters in the last six weeks to my supervisor but I was First Table Elder on Easter Sunday which was also our Ministers last service! Then there is the fact I have been teaching a new course at work and that always takes energy. Finally it is one of those times when my energy levels drop and I have quite a bit on this weekend as well. If I am also honest it was one of those supervisions where I needed to talk to my supervisor about something. Not something nasty just something important.

The weather was still overcast when I got to Birmingham and I thought the day was not going to get any better when I spotted that the Waterstones at the University House is closing in a week’s time. This has been one of my post supervision haunts, a place to gather my thoughts amongst the quiet whispers of books, where nobody thought it odd if you spent half an hour just browsing the shelves and then bought nothing. However my brain is also saying that there are very few students around. I do not mean none, but not term time numbers. When I go to the cyber cafe that does as a common room the cafe is not open, the drinks machine is sold out and it is about half full of students. Quite a few are working on computers, indeed a quiet industriousness hangs in the air, socialising is conspicuous by its absence on the whole. Beside the computer I used to check the Google alerts for papers I found a penny on the floor. I eventually decide this has to be the last proper day of the Easter vac, which feels odd as Sheffield has been back for almost a fortnight.

Just before 2:00 pm I wander up to my supervisors office, there is a notice pointing to Starbucks at the other end of the corridor, I go to the other end to see if there is a clever way to get but realise that if I did go out by the doors I would need a parachute to arrive safely at the Starbucks cafe below. I think it is classed as misleading directions. The supervision of the chapters goes well. Two of the three chapters (one actually before the supervision) are in second draft. The third my supervisor sorts the structure of the argument out for me but I have to pull one that was in second draft out and will have to redo for it to be in second draft. My apologies to James and Ruth, who are going to have to go through the Worship chapter another time.

Then we got to the conversation I was dreading. It was a biggie on who were possible examiners. Now all PhD students spend time wondering about this. Internally you are always pretty limited, and I think my supervisor was well aware that there were certain members of staff who I would not want. I am however perhaps one of the easier students to place as I expect to open up my thesis to the range of academic discourses rather than working solely within a particular church tradition. By the way in passing I got confirmation that the problem former supervisor in the department was exactly who I thought it was. Then we turned to external. There were two options, one was to find someone from the URC who could examine me. At a pinch I could think of a name, but it is tricky, not least because many of the obvious names are theologians and few are sociologist and if I use a theologian then my father will be the elephant in the room. The other option was to choose a sociologist and it is that line that we have taken at least to begin with. What was even more interesting is that we went through the exact names that I had occasionally gone through. There is a bit of a problem in that many of those who have done Congregational Studies in the past have moved on so my work is almost the only recent stuff. There are several of names that just do not fit with what I am doing; at least two of them could have done if I had done a slightly different thesis. That leaves three people, all of whom would do. We picked one, probably the most senior and someone who I believe I can have an interesting conversation with. There was two good things to come from this; firstly it was a good test of whether my view of where I stood with respect to wider academic discourse was right, secondly my supervisor thinks that my thesis is worth someone I regard as being one of the current leaders in the subject. I am not naming them as they have not been asked. I need to finish the substantive chapters for next supervision and then have a good go at the methodology if I have any extra time.

We also talked of finishing date. It looks like I will be submitting late summer, early autumn. That is still tight but realistic, we actually did a time thing. I came out and finding the building stuffy, went outside. The sun was shining and the daffodils were out as were what I think were current bushes with daisies flowering in the grass. I got a diet coke and liquorice toffee from the Spar before going into Waterstones for the last time. I ended up buying three different note books, a mug (for Dad) and a book of T.S. Elliots prose. That was actually a serious piece of thesis work, as he wrote an article on culture which a couple of the theorists I semi-read this morning referred to. I wonder what I will make of it!

Please note there will be no further blog this weekend, I am taking an extended weekend off thesis!

Another chapter off to my supervisor

Cars parked on a Sunday Afternoon

That might not look more than a typical street scene but have a go at counting the number of cars parked in it. Normally the car parks are pretty empty at 3:30 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon which is when that photo was taken.  The reason they are full is the induction of our former minister was being video relayed to the Jesus Centre (the building with the red cross on it) and people from the congregation had met to watch it. The actual induction was in Southampton. I was not there, I live just across the road but I was trying to finish another chapter of my thesis. 

I am not sure I did, I had got towards the end the previous day, but as is the way with lots of my writing I got to the end and then realised what the chapter was about. Or rather in this case I realised that I was coming to an uncomfortable conclusion but it echoed someone else's conclusion only whose? Spent a good two to three hours looking for it and did not find it. The Sacred not as perfectly ordered but the point at which disorder becomes part of the whole system. I am fast becoming convinced that the Reformed tradition has the calmness of the experienced sailor or mountaineer who talk matter of factly about things that make other people's blood run cold. The mistake is to think that they are not concerned about these things. They are, in some ways they are more concerned but they have learnt that the skill of remaining calm is the skill of survival. Ok so maybe I should search for something on the chaotic and the sacred.

I came across quite a remarkable paper by Belden C Lane when he talks of differing types of Sacred Space in America but totally manages to ignore his experience in worship in church on a Sunday. No I am not surprised, the Reformed tradition has a deep ambivalence there. It would want both to accept and deny the existence of sacred space at that point. However try and make sense of it and I am struggling. There is a rupture and I am beginning to suspect the rupture is in the basis of language itself. For such a strongly Word based tradition that is deeply problematic.

Well a couple of fairly productive weeks

Daffodils at a local park

I am just realising that I did not manage to write anything last week even though I did quite a bit of work. I think some of that was due to the fact that I had a very full weekend and when I finally finished the extended weekend's work on thesis I was immediately going out to elders (I took the photo was taken walking to elders).

Firstly I got feed back on the chapter on belonging, I think my supervisor is now largely happy with it just wanting minor corrections so that gives me tradition, worship and belonging as in second draft. Last weekend I sent off the redraft of flows. It is frustrating in some ways. On one level it works as a chapter but the thread that would make it shine is not there yet.  I want it to shine and I know it is something quite simple but I am not sure what. Anyway I got it off to my supervisor so that is three officially in second draft and a fourth possibly.

I say that with last weekend not just being Easter weekend but also my ministers last weekend with us. She is inducted to a church in Southampton next weekend. I found that Friday and Saturday were not good writing days especially as I was worrying about being table elder on the Sunday and getting things right for the service. I was also off colour not quite sure now what with; at the time I thought I was skirting a migraine but it also sounds very much like a bug that is going around. However my brain cleared on Tuesday and I got things sorted and off to my supervisor.

So this weekend I have been working at getting another chapter up to scratch. The one this time is the one on location and what I am trying is even though this is descriptive chapter to see if I can integrated with the observational data and see what I actually come up with. It takes a bit of doing because the use I have done of the theory is pretty general. That and I need to cut this by a third for the thesis length.  It may work, it may not. The idea at the present is to work from locating, through the use of space to the experience of worship. We shall see.