Exploring my doubts

Doubt is not something I want to put words to. Admitting that I have doubts about my calling is quite painful. But doubt is an important part of faith. I don't think a lot of people really realise that. I know for example I've had an argument with my boyfriend about the nature of faith - he thought is was something you feel and not based on evidence. I countered that he was describing blind faith, and I did not recognise his definition as the faith I have.

Faith is not always blind

Blind faith is 100% convinced, but true faith has real conviction because it constantly doubts. Why have faith in something if you haven't reason to? I have doubted pretty much every part of my faith, including the big ones like do I believe in God. I like going back to the very Jewish idea, which I think Anglicanism embraces very well, of arguing. Arguing with your faith, interrogating your scripture, contemplating other possibilities. Moses (Exodus 4) immediately springs to mind as someone who directly shouted at God, questioned God (Exodus 3), and in the New Testment, the Apostle Peter wavered in faith (Matt 14); even Jesus had moments, eg. at the Mount of Olives (Luke 22), and I considered not even mentioning Doubting Thomas as the obvious choice.

These doubters were all true role models of faith. And so I feel stronger for being able to follow their example, and speak out about my doubts, to face them head on, in the never-ending struggle and journey of faith.

***

I have worried that I am deluded. Most of the time it makes so much sense to think that I am 'destined' to be a priest, then I scold myself for being so arrogant, then I worry that not feeling special is a sign that it's not a true calling, but surely modesty is better than self-grandeur...

It gets a little cyclical, and I end up feeling lost and guilty. Okay, so confront it, what if I am deluded? (Forgetting the possibility of being deluded that there is a God, and concentrating on the possibility of being deluded that I feel a calling from God). I have been getting more and more religious, so is thinking there's a calling just part of my very thorough way of doing things and being a priest seems the obvious way of 'doing religion thoroughly', and that's the real reason I'm doing it? Does it feel right because it feels like the way to do that part of my life 'properly'?

Okay, I might have a calling, but what if I'm called to something else? Being ordained and being a full time priest is just one of many callings for Christians. I might be copping out of the hard reality of juggling Christianity and other parts of my life. Many people, most Christians in fact, live out their faith whilst in full time secular employment, why do I feel I have to put my Christianity as not just my religion but my job, and not just that but a community role, a life vocation?

Surely I'm not the right person to represent the Church and lead an example of Christ-like living. I've never been naturally a 'people person', and a lot of people find me too loud, boisterous, direct and intense. I have very liberal attitudes to things like sex and relationships that many in the Church would probably object to, even though I go about my love life with as much care to Love God as much as Love Neighbour as any other part of my life. But part of me worries that I'm just wrong. I think I'm doing good not evil, that I'm living conscientiously, trying to not sin, but what if I'm wrong? I swear, take Christ's name in vain, get drunk, shout at my family, buy nice things, don't give change to beggars. There are people in the world who genuinely think I'm a bad person; there's at least one I can think of who probably actually hates me. That doesn't sound like a priest.

No one seems as enthusiastic about it as me. Is their support just politeness? There's a lot in the literature about other people affirming your calling - nope. One crazy stranger, that's all I've had. Not my priest, my boyfriend, my family, my friends, no one has positively said they think it's a good idea. I'm not trying to criticise them - if that's how they feel, I certainly want them to be honest. So if they are, if I'm in the minority of one that thinks I could be a priest, how likely is it that I'm the one that's right?

I have no issues with my human sexuality

Let's look at the Criteria again (see also previous post) and what I can't do or haven't got.

• Others have not confirmed my inner conviction.
• I have barely any spirituality; I generally never sit in prayer to God apart from reading other people's words. Nor have I done any Bible study. I don't see how the world and others have been affected my practice of prayer, and frankly I have serious issues with the notion of 'the power of prayer'. I've never understood how spiritual practice 'sustains and energises'.
• I've struggled with maintaining appropriateness in professional relationships - I'm a flirt, blunt, emotional. I'm an out bisexual - whoops, Issues of Human Sexuality.
• People don't follow me, my leadership skills leave a lot to be desired. How can I offer an example of faith when I feel culturally compelled to not mention God so as not to make atheists uncomfortable?
• I feel anger and fear about mission, a distinct mistrust and aversion to evangelising.

***

So what do I doubt about my calling? I doubt that I'm called at all, I doubt that I'm called specifically to be ordained, I doubt that I'm the right type of person to be ordained, I doubt that I'm right to disagree with my support network, I doubt that I can fit the criteria for being ordained.

And it is terrifying. I hate having doubts. I have so much conviction, assurance and excitement about my calling, it knocks at my core to express doubt. I've used this metaphor before: I have a bedrock of trust in God, on which are pillars of faith, holding up the foundations of my soul, on which the building of my heart sits, in the infusing cloud of my brain. Doubt is lightning spearing from that cloud, and rocking the whole structure. My emotions get knocked about and chaotic, my soul ripples and sends shockwaves through my faith, and my trust is holding firm but not unwobbled.

***

If you want to read the positive side of this argument with myself, read the post Reasons I think I'd make a good priest/want to be priest.

A few books from Church House

After I made this video, I went back to my friend to give her her keys, and I popped into the Church House bookshop because it was nearby. I should not be allowed in bookshops, it's just as dangerous as browsing the Kindle store; my poor bank account suffers terribly. (Previous books I've been reading in response to my calling are listed at the bottom of this post*, and discussed in this post).

Having some hard copy books as well as ebooks is useful to me at the moment, as I'm taking

December off from working in stage management, which means I won't be regularly commuting, the time I usually use to read and therefore suited to a Kindle; reading at home I feel is more suited to a paper and ink copy. I'll try to remember to post every time I get a new book. It will be useful simply for me to keep track!

I bought 4 books at Church House. Two classics that are often on vocation reading lists, and two more specific books. The two classics are Being A Priest Today, and Called or Collared?. The latter has prompted me to draft a new post about my doubts of my calling, which should be up soon.

