Alice Watson
@alicelydiajoy
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priest. mother. chaplain. phd student writing on childbirth, trauma, liturgy, and the body. sometime poet. LGBTQ+ ally. ‘surprisingly measured’. she/her.
Oxford, England
Joined April 2011
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It’s been quite a day, so I might have had a mini cry over this lovely article.
“Engaging with your college chaplain is a worthwhile way of navigating the human search for purpose and peace.”
(I honestly thought they’d speak to other chaplains!)
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Sad to hear Michael Rosen is very sick. Reminded of this lovely poem and glad he is in these hands.
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Parishioner messages - “can I bring my baby to midnight mass, I’ll take him straight out if he disturbs anyone”
One of those moments when I see how people see us, and despair. What hope do we have as a Church if there is no place for a baby as we celebrate Christ’s birth.
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Walking through town in clericals. Angry looking man come towards me muttering in a language I don’t understand. He gets really close and almost spits ‘no woman’. Quick as a flash I answer ‘no cry?’ 😁 Never been this proud of myself!
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Married a lovely bride and groom this morning, 94 and 79 respectively. 2 witnesses.
Love *is* patient, love *is* kind 💕 until death do part.
And the bride wore gold trainers 😃
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Reminder: female priests are not here to justify our tattoos or our hair, to carefully pick our clothes to avoid comment, or to learn to lower or hush our voices. We are here to serve God, to glorify God, to worship God. And to follow Our Lady, and punch the devil in the face.
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On this feast of Mary Magdalene I’ll be praying for all whose testimony is not heard or not believed, for those whose stories are twisted and recast, for those who are shamed and scorned and mocked. For those who would cling tightly to God, through it all. 🙏
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Sad beyond words to say that our lovely little dog died this morning aged 3. We will miss you so much. Rest in peace love.
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This is where the Church needs to step up. Want to be of national relevance, a prophetic voice? Then speak up about unsafe working, the tragedy of our care homes, the pressure on poorer people to return to work, the lack of PPE. Every life is valuable, no one is disposable.
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On the pavement outside St Thomas’.
Loving God, draw close to this family. Send angels to watch over this baby and bring healing. Bless those who care and watch and wait.
Good shepherd be with them all.
Join me in prayer for this little one.
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As the Church begins to show its face, it feels more important than ever that those of us who are 🏳️🌈 allies show ours, and make our positions clear. The burden should not fall on those who are being oppressed. Love is love and all people are loved by God. I will do more.
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Tomorrow I shall be a priest. Today I give thanks for all the men and women who glimpsed what God was doing and dared to speak. Who worked and prayed so that all might follow God’s call. I carry with me those who could not, & I pray for my sisters for whom this is still a dream.
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A priest forever in the Church of God.
Photo after blessing my children 💜
Thanks be to God, and to all who prayed x
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Aside from the limiting debate, I’m reeling from the ‘no passengers’ bit. To me, the church is a place for passengers, a place to float in when you can’t ‘do’ anything, a place to loiter and hope, a place to be held and prayed for when you can’t. Our value isn’t our productivity.
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I am absolutely delighted to be able to announce that from this summer I will be the new Chaplain at
@QueensCollegeOx
. I have had the most wonderful curacy here in Kettering, and am so excited to be a college chaplain, a calling a long time in utero.
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Funeral today of a man married almost 50 years. Every anniversary they would come into church, and in the quiet, say their vows again. Love is stronger than death. 💔
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A long time ago, me and my almost 8 month baby bump waddled off to BAP. I cut maternity leave short to start training, feeding him between classes, writing my weekly essay on 3 hrs sleep, rocking him at the back of EP. This week he starts school, and his mama will be a priest. ❤️
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Remembering all those women burnt or drowned as witches over the century. The vast majority simply women with something to say, or some skill in healing. Women in a world which didn’t allow them to be who they were. Women abused and persecuted. They sit uneasy with me today.
