Movement 137

lnterview
community like Queen's is a very interesting place to
work. What advice would you give to SCM about providing
a safe space for discussion and learning?
A-ll of these things are prayer - if you just looked at what I
do every morning when I get up and use the Anglican Office,
it's not the whole picture.
Queens is a hugely diverse community and one of my roles
is teaching on the Masters programme. We have some 40
students on the MA from a huge range of cultures, covering
the whole theological spectrum from Pentecostal to Conservative
Evangelical to radical, and everything in between.
Respect for the person is fundamental, even though it may
not always be possible to respect every viewpoint. Our approach
on the Masters programme is contextual theology,
so trying to understand someone's context and how their
beliefs arise out of that context is important. Our theologies
are framed from the particular context that we inhabit.
So instead of immediately leaping to judge someone's beliefs,
we should be trying to understand how their beliefs
arise out of their life experience.
gotiate the space everytimeyoumeet Life Only bgCOmeS
As a group facilitator you need to neand
to be clear about boundaries - all
We're delighted that you are coming to speak at SCM
conference in February where we'll be exploring
prayer from different perspectives. What is your understanding
and experience of prayer?
One understanding I have of prayer is about being as transparent
and open to God in the whole of one's life as it is possible
to be. But I also believe strongly in intentional prayer
practice. Life only becomes prayer when you put some hard
work in. My practices of prayer can be quite diverse. In my
daily prayer life I'm quite traditional. The backbone to my
prayer is the Daily Of6ce, regular Eucharist and periods of
silence, but into that I weave more obviously feminist influences
like prayer texts by Janet Morley and Jim Cotter.
For me, poetry and writing creative liturgy is an expression
of prayer, and is the place where I might do the more gutsy
work - if I'm angry or passionate about something. My
partner sometimes says to me that I'm a strange mixture of
radical feminist theologian and pious traditional Anglican!
This is one thing I d like to explore at SCM conference, how
these different understandings of prayer might fit together
and be held in tension with each other. Fundamentally, all
of these ways of prayer are about being attentive and truthful,
being real before God, but also before other people and
yourself.
Within a busy academic life, do you find space for
stillness? What helps you encounter God?
I certainly haven't got it sorted! Looking back over my life,
when I started work I struggled to maintain a daily disci
pline, but in recent years I haven't found it so dif6cult. If
I've got a busy day, I might only have 5 minutes of silence
rather than 15 minutes, but it would be rare to not do it. It
would be like going out of the house without breakfast.
Another thing I do intermittently is to
take a day or weekend retreat. It can
thesethingshelppeopregetasenseof pfaygf Whgn yOU
be difhcult to find the time' but I do
need those times that break in to the
claritv' someone is holding.:1",:t::"
put somg hard busy-ness of life. r usuarry go to Glas-
Everyone has a responsibility to contribute
to that, but the facilitator has
the primary responsibility. When it,s
done, it seems obvious, but if it's not d.one, you notice it.
wo ltYr rk i
^ rrr! n .
shampton' a Franciscan monastery,
and it's very quiet' Those times for
me are essential' both to my prayer life and to my creative
writing. They are about taking in, rather than giving out.
For SCM I guess there's a tension. Feeling a sense of kinship Without those quiet times my creativity would dry up, and
with those who are on similar journeys and have similar I wouldn't be a very nice human being!
values is important, but liberals can retreat into an enclave
the same as any other group, and it's good to be chalenged. "-""-:* i n":t as well as a theologian' where do you
' find inspiration for your writing?
This is quite hard to answer. There have been certain constants
in my life, two of which are prayer and poetry. Writing
is something I've always done. If I didn't write I wouldn't
know what I thought or felt about anything. I write my way
into anything that is important in my life.
There are lots of different forms of inspiration. If you think
of yourself as a writer, yes, something like a crisis or even
something small that happens may prompt you to write,
but it's also not something I particularly think about.
Things have changed though. At one point I don't think I
could have chosen to write, poems would simply emerge,
sometimes from surprising places. Now I feel I can choose
to write. When I wrote a book on Mary, I deliberately set
myself the project to write a series of poems on Mary. In
this way I'm using my writing quite intentionally. I do a lot
of my theology through writing poetry. Mary has always
been a figure of attraction to me but also ambivalence. Writing
a book of poems on Mary helped me explore the many
Spring 2011 . Movement.5