www.gatheringgrace.org

Learning to be more attentive

I have continued my practice of using a Bullet Journal, despite holding loosely to any particular style each month. I am valuing the tracking of whether I am satisfied each day with my overall mood, with the exercise I have undertaken, and whether I have eaten sensibly. A simple dot or no dot for whether I am satisfied with each is enough. I did ponder a scale out of 10, but I'm not sure I would gain enough from that.

This month I wanted to use the Monthly Log slightly differently. I want to track more of the connection between emotional and tiredness levels and different meetings or events in my diary. Therefore, I am simply putting a line (blue or green, depending on the type of event) roughly in line with the times I have added across the top of the page. It became immediately apparent that the length of the event or meeting does not necessarily correspond directly with my emotional or energy levels before or afterwards.

For example, yesterday I had the enormous privilege of preaching at Choral Evensong in Winchester Cathedral, as well as licensing an old friend to a new role in the Cathedral community. I had invested quite heavily, in terms of energy, in writing the sermon, getting a sense of its length, and editing it numerous times. The service itself demanded I concentrate and focus. Afterwards, I was inevitably tired, but I also had a strong sense of satisfaction that I had done the job I had been asked to do.

In recent weeks, I am aware that I had a meeting I had been dreading, but which went far better than I had feared. As a result I felt a degree of being energised. I also had a meeting which went well, but afterwards I was absolutely done. I had been concentrating and focussed for 90 minutes or so, but I realised after the meeting that some of those involved were people I find can be a little unpredictable, and so I was also trying to gauge the temperature of the room, as it were. That is probably something I need to learn to deal with better - hence the desire to track these things.

I haven't worked out how best to record the energy levels post-meeting. I will probably have to note them down long hand until I reach a point where I can categorise them more clearly. I also need to have means of recording those things which boost emotional and energy levels. This is important for me as, in may ways, I am still trying to work out the elements which contributed to me sense of being completely wrung out by ministry by the end of my time on Bristol back in 2021. Certainly, the lockdown effect which made ministry both more challenging and more isolating played a significant part, but others coped.

I know I am learning some valuable lessons. I am coming to accept that some problems are simply "intractable". That is, there may be a solution - it is just not clear what it might be yet. Therefore, there is merit in chipping away carefully and steadily without feeling any sense of failure for not having solved that problem today.

I am enjoying getting out into the warmer mornings for an early run or walk, if possible. I am enjoying the range of opportunities I have for ministry in my current roles, but I also enjoy the occasional morning when I have no meetings and I can prepare for the days ahead, or simply read.

Freewheeling

Having submitted my MA dissertation, I now find myself invited back to help on a support day for the next cohort. However, this involves editing my 18,000 words down to around 3,500 - a 20 minute presentation's worth. This feels rather sacrilegious, coming so soon after completion. Some of my own colleagues are already considering what next for them academically, but I am not sure I am either ready or, indeed, capable of another major research project. What I did addressed a significant area of interest for me and I think I need to do some implementing and reflecting before I think of tackling anything of a similar or greater complexity.

In the meantime, I am catching up on books I have had on the "to read" list. I finished the wonderful Thunderclap by Laura Cumming. I feel inspired to do a bit more research on the Dutch masters of the 17th Century, not least Cumming's favourite, the misfortunate Carel Fabritius. A van trip to the Netherlands would be in order.

I have also now read Chums by Simon Kuper. Certainly, there is nothing in here which casts a favourable view on Boris Johnson and his likes. A small group of men who devoted themselves to the art of rhetorical combat in which the style was more important than the substance, meaning that when we faced the two largest crises of the last 80 years, Brexit and COVID, we had people in charge who were able to bluster and blag their way through, dismissing facts and consequences with ease, as they were firmly in the belief that these things didn't apply to them.

Next up, Colin Heber-Percy's new book Lost in the Forest. This is reminding me of the need to explore Savernake Forest once more, and to photograph the named oaks.

For now, on with the editing!

Bullet Journalling for beginners

I bought a Bullet Journal to start the year. Let me explain why. When I was in full-time ministry I was involved in so much that one of the things which got squeezed out was the thinking and preparation time for meetings. Now I am 0.5 I do have that space - and I want to make sure I use it as well as I possibly can.

