Monday 30 June 2008

on a lighter note...

I've been shortlisted again. Twice.

*Grace keeps her lips very sealed in case anyone who might be interviewing her reads this and guesses who she might be*

Grace and Beloved's ChurchSearch Week 2: Grace starts crying halfway to another new church and decides to come home instead

That says it all, essentially. I'm at a point where I don't want to walk into a new church looking all emo and snivelly and dishevelled, where I don't want anyone's first impression of me to be one of patronisingness or sympathy or pity or a pastoral care assignment. That's not to say that I'd never cry or get upset in front of church people (it's not something I have a great deal of control over, much of the time), but I want to do all I can to start off with people seeing me as thoughtful, intelligent and aiming to serve, affording me equality, crebility and respect. And so, at 10.23am, we returned home.

Beloved says that people in churches should learn to accept the fulness of one another's life experience and that if I'd gone into a service crying that it shouldn't have mattered. Jesus, from the look of the gospels, would undoubetdly agree. But I just don't want any more messy and [*Grace struggles to avoid use of a four-letter word*] church relationships. But the whole point of Christ's message of grace is that all our human relationships (whether inside or outside of church structures) will be messy and imperfect yet endowed with the potential for healing and joy. So if I cut myself off from other Christians because I fear their sympathy and their pity, then I'm cutting myself off from God, too. And yet, even knowing that, yesterday I continued to ealk home.

Ultimately, then, I'm concluding that perhaps the question of being inside or outside the church becomes a secondary one. Perhaps instead, it's about the quality of the relationships developed, and the way in which God and faith and community are expressed through those relationships. The nebulous evangelical concept of a personal and individual relationship with God is fine, but as Teresa of Avila points out, Christ has no body on earth but ours...

Once we were home, Beloved and I sat on the sofa eating leftover fruit salad. And Beloved said "I just want a way of worshipping where we can talk to people, where we can be with them."

Yes.

Thursday 26 June 2008

Grace and Beloved's ChurchSearch Week 1.5: A community formed outside of institutional structures ie Group Process Discussion

Steve and several other people have been challenging me to think, if I believe that Christ is accessible in all places and discernable within all people, why do I limit myself to the traditional understanding of Church in seeking a worshipping community? Why can I not find faith, grace, hope, love and God in those around me?

So I thought I'd have a go, this evening. To go into a situation familiar (to me at least) and to seek to identify what of God I could find there.

Basically, a living room full of people there for camomile tea and a discussion on the meaning of guilt. An incredibly diverse collection of people, most of whom I've known, listened to, shouted at, cooked for on a regular basis for a few years. So I know the set up. Sitting there, though, thinking about what I could find of God and community there, that was new.

In some ways, it's easy. People are very accepting, tolerant of one another, warm with one another. There's not the moral pressure found in churches which can drive people to pretend they're something they're not.

In other ways, it's hard. With no shared value systems and no common frame of reference, it's hard to discuss a topic such as guilt as anything beyond the individual, beyond the interpersonal; there's no room to consider anything beyond, I cannot talk about my relationship with God as absorbing (most of) my guilt, there's no ultimate Other. In essence, it becomes merely about the group worshipping itself. But then, Durkheim says that's all that organised religion does anyway. Thinking of the many church groups I've been too which degenerated into an aren't-we-a-marvellous-fellowship mutual backslapping, I think he has a point.

I know I need to value the friends and the relationships and the community I have as a gift from God and as a place to experience Christ. However, I think I do still want a church, too...

Monday 23 June 2008

the verdict

Another candidate had a great deal more experience than you.

Sunday 22 June 2008

Grace and Beloved's ChurchSearch Week 1: St Catherine's Parish Church

At St Catherine's this morning, during an unusually relaxed and somewhat chaotic Anglican service, I had a tambourine thrust very firmly into my hands.

Tambourines always make me giggle, especially when I'm nervous. And then there were the sparkly pink flags to wave about in worship, which a group of 7 year olds spent most of each song playing swordfighting with.

