https://www.careersfordisaffectedevangelicals.org.uk

Thanks for all the responses to my previous post. However, a determined commitment to a New Religious Direction (self-created Religious Movement or otherwise) will only happen if I leave my current job. And given that I’ve got a wedding impending and a cat to feed, leaving my current job will only happen if I find another one.

I think I may therefore want or need a new job...

I don’t enjoy job-hunting, perhaps because I'm fairly dismal at it. I utterly lack whatever cognitive/social skill it is (perception? intuition? social niceties?) to ever discern what the person reading the application wants to hear. I can (and usually do) fall into any or all of the following traps

1. Ending up sounding pathetically and frantically desperate for their job. I've landed myself in some farcically unsuitable and extremely short-lived employment situations this way. I would provide some anecdotes but I don't want to Out myself on this blog, yet.
2. Trying to be clever but instead coming accross as a pretentious/arrogant prat/twat. My classic was the treatise I produced (some time ago, I hasten to add) by way of application to a local GP practice advertising for a receptionist in which I spend half a page pontificating on the need for a thorough reorganisation of the local primary care trust in order to maximise the effeciency of the GP receptionist. I heard from a friend who worked there as a nurse that the practice meeting "wetted themselves laughing" at my application. At least they didn't invite me for an interview so they could all wet themselves in front of me. At least.
3. Providing them with Too Much Information. I was once told, at an interview, "of all the 27 applicants for this job, you were the only one who filled in the what-are-your-greatest-weaknesses-question with any honesty at all". I didn't get the job, suffice to say.

I have, therefore, booked myself an appointment with the local Graduate Careers Service. But I'm honestly no longer sure what it is I want.

In which Grace decides to form a New Religious Movement

After a lovely few days with family and friends and without all the hassles and politics and religious authority-play of work, I have suddenly realised: it doesn't need to be this painful. I need a New Religious (or Spiritual or Faith) Possibility... soon. But what?

Grace's Possible New Religious Possibilities

Agnosticism/Secularism
Sorry, no. God’s there and I like chatting to him/her/it. Not an option.

Sufism
Of all non-Christian ways of engaging with God, this I like. But I don’t think one can convincingly buy into one form of Islam without embracing the entire Ummah. And I couldn’t do religion that didn’t do Jesus. The whole concept of the incarnation is what I love.

Various forms of progressive Judaism
I like the ethics and the academic rigour of it. However, I’ve rarely felt excessively welcome in groups of religious Jews. Or maybe it’s just me. But either way, I don’t think I could ever do religion that didn’t involve Jesus. There’s Messianic Judaism, of course. But I don’t quite see the point of that for those who weren’t Jewish to begin with.

More “liberal” forms of Christianity
Oh please. Sorry, but I just don’t get it. I’ve read Bultmann, Cupitt and the like and yes, they’re very educated and intelligent people, but I’ve never seen the point of demythologisations, nor of insisting that modernity and rationalism inform faith. I’m fine with the Bible telling me that the world was created in six days and that Mary was a virgin and equally I’m fine with Darwin telling me both are impossible. I don’t need to contend with the alleged conflicts between science and religion because, after several years of scientific training and a few episodes of psychosis, I struggle to believe either in science or the objectivity of reality, text, reason or experience. For me, God is all there is.

Converting to Roman Catholicism
Could do. In recent years I’ve been surprised to find that I like a lot of the theology. But they’d need to be a significantly nicer to their women before I could really want to be a Catholic. So probably not this year, then.

Cutting edge, radical, hardcore New Paradigm Church-like
As in, like Vineyard, Hillsongs, NFI, G12-type churches. Maybe. They’re good fun. Sorry to be superficial, though, because I know these things shouldn’t matter, but the volume of the music tends to annoy me: God’s not deaf. Or maybe I’m just too old. But I also get edgy in groups that are so laid-back and informal that they lack clear structures of leadership or mechanisms for accountability.

Quaking
The whole concept of Quakerism intrigues me. I don't think I understand it entirely, but I love the idea of a God who resides within everyone. All inclusive, like.

Bog-standard Church of England-ness
Could do worse. I think it’s all something I understand and can relate to relatively comfortably. But I’m increasingly realising that faith has to involve community. I know they earnestly do try, but I think I’m still a bit young for the jam-making and the jumble sales of your stereotypical Anglican social scene. But I know there’s more to it then that.