If you are not familiar with the concept, Bullet Journalling began some years ago as a way of tracking not just tasks and events, but as much of one's life as one needed - so some people record their exercise, bodies, hobbies etc, and there are many who seem to get carried away with making their pages as arty as possible. I found YouTubers like Matt Ragland helpful for some simple starting methods, and Jill at Check the Box and Learn really helpful at establishing a workflow that actually worked for me, rather than the other way round. I'd love to do more of her pattern of emails, which is to have two slots each day for checking emails, and then a session on a Friday morning to clear out the inbox bu actioning, forwarding, filing or noting.

I set up a typical Bullet Journal group of pages. A Monthly Log, followed by Weekly Logs and then Weekly Review and Preview pages and have done some adaptation as I went along. My particular working pattern, currently, is that I attend perhaps half a dozen meetings or 1:1 sessions each week, but as we all work remotely or in a distributed way, I also try to make the most of those little time slots in between to go and find a real person if they are in the office that day. Therefore, I need to capture ideas, tasks and queries when in meetings, and process them in such a way that I can then deal with them in the more timely way afterwards.

I have simplified my Bullet Journal already, but have keep Matt Ragland's Weekly Review and Preview concept as the backbone of my one system. Therefore, I spend some time (generally on a Sunday evening) going through the pages of notes I have made over the last week in meetings, mentoring sessions or planning at home and I harvest all the items that have not been completed. I then move them to a new page in my notebook and I try to plan where, when and with whom I can complete anything outstanding. I also spend some time in a non-judgmental reflective journalling of the last week. I am particularly recording how I felt and then dealt with difficult moments, as well as record how I am implementing the values that are important to me in my work. I'll come back to those in another post. I also try to record how my thinking about my Bullet Journalling method needs modifying. It is liberating to know that I do not have to continue pages or content just for the sake of it. If part of the system isn't working for me then I can ditch it or fix it.

Out of this Review/Preview and Reflective Journalling I am also looking to identify changes I need to make to my working practice and time slots in the week ahead which need to be blocked out for a specific purpose. Therefore, at present I Review the week just gone and want to note down;

• two or three "wins" - what did I do that aligned with my values?
• two or three points to "assess" - what didn't work as well as hoped?
• harvest outstanding items from my notebook and migrate them into next week
• reflective journal on the week
• identify and changes I need to implement

I then Preview the week ahead;

• do I need to prioritise any values or things which slipped in the previous week?
• work through my list of migrated outstanding items from the previous week
• what time slots do I need to protect in order to to complete those this coming week?
• are there any actions that come to mind as I do this which I need to add to my list?

I do all this in paper notebooks. I carry a Leuchtturm1917 A5 notebook with me all the time and write using a Kuru Toga 0.5 pencil. Scribbles and crossings out are fine. One thing I now try to do for every note I take is to add the date and who was present. Having read through some reviews of the handling of various complicated cases, it seems important to help my memory as much as possible with these little details, just in case I need to go back and retrieve some information. I have been trying a system for note taking which involves symbols, so

• - means that what follows is a note
• . means an action I need to complete. If I have to move this on, then I can change it to a >, or x if completed
• = means I am about to note a mood or feeling of importance, and
• o means an event

I journal in a separate notebook. Currently this is a Midori A5 notebook and a Lamy fountain pen. I prefer notebooks with no like markings so I can write portrait or landscape, or sketch as needed. That's the beauty of paper over electronic. This is just the date and then longhand journalling. I am particularly wanting to expand on dealing with concerns or anxieties, or handling troubling moments. That is for my learning and then being able to look back on it for future reference.

There is real pleasure to be found in writing with a good pen or pencil on proper paper, but that is a bonus for what I am trying to achieve here. The real win for me is to keep on top of work so that I am effective and add value to meetings, formal or informal. I see one of the soft functions of my role as linking a person with a difficulty to a person with a solution. This system seems to be doing that for me at present.

17,898

After a couple of unexpected (and unwanted) hiccups over the weekend, I took a deep breath and uploaded the final submission of my MA Dissertation. All 17,898 words. The actual deadline is in two days time, but I felt I could do no more - and would probably end up fiddling if I delayed further.

