I'm in the army! Eight years discernment later

 

Apologies for putting this video on the blog a while after it was published on Youtube. Also many apologies for not realising I had used the camera's audio not my mic's! 

I write this at the Chaplaincy Centre and watching that back, it feels like a million years ago even though it's only a few days since I said goodbye and moved out. It's all going well so far!

My future in the army? Seven years following a call

I am into my third year of curacy, and my second of priesthood. (If you want to see a little of what I've been up to, I have updated my Steps page with some highlights). As I have said throughout this blog, discernment of vocation is a rolling task, and my journey to ordained priest was just one chapter. Okay, may be more like a volume, but one of many in the series of my life. Our calling as Christians is never just one thing, to be figured out, then just keep doing it until you die. Even for clergy, whose calling has this headline to it, the context in which we are a priest changes; either called to the same place and/or people which will inevitably change simply with time, or called to different places and different people at different times.

Third year of curacy takes a turn towards 'the next step', looking ahead and starting to think about 'what's next', because just like the official discernment process looks to BAP, the BAP looks to college, and college looks to curacy, curacy looks to (usually) First Incumbency. This is often framed as the You've Made It ⭐️ stage: discernment and formation is done, the ordinand caterpillar has gone through the goo of the curacy chrysalis and emerged a slightly wet vicar butterfly. The diocese will help you with things like training, supervision, and mentoring (I believe), and eventually you'll be on the hamster wheel of MDRs (Ministerial Development Reviews). 

From what I can tell, the latter can be used brilliantly as a tool for clergy to continue in discernment and formation, but depends entirely on the drive of the individual, so some use it as a tickbox exercise because they are all-consumed by their parish. Any thought of personal development is dismissed or repressed because it is not priority enough to warrant carving time for amongst the day-to-day demands of their current role. Because it is 'personal', it is hard for clergy to see the wood for the trees - their 'ministry' only counts if it is parish-related.

I don't blame clergy who end up in this position one jot, and I will inevitably find myself in that groove at some point. I can only hope that I will manage to climb back out of it before I am irredeemably entrenched.

Theologian Frederick Buechner defines vocation as the place where “your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.” (See more here.) It is easy to slide from one extreme to the other on that scale, either doing something joyful and purposeless or something worthwhile and soul-sucking. The CofE is built on the parish system; it's the beating heart of this member of the body of Christ on and of this land, and I don't think it is possible to understand oneself to be part of the CofE without some tether into that system. So the majority of the clergy that are ordained into it are rightly called to be parish priests of some variety. I may at some point in the future discern that my calling will take me there, but at the moment, I feel called somewhere else. That is not currently where my deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. 

The seed of a calling to chaplaincy was planted in 2014 (God bless the Church Times book tent at Greenbelt!) you can see my post about it in 2015 here, and it has snowballed. From another post, a summary of my calling can be: 

"The main thing the [military] personnel reflected was that the Padre must care; 

and I thought "I can do that". 

I started reading about military chaplaincy. I talked to my first military chaplain in March 2016, see here. I started to grasp that military chaplaincy is a 'niche' calling, and discerning it was going to have to self-directed. At events, I chose to attend anything that discussed chaplaincy (where I got nuggets like thinking of it as a bit like being a friar in a community). Once I got to theological college, I did a placement with a school chaplain, but got excited when an RAF chaplain visited, so signed up to their recruitment stuff and did a visit in the summer of 2019. 

That May, I had talked to an incredible woman. [I love this story so I'll put it in full. A friend of mine from sixth form ended up in Newcastle, so we hung out while I was up in Durham. He invited me to a trip with his uni alpine society that includes alumni, and so we drove down to Cheddar Gorge. Over that weekend, I spoke to another alumni, and the clergy thing came up, and then so did the interest in the army. He said he was a reserves medic and loved their padre, and put me in touch with her.] That conversation not only got me so excited ("Sign me up, I want to do that!") but she put me in touch with the priest running the pilot Chaplain Cadet scheme. So I ended up spending Sep 2019-June 2020 at the NUOTC on placement.