The first specific book is Military Chaplaincy in Contention, because I've got an interest in chaplaincy, but I'm more interested in military/prison work, rather than hospitals or universities (though an airport sounds quite interesting too, and of course theatre chaplaincy would suit me perfectly, as a professional stage manager). So I'm hoping to get an insight into what military chaplaincy is, because I am woefully ignorant at the moment.

The second is I Think It's God Calling. I liked the look of this because it's a personal account of discernment, going to theological college, and being ordained a deacon, and it started out as a blog. It was nice to read a modern and young experience, though there was more detail about life at theological college than the discernment process.



*Previous books I've read as part of exploring my vocation
The Little Book of Prayers
Religion for Atheists
Hearing the Call: Stories of Young Vocation
What Anglicans Believe
Jesus and Peter: Growing in Friendship with God

Video: Thoughts after Westminster Abbey

Reaction video - how did the service at Westminster Abbey make me think about my calling?

An interest in chaplaincy

Over the last couple of years, as my calling has come in stages to the forefront of my mind, the specifics of what that will mean in my life have gained sharper focus. It's all very well that I 'feel a calling to ordained ministry', but what does that look like?

My rector asked me this in our last meeting. Something like "If you could stop working, give up stage management and 'concentrate on this' [she was quoting me complaining about having to go through the discernment process and still keep working in a career I was planning on leaving] what would that be? What would you be doing?"

Initially, I wanted to respond, 'well that's why I'm here, sitting in your office, I don't know what to do with this nagging in the back of my head, help me woman, YOU tell ME!' But I quickly  realised the point of her question was that I do need to start working on the specifics, I need to actually think about this process as real life.

We can't all have a spinning arrow like Pocahontas

It's very easy to imagine a whole new life and pretend to set goals, but actually be creating a fantasy, writing the story you want rather than living the story you have. That way lies failure.

The discernment process is not some fairy tale spell to gain insight and magically get pointed in the right direction. I'm looking at a process that will be measured in months and years. So I need to get over the delusion that it's going to be handed to me on a plate and actually get my hands dirty.

What do I see when I think about myself as an ordained priest? The first thought is the most obvious - that of myself in a chasuble at the front of a church behind a lectern. Sure, the thought of preaching to a familiar congregation and performing the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist (Holy Communion) are nice, but with the aid of second thoughts, the responsibilities of a parish priest don't look like they suit me all that well.

Last year at Greenbelt, I was browsing the books tent and a small book called 'Being A Chaplain' popped out at me. I bought it, and read about chaplaincy in hospitals, universities, airports, football clubs, the military, and prisons, and the idea of chaplaincy really appeals.

I'm good at focus, rather than the big picture thinking of a whole parish; I'm good at creating both fleeting relationships with strangers and supportive relationships long term; I've been told I'm a good listener, I enjoying listening to people; one of the reasons I want to be a priest is to help people - I love in stage management being a resource that crew and cast can come to for anything, and being good at providing or facilitating what they need - a stage manager's agenda is not their own; it really feeds into what I was saying about stories in this post; and as a liberal inclusivist, it would be a joy to minister to people of all faiths and none.

I can't imagine lay chaplaincy. What do I see what I think about myself as a chaplain? A dog collar. I think chaplaincy will be part of my life in ordained ministry, but not the entirety,

Video: Affirmation

Video: Can I provide wisdom?

Can I provide wisdom? A response to this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyLYDcdGRlA

What does a lay person want out of a priest?

So this post comes as part of my response to the Criteria, details here. As I said in that blog post, I want a list of what I think makes a good priest whilst I still write from the perspective of a lay person, so that I won't forget, or dismiss it as I go further down the path looking at it from the Church's point of view.

These are the characteristics I think are expected in a priest. But let's be clear that this does not mean I assume they will always be met. Laity should never hold priests up against a scale of perfection, as they are flawed human beings as well.

Decency
The first attribute that comes to mind is I want to know a priest is a good person. Not a perfect person but it should be a defining characteristic that they are a positive force in the world. I want to be be able to be confident that a priest has good intentions, never dominated by anything selfish or destructive.

Being wise doesn't need an armchair
but is does help the image!

Wisdom
This one's an odd one, but I have to admit that there is an expectation that a priest is a resource for
perspective, comfort and guidance. It is a lot to ask, but it comes with the position of authority within a spiritual context. I don't mean I think they should have all the answers. But there is an assumed level of knowledge of the wisdom of generations before us - ie. Church tradition and philosophy - that should influence their reactions and contributions.

Effort and reliability
Now, I don't want this to be a paragraph about self-sacrifice, but I think a priest needs to put the effort in. They have to try. Laity should be able to rely on the clergy to put effort in where others might give into the temptation not to, and sometimes that will include going the extra mile. It's not the same as other jobs where you can get away with 'doing the minimum'; it doesn't work like that. Clergy are human beings, they have a right to down time, and a personal life, but that has to come with an understanding that you can't be off the clock - you're never again be not ordained.

Being there
Again a bit odd, but when I say I think part of being priest is just being there, I mean exactly that. I suppose it ties in with the previous paragraph. There's an element of presence, a go-to place that is accessible. It's like when I set up my uni's first LGBT+ society - we didn't actually do much the two years I was running it, but constant feedback was an appreciation that it was there at all.

Be approachable, but maybe not as
creepy as Buddy Christ here.

Approach-ability
I started going to church on a regular basis whilst travelling, and a classic part of visiting a new church on a Sunday morning is being able to go up to the clergy afterwards and have a little chat. It's hard to go up to new people and introduce yourself, to try and engage with a community, but there should be a higher level of comfort going up to a priest, a confidence that they will happy to talk to you, interested in why you're there, and maybe even a gateway into being introduced to regulars, lay congregation members who are less intimidating once the priest has broken through that barrier for you.
And just branching out, it's the same for clergy who aren't parish priests. Chaplains, missionaries, 'pioneer ministers', deacons, cathedral staff, bishops even, teachers, diocese staff - there is a responsibility that goes with being ordained, in whatever capacity you operate in, to be open to engaging with those who approach. Basically, you have a lot less leeway before you are being rude or flaky.

