Sunday 22 September 2013

Not Forgotten


Some might say that I have forgotten the saints these days; that recently my blog has not linked the laughs I have, the food I cook, the life I lead with the lives of those that have gone before me.
I have not forgotten.
I started looking into the lives of the saints, and celebrating the lives they led through the food I prepare and eat when I was at a turning point in my own life. I did not know where to turn, what to do, or what work would come around the corner next. I was unemployed for 4 months, then took work as a seamstress, vegetable picker, domestic servant, sales assistant and office worker before my first temporary teaching post came along in January 2011, 7 months after I left my DPhil study and moved home.
By the grace of God, and the generous hospitality of the RSCJ Sisters in Oxford, I found myself back in the arms of an educational career, and for this reason I wrote the post about inspirational educators. After that temporary post had finished I left the hospitality of the sisters, although I kept them in my heart, and found a flat in the centre of Oxford and a new post in a non-Catholic Comprehensive school in Oxford. There were challenges there, too many to mention, but by the June I had secured my current teaching position in a place where the prayer of the Office seeped through the the seams, and the saints of the calendar lived in the corridors and on the walls. I started in September 2011.
Since then the lives of the saints have been part of my everyday. Who’s this? What did they do? I am sorry they don’t make more of an  appearance on the pages of my blog, with matching food to rejoice in their faith, but I am not sorry their prayers have brought me where I am. Unemployed I used the lives of the saints to occupy my mind, I read about them, thought about them, cooked for them, enjoyed their lives with friends and family through food, wine and time. Employed as a Head of RE I call upon their lives as inspiration for my classroom, anecdotes, examples, and yes, sometimes food. I still rely on their prayers. I have not forgotten the saints, I just have less time to cook for them. I am sure they do not mind. I hope you do not either.

2 comments:

Kimberly said...

I for one am simply grateful that you write what ever you write, when you have the time to write it... It seems inspired by the daily living of what God brings to your table. And that is refreshing.

Cloister said...

Thank you Kimberly. You are too kind to me, but what you say means alot. I often think no one reads my ramblings and I should give it all up, but I the truth is I enjoy the blog and it would be sad to lose it through a lack of confidence or through feeling 'too busy'.