A Lifestyle change may be needed

Have come home from Nexus, a bible study group at Church, totally fired up to sort parts of my life out and encourage some change so thought if I blogged about it, it would help set the wheels in motion.

Keith who is a retired minister who is part of our Church was speaking on Praying the Celtic Way and The Monastic Ideal alongside Desert spirituality. He is part of a dispersed community called the Order of St. Cuthbert and he was talking about the principles we can learn from Monasticism - it was pretty stirring stuff. Perhaps because I've been feeling gentle promptings from God lately about the amount of time I commit to spiritual disciplines/quiet times and about my work/life balance from all directions and this was like God was saying 'Ok Hannah, I've been saying it quietly now I'm going to shout louder so you pay attention.'

Keith used three key words to sum his talk up:
Withdrawal - into the desert
Encounter - with the Holy
Vocation - the call of God to ministry in the world.

We discussed withdrawal in four key areas: prayer, study, work and mission. Keith described work as being that which we do which we fell obligated or obliged to do and which consumes our energy and which if we're not careful can remove us from walking a way of prayer and withdrawal from God. This was like a hammer in my head! I spend all my time rushing about being a workaholic teacher, trying to cram in Church things like rotas and PowerPoint's and actually all of it means that I'm having a spiritual cash flow problem - giving out more than I take in and I know this has to change. I've already begun to think of times in my diary that I can block off to devote to prayer and study but I also think another side to it is going to have to be giving up the things I do because I feel I have to, when actually God hasn't necessarily called me to focus on them.

Some of it I guess ties in with my exploring my vocation within the Anglican Church and how that relates to me as a teacher but also on another level to my need to be helpful and to be 'busy' just for the sake of being busy!

I know it's going to be tough to put into practice but I do feel a conviction that I need to give this area of my life great priority at the moment and so I'm going to go with that.

Greetings Cards

Being of a slightly creative persuasion I sometimes make my own cards but rather too often lately there's no time so Ijust buy them. Now this would be fine except for the fact that all the cards in shops just don't appeal to me or say what I want to say.

Take for example my dad's birthday, now I don't really have a close relationship with my dad we've not lived in the same house since I was five, we don't live anywhere near each other, we may see each other twice a year at most but still as his daughter I feel it's important to send a birthday card and one that says dad. Admittedly I was late in remembering to buy a card this year but even so I went to three shops and all the cards that said dad on were all soppy and gushy about how dad's are amazing and helpful and lend you money and do things for you or drink beer - now my dad does none of those things, he likes red wine and he likes his garden but why can you not find a card that simply says 'happy birthday with love'

Is it too much to ask?!