I have just attended a service of Night Prayer lead by a group of diocese that has something to do with New Zealand and Polynesia, and there were two moments when I felt especially moved. The first happened before the service – I was talking to the Stewards’ Chaplain (+ Ralph Spence of Niagra) and saying how sad I was that this was going to be over as we’d all become really close, when he said that we’ve “become a family.” To me, this is what this Conference has been about, the unity of Christ’s family brought together by the one common thread of our belief. Our beliefs may not be always entirely concurrent, but at our core we believe in a loving God, a Son who died for us, and a Holy Spirit that is burning within us. At times this bond can be even stronger than that genetic bond of a biological family, as we rejoice in the love of our Heavenly Father (and Holy Half-Brother). I am proud to be a part of this family, I have found kinship and strength and a willingness to talk about more controversial beliefs that I never thought I would. Even relationships between people that weren’t good at the start have become more balanced and there is no longer any particular emnity. Again, it is a verse from a hymn that best sums up me and my new brothers and sisters:

“We sing a burning, fiery Holy Ghost

that seeks out shades of ancient bitterness,

transfiguring these, as Christ in every heart:

come joyful love, live in our hearts today”   (to the tune of ‘Tell Out, My Soul’)

The second part to really touch me was a line in the prayer at the end that really struck me:

“the night heralds the dawn”

We tend to think of night as being a time of darkness, loneliness and waiting till morning, and it’s a refreshing change to see this turned around as showing night as the necessary precursor for the juxtaposition of the brightness of the new day. A lot of us may be thinking that the Church is in darkness at the moment, with so many clergy prepared to leave the Church because we want to include a broader spectrum of human beings in ordained ministry, and links with other Churches perhaps about to be potentially severed depending on the choices we make. I am not convinced that this is the huge problem that many perceive it to be. The thing about night is that we are blind, and I believe that we are being blinded by petty factionalism to what God’s Church should really be about. No matter how many homophobic statements are uttered there will still be gay Christians. No matter how long women are kept from being consecrated there will still be women whose ambition is for high ministry. No matter how hard we try to please every Church in the Anglican Communion there will still be those who disagree with one another. These are not the things, therefore that we should be fixated on, but on the dawn light of God’s love for ALL mankind and for our duty to love each other whole-heartedly. How much brighter, therefore, will this new day be when we are no longer blinded by issues that are secondary to our primary duties?

Amongst the stewards are differing beliefs in the fine detail – over homosexuality, women’s ministry, sexual conduct, omniscience of the Bible – but we are not arguing with each other. This younger generation of Christians is at peace, united in God’s love and not splitting into warring factions over our interpretations. We are the new day. The world will see the sunrise.

Right, the London day. Sorry it’s taken so long, but I was so tired afterwards, and now typing is insanely difficult because my wrist is bandaged (falling over was a bad idea)

So,  breakfast started at 6 and stewards had to be at the bus stops by 6:45. Just what I needed… I managed to board a bus that had to stop at Parkwood, and only when we had loaded up did we realise we hadn’t got any maps or tickets for the bit at Lambeth Palace. Having an annoyed bus driver is not the best start to a journey! Luckily I slept through most of the journey… We got into London and herded the bishops to the beginning of the ‘Walk of Witness’, part of a Millenium Goals scheme to affirm a commitment to halving poverty by 2015, which was led by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the chief Rabbi. The walk took us from Whitehall Place, past the Houses of Parliament and over Lambeth Bridge to Lambeth Palace. I was walking right at the back, behind 30 rickshaws – demonstrating the ideals of protecting the environment – but out of range of any prospective egg throwers (seriously, our leader was carrying towels and wet-wipes in case someone tried to egg the Archbishop…) I only saw one placard, saying “Jesus never ordained sodomites”, which was fairly predictable for what the Church is going through at the moment. Much as I don’t wish to tread on anyone’s toes, I cannot mention this demonstrator without also pointing out that, yes, Jesus never ordained sodomites, but he never actually ordained anyone. I understand why people protest against it (whether you or I agree with the sentiment is entirely different and is not something I’m actually going to write about. I don’t feel that it would be appropriate.), but I feel angry that they have to resort to an argument that is, fundamentally, wrong. By the same logic you could argue that no-one should be ordained at all!

