Video: BAP prep for next week!

And just for fun, my Pentecost outfit this year:

Video: DDO 6 / The Rector's Reference

Since seeing the DDO, I have seen the rector's reference and it's such a relief. It's very positive and shows the depth that Lucy has tried to get a sense of where I'm at, to be sure of her judgement before committing herself to sponsoring me, and I wouldn't expect anything less of her, though of course her doing that has made her feel at times incomprehensible and inaccessible to me.

The reference reflects and clarifies my own understanding of our journey together, which is reassuring, and I am deeply grateful for all her past, current, and continuing support. Her importance lies as my sponsoring incumbent, but I can't help being also aware that support from someone so loved, respected and admired in the Church on a national level is quite the feather in my cap.

Counter to my last statements in the video, if nothing happens for a time, I have a few things to talk about on this blog before the process continues, including the Towards Ordained Ministry course I start on Monday and a week shadowing a priest in Scotland in February, both of which are important parts of my journey I think, so you can look forward to those, plus Gabriel Collective's Leicester Event on Feb 4th, which should include the rather daft promo video which I'll tweet next week @TechieGeorgina. Because it's in February, we're doing luuuurve as our theme! If you fancy joining us, check out the above link and let me know if you're coming!

I also had my second session with a spiritual director yesterday, and it's basically going how I thought it would after finding out what spiritual direction is about, and I like her, I think she's helpful; and it was a well-timed week that the day before, the Pastoral Assistants support group had a session talking about one's inner life as the source of strength and understanding from which to centre the rest of one's life. So after feeling like I'd spiritually unplugged when I went back to my parents over Christmas, I'm inspired to redouble my spiritual efforts.

Video: Twelfth visit to the rector

The topic Lucy emphasised in our conversation was 'unmendedness', that of others and that of yourself, and coping with it as a priest. It isn't skill, but wisdom, part of the wisdom of just being a person - remaining 'alive' inside, and finding strategies that keep you connected.

Sometimes there's a temptation to 'pastoral lust', the desire to give someone clear direction because you think you can fix their life. But Lucy said you are always wrong. You've got to let people go to hell in their own way; your job is to accompany them but not end up in hell yourself. The way to do that is getting into your own mess. The harsh truths about myself don't stop here, the job is a perpetual journey and the harsh truths keep coming. The strategies that keep you connected have to deepen your trust in God.

It was all very interesting and really getting into the formation nitty gritty of priesthood, the personhood that is essential, the wisdom that must be opened to rather than learnt like a skill.
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Since things are going to get serious once the DDO kicks off the next stage, Lucy also wanted to make sure I don't approach this like any other job interview, like some exam or achievement to attain. As much as positive thinking and optimism is essential to fend off despair and hopelessness, neither extreme is the right attitude.

Between getting a BAP date and going on it, Lucy recommended that I take some time out to truly imagine getting a 'no', or a 'not yet'. It's important that I don't lose sight of the reality of the possibility that that will be my result. The way I put it was that I'm consciously trying to keep my attitude in the 'if' space. I never say 'when I go to theological college', only 'if'. Otherwise I'm really risking my emotional health.

That's about it, the cliffsnotes version anyway. See you after the next meeting!

Video: This is what discerning feels like/DDO 5

This won't make sense unless you watch the video, which is clips from 5th December and 15th December so make sure you watch it first:

This post was written throughout the following weeks since the video over Christmas.

I will paraphrase the report, as it is a personal document between me, my DDO, and the psychotherapist who wrote it, so I'll try not to break confidence and quote it directly. The part that caused concern was it was felt that my emotional maturity still needed some development; that I didn't let or allow painful experiences affect me ie. I put truly difficult feelings at a distance. This led to doubts that I should go forward for selection at this time. It wasn't a 'no', just a 'not yet'.

Firstly, I'll step back and address why this was flagged; why, if it's true, this is a problem for a potential priest. Lucy was helpful in explaining this context. It has become an important part of the discernment process that as well as assessing whether someone has the call, would be good at the job, and would an asset to the Church and its congregations, etc, there's also an emphasis on assessing whether they will be able to handle the job, and can look after their own health and mental health.

Priests are under so much pressure and encounter so much of the drama of life, so much of other people's suffering, that without the proper tools - eg understanding how they work best, having a support network that is reliable, making good use of that network, having stable strategies to deal with their own emotions in emotional situations - they will probably eventually implode or explode, or 'burn out' as is the common phrase.

This is referencing Criterion D: Personality and Character, which says "Candidates should be sufficiently self-aware, mature and stable to show that they are able to sustain the demanding role of an ordained minister. They should be able to demonstrate how they have faced change and pressure in a balanced and flexible way and how they manage stress." To evidence this to the selectors, candidates "should be able to speak of how they have coped with difficult life experiences, how they have reflected upon them and incorporated them within their life and understanding."

Drawing further from the criteria, I don't think the therapist thought I am completely reconciled to my own vulnerabilities and limitations, and she had worries about my capacity to assimilate and deal appropriately with my own response to negative or difficult life experiences. If I were to be a priest like this, the chances are that it would break me.

