Slower Progress but still progress

Snowdrops and Crocuses at my parents last week

Sorry not to write last weekend, I did intend writing but I just did not manage to find the energy when I got back from my parents on Sunday. It was a week when I concentrated on reading. Indeed for the first time since before starting the thesis I sat down with a book, "Religion since 1945: Believing but Without Belonging" by Grace Davies, and managed to digest most of it in one sitting. I should explain as a teenager I read everything including the noticeboards at school so many times I knew the notices by heart. This high level of reading hid a underlying difficulty although several people were aware that I sometimes wrote badly for my obvious depth of reading. In the early years of this century I developed depression. This severely hampered my ability to concentrate. The difficulty that was underlying now meant I found reading for long spells difficult. I developed techniques for dealing. I found I could often make a very careful reading go a long way. I would therefore spot things others would gloss over.

I was already well on the road to recovery when I started my thesis and I have read widely, if perhaps not as much as I would have liked. The difference last week was that I could do it without getting too distracted and even enjoyed it. I do suspect that Grace Davies' book was relatively straight forward but at the same time I enjoyed it.

However what did not happen last weekend was me clearing my head with a walk. I visited my parents, Saturday evening to Sunday evening and we planned to go walking on the Sunday at Lyme Park. The weather was dry but it was COLD and there was a biting wind so we called it off and went for a coffee and cake at their shop.

However after last weeks decent progress this week has been slowly. Some of this is my fault, I started a migraine on Monday, I know this looking back though I was in work, Tuesday it declared itself, however there was teaching in work on Wednesday so as it was "reduced" and I hoped going I went in. Then Thursday about four O'Clock I realised that I still had no concentration at all and things were breaking up again. In other words by going in on Wednesday I had simply allowed it to hang around. So I took Friday off to try and recover. It finally worked but it took a good while on Saturday for me to do the reformulation of the chapter I was suppose to do during the week. I did it and wrote one section on Saturday with reshaping a second.

Today was Annual Church Meeting at my home church. I have not been a serving Elder for most of the time I was doing my PhD but I either had to stand for re-election today or this time next year. My congregation is also going into vacancy. I decided that a three month or so overlap was doable, not least because I am also Table Elder One this year and that makes going to Elders meetings pretty essential. The problem was persuading the congregation they had to vote for this. Elders should be re-elected every five years. I served three to four years and then took a sabbatical for a couple of years when the depression was at it worst. I then came back and did about another three years but because I had been on sabbatical I was not re-elected. I think congregation had decided my thesis was another sabbatical and not that I had finished serving my time and therefore was not standing for re-election. After that I finished the second section of the redraft of the belonging chapter.

Last Supervision Poetry, this Month Hiking

Union Election Placards outside the University Library

Another month gone and supervision tackled. The weather was contrasts again, this morning in Sheffield I had sweatshirt, gilet and coat and while walking through the fog to the station I was wondering if I would need to get a scarf while I was out as it was that chilly. I got to Birmingham and it is sunny, warm, very definitely spring and I am peeling layers. I had sent three chapters to my supervisor, hoping to get two into draft and a reworking of the third with ideas for the fourth in outline. Well the two are in draft (Ruth and James expect them soon) although the worship one is still needing reworking. The tradition one has gone through on a single draft. Things are moving on.

However belonging if anything has gone backwards, or rather with other chapters coming into focus, this as lost its focus. The result is that I need to do something pretty strong on restructuring and working through. This is where the walking comes in. The first stage is to get myself into the literature on believing and belonging (Grace Davies). Not that I am talking much about the same thing which is why Grace has not appeared much but she is arguing that people have real problems in belonging. There is therefore space to discuss the way congregations create belonging. There is definitely something going on but at the moment things are separate and the only way to get further is to immerse then create space. I did this a while back by drawing a labyrinth, for a previous one. It was semi effective, this time I think I am going to have to get myself out for a walk. I think given space and time it will be to the Dam Cafe and back, which is the only walk that really starts from my front door. So I am at present holding thumbs that Saturday is a fine day.

The rest of the month, I need to tackle flows, although that was the good news this time. The structure I wrote for the chapter on flows is far better than the structure of the chapter on Belonging. Then I need to do a lot of work on the chapter on Community. The last is really only there because I am not seeing my supervisor until 16th April so definitely have six weeks to work on this. That is not to say the weeks are not busy, there is also St Andrew’s AGM, Sarah’s departure and Easter to fit in. So busy but I think manageable.