And so, three years work is over. Today, for the first time in ages, I did not open Word, Zotero or Obsidian (my writing tools of choice since January 2022). I drove over to Salisbury to hand in my library books, gave some others back that my tutor had lent me and bagged up a few a friend had let me borrow which I will give back tomorrow. My floor is clear and I can see carpet for the first time in ages!

My main dissertation neatly segues into many of the tasks I am undertaking in my paid role, but I have at least one long piece I wrote two years ago which I think has potential to be put into a journal in some form, so I will have a go at that if I can.

I now have six weeks to wait to find out whether I have passed or not. I'm pretty confident my dissertation will pass muster.

Sadly, I need to wait before I can put any of the content, or an edited version of it, in my blog so that Turnitin doesn't think I have plagiarised myself. However, I am working on journalling more - specifically in a weekly review/preview cycle. There are a few areas I want to work on, and the spirituality aspect from my conclusion feels timely and important for me as I work out what to do next. But, before then, I also have some guitar playing and photography projects to catch up on.

A Reflection for Clergy Chapter

I offered this at our most recent Chapter and it led to a fruitful and honest discussion before we prayed for each other.

I am getting towards the end of my MA dissertation and find myself trying to understand if there is a connection between self-control, self-awareness and self-regulation.

We know self-control is a part of the fruit of the Spirit - if the Spirit is working in us then we will be growing in multiple areas, one of which is (at least how I have imagined it until this point in my studies) something about a discipline of ourselves. To pray when we don’t feel like it, not to swear when someone cuts us up at a junction and so forth.

Self-awareness speaks of how well we know, and can be compassionate about, ourselves. We have an idea of how we come across to others, or when we behave differently in one context to another - and why. I think it says something about how we might recognise patterns from our parents or our upbringing which sometimes unhelpfully repeat in our lives.

And self-regulation seems to address the idea of how well we can maintain our inner cohesion and stability. I think these three overlap far more than these simple few sentences suggest, but they are a start.

In Matthew 26:59-68 we see Jesus under real, provocative pressure - obviously, nothing like some of the PCCs I’ve had to chair! It is interesting how he reacts. Normally when faced with what we perceive as a threat, our chimp brain kicks in to protect us and we make an instantaneous decision for flight or fight. Adrenaline pumps round our bodies, our muscles prepare for action and the parts of our brains which are not necessary for survival are shut down - areas such as our capacity to reflect.

How does Jesus react? I imagine if that was me in front of the high priest I would have either fought - shouted back and let my anger out, raging against the injustice - or withdrawn because I would be struggling with the dilemma that whatever I say could make this worse. Jesus seems to be able to calmly respond with a statement which is both factually true, but also seems to suggest he is closing down a fruitless path for a discussion, thereby retaining an element of control. It is the others who are behaving angrily and in an uncontrolled manner.

I shared an example of a typical situation in which someone had been really angry with me because they had not been the first to know something and, despite my apology, the issue kept being raised. "There's no communication round here!", and so forth. In one rather heated meeting we tried to put a sticking plaster over the problem by agreeing a procedure in case this happened in future, but it was only a sticking plaster - it did not deal with their anger, nor did it address my frustration at being shouted at and spoken to like I was some sort of lacky. I was aware of that raised emotional state within me and I could only see a way to fight (shout back) or flight (in this case it would a withdrawal from the situation, again without properly resolving it, because I felt whatever I said would only make matters worse). How can we address this internal state referred to as anxiety, but which clouds our ability to reflect and speak peaceably?

I find the writer Gabor Mate insightful; (this is from his book When the body says no)

'self-regulation..."involves in part the attainment of emotional competence”’, by which he means the measure to which one is able 'to deal in an appropriate and satisfactory way with one's own feelings and desires.'

To be emotionally competent we must be able to;

• recognise our own internal emotional reactions brought about by stress. 
• convey our own emotions clearly, being able to 'assert our needs and to maintain the integrity of our emotional boundaries.' Often, anger is a feeling created because somebody is impeding a physical or emotional boundary we want to maintain.
• discern between emotions pertinent to the immediate situation and emotions unresolved from our history. Many of us carry within us a pattern for dealing with conflict which was set for us early in life by our parents or siblings. For example, we bottle up emotion because it is easier for us to carry a pain if that is a way of appeasing someone else's anger and ending the sense of hostility.
• the identification of those emotions requiring resolution in that moment, rather than holding a discomfort so as to avoid loss of 'approval or others’.

