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A number of supporters met with Sally on Wednesday, 13 July, with a view to planning for the future. For information about the group and further details of group meetings, please contact James Wilson.

Convenor:
James Wilson, St Gregory's Vicarage, Filton Road, Horfield Bristol BS7 0PD
Tel: 0117 9692839
email revjameswilson@aol.com

Reports of previous South West Group Meetings

November 2000 Residential Weekend at Compton Durville
November 2001 Enneagram Weekend Workshop

 
Seventeen people gathered at Compton Durville with the sisters of the Community of St Francis from Friday 16th to Sunday 18th November 2001 for a weekend exploring the Enneagram led by Judy Coleridge from Stroud in Gloucestershire. Participants came from as far afield as Truro in one direction and Reading in the other. 

The Enneagram is an ancient model for understanding human personality types with a spiritual dimension. Judy helped us identify which of the nine personality types seemed to fit our own selves, and through a series of exercises, helped each of us experience something of the character of the other types. Most of us had a moment of excited recognition as our type was described, though others were less certain.  

Judy was a wise, gentle, spiritual guide through the process, and is highly recommended as a teacher of the Enneagram. If other groups would like to hold and Enneagram workshop, you can make contact with Judy via the office. She also teaches circle dancing, so some of us danced together at the end of Saturday morning. Our thanks go to the Bristol Group for organising the weekend and to Compton Durville for their hospitality.
 

 
Members of Changing Attitude from the Southwest (and beyond) met at the Franciscan community house at Compton Durville. This is located in the beautiful countryside of Somerset, which was becoming chilly at the end of November.

From the first evening, the emphasis was on getting to know each other - and there was a lot to learn, as the variety of people represented was remarkable: gay, lesbian, bisexual and straight; divorced, single, separated, partnered, married and celibate religious. Motivation for participating was also diverse. Many wished to meet others who live as part of the church and yet find themselves apart from it. One ordained woman sought to speak about the experience of those within the group in order to bring her parishioners to a sympathetic viewpoint. For most there was the desire for affirmation of Christian growth and human identity; we all contributed our own understanding and what we have learnt through our life stories.

A lesbian couple related their experience of meeting each other at the end of marriage relationships within a common parish church and the reactions of their congregation. They had been asked to leave so that support could be provided for their husbands, despite a complex conclusion to the end of their marriage relationships. In the same process, support and public ministry were revoked; they were excluded from the Eucharist and continue to be in their new Church. Contact from senior clergy was unsympathetic and dogmatic. The couple recounted their love for each other, a process of discovering freedom and fullness of life with acceptance of their sexuality. The mixture of deep pain at being rejected from their community of which they are also radically a part was a common one for the whole group.

Bishop Michael Doe was kind enough to participate in the weekend. He talked about what he had learnt through writing 'Seeking the Truth in Love', both of his research, which revealed the theological diversity within the Anglican Communion, and of personal responses to the book. Some of this has been vehemently antagonistic, including a death threat from one Church member.

Worship together was also valuable, both our participation in the services of the Community and in our own 'sacred space', providing a forum for quiet meditation and prayer. We also risked a lesbigay visit to the local pub!

The expression of pain and frustration formed an important part of the weekend. For some, this was very personal - living with the rejection of parents or relationships having ended unexpectedly or simply relationships seeming complex and unfathomable. We voiced a common anger at the public silence of sympathetic voices in the church, which on a personal level are often affirming. This public silence becomes oppressive in the context of a dogmatic conservative approach to homosexuality and abusive in the face of discrimination and rejection.

We dispersed from the weekend feeling refreshed and renewed, with new plans for Changing Southwest and a common sense of dignity and value. Through bearing with one another, the commonality of our experience is apparent and our sense of being part of the church affirmed. In her sermon on Sunday, Sister Rowan Clare spoke of our vocation to live as the people we find ourselves to be. Analogy was drawn with Jesus' experience, living out his vocation as the person he found himself to be - an unacceptable and paradoxical identity in the minds of his contemporaries which resulted in his rejection. The weekend gave us a little more of the strength and conviction required to remain human, sensitive and engaged with the struggle.