Jo Inkpin Blog - Blessed Imp

a conversation on The Latest

2/4/2023

It was good to share recently on The Latest in LGBTIQ+ Health and Policy - a podcast that brings the health and wellbeing hot topic discussions that matter to LGBTIQ+ people:

Our conversation explored the intersection between faith and LGBTQ+ community, the changes happening within the church, overcoming barriers as a trans woman, and my 30 year relationship with wife Penny.'

This podcast was produced by JOY Media – Australia’s Rainbow Community Media Organisation. For more information about JOYs services, visit joy.org.au/services

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:16 — 34.7MB)
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queer theology and World Pride

10/2/2023

Many thanks to Dr Meredith Lake and Rohan Salmond for inviting Penny Jones and I to share in this episode of ABC's Soul Search, exploring queer theology and its expression in World Pride. It was a great joy, including sharing with such delightful co-interlocutors and friends as Dr Peter Kline and Benjamin Oh.
Link here

Australia's first trans priest and her wife

9/2/2023

In the run up to Sydney WorldPride, SBS On Demand 'The Feed' were kind enough to produce a short feature on my wife Penny Jones and I,, which we hope may help and encourage others.

pioneering love and LGBTIQ+ faith

19/2/2022

It was an immense joy recently to take a ferry trip out to Watson's Bay to share food and a great time with one of Australia's foremost LGBTIQ+ elders and leaders, Anthony Venn Brown. Although Penny Jones (not least, as one of the very first female priests in England) and myself are pioneers in our own ways, Anthony came out and broke new ground at a time when things were so much tougher for LGBTIQ+ people. His example, encouragement, and continued advocacy and support remains so vital in Australia :-)
For more on Anthony Venn Brown, do read his story in his book A Life of Unlearning - a preacher's struggle with his homosexuality, church and faith and check out his continuing work through ABBI (Ambassadors & Bridge Builders International)

the pain-love of holy journeys

23/1/2021

sharing communion as parish priests with Milton Anglicans for the last time

Wow! It was quite a roller-coaster ride of a farewell Eucharist last Sunday - with such wonderful people at Milton Anglicans that it is so hard to leave behind...

stepping out afresh in Sydney

6/12/2020

I am deeply humbled and thrilled to announce that I am again being called to ministry in Sydney - as the next Minister of Pitt Street Uniting Church. This is a wonderful high profile progressive faith community which gathers on Gadigal land in the heart of Sydney’s CBD. After much reflection and careful discernment with the Uniting Church, Penny and I believe that this is the very best way in which I can serve with others in nurturing faith, love and hope in the next few years (from 1 March 2021) - as well as, very happily, being again close to family in Australia. I extend my thanks and blessings to all with whom I have journeyed in the past and to those I look forward to joining soon...

renewing marriage and re-creation

24/7/2020

Penny and I are feeling very blessed after renewing our marriage vows this week in St John's (Anglican) Cathedral in Brisbane - on our 35th wedding anniversary. We had intended to mark this occasion by beginning several months long leave overseas. COVID-19 put an end to that. However we felt powerfully drawn to mark this point in our lives, particularly after this year completing the main elements of my gender affirmation journey. It also gave us an opportunity to celebrate a 'queer' marriage which some of our co-religionists say is impossible (!) but which we believe is a lovely gift for the renewal both of marriage and also of human relationships with our wider creation. For, as I have written elsewhere (see here for example), a deeper wrestling with Judaeo-Christian tradition leads us into a much more profound and life-giving understanding of marriage and God's shalom...

on dangerous women

7/7/2020

I was thrilled recently to meet with the amazing (Snaggletooth Productions) duo Erin McBean and Holly Zwalf (also, among other things, coordinator of Rainbow Families Queensland). They were interviewing me for the State Library of Queensland's Dangerous Women podcast project, which will highlight six women's stories. I am honoured to be one of these, recognising that for some I am 'dangerous', though I have never sought any such epithet, and I hope that something in my journey may help others in shining creatively. This is certainly the aim of the State Library. As has been shared with me:

'All of our Dangerous Women are compelling, bold, determined and dynamic and we hope that in sharing their stories they will empower listeners to share a deeper understanding of themselves and Queensland. We have selected stories of three women from our heritage collections, and two women with contemporary aspects, yourself included. We have employed the expertise of Snaggletooth Productions, an all female production company to produce and host the podcast'.

I hope to share more about the project as a whole as it unfolds. There are three key features however which have emerged for me which have strengthened my views (born of my life experience and my studies of women's history) of how 'dangerous women' who deliberately create positive change, or unwittingly represent positive change, come to flourish...

Faithfully Me

25/5/2020

I'm hugely grateful to Dr John Wallace, film-maker Rachel Lane and her wonderful team, for bringing to fruition the short documentary Faithfully Me, sharing part of the stories of myself and Rhett Pearson as transgender people of faith living into our authentic selves. This was shown on ABC Compass on 24 May, and is available on iView here until 23 June, and afterwards will be shared by Equal Voices and others on YouTube and through other channels. We hope it will be a blessing to many, sharing further light and understanding, and affirming gender diverse people in churches and wider society. In this project I am particularly grateful as ever for the support of my wife, the Revd Penny Jones (who also shares some of her journey with me in the film), and friends and colleagues from St Francis College & St John's Cathedral in Brisbane (both of which, by kind permission respectively of the College Principal and Dean, were part of the locations filmed).

Praying in Anglican Ways

14/11/2016

It was a delight last Saturday to share in one of the first official workshops of 'Praying in Anglican Ways': a resource I developed last year, with Penny Jones' and Jonathan Sargeant's assistance, for the 360 series of educational resources produced through the Anglican Church Southern Queensland. The aim has been to provide an introduction to the depth and variety of Anglican spirituality which forms part of the extraordinary rich Christian tradition as a whole. For so much is taken for granted, confined to narrow channels, or simply not explored. Using Dr Corinne Ware's Spirituality Wheel as one way in, and employing some of my own 'Whole Body' approaches to faith and spirituality, four broad pathways are highlighted (what, in 'whole body' terms, I call 'head', 'heart', feet' and 'hands'). This offers participants opportunities to share together something of the wide range of Anglican spiritualities, deepening and widening their own journeys and understanding better those of others. It is also adaptable to other, less denominational groups, but that may be something for the future. This is part of the work I hope to be further involved in when I begin my new role next year. For more information about the 360 courses and ACSQ educational work, check out the Formed Faith website, or check out some of our You Tube clips on the link below...