Welcome to The Chaplains Corner!
Rev Dominic Hubbuck
My role at the Federation involves supporting the spiritual input, faith development and the pastoral care of everyone in the school community.
My background before being ordained was working with children, young people and families. It has often included play, creating safe spaces for families and supporting people to explore faith as they do life.’
It is a favourite subject of mine.
Testing rather than talking about it is obviously better.
If there’s a selection then I try and make sure that I leave no one out.
Even as a breakfast option - I have done it.
And most lessons in life can either be taught with or improved by: CAKE.
My wife and I were having a conversation the other day about previous schools our children had been to when they were younger.
We thought of the uniforms and the teachers all the school fairs and nativity plays we had been to over the years.
It is that time again. The week has rolled around and we find ourselves at Friday.
And then we are faced with the Weekend – typically it has been for some a time of rest, space to slow down.
For some it includes a time of Sabbath rest.
I worry that we have lost the meaning of Sabbath and forgotten all our ways of resting.
It feels like we live in a world where everything gets shortened.
Tender loving care becomes TLC.
Laugh Out Loud becomes LOL.
I still think BTW means Best Wishes but apparently it means By The Way.
My phone sometimes reminds me what I was doing last year.
Today it greeted me with today’s picture.
It was a super-hot day, everything was prepared.
The registers were completed, the Groom and guests were waiting and I was in about 5 layers of clothing including a cope
(which is like a heavy tog duvet made into a cape only heavier).
But the Bride was running late…so we had to wait.
I went to a training day about social media a few years ago.
It was about ‘How to get the best out of social media for your charity’.
But the first question threw me: How many different social media platforms are there?
Well I sat and thought…Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp…and felt fairly confident that I’d got most of them. The answer was: Lots, dozens in fact!
And the following questions were: How many do you use and Do they work for you?
And the answer that kept coming through the day was ‘If it works for you then great, but when the fun stops – stop!’
We tried everything for him.
We signed up to free services, we got the laptop ready. Everyone else off the wifi.
We made sure logins were in and usernames were correct.
But we just couldn’t see it. So we had to listen to the match instead. And then we caught the highlights later!
Part of you says ‘Yay, It’s Friday!’ whilst another says ‘Yes, But we still need to get through Friday!’
You may have got to today and thought: My goodness, how did we get here so quick…I need at least another few days.
You may be thinking: I really need the weekend now, I’m not sure where I get the energy to do Friday first.
‘Halfway up the stairs is a stair where I sit.
There isn’t any other stair quite like it…’
Words of a poem by A.A.Milne who also wrote the Winnie the Pooh stories.
(But I remember them sung by Kermit’s nephew Robin in the muppets! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGFR3zz12p0 )
You’ve been waiting for days.
Phone not on silent. Waiting for that call.
And then just like that – you’ve missed it.
But you’d been listening really hard, thinking about it, ready for it, poised to answer. And now you don’t know when it will come again.
I was struck this morning by a line in John’s Gospel:
John 15:11 ‘I have told you these things so that my Joy may be in you, and that your Joy may be complete.’
I imagine complete Joy to be like the feeling you get when you finish 1000 piece jigsaw and it has taken tears and time to complete.
Or when you’ve moved the furniture around the room several times, hoovered, tidied and then sat back at the new arrangement and it looks complete.
For me, Joy is not about excitement and happiness and bouncing up and down but the happy feeling you get that comes with a sense of satisfaction and a side order of peace and contentment.
We have a book indoors. It has beautiful illustrations and imaginative words.
It is called The Lost Words and is written to remind our children and ourselves of all the words in nature that we are in danger of not passing on to the next generation. Words that are in danger of being removed from the dictionary because not enough people are using them any more.
Words that lose their meaning. Words that are in danger of dying out.