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.

Back from Holiday and time to be getting back to writing

Well that is Dora shaking her head telling me not to do it, she would really rather I stayed up with her and took her for long walks at least twice a week. I do not own her, but she seems to think I am the fun senior female in her pack.

Anyway I am back from holiday, and though I am not going to post a word count this week as though my official length has changed somewhat it is quite small. However I have spent lots of time preparing for writing the central bit of my chapter on belonging. This is important. It seems to me that at the core of a congregations identity is the question "What does it mean to belong?" That is both a question congregation try to decide for themselves and one that individuals negotiate as individuals. What I have therefore to do is demonstrate the "work" that both congregations and individuals do to sustain that sense of belonging or not belonging. For anything to be defined there must be a boundary but often that boundary is mutable and changes according to situation.

I have spent the mornings of my holiday trawling through the descriptive chapters looking for bits and pieces that are there that relate to this work. I am hoping that that lays a good groundwork for writing  as I need to write 6,000 words next weekend so as to have the belonging chapter drafted. So I will be in thesis purdah. I expect I will do it but it is going to take an effort.