Category Archives: women

What would Scholastica say?

There are few sayings attributed to St Scholastica, the twin sister of St Benedict. He is known for his Rule and she is remembered for a few stories embroidered around the edges of his life.
Of course that’s not all that unusual. Few women had their words recorded at the time and some would think it pointless to pursue the question.

Some attribute these words to Scholastica:
I asked you and you did not listen,
So I asked God and he did listen.

They are recalled alongside the story of Scholastica trying to influence Benedict to change his mind about the pair continuing a conversation together. He wanted to get on with something else and sent her away. She still had things to say and wanted to stay. A thunderstorm arrived to settle the issue and she stayed.

It seems he struggled to change his mind. Being intractable seems to be a singular mark of poor, but so called strong, leadership. It’s found in many places. Daniel wouldn’t have been in the Lion’s Den if it weren’t that the king couldn’t possibly change his mind. Japheth’s daughter would have grown up and pursued a happy life if it wasn’t for the fact her father couldn’t change his mind. None of this demonstrates good leadership.
Good leadership reflects, shows remorse when necessary, learns, adjusts, and yes, changes its mind. Without the need for thunderstorms. Scholastica, I think, would agree.

In our life and our believing
The love of God

This Kingdom Called Home 

Madge Saunders (1913-2009) is one of my heroes. So it was an emotional moment to see the exhibit about her that I had lent to the Great Exhibition of the North at the Hancock Museum in Newcastle this evening.
Madge was a pioneer: minister, missionary, intercultural advisor, anti-racism activist. She came from Jamaica in 1965 to serve those she called her Sheffield people. She was based at St James Presbyterian Church in Burngreave where she is still affectionately remembered. It was good to see her placed alongside other great women of the North. She shares a space in the exhibition with
Emily Davison, suffragette;
Jessie Reid Crosbie, writer, teacher, educational reformer;
Barbara Castle, MP;
Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst, suffragette;
Barbara Hepworth, artist.
Many others can be discovered in otherparts of the exhibition.
I look forward to bringing students from Silcoates school here later in the summer, to discover the rich tapestry of life, ideas and culture of the North and to dream dreams for their own future. It’s an amazing multi-layered exhibition and it’s wonderful to know that Madge is celebrated here as she so greatly deserves. She has indeed come home to the North.

Janet Lees, 21.06.2018
I was minister at St James Sheffield 20 years ago, and met Madge Saunders in Jamaica in 2002.

On the Solemnity of Saint Scholastica

On a day of listening,
Remember that Scholastica listened;

On a day of conversations,
Remember that Scholastica conversed;

On a day of humour,
Remember that Scholastica had a sense of humour;

Lord have Mercy
Christ have Mercy
Lord have Mercy

Where Scripture says ‘and a little child will lead them’
Believe it possible that child could have Downs Syndrome, or additional needs in some way.

Where Scripture says ‘You knew me in my mother’s womb’
Believe it possible that God knows every gene, every chromosome in every individual.

Where Scripture says we are each the temple of the Holy Spirit
Believe in the possibility of each unique temple.

Lord have Mercy
Christ have Mercy
Lord have Mercy

Glory to God, for the diversity of creation;
Glory to God in Christ for the diversity of human beings;
Glory to God, Creator, Son and Spirit, for living and celebrating diversity in the Godhead, now and forever.

In our life and our believing
The love of God

10th February is remembered for Saint Scholastica, sister of Saint Benedict


Born in the Elsie Inglis

The thirst for faith may take you far away
Or call you to serve the sick, the poor each day,
To make your mark and seeing all this say
You were born in the Elsie Inglis

Your heart of hope may open every door,
Open to every stranger and clothe more,
Ready to aid all others at you core:
You were born in the Elsie Inglis.

The way of love be ever in your sight,
As hand in hand we work in great delight
Ready to build the kindom of the light
We were born in the Elsie Inglis

JAL 25.11.2017

In memory of Elsie Inglis (1864-1917), doctor of medicine, Served in WW1, her 100th anniversary is this week. A maternity hospital is named after her in Edinburgh. Her memorial in St Giles cathedral includes the figures of Faith, Hope and Love.