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@revkatebottley
When I close my eyes sometimes I can see sets of socially distant siblings, rocking with grief and not willing to break the 2 metre sphere between them.
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As the funeral cars pulled into the crematorium a dude on a bmx, topless, slammed to a stop, pulled out his earphones, bowed his head, and crossed himself. I don’t know who he is, but thankful for his witness there. A reminder that this all still matters.
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Cried in my sermon this morning. A while back I’d have thought that was awful, but sometimes I think, there are things to be said which words cannot express. Tears are holy too.
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Apparently it is actual black dog day today. Seems a good enough time to introduce the latest little member of the fam, this little black pup. A few more weeks to go. Then expect endless dog pics.
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In two weeks I’ll be a priest. It’s all very strange, and I’m utterly unprepared. My spiritual director is on holiday, as is my TI. My first Sunday back in church will be my first mass. So much to wrap my head around. Tiptoeing through the days by faith alone.
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“Like many of you who have lost a loved one...” Prince Harry has always seemed to have that rare gift of being able to connect with people, to think of others at hard times. Others probably disagree, but I think he’s a really good communicator.
Lovely message from
#PrinceHarry
on behalf of his family paying tribute to his loving grandpa
#PrincePhilip
“Meghan, Archie, and I (as well as your future great-granddaughter) will always hold a special place for you in our hearts.”
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@RevRichardColes
@RevDavidColes
💜 when I bring him to mind, I see him in church with a puppy in some sort of puppy sling which he runs over to show me. I think that perhaps now he is in a similar sort of sling, cradled by the one who made him.
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Oh my goodness, email to say that my MA dissertation has been accepted for publication! 🥳😲
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The angel didn’t call to Mary in the temple, in a busy street, in some watched-over public place. They came to her at home, in the quiet, the known. And they called her to make a home; of darkness and warmth, of laughter and joy.
God of our homes, visit us today.
#annunciation
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Yet another ‘calm and obedient’ meek and mild Mary hymn this morning. I want to sing of her strength, her questions, her joy, her travelling independence, her wisdom, and her God-breathed prophecy and power. Not just her lovely temperament. Please.
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27 years since the first women ordained priest in the Church of England. Giving thanks for my brave foremothers and rejoicing in the wholeness of priestly ministry. But praying for those still unable to follow their call, and for the abuse still shown to women in ministry. 🙏
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Praying for those who have found the night hard; who have watched and waited for news, who have fed or nursed, who have fretted, who have fought. For those who are cold, for those who despair. For those for longing for dawn. Hang on in there.
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Preaching my first sermon as an ordained woman tomorrow. Excited and nervous. Obviously there’s some Mary Oliver in there.
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My (unfinished) green stole is perfect for Wild Church this afternoon. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it before 🍃
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This has been my dream tattoo for so many years.
It’s based on a 13th-c manuscript illuminated in Oxford so I’m so glad I waited until now to get it.
Mary, Mother of God, intercede for us.
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One of my favourite saints today - Margaret of Antioch. Dragon slayer and holy women, patron saint of childbirth. Trapped inside a dragon, she used a cross to irritate it, slaying it from the inside. And so I pray for all called to be holy irritants …
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Seriously, look how beautiful this prayer path is. Entrance and leaving point here. I really hope this will be a place of blessing for people.
Happy to put people in touch with the wonderful potter if more gardens would like a path.
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New clergy, wear your collar out and about. You might think it’s nothing but one day someone might ask you for prayer, and kneel in the street for a blessing, and you’ll know why you were called to wherever you’ve been called in the first place.
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@aev1609
@JAZ_19742
@Laura_TCO
@VirginTrains
When I was heavily pregnant and constantly on tubes I made a survey for a week of who gave up their seat for me - young men and women of all ages came out top. Middle aged men never ever moved.
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Today is one of my faves - St Margaret of Antioch. Patron saint of childbirth - when eaten by a dragon she slayed it from the inside out, by irritating it with a cross. Pray for all of us irritants for Christ. Pray for us who are surrounded by darkness. Pray for all who labour.
