Deborah

I have been writing a long story for some time now. I read it at my writers' group and to be honest, I prioritise everything else but, even though it gives me a great deal of pleasure to write, and generally speaking only write the next part when it's my turn to read. We only read a maximum of 2,500 words at a time, so progress is rather slow.

The story is about a small town on the south coast of Britain, loosely based on Pompey, the town is called 'Horse-sur-mer' so there is a back story even to that. The action centres on a group of women who live in an Edwardian house divided into flats and on other key players in the town. Most of these people are women. There is nothing unusual about having a chief police officer, a mayor and a vicar who are women, the unusual aspect is that they are all in the same town. Someone once pointed this out to me as though it were a bad thing. Bizarre.

Last Monday it was my turn to read and I needed to name my church. I thought it would be amusing and appropriate to the town for the church to be named after a prominent woman in the Old Testament rather than a Saint - the church had originally been named for Saint Brigantia (Brigid) who had been decanonised - so the church is named 'The Blessed Deborah'.
I was however, quite surprised that no-one in the group, including those who attend church, had heard of the judge, Deborah.
Now on the one hand, I get that children do not do RE as a subject at school here, and yet I know I have discussed Deborah with one of my American friends in the past, for whom that is also true.

But they did seem to enjoy the idea of the Blessed Deborah, especially as Saint Brigantia is still watching over the congregation from the windows.

I believe there is a message in Judges 5 - I live in hope in any case.
Deborah had summoned Barak and told him to take ten thousand soldiers to Mount Tabor, and she would arrange it so that he won a great victory.
Barak is a bit of a weenie, so he says that he'll only go if she does, to which she replies,
'I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera (commander of the army who was oppressing the Israelites) into the hand of a woman.'
Oh well, Barak did defeat the army itself, but only because Deborah came with, and a woman (Jael) dispatched Sisera.

So tonight, not Deborah, but the new series of Dexter starts on TV.
Oh joyous bliss.