What was going on when I was born?

Bishop David Jenkins of Durham is an object of some controversy in the Church of England. Last summer, this was illustrated by the fact that when York Minster caught fire less than 48 hours after his consecration there, some people were of the opinion that the lightning bolt that started the blaze was the angry judgment of God. Despite such views, the 60-year-old Bishop continued to make it clear he has questions about the literal truth of the Virgin Birth as well as about the precise physical happenings associated with the Resurrection, which he once described as more than merely ''a conjuring trick with bones.'' These questions, he later told his Diocesan Synod, are secondary to his fundamental belief ''that God raised up Jesus, and that Jesus Christ is to be received and worshiped as God become man.'' But the controversy continued over the Bishop, who once quipped that he felt less like a person than a sociological event.

The chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Paul A. Volcker, hinted today that the central bank was not prepared to shift to a more expansionary policy despite the marked slowing of economic growth since last autumn. He told a Senate committee today that growth of the money supply had been relatively high in recent months and that the Fed's policy was essentially unchanged. Interest rates rose in credit markets after Mr. Volcker's comments, which analysts took to mean that the central bank may not be as quick to ease monetary policy as they had been predicting. [Page D22.] Testifying at the Senate Banking Committee's first 1985 hearing on a long-stalled banking bill, Mr. Volcker agreed with a Senator that Fed monetary policy could be characterized as ''neutral,'' but added that that position could change at the next meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, scheduled for May 21.

Twice a week, a philosophy class at Wesleyan University here adjourns to the gymnasium, and Sartre gives way to squash. ''We work up a serious sweat,'' said Leslye Herrmann, a senior who joins her professor and other students for the extracurricular workout, ''I've had a real consciousness-raising about my body.'' In addition to her racquet game, Miss Herrmann jogs and lifts weights - provided the exercise rooms are not overcrowded. At Wesleyan and on campuses throughout the country, fitness has become so popular that schools can scarcely keep pace with student demand for exercise facilities.

At a rally of war veterans marking the 40th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany, Mikhail S. Gorbachev denounced the United States today as the ''forward edge of the war menace to mankind'' and affirmed his fidelity to the ''priceless'' experience of detente. In a speech that was part of intensive commemorations, the Soviet leader seemed to seek a balance between the assertive patriotism demanded by the occasion and an appeal for renewed cooperation with the United States. ''The policy of the United States is growing more bellicose in character and has become a constant negative factor in international relations,'' he told an audience dominated by silver-haired veterans, their chests ablaze in ribbons, medals and stars. Reagan's Policies Assailed He avoided mentioning President Reagan by name, but listed Soviet accusations against his policies, including the effort to develop a space-based defense system, hostility toward the Sandinista Government in Nicaragua and support for the anti-Communist insurgents in Afghanistan.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating charges brought by former employees of the General Electric Company that the company submitted false or fraudulent claims for work on Government engine contracts at a plant near Cincinnati, according to court documents and the former G.E. employees. Moreover, last week the company agreed to pay $1 million to the Government to privately settle allegations of mischarging on a Federal satellite contract, a Justice Department official said on Monday. The disclosure of these two actions comes as G.E. is preparing to go on trial next Monday in Federal District Court in Philadelphia on criminal charges of submitting false claims on missile contracts. The company, the nation's sixth-largest military contractor, was indicted in March.

THURSDAY, MAY 9, 1985 Markets Paul Thayer was sentenced to four years in prison and fined $5,000 for obstructing justice. U.S. District Judge Charles R. Richey rejected requests for clemency for the former Deputy Secretary of Defense, whose troubles grew out of an insider trading case. [Page A1.] Mr. Thayer's prison term reflects a trend toward stiffer penalties in conspicuous white-collar crime. [D4.] The Fed chairman hinted that the central bank would not shift to a more expansionary policy despite a slowing of economic growth. Paul A. Volcker testified that ''over the long term, money growth has been relatively high.'' [D1.]