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‘Mummy, in this book, God is a girl’
‘Oh yes J God is a girl and a boy and neither and everything that’s in between. And God is none of these, because God is just God’
‘Oh ok, that’s ok isn’t it mummy. To be a girl or a boy or maybe both’
‘It is’. It is.
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Heading to Oxford tomorrow to show the children our new neighbourhood. Prayers welcomed - moving is *not* a popular subject right now.
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If you could spare a prayer or thought, I start on the wards as an honourary NICU and maternity chaplain today (finally after COVID). Excited to be able to do this expression of the calling I’ve had for a long time.
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Lots of comments saying ‘I’m not racist, I don’t need to repent’. Perhaps not. But racisim is bigger than individual deeds; it’s structural, systemic. We fall into it sometimes. We choose it others. Repentance is communal too - ‘give *us* our daily bread, forgive *us* our sins’.
I pray that those of us who are white Christians repent of our own prejudices, and do the urgent work of becoming better allies to our brothers and sisters of colour.
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Funeral this afternoon for a wonderful man who, upon his wife’s death a year ago, gave her clothes to a woman’s refuge, because he knew how some people can’t even go to the charity shops. His clothes went to Afghan refugees.
Honestly, be more Mac.
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Reflecting on Thomas, my curate group were told to set uncertainty aside and preach with ‘absolute certainty’. I’m not sure I can ever do that, my doubts are sewn within me. When I voice them, ppl seem to react, it gives space for others to doubt and wonder, and hopefully grow.
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Tomorrow I’ll be licensed to serve in Oxford Diocese, and I’d value your prayers as I make my oaths. Really looking forward to being a part of this place.
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And still, whilst the government implodes, children lie awake hungry, people fear the cold coming soon, old people lie on the floor waiting for an ambulance, refugees wait to get onto a boat.
All of these will still be here tomorrow. Something needs to change. Lord have mercy.
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Praying for the holy innocents of today. For villages gone with the flick of a drone switch, for refugee camps, for boats that sink, for lorries that run out of air. For children and women raped and families torn apart. For people who make laws that starve and sicken and stress.
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@RevRichardColes
What was he making? I’ll finish it if you’d like, I’m really shit at knitting but he’d probably laugh at that. X
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I hope your Christmas is as good as a 4 year old who asked for 4 washing baskets so we could all sit in them and play pirates, and got this... 🏴☠️
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It seems as though so much of the Church’s disciplinary procedures, safeguarding reviews, etc happen behind a smokescreen, in back rooms, hushed whispers.
Unless you are a young black queer man facing a right wing mob.
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So, turns out my cohort is not to be ordained priest at the end of the month, but instead (hopefully) at some point July-Sept. Trying hard to process disappointment & crossness. I know it’s nothing in the scheme of things but it would help to be prayed for as I feel a bit lost.
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For those who can’t face a screen today, for those wrestling with this church of ours, for those hurt & let down. For those tired, wrung out, too close to losing it. For those who are just deeply bored. I pray that you feel the sunlight of God’s presence in a mess of clouds.
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I just got this from a funeral family and I’m utterly undone - “would be thrilled to know she has such a special and sensitive young female priest taking her service.”
There was a time when I couldn’t think my gender would ever be a positive in the church. 💗
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Celebrated in my favourite Oxford church this morning. 9 year old loudly at communion:
“Umm is this a real body, because I’m vegetarian” 😳
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Feels strange to be celebrating on Ash Wednesday, but here we are.
My proposed title is ‘a liturgical approach to the transformation of birth trauma’ and I’m so exciting to get started.
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Pentecost: the type of wind that could strip off all our prejudices, topple every idol, erode our secure false foundations to dust, raise a flood of justice.
If we’d let it. If we hadn’t bought into the storm defenses of inequality, status quo, privilege.
Come Holy Spirit.
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Bittersweet visit to my lovely sending church, hearing the church wardens greeting people as I walked up the path was like being catapulted back in time. Rest in peace David; kind and funny and holy and human.