It was, however, an entirely peaceful march, with far fewer prostesters than the very short walk in Canterbury earlier in the week, and after arriving at Lambeth Palace it was time to listen to some speeches. Jane Williams welcomed us to her house and Rowan talked fairly briefly about the ‘Micah Call’ – a movement to reduce poverty based on the quote “do justice and love mercy” from the book of Micah. Then Gordon Brown took the stage. Unfortunately, at least to me, it was too much of a politician’s speech with some religion crowbarred in, and I resorted to reading a Colin Dexter novel in front of the snack table. What I do remember is him saying that, at current rates of improvement, we will not reach our targets for another century at least. This is dreadful. Many of the countries in the Anglican Communion are rich, and it is our Christian duty to help our fellow man, so why are we not doing more to help? Well, we are doing things (granted, not fast enough) but it’s a shame that our common goals of love and mercy are being overshadowed by petty disagreements about who should minister these targets to us.

We had lunch in a huuuge marquee, and this is where the really exciting part starts. You see, Buckingham Palace had asked Dave for 10 stewards to help them out during the garden party, and I had been chosen as one of them. We left early for the Palace, and upon arrival (after being put through a metal detector etc) it was explained to us that we would be in charge of keeping the ‘lane’ open for Her Majesty. When events like this happen the Queen’s arrival is quite near the end, and she walks through the crowd meeting people drawn out ad hoc. There has to be a wide gap between the two halves of the crowd, and it was our job to make sure people kept back, and to continue further down when the Queen had passed. This meant that she walked within 2 metres of me 4 or 5 times… Oh my goodness. Near the end one of her official ushers came up to me and said that, although I won’t get to meet her or Prince Philip, she does know we’re doing this and “these thngs don’t just happen.” In some ways this job was even better than meeting her – she meets so many people that there’s no way she would remember me, but as ‘one of the Lambeth Conference stewards working at the Palace’ I feel that I may be just as acknowledged. I’m still having difficullty believing that this really happened to me! At one point I was standing between the Queen and Dave Walker (see link to the right) and couldn’t decide who I was more impressed by, ha. Although, Dave Walker is in residence for the Conference, so I may go and have a chat with him at some point   Also, there were members of the Boys’ Brigade being generally helpful around the garden and I met one who came from Deeping and got taught maths by my mother. Small world…

Now, being one of the 10 working at the Palace I managed to avoid something I was dreading: camera collection. Obviously the bishops wanted to take cameras with themto take photos on the Walk and at Lambeth, but they are banned from Buckingham Palace, so someone devised a cunning plan that could have gone majorly wrong. Basically, on the way to BP the bus stewards would get the delegates to put cameras into plastic bags with their names on, they’d go into the hold of the coach (no guarantees they would be able to get back on the same one) and they could collect them from the Enquiry Desk (in the Grimond building on campus) in the next couple of days. I’ve been hanging around the radio control room in Grimond for the couple of days and haven’t heard any panics about missing cameras, so I’m assuming it all went smoothly Thank goodness.

The drive back was pretty good – the coach driver was absolutely lovely – despite me climbing over some seats, forgetting I was wearing a dress and not realising it had got caught on a headrest… Luckily I had quite substantial pants on and our stewards’ chaplain was mostly in the way. Not many people can say that they saw Gordon Brown, the Queen and gave a bus full of bishops an eyeful all in one day!

We didn’t get back too late, but we did have to ferry 35 boxes of cameras from Darwin to Grimond, which took far too long, but it’s not like we could have left them at the bus stop all night. More’s the pity. To unwind, we rented a fim to watch in the common room. any surprise that the one we chose was ‘The Queen’?

I had an immense day, and it was incredible to see so many important people in one place at the same time. Plus, how many people have seen the royal corgis being taken for a walk?

In the Queen's back garden. I have no idea why this person was allowed to take photos, but I'm very glad of it!

That list of languages was completely wrong. And I keep forgetting the right ones, ha.

I’m going to Buckingham Palace tomorrow. EXCITEMENT. Although I have to be at the bus stop by 6.45am. Might go to bed…

I nabbed them from the Lambeth Flickr page (see link on right)

Yea, just you try controlling a queue of women desperate to meet Mrs Archbishop...

From the amount of clergy present, that stage must pretty much be the most Anglican place in the world.

Thought the book signing was bad? Try stewarding this many people to take Communion!

I’m not going to lie – I spent most of today snoozing in a chair in our common room. And Dave thought it would be hilarious to spill some cold water on my face. Great. I didn’t really do much, so I thought I’d write about something that happened the other day.