Pioneering anyone?

Being a pioneer, can, in my experience, be painful. It is for me today.
I just read a piece advocating we all do something that I’ve been doing and promoting for a long time. It didn’t make me happy. Instead I thought ‘what took you so long?’
At the 100th anniversary of the ordination of Constance Coltman to the Christian Ministry (actually tomorrow) I’m confused. Should I be celebrating in some way or mourning?
So many women’s gifts wasted in so many places. All around the world there are still churches who refuse to value the leadership gifts of women. When they finally get it we are supposed to be pleased, grateful even. All I can say is ‘what took you so long?’
A century of crawling progress we are supposed to rejoice over. Dates reeled off one after another as each denomination in turn finally gets it. Each time the same Scriptures referred to, the same arguments rehearsed.
Forty years ago I got somewhat frustrated when speech therapists took what seemed like forever to get the message about the needs of children with acquired speech and language problems (in real life I was a speech therapist and this was my early work). Little did I realise then that the church would be even more frustrating.
This week in Chapel we have been thinking about how ‘in Christ’s family there should be no divisions among you: neither Jew nor non-Jew, slave or free, male or female’. This message came to us two thousand years ago. For goodness sake, we are so slow.
Yes, I know we will be forgiven even that, but do buck up, and let’s not be taking another hundred years to get this sorted. About fifteen years or so ago in Sheffield, speaking at an event about women’s leadership in the church I referred to the record of the United Reformed Church saying how often people told I was lucky to belong to this denomination. I affirmed that saying ironically how I felt so ‘lucky, lucky, lucky’.
One powerful lay woman in the denomination was incensed and made sure I knew it. I should have been grateful and not telling too many truths in the company of other Christians, seemed to be the message. Well, the truth is, luck hasn’t part in it. God requires Justice from us all. If we are not willing to deal justly with each other then we are not the people God hopes we will be. Don’t cover up the churches short comings with sugar sweet stories about how lucky we are. If you do not intend to do justice in the church do not call yourselves God’s people.
I certainly can’t stand it any further. A women wrote a letter to our ‘Daughters of Dissent’ project (this was the title of the book we published about 15 years ago to record the history of the leadership of women in the URC in their own voices). She declined to take part saying she didn’t ‘want to remember the battles’. At the time I didn’t understand. Now I understand more.
But I do choose to remember the battles, while I can, and to hold you, the church, to account for all the ways in which women have been under valued and all the ways in which the wasted energy in those battles could have created the kindom.

In our life and our believing
The love of God

On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the ordination of Constance Coltman to the Christian ministry.

The Path along the Wall

Butterflies
I saw a Wall on the Wall,
A Peacock on the path at my feet
And in the speckly sunlit wood
Two Speckled Woods danced

I met some more wall walkers, coming from the West. This was the best day’s weather they had had each reported to me.
Over breakfast this morning my host told me she worked for a churches heritage project in Northumbria. She told me about a small church dedicated to St Oswald on the route. As we talked it confirmed in my mind the importance of the stories of the Northern Saints and how the gospel came to this part of England. It is just one other pieces in my post menopause spirituality.
About the time I became Chaplain I began to take an annual retreat to Holy Island. The URC have a project there and I stayed several times, once writing a service for a dead school boy on St Cuthbert’s island.
Going on retreat has been important to me for over 30 years. This was just one place I visited. It was there that I first understood that Aidan missionary and pastoral ministry combined and how the monks from Iona had been re-christianising the North, after Paulinus and Ethelburga.
So I decided to seek out further bits of this story and piece them together if I could in a way that might speak to people today, both those of the faith and those of other faiths or none, so they could see what part faith had and might play in the future.
One person in the story of the Northern Saints is Oswald who is remembered near here for the Battle of Heavenfield. Sandra and I stopped there to see St Oswald’s church, mentioned earlier. The current building replaced a much older one, but it is still a relatively simple structure surrounded by a neat grave yard, and a view all the way to Scotland.
Later, with the evening sun still two hours from setting, I did a short local walk, surprising some deer, hinds and fawns, that bounded across the fields ahead of me

As pants the hart
For cooling streams,
when heated in the chase:
So longs my soul
O God for thee
And thy refreshing grace.