My point is, this idea that I want to sign up as an army chaplain after curacy, rather than be an incumbent, has not come out of the blue, and it's not about running away from something (parish) but towards something (padre). It has been 8 years of discernment as a thread in my wider discernment. I'm looking at my 'next step' fairly early; one usually doesn't look until Christmas in year 3. But the application process means coordinating the behemoth institutions of the Army, the CofE, and the NHS, so I was advised that cracking on in January 2022 meant I would be sorted well in advance of the entry point Sep 2023.

I want to end my curacy with both feet still in the door. It might seem like getting things sorted early is the opposite of that, but doing all the application forms and visits and fitness training (I've joined a gym! WTF?! Follow me on Twitter to keep up with that drama) well in advance means that I won't be doing it in the last six months of being here, so I can really be here up until the last.

Like I said, I am a CofE priest, and that means I be definition can't leave the parish system as such. I am still operating under a bishop's licence as a chaplain, and I might up end up transitioning to be a reservist, where you are much more anchored in a diocese. I don't want to be a chaplain who disconnects, holes up in their institution, and imagines their ordained status as 'absolute' ie unrelated to any place (in the CofE, one cannot be ordained without being ordained into a role), as if their ministry is floating in a bubble. 

Some people suggest chaplaincy as a place for curacy and that is a rather stupid idea in my opinion. Curacy is, as Lucy always says, where you learn your muscle memory as a priest, and a priest in the Church of England is a priest of this Church and of this place, England. The ministry of this member of the body of Christ is defined as on and of this land, most definitively exercised in the parish system. Cof E Chaplains have anything to offer the places they serve because they are rooted in that system, and technically so are all the people they serve. If you are in or of an English diocese, you are under the cure of a bishop, shared to a specific priest in each place. I never want to forget that, and so regardless of my growing call to chaplaincy, this curacy has been my focus for its parochical nature. I am a CofE priest, I cannot pick and choose parts I like and think are 'relevant' to some future role I may have. 

I get that I am sounding a little defensive. I have picked up some very unjust opinions of chaplains from within the parish system, and so it is important to me in my reflections that I do not see them as different and certainly not opposed. Chaplaincy is more important now as less people go to church because it means the church going to where the people are. I see it as a very twenty-first century ministry in that regard, in a similar way to the church waking up to the importance of cathedrals. 

So at the moment, the next chapter looks set to be army chaplaincy. I say looks to be because firm plans are rarely a good idea in discernment; I try to keep to dreams and ideas most of the time, until decisions are needed, and they are not needed yet. The application process is rolling on, but I benefit from the policy that if I am offered a commission, I have five years to take it up. There's a lot of other factors in life to consider in the decisions to be made, and I'm trying not to rush, whilst at the same time sensibly getting on top of things that take time.

My questions are still the same as ever - where am I called to, what am I called to, who am I called to? My prayer always comes back to the verse quoted in this blog's title: "Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning, for in you I put my trust. Teach me the way I should walk in, for to you I lift up my soul." (Psalm 143). Discernment continues to be hard, which is not what I thought would happen. I thought I would make it through to being a fully qualified priest at the end of curacy and it would let up slightly, that I would have established my sense of purpose so following a path would be easier.

But it is a rolling task, as I said. I feel lucky that I have been gifted the years of groundwork that mean I do not see end of the curacy as a big, scary void that I have to fill with some job somewhere that I'm only starting to think about now. My next step is not decided, but it is slowly being sketched out, a dream of a butterfly with camo wings. I think it will be both worthwhile for the world and joyful for me; I can imagine that I will work to feed a part of the world's deep hunger, and get my own deep gladness. That's what it feels like when I contemplate being a padre. I can do that.

Love story of redemption

I don't do this often, if I've even ever done it, but I was kind of chuffed with a recent sermon of mine, and seeing as some (though very few) have asked to read it, I thought to post it up here.

