Are the voices in my head too loud for you?

Lines in the Sand

The weather has been stunning and I have taken to meditating out on the decking by our bedroom door.  Even with my limited sight, the sounds, smells and warmth have been very powerful and life-affirming.

Our son has been home and has helped progress the cutting down of the Leylandi.  But. in amongst his helpful periods, he has left enough messages sublimally to help us realise he is going through a tough period right now.  I think it is harder than ever to be a teenager these days.  Our young are exposed to so much that it is little surprise that they find it almost impossible to decipher what is and isn't acceptable or life-enhancing behaviour.  Without any clear filters through which to assess all that is thrown at them, I suspect many adolescents spend vast amounts of time very frightened at the deepest level.  Carrying a knife is more about fear and an inability to make sense of situations in a safe, non-confrontational way than it is about bravado.

I wonder what the most helpful response is to the challenges facing our children.  Clearly protecting them or judging them are both equally counter-productive.  Perhaps all we can do is to show as clearly as possible how we cope - without thrusting our value systems down their throats; maybe all we can do is listen and encourage them to trust their instinct and judgement.  Maybe all we can do is to be effective boundary keepers - drawing the line in the sand which it is advisable not to cross.  We then have to stand back and, now and again, watch them deliberately rub the line out, kick the sand up behind them and march off into the middle distance!  It is hard - but an important part of testing boundaries and making one's own mind up.  I am currently washing the sand out of my eye!

Humph now weighs 16.45kg and looks like a 'proper' dog - although his coat is a bit of a giveaway!  He still resembles an enormous fluff ball!

Timber!

We have been plagued recently with a number of telephone calls for Scottish Hydro Electric.  They began a few days ago and had almost reached the point where one of us was going to phone Scottish Hydro and see if we could find out what was going on!  A very kind soul rang back after his failed attempt to log his  metre reading with us .  He, along with many others it seems, made the easy mistake of phoning the date on their estimated reading card instead of the free phone number.  Mystery solved.

Our son is home and as I type is out with his Dad cutting down huge Leylandi trees.  The first crack and fall has resulted in brilliant sunlight flooding the small garden we whimisically refer to as the Paddock and our bedroom.  The difference is amazing.  Although the wood is pretty gunky, in these financially strapped times if we leave the sap to dry out, it may well be OK to burn through the winter.  They tend to be a little like fire crackers - but heat is heat.

Wonderful to see the two of them working together - our son so nearly a man - helping and popping in and out.

I caught a smashing documentary last night with John Barrowman exploring his own sexuality and whether he is the product of nature or nurture as an out, gay man.  None of the research was new - but it was presented in a highly personable format with John Barrowman as the guinea pig.  I thought it a brave attempt to restore sanity to the demonising myths around homosexuality.  I watched some of it with my partner and son - and felt we were all the better for seeing it.  It made a stark and necessary contrast to my other TV watch last night.  I am glad I only caught the final minutes of a rather odd documentary on the new Anglican Alliance - that sounds like an over the counter cure for indigestion - you know the one?  I refuse to give the organisation credence by printing its name. 

I couldn't help thinking as I watched Archbishop Akinola's ego growing palpably with each round of hyperbole and chorus of certainty regarding the sinful nature of the liberal church, that it will be an awfully great adventure not to have to pretend to be a Church as wide in our doctrine as we are varied in our spirituality - and simply get on with the business of being inclusive without having to worry about those who want to represent a different interpretation of the Gospel.  A covenant would be a work of convenience not an authentic expression of belonging.  Let those who historically have been persecutued by a Canterbury-centric Church have the freedom to be what they believe they are called to be.  In the end we are all judged not by what we say we believe but by our actions; by the moments when we risk our very selves.

I have no doubt Archbishop Akinola and many others are risking their very selves and I delight in that.  I think schism is actually a sign the Holy Spirit is working with great energy and discernment.  People who need power to create identity and who need others to sign on dotted lines of belief soon find that within their organic ranks apostasy will coagulate and spawn new life - as division begets further division - and different dotted lines become demarcation lines and departure points. 

