Good weekend had by all.

Termly 'Guest-night' on Friday night. Half the students are guests at a black tie dinner, the other half serve, babysit etc. It swaps next term.

This term was my group's turn to be guests - Andrew Fyfe (known as Feef) was my guest - his wife (Mary's sister) stayed with her.

The night was excellent. Wine flowed freely, everybody mixed wonderfully. The speeches were not too long. The food was excellent. It all ended in a very hazy disco in the common room (for everybody), with far too much Hobgoblin beer going down, and dancing into the small hours of the morning...

Saturday was a real struggle to do anything, other than just survive.

Today was a bit better, except I thoroughly lost my voice - brought on by shouting over the disco on Friday night, I suspect. And I was singing in the college Advent Carol Concert in church this evening. I could manage the low notes in a fairly husky, Barry-White-ish voice, but the rest of it was gone.

Anyway, God knew what I was trying to sing, and that's all that really matters...

It was a very foggy day today, so the picture below is of me cycling to schools this morning.

Not much to see, as you can see!

Peter's birthday today (lots of football stuff), and lectures on the Torah and Anglo-Catholicism. We get variety in the work we have to do, I must admit!

Heavy social end to the week approaching. Black tie dinner on Friday - college guest night - which i suspect we just squeeze in before the penitential times in Advent start. I believe one should not party until Christmas day, rather a contrast to the Xmas part season starting up about now. But it is rather tired and cliched to go on about anti-consumerist Christmas messages.

I have bought my first very own copy of the little purple C of E lectionary guide for next year (which starts on Sunday). Is this an arrival or a departure from normality, I wonder. I need to know the readings for next Friday so I can choose a suitable hymn for Evening Prayer (which i will be doing all togged up in funny clothes again).

Thornbury FM has come on-air (and online)!

Mary was the project manager for starting up the station, and was the secretary of the thing. She's still a trustee, but had to move away from Thornbury before the thing was done, to come and live in Oxford.

But it has all now happened (if you try the link below before 3rd December 2005! Give it a ping and have a listen!!!

The radio station websites:

Thornbury FM website

Live Webcast!!!

Try the webcast (from 19 November to 2 December)

This is a commercial, but non-profit station - they advertise, but the revenue runs the station. The whole point is to draw the community closer together.

The Hebrew is all getting a bit much!

Partly my own fault, trying to do too much, possibly. Hebrew-aholic? Maybe. Need to try and get a sense of balance in work volume.

A few early nights might sort it...

Mary has got a job! Bit of a startling development.

She's got a few hours per week as the administrator for Wheatley Team Ministry, the nearby big village church set-up. We saw a notice up in college, speculatively e-mailed, and she's gone and got it.

Looks good - puliing together stuff for the parish, handling the phone calls for the vicar etc. etc. The church will probably claw back most of what she earns (funding issue while training...), but it will be an excellent piece of self-definition and structure, after the move away from our old life. Another in-road of the Swift family into the life of rural Oxfordshire!

Another development - I am one of the candidates for college student presidency. A few of the others twisted my arm (a little) to stand, so I agreed. More as it unrolls in the next couple of weeks...

Quiet day at Cuddesdon today - no talking allowed in any of the normal places. Only spoken stuff is in the services and the talks from the chap leading the quiet day (tapping the keyboard is OK, as is miming, and writing stuff on the whiteboard etc.) We were advised not to do any work (taking advantage of no classes). I have been doing some work... Ho hum.

First Sunday placement yesterday - in Hambleden Valley.
Hambleden's Website
Very, very lush part of the world, very friendly reception. The second service we went to was the local British legion remembrance service, so Allan and I, in normal student priest gear (dark jeans, jumpers, bleary eyes) looked a little out of place in the middle of the dark suits, ties and medals. On the plus side, at least the wearers of the dark suits and medals only darken the door of the church that one day per year - at least the scruffs have some staying power!