Last week I was lucky enough to be stewarding the launch of Jane Williams’ (Mrs Archbishop of Canterbury) book, ‘Marriage, Mitres and Being Myself”, which I understood to be basically a collection of stories and testimonies from various bishops’ spouses from around the globe. It was absolutely mental – every spouse was given a free copy and Jane was signing as many as she could. We tried to have a queuing system, but it’s rather hard to enforce as explaining to someone who doesn’t speak good English why they shouldn’t enter the queue through the exit route is really rather tricky… But Mrs Williams’ brief description of her book really raised for me some interesting points.

The role of a bishop’s spouse can easily be overlooked, but when considered more closely and in more detail we begin to see just how important it is. Just like everyone else, a bishop needs support from those people closest to them, and the greater the pressures of the job the more important this support is. Not only is it likely that the spouse will end up facilitating the smooth-running of the household, but will also have to vie for attention with various meetings and other commitments. In a plenary session on marriage one bishop’s wife said that her husband reminded her that he wore two rings – in effect telling her that he was as committed to his job as to his marriage.

Within the diocese the spouse may also play a vital role, making social connections that are essential to making many people feel included and also perhaps ending up acting as a sort of unofficial counsellor. We must keep in mind that these men and women have not chosen this themselves – it is, in essence, a real job that has been thrust upon them at their wives/husbands’ consecration. As such, bishops’ spouses find themselves in an important role within the Church, but with no proper training. This is why the Lambeth Spouses’ Conference is so crucial. Within the many ’self-select’ sessions are courses on IT and management, as well and vestment-making and dealing with trauma and many other useful subjects. These will enable the spouses to feel more comfortable in their role, and prepared to deal with whatever their other half’s job may throw at them.

Hopefully the stories contained within Jane Williams’ book will provide inspiration and encouragement for those who are new to their position and feel slightly adrift.

I accidentally attended an amazing service this morning. Well, I deliberately went to the service, but not because I was planning to. Hang on while I explain why this makes sense:

On the stage in the big top tent where the services are held is a small choir (actually, just a quartet) and the tenor has taken to hanging out with the stewards. I was walking from Darwin college to Rutherford at about half 10 last night and bumped into him. After chatting for a while we decided it was too cold and headed back to Darwin bar (Origins). As morning eucharist starts at 7:15, the choir had to be there at 6:15 and we were still sitting in Origins at midnight I pointed out that he probably wouldn’t be in particularly good voice, at which point he threw down a bit of a gauntlet and pretty much bet that I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed to attend the service. Well, if you know me, I’m hardly one to pass up such flagrent lazy-student-baiting, and decided that I would make it to morning praise. Even though I turned my light out at 1:55 this morning…

So, after not much sleep, on the first day I could have had a proper lie-in (I’ve had to do two 6:45 shifts already) I stumbled into the big top. I had forgotten that the province leading worship that morning was Central Africa and, as I didn’t have an order of service or a translation headset, I found my ‘welcome responses’ auto-pilot functioning pretty well and managed to hang on until one of the Stewards’ Chaplains lent me her ‘worship file’. I’m not actually entirely sure what language half the service was conducted in, but it’s actually a pretty weird experience hearing a priest say something in an African language and pretty much the whole congregation reply with english responses!

As far as these multi-language services go, the translation system is brilliant. Each delegate is given a headset that they keep for the duration of the Conference (stewards have to make do with nabbing them each morning…) which has eight channels. The eight official languages of the conference are: Arabic, Afrikaans, Burmese, English, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and possibly German. Be prepared for me to correct that list, ha. Each channel corresponds with a language, so at any time you can listen to the service in any of those languages. Theoretically. When I tried that at the half-empty evening service only Portuguese was on… I met the guy who’s the prjecgt manager for the translation system and he explained how they worked if, say, a speech was originally in French (as the translators are all translating to/from English) Apparently the French translator will translate it into English, then all the others will translate from that. Considering how much room there is for error in even a straight translation, there is space for some almighty cock-ups when using a ‘hook’ language like this. Oh well, we’ll see how it goes…

I’m so glad that, thanks to my stubborness, I ended up attending this service – I’m rather childishly fascinated by language and how differently other languages pronounce letters from us. I also remain astonished at how people can figure out word-sounds from pictoral languages! Although the story of Babel paints a picture of different language as something that hinders our working together, I think that, actually, it can help bring us closer. The translators are a vital part of this conference, but by using all these different dialects we are celebrating our differences and the tools we have been given to overcome them. It’s all just one big team-building exercise.

Better than Soulja Boy

Our crew. Good bunch of people

Our mate the ABC pops in for a quick chat

Sister Pamela. The nicest person in the WORLD. Wicked sense of humour too

Haven't ridden a bike for years? Don't ride one with a trailer behind and a photographer with a death-wish in front...