Staying together no matter what is a good strategy when you are on a life raft in shark infested waters - but at a time when globally we are living through a technically, socially and economically highly unpredictable global experience - diversity may actually add strength and much needed sustenance to the basic tenets of the overall diversity of the Christian faith and its accompanying spiritual journey.

The trouble with breakaway movements is that generally speaking a number of disaffected folk with strong, unmet agendas often jump ship to join the new emerging ideology.  That can apply to the liberal as well as the conservative aspects of the Church.

I hate the way 'orthodox' has now been degenerated into meaning conservative regarding the use of the Bible and social and moral teaching - it used to mean an acceptance of the received teachings and beliefs of a value system - in all it's complex and provisional forms - not the creation of dogma as an evangelistic tool to put some clear, blue spiritual 'water' between African Anglicans and Muslims or politically right wing westerners and an emerging highly pluralistic, essentially hedonistic society.

A voice has said: "Hello Mum" through the study window.  The sun is shining.

Decisions.

Thinking done; decisions made.  The discernment process has been hard.  The silence and then listening to my heart isn't as self-indulgent as it sounds.  The amswers aren't always what I want to hear.  Recent musings are a case in point.  I was hanging on for a different response!  Sadly, it hasn't come.

The appointment of a Rector at Leith captured my imagination.  The church is lively with a mature interest in social justice, ecology and spirituality.  I was entranced and very drawn to apply.  On the back of a 'tingle factor' that the post could potentially be a good 'fit' were the pragmatci concerns - not so much my mental health - I need to be challenged now not papmered - but our son's needs.

Our son is at a good special school and he is as happy as he is ever likely to be with many of his needs being extremely well met.  However unlikely it might be, if I was to be successful and get the Leith job - our son's current funding would cease and he would have to be reassessed for his future needs.  He is about to start GCSEs and a catering course.  We could find ourselves (indeed it is the most likely scenario) with me starting a new appointment and our son wondering why he has suddenly returned home until his future schooling is sorted out.  Last time, it took two years and a fight to Tribunal level to finally get the provision he needed.  That process and the uncertainty is not conducive with me giving of my best to a new relationship with a church I would feel at that moment called to serve.  It isn't fair on anyone.

I am hugely disappointed.  Supporting our son when we have each wanted to do other things with our time and lives has involved some personally costly decisions - but in the end we have learnt so much from the process that it has in the long term been life-enhancing.  It remains tough in the moment though.  It doesn't require a political brain the size of a planet to see that the English system rgarding educational provision and special needs has something going for it.  If a young person had been assessed and then moves area he continues with this provision at least until his annual review.  The local authorities operate an understanding based on reciprocity.  Young people who 'beach' in a new authority are accepted with all their liabilities 'as seen'.

TISEC's decision to fire me still concerns.  I am determined to fight the element of discrimination and poor management of the situation in this.  No one deserves this happening to them.

One of my former students rightly encourged me to look forward to what is around the corner.  That sounds fun - liberating.  The discussions will happen in the Autumn.  It is a shame it has come to this.  I still can't quite believe it.

Humph is now huge.  We will take some photos to send to his breeder.  He is learning sit, stay and fetch just now.  He is doing well!

From Leper to Leader; Healing Companionship

Bertie, our tabby has been found.  He disappeared on Monday and my partner discovered him while he was out delivering leaflets asking people if they wouldn't mind checking garages and sheds and generally keeping an eye out for the missing mut.  By yesterday evening we were quietly optimistic.  A couple of our nearest neighbours, down in the hamlet of old fisherman's cottages, were sure they had seen him during the intervening days.  Another neighbour relayed the priceless information that he had woken his neigbour up by jumping on their bed in the early hours of the morning and settling to sleep.  Our secret night life will out!

My partner spotted Bertie as he was returning home - hind quarters and a tail disappearing into the gorse.  He called him, Bertie climbed into the car; travelled home with his front paws on my partner's forearm looking out at his estate; he was fed; and then slept all night on the bed - mostly with his legs in the air.