Good incident last week (since last post - no, not the one at the remembrance service) - met a possible 'Spiritual Director' at Pusey House (Pusey ran the Anglo-Catholics after Newman defected to Rome - more later, an area of interest to me, early Victorian Anglicanism (seriously)) Pusey House Website
. Very interesting chat, feels like it could fit very well for my time at Cuddesdon!

(Picture - the small church at Fingest - very friendly!)

Interesting night last night - the theological colleges in Oxford have joint bashes about once per term. This term we swapped contingents and went to each other's eucharists, then stayed on for dinner.

My group was allocated St Stephen's House, the Anglo-Catholic college nearish the middle of Oxford.

They have a fabulous church for their chapel - a smallish cathedral/abbey sized place (thought - glad we don't have to clean THAT on a Wednesday afternoon before the Eucharist).

It was all slightly twiddly - incense, neatly ironed cottas (white thing over cassock), a few odd bits and bobs that would be more at home in Rome than in Oxford. Dinner was nice and sociable, preceded by sheery and nibbles. The rest of the college (other than the church) felt a bit sparse and utilitarian, a bit like a government department.

Good mix of bods from Wycliffe, Cuddesdon and Staggers (the nickname for St Stephens). Within a certain margin for error, the groups of ordinands could be told apart by the way they looked and acted. Wycliffe - longish hair, rather studenty; Staggers - well groomed, mostly male, slightly reserved; Cuddesdon - bit older, less well groomed, less studenty. But those stereotypes, as with all stereotypes, don't really work.

Most people, from all three places, agreed that they were happy where they were...

Very good spirituality session today with Lister, the chaplain/cum spiritual person. Imaginative visualisation (listen to a bible narrative, imagine it in graphic detail).

The refreshing thing with Lister's approach is his attitude to losing the plot, falling asleep, thinking about the shopping etc. For him - all those are still God communicating through the prayer, just leading you in unexpected directions. I've now had two quite profound 'digressions' in his sessions, but which were exactly the right communication from God I was really looking for.

Lister always opens with "How ARE you?", closes with 'How are you NOW?", then "and what happened to get there." Excellent prayer habits!

Footnote - off to Pusey House on Thursday to see about a possible 'spiritual director' - If Oxford is the Jerusalem of the 'Catholic' Church of England, Pusey is the tabernacle. Ho hum, off to peer in through the curtain...

'Nother footnote - the title was a meaningless digression...

Got my placement notification for Sundays - Hambledon Valley, down near Reading.

Should be interesting - they film the vicar or Dibley in one of the villages in the benefice, and it is a nice commuter belt for London. Problems of rich weekenders and poor locals, apparently.

More news once I have actually been there!

Pete took his first communion at All Saints' today - very low key, but he didn't drop the wine and water cruets he had to carry up by himself.

Filthy wet - we bought a dehumidifier to try and reduce the house condensation. Seemed a reasonable investment as we will be bound to be in draughty, damp houses in the years to come...

Met Cath Bethel, friend of a daughter (Mary) of a friend from ex-work (Steve Wells). She (Cath) is training on the Oxford Ministry Course, part-time but based at the college. Good insight into the ministry course's view of college and integration. Again, more as it happens...

Busy few days. We (whole family) went to London for a day trip - didthe bus tour, the boat tour and the London Eye - the whole nine yards of tourist experience. Finished off with tea in the crypt at St Martin-in-the-Fields. Fantastic place, very good food, lots of interesting little bits of shops - and all for the church and its work. People were very, very friendly. We've found our London eatery for minor meals!

Today - All Saints. Rather fancy eucharist (well, a normal one with incense). After some to-ing and fro-ing over who was doing what, I ended up as the thurifer (aka person waving the smoking handbag about). I managed to miss that a hymn was missing, so failed to load enough smoke for the gospel (much to relief if some nearby punters), and also managed to hit the priest in a close-up censing incident. It was a glancing blow and he didn't catch fire. Otherwise, it all went swimmingly.

Work is hotting up. Still looking hard to make sure God is still in the midst of all this. He is, but you have to keep on reminding yourself.