Christmas Day 2021

A week or two ago, I saw on Twitter that there was a radio adaptation of one of my favourite books, Howl's Moving Castle, so one evening when I was too tired to even watch television, I got a hot water bottle, a blanket, and a cup of tea, and I just listened to the story. It was a lovely hour, and afterwards I said to my partner, “I don't really know why I love this book so much”, and his instant response was, “love story of redemption”. And I was just stunned, first by how well he knows me and as I will explore, being truly known is a cornerstone of love, but second by the totemic and fundamental nature of that phrase. Love story of redemption. That’s an integral understanding of our faith. That's four words that sum up the gospel. And from an agnostic!

So if you don’t know it, Howl's Moving Castle is a fantasy novel about Sophie Hatter, a young woman full of grace and truth who has an astonishing power – her words can breathe life into the world. She inadvertently speaks spells over the hats she makes, and draws the attention of the villain, The Witch of the Waste, an incredibly vain woman who has given her heart to a fallen star in exchange for power, and who is threatened by Sophie’s magic. She curses Sophie to appear to be an old woman.

Sophie doesn’t think it’s too bad, but it does mean she has to leave, as she can’t tell her family about the curse, and they won’t recognise her. Once she heads off, she ends up at the titular moving castle, which floats over the hills around her town. She enters and finds Michael who is the apprentice to the castle’s owner, the Wizard Howl, and she also meets Calcifer, a fire creature stuck in service to Howl in a contract that Calcifer persuades Sophie to figure out and break. He promises in exchange to lift her curse that he has been able to recognise. When Howl turns up, he accepts Sophie as a live-in housekeeper, and she starts to get to know him.

Howl thinks he is literally king of the castle, but really he’s a mess. He’s overdramatic, spends hours getting ready in the bathroom, and he pursues young women until they fall in love with him, at which point he scarpers. Sophie describes him thus: “he's fickle, careless, selfish, and hysterical. Half the time I think he doesn't care what happens to anyone as long as he’s alright but then I find out how awfully kind he's been to someone. Then I think he's kind just when it suits him, only then I find out he undercharges poor people. I don't know, he's a mess.” A prophetic moment is when Michael says that he'll know when Howl is truly in love when Howl doesn't bother to primp and preen before going out.

Now here come some spoilers, but luckily I can’t possibly sum up the whole book, because there’s a whole series of storylines that all wrap up together at the end, so please, do read it if you haven’t already. Sophie realises she’s fallen in love with Howl, but resigns herself to being invisible to him. The Witch of the Waste wants the punish Howl because she is one of the women he dumped, and so sets up an elaborate trap. Sophie falls for it, thinking there’s an innocent woman to save, and in an act of sacrifice for Howl, Sophie is captured in the Waste. Howl comes tearing across the country to save her, unshaven, clothes a mess, dirty and dishevelled, his complete focus on Sophie causing him to ignore his own appearance. Sophie finally works out that Calcifer is a fallen star who has Howl’s heart to stay alive, so she takes Howl’s heart from Calcifer, a heart blackened and shrivelled, and breathes new life into Calcifer, before putting Howl’s heart back in his flesh and dispelling its darkness. She finds she has been transformed back to a young woman, and it turns out that Howl has been falling in love with her in return. They defeat all the baddies, Calcifer decides to stay, and the three of them with Michael become a happy little family.

So. It’s a love story of redemption. What I see is relationship, existence, and identity. What I see is the Christmas story, at least from the cosmic perspective, from the perspective of John’s gospel. It’s not a huge surprise as the author, Dianna Wynne Jones, attended lectures at Oxford by both JRR Tolkien, and CS Lewis.

Relationship, existence and identity, exactly that I see in the John reading. It's all there. How do you know love? How do you see it? How do you choose it?

The villain is ego, diverting our resources towards power and control, and making snap judgements based on appearances and fear, manipulating the world with aggression and duplicity.

The hero is unassuming, devoted, kind, compassionate, and very brave. Words, which are both rational and creative, see through the dazzle and the lies. The truth is brought to light, and life is breathed into the world, where even the wastelands would break forth into song. To persist, to see, and know, and love, that is what wins, a sacrifice that might not be requited. That is what leads to a tidy home, the end of evil, and a disparate household that becomes a united family.