Bertie is staying in with Teazle our smokey grey and white moggy  for a while.  We suspect he may have de-camped because he was not sure about Humph - so we now need to give the two cats and Humph time to adjust fully to each other.  I'm not at all surprised Bertie was at six's and seven's - he had almost a month with Teazle in a cattery.  I might be tempted to get a wee bit disorientated about which house is home if I spotted a warm comfy bed and there were no objections to me being there!!!!

I am working half time just now with a view to going full time at the beginning of September.  Despite my worst fears I seem to be enjoying becoming more routinised and focused!  The drop in medication is a huge spur to get on and practice well-being.  Another medication drop next week - and on I go.  I want to be as drug free as possible by September.

I am hugely indebted to the extraordinarily professional quality of care I have been given through mental health services.  I am also proud of myself, I am choosing life.  One of the huge and little understood aspects of mental health is that it is the person's brain - and most usually their emotional psyche which is fractured or crushed in an episode - not their identity or their skills base. 

There is a popular myth around that somehow a person with a mental health issue can, at the time they are ill, function fully if only they tried.  If trying was all that was needed I would never have become ill.  Another widely held assumption is that mental health issues are a sign of weakness or fragility.  Well, in one sense, yes, I do buy that.  When I broke my wrist last year it was damaged sufficiently that I have not regained full use of it.  In that sense there is an inherent structural weakness.  What is not true is to then assume that a weakness caused by illness means that it is impossible for that limb, organ or brain to compensate and function at an excellent level despite the inherent difficulty.  This is of course particularly true with mental health.

Stephen Fry, an 'out' Bipolar person, has been quoted as saying he would not be him if he did not have this aspect to his personality.  The same is often claimed by depressives.  In the case of Borderline Personality Disorder,that is certainly true for me.  My experience is that however painful, disorientataing and frankly life-threatening the condition is - ultimately it makes me fully and completely as I am.  It is as much a part of me as my blue eyes.

Of course individuals are instinctively reserved around people who have a 'history of mental health problems', but this says more about the conditioning that exists in our society than it does about the actual rather than perceived needs of a person living with a mental health condition.

Some of the classic assumptions (some I have made myself during my early years in ministry) are that people living with mental health issues:

Need more support on a continuos basis than other people (= are hard work).

(Speaking for myself, there are key times when I am going into, in and coming out of relapse when more support is valued - but not at other times.  I need friends - but not indulgence or too much understanding when I am well; my role is to function within society's boundaries and limitations in wellness - not manipulate them.  In common with many with mental health issues I have as much desire to stand out because of my disability as I do to learn how to pole vault.)

Cannot be trusted to work, think or react consistently and professionally.

(This is based on ignorance rather than fact.  In relapse most of the 'Disorders' leave the person enduring them with a sense of disaasociation and communication; touching base with reality; and sustaining relationship may be a future aim but not a prresent reality.  Out of relapse, the vast majority or people with mental health issues are unknown even to their closest colleagues.  They would not be easy to identify in a day to day situation any more than a person with Diabetes.  They adjust and enjoy periods of wellbeing whilst respecting and taking seriously the need to monitor their condition.)

Cannot tell they are ill.

(There are some conditions where the delusion that the person is not ill is part of the taxonomy of the illness.  However my own experience and those shared with me suggest that we all knew when we were ill - and could explain our relapse 'signature' so others would be able to spot our behaviour patterns perhaps even before us!  Yes, this does sound scary - but usually we are talking of slight, gradual changes rather than sudden personality swings.  In my case it seems as though about five triggers all have to be pretty well aligned before I have a relapse.  This last one was 5 years after the previous one; the one before that was 10 years prior.  Often when relapses are very much more regular than that there are other significant complicating factors - like social skills; poverty; substance abuse.)

 

Are best left to their own devices.

(This is the last thing we should do.  If any of our friends have mental health issues they need to be surrounded by more social structure not less.  At my illest I feel so disgusted with myself I could not bear to see anyone.  This is negative framing and messaging which is part of my illness and not part of my everyday preferred practice.  When a person is this ill it is doubly important people are around them.  I could not have heard at that time how much I was valued or how sorry people were - but I know that isolation is the greatest friend of negative self-imaging.)