An article on the Washington Talk page Monday about members of the House of Representatives who each represent an entire state misstated the number of such members who have the same party affiliation as both their Senate colleagues. There are two: Don Young of Alaska and Dick Cheney of Wyoming, both Republicans.

As Roberta Blackgoat's children were born, their umbilical cords were buried in a corner of her sheep corral. It is a tradition that ties each Navajo to the land and to the animals that provide the food and clothing necessary for survival. So it is too late now to ask her to move off the land where she was born, where her great-grandmother is buried, Mrs. Blackgoat said. Congress may have given the land to the Hopis, but God gave it to her and the Navajo people. ''No, no matter what they are going to do, we are going to stay,'' she said. ''No matter what they do, we are going to stay.''

''SO often the children of cancer patients end up confused or misinformed or feeling neglected or in the way,'' said Grace Christ. ''When cancer is first diagnosed, adult family members may not be able to focus on the children's questions and anxieties.'' Mrs. Christ is director of the social work department at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In an effort to address their special concerns, the hospital's social workers have developed a program of individual counseling for children of cancer patients at Sloan-Kettering. A similar support project, in which children meet in groups, is under way at St. Clare's Hospital, in Denville, N.J. In addition, Cancer Care in Manhattan is planning a group for children within the year, and both the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society are in the process of publishing educational material for children of cancer patients. ''Suddenly everyone seems to realize how incongruous it was that kids were practically left to fend for themselves,'' said Barbara Blumberg, public health educator of the National Cancer Institute. The number of children of cancer patients nationwide is not known. But, according to Edwin Silverberg, supervisor of statistical information at the American Cancer Society, an estimated 170,000 cases of cancer will be diagnosed in 1985 in Americans of child-rearing age, 20 to 54. In this same age group, the society estimates there will be 60,000 cancer deaths in 1985.

The president of the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx has resigned after a committee of the hospital's leading department chairmen demanded his ouster. The resignation of the president, Dr. Carl Eisdorfer, which has not been announced by Montefiore, takes effect July 1. It follows months of administrative upheaval at Montefiore. Patient occupancy has dropped by almost 10 percent in recent months, and Montefiore officials say the decline has jeopardized the hospital's financial position and resulted in layoffs and reductions in programs.

John Blocker's contract oil drilling company, the Blocker Energy Corporation, was headed for bankruptcy several years ago when the First Boston Corporation advised the company to ask its creditor banks to accept common stock for most of their loans. Converting debt to equity remains a ''funny voodoo kind of thing'' to Mr. Blocker, but all that matters, he said, is that ''we're now alive and kicking.'' More and more investment bankers these days are doing those funny, voodoo kind of things for companies in trouble. On Wall Street, in fact, where the profitability of the big securities houses ebbs and flows with the nation's economic tides, many firms are staffing up for a business that is thriving now, and is particularly good in bad times - the financial restructuring of America's ailing corporations. ''It's the ultimate countercyclical business,'' says Alan Washkowitz, who heads an eight-member Financial Restructuring Group at Shearson Lehman Brothers. Other firms active in the field include First Boston, Salomon Brothers and Drexel Burnham Lambert. And Dean Witter Reynolds, a relative newcomer, expects to double its restructuring group to 10 full-time members by year-end.

The Federal Reserve Board, identifying what it fears may be a new and growing source of instability in the banking system, approved guidelines today for the use of ''daylight overdrafts'' by the nation's largest banks. Daylight overdrafts are loans that banks make to customers during the business day with the expectation they will be repaid by 5 P.M. The levels of such loans have soared in recent years to as much as $120 billion a day in interest-free overdrafts, for customers who did not have the money in their checking accounts at the hour they wanted to make a payment. Though not directly related, the vote by the central bank comes less than a week after E.F. Hutton & Company, the large New York brokerage, pleaded guilty to 2,000 felony counts of mail and wire fraud involving an extremely complex scheme of overdrafting accounts at some 400 banks. The move by the Fed today reflects its concern that money managers throughout the business world have been reducing cash in their bank accounts and using float and short-term borrowed funds to increase profits.