Okay, I can hear you from here - what am I doing posting Gregorian Chant? Ah......that's because yesterday I began a ten week course at Morley College entitled Religious Orders Then and Now. My friends think I am about to 'take orders'! Admittedly I do take a lot of courses that come under the 'faith/religious' banner which causes no end of fun with my friends but seriously I am drawn to stuff like this. Maybe God is telling me something! I do search for my spiritual self, read a lot of books and now try to schedule in some days in the year for quiet days and a retreat if possible. However, due to my personality I can't see me doing things at regular times forever like in a convert....so I think they are safe from me. There are things I couldn't give up...loud music (would there be a shelf for my trance music, I ask myself!) and shopping for clothes. And would they allow me to blog?
But.....I do hanker after quiet places, water, candles, nature and the Celtic way. I hold a certificate in Biblical and Theological Studies - you can see why my friends are amused!
So, this course. I am very excited by it as it is not just classroom based. We will be out 'on location'. Next week we are visiting Ealing Abbey, a Benedictine Abbey. Our tutor is so funny. He slides around the floor on his 'typist chair', couldn't open the computer desk but has enthusiasm comes flooding from every pore and he really knows his stuff. He said he'd get us singing a Gregorian Chant (you see that's where it comes in!). Yesterday was more about why each of us had come (I said I wanted to know how the day goes in the Orders and the difference between each Order, having watched the programme from Worth Abbey (near Crawley, Sussex) and others (even Call the Midwife)). There is something fascinating about Orders, okay maybe not for everyone but I'm weird that way. Because our tutor loves talking we never got our break and we ran over time at the end, but I didn't mind. I'm hooked! Our homework is a Quiz (I'm going to have to cheat because I only know two or three answers.....Google where are you?!), read the short biography of St. Benedict and The Rule of Benedict, or at least some chapters that interest us.
Over the weeks we will visit the Carmelite Nuns and Friars, Dominican Friars and Franciscan Friars around London. After these visits I have to get back for my next course at Morley (which starts next week) on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. A friend said 'religion again'. No, I said, this time it's art history.
(One lady said she joined the class because she wanted something to do on a Tuesday afternoon. Still think I'm weird?!)
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