 

If I had broken my leg the flowers would come; cards and visits.  Everyone would know the boundaries and have a grasp of what to ask and how to offer sympathy.  It isn't so different with mental illness just imagine the plaster is round the entire person.  Sitting in quiet companionship was a great healer for me.  Distraction was wonderful too - funny magazines, DVDs.  Like all illnesses, the world of a person with mental illness becomes very small - so it isn't news he needs to hear - or be asked how he is.  He just needs to know you are there and comfortably relaxed about sticking around him in his current inner unrest.  Being present gives a powerful signal sublimally that the person is worth taking trouble over.

Enough work avoidance... time to drink a coffee and get going.

You're fired!

I was mortified to find out I have been fired today - and it wasn't even as graceful(!) as a an Sir Alan Sugar dismissal.  The job I was hoping to go back to in September, teaching Christian Spirituality at The Theological Institute of the Scottish Episcopal Church has been taken away from me without any discussion or warning.  It carries a small honourarium and only involves creating a Reader and teaching for five residential weekends and a summer school, but it was a very enjoyable experience for the most part!  I was looking forward to returning to this in September.

I was talking the other day to the See Me campaign about doing some volunteer campaigning about mental health and stigma in the workplace and in social contexts.  Little did I think that I would find myself feeling something of a victim a few days later!  As far as I understood it the fact that I have been ill was an unfortunate blip in the general continuity of teaching and being an Associate Ministry Development Officer for TISEC.  I have been proud of the work I have done in the past.

At no point - until today - when I attempted to arrange a meeting with my now 'old' boss, to talk about the details of next term, did I find I have no role to go back to.  I am still surprised.  It doesn't make much sense and isn't sinking in.  I am mostly horrified. 

One good piece of news about being a hell of a lot better is that I get angry in the moment rather than supressing it.  I am ballistic - what?!  How the ...?  I am not even sure this can actually be done?  Do I have any rights in this?  Can I be fired?  I have never been fired in my life - it is a horrible feeling I have to say.  Until I cut through my anger I won't research whether there is anything I can do about this.  The Church doesn't have Tribunals as such and is not subject to things like equality legislation or discrimination law.  For now I just feel cheated out of an important expression of vocation - as a theological educator.  Cheated out of a job I thought I still had.

Right.  Now I have got that off my chest, I can also own up that I feel hurt.  I now realise that all the guff I was told about being a valued and essential part of the TISEC team must have been tosh.  Convenient when I was doing my job and agreeing to do extra work - but no longer the case when I became ill. 

I have been given no reason as to why I can't return to teaching with the course apart from the fact that the person who has been subbing for me this last academic year is doing next year too. All news today.

I can't help but feel a little discriminated against.  I believe any reasonable person in a comparable situation would argue the same.  I am avoiding believing that this is an example of the church's educational provision exhibiting its ignorance about mental health and fitness for work and hoping it is an ill thought out managerial aberration - but I am not holding my breath.

I just cannot believe that TISEC can do this.  Perhaps more importantly I cannot believe I was effectively fired in an e-mail.  I can't think of any other charity, voluntary organisation let alone business or educational establishment where this would be acceptable.  Most extraordinary.  Still life so often is.

I have heard that someone I very much value has decided to buy a Newfoundland pup!  I am extremely pleased and have images of Humph and this new little bundle of girl-life having puppies in a few years time!  She is black apparently - so there would be a delicious mix of brown and black pups!  This made my day.  Simple pleasures for simple minds.  No cloaks, daggers or the sniff of betrayal of trust in the language of dogs.

A bite in time...

I thought it was children who were supposed to cause their parents embarrassment?  Took Mungo (collie x) and Humphrey (Newfoundland puppy) to the vet this afternoon.  Mungo saw a dog who looked a little like my guide dog, Rainbow and instead of his usual jumping up and down - leapt forward and took a large chunk out of the waiting room's seat cushions!  He was so fast we could hardly believe he had done it!  But the evidence was all too obvious!

I've never liked the seat cushions in the surgery (this not excusing my mut's social gaff) but I am sure he did not pick up the fight mentality sublimally.  We confessed to the duty vet and the receptionist.  All we can do is hope they were contemplating a makeover of the waiting room furnishings and that we can contribute to the replacement upholstery! 

