Are the voices in my head too loud for you?

A Blessed New Year to You All!

Sincere apologies for such a long period of silence.  I needed some space and so did my partner - but - to quote a song from my vintage "The boys are back in town".  We are preparing for re-entry into a fuller life.

A great deal has happened since Bea's death on 30th November but much of it has been for the good and has had an empowering and healing effect on me.

I have felt consistently much better for a good few days now - and although I still have little energy - the worst symptoms have subsided and I was discharged from the day psychiatric centre a month ago.  Irony of ironies on the day of Bea's death.

I now have a diagnosis.  More at a later date about that - but for now I feel more than half the battle is over.  I feel so much better now I understand a little more about why I feel as I do in many situations.  Again, potentially healing and empowering.

My partner and I have made just one new year's resolution - which is to give ourselves this coming year with an emphasis on evolving the transformations already begun in each of us in different ways.  The Sanctuary will re-open as usual for Holy Week - (Yes C and A) and I will gradually meet up and string together the parts of my life that appeared to fall apart.  It will take a little time so be patient with me, but I have learnt through this illness that I have some very precious, compassionate and committed friends. I have also learnt how much I need them.

I am off the most addictive of the drugs I was taking so can think once again and feel much more.  I can at last enjoy some things and look forward, with pleasure, to what is to come.  There will still be bad days and times when triggers will cause a relapse, but I now understand what I am working with - and as I am collaborative to the marrow - my way forward is to use my vulnerabilities as they are and be in them.  It is there my sense of incarnation resides and finds her being.

I will probably need to be formally off work until Easter or maybe longer as I make the transition from hermit - hardly leaving our bedroom to an active person engaged in actvities fully and in a professionally accountable manner once more - but that's also something to look forward to.

It has been a painful shock and huge wake up call feeling so ill for so long.  Forgive me, but I will now take some time to sniff the air and enjoy the geese and other water fowl parade and practice formation flying from my easel and chair by the sitting room window.

JEWG

Authenticity

I made a pact with myself when I first started blogging that if the blogs became opaque and started to 'smoke screen' the reality of my life I had two choices - stop blogging (avoidance) or be honest (authenticity) even if it's hard for a fervent introvert to believe firstly anyone is interested and secondly that it isn't just self-indulgent twoddle sharing on-line.

I am still blogging - so I am claiming that in the name of authenticity I need to say it as it is - for me.  The accident I had a few months back seriously dented my confidence - and I have been in such pain since that distraction seemed the best counter attack - and constantly putting energy into re-framing my experience in positive terms.  It was hard work on top of all the other things going on - every day life things - but I thought I was coping - no, better than that, I thought I was doing pretty well.  Then gradually I could feel some familiar symptoms from the now fairly distant past returning - the symptoms of depression.  Churchill was right when he said that all depressives live with the haunting memory and fear that The Black Dog will reappear at some point.  I have long been comfortable with seeing myself as a depressive - but like most reasonably capable and generally upbeat people - my bigger fear is becoming a burden to others or being seen as somehow wanting or utterly inadequate.  The reality is, of course, that bog-standard, uniquely and wonderfully made, standard issue with minor modifications - human.

It's perculiar that a person who can be so affirming of others and supportive of them as they celebrate and embrace their needs and wants is often reluctant to reach out in ways that will enable her own needs to be fully met.  So, as the symptoms were spotted and owned, I decided I was going to do something I have never done before and take my mental health as seriously as I always encourage everyone else to take theirs!!!  I've kicked in contact with my local Community Psychiatric Nurse who is a well of useful self-care advice and utterly respectful and supportive of the personal energy it took to seek intervention early.  I have started a tiny dose of medication to stabilise mood - and I have taken advice and cleared my diary of any commitments which could challenge my judgement or emotional fragility more than it needs to be just now.  The reality is that I have spent a few days being gentle with myself and I have enjoyed a gorgeous day today mostly reading and having a good blether with my partner.