I’ve just been doing three days of role-playing learning with Bridge Builders, and I have found myself having to dig in to my feelings of anxiety when someone kicks off with strong emotions about something. There are quite a few techniques they offer, but for me the question of curiosity is important. I cannot prevent myself feeling anxious, so I need to find a way of allowing my curiosity about my anxiety to come to the fore. I wonder why I am feeling like this? Curiosity also allows a less confrontational response to the strong emotion of others. In fact, curiosity allows a mechanism for exploring their strong emotion, rather than having to work around it. “Clearly you feel strongly about this. Would you be able to talk about what happened?” And then using a summary technique to feed back so that the strong emotions are acknowledged. “So what I heard was that you were really disappointed not to have heard straight away about Charlie. Is that right?”. This also allows, when the matter comes up again, for you to say “I notice that the issue around Charlie still seems to be causing distress. Is there something else on this area we haven’t touched on yet?”.

But I want to leave some silence for us to reflect on ourselves in our moments of anxiety.

On whole-heartedness

The Smiths were a big part of the background music of University days. At the time they were perhaps a little too arty for my then tastes. However, their quality has stood the test of time. Sadly, it seems a Morrissey/Marr reunion is not going to be on the cards, which in this era of the big "let's put it all behind us and get back on stage" tours is quite a statement. So what do we do in the mean time?

A discussion recently in the non-Vicarage about tribute bands, and this set in particular.

Who would have thought, back in the day, that poppy Rick Astley would be able to pull something like this off. Videos of The Smiths playing all tend to be quite grainy excerpts from Top of the Pops and Johnny Marr is still touring and playing these songs, but Astley and the Blossoms (and the audience too) certainly look like they are loving giving this 110%.

I always find Dietrich Bonhoeffer's letter After Ten Years particularly moving. A decade of struggle against the Nazis led him to the question Are we still of any use?, to which he answers

Unbearable conflicts have worn us down or even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? We will not need geniuses, cynics, people who have contempt for others, or cunning tacticians, but simple, uncomplicated, and honest human beings.

We too can become cynical, absorbing the world-weariness of our culture or perhaps feeling overwhelmed, unable to make any meaningful difference. The opposite of that hard-hearted cynicism is not to be soft-hearted, but rather to be whole-hearted. To joyfully dive in and give it our all. That feels to me like one reasonable interpretation of what Jesus says in Mark 10.

“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

Perhaps this is our calling then as followers of Jesus. To be the Tribute Band who gives each and every song 110%. 

And if a double-decker bus crashes into us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten ton truck kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine

The quieter path

An utter privilege this morning to walk out of the house and onto the farm, off the footpaths and bridleways for a change. After a busy few days I needed it.

I listened to the distant woodpecker as I ambled in whatever direction a break in the nettles and brambles would allow. We saw our first swallows yesterday evening - no sign of them this morning. No distinctive honk of the raven that inhabits these woods either, nor the cuckoo we've been aware of for the last week. I did startle a deer and send a muntjac careering through the undergrowth. Walking regularly helps to establish those seasonal sounds in the things to listen out for.

I should have been at a day long meeting today. It had been in the diary for ages, but about which I had heard nothing. I checked with colleagues who forwarded an email with the day's plan. I hadn't received this - how could I be left off the address list? Then I realised I had not RSVPed to the invite months ago. I spent a few minutes wrestling with whether to go anyway, or take the time to be away. FOMO kicked in, briefly, but then I reminded myself what a gift a clear day always is. I opted for the quieter path.

Therefore, I found myself walking in the woods.

I did wonder whether I might find a suitable stump that I can adopt as my outdoor writing station. That might be a cool idea for the summer.

Finding the quieter path is the ultimate aversion therapy for FOMO. I realise this applies irrespective of whether it is FOMO socially, or the FOMO which brings about repeated scrolling through social media or YouTube. Both act to disrupt and disturb.

In Avila we visited the Monasterio de la Encarnacion where St Teresa began her life as a Carmelite. She would eventually move out of here and found a new Convent across the city - one which was far more austere - and it was there that she wrote probably her most celebrated work, The Interior Castle. However, it is her original monastery that has a small courtyard garden with a circular labyrinth inspired by Teresa's work. A circular route following the path inward.