The protagonist – look, I’m afraid in this analogy, we’re the wizard, humanity is Howl. On his own, he is an absolute mess, without eyes to see, not living a true life. His heart is confined by bad habits and destructive ways of thinking. He resists love at first sight, even at second and third. He needs light to see and truth to know. And he can’t do it on his own. It is only when he begins to take responsibility that he runs towards what is good for him, that he devotes himself to the right relationship, not power, that he starts to leave behind that which was sucking the life out of him. It is only when he is honest about his need for the one who loves him that he starts to participate in the work that will truly redeem both himself and his world. 

But even once he has made the right choice, it is the one who is the word of life who must give him his new heart, his new flesh, the ability to love truly. She came to him, to be with him, and she saw him, the truth of him, and she loved him. Being known, truly, is a cornerstone of love. He was blind at first, but then he saw, he chose, he changed, and no longer king of the castle, he became hers. The relationship shifted, deepened, and his heart newly recreated beat with intimate access to the cosmic reality that is true love.

Relationship is our purpose, the ability to love truly.

Existence means nothing with power, but everything with love.

Identity is dynamic, chosen and given, seeing and knowing and devoting.

God sees us, and knows us, and sought us out even as we built our illusions and castles in a world forlorn. God persisted, even as we did not know him, born in a backwater, little tiny heart beating for the world in his little tiny chest. He loved us into existence, his purpose in being born was to invite us into relationship, and in choosing love he gives us our identity, he gives us a heart of flesh, the gift of true love. A love story of redemption

07/09/2021 Six years a-calling

Yet again an anniversary post that is a little late!

What does it mean to have a calling once you've been ordained?

The 'process' is so geared towards this final goal of ordination that it has nothing more to say afterwards. It's about post-ordination training. You're not discerning any more, you're doing it, you're living out your calling.

Well, I think that's not the right attitude at all. At the moment, I am following a training path of discovering what kind of priest I am to be. Then I must discern where I am called to after curacy, how to navigate things on my own, and also negotiate all the different parts of my life together as a priest. Discerning the lifestyle that goes with the vocation is as never-ending a task as the vocational stuff itself.

Life leading up to priesting proved a challenge. I kept forgetting that I was going to be priested, that it is a big deal and that I should have been getting excited by it. There was no building of anticipation. I will have to look back on my life and see two ordinations that were stripped back, joyless stepping stones, rather than celebratory, defining moments, as well as attend the ordinations of others that will be everything I never got, and I am severely disappointed. Is that selfish? Should I not just be glad that I could be priested? 

I have had some very formative moments recently enabling me to put into practice the theory about boundaries - how to put ministry things aside when having time off, how to put personal things aside when at 'work', plus deciding what priorities I have, when does the personal reasonably intrude, when does ministry reasonably ask sacrifice. This is also the tussle I'm having with my feelings about the priesting. I find it hard to discern what is reasonable to be upset about, and what is actually just one of the many parts of the vocation that I have to accept as asking a lot and move on. 

Once you're ordained, what are you willing to do or forsake for your calling?

My answer to that in 2021 will be different to what I would have said in 2015 before all this, and to what I would have said in 2019 while at college. It will change again over the years, I am sure. As will the answer to what I am not willing to do. 

Luckily, I am in a tradition where I could get excited about my first mass. Being priested meant starting to preside at the eucharist, and the first time I did that, I was able to actually be with the people who love and support me, as well as the people of my parish. What it means to have a calling right now is reflecting on what the eucharist means and what my part in it will be, as well as learning how my TI wants me to do it, and what I like and what I don't. 

