Worship chapter off to supervisor, later than I planned

Blue Sky through my window

Thought I would start with a picture of blue sky that was outside my window this morning. We do not get much of it so it is nice to have a record of when it happens.

This draft of thesis is definitely on the homeward leg now. I have got my chapter on worship off to my supervisor. The strange thing is the way it came together. I am happy with it for the reason that now I have got to the end I find that what I wrote now makes sense at other levels apart from the academic. This is a state I like to get to when I am doing statistics. The findings once I have gone through the process appear to be common sense. The feeling of "of course that is what is happening".  There is something though which is important being said and I think it has been missed in the literature. If that is the case then I think we may need to go back and rethink our approach.

Another thing I think I have learnt is that if people have not the power to change things themselves then they will lobby to get those with power to change things in the way they want them changed. Lobbying is a complex process with both positive and negative lobbying. Positive lobbying is not necessarily about lobbying for, rather it is lobbying that aims to make it pleasurable for the person with the power to change things in the way you want. Negative lobbying aims at making not complying with what you want a negative experience for the person with the power. It is very easy for positive lobbying to become bribery and it is very easy for negative lobbying to become bullying. Therefore it is essential to understand that lobbying originates in wanting a changing and not being able effect the change. They therefore reach for the tools by which they can affect it.

This means that when we get to situations where either bullying or bribery are present we need to ask questions about the power structures in the situation and why people are not happy with them. Sometimes the reasons can be stupid. I know of a situation where people were upping the anti with lobbying to affect a decision while not exercising their right to be part of the decision makers because that meant they would have to acknowledge that things had changed. Equally quite often what is driving them to desire a particular change is not what is presented.  Therefore, I am not necessarily in favour of giving people the power always but I am equally pretty sure that a simplistic attitude of centralising power when this sort of thing happens is just a form of wanting teacher to come and sort things out at best and calling on your big brother at worst. There is something in me that is beginning to ask how do you make direct democracy work.

That said next week will be interesting. There is a Society for Liturgical Studies student study day happening at Carrs Lane in Birmingham. I am not presenting a paper due to finishing thesis but I am going as it is chance to hear what others are saying. There is a paper on studying liturgy historically, I have questions to ask about how well that can be done when a liturgy is as ephemeral as the historic English Dissent, and if it can't cover such cases is it perhaps dealing with a very partial perspective. I would expect folk devotion within Catholicism to be largely as ephemeral as well. Another one looks at "Anglican Mission and Identity: Liturgy and Transformation". This means some moving around of things but I still hope to get pretty well the two plus writing days I am managing at the moment.

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!

Supervision May, reporting from a hot humid Birmingham New Street

Well, I have had supervision today, as usual it was sunny  (mind you it is exam season so my supervision can’t claim sole credit) but the trains have been interesting this time. My train to New Street was fine and on time but the train before it had not arrived at Sheffield when it left and may have been cancelled in which case I pity the people due to get it as they were not redirected to the train I was on. Then there was problems with the train from the University to New Street, I got on an unannounced train and I don’t know which of the delayed trains it was. The trains back were equally mixed up, leaving New Street, they merged the 17:03 with 18:03. Fortunately we had a train manager who always has a good sense of humour (this is not the first train I have caught where he was the manager), he went around giving arrival and connection times to everyone, in the form 7:30. He then stopped to say he meant pm and he thought it might even be today.

Things are beginning to fall into place, I now know it basically takes two months to write a thesis data chapter when I am working properly. I submitted a very raw draft of my second data chapter. This is about two months after my previous chapter reached this point. Of course it would be nice if they took slightly less long. The last couple of weeks have been really tough intellectually, the pulling together of the theoretical ideas that fit within the chapter is hard work, often involving several false starts and quite a bit of going off in different directions. However when you get the right bits to give an analytic structure  it is very exciting, as suddenly you start to see the shape and outline of what is coming. I suspect that the feeling is something like rock climbing in that you feel the excitement of each hand hold obtained as you start to realise that you are making progress towards the cliff top. The other thing is it is only this last week as I finally began to pull the relationship to tradition that I realised that I was actually writing the lead into my next chapter.

When I realised my next supervision was not until July I broached with my supervisor about what my next stage would be. The answer is that I am likely to be able to go to writing up status either iin September or October but to do that I have at least two more chapters to write, the last placement chapter which is on worship and the tradition chapter. This means I may or may not pay some full fees this year. I am going to have to sort out how that works, and because of this I may well prefer to pay in instalments this year rather than straight out. However my supervisor agrees I will be fully submitted by this time next year.

The Edgebaston Campus was interesting with more students sitting on the grass than in the computer rooms, which was fine by me as I could get a machine and check out a lot of papers quite easily. Actually the computer rooms were sort of the right business for me. Enough students to make them look used (the Uni should take its photos of people working this week) but not overcrowded as they often are in main term times.

This month I have to redraft my current chapter (I will probably do this over the Jubilee weekend) and I am also attending the Reformed Spirituality conference at Westminster. I will also start drafting the following chapter which has its own challenges. I am going to struggle somewhat to balance it against the other chapters as I am aware that though I participated much in worship I also found that I was reluctant to make notes. I am going to have to start by trying to make notes on the things that are important.