Humph has now had his second vaccination.  After much debating he has been microchipped rather than tattooed.  Our vet was very reassuring about the limited risk in chipping.  Humph behaved brilliantly.  He now weighs 12.4kg and is putting on just over 2kg a week.  He is tremendous and was much admired this afternoon.  He doesn't look at all like a dog - more like a fluffy toy bear.

Not such good news regarding Rainbow, my guide dog.  He is about to start a renal diet as there is a mild malfunction in his kidneys.  Fortunately this has been picked up at the earliest stage and can now be regularly monitored.  Hard though, he is such a noble creature.  I am wondering if it would be cheaper to take out shares in the vet's business...

Two by two

Why is it that interesting jobs come along in twos like buses?  In the last week, after months of looking, two vacancies have popped up - one on top of the other.  The first is at Leith.  It has a tremendous 'tingle factor' and offers a creative, engaged community of faith keen to continue to explore ways in which they can be incarnationally present within their wider context.  The other came 'out of the blue' and is a group of churches just across the water from us.  I knew their priest had moved on, but I had wrongly assumed as it turns out, that they would almost certainly either go for a non-stipendiary post this time around, or that the post might be combined with some other post of responsibility.  Apparently they haven't drawn up a Church Profile yet - so I will watch and wait on that one.  It would be a very different engagement; facilitating a small, but already very committed group of people to grow their church.  It has a different appeal.  They have amongst their membership some very committed and gifted individuals, but they are three very different 'patches' with, I suspect, some fairly different requirements from their priest.  I am not Protestant in style - and I suspect at least one of the churches would value a person with a more Evangelical mind set.  This post has a different sort of appeal.  I know the area reasonably well and I know a little of the story of the place.  I am going to have to listen to the wisdom of others and the whisperings of my own psyche very carefully.

I have been told today that the psychiatrist over-seeing my diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder doesn't want to see me again!  I think we may go out to dinner to celebrate.  Drugs I have been taking as religiously as the sacrament itself are now to be hugely reduced (yippee) and I am to continue with talking therapy - something I have found incredibly valuable throughout my ministry.  I am excited.

I raised at the consultation that I have struggled with the medicalisation of a condition like Borderline Personality Disorder.  The psychiatrist was adamant that her intention was to avoid medicalising me.  I explained that I believed that anybody who had been through all that had happened to my partner and me during the last ten years would probably exhibit similar 'symptoms' and could therefore be classified with a mental illness.  She agreed - essentially circumstances are a major factor.  I felt encouraged.  BPD is a part of me - but not the defining core.  It is entirely manageable and is to be monitored and positive coping strategies nurtured through talking therapies.  We have discussed my returning to work.  This is clearly my shout.

The more I have thought about it - the more I can link well-being to purpose and engagement with life.  I feel ready to be engaged, challenged and to enable and learn from others.  I am ready for responsbility as well as the joys and frustrations of belonging in communion and faithful doubt with others.  I think it is very tempting for me to believe that there are always others who can do x or y better than me.  The truth is it's not about better or worse - but rather vocation and commitment.  Pardon the pun - The X Factor!!!!  I am at a unique praxis in my life.  Our son is at a therapeutic residential school; my mother died last November and my recent period of illness has shown me just how important it is to take my own emotional needs very seriously indeed.  It has been very purging and healing.  I take myself much more seriously.  It has helped me discern what matters in my life.

As for the jobs?  Much more mulling, praying and thinking.  Trip down to Leith next weekend!?  Working on it!  Trip to Fortrose too!  Week after?  Why not!  Transparency, authentic process is what I most value - and so that is what I will now embark upon.  I feel like Tigger...

Gem

A break from filing.  Lunchtime anyway.  Had planned to go to an art session (I have an abstract pastel to finish and it's a great chance to blether)  but there is no sign of transport (partner due back from Elgin...) so to my blog.  News:  the Leith job is still open.  Moments like this I think there could be a God.  I am waiting for the particulars to arrive - if it looks on paper a quarter as interesting as my research suggests - its a gem.  Theologically and spiritually mature and a progressive, seeking community with a burn for justice. 