Post menopause spirituality

When I was pregnant in 1993 I reflected and wrote a lot about that time, how it changed me and how I celebrated the whole experience. However, as I was walking today, I realised I’d not done that since before my menopause, which I went through a few years ago now. I decided to rectify that today.

I am very aware of the way in which body, mind and spirit co-operate to do this walk along the Hadrian’s Wall path. Of course this is not the first time I’ve realised that but it fits here because it is foundational.
Going through the menopause coincided with me doing the job of Chaplain, and of course I wasn’t the only woman at school doing so during this time. It reminded me, in RB, of the gospel story of the two women, one just entering puberty, one a mature woman who Jesus meets. In fact he’s on his way to me the younger one when he meets the older one. She interrupts the story with her touch. She reaches out to Jesus and he recognising her, reaches out to her. They meet in that moment.
There have been many meetings and many interruptions during these last 7 years and here are some of those things from my post menopause spirituality that contributed to my survival and are part of this walk.
1. the natural world is a wonder and something I enjoy and learn from all of the time. Today I loved the walk through wild flowers, I loved the blackberries and some small plums in the hedges. There were many insects: common darter, speckled wood, peacock, small tortoiseshell, red admiral are some I remember. I keep a mental note of what I see and sometimes record them. I speak to the things as I pass them: a snail at my feet, a Jay flying across my path. I have always done this.
2. technology is helpful as it means I can photograph the things I see in an instant and that helps recall as well as journalling and scrapbooking later. It also means I can look stuff up easily if I don’t recognise it. Making stuff out of small things is essential to my creativity.
3. walking is simple enough but I have a huge sense of achievement even over just two days. Tired but happy is a good description of how it feels. Alone but connected, both to other walkers and those I meet but also to others. Bob and Hannah aren’t here but they have done other walks with which I have been involved and in itself those experiences have got me here. Bob is also on the other end of the phone if problems arise. They do. He tells me of a short cut. I am grateful.
4. prayer happens, it is so much a part of me. Grace texts me from Kenya to ask for prayer for the election process. There is fear and peace is fragile. I turn other things over in prayer as I walk along, things that have happened earlier in the year, concern for friends and family, the world and what happens in it.
5. I stopped going to church regularly a while ago now, in common with many other people I know. But I still visit churches as I go along, when they are not busy. The quiet is valuable. But I have not yet left the church. It extends all around me. I am surprised at every turn. As the woman extends her hand to touch him, he reaches out to touch her. It’s like that.

In our touch and in our encounters
The affirmation of God

South Shields

There are angels in the north,
Arms held wide to welcome
The cross carriers and thorn bearers
Both the first and the last.

I met my first two wall walkers, an American couple, at St Peters Basin, a marina East of Newcastle City Centre. After that there as a small glut of them for a bit, they having left Wallsend a hour or two ago, about the same time I left the city centre.
The river was quiet, only gulls as a background, calling like they do. Here and there a bankside activity, a factory still in operation or a building site for a new development. There were plenty of ripe blackberries on this section of the route.
The rain started just before Wallsend. There a small detour off the track to the bath house that was uncovered more recently. The best thing at Segedunum is the viewing tower which looks out over the whole site and shows how it has changed in two thousand years.
I decided to go onto Arbeia, the Roman fort in South Shields. Taking local advice I took the metro from Wallsend to North Shields. Then a short walk to the passenger ferry across the Tyne. The rain was more persistent but I got to Arbeia, where it is thought a company of Roman Arabs from Iraq were originally station in what was a storage fort for supplies for the rest of the Wall.
As it was rather wet by now I got a taxi down to Sandra’s mum’s house, where I am stopping tonight. A warm welcome awaited me of course. A total walk of 9 miles today: I am pleased with that.