An intriguing church then. The main role of the vicar seemed to be to disentangle cardigans snagged on the indoor azaleas, everyone else leading the service was in their teens or below, and everyone else in the congregation was in their seventies or above. But there was energy there, and joy, and a real warmth towards the young people.

How would I feel about making it our regular church? Fine - but please, never ask me to play the tambourine.

Thursday 19 June 2008

‘Would you mind explaining for us the gaps in your CV?’

The dreaded, dreaded interview question... and one in which I have come unstuck in at least half a dozen job interviews in recent years. Basically, I believe that honesty is (generally) the best policy and I would (probably) never lie... but that still doesn’t mean I want to be entirely open. For the following reasons

1. Whenever I’ve disclosed in a job interview that the 4 years of gaps in my CV have been through not being able to work or study because of having been a bit mental, I’ve been turned down for the job in question... every single time*. When I’ve not been asked, I’ve been offered around 40% of the jobs for which I’ve been interviewed.
2. I don’t want to use, adhere to, align myself with or define myself by the conventional, medicalised constructs, categories or diagnoses of mental health or illness**. And to talk about being unwell or in distress still sound all twee and drippy. So I don’t really have a clear frame of reference from which to talk.
3. It’s generally not something I’m hugely comfortable talking about, even to friendly and open-minded people***.
So, given that I don’t want to lie, don’t want to disclose and don’t want to fail every interview I attend... where does one go from here?

Applying to work for a Christian organisation provides several options. As follows

1. ‘Praise the Lord, I’ve been healed! Hallelujah!’ If the interview panel responds with a resounding and collective ‘A-Men! Praise the Lord’, you know you’ve got away with it, hallelujah. This relies, though, on the interview panel all holding to a dogmatic theology of a God who heals instantly, with a healing never to be questioned. And on them not hearing the tone of irony in your voice.
2. ‘I’m being healed through the grace of Christ.’ This may satisfy an interview panel with a more nuanced, integrated eschatology and may make you come across as all deep and spiritual. However, they may be aware that, theologically speaking, it’s a fairly meaningless statement. For the world into which Jesus was born, the concepts of salvation and healing were linguistically and conceptually indistinguishable from one another. Therefore, as we’re on a journey of salvation, we’re being gradually healed, because we’re all of us in need of both. So ultimately, to say ‘I’m being healed through the grace of Christ’ is simply to say ‘I’m a Christian’. And they’ll know that.

But it’s not a Christian organisation for which I’m about to be interviewed. This is, then, relatively new territory for me.

The Organisation For Which I’m About To Be Interviewed (OFWIATBI) is big enough to have its own confidential employee helpline. And so I rang them, putting 141 in front of the number to anonymise the call and declining to provide the helpline advisor with my name, prospective job title or geographical location. She reassured me that the helpdesk receive ‘several calls each year’ from people applying for their jobs worrying about how or whether to disclose ‘a history of mental health issues’ (her words not mine) to explain a ‘lack of past employment’ (again, her words). Her advice was, ‘Just tell them that you were ill. And go online and have a read of our Equal Opportunities Statement.’

I thanked her, and rang the Careers Service at my old university. They asked me to email them my CV so that they could see for themselves the glaring holes. The advisor rang back to say ‘look Grace, you’ve probably got to be upfront, or else they’ll assume you’ve been in prison and aren’t telling them, especially as it’s a post they can’t CRB check you for. I accept your point that you believe your chances for this job might be better if you had been in prison than in hospital... but, now how to put this, wouldn’t you rather be regarded as mad than bad, really Grace...?’

Next, I rang the JobcentrePlus. After telling me that they could not handle my enquiry without my National Insurance number and not-quite-listening to my questions, the patronising arsehole of an advisor butted in with ‘but honestly, could you even cope with the job? But you know dear, you’ve got a lovely voice, and you know they new call centre they’re setting up behind Asda, maybe that’d be more realistic....’ I thanked her, made my excuses and hung up.