Talking with Lucy was tough. I felt like she really jumped on this as a grade A excuse to stop me going forward, making suggestions of what I could do instead in September, like spending a year at a L'Arche community. I was glad I went to her, because she emphasised the importance of not thinking about the timing, not letting the practicalities cloud my thinking about the important stuff, which was in fact discerning something personal. But it was disheartening that she seemed quite so keen to stop me; she did say she would support me if I decided to continue, but with a look that suggested she was already trying to work out how to comfort me when I get rejected. But this could just be bias based on residual resentment from the first part of our exploration, when I was wrongly frustrated at her.

I have since talked to my parents, who have the advantage of coming at this report with a fairly comprehensive understanding of my emotional/psychological history, and I was unsurprised that it was this conversation that has been most helpful. I can now see the grain of truth that the psychotherapist was trying to point out. She didn't get it right, of course not, she met me for only 90minutes, so she over-estimated what she saw. But she did identify something that could be a problem if I went ahead unaware of it.

I do compartmentalise when it comes to crisis or problem-solving or being helpless. And there have been times that I have parked my emotional response to a situation over to one side and not dealt with it as well as I could have. But it's not something I do every time. Most of the time I do deal with it, but up til now it's not been a conscious process - I've been lucky that without realising I needed something, like to do something about the situation, or talk to my boyfriend, or go out with friends, or take a day to myself, or whatever the strategy was, I did it without thinking. So the times I didn't handle it well were the times that I wasn't lucky, that I didn't accidentally sort myself out. Now I'm aware of my lack of strategy, over the next few years I can put conscious thought into what I need and eventually those moments of failing to deal properly will be very rare and not based on accidental luck.

Pausing the discernment process now isn't going to help. Yes, there are things I could do to show I have started addressing the issue raised, and talking to my landlord who is studying to be a priest himself, I understand I can't just give empty reassurance that I will mature in my relationship with my emotions - they need hard evidence, so I will have to do one or two of those things, like work experience with a prison chaplain or volunteering for the Samaritans. Lucy was keen that I get more experience of being in situations where someone is suffering and I cannot fix it, which mean I can't respond with action, and those seem more plausible options than her main suggestion.

Sure I can see her concern that if I was plopped into a job as priest right now, I might not cope so well. That's what the psychotherapist thought as well. But I'm not going forward to be a priest now. I'm going forward to selection for training. Three years of academic study and formation at college, then three to four years of experience and formation in curacy - this will bring me to being a minimum of 31yo before I am officially able to work as an unsupervised priest, and 31yo me will look a lot different to 24yo me. She'll have learnt about herself and gone through years of life, and life generally matures you even if you resist. And now I'm forewarned of one of the issues to put some effort into developing, I'm doing the opposite of resisting!

This report hasn't been given to me to stop me. Like I said in the video, I would know something like that in my gut, in my bones. It's not got the feeling of a change in direction. No, this was handed to me as an opportunity to start digging into myself below the surface, and listen to the people around me. I had a similar experience in the first year at Guildhall, so God has precedent doing this in my life. That time I needed to become more aware of myself and some of my faults to get into the right frame of mind to train as a stage manager; this time I need to do the same and go deeper, building on everything my 8 years in backstage theatre has given me, to begin the second stage of my vocation, and become the priest I'm meant to be.

As Lucy and I discussed, this is what discerning feels like. This is the inward looking journey that I need to go on, because it's not just the Church that needs to get to know me - I need to learn more about myself as well. This has been hard. As you can see, I got this news weeks ago and it's only now that I'm getting a handle on what it means for me. I didn't want to acknowledge that I had issues to resolve - you can see in the video how determined I was in my initial reaction to circumvent the long hard look at myself to which Lucy pushed me. But this is what is needed. Even if I become the Archbishop of Canterbury - first among equals, primate, archbishop, bishop, priest - I am always laity first, a frail human being that is a single part of the body of Christ. If I don't know who I am as a person, I won't come to know myself as a priest.

I want to see Lucy one more time before I go back to the DDO and tell him I want to continue. Hers is always a useful insight and I want to further our conversation with the developments in my own thinking since our last meeting. I've also received a 'write something every day for 365 days' notebook for Christmas, and I've challenged myself to express my emotions in this notebook - not what I think, but how I feel, and it's already proving that I'm not very clear on my own emotions, so hopefully it'll be another useful tool in self-awareness.

Post Script
As for the priest's report, to be honest it was just really nice. He said I seemed to have two sides, a more precise side and a wilder side, and he said that as a compliment, he found me to be engaging; and it's also had quite an impact on me by pointing out that I do in fact have quite a dedicated prayer life, I've just been too perfectionist about it. This was useful to have pointed out, and I'm less anxious now about feeling inadequate vis a vis prayer. Those are the things that have stuck with me, so I'm not going to get it out and analyse further.

Happy New Year! (Next time you see me, I'll be filming on my new camera, wahoo!)