Patience and tolerance
Priests minster to people, and people come in all sorts of varieties, and many are not all that great. Humanity can be dull, irritating, rude, opinionated, loud, obnoxious, snooty, the list goes on and on. The key is not having to somehow achieve a truly open heart and manage never to be irritated or bored etc; priests are people and sometimes people rub each other the wrong way. No, having more genuine tolerance is helpful to be fair, but patience is basically exercising tolerance, even if it's not there. Priest can't act intolerant, whether or not they are finding it difficult to tolerate somebody. Embodying the calling of expressing Christ's good news means having the patience to tolerate the intolerable. And to quote my rector, this doesn't mean rolling over and being a doormat. Some situations need a firm response - the point I'm trying to articulate is that response should never be a harsh/obvious rejection. Am I making sense?

Non-judgement
Once more this links in, especially with tolerance. As laity, I would really like to be able to tell my priest anything and not be judged for it. Yes, sometimes I am looking for their opinion, but I want to have to ask for a decision on a point of morality, rather than having a moral judgement passed on what I've told them automatically. And I certainly expect a priest to not let any judgements they have about me/my behaviour influence how they treat me.

Okay, that's a nice Jewish seven, so I'll leave it at those key elements.

Summary of the Criteria: My response summed up

I've just spent the afternoon and evening going over my homework, going over the Summary of the Criteria for Selection for Ordained Ministry in the Church of England, including filming some videos.

As it nears late into the night, and I have read through the 9 paragraphs over and over, some of my anxiety has been calmed. Yes, I am worried by some criteria, and this is only the summary, so there will be lots more detail to go through in the full document, but I feel a lot more comfortable about the idea of being scrutinised through this lens. Maybe it is because of the old adage "familiarity breeds disdain", but I suspect not.

I feel confident that there are lot of criteria that I already meet to various degrees, and the ones of which I might fall short have potential, and a potential that can be realistically met in most circumstances. I am ready for that challenge, and eager to accomplish those skills and needs of ordained ministry that I will need to start the life long journey of becoming a better and better priest.

I have really enjoyed looking at "what it means to be a deacon or a priest". I have written a separate blog post here about what I currently think makes a good priest, and what I want out of a priest from a lay person's perspective, before I become too involved in the discernment process to be able to remember. The hope is that as I gain insight into what the Church thinks makes a good priest, I will have that list to hold onto, so as not to lose sight of what the person I am now wanted of the person I will be, when I am her, if that makes any sense.

In order of most confident to least confident, the sections are in this order for me at the moment:
(in brackets in the order in which they appear in the criteria)

1. Vocation (1)
2. Quality of Mind (9)
3. Personality and Character (4)
4. Faith (7)
5. Ministry within the CofE (2)
6. Spirituality (3)
7. Relationships (5)
8. Leadership and Collaboration (6)
9. Mission and Evangelism (8)

I am most confident about Vocation, because I have examined my own sense of vocation thoroughly, and am in an ongoing conversation about it with significant people in my life. I use words like "inevitable" and "inescapable" about my vocation, and it fills me with joy, wonder, and impatience.

Quality of Mind, and Personality and Character are the parts I have most thought about before starting this discernment process, and I am happy to conclude that my opinion is that I am capable, and suited in most areas, with potential for improvement where I might not be as skilled.

Faith is probably the section I feel most articulate about when I talk off the cuff. It's the pillars that sit on the bedrock of trust in God holding up the foundations of my soul on which the building of my heart sits in the infusing cloud of my brain (if I could draw, I would SO sketch that metaphor).

Ministry within the CofE sits in the middle of the list, because I love my Church, and the thought of being on the inside, being part of the machine, the story of that institution, is desirable, but the responsibility and pressure is unnerving.

It's a serious business, being a priest

Spirituality is less important to me, at the moment, than Faith, but I think because my journey so far has concentrated on faith, first personal then community. Building my spirituality is part of this step, the next step, as I shape my life to be more prayerful in anticipation of answering my calling.

Relationships is not a major concern, but not a confident section. I feel halfway through my process of learning to establish, develop, and maintain relationships of all types, and of course Issues in Human Sexuality needs to be looked at.

Leadership and Collaboration, I am only confident in my potential of leadership qualities. They need work, time and effort to craft and improve. Collaboration is further along than leadership.

Mission and Evangelism I almost want to shy away from. I only feel the tiniest push towards this part of ministry, much rather preferring the subtle elements of showing by example, and providing witness only with provocation or inquiry, rather than proactively.

Videos: Selection Criteria

Shorter video going through Section A of the Summary of the Criteria for Selection for Ordained Ministry in the Church of England

Longer video going through Sections B through I

Reasons I think I'd make a good priest/want to be priest

(See also my post on Why I don't think I'm called to be a Lay Reader.)

This is a hard exercise. Not because I haven't thought about and have a few ideas of why I think I would suit being a priest, and I certainly know why I want to be a priest; no, I find it difficult to stop myself feeling like I'm bragging, or being attention seeking. I've said it before on this blog, it feels like saying "look at me, I'm special", and no reasoning with myself has been enough to convince me that it isn't that.

Rationally, I understand it is important for me to be able to articulate evidence for my position, defend that position. I'm not going to be attacked per se, but I will be challenged, rightly so, questioned heavily to explore my sense of calling and what it will mean for my future, in a tangible way for other people (ie the Church) so they can be sure of implementing changes in my life.

So that's what I'm going try to do. Here goes.

Why do I want to be a priest?

To quote my spiritual journal (SJ): "It seems inescapable, inevitable and wholly desirable."

I want to be able to live my life as a disciple of Christ, because I think following the good news is the way the majority of people could live their lives and move closer to the coming of the Kingdom, establishing a closer relationship with God and therefore improving life for all.

