Roshi's ramblings

Here's a prayer first written by Thomas Merton that really speaks to how I feel at the moment. 'My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.  Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know if I do this you will lead me by the right toad, though I may know nothing about it.  Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen'

It seems to come as a shock to people when I say I believe in God.  'But Roshi you're a scientist! How can you believe in God?!' they decry, sometimes quite loudly.   I understand their reasoning. The church and science have had a complex and rather unpleasant past together. This has mostly arisen from power hungry people being scared of new ideas undermining their authority.  Too frequently the reaction has been to demonise and ostracise rather than embrace new theories. I personally believe in the fact that God made us in his/her own image. This doesn't mean (s)he actually physically molded us, I'll cover my theories on that in a later post, but (s)he chose humanity as the closest to him/her out of all the species evolution led to and granted us souls and the ability to reason and explore. Like any parent I believe God wants us to grow up to understand the processes (s)he created.  We're not going to be told how they all work, that wouldn't be learni

This past weekend has been incredibly hectic but incredibly fun as well.   I attended a vocations weekend run by the Society for Catholic Priests in Manchester at St Chrysostoms church. I met some wonderful like minded people and it was lovely to have people in a similar position to myself to talk to and to help me know I'm not mad for considering this life path! The Friday night was a nice introduction with an ice breaking activity to get to know everyone followed by going into the chapel for evening vespers and then some tasty pizza for tea! Later on in the evening after having eaten enough to make me need to roll rather than walk we headed back into the chapel for our first two sessions. The initial session was by Canon Alma Servant who told us about her journey to priesthood. Initially she felt her calling before women were allowed to be ordained and she didn't want to be a deaconess as it wasn't the whole job. Her story showed that if you really do feel the

So I figured I'd write a post about why I'm interested in ordination. To many people, at least those who've met me after 2004/5 it will probably seem odd as you won't know me as religious. I grew up in a religious family. We went to church every Sunday and were heavily involved in it. The church was what would be defined as Anglo-Catholic or high church. All bells and smells. I was an altar server from a young age, first a boat boy then an acolyte and finally a crucifer. I absolutely loved it. I was fascinated by the whole service; I remember at a young age deciding I wanted to know the whole thing off by heart so I could properly recite it whilst serving, and the excitement when I first began serving of being able to participate in the whole service, not just the start and end with Sunday school in the middle! I also remember being enamored of the blessing of the bread and wine and how by reciting gospel it led to them being charged with the power of God. Naturally

Hello world!  My name is Roshi and I've decided to create the blog to chronicle all the things happening in my life and to help me focus on various aspects. At the moment my main focus is spirituality and religion as I am currently going through the discernment process to decide whether or not I should become ordained in the CofE. This means a few posts will be reflections on books I've read, things I've watched or seen or events I've been to. I'll also post about other things that interest me as well. As you'll discover I'm a massive geek with a love of all things Sci fi , fantasy and gaming. So have a read if your interested, or don't, it's entirely up to you!