Starting Afresh

Time, I think, to start afresh with this blog. "Poetic and other notes on an attempt at life" is how I subtitled it when I first began, and maybe I ought to be trying a bit harder to ensure that the blog does what it says on the tin, so to speak.

So, maybe I need to begin with some background. I am a sixty-something man, married to Ann, father of four grown up children, and we have two grandchildren. I spent thirty years as an Anglican priest; now I'm not one in any practical sense, though I haven't gone so far as to formally set aside my ministerial orders. I remain a believer, though not always conventional and correct in my creed - nor, indeed, am I always very good at believing in the Church. I am a member of the Third Order of the Society of St Francis, though, of which more anon, and while I may not be all that brilliant at keeping to my Franciscan rule of life, I do try to take seriously the call to obedience. So while I may not always manage to love the Church, I do applaud and support what the Church is (or is supposed to be) there for.

And I do still have a personal sense of God's presence and call and challenge, without being very sure just now where that might be leading me. I am in transition - that's maybe the best way of putting it. There is still some repair work to be done, and even when that is all complete, there'll be no going back, only a distance further to go, to places and pastures new. I was a parish priest, and I resigned from that because I had to . . . more about that in a later post, when I've thought a bit about how I can phrase it. So unlike other former parish priests, I don't have a priestly ministry in retirement, though I am retired, having reached an age at my resignation when I could claim my Church of England pension.

As it happens, I am able to live quite comfortably, in a large and pleasant bungalow backing on to woodland, in a small and busy Welsh border town. I work part time for a local funeral director, and also have my own small business. I can't minister as a priest, but I can and do speak and lead worship as a fellow pilgrim, when invited to do so. And I can also minister through music and poetry: I enjoy writing and I enjoy sharing what I write with others, and I enjoy singing and have been blessed with a halfway decent tenor voice. I am an enthusiast for gardens and for wildlife and the countryside, and it's here, as also in music, that I feel most aware of, and closest to, the life-giving and life-enhancing mystery that is God.

So there's a start. More, God willing, tomorrow.