Really difficult day yesterday from what I can remember. One of the problems I have just now is that I don't seem to retain information and most life happenings feel meaningless as though they are an alternative reality. So my more usual life has become increasingly unattainable and unrealistic as though I am watching a play going on around me - but I am no longer part of the action. I am verbally silent a lot of the time. Words are odd to hear out loud. Mine - not anyone elses.
Pragmatic decisions have to be taken. The Sanctuary is to be closed for the two months I am signed. It all feels unbelievable. I look at the blogs I wrote a few months ago and wonder who wrote them. I hate this feeling that the me-ness of me has somehow become detached. It's like a detached retina - I am emotionally-impaired just now. No stitch in time though.
One moment of spiritual insight came at about 4am. Agitated and unable to sleep I tried to go into a visualisation to see if I could distract myself. One that calms me at the moment is to move forward to a time when I am well again and we are busy setting up the community. I can't hold the imaginings for long but I feel I need to re-programme my brain at some level to acknowledge hope even when she feels her most hope-less.
I caught myself as I imagined moving into a large static caravan to begin the cobb self-build with a grass roof - let's face it I was never going to want to build a series of 'little boxes' - I turned my attention to the chapel - a circular building with solar panels and a grass roof - a bit like an igloo and I found comfort just sitting in this womb like space feeding splinters of wood into a large iron stove. Very Saxon. I reflected on why projecting forward in this way seemed to work and came to the conclusion it has much to do with recognising the deep desolation of not belonging. I am a passionate and compassionate priest but I have a deep dislike and suspicion of much of the Church borne out by bitter experience. I think my projection may well be about this deep longing to turn a sense of being unacceptable to an institution I passionately want to serve (part symptom of my illness and part on-going restlessness) into a deep sense of being present and belonging before God.
Being involved with the Church is rather like fostering a diffiult child. I have learnt to love the child but not always condone her behaviour. I love the Church and still feel the deepest connectedness to the Church as community and expression of incarnation but I am uneasy with her lack of transparency and accountability. I am suspicious of her use of power and her unwillingness to stand with those who are marginalised and seek justice.
Your Terms
To be a pilgrim on my terms has never be enough.
On your terms, dear God, may it be so.
To be a seeker within the comfort zone of all I have and with all I claim as essential to my identity is to miss the point of life
On your terms I seek, dear God, may it be so.
To be a traveller on the road to justice and the Kingdom is nothing more than armchair politicking and hot air buffeting through the reality of givenness.
On your terms I travel, dear God, may my life make it so.
Much love C
Posted by: carolynn | 09/02/2007 at 10:12 PM