A None Writing, Thesis Week

No picture this week, Sorry but I forgot to take them earlier and I have new glasses and am getting used to them at present. The actual progress on writing has been slow this week. Indeed I have probably spent about four hours in total working on it and the word count is zilch. That is because the actual work I have done is on reviewing the chapter on Flows rather than writing anything. It is a much clearer chapter than the one on Belonging was which has the advantage I can see a lot of the junk. The big challenge is to chop down the initial bits which are decent but long winded and get to the core of the chapter quicker.

That said I have not been doing quite a bit of thesis related work. This week the URC held a conference (that was their word for it, a consultation may have been better) on worship called Opening the Gates to Heaven. It was a very typical URC event with worship leaders of all colours there, including trainers, ministers, and lay preachers. Then there was me! The only one who would probably claim that her interest in worship was from the perspective of someone in the pew and not that of an organiser. This contrasts very starkly with the Society for the Study of Liturgy  where the dominant group were the critics of liturgy. Yes the normal Reformed bias also showed. If we get our theology right then our worship will follow. The problem I have is that I suspect that our more ceremonial traditions have it right in that it is "Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi"or that as we pray, so we believe and so live (which is a rough translation). The other thing is that I see not the words per se as determining the belief but the way the person sees themselves through the words. In other words unlike many who use that phrase that think it is enough to get the words right, I actually think it is important to understand how people understand the words. Well that took up two days this week. The conference was very packed full with sessions. I think we got through seven papers and two group sessions plus about five or six worship sessions and two story sessions. That was all fitted in with sleeping and eating into less than thirty hours with sleep and meals but it was two and half hours drive both ways to Northampton.

I was already a day down this weekend, I had taken it earlier in the week but then spent it getting specs. Well I need to be out of the flat and that meant that I could not really work and I needed to do some preparation for the meeting. Not that I did what I should have done, the effort of last weekend left me ill focused. Then I also needed to prepare for my supervision this Tuesday. That actually gave a focus as I needed to review the flows chapter for the supervision. Not that there will be any lack of stuff to talk about. I have sent three chapters this month!

Belonging Chapter in Second Draft

Glasses and a reading book

Well I have sent another chapter to my supervisor. Yes I know it is just over a week to do this but I have had a lovely long thesis spell this weekend. So I had to shop of Friday but I had Friday afternoon, all of Saturday and Sunday plus this afternoon. The chapter was also the most complete of the chapters when I went through first draft so I did not have huge amounts of stuff to change, that said I found I was doing more than I would have liked. The need was basically to clarify the chapter but to do that I had to do a lot of work on putting things in the right place.

What is equally true is that I analyse through writing. That is it is when I get to dealing with detailed description that oddly my brain seems to start working analytically with the topic. For instance I noticed in writing about belonging that the real time when there were arguments were not actually when there were problems with the outside world but when there was conflicts between strands of the congregations own identity. This in turn goes back to the coupling/binaries that I have seen in the Reformed tradition. These of course are where there are arguments that are contained within the tradition and therefore are not easily settled. The within nature of these things is what makes for the intractability. What you tend to get is a swinging motions which seems to continue for far longer than you'd expect. Then there are constellation, when certain themes in the identity start to come together. When this happens a congregation is likely to move quite strongly in that direction.

I think I am going to start an editor note book with things that I need to go through and check I have built right into my thesis. otherwise I am going to neglect important information.

Oh and why the specs. Well today was also a thesis day, but this morning I had to be out of the home, so I took my courage in my hands and went and got my eyes tested. I am getting older and now need varifocals. Something I have recognised for a year or two but have been putting off as long as possible. It should make reading and working easier. So I sort of feel that is was thesis or rather I will get the time back for thesis. I then went to a cafe and read a book related to thesis (well one of the most recent publications in the area). Then back this afternoon and preparing for a conference tomorrow and the day after. So I printed out the next chapter for re-drafting and hope I get chance to read it this week.

Two chapters off to my supervisor!

relaxing after sending chapters

I have just sent two chapters off to my supervisor. This is not as big as it sounds as one chapter was the worship chapter whihchh at my last supervision we agreed I had forgotten to put the signage into it and I needed to go away and do that. That is only about 500 words in total that needed adding but it makes a huge difference to how the chapter reads.