I have had a niggling suspicion that I might be ordained since my late teens, and that hasn't scared me. It's felt comforting, I've been looking forward to it. I realised at about the same time that my faith has progressed in clear steps, thoroughly, from the ground up. I've always been given an opportunity, pointed towards the next step, at exactly the moment that I have gone through and become comfortable with the last. That upward gradient naturally carries on to ordination in the future, in my judgement of the evidence.

I can't imagine life ending up any other way. I can't see myself managing to fully live my calling to be a disciple of Christ any other way. Knowing that I could put my faith in the centre of my life in an all encompassing way? That's what I want. I won't manage to live that way, the way I want, if I carry on with just a secular job. How can I best Love God, Love Neighbour? (SJ)"Doing what I think is good, standing against wrong that I encounter, preventing wrong happening. Show love, mercy and forgiveness to all those I encounter in my life." And I have no ambition in stage management, I don't want to make a career out of it. Being a priest is the right method for me to do God's work, and it's becoming obvious that it is the best choice for me.

The church services that I connect with most are the ones when I'm at the front. I'm the cantor, or I'm a server. I'm an active role in the worship, and able to be part of the team that provides the service for others to use as worship.

Why do I want to be a priest? Stories. They are the essence of life, at least in my understanding of it. I love telling them, reading them, watching them, living my own story, being part of other people's, listening to others tell their own or another's, facilitating the telling of them. My holy scripture is in a narrative form - that's the story I want to share and blend into my own. "In church we don't just tell the story [of the Passion], we live it together day by day by eating and drinking together in this Eucharist" (I'm quoting this sermon by my rector).

What am I passionate about? Doing the right thing. Being a good person and showing others they should too for many reasons, but ultimately in response to the universe and the love of God that permeates every place and moment in spacetime. That's what the story tells me.

And to quote my spiritual journal again: "I want to serve, devote my life to God's will and God's people, spreading the story, and bettering the world in the aspiration for the kingdom of God."

Why do I think I'd be a good priest?

When I first got an inkling of a call, I would not have made a good priest. I was proud, blunt, inconsiderate, only just reconnecting with others after years of loneliness, quick to take offence and slow to forgive.

But the core parts of me were appropriate; there was groundwork for a holy life. I've always been passionate, and focused. I have a strong confidence that I think comes from a bedrock of trust in God, and a positive outlook on life. When I commit, I'm dedicated, and even back then I would go the extra mile for projects or for other people. I've always felt an intense connection with love, though at the time, hormones influenced where I focused my energies! Eros was my idol for a while, I will admit that; I was not immune to the angst of the teen years.

But in the years since, I have grown into a stronger sense of agape. As I've written before, I committed to self-improvement when I realised I was not coming across in a particularly universally liked way, so I learnt patience, forgiveness, greater consideration, grew a thicker skin and calmed down my rather aggressive style. I refuse to hold grudges or stop giving people chances. I'm now a good listener for example, I have been told a number of times since; I genuinely enjoy hearing people talk and gaging how to respond to them. Doing stage management has been a training ground for ministry, for sure. There is change, pressure and stress, with a need for balance and flexibility (I'm paraphrasing the Summary of Criteria) in all that stage management do, and I have been developing the skills for just that. Now I'm the one on the team who takes joy from what I can, big or small, and shares that with others.

I think a gift I can bring is helping others see the sacred in the secular. And it might sound illogical if I can't claim to manage to do so in my own life, but helping others is an overall theme I want in my life, and however odd it seems, that feels like part of that theme. You'll see in my profile that "I feel like a good word to sum up who I am and what I do is 'Facilitator'" and I stand by that as supporting my opinion that I would make a good priest.

If I look at the 'official gifts', I'd say my top 3 are mercy, faith and hospitality, with also discipleship and possibly a little wisdom. I feel able to say I have integrity, and an innate honesty. My natural abilities are confidence, love, generosity, and focus. I'm a very good confidant. 

It baffles me that people can act maliciously for their own purposes - the idea of manipulating a situation for my own gain as the primary motivation never occurs to me. Lying is basically out of the question, and breaking the rules has to come from a very strong understanding of how fundamentally wrong the rules are. 

Why do I think I'd be a good priest? Because I'm a good stage manager. Because I want to, including being open to learn, change and improve. I suppose because I'm meant to - I trust God has given me the gifts to answer this call faithfully, that doing so to best of my abilities will be enough. Because I can love, and lead, and comfort, and help. Because I love the church. Because I want to put my relationship with God first. Because I want to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Because I think it is a job and a life that I would enjoy, love doing and being, and be good at.

What I've managed in the last couple of months

I am almost caught up on my journey so far (see previous blog posts: history of my faith part one and two, history of my calling, and my first steps exploring it).

Between the two meetings with my rector, what I did most was think. Getting the big kick in response to contemplating the Camino revved the engines, but talking to someone 'on the inside', someone I trusted knew what they were doing and would help me do something about it, put the process into gear. I spent the month or so between meetings getting used to the idea that my calling was going to be addressed starting now, age 23, rather than in the future like I had always thought. The initial excitement didn't die down but it became more contained and focused, and I didn't realise it at the time, but I sought out tools and strategies to get started, even though I didn't really know consciously 'how to get started'.

When I was deciding to be a stage manager, the one thing everyone said was a stage manager is a 'people person'. I was not a people person. I knew that but it didn't put me off. I was determined that I was suited to everything else about stage management, why give up without trying first? And you know what, in the 8 years since then, I have put a lot of energy into becoming better at gauging my relationships with people, things like cutting down on how much I explicitly complain, and putting others' needs first, and doing so without compromising on who I am. I'm still not a natural people person, but I have trained my thinking into better patterns to become more like a people person. Which I am really glad about.

One of the many things people often say about priests is it is a 'life of prayer'. I have historically been terrible at prayer. It has previously been very low down on my list. But again, I am not going to let that put me off. I'll write another post about why I think I'm suited to being ordained (edit: I did, it's here), but basically I think it's generally a good idea; so if I can change the way I relate to people, surely with the same effort and perseverance I can re-orientate my habits and thinking to be more prayerful. Just the mere fact that I want to is an important part of that.

