winter
It’s that hibernation time of year again. 
Christmas is over, and now it’s just a couple of months of cold, wet, dark, until the signs of Spring will emerge. My body may want to get up and go to bed with the sun, but a go-slow is not an option in term time. Term moves so fast and relentlessly that if you don’t stay two steps ahead of everything you get flattened and never get back up again. At least, that’s how it feels. On with the show…
picture from Aletheia
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Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
In an increasingly secularised society few people have a good working knowledge of the Bible. Yet a great deal of our culture is built on stories or ideas that come from the Bible. Literature, art, music, language and even the fabric of our society - such as our justice system - are built on Christian concepts and biblical references. The Writing on the Wall provides a fascinating introduction to the Bible's best-known, and most influential, stories. Each chapter gives some background to the text of the Bible, and shows how the stories have become enmeshed in Western culture. Adam and Eve, the ten plagues of Egypt, The Prodigal Son and Mary Magdalene all feature - along with how the Bible has influenced everyone from Shakespeare to Monty Python, and Caravaggio to Banksy. 
Giving It Up explores the Lenten idea of 'giving up', taking it beyond the traditional idea of simply abstaining from something, and suggesting instead that what we need to give up is our existing ideas about God. With a daily readings for each day of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, it follows the heroes of the Bible who had to give up their own too-small ideas about God.
This is Maggi’s bestselling book of daily readings for each day of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. Advent is the beginning of the Church year, and marks the anticipation of the coming Messiah. These readings explore how beginnings and endings in our own lives are illuminated by the different Gospel narratives of Christ's coming.
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Just when I most need it, too…How’s your Swedish?
I thought the denim outfit looked quite good ! We recently came across this website and it gave us a chuckle ……Maybe you could consider something from this range !!!!????!!!!
http://www.designerchurchsuits.com/
There is hope for the future. Hurrah ! Trust those ingenious Swedes!
Style? Clergy? Let me assure you, you’re not just facing a Women-in-Ministry issue. I abandoned clerical shirts many years ago. The best solution I’ve found is to abandon clerical suppliers completely, and go for button-down collars and all-round dog-collar inserts. Good thing (for blokes at least) is that you don’t get the subsequent worst-of-both-worlds of clerical suppliers: the mark-up of small scale suppliers and cheap synthetic materials and colourways – eeuuch. Then I take comfort in the recent press encouraging us to only wear “uniform” when absolutely necessary!
I pastor a congregational church in NH and wear no identifing clergy clothing. I have often wondered what it would be like to wear a collar or a black shirt with one. Style would not be part of it, but rather tradition
Bob, the issue of style is in facdt the opposite of what it seems. Some think that the wish for style is in order to be noticed. IN fact, the bizarrely out-of-style shirts available for women draw unwanted attention simply because they look so strange. A simple, well fitting, professional looking shirt would make a clergywoman simply look smart and professional. And for us, tradition doesn’t come into it yet, since we have not been part of the tradition of priests until very recently.
If that is a priest modeling the clothes it puts pay to the argument that men simply prefer to be led by men!
I haven’t given in on the idea of fair trade clergy shirts, but haven’t really progressed with it either.
In the meantime our curate wears a jersey clergy shirt – sort of like a black turtleneck but with a collar insert. Looks great. (Well as great as can be expected). Apparently there’s a woman who makes them – not too expensive I don’t think. Apparently she goes the rounds of theological colleges just before ordination time so you could probably track her down quite easily.
Met a priest recently who was wearing a black T shirt and he had hand sewn a tiny rectangle of white fabric to the neckline. I sniggered (inwardly of course) but maybe there is something in the ‘do it yourself’ line. Buy a range of gorgeous black tops from the likes of Jigsaw, French Connection, even dear old Gap and have a fashion designer give them the subtle clergy white oblong!
sjp, my best clergy shirts are from Gap and Jigsaw, carefully unpicked and re-stitched by Your Truly. It is a tricky old job to get just right, though; once I have a perfect one I am going to fly to Hong Kong and get ten made. It will be worth the price of the plane ticket.
How about floral designs for women clergy? I think the clergy shirts and blouses are professional and smart.