You know I said how amazing being sung to in so many different languages was? Well actually, throughout my training and the Conference so far, the thing that has struck me the most is how amazing it is that so many people from so many cultures and backgrounds are working together and in harmony with each other. Bishops from completely different parts of the world are forging friendships that could last a lifetime and are vital to the future well-being of the wider Anglican Communion – and I feel so privileged to be a part of making this event work. It has helped to remind me that the Church of England is not confined to this small island, but, to use an analogy from the Conference Chaplain, has caused waves that have reached the farthest parts of the world. Whenever the Lord’s Prayer is said as part of a Conference event we are all invited to join in with our respective native languages, and at the opening service yesterday the Catherdral resonated with dozens of languages – different sounds but the same sentiment.
It gives me so much hope for the future of our wider Church that even at a time of so much disagreement (even within those who have made it to the Conference) we can forget our differences for long enough to praise God, and to continue to ask for his help and encouragement. I’m going to include a quote of the first and last two lines from the final hymn of yesterday’s opening ceremony:

“O for a thousand tongues to sing
my great Redeemer’s praise…

… and spread through all the earth abroad
the honours of Your name”

Unity within the Anglican Communion is not impossible. I know a lot of people don’t believe that, but I see only goodwill between bishops as I walk through campus. We’re going to get there.

Not many people have the chance to celebrate a birthday at such a prestigious event, so I count myself extremely lucky that I turned 19 on the 13th of July – two days before the delegates landed. It actually started in someone else’s house, in a sleeping bag and still wearing day-clothes, as I had gone to a party on the free evening before and didn’t know if my college accommodation (Rutherford) would still be open by the time I got back… It soon picked up, however, and after being taken to lunch at Ask (I thoroughly recommend the chicken caesar salad) by my nice young man and finding some much yearned-for boots in the sale, I headed back for a seminar on the logistics of the day on London (it’s on Thursday) Upon entering the room, I was handed a birthday card signed by many of the stewards in their own language. I was touched. Out of all the items I have managed to collect so far (including a hi-viz vest, a notebook made from recycled tyres and the promise of a Lambeth hymn book to come) this is the best souvenir I could have, along with the home-made necklace left outside my door by the teacher from Ghana who lives on my corridor.

Later we held evening prayer in our common room, and I was well happy when we discovered my favourite hymn in Mission Praise (The Day Thou Gavest). We had been joined the day before by some of the Conference Chaplaincy team – monks and nuns from Melenesia. They had already proved they had a fantastic ear for harmony the evening before and really added a certain something to an already beautiful song. After the service they also made ‘Happy Birthday’ sound pretty awesome – having it sung in a dozen different languages by so many new friends in such a close setting is something I am sure to remember forever. This was followed by a performance by the brothers and sisters on panpipes and drums, with singing and dancing. I can’t describe how incredible it was.

Best birthday ever.

I’ve been given the opportunity to work as a steward for the Lambeth Conference, and I am having such an awesome time.

On July 8th I landed back down here in Canterbury, a week before the Conference started so that I could be trained and meet my fellow stewards. All 53 of them. Our boss is a nice bloke called Dave, and his sidekick is a lass called Erin who teaches at an international school in Taiwan. All together we come from 18 different countries (including New Zealand, Australia, Ghana, Tanzania, Belgium, Canada, Mexico and Yorkshire) and speak 33 languages. It’s crazy and difficult and fulfilling and absolutely AMAZING all at the same time.

Training was great – hard work sometimes, and it would have ben easier if  hadn’t come down with ‘flu on the second day and had to spend a day and a half sleeping it off… We got to know each other really well and started to work effectively as a team. Thinking that the Bishops weren’t going to arrive until Tuesday evening, it came as a bit of a shock when wewere dispatched to arrival stations at 11am that day to start welcoming delegates with no idea of how our systems would work! I was supposed to be helping a member of staff with identity cards, was then dispatched to the Parkwood student village to help delegates find their rooms, and finally ended up co-ordinating the minibuses between campus and Parkwood to ensure that the early arrivals were re-united with their luggage, and doing the same with vans the next day. You see, someone had worked out that queuing for registration with 4 suitcases full of cassocks was a bit tricky, so as soon as delegates arrived they checked their luggage in and we took it to the reception area of whichever accomodation block they were assigned to. It almost worked – only 3 bags are still missing, which is only 0.25% of the whole. Not bad for a system that was thrust upon us and that ended up being co-ordinated by a small shouty punk. Any more bags for Tyler Court?