Change: Similarity and difference

Well applying for a new job after working for 15 years for somewhere that you love surprised me. Here are a few reflections on that change…

I don’t know if the summer seems dim and distant to you but I had a couple of exciting holidays, both with family and a large number of friends (in one case over 30 friends that I have known many of since my late teens). From Scotland to Switzerland we swam, walked, water-skied, kayaked and chatted, sometimes attempting German or French. Knowing I was leaving one job and joining another gave me a chance to regale them with the amazing world of religious education but also had me thinking about change.

On our journey back four of us stopped off in Reims in northern France. We wandered into the centre to be tourists and of course explore the Cathedral. We soon realised it was quiet because it was a bank holiday, August 15th, unbeknownst to us it was a significant day in religious terms too. My daughter and I went into the Cathedral where a service was taking place. We found a place at the back and were handed an order of service, unsurprisingly in French, and tried to work where we were within the service and what the service was marking.

Despite my learning in French finishing at O level my understanding of what happens in a church service helped me through. Identifying the servers bringing bread and wine for mass and the familiar words of the Lord’s prayer/Our Father.

As I transition from working with NATRE and RE Today to working with Culham St Gabriel’s Trust it is clear that I’m in a different context, just as I was in Notre Dame Cathedral in Reims. There is the familiar, the joy of working with the Leadership Scholarship Programme that I have been involved in for the last 4 years. There are also things like working with RExChange and on E- learning, familiar to my previous work training teachers around the country but subtly different as I learn more about E- learning. Perhaps like the Lord’s prayer/Our Father in a Catholic service, remembering not to say

‘For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever.’ Or depending on how good your French is
‘car c’est à toi qu’appartiennent le règne,
la puissance et la gloire, aux siècles des siècles.’

There will also be the new but very exciting aspects such as working directly with Masters and Doctoral scholars. A little like working out the service was marking the Solennité de L’Assomption or Feast of the Assumption celebrating the death of Mary and her ‘assumption’ into heaven.

I hope I have lots to bring from my work with NATRE/RE Today and particularly my role getting research and teacher research disseminated more widely into the classroom.

As we joined in the parade behind Mary, something entirely new but moving nevertheless, I saw a community united behind something intensely significant to them. Similarities to the world of RE/REV/RME/Religion and worldviews?

I maybe ridiculously stretching an analogy here but as I sat in the service, in a foreign language, I saw these connections to starting a new role. Some of you have started new roles this summer, maybe this resonates?