I have owned a hard copy of 'Daily Prayer' the official C of E book for maybe a year, maybe two. I've off and on managed to do morning prayer here and there, maybe compline, but never with any consistency. So in the last month I have got three things.

One: the C of E Daily Prayer app. YES, the good ol' Church of England actually has apps, being all hip and 21st century. You can get morning, evening and night prayer, with all the right readings and collects there on the one screen rather than sitting with two or three books, flipping between bookmarks. My schedule keeps changing due to my job, but when I was getting up and going to work for 9.30am in rehearsals, I was able to read morning prayer everyday, silently on the train. And if I get to bed and realise I haven't done any structured prayer that day, I can reach for my phone and quickly whisper night prayer.

Two: another app! The C of E Reflections for Daily Prayer app. This one's great, because even if you don't do morning prayer, it'll give the reading and a few short paragraphs of reflection, from a variety of wise contributors. I read it every day, which also has the bonus of meaning that I get an extract of scripture every day.

So small!

Three: an unofficial book of prayers, The Little Book of Prayers. I picked this up when browsing in Waterstones. It's a collection of a variety of prayers from all walks of life and religions and philosophies. I love it for two reasons; one, it's tiny, so it fits in my handbag easily, and two, it has an index for when you want to pray about or for something specific, like gratitude, strength, guidance, grief.

So this means that if I don't manage to do official prayer - like at the moment I work 5.30pm-10pm on performances, so the morning is pretty much gone when I get up, and evening prayer is focused on a quiet end to the day rather than what I'm doing which is starting work - I can pull this little dude out of my handbag and read a short prayer a few times.

I've also started reading around. Every resource for discernment and ministry mentions reading books, and to be honest, it has been daunting. I did a practical degree course without any assigned reading, or textbooks, or any need to reference literature in essays or whatever. And when I see the lists and lists of recommended reading, I am at a loss as to where to start.

I am an unashamed Disney fan...

But I have managed to have a stab at it. Oddly, one of the books I first read in this process was Religion for Atheists, which was great to get a very different perspective on religion. Then I read, and mean to read again, Hearing the Call: Stories of Young Vocation, which was a very reassuring experience, hearing from someone who has dealt with young people in my situation and finding that I'm saying very similar things to them. I'm currently reading What Anglicans Believe, ie. what am I supposed to be signing up for (I also have a hard copy somewhere of a book, I can't remember the name, that sets out how the Church of England operates practically, which I should look over again). And I'm lucky that it's near the end of the year, so I've got myself one of those 'read the bible in a year' books, to start on January 1st. We'll see how that goes. Plus, I've always loved gospel stories about Peter, so the next book I'll read is a recommendation off my rector, Jesus and Peter: Growing in Friendship with God.

It was only in my second meeting with the rector when I said I had done all this that I realised I was actually doing something. I had been under the impression that I wasn't doing anything, that things had been on pause since my last meeting, and I was just waiting for the next to be told what to do. But my rector keeps talking about "keeping up the momentum" and that doesn't mean speed. It means things are progressing, slowly, so that I have time to really understand what's happening.

I've been worried that I haven't been doing enough, that my work and social lives aren't giving me enough time to dedicate to exploring my calling. But the momentum is there. This sense of moving towards a greater part of my life is with me all the time. And it doesn't come from me. All I can do is respond, and that's not always a proactive and obvious thing. Not at this stage. Not yet.

Anyway, so I'll mention three things from the second meeting with the rector.

Who am I? I mentioned

More Disney, yes!

this in an earlier post, but essentially she started teasing out answers to that question, because I am going to go up to the Church and say "God is calling me, here I am" and the response from the Church is going to come down to "So who are you then?" And part of the discernment process is self-awareness, and learning to articulate an answer to that question that is comprehensible, and comprehensive. The church need to get to know you, and I realised I'm not very good at that. Not many people are without practice. The person sitting behind my eyes feels like it has a good sense of who I am, I feel like I know myself. But try and say it out loud, and it's really difficult! To put it into words that someone who is not inside your head can understand and get a true impression of who you are? That's a surprisingly tough challenge.

Another thing was an unexpected insight into myself. I have cried in that kind and patient woman's office the majority of times I have been there, and that day was no exception. In just the same way I was worried in the past when people said I wasn't a people person, I am terrified that someone is going to turn around and tell me "this is a bad idea. You're not suited to be a priest. You're wrong if you think you should be. You'd be terrible at it. I don't want people like you as priests." No one has come even close to saying anything like that. Everyone has been quite supportive. I suppose the fear hasn't gone away because no one has yet to hear me say "I feel a calling to ministry, possibly to be ordained" and shouted "oh yeah! I can see that. I think that's a great idea. You'd suit that."

I don't want my rector to do that. I'd be surprised and find it unhelpful if she was definitive and gave me black and white answers. It's like a therapist, their job is to help you understand what's going on in your head and in your life and then work out for yourself with coaxing and suggestions what to do about it. But if someone did, if someone genuinely said "Go for it", that would be... just awesome.

The third thing was very exciting, because it's the first time there's been talk of doing something official, and even though I am working to get over my impatience, it is gratifying to take a small step that is explicit. I took the decision back in September to take December off. All people in theatre do a Christmas show, but it takes up your life more than a usual show, and would mean I just wouldn't get to church, none of the Advent services, carol service, midnight mass, nothing. So I didn't want to do one, I chose church instead. I told my rector, and she brightened up as I asked if I could be useful to the church with all this free time, to help out, and in light of our conversations, get a bit more experience of church life beyond the Sunday services. She was all in favour, and said it could be a sort of 'mini-placement', and by gum, that made me want to fist pump.

A placement is a classic part of the discernment process. There is what appears to be a lot of resources out there for people in my position, but they're actually all very vague. However, 'placement' is one of the few specifics that are mentioned, so YIPPEE!