Video: DDO 4

Thoughts on the lay person's report:
She very much structured her conversation and her report within the Criteria, which is interesting to see. Her report doesn't give a lot of opinion or judgement but she lays out who she thinks I am by summarising what she heard. So for example under criterion A: vocation, she doesn't say whether she thinks I have one, but puts what I said about it, sometimes couched as 'Georgina recognises this'. Later, she says I am committed to ministry, which is not how I phrased it, that's her interpretation, which is good, I'm glad she got that impression, because it is true, but such a clear statement is in my favour. A really nice and positive sentence is "I found Georgina to be very self aware and perceptive." Whoop! And the end is just great: "I found Georgina open and honest with an enormous amount of enthusiasm...Georgina is willing, articulate and reflective, with an engaging manner." That's encouraging.

My to-do list:
- Revise my enquiry form
- contact the chaplain at a prison
- contact a friend who is a priest in a 'normal' parish about shadowing for a week
- contact the army chaplain I spoke to about visiting her
- start the process of getting a spiritual director
- list examples of leadership that I have done
- go to open days (scary!)

Sidenote: If you in the UK, the Gabriel Collective are having an event in London on December 10th 2016, which should be amazing. We'll be making films about the meaning of Christmas. Sign up on the website.

Video: DDO 3

You may be wondering why I haven't seen the rector in a while. Well, she's done almost all her part now, apart from writing a reference as my sending priest, and she's able to sit back into a more pastoral role. I haven't gone back to her yet because I haven't go much more to say at this point - I haven't hit any hurdles or problems that I would want to discuss, nor has the Process gotten to any deep and meaningful stage yet.

I keep reminding myself that God is part of this. It's very easy to get blinkered to just the form filling and story telling, where it should also be a continuing dialogue between me and God as well as me and the church. But I know God's in all this - God is the reason, motivation, strength and guidance whether I remember that or not!

Video: DDO 2

I said at the end of this video that I'd put 'everything else' in the blogpost, but there's not much more to tell really. The meeting happened last week, so since then I've filled in the form and the DDO has said that he himself will be my DO for discernment, so we're going to meet again to go over the form and he can get to know my story. He'll request references, and soon he wants to start setting up 3 assessors, a lay person, a priest, and a psychology professional, with whom I will have 3 hour long conversations on which they will write a report each. I've also registered for the London Diocese Towards Ordained Ministry 'course' which is six Monday evening talks/events in Jan/Feb. And I spent an afternoon this week with a lot of other interns and PAs from the diocese, doing a safeguarding overview.
That's all there is for the moment! It's all quite smooth really, I'm just carrying on, doing my job, filling in forms. It's a feeling of forward motion that's like when you're on a train, where you feel simultaneously like you're sitting still.

Video: DDO 1

I went to see the Area Director of Ordinands for Two Cities Area in the Diocese of London. We spent an hour talking, and like I said in the video, it was mostly going over what The Process will look like. There wasn't any expectation that I would actually contribute or say much beyond a little bit about myself, which was quite a relief to be honest.

In the last clip, because it was the end of the day and I was genuinely about to go to bed, I totally forgot to mention the one exciting part of the conversation.

If you've followed this blog for a while, you'll know that I was originally very eager to get going and went through a period of severe frustration before coming to terms with the slow nature of exploration and discernment of vocation. In the last few months I have become content with letting go of planning and just being led without knowing the long term timetable, only expecting that it would be rather a long time.

So imagine my surprise, when I was asked about a time frame, and I replied that I understood that starting the process October 2016 gave too short a time to aim to go for theological training September 2017, that the response was that, in fact, that is exactly what he would recommend! So going forward, that's what my assigned DO and I will be aiming for! See below for the terrifying details.

Scary new information:
- this part of discernment is in two clear cut phases. Phase One is the part I'm in now, first meeting with the DDO, through the conversations with my assigned DO. Eventually, the DO will set up a meeting with the Archdeacon (on behalf of the Bishop, because in London, the Bishop is understandably busy!) who will then recommend or not to the Bishop that I be put forward for selection, and if yes, the Bishop's office will send a letter authorising moving forward. Once I have that letter in my hand, Phase Two starts - getting a BAP date, then putting together the application paperwork, submitting the paperwork, preparing for the BAP, and then of course going on the BAP. Phase Two is a minimum 12 week period

Looking at the BAP dates 2017, the latest one I could go to with the plan to start college Sep 2017, is Jun 26 - 29, so I would have start Phase Two by Apr 3, and submit paperwork by May 15. Holy smokes, that's so soon! Just 6 months away!!

Other new information:
- the DO is well beyond their own doubts about a candidate when they decide to start proceedings to register them on a BAP; they don't make that decision if they are unsure, and they become an advocate on behalf of the candidate, helping them best present themselves to others
- Evangelical churches, certainly in London, have their own circles of support
- after being recommended for training, you don't have to go immediately. The recommendation has a 3 year use-by date.

I'm going to fill in my form, and meet with the DDO again next week. OMG THIS IS HAPPENING. And breathe.