Needless to say these ramblings are personal reflections and do not in any way represent official policy of the Fédération Protestante de France, my employer, nor of the churches I'm a minister of, the United Reformed Church and the Eglise Réformée de France.

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2008 was the international year of languages, the international year of the potato and the year for the protection of the frog. 2009 is the international year of reconciliaiton, the international year of astronomy, the Calvin year, the St Paul year and no doubt much more besides. Enjoy it all.2010 was the UN year of biodiversity and the year of the 100th anniversary of the Edinburgh mission conference2011 is the international year of forests - protect the trees and plant some folks!

Tuesday, 16 October 2007

The reason I went to Rome was not only because of the food or of staying with the wonderful Giorgio and Luca. I started a two year course run by the Craighead Institute for members of international leadership teams. The three days of seminars, input and praxis sessions were really stimulating and gave me much food for thought. I can see how it builds on study I did previously at the Open University Business School but is more consciously rooted in faith-based analysis rather than purely in secular analysis of non-profit making organisations.

The sessions are organised to allow for reflective and meditative space as well as more intellectual and praxis orientated input. This is also helped by the lovely small courtyard garden off our meeting room, it has glorious palm trees reaching up into the (mainly) blue skies. Wandering around drinking a cup of tea there was quite a restorative experience.

I'll try and say more about the course over days and weeks to come. It's energised my thinking and helped me feel I still have a brain. It's also been a very steep learning curve about Roman Catholic congregations. I was the only Protestant there and the only person not in religious life - though as a minister I do feel I have a vocation. I'm still not quite sure I understand what the difference between superiors, generals and provincials is but I'm trying.

How to link spirituality and management with some kind of integrity -there are so many ways in which we spiritualise away real difficulties we encounter at work and in life. Rather than entering into painful places our spirituality often remains paddling about in the shallows. Frightened of too much emotion we somehow lose the visceral anger, joy, glee, grief and depression you can find in the psalms.My friend Janet who is a speech therapist and also ordained, remarked to me once that the language of our liturgies just isn't right for many people, too removed from down to earth feelings - too focussed on poetry and heaven maybe. It's important people at funerals for instance feel the words say something they can relate to. JohnBell from the Iona community has written some good things but much of our formal spirituality, in the West avoids, poetises or uses platitudes. One of the things the course challenged me to revisit is on how strong feelings affect and are part of decisions we take.The need to find a new language to talk about religious life, matters spiritual and ecclesisatical was also a recurring theme. I suppose it goes with my job to find myself thinking repeatedly about language and justice. The rise and rise of global English, like a tower of Babel. Yet if we want to communicate the gospel or any faith values, we'll need to relearn some of the better missionary linguistic practice from the past. Translation and interpretation are essential disciplines and paradigms when talking about faith. Being in Rome I was forced back to my very poor school Latin while in the town, though all of our teaching sessions were in English. By the time I left I said occasional phrases of something that could perhaps be described as Italoglish - by which I mean that at least I was able to order an espresso with aplomb!

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About Me

Jane

My name is Jane Stranz. I was born and brought up in Britain and am an ordained minister of the United Reformed Church, a small non-conformist church. For over 10 years I worked as a parish minister in the Eglise Réformée de France in Dunkerque, Chambéry and Ferney-Voltaire. Fom July 2002 to October 2011 I led the language service of the World Council of Churches in Geneva. Currently I'm working on a two year mission on ecumenical relations, inter-religious dialogue and inter-cultural ministry with the Fédération Protestante de France based in Paris. It's going to be exciting and a steep learning curve. I'm married to Stephen Brown a journalist, researcher and theologian who works at Gobethics.net. Over the next two years we'll see how we manage a commuting marriage between Paris and Ferney Voltaire. Since 1999 I've been living with multiple sclerosis, sounds rather noble but really means I just live in denial and inject interferon b three times a week and count myself very lucky to live in a country with a great health care system.