Finally (sorry for waffling a rather long post) a few days after this conversation, I saw my best friend and it was one of the things we talked about. When I told her about the whole more prayerful thing, she left the room and came back with a rosary. Bit Catholic, I thought, I'm not saying any Hail Marys thank you! But she explained it was an Anglican rosary, shorter and with different prayers (see pic).
She's lent it to me, and it's a great addition to my choice of prayer each day. I suspect I might be getting one for Christmas...

So there we are. That's where I am now. I'm seeing the rector again in a few weeks, after I've finished the show I'm working on at the moment, going into my church-centred December. My homework was to think about how the Criteria for Selection make me feel, so I'm working on that. (edit: I spoke about it in these videos and wrote about it here.)

God bless.

The first steps addressing my calling

My first step was talking to my rector age 19 (see previous post). My sense of calling died down again to just a niggle for the future. A classic discernment question is "Where is your calling? What does it feel like?" I always said it was at the back of my head, in a corner, and it was just a gentle, constant prodding, a soft poking.

My job as a freelance stage manager is very precarious but I have been either skilled or lucky (I'm not sure which) that from leaving college at the end of my degree July 2014, I have been in constant work as a stage manager. The life of a new graduate involves a lot of applications, CVs and cover letters, and for a new graduate freelancer, whose contracts are usually between 5 and 9 weeks, that process continues once you start getting jobs, to book in the next one, and the one after that.

I had a series of jobs with a week or less between them, always having the next one booked in before the end of the current. I did have a low bar for what I applied for, so I applied for a lot; I'm going to be open and honest here and say that I was extremely lucky that I was always able to fall back on my parents if it came to it, so I occasionally took low paid jobs and my dad supplemented my income, to support my career. Again, I realise that I am a Very Very Lucky girl.

After a year, I decided to become more specific in my goals, applying for jobs that paid a minimum I could live on, and only in the roles I preferred. This narrowed my number of applications down considerably, and unsurprisingly, the offers dried up completely. I got to the end of the last job I had booked in with nothing to follow and moved back to my parents in their little village, away from London, at the start of September 2015.

Two weeks. I was unemployed for two weeks, and I went a little mad. After a week, I lowered my bar again for what I applied for, but started making lists of things to do, hobbies to take up, skills to learn. Having not been in that position before, it ate at me immediately. Yes, this is middle class pathetic-ness, but this is my story, I can only tell it honestly. And with made up words like pathetic-ness.

One of the items on my many lists was to start writing again. I used to be a prolific story writer, doing things like NaNoWriMo, but my inspiration/leisure time had dried up. I sat down with pad and pencil, old school to get myself into the mood, and wrote a few pages of a scene, a girl in a church service, a young professional (sound familiar?)

A few days later, I sat down to expand on this scene a create a character, a world, a plot. This took me on a research rabbit hole, and I started developing the idea that this girl could take a sort of gap year to explore her faith - visit Iona and Taize, go on a silent retreat, that sort of thing, culminating in doing the Camino di Santiago, something close to my own heart as we have a group at church called the Camino group, as it is also known as the The Way of St James.

Abruptly, I looked at the mind map I was creating and realised it wasn't fiction I was writing - it was a wish list. I looked up how long to the Camino took and got it in my head that a lot of people did about six weeks, and suddenly, with my unemployed future stretching out in front of me like an empty void, I thought "I could do that." Excitement gripped me as the reality of that thought sunk in, but rather than booking flights and getting my rucksack out, I went through all the usual vocation websites that I had gone through several times - CallWaiting, CPAS, LondonCallings (my church's diocese vocation page), CofeE Vocations - then calmed down a little and wrote another email to my rector, subject: "Adrift...again."

Could I arrange with [the parish secretary] a time to have another chat with you about vocation and looking into the discernment process?

I talked to my best friend, the one I met at sixth form, my parents, my boyfriend. By the time my appointment with the rector came around, it was on the same day as two interviews for jobs starting at the end of September that I had applied for before this massive kick from my calling. When asked again where it was, the niggle had moved and grown, and now felt like a pervading presence covering the top of my mind, a presence over everything in my life.

That meeting was mixed for me. She probed me to get an understanding of my position, which at that moment was a bit dramatic, wanting to give up stage management and concentrate on following my calling, under the continuing delusion I mentioned in this post. I just felt a sense of urgency but I didn't want to make a big deal, a "look at me, I'm special" statement, nor did I have any idea what the next step was, except maybe there was someone who's job it was to deal with people like me in the diocese and I needed my rector to put me in touch with them.

She was very supportive and encouraging that we needed to keep the momentum up and explore that I was feeling. We booked in another appointment that was sadly cancelled when I got offered one of the jobs I interviewed for, the schedule for which meant we didn't have any free time in common until a month later, and I went off wondering if she was taking me seriously. In hindsight, I didn't give her much to go on and she probably rightly assessed that I needed to do my own digging to come up with what I wanted to do next rather than just giving me options like I wanted to, because it needs to be a slow process. I have moments where I'm chomping at the bit, angry even that I have put up with continuing this stage management career whilst my want to make this other thing me priority.

But I have done some digging, like finding this amazing Guide to CofE Discernment, and done a few other things, and I've gained some perspective. More on that, and my second meeting with the rector, in my next post.

God bless.

My calling - the starting point

I've not had many bolt-from-the-blue moments, as my mother calls them. One was going to church. I noticed a sign next to my hostel in Australia for a baptist church, and the thought popped into my head - "It's Sunday tomorrow. I'll go to church." Just like that, on a random road the other side of the world, my church life began. 'The Road to Agnes Water'. Not quite as catchy as 'Damascus', but there we are.

Another was my confirmation. I don't remember it exactly, but at some point in the January of 2013, I thought "I want to be confirmed." Again, no hesitation, no turning over the idea as a possibility first, nor even this time any obvious trigger. But it was perfect timing, to spend a couple of months going over the basic tenants and scripture of Christianity with the rector before going to St Paul's at the end of March.