I feel a bit of a fraud right now because just putting the support in there seems to have lightened my mood and empowered me to take better control of my stress levels.  I guess at base level I am a very independent and proud person.  As a consequence owning how I really feel deep inside myself, to a soul friend or therapist is not a problem - much harder to share this information with a wider group of people.  Why?  What am I scared of?  Maybe that some won't rate me any more; or those who don't understand depression and its many possible causes will judge me as weak and useless. 

Fortunately my mood is up enough to recognise with my head and my heart that this is utter tosh.  Those who know me will recognise the authenticity in what I am sharing and the necessity in doing so because it speaks to all our experiences of desolation and abandonment.  It's just that mine are sometimes fairly acute 'episodes' in the sense that I can't just snap out of it.  I can't always just keep going.  Those who think it's another eample of Jane W-G fallibility then I probably want to agree with you - but not too hastily and only partially - it is my vulnerability which gives me a compassionate heart and my experience of disability which helps me to know the reality of the experience of the mercy of God and the loving companionship of others.  I am learning that I can share the dark and the light.  The sky doesn't fall in and there's even the chance others will resonate with my experience.

For now I am doing just beautifully all things considered.  This level of symptom feels like a wake up call and I am waking up and smelling the roses.  Realising that there are many things depression teaches me about living and enjoying life.  So it's been over five years since I was in therapy - far too long - so time to get back in and do another good long stint.  Five years off  probably means the next ten years on!  Taking relaxation seriously and time to process.  These are musts not optional extras - and I know this in my bones. 

And while all this is falling into place I sit here typing in a howling gale and even I can see there's a funny side - I am wearing my t-shirt with "I have issues" printed on it.  Many a true word spoken in jest!

People are all Christ and Christ is all People

My world continues to revolve around visits from friends and family - and retreatants staying.  I am grasping practically and spiritually that there is no real distinction here - and that the process of being present and offering hospitality, service and companionship is pretty much the same - whatever the reason for the visit.  I have been amazed by the diversity of experience, personality and temperament that have been sitting at our kitchen table in recent weeks.  It has been a joy to behold - but also a testing time.  Not in the sense that some of the individuals would try even the patience of a saint!  If that were my honest analysis anyone with even half a brain would tell me that says much more about my tolerance levels and prejudices that it does about the integrity of my visitors!  No the testing part has been continuing to develop ways of being present with people which are real, honest, loving and also utterly true to them and me.  I can only liken it to the rhythm of prayer.  The more stable and conscientiously the daily ritual of worship is honoured, the more essential it becomes as a replenishing resource for the psyche.  It becomes like cleaning your teeth or having a shower.  So it feels there's a rhythm to making folk feel welcome and at home whilst also not so debasing my own identity, needs and wants that I become virtually invisible in the process or unknowable because there isn't much of me left.

I suspect that this awareness that we need to pace ourselves and retain something of the uniqueness of our own being in reserve sometimes makes us rather dull company for some folk - as I listen to busy lives re-told and hear about future hopes and aspirations - but I love what we are able to do here.  Even the busiest visitors seem, after a few days, to succomb to the place - all we need to do is care - God, the natural beauty of the place and a willingness to slow down do the rest.

Our world is a tiny one compared with many though - and we love it like this.  We have time to be imaginative - in my case to write; time to sit and listen; time to think huge unimaginable dreams and time to be there for others in need.

It feels very holy and precious work - but dull to an observer because so very little can ever be talked about.

We don't seem to need many of the things others thrive on and sometimes I question which reality is better - to meet society's expectations or to be to some degree counter-cultural.  Maybe this is simply and extrovert verses introvert thing.  Not much to do with personal taste - more a matter of temperament.

I think, over time. we have so simplified our living in many respects that we are no longer 'turned on' by many of the rather more conventional aspirations society encourages us to have.  Maybe we are just eccentrics - but we seem to value authenticity in relationship over politeness and friendliness; we love people who care passionately about something - and seem to struggle with folk who think it's always someone else's problem or fault - and we delight in being rather than lots of doing.  That means we are not very aspirational in a conventional sense because we have both seen how much power corrupts the intellect, integrity and spiritual rootedness of individuals.  We see ourselves as Barnabas'.