In our coming and our going
The Peace of God

Durham

The Surplus to Requirements Summer Adventure starts today. First stop by train from Huddersfield is Durham. This world famous city and World Heritage Site is a very fascinating place with its narrow historical streets and buildings.
First call in Durham is Bells, fish and chip restaurant, housed in buildings dating from 15th to 17th centuries near the market place. The fish was a crispy fresh and welcome as ever for the memory of my fish selling ancestors. It’s certainly busy and popular with both locals and global visitors.
A little further on in North Bailey, St Chad’s College offers guest rooms in the summer and very nice it is too, if you get the right room key. If you don’t it’s doubly nice as you get the free work out on the stairs as everyone tries to help and eventually discover you have been given the wrong key.
Outside my window I can see the small wooden college chapel. A list in the entrance tells the visitor that of those listed on the WW1 Roll of honour, four were serving as Army Chaplains.
I had heard a lot about Treasures of St Cuthbert and had bought a ticket. It didn’t disappoint. The coffin of St Cuthbert and the things that were found in it are quite remarkable. The Anglo Saxon embroidery was not something I’d heard about before.
Although I’d been to the Cathedral before I didn’t remember it all that well. It truly is an awesome place. I started in the Galillee chapel where there is the tomb of St Bede, and walked through the nave to the place where St Cuthbert’s tomb is behind the altar. A small boy was fascinated by the crucified Jesus of the Pieta that was there. He venerated it by sliding down the shiny outstretched arm.
There were many things that interested me: the cross from The Somme in the Chapel of Remembrance to the Durham Light Infantry, the embroidery at the altars dedicated to St Hilda and St Margaret, the story of the Scots POWs kept in the Cathedral in 1650 after the Battle of Dunbar, amongst others. Although it was busy, there were many quiet places.

In our coming and our going
The Peace of God

Changing the world at Passchendaele

As together we remember the 100th Anniversary of the one of the bloodiest muddiest battles of WW1 I would like to share some glimpses of the ripples that spread out from Passchendaele and that we can still appreciate today. This way of using personal memoir to inform mass mourning and remembering has become something of a mark of our commemoration of the 100th anniversary of what, in the Register of Silcoates School, is interestingly referred to as The Great European War.

A father and a son
Abraham takes Isaac up a mountain and prepares to slaughter him. Wilfred Owen uses the same image in on of his war poems ‘The Old Man and the Young‘. There must have been many fathers and sons died in WW1, and I know one pair.
Harry and Ronald Moorhouse, father and son, both formerly of Silcoates School, died on the same day, at the Battle of Passchendaele: it is said less than thirty minutes separated their dying. They were professional soldiers. Harry had first served in South Africa, and was a contemporary of John Yonge the war-time Headmaster of Silcoates. The story goes that on 9th October 1917, Ronald was brought in wounded. Harry lept up to find medical help for his son and was killed in the process. Even though this story is recorded their names were never reunited with their bodies: they are listed with thousands of others on the walls that surrounded Tyne Cot Cemetery. We visit them every year with our students.

Two women
Nellie Spindler was killed on 21st August 1917. She was a Staff Nurse from Wakefield, serving with the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service, and is one of only a very few British nurses who were killed in action on the Western Front to be buried with full military honours. Brought up a Roman Catholic, she was the daughter of a police sargeant in Wakefield. She trained as a nurse in Leeds and eventually found her way to the Western Front under the command of a Matron from Batley. She was killed, aged 26, when a shell fell on the tent in which she was sleeping and is burried in Lijssenthoek Military Cenemtery. We visit her every year too.
Constance Coltman is a different matter. She was a pacifist. On the 17th September 1917, at the height of the Battle of Passchendaele, she was ordained to the Christian Ministry in the Congregational Union of England and Wales by four other pacifist ministers, one of the first women to be ordained in Britain. Many men had gone to war, and quite a few women, and that had changed Britian quite a bit. Women did war work, and some campaigned for peace: Constance was one of them. We will remember her ordination in September this year.
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The story of war is always the story of the lives of ordinary people, both women and men. Wars also often mark a change, geographical maybe but also social. Many things change with war, some of which are forgotten and some remembered a long time later. We are still learning lessons from WW1. ‘Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it’: best we keep learning then.

In our coming and our going
The peace of God

30.07.2017, being the 100th Anniversary of GS Golding, remembered at Thiepval.