My calling was not bolt-from-the-blue. It crept up on me, slowly and quietly, so subtle that when I noticed it, I realised it had been there a while already. I feel like it must have been in my late teens that the niggle started at the back of my mind, but it wasn't until Feb '12, that I got my first small kick from it. I sent this email to my rector:

I'm not sure why I'm writing this email. My friend suggested I talk to you, but it's not that I have anything to decide, or any issue to resolve; I just have an idea, which doesn't really affect the near future, and discussing it with someone who knows what they're talking about seems like something I should do, now that I've thought of it. I kind of want to look at going into ministry. But not now, definitely way in the future, as a second career sort of thing. I've had the notion for a while. Because I really like the idea of being ordained when I'm older; I get the same feeling about it that I do about my choice to go into stage management now - a sense of vocation. But I don't know where this idea has come from, and whether I need do anything about it right now, or what it means that I had the idea in the first place, or whether I'm right to feel like it's a good one. I suppose I'm emailing you because of these questions, and I was hoping for your...advice? Perspective? I'm not sure. But I'm a bit adrift about the whole thing at the moment, and I'd be grateful for some help.

The subject line of the email was 'Adrift'. Because I did feel adrift, finding myself in an unfamiliar boat without sails, paddles or anything on the horizon. My trust in God was strong but that still didn't give me anything tangible to go off. I like tools, proactivity, LISTS. I'm not demanding a definite and clear, detailed plan for the future. Just a vague idea. Even if the plan changes, I just really prefer a vague idea, any vague idea, to absolutely no clue at all.

At this point, I felt like the plan had changed but in such a unclear way that my path, "the way I walk in", was totally obscure. As you can tell from the email, I wasn't contemplating veering off the stage management career path, so really the obscurity was whether I was right in that feeling. I had the suspicion that when one got a calling to ministry, you downed sticks and stopped your life, everything, and started again, and I didn't want to do that yet, so was that a betrayal? How could I feel a vocation for two different paths?

My rector arranged a meeting and listened carefully to my babblings and I came away from that meeting reassured that at 19, having just started a 3 year degree course in an industry I loved and had an affinity for, if I didn't feel ready to take steps in response to my calling, that was absolutely fine. My calling subsided back into its habitual place as an ignore-able niggle at the back of my mind.

So I carried on at college, and at church, graduated, without any worry. Sure, at some point way off in the future I would address the call to a second career, a second vocation, and it was a comforting thought. I eventually grew happy in the surety that I would go into ministry in my life; it was inevitable. But for now, be a stage manager, enjoy being part of church in all the other ways I could as a lay person. It would come years and years in the future, when I was a proper grownup....right?

...Nope.

God bless.

The last two years before the start of this blog

I can't believe I have a personal connection with a
globally recognised British landmark!

I got confirmed into the Church of England on Easter Saturday, March 30th 2013, at St Paul's Cathedral, London, by the Bishop of London, The Rt Revd and Rt Hon Richard Chartres. (see previous blog for my journey before then.)

In preparation for my confirmation, I didn't have the schedule to be able to fit in conventional classes with the other candidates in a regular slot each week, so I had one-on-one sessions with the rector, and she gave me the homework. Thus started my spiritual journal, a little green leather bound notebook that lives in my handbag for any moment I feel the need to put my thoughts about all things religious and spiritual onto paper.

This was another tool in my religious arsenal and is still an essential part of my relationship with God. Since the confirmation homework, I've had arguments with myself within its pages, taken notes during talks or sermons or from books, questioned God, there's a section where I clarified for myself what I thought about "Me, Christ and casual sex" - it's basically the place I can do extempore prayer. For me personally, I have to write it, rather than think or say it, otherwise I use structured prayer. But I've been historically terrible at getting into the habit of things like morning prayer as well!

After my confirmation, I carried on my involvement at my church St James' Piccadilly, helping where I could around my degree course in stage management, and in the last year, around my career as a freelance deputy stage manager.

It was easier at college, as we never worked on a Sunday, and Christmas/Easter time was school holidays. But the slow dawning of how important church was becoming to me was highlighted at Easter in my third year, a year after my confirmation.

I was invited to join my friend on his uni's Alpine Club annual trip to the Isle of Skye. I won't regret going, it was a glorious experience, with some wonderful people, and I climbed my first Munro, but it was over Holy Week. I left on the Saturday before, and returned late on Easter Saturday, so I missed Palm Sunday through the Easter Vigil, turning up exhausted for the 11am service on Easter Sunday, and got a surprise.

Easter morning is better than Christmas, it really is. The joy and excitement is just explosive; St James' decorates the beautiful wood/stone interior with greenery, and puts out its gold plate; at least three members of the congregation will be handing out small chocolate eggs; there's professional singers backing up the choir so it sounds loud and angelic; everyone is happy, wishing each other 'Happy Easter!" with hugs and grins, and every hymn and sung response feels alive.

Easter Day 2014, I just couldn't get into the spirit of things. Without the build up of Holy Week - processing around the church with a real donkey, singing 5 part harmonies for the tourists on Piccadilly on Palm Sunday; the sacred space of The Three Hours on Good Friday, noon til 3 with music, readings, meditations and silence, contemplating the Cross; going to St Paul's for the majestic evening service followed by going to St James' for supper; sleeping in the nave, taking an hour to maintain the vigil in the candlelit side chapel; waking early to go into the grey dawn garden and take the first Eucharist of Easter with bread baked the previous night; processing with song into the church to the font; crying at the beauty of the rector singing the Exsultet; walking down to Piccadilly Circus with drums and whistles and bells, handing out chocolate eggs; returning to church for a cooked breakfast and a break before choir practice - without all that as run up, I was emotionally at just another service, and could not tap into the feeling all around me.

I was gutted. As I said, I'm not going to regret going on the trip, but it taught me just how much being able to connect to my faith through church had become important to me.