I don't find "steps" or "systems" that helpful, but walking quietly in the woods or on the lanes is the perfect tonic.

 

 

 

Time in the Wilderness: a reflection for Lent

I gave this reflection as part of a recent Clergy Chapter meeting, referencing some of my MA studies.

We returned to our house on the Farm at Christmas 2021. I was done. 18 months of lockdown had taken a toll, but I had arrived at the start of COVID already feeling at an end of something and knew it was time to move on.

So, January 2022 would find me walking - mostly on the farm, but walking - usually, going over moments from my previous 19 years in Parish ministry where I thought I had failed. If only I’d said this, if only I’d done that. In some ways I felt a bit like I was in the wilderness. Being a Parish Priest had been part of me for two decades. Even though I knew I had needed to stop, it still felt the loss - loss of a sense of meaning and loss of a sense of who I am. With hindsight, I realise I had thought I could out-organise and out-energise any obstacle and this was me reaching the end of myself with more of a crash than should have been the case. I suppose you could say I was in the wilderness.

But in Lent, surely, wilderness has to take on an altogether more positive meaning. Despite the reality that a wilderness experience is uncomfortable, disorienting and dislocating, throughout my MA studies, I keep going back to the 4th C theologian and desert monastic Evagrius. He was at the Council of Constantinople in 381, having been made a deacon by Basil the Great, but he seems to have had some sort of liaison with the wife of a powerful man in the city, and so Evagrius had to flee. He relocated to Jerusalem and stayed at a monastery under the leadership of Melania the Great. By all accounts he was a bit of a pain in the cassock! Bragging about his achievements in Constantinople and showing off his fine clothes until he seems to have had some sort of breakdown (mental or physical is unclear). Melania ministered to him and, eventually, he confessed his affair and was restored to health. He then moved to the Egyptian desert and wrote one of the first handbooks on prayer, as well as becoming the sort of humble and wise counsel sought out by people from near and far. But this lifestyle in the desert was not in the confines of an established monastery. Rather, an extended network of like-minded hardy sorts who met weekly, but probably spent most of their time alone, in prayer and doing the hard work of surviving. Living in the wilderness as a lifestyle choice

In Lent we find Jesus propelled by the Spirit into the wilderness immediately after his baptism, and being tempted, and the way this story is written in the Gospels is a clear re-enactment of the Exodus journey through the wilderness. I want to offer three ideas about the wilderness for our reflection this Lent.

Firstly, for the Israelites, the long journey across the desert was a time of discovery. Deut 8:2 says

“Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments”.

The theologian Ulrich Mauser argues we translate this text slightly incorrectly. The Hebrew is unclear about who comes to know the results of the testing. Is it God - who presumably knows the hearts of the people already? Or is it in fact the people themselves - that through their testing and repeated failings they are able to know their own hearts more clearly?
The stripping away that takes place as part of entering the wilderness should lead to us knowing ourselves more fully and accurately - warts and all. Wilderness strips away any pretensions.

Secondly,  for Jesus the wilderness is thought of as a place of temptation. Mark 1:12-13

“And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”

The Gospel writers relate Jesus responding to the temptations by going back into Scripture, but we need to remind ourselves that in order for those things to have been temptations for Jesus - the choice being offered had to be really tempting. Clever short-cuts to achieve some of what he was called to do, but to do so without any of the pain and heartache of the Cross. And the three listed strike to the heart of who Jesus was.

Henri Nouwen describes the three temptations in a way that challenges us as ministers. He says that the temptations subtly played towards

“the need to be relevant, the need to be significant, the need to be powerful.”

Jesus needed to dig into the Old Testament to be able to verbalise the clarity of his purpose and, through this, to be clear about what he was resisting. The temptations Jesus resisted in the wilderness teach us that we can only find the clarity of our vocation through the same process of allowing the wilderness to strip away, and then to discern through Scripture the subtle ways our heart would lead us too readily back to comfort. This allows us to be more clear about our ministries and ourselves, as we pay attention to ourselves and what is going on within and immediately around us. Later in the Gospels Jesus repeatedly returns to the wilderness not to be tempted, but to find the space to be close to God in prayer.