I have also sent the chapter of tradition. After last weekends effort which broke the back of the chapter, this weekend I have just had to review and revise what I wrote last weekend and finish the final section. Then to go through the whole thing and make sure that I have worked out the signage as I did for the worship chapter. I am beginning to realise that the thesis has spirals within spirals and in each of those I have to make sure the signage is clear. As I have not totally worked out how each chapter actually fits into the whole thesis there is still some interim feel about this. Here is an interesting one, this is the chapter people want to read, I am not sure why.

I am also in the process of reviewing my chapter on belonging. This is the chapter that came out best out of the initial review. If I recall correctly there are no major changes to be made to this chapter. That said having gone through my own review of it, I do need to spend some time on the theory section. It is not clear and seems to have got all muddled up. This is normally a sign that I have not fully digested the thought of the thinkers when I was writing so an actual go at tidying that up, giving enough of the flavour of the thinkers but also creating an argument seems to be the main struggle with the chapter. The working out of the inward and outward needs some refinement. The outward is not really the outward but rather evidence for unsettling of the inward discourse. Then I need to write a proper conclusion and put in the signage!

Writing most of chapter on tradition

some of the texts cited

This weekend has been a bit of a catch up weekend in that I was hoping to have got a lot further last weekend with my writing than I did. I am still behind as I have to make the final bit of argument in this chapter on tradition and then deal with the structure.

The problem really with this chapter is that there is so much that could go into it. I think that I could write a whole book on it. Indeed I might do so one day as there are themes and ideas coming out. The problem is that in order to do that I will need to deal with theology.

I have got as far as having to bring in the last piece of argument and then to go back through and put in the structural sign posts now that I know what the structure is. It is really odd, when I started doing this thesis I would plan my essays almost down to the last paragraph and allocate word limits to each. With my thesis chapters I am having to start writing and rewriting then seeing what comes out and yet I am acutely aware of word limit for the chapter. Therefore I at the moment am well aware one section would be stronger with a third example but that there is no obvious example that is not covered elsewhere. There may also need to be a matter of dealing with how congregation interact with the tradition which may well be another section.

This is getting as rambling as I am in the chapter. Anyway I thought people would like to see some of the more fun references in my thesis. Yes I mention all of these in this chapter, well one still needs to go in. Actually in the absence of any really scholarly texts I have had to go back to novels.

Snow, Sun and Rain at February's supervision

Bench Sheffield this morning

Bench Birmingham this evening

 Today was supervision for February, the weather was to say the least variable. The benches illustrate just how different the experience was in the two places. There was some snow fall in Birmingham but the snow was about two inches deep when I set out from Sheffield and so to get to the station snow boots had to be worn. The result is that I have been ridiculously over dressed in Birmingham.

The other snag today is my voice has decided it is time to take things easily. It was fine as far as I know first thing this morning but when I got on the train I realised that all thaht was coming out was a whisper.  Given that my supervisor does not write anything down and that therefore the supervision is very verbal and you have some idea of the difficulties this brings about. It did appear to have decided that a partial return was a good idea by the supervision so I was audible. I still would not like to project it.

I had the worship chapter under review. Actually the changes suggested were quite limited when we worked through but included adapting it so it is coherent with the tradition chapter.

Problem the tradition chapter is only getting there. It is going to be interesting to write. The problem is that what I have is a series of images that work analytically for parts of the tradition but none of them work for all of it. He wants me to extend further the range of the images, I am tending to use mechanical ones and he is preferring organic ones. The only common thread seems to be that they are all chaotic systems. His challenge to me is to write something that is more poetic. I wonder if he realises exactly how difficult it is to write poetically. I say that as someone who has written poems. It can take me several hours to put together a poem that is not twenty words long. My poetry has an almost opposite style to a thesis in that it is very spare. That and the fact the Reformed tradition is highly rational but you can not rationally describe it without simplifying the complex interactions that make it an active system.

Any way this month I will spend this coming weekend (three days working on the tradition chapter) and hopefully getting it into another draft. Then back to the worship chapter before I move onto the chapter on belonging. After that I think I will need to go back to community and location, then onto flows and so it goes. I need to keep going and get this done now. Once it is done I can step back and start thinking where next creatively.