Finally, I rang the EHRC****. As much as I don’t do labelling or diagnosis, their helpline advisor was utterly textbook ADHD. Our conversation went something as follows

HIM: Well, given that you spent so long off work, you could probably claim DLA on the grounds of the stigma you must be suffering will severely disadvantage you in any future workplace*****.
ME: OK, but in terms of my question. In terms of the interview...
HIM: Yes, but you’ll need to be thinking now about what Reasonable Adjustments you might need to carry out the job.
ME: But the only adjustment I’m seeking is to be treated fairly at the interview. The job itself, I’m not asking for anything else for.
HIM: Yes, but suppose you had diabetes...
ME: Er, sorry?
HIM: Yeah, like, suppose you had diabetes and needed breaks throughout the working day to inject yourself and you’re colleagues were objecting.
ME: But I don’t have diabetes.
HIM: I’m just trying to get you to think, about what it might be like in the job.
ME: But all I’m asking is for advice for the interview, about...
HIM: What, they’ve offered you an interview?


I still feel, then, no further forward. I rang a friend, who said ‘buy yourself some new nail polish and remember to keep smiling.’ Possibly the clearest advice I’m going to get...


* The Mental Health Foundation survey of 2001 found that 63% of employers would categorically refuse to consider employing a person with gaps in their CV caused by ‘mental health problems’... though how the survey defined/conceptualised the phrase ‘mental health problems’ (a phrase I hate) is unclear. A Mind survey from around this time (I can’t find the reference) found that people who’ve been in prison experience less hassle in obtaining work than those who’ve been in mental hospitals. The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) of 2005 tries to say this shouldn’t happen. However, a 2007 study from Durham University managed to statistically demonstrate that the DDA has done nothing to combat discrimination against job applicants. The problem being, that you need to disclose that you’ve mad (or have ‘a past history of mental health condition/s’ ) in order to claim DDA protection, which doesn’t even in itself work.
** Think Szasz, Laing, Engels, Ilych
***This does not apply after 2.4 units or more of alcohol. Give me a glass of crisp, dry chardonnay and I'll tell you anything. But I would never drink before a job interview.
****The Equalities and Human Rights Commission.
*****As far I ever I am aware, this is not true. Being afraid of workplace discrimination is not a valid category under which anyone can claim state benefits. A somewhat incontinent friend once tried, and was instructed by the DWP tribunal to wear more deodorant.


grace plants a bush

They'd asked me back to my Place of Former Employment this morning, so that they could present me with an azalea. It's a good thing that someone across the room exclaimed "oh what a beautiful azalea", otherwise I'd not have known what it was. And it's a good thing someone else exclaimed "oooh that'll look lovely planted into your new garden", otherwise I'd have kept the azalea on the dining room table in its pot and probably killed it. Nobody has ever given me a garden plant as a gift before. Nobody around my Place of Former Employment where I used to live ever planted anything into their gardens*. Or if they did, they were nicked by the bairns climbing over the fence. So now, yes, they're telling me I've moved away, that now I live where you can plant an azalea. I'll wait until the rain has stopped, then I'll ring my mum who will explain exactly how I plant my azalea.

They were all getting nostalgic and I couldn't. However, I suddenly realised that I'm not angry with them any more. Ten years of my life there, yes... but I cannot fault their motives. They're working in such a complex, such a deprived and daunting place that they simply don't have the energy for the self-reflection they'd need to realise what they're doing, how they're unwittingly turning their backs to people, how they're inadvertently generating a dependency which perpetuates all the problems of the community... at least they've spent the last 400 years trying, which is more than can be said for anyone else. The state has spent the last 30 years putting the community into every regeneration scheme, initiative and intervention going... various New Deals, Sure Starts, all the Action Zones... with few discernible benefits simply because none of the sundry professionals have taken time to get to know the area or build relationships with the people before they demolish flats or remove children. So, yes, the church can sometimes relate to people in the very most crassly colonial, us-and-them, servant-recipient, saved-Unwashed** dichotomies, but at least they keep trying. And that, surely, has got to convey some love.