And thirdly, for Evagrius the wilderness was the place where he actually found his home. He was to spend the rest of his life there, and for him the stripping away was fundamental in his learning about stillness , attention, and withdrawal. Each of these values is quite profound.

Last May, partly to explore some ideas about solitude for my MA, I walked the West Highland Way. As I walked alone I had a lot of time to seek stillness, despite the activity, but I soon realised what the Desert Mothers and Fathers taught about stillness - it is not about getting away from the noise, but about discovering and dealing with the sources of the noise within us. I recall walking along the A82 at the mouth of Glencoe. This is the main A road into Fort William, and there is quite a bit of traffic. After a distance, the path turns right, away from the road and ascends the mountainside. The noise of cars decreases, but so the noise within me seemed all the louder; thoughts, irritations etc.

And attention is needed in the wilderness. My longest day was 19 miles across Rannoch Moor - a bleak and empty landscape in the drizzle of the day I walked there, so my attention was on the steady tread of my feet, how my legs were doing, was there any sign of a blister, did I need to stop for some water or a bit of food? Attention paid along the way was important to protect myself for the whole journey. Walking made me aware of the need for attention on just what was in close proximity around me. I could enjoy the landscape and the hills in the distance, but my focus only had to be just the next couple of steps.

Withdrawal for me meant intentionally careful about what I carried in my pack. Waterproofs and camera gear, snacks and water, and a first aid kit were a given, just the things that were important for that day. I didn’t think I would so relish being out on the moor with my backpack and in my waterproofs, cocooned against the drizzle! Withdrawal like this helps us establish clear boundaries around ourselves - that which is rightly and comfortably our outer perimeter

With hindsight I am really glad of my wilderness time two years ago and then my MA studies since which have allowed me to find a meaningful shape to that, and, indeed, a desire to find myself in the wilderness more regularly.

May we each be blessed with a wilderness experience which teaches us. Whether that is to know our weaknesses better, or to recognise where we minister to meet our own false needs
to find stillness
to pay attention
to withdraw

Tempus fugit

Wow! How time flies.

December 5th 2023 marked the second anniversary of my ending the season of my ministry that was centred around full-time in a parish. It was good in many ways, but it was also good to move on. In the whirl of caring for my Mum in the last month of her life I can't recall exactly what I was doing on the 5th but it probably involved driving to Bristol and visiting her in Southmead Hospital.

In August last year I was appointed as the Area Dean of Andover in the Diocese of Winchester, which has been a really fruitful and satisfying new piece of ministry I had neither sought nor anticipated, but getting to know and serve the varied Parishes of the Deanery has been rewarding. I love being able to lead worship in the villages, and having the capacity during the week to support some of the outreach work in the urban setting, particularly the CAP Debt Centre.  

In December I completed the second year of my MA, although some of my second year deadlines flowed over into this year. I signed up for this MA in some ways as a means to ensure my brain remained active, but the learning has been profound for me. I have loved being able to use important new insights as I have preached and led contemplative times, but the learning has also allowed me to process some of the more complex issues from Parish life which were, sadly, left unresolved. The reading and writing has been hard, at times, but so enriching and I wish I could trade in all the Clergy training days from the last two decades for the quality and depth of learning on my MA. Over the past twelve months I have written about the Desert Fathers and what we can learn from their endurance to address stress (which involved walking the West Highland Way), and another assignment based on Narrative Psychology considering what we can learn pastorally from a person telling us their story for which I was very grateful for a TED talk by one of the screenwriters of Toy Story. I am now beginning the long haul of 18,000 words for my final dissertation which is scheduled to take me through to February 2025. 

Obviously, saying goodbye to Mum was a big deal. Over Christmas it felt like one of us was driving over almost every day, and then gradually daily on the phone to the nursing team at St Peter's Hospice. She knew she was dying, having been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last February, but the last few weeks hit us very quickly and Mum was in quite some pain for days at a time.

It was good to have a Memorial Service for her at St Chad's, my old Church in Patchway, as they had welcomed her in and made her part of the Church family there for the last 3 and a bit years of her life. She wanted her ashes scattered in the woods near here where she used to walk. We'll do that in due course.