Thoughts of the future are also getting bigger and bigger. In 2016, life narrowed down to the next year at SMITF, then it turned to the next three years at Cranmer, now it is the next 20 months of curacy with thoughts to what next after that. Will I get into the army, train at Sandhurst, then start as a chaplain? Is that where I'll be in 2024? Nothing is certain, nothing as been certain since I started this journey, but with the priesting, there is only being signed off my curacy as the final, definite hurdle, after which the world opens up again and I can look to live with opportunity and possibility, with more certainty, or at least choice and autonomy, than I'll have known for almost ten years. Only 20 months left on the vocation treadmill, and then... anything. 

Am I 'called' to be an army regulars padre? Am I called to a combination of roles, part time at a cathedral, a college chapel, and reserves army perhaps? Am I called to a particular part of the country, or to travel to different places around the world?

Right now I'm more concerned with the sermon I haven't finished, the LLF discussion group next week, the Advent course to write, the Christingle service to plan, the Deanery Chapter meeting we're hosting, posters to design and send off to print, a possible wedding couple to meet, an assembly series on the Lord's Prayer to design, going on two self-led readings days, trying to get ahead on Christmas cards and presents, my tax return is due, and the works on my leaking roof are still going on.

I wrote about the micro and the macro in my last blogpost, and that continues. What I've been reflecting on recently is how much I'm working out what I have learnt over the last six years. Noticing moments that I can track back to my year at St Martin's for example. My hairdresser commented recently that she was always impressed that I was able to answer all her questions, that I knew so much and could quote the Bible. Now, I don't think of myself as excelling in theological education - I have evangelical friends who know the Bible way more, catholic friends who know history and liturgy way more, and fellow curates who are much better and wider read than me in theology. 

But six years in, one thing I have is six years of doing this, intentionally, on top of interest and church engagement for 4 years before that. I am so, so grateful that I got three years to study, that I have a budget for putting books on my expenses, the time to put aside two days to read. I don't talk theology academically a lot, but those 6-10yrs are the underpinning of all that I do (on top of 29 years in relationship with God). 

Whether I'm debating integrity with the vicar, explaining marriage law to the LLF group, bantering at POT about how many sacraments there are, having tea with the only other female clergy person in the deanery, having dinner with a bereaved congregation member, chatting with the headteacher after assembly, shadowing the local hospital chaplain, scheduling emails, voting for Synod, handling DBS checks, hauling chairs from church to my house, communicating on the parents WhatsApp, or interviewing an evangelical who is against same-sex marriage - it's all coming from the years already done and the continuing study and formation, and generally not consciously at all.

It feels like, since August, I have started to turn a corner in my curacy. I am starting to show a marked confidence in most of what I'm doing, which is really encouraging. One factor will definitely be that since things opened up again in July and people are feeling more confident about living with Covid, I've been able to know people better, get to know some I had not even met yet, and just spend time over things that used to be restricted or impossible.

I definitely need a retreat though. This comes up every time I have spiritual direction. I had gotten into the discipline of a week's true retreat once a year, generally in the summer. That just wasn't possible last year, fair enough, but still hasn't been possible this year, which is starting to be a problem. That's why I'm using up annual leave for a week off soon, and two of those days are dedicated non-fiction reading days - both in bookshop cafes, one in this city, one in another. It's a plaster over the issue, and I'm planning on a proper retreat in the new year, but it'll tide me over, I hope.

One last thing I'll leave with you. The feeling of 'calling' waxes and wanes; sometimes I just don't have any sense of why I'm doing this with my life, other times I am overwhelmed with a sense of rightness and purpose. One of those times was when I read this sermon by Sam Wells as part of my sermon prep. It brought up feelings I don't think I've really felt in earnest since I plunged into college. I now relate to the opening illustration, the sense that my priesthood is bigger than my religion, the difficulty of being obedient, and holding to the fundamentals as "being practiced in the presence of God and being a reconciling presence in the life of others". I have definitely started to see what it means "to open your heart not only to see your own tears but to share the tears of others, to face the bleakness and tragedy of much of human life sustained only by one fragile consolation – that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ".

I'm up and running in 'Year Two' of curacy though it feels a bit like 'Year One 2.0'. Six years later I've come so far, and I thank God for getting me here. Who knows what will happen over the next 12 (11!) months?