And now, having ceased to feel fury towards my Place of Former Employment and the church and the Church, I just want to find somewhere else that's worship and community and love. But this time, somewhere where there's a bit of freedom and independence and autonomy and free-thinking allowed, too...



* One summer, many, many years back, the previous management organised me a day trip to an azalea garden, in the way that one apparently does in such circumstances. I experienced the worst case of phenothiazine photosensitivity I'd ever seen, and they all got a bit scared.

** See Jeanette Winterson, "Oranges are Not the Only Fruit".

Tuesday 17 June 2008

On being a fried egg for Jesus

I do have many skills. Acting isn't one of them.

And yet, I'd decided that, in trying out new churches, I'd be open to all spiritual and social possibilities they or their people offered.

And thus, I found myself at an Improvisation class this evening. Although it reminded me exactly why I failed drama at school, it left feeling more relaxed than I've been in weeks.

So maybe Jesus was there, after all...

Monday 16 June 2008

[?]

Day 5 now of jobless, workless, economic inactivity. It's not that I believe one needs to be generating an income to be of benefit to society. It's just that, well... it's a bit, er, quiet here on my own. I might have to start watching Jeremy Kyle.

So far, though, my job/work/beneficialitytosociety-seeking has not gone badly...

[edit to prevent any potential employer finding me here...]

And I'm wondering, what do other people who walk out of church jobs do?

1. I knew someone who trained as a school RS teacher. How he found it, I don't know...

2. I knew someone else who trained as a secular vocalist and ended up, I think, in a local emo/goth band. Given my musical abilities, not even worth going there.

3. I knew someone else who had three (more) children and looked after them at home whilst his girfriend (on whose account he lost the job) went out to work.

4. I knew someone else who went back to studying and publishing on the Bible. Hmmmm. But as in, how many jobs are there in the UK doing that?

5. I knew someone else who got ordained in a different denomination. He had to move house because of the graffiti and things thrown at his windows... yes, in Britain this century.

The answer is, I don't really know, or don't know what I'm doing at all...

*Grace resumes searching for her scanner cable, and puts the kettle back on*

Wednesday 11 June 2008

"We'd had a lively discussion in the office about whether to buy you book tokens for a Christian bookshop or to buy, you know, secular book tokens"

One of those throwaway comments that inadvertently manages to encapsulate a decade*.

They'd decided for my last day to buy me tokens for the local Christian book shop to thank God for my hard work for them.

I'm sitting with the cat, the laptop and a bottle of wine, browsing the CLC website**.


* The explanation for this statement has been removed by the blog administrator as it may have led to Grace's former place of employment launching libel action against her. Please address all queries to God instead.

** How 'bout this for a purchase?

Tuesday 10 June 2008

jesus wept even harder

Nobody should die like that in this country, ever.

I've never seen the minister who conducted the funeral looking so entirely out-of-his-depth in front of a congregation.

It's my last day working there tomorrow.

Sunday 8 June 2008

how I managed to reconnect with my inner evangelical

By reading on Facebook that Valeska has changed her religious views from "wondering about many things" to "Christian"... and by finding myself absolutely, utterly delighted.

Valeska and I met online at 3am at some point in 1998 or thereabouts, back when the idea of finding someone from your home town online was a startling coincidence and back when becoming friends with someone you'd met online was all edgy and postmodern. This being back in 1998, when the thought of her being a knife-wielding pervert didn't even cross my mind, we agreed to meet at 3am the next morning. (Like, as you do.) So yes, we go back a while, Valeska and I. And given that ours has been a friendship very much fuelled by our insomniac tendencies, we've spent a fair amount of time thinking about g/God/s/esses together.

So it's lovely not only to realise that I'm delighted that she's become a Christian because it proves my faith in it all is still alive, it's wonderful that Valeska's now a Christian because being a Christian is great. And it's wonderful, too, that I just wrote that...