A little while back I wrote about a friend of mine at work who had gone through a not very nice redundancy process.

Well, on Friday I found out that I am now essentially going to go through the same process. Our team is being ‘reviewed’, which is a nice way of saying they can’t afford to keep us all on, and so something (or someone) has to give. Not a very nice thing to read on a Friday lunchtime, but then, when is a good time come to that?

Having had a weekend to let it settle in, to talk about our options and to work out as much of a strategy as is possible with this many unknowns, I feel at least a little more prepared, and a little more able to think and talk about it.

Firstly, we don’t know if it’ll be me or not, but looking at the criteria that they use to decide, I think I can make a pretty safe guess that it will. Then there’s what ‘options’ I get given, which I’ll find out on Wednesday at the consultation meeting. Yes, its all that quick. They reckon three weeks and it’ll be pretty much there.

Secondly, there’s other jobs. The one I had the interview for the other week is not lost yet. I was told at the time it would be a few weeks, so still waiting on that one. Was trying not to pin too many hopes on it, but I think now thats gone out the window. If I get that one, all will be well, or at least, it will be a lot sooner. If not, there’ll be others. And meanwhile we’ll manage for a bit on a combination of payoffs and savings, I’ll blitz temping agencies and whatever else in London, and keep at it with the ‘real jobs’ till I get somewhere.

Also, one thing that struck me straight away with this is that, even though its pretty crappy, I’m in a far better position than many of the others. Among this group of people many have mortgages, children, one has a child on the way in the summer, and another, my colleague here, is getting married on Saturday and then off on honeymoon for two weeks. Not to mention being settled here where his wife-to-be has a steady job and where both their families live. And if the jobs market isn’t great at the moment, its probably none existant round this way.

I think I’ll be ok, at least, at the moment I’m not too worried. This may well change if I find out tomorrow that I didn’t get the job and on Wednesday that the situation is worse than I thought. And last thing at night when I can’t sleep it doesn’t seem so easy. But it’ll be ok, and I know I’m not doing this on my own, this is a ‘we’ rather than a ‘me’ thing, and just that makes it all seem a whole lot less scary.

Although I am of course terribly disappointed that I may miss out on a whole lot of newting

I’m not really a believer in those ‘open up the bible at the right page and it will answer your question’ theories. Quite honestly, I think if I’m going to get an answer to my question, its going to come when I don’t expect it, not on cue because thats when I want it.

But. This lent I’ve restarted the words for today daily readings, partly in an attempt to pull myself out of a kind of spiritual wilderness of only ever really thinking about faith as part of writing sermons. Anyway, I also decided I wanted to read Marks Gospel, cos I never have and people say its a good one to read, and its one of the modules on the LP course, to name a few reasons.

The chapter I got to today had the story of the storm at sea. The disciples are caught in the most terrible storm, the boat is rocking and they’re all about to be tossed overboard. And Jesus is asleep. Nevermind how is he sleeping through that in the first place (doesn’t anyone else ever think that?), the disciples are yelling at him to wake up and sort things out.

Jesus, for goodness sake, what are you doing just sitting by and letting this happen? Can’t you see things are really difficult here? We’re going to drown in a minute if you don’t do something! And he stands up, and stills the storm. And asks them ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’

Well that told me. I’m not sure I always believe it, like the disciples I frequently doubt and think I’ve been forgotten, that he ought to have done something by now. But maybe I need to hear those words more often.

This week I have a job interview. The right job, in the right place, at what is pretty much the perfect time. Very soon things in my current job start to get crazy again, I lose my free time, and probably my mind. People expect me to start committing to other things here, which are made harder by the hours I work. This is it, and the prospect of not getting it is scary. And I’m tempted to yell at God ‘why haven’t you sorted it out yet?’ Today I think I needed to hear those words.

How many aspects of our lives are gendered, tailored towards one sex or another, without our even realising it? What makes me think that Chris’ shaving gel smells masculine while mine is ‘girly’. What told the young girl we saw in WH Smiths that she wanted a globe in various shades of pink (wrong I tell you, so very wrong) rather than a ‘normal’ one?

While this question itself wasn’t one asked at this weekend’s SCM conference on ‘Liberating Gender’, we thought a lot about how the ways in which we are categorised and stereotyped based on gender extend into pretty much every aspect of our lives. Whatever your interest or personal perspective of gender, from feminine ideas of God to exploring Queer theology, there was something to inspire and make you think. For me, the roles of masculine and feminine resonated most with my own experiences.