update on life

So, how’s Cape Town? Without an office or internet connection this blog hasn’t really been the place to keep abreast of what’s been happening.
I’m working part time as a monitor with the Parliamentary Monitoring Group which brings in some income if I go regularly. You can see some of my reports online if you wish. It’s a great way to learn how legislature is made, and I even got to be on TV news on Friday! I’m still talking to Keith Vermeulen at the SACC Parliamentary Office about a researcher/admin post. He needs and wants the extra ‘personpower’, the problem is getting funds from the General Secretary in Jo’burg.
There has been another really interesting development - I met with Kevin Light a while back and had a great chat. He is a Methodist minister who is involved with ‘post-religious spirituality’, and doing really interesting work with his group called Labyrinth. Go have a read at their website. Labyrinth has three ‘rules’ which I really enjoy: no hierarchy, no orthodoxy and no jury. It is simply a place to come and explore spirituality. I may end up doing some work with them in the future. Coupled with this has been my similar experiences (through Julie) of Quaker worship. She attends the local Quaker meeting, and my experience of their worship and fellowship has been interesting and refreshing. They have no clergy, are silent worshippers and live out the belief of ‘that of God in everyone’. Both the Quakers and Labyrinth seem at first glance to be undermining the future occupation I’ve spent 5 years studying for, but, as an ecclesiologist (grin) these alternative faith expressions are helping to shape my own.
As to other life aspects, Julie and I are enjoying being in the same city; I’m playing for ‘the Remnants’ - a local Ultimate Frisbee team here; and my housemate took me surfing for the first time ever. It was humiliating. I’ve seen a sunrise from Simon’s Town beach; listened to Harris Tweed, and the Kolo Nova Movie Band in concerts; been loaned an awesome retro bicycle; and worked out how to catch the (free) University of Cape Town student shuttle into town.
For next year, I’m really excited about doing CPE (hospital chaplaincy) here at Groote Schuur in March, and then perhaps a year long internship in Seattle. That could mean Probation waits a bit. Or CPE counts towards probation. Something like that ;) I don’t want to be in too much of a rush to get ordained, yet I also don’t want to put off my calling. A chaplain of mine’s question of “why do you need to be ordained to minister?” helps to slow me down.