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Called to be a priest, 18 years ago today.
Ever glad to have taken the road less travelled.
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Happy feast of the visitation. Here my favourite picture from St Bueno’s - the ordinary magnificence of it all, that God is present in womens’ kitchens, that the day is full of laughter and welcome and plots of justice. It’s a feast of gossip and joy and love.
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🥰🥰🥰
I didn’t get to bless many people after my ordination, which I was sad about, so this was a wonderful end to the first mass day.
(Also, how hot it is out 😅)
Today my former parishioner
@alicelydiajoy
presided at her first Mass, for which I preached down the internet because our Reader was being licensed, and I cannot yet bilocate. At Kettering, who should I bump into on my bike? Alice, from I sought and received a priestly blessing.
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I’ve been thinking of the women at the cross. Waiting. We paint them as we always do; still, peaceful, polite. But how they must have raged. What love and anger must have flowed in them. Protest and lament and waiting. Women’s work. To take our vigils is to stamp on holy ground.
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Baroness Scotland is a first class reader. Wonderful delivery.
(Also, this is now a baby-beefeater fan page)
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This Saturday I’m headed to Walsingham with one of my lovely churches. My first visit as a priest and feeling very conflicted. Hoping to find some peace their, amongst all the turmoil of it all. If you can, I’d welcome a prayer.
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I feel like women don’t brag enough so..... I got a (must be signed off by the exam board etc etc) *frickin distinction* on my MA and my dissertation (aka my third child) was apparently pretty fabulous 🎉🎉🎉 feeling pretty chuffed (and v glad I didn’t do a N.Testament MSt!)
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@RevRichardColes
This is why Tom made me this beast, the surgical looking ones are super misty
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I was not expecting these pandemic funerals to feel so different. The grief feels more tangible, and it feels harder to offer comfort. I think the saddest part is knowing there is no wake. Praying for the peace of God to fall upon all mourning households today.
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I read a lot of Brother Cadfael on my holidays this year and this little bit is pinned to my desk for the year ahead:
“He prayed as he breathed, forming no words and making no specific request, only holding [them] in his heart, like broken birds in cupped hands” …
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Went to try and sort out the tv screen to show hymns and videos in one of our churches. Some might say this is
@RevRichardColes
’s best angle.
Seriously, how do I flip this?! It’s a usb stick on a bush tv.
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“Are you Anglo-Catholic or not?”
Rejection of the priestly ministry of women is not something to gatekeep Anglo-Catholicism. Anglo-Catholic women exist, and we are glorious.
@StMikes_Exeter
If you are Anglo Catholic how do you have women officiating? Are you Anglo-Catholic or not? Or are you confirmed as liberal Catholic now? This would be useful to know.
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I am not finding Sunday’s easy. I don’t get spiritual communion, and there’s no stillness in my house. I trust my body, and God and I miss physical things. And physical spaces and physical beings. This is really hard. I guess it’s ok to say this, because it is just really hard.
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Thanks for all your comments on strange-priest-troll. I’m not losing any sleep over it, I’m just done not calling things out. Mutual Flourishing depends upon bringing into the light those things which definitely aren’t good.
As for me, what God has done, no man can undo. 💙
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Finished green stole! God of wild earth births life, comforts decay, promises resurrection.
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When I was 17 I used to go to high RC mass in the morning, then to work, then to youth church with my friends in an old building with flashing lights in the evening. It’s almost as though the human mind is capable of enjoying more than one kind of religious experience.
#Subtweet
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And lo, a star, made from too many quality streets and too much of the curate’s time, stopped above the house where He lay. Happy Epiphany.
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Pre/planned priesting gift 💜💙 can’t wait to get stamping once it arrives.