Lessons from baking bread

I have been seriously baking bread for three or four years now. Other than the odd blip, we are pretty much self-sufficient. I have grown to love watching and kneading the dough - learning to feel when it is ready, rather than relying on a timer. I love the variety of things which can be made from the simplest of ingredients; flour, water, salt and yeast - bread and pizzas - and then slightly more complex variations; sourdough and breads based on enriched doughs, like these hot cross buns. I also realise there are some lessons from baking bread which apply equally to leading a church.

I love enriched doughs, especially for brioche loaves. When I first started the mess was awful - dough splattered up curtains and several early attempts ended up being scraped into the bin. The problem is that the initial dough is easy to knead (I don't have a stand mixer, so it is all by hand) but then you come to adding the butter. At first all seems well and the baker feels brimming with confidence, but then there is the dawning realisation that the butter has barely incorporated into the dough, and the kneading has merely resulted in the butter being pushed out the other end and smearing across the working surface. Patience is needed and the experience to know to trust the process. A different kneading strategy is helpful (slap and fold) which encourages gluten development without losing control of the sticky blob in front of you and the temptation to reduce the stickiness by adding a bit more flour needs to be resisted. Patience and confidence to look past the mess and see that the dough will come together are vital here.

Unlike using instant yeast, a sourdough loaf is very different. Although the actual hands-on time is the same, the time from start until taking the loaves out of the over is something like 20 hours including the overnight feed of the starter. (At some point it would be worth re-reading some of the Biblical references to leavened bread and yeast with sourdough rather than yeast powder in our minds). There is a balance required with the sourdough process; one the one hand it is important to leave sufficient time for the bulk fermentation, for example, to take place but on the other there also has to be the confidence to know when the dough is ready enough. When I want to bake sourdough I know that I need to get the starter going last thing on the night before. If I do that then I will be mixing the dough first thing the next morning, say 7am, and then there will be a couple of stretch and folds required over the next couple of hours. I know that I will shape the loaves and leave them to rest around lunchtime before placing them in the banneton baskets and then leaving them to prove with a view to baking around 4pm. Many external factors play a part here, not least the temperature in the kitchen. It can be frustrating to start the process and then have something come up which cuts across one of these key moments. A degree of experience-learned judgment is needed in order to know how to modify the timings on the hoof. In other words one needs to have got it wrong and worked out why frequently enough to be able to then know the right changes to make.

Dough needs both salt and yeast in order to give a flavoursome and well-risen loaf. Ironically, salt is detrimental to the efficacy of the yeast. In a normal yeasted loaf the salt and yeast would be measured and then placed at opposite sides of the mixing bowl, keeping them apart for as long as possible. When I make sourdough I hold back a tiny fraction of the water and add the salt to that, setting aside for half an hour whilst the more delicate sourdough starter can begin to work. It is also counter-intuitive that very dry flour seems to be able to resist the presence of the water. Time is needed for the flour to become fully hydrated, a process known as the autolyse. Therefore, care is needed. Not all the ingredients mix easily and some even need to be held back for a short time - even though their presence is vital for the final loaf.

It seems a bit strange to learn that it is important to let the gluten in the dough rest, especially after some work has been put in. A lot of loaves require a pre-shaping (getting the loaf in sort of the right shape) and then 20 minutes or so of resting before the work involved in finishing the shaping and creating the surface on the dough which will become the crust. If you only shape once then you can feel the resistance and the dough pulling back, especially when making a pizza base! In order to get a soft workable ball of dough which can be stretched out to carry all those beautiful toppings I leave my dough to rest for 2 hours. Sometimes it is as important to allow the changes brought about by shaping to rest and relax in order for the next stage to work best. 

Even after all the essential care has been taken there is still the moment of chaos as the loaves are placed into the hot oven. A visually satisfying loaf will have some oven spring and some crusty edges. In order to allow the chaos of the spring to take place but within some limits, it is crucial to score the loaf - a razor blade slicing into the top of the loaf to give some outlet for the expansion. The exact scoring is entirely personal, and can add to the beauty of the finished article, but the chaos has to be channeled slightly to let the energy out in some way.

This might sound complicated, but when it works a hand-made, home-baked loaf fresh from the oven is second to none. Likewise, bringing about change in church can be messy and chaotic, but there is no sight better!

I'd love to know if there are any other parts of baking that apply to church leadership that I could add.