This last weekend should have been full of anticipation and joy - the high spot in the Christian Calender - instead I felt like I'd been hit across the face with a damp kipper (not my favourite fish at the best of times).
My CPN and I had talked about my faith during our last session and I felt at the time that my confessional position hadn't changed much as a result of the illness. He reminded me it was a common symptom for people of faith to feel that they have lost or are loosing their faith during the tougher periods of ill health.
I reflected quite deeply in the moment as we talked - but as I said the words that I had always been a liberal and so therefore doubt and disbelief are, by their nature, a sign of a healthy respect for not having a full-proof religious 'system' - I could sense something wasn't sitting quite comfortably in my solar plexus. Over recent days I have taken time when painting; relaxing; and over the last two days, becoming increasingly anxious and staying in bed, to think about what is going on for me.
I was badly 'caught' by Easter weekend. I had originally planned to keep Holy Week and attend worship at our Cathedral. I thought a week of being ministered to and enjoying thought-provoking worship would bed me down once more in my vocational service. Like the people invited to the banquet in the Gospel, each evening I had an excuse - somthing good on TV; wanting to continue to paint; feeling tired; the weather.
I have spent the last three days trying to work out why I am 'avoiding' the confessional elements of Christianity just now. At a deep level I am wrestling with a sense of shame; shame that I have a different 'take' on faith; shame that I cannot simply play the game - and not utilise my intellectual and intuitive capabilities; shame that I am not fulfilling my vows at ordination.
At another level I feel, like many liberal Christians, we are moving through a time of Reformation as a Church which will be seen in the future as significant and far-reaching. My transforming thoughts and personal concerns are part of a wider agonising about what the Church's identity is in the 21st century. I cannot name any unasailable truths - just cosmic work in progress. For now I am aware much more of the random, indiscriminate nature of life and death than I am of the divine hand intervening in my personal affairs. I am a 'critical friend' to the institution that I have served since I was nineteen.
At the moment I am at a loss to see how I will continue to be a part of of the Church as a priest - and yet I have taken my ordination vows and I still take them very seriously. I am called to practice humility, mercy and compassion - but for now, I inhabit a place of desolation in terms of faith. I sense that my compassion and caring 'tanks' are running on empty and that I cannot find a spiritual home within the conventions of Church which have often felt as though it is constraining rather than enabling me.
Yesterday I was so paralysed by my guilt I couldn't attend lunch with friends. I am a priest who stands looking in. Like the child on the boundary of the playground. Sadly just now I am not sure that I can go back to playing the Church's equivlent of 'tag' - or to put it another way - 'stay on the Church's dominant message' and not disturb or encourage all people to think and develop a mature informed religious understanding.
Kim McMillen:
When I loved myself enough I lost my fear of speaking my truth for I have come to see how good it is.
Reflecting Theologically.... perhaps the very essence of the Christian faith is a "Broken Alleluia".
We have a phrase in the Godly Play Easter story....
One side of the picture card has an dark image of the suffering crucified Christ the other is of the Risen Christ being known in the breaking of bread...
The Godly Play text goes....
"You cannot have this side without this side.... and you cannot have this side without this side... and you cannot pull them apart.... that is the Mystery of Easter.
Desolation and the absence of faith seems very much part of the spiritual journey....John of the Cross et al...
You are very much held and loved Jane.
C
Posted by: carolynn | 03/24/2008 at 04:41 PM