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On Sunday we had a baptism and so I spoke about the Spirit and gave the children bubbles to blow when they heard the Spirit in the liturgy. But She blows where she will, and so do kids, and so the whole mass was celebrated in clouds of bubbles, and it was absolutely beautiful. 🫧
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I believe in miracles-the big ones, when water becomes wine, or dealth becomes life. And the little ones too, like how a broken heart suddenly heals, or how sometimes someone is waiting with a blessing. Then the ones that look like snowflakes, softly falling. Those too.
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If only we Christians could be as outraged about multi-millionaires profiting from hungry children as we so often are about sex and other people’s identities. If we could put as much energy into preaching liberation as we do to arguing about buildings.
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Stacey Dooley inside the convent is an absolutely beautiful programme. I hope it shows people, not so much the need to join the religious life (but yes this) but the fact that God is with us in the simple everyday things, that our fleeting thoughts can be little prayers.
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Everything seems to be unraveling right now, but somewhere, somehow God has needles out, and She’s knitting it all together, weaving our spun-out threads, making tired things new.
#nightprayer
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If you cannot yet sit in a pew then your worth is immeasurable.
If you never will again, your worth is immeasurable.
If online is your home and community, your worth is immeasurable.
Beloved of God, you are of immeasurable worth.
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Something very special about being able to celebrate the resurrection with 14 women in the care home this afternoon. To thank them for following in Mary Magdalene’s faithful footsteps. Without women we would have no Easter story. Without these women the church would be poorer.
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So many prayers for Bishop Sarah today (and for the new Bishops and all involved and present). And seriously, enough of this.
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These tiny pearls were once on the dress I wore to be confirmed in, made by my Granny, 23 years ago. Added to the stole I made to be deaconed in, in preparation to be ordained priest. With thanks for the journey.
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Without going into specifics, it has been a really heavy day. Would value some prayers if anyone can x
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Dudebros at theological college: sit down in protest if presented with a song using non-masc pronouns for God...
St Anselm... let us suckle at the breast of Mother Christ 🔥🔥
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Oh not this again. The Church is built on more than just women’s love and devotion. It’s on their strength, their witness, their work, their persistence, so often unnoticed, un-celebrated, and often in the face of harm.
Women are more than love and devotion.
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Getting really real. I’ve dreamt of a role like this for so long, and am over the moon to be called here.
Please keep me in your prayers in the coming week, as well as all of those who will be heading to uni, and all those beginning new things.
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Littlest one is 6 today! When he was born they pulled him from me (c section) and he screamed and screamed. Then they held him to me so his face was on mine and he calmed. He’d never seen my face but he knew.
It’s from that moment that that I know something of holiness.
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To be clear, most women are not asking men to protect us. We are asking men not to rape or assault or kill us. We are asking all men to take part in a dismantling of the toxic systems that perpetuate violence against women/nbs as a norm. We are asking men to call out other men.
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I’ve recently discovered this poem and am obsessed with its beauty.
I have a funeral meeting this pm, for a lovely man who asked for a hug at his wife’s funeral last year. We air hugged. I’ll be mustering my rage for him.
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My fantastic 6 year old won his school ‘heroes’ poetry competition and is ‘super sparkly proud of myself’.
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Today I baptised a baby who I have prayed for before he came to be. And it was calmly chaotic and joyful and my voice caught as we welcomed him home. Love parish life.
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Ditch this and pray the Magnificat instead...
This is terrible. Since when did an election reveal God’s will for our country?
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To all starting theological college this week - I pray that you become less certain, softer, more bedazzled. That your imagination is stretched, your theological borders opened, and your boundaries reinforced. I pray you meet with the deepest joy, and peace, and wonder. And gin.
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I’ve been making these worship at home sheets since Easter and I honestly thought no one looked at them. Doing my deliveries today and one lovely lady told me she’s read the bible more this year than ever, and that every day at 10 she reads the readings and prays the prayer 🙏
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Thanks for all good wishes for my sermon, I think it went well. However, I decided to not end on this high, but instead to trip over the altar rail cushions and land flat on my face. I’m going for the ‘things can only get more graceful’ approach. 🤦🏻♀️
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