Rowan Williams tree decoration

I posted in March about the ultimate in Anglican religious kitsch – the archbishops of York and Canterbury tree decorations. This morning, Rowan Williams in decoration form fell through my letter box, sent by a friend in Durham who thought I was in need of a good laugh – it did the trick!

Does sanctuary still exist?

Last week I posted comments on a positive reflection of monasticism at the start of Advent. For a Surrey cathedral in contrast, Advent 1 saw a shocking event when armed police shot dead a mentally ill man in the cathedral grounds, a very clear profanation of demarcated sacred space. When considered along side recent events in parliament involving the arrest of a Tory MP and the consequent searching of his office, this occurrence does raise questions in my mind. Are the police above the law and does sanctuary exist any more?

New experiences: faith informs work and vice versa

Having been giving conference and seminar papers for the past eight years, I am very used to speaking in front of an academic audience or at least an audience already very interested in medieval history. For the first time ever though, I gave a non-academic talk a couple of weekends ago on women and the religious life in the middle ages. What made this more interesting was that the talk was in place of a sermon at choral evensong at my local church. I was, as one might expect, very nervous, especially as there were two history professors in the congregation: how would they react to a paper on an academic subject treated in an essentially non-academic way?

The experience was strangely liberating. Part of my interest in the religious life, especially concerning how religious and laity interacts, stems from my upbringing as a daughter of the parsonage. Equally, my historical interest in the Church allows me to take a longer view and broader perspective of some of issues confronting the good old CofE currently from sexuality to the more mundane concerns of the place of pews in church. For the first time I could blur the boundaries a little and bring these two aspects of life together, making points I couldn’t get away with in an academic paper and coming to a greater understanding of how faith influences my work and vice versa.

What the well dressed Anglican Christmas tree will be wearing this year

During my recent meanderings around the North (enjoying being cold and away from southerners), I came across the ultimate in Anglican religious kitsch in the York Minster shop. Despite the fact that it is Holy Saturday today and so manifestly not time for thinking about Christmas, I couldn’t resist posting about this, so here you go, Rowan Williams and John Sentamu tree decorations.