Is a Change Really as Good as a Rest?
"Are you going to reflect and blog on your recent move to a new parish?" asked a Facebook friend of mine recently, adding somewhat optimistically, "It will be good to read". Well, I have certainly been doing plenty of reflecting over the last few weeks, but I hadn't planned to blog. However, the seed is now sown, so here goes. It is a truth universally acknowledged that clergy, even when not actively considering a move, are strangely fascinated by the 'Job Vacancies' pages of the 'Church Times' (a.k.a. 'Jezebel's Trumpet'). I'm not sure why this should be, but I suspect it is a form of clerical voyeurism. There's something decidedly titillating about reading about other parishes, so much so that this particular voyeur (amongst many others, I'm sure) has been known on occasion to move beyond the advertisement on the printed page to the 'Parish Profile' which is now usually all too readily available on line. Much of...