I've had various other frustrations over the last year, like I couldn't go to the Three Hours again, and that was a factor is a decision I made in the summer. I had been writing in the journal whenever the moment suited me, but in a bid to always have something I felt addressed my personal faith, as well as going to church in my community faith, I set myself the challenge of writing just two of its small pages every week, collecting my thoughts about the Sunday I had had. First entry 2nd August 2015, 9th Sunday after Trinity

.

But, you'll cry, you haven't mentioned your calling yet! It's there in those pages back in August - when did you get the call? Isn't that the POINT of this blog??

All will be answered in my next post! My storytelling instincts have led me to first set the scene, establish the background, the bones on which the true flesh of this project will be built. The little I know of the discernment process is that it understandably personal; the church cannot assess my calling unless they can get to know me. Who am I? Hopefully I've answered the relevant basics of that question in this and my last post, at least as in depth as necessary for this blog.

Coming next will be a meaty dissection of...THE CALL.

God bless

Video: My faith story before the start of this blog

Now it is a reasonable hour of the day, as opposed to the dead of night like my first post, I'm going to set out a few more details of who I am, and my faith journey so far, to give a bit of background to where I am now.

Who am I? From a secular point of view, I grew up in a rural village in a middle class county in the south of England, with my mum, dad, and younger brother. I was schooled at a private girls school and a mixed state sixth form, spent a gap year first on work experience then travelling (see this blog) and I realised I was bisexual age 14 (see another blog. You can see I like blogging). I went to drama school to do a degree in stage management, and I have been working in the theatre industry in London as a freelance stage manager since August 2014, so for just over a year as I type. This in itself was a vocation that I wanted to do since I was 15, but I have since realised that it was a step within my greater vocation ie. my calling to ministry.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. My mother is an atheist and my father is a non-practising pluralist. It wasn't that I grew up without God or being told God didn't exist, God just wasn't mentioned. I was baptised, but my parents really did it for social and cultural reasons. But my uncle gave us various children's Bibles so I had one as my favourite book for a while as a young child, without any real understanding of the stories as 'scripture'.

When I was 6, I spent two years at a Church of England primary school, so I learnt the Lord's prayer, said grace at lunchtime, sat through assemblies given by the local minister, and went to church twice a year, Harvest and Christingles services. I didn't like Harvest because it was at the really modern URC church (we had an ecumenical partnership in our village) but Christingles was in the tiny, ancient parish church that backed onto the fields. My love affair with the church started in those services, dark and cold but lit by candlelight with the magic of Christmas in the air, with the bonus of being trusted with open flame, and sweets of course. I'd blast out Shine Jesus Shine in the same way others my age sang the latest chart toppers or Disney tunes, and even when I left the school age 8, my dad took me each year for the next decade.

Consciously engaging with Christianity as a philosophy began in my Religious Studies classes at my new school. When I was about 12, my teacher answered a girl's question about what she personally as a Baptist thought counted to be Christian. She said if someone believed Jesus Christ was the Son of the one God, and he lived, died and was resurrected to save us from our sins, everything else was arbitrary, and even the how/why of those statements was up for debate. I looked down at the textbook on Christianity on my desk and realised I have thought of myself as a Christian since primary school but never thought about what I believed. It was more of a cultural default, part of being British. But I knew in that moment I did believe those two statements, so for the next years of school, I digested and dissected the different beliefs and practices of the different churches and navigated my own belief system.

When I was almost 14, I started noticing a girl around school who had a crucifix necklace, and I

On holiday after starting to wear
a cross. I still have that one.

asked for a cross necklace for my birthday (ie. one without a figure on it). I've worn a cross around my neck at all times since, nine years so far, and I've amassed a collection of different styles.

It was at sixth form, age 16, I met a girl who would become my best friend, who had grown up in a Church of England household, so knew a lot more about community worship. I knew the theory of worship styles, but had yet to find the motivation to go to a Sunday service or become involved in a congregation. So we would have discussions about our shared but basically very different religions, and she took me to one Sunday service in our two years studying for our A-Levels, as well as helping me pick out a Bible, which I had never actually thought about buying before, oddly.

On my gap year trip, I started going to church. It happened quite naturally, almost incidentally. My work experience had been with a Christian theatre group on tour, so I had had a little go at being with other Christians, like church-lite, but one day in a town called 1770 on the Australian coast, I went to a Sunday service and every week after that I googled the local Anglican wherever I woke up on the Sunday morning. I also picked up a devotional so I read that and the readings from my Bible, which I took with me, every day for a couple of months until it ran out.

Moving to London, one of my priorities was finding a church where I could throw myself in and really go for it. Having spent years working on my personal faith, time for some community faith.  [This is a view I have gained retrospectively. At the time, none of it seemed liked the steady step by step progression it was.]  I had met the associate rector of St James' Piccadilly in New Zealand, and I went along a few months after starting uni, and fell deeper in love. I could go on and on about St James', but for the purposes of this blog, the main things that SJP has done are: I go to church every week, I'm a reader, server, alto in the choir; I run the youth discussion group, gave a talk at the general discussion group. run the LGBT group including marching in the Pride parade with the Christians, do the tea and coffee after the service once a month; and I was confirmed in St Paul's Cathedral.

IN SUMMARY
6yr I went to Christingles
12yr I turned to Christ
14yr I wore a cross
18yr I went to church
19yr I found my church
21yr I got confirmed

I'll cover the last two years of my life in my next post. See you then!

God bless.

What this blog is about

It is 2am in the morning and I have decided to start this project. Possibly not the best time of day to make decisions, but I'm doing it anyway.

I am a 23 year old British woman who feels a calling to ministry, and I am at the absolute beginning of my journey of finding out whether that means life as an ordained priest. I am putting together various strategies and tools to use in this process and in general re-orientating my life in response to my calling, and this blog is hopefully one of them.

I am challenging myself to put up a blog, a vlog, or both, once a month, to try and articulate the process I'm going through, and order my thoughts into coherence. Because I cannot cope without a structure, a plan, and this is one of the most important things in my life so I'm going to try and do right, and damn thoroughly to boot, if I can help it.