Post-evangelicalism emerging Churchyness type “movements”
This interests me. I like the focus on community, eclecticism and inclusion. Sometimes I doubt that they’re ever as new or innovative as they claim, but probably few of us are. There’s not much of such things in my home town, but maybe I could start something new? Hmmm now there’s a thought…

guilt

I'm sitting here gulping as I click through my online banking record of just how much I've spent this evening. It's not that I don't love and value everyone for whom I've bought a Christmas present, not that I consider them undeserving, nor do I begrudge any of them the amount I've spent. I just feel guilty. Guilty about having the money to spend and guilty for not spending an equal amount on gifts for the destitute and starving.

I live in a neighbourhood and a community in which people who are deprived and destitute - and sometimes even starving - surround me constantly. In my experience, it is a poverty more shocking and complex than any poverty I've witnessed elsewhere in the world. People are poor not simply because they don't have enough money (if that were the case, the advent of tax credits would have transformed the area) and nor merely because they smoke or procreate too much (if that were the case, the local health centre offering smoking cessation and family planning would be busy) but for many, many reasons.

People are poor because they're being threatened by Provvie loan sharks who bullied them in 900% APR loans to buy presents for the children they had before they even had the chance to consider the idea that the could finish school which was before they were on the drink but when he was already beating us black and blue and when you feel like that you need a flat screen plasma telly on hire purchase, even though you live eight of you in a one-bed flat and you've got rising damp on the second floor and you can't always afford to put money on the electric and even though Miss did teach us at school it's cheaper to pay the electric by direct debit you're araid to even try to get a bank account whe you're in debt like this cos they'll look at you funny in the bank cos they'll know which part of town you're from and anyway Mum lived here like this, and Gran and Great Grandma too so when you live here nothing changes.

That was a long and incoherent sentence, I'm aware. Being born into this community must feel, I imagine, a somewhat similar sentence.

The community centre around the corner from me is asking for contributions of shampoo, safety razors (safetyonlyplease), warm socks and nail varnish to distribute. Next time I'm out shopping, I'll pop into Superdrug.

a day when people seemed unkind

Nobody was speaking to me at work today. To be fair to them, there may arguably be a reason behind their collective incandescence with me [Solicitor: stop being so magnanimous] but that reason will have to wait until I'm actually sacked or else Someone may identify from this blog.

Half way through the afternoon, for the first time ever, I walked out. I walked out, leaving Everyone to assume that Someone had given me permission to depart early. If I'm asked to explain myself tomorrow, I'm sure I could plead female problems that I couldn't at the time disclose because there was a male visitor in the office. Equally, I could probably get away with telling them I'd had a panic attack. But I wouldn't want to be dishonest.

I came home and started making fresh, organic lentil burgers for the Bible study group this evening. It's a group I don't often have the energy for telling people at work that I go to because some of its members are Unsaved and they even like Fiance. I don't want to be told that I go there merely to feel comforted or un-got-at by being in a room where others have Unsaved partners too.

I go there because I experience God there, and community, too.

I think I've done very much more for God through making those burgers than I did in the office earlier. If Someone at work calls me to account for leaving early this afternoon, I will explain to them exactly that. They can have as many hours in lieu from me as they want. For the joy of such perfectly-crafted and tasty burgers that those who love me will love, I'd do anything.

a night when God seemed good

I received the following text

"hi grace herd u culdnt get tckts 4 messiah 2nite - i got spare!!! do u want????"

And so, I ended up going to an absolutely stunning performance of Handel's Messiah with two of my soon-to-be Bridesmaids.

Last time I heard the Messiah live, a few days before Christmas '05, one of those Bridesmaids was in hospital with potentially only weeks to live. I remember sitting there, praying throughout the performance that she'd live.

And she did. She sat there this evening beside me mouthing every word of the performance. Next year, next Christmas, she should be in that choir.

After weeks of frustration, tension and blinding annoyance, tonight God seemed extremely kind.

The dangers of rioting choirboys

Fiance and I have found a very exceptional Christian minister (henceforth to be known as VECM) who is willing to bend all of his denominational rules to their very limit in undertaking to conduct our marriage service.

We met with him last night to discuss the details. Various questions of ahem style arose. In the interests of (a rapidely diminishing) sense of magnanimity and of conciliatory hopes on my part, I'm trying to persuade my Place of Current Employment that one of their representatives may like use of a microphone through which to mutter through gritted teeth the odd prayer for Fiance and I. VECM is concerned that my Place of Current Employment may take ahem the liberty of an impromptu half hour sermon-in-prayer, as such types are allegedly prone to do. His final comment being 'well Grace, I can only warn you, our choirboys have been known to start to riot if the prayers carry on too long'.

I wish, I wish that I could instill such fear in my Place of Current Employment. I wish that I could threaten such subversive action and be received with anything other than threats.