I've often wondered how I would set up/improve the selection of clergy so that communities of faith retain few illusions about what they are getting before they appoint and the clergy themselves have a chance to show who they are spiritually and theologically.  In my work over the years as a spiritual director I have come across individuals and communities where the stress point is the lack of correlation (meaningful dialogue and similarity of basic values) between the individual person acredited to exercise some form of oversight/facilitation and the emerging needs, wants and narrative of the community he or she serves.  Sometimes it is a matter of unrealistic expectations, which over time can be honed as each experiences a shared life together.  On other occasions it is a deeper mismatch which happens because both parties during the appointing process have the best overwelmed pragmatism and detached assessment with a wave of the very best intentions to please; be found acceptable; and succeed.  It's especilly hard for a community of faith, who will hold disparate views of "what is for the best" within their own numbers before the.  For a potential candidate, the well-trodden platitude of "be yourself" is good as far as it goes.  A priest has been called to a sanctified life as a servant of Christ.  At it's essence s/he needs to know themselves and enjoy being themselves in order to be present for others.  There is nothing more infectious than a person comfortable in their own skin whose only demand is that you be yourself.  The Leith process looks challenging and the most in depth I have seen.  It is more rigorous than applications to teach in theological education - which is impressive.

Now - lunch.  Shreddies.  Then off to Cromarty to meet with friends and put the entire world to rights.  (It doesn't take long once we get started).  If only we could be wired up to the T.A.R.D.I.S and our eminently sensible suggestions for justice, equality and distribution of power could be implemented throughout the world.  Who said meglamania is dead?  Just planning world domination ...

Mug and Nonsense

I now have a desk and I can see the wood and find everything.  Amazing.  I have a huge pile of things to be filed - that's tomorrow's job (ugh!) but I have caught up with myself and some.

I have tried to track the job I spotted on The Church Times website in Leith.  I have come to the conclusion there is a typo on the closing date for apllications.  I have tried sending off an e-mail (returned to sender) and checked the Provincial website - no trace - so I guess it is done and dusted.  Shame - it sounded super. Maybe it was wishful thinking on my part.

Something else will turn up.

Now I can see the desk - no more work avoidance - something significant must be begun.  Bother!  Tempted to put my Pooh door nob notice on the study door "Do not disturb - thinking things" with a picture of Pooh lying against a tree snoozing.  Ready... Steady... ah, tea has arrived.  Saved by a mug...

Getting On

I have spotted a vacancy for a priest in Leith and have sent for the details.  I love Leith and the environs and rather covert it's proximity to Edinburgh.  A very old friend who I haven't seen for yonkers owns a pub there - which has to be an added attraction - the company rather than the booze - I don't drink.  (Nothing sinister just it messes around with life-saving medication) I have little idea what the post would involve until I see the profile - but it caught my eye.  May well be that's all it does, but if you don't take a closer look, you never know... for sure.  It would be a huge privilege to go back into church-centred ministry - but I am not sure I am a good enough 'catch' these days.

My desk looks like a bomb has hit it.  I am trying to find the wood again without the piles I haven't yet identified toppling into the piles I am dealing with.  The answer would be disciplined filing.  Mmmm.

Delighted with the news that the Church of England has caught up with the Scottish Episcopal Church over ordaining women as Bishops.  At least in England they will mean what they say and we will see our first female consecrated soon.  I am hoping it will be Viv Faull, Dean at Leicester Cathedral.  Maybe June Osbourne - at Salisbury?  I am sure key movers and shakers like Judith Maltby won't be too far behind!!!  I am excited for my female colleagues in the Province - but sad for other friends alienated by the decision.  Hey schism has it's possibilities... even in such desolation at not 'winning' the vote - an opportunity will emerge.  Not a platitude - a reality.  The pain and grief will mean each person opposed to the Consecration of women will have to reflect on what their vocation means to them - just as those who are now seeing their vision reach fruition will continue to reflect and explore what this new opportunity to exercise vocation will mean.

Now we need to decide what we are doing with regard to homosexuality.  The days of posturing are over.