I found again a wonderful reading this morning:

I will begin to ask questions.  I hope that curiosity will be a propelling force during this time.  if our religion is to be alive in our lives it must be a matter of both comfort and discomfort.  I must go on asking questions.  Rilke made the connection between loving the question and living into them, and it is important to return again to this familiar passage for it is very apposite at the start of this time:

     I want to beg you as much as I can ... to be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves ... Do not now seek answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps you will then, gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into answer.

De Waal, Esther, Lost in Wonder (2003) Norwich: Canterbury Press pge 32.

Make it so - to quote a well known star ship captain.

Maybe I am just a nerd after all.

Encouragement throught the post

A shaft of luminous, white light has illuminated the morning in the form of the totally unexpected, open-handed kindness of another.  I was touched and delighted.  Through the post came a parcel with the most beautiful card - with a gorgeous cross stitch celtic cross on it - created I have no doubt by the sender.  Accompanying the gentlest of sentiments, was a gift - and the choice could only be made by someone who knows me very well indeed.

Into Great Silence - a DVD about a monastery which has also become quite a commercial success was duly unpacked and very much admired.  The community who made it are Trappist and I had to smile as I read that the out-takes are in the form of written notes!!!

I have to work this evening after almost three days off - but I will settle to savouring it on my next day off.

The funny thing is that we are great ones for giving things away and tend to groan inwardly when we are bought things because we are now so committed to travelling lighter and getting rid of what we seem to have spent our lives so far wasting energy accumulating!  Of course we hold tight to things which speak of history and continuity between the generations; and those things that touch our heart at this time - but we are trying to recycle and charity shop the numerous items which we have kept just in case. 

This gift is in a slightly different catergory as it will be something community will enjoy and some of the folk who come and stay, may find moving and touching.  Pertinence personified.

The angels were looking on.

The timing was perfect too.  With a busy weekend of work ahead - it was just great to receive.

Jubilate Deo!

Nelson Mandela's Inaugural Address:

I found this when I was browsing my Common Place Book:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that frighten us.

[Nelson Mandela's Inaugural Address]

Promises, Promises

After what looked like an inauspicious start with work avoidance on my mind, I have spent a brilliant day creating the draft Rule for St. Columba House Community.  It is still very embryonic but it feels good to see thoughts all down in one place and in some order.  It now needs to go out to people with a possible interest in setting up community to see how it needs to be honed and revised.

The day was made complete with a brilliant call from a most special friend; one of those people you can depend on because they know you inside out at the deepest level;  someone I think of most days - but rarely call - the mutual excuse of busy lives I guess and not wanting to be a nuisance.  We caught up and collected thoughts.  We slotted back into a previous groove but with new experiences and wiser perceptions of oursleves and others.  We chewed over the Church and society - and realised there was still just enough time to change the world - if we chose to.  I enjoyed myself hugely.  I won't leave it for ever to return his call.

My son has arrived home from special school.  He is 'attached' to his computer playing Sims Pets II and giggling away as dogs in high heels with attitude - fight - and that's just the boys as far as I can see.  He seems comfy enough and has slotted back into things.  The most miffed in the household on his return will be the cats who sleep on his bed all night when he is away! 

Martha, Mary and Discernment

We are continuing to read Jane Tromain's St. Benedict's Toolbox at our morning and evening Office.  We have been dipping and mixing - and read her main chapter on exercising hospitality before returning to her base premises.  We are currently working through The Introduction: St. Benedict's Rule.  Her working of the story of Martha and Mary was powerful and pertinent.  (Luke 10.38-42)

Tomain observes:

Martha's problem wasn't that she was busy, but that she was distracted by her busyness and worry.  Does this sound familiar?  It does to me!  Instead Our Lord entreats us to listen like Mary.  To hear what God is saying to us requires us to make a choice.

We must choose to sit at the feet of the Lord.

We sit at the feet of the Lord and listen.  We listen so that we can continue in the Word and find the truth in him...

Sound advice.

(Tomain, Jane., St. Benedict's Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living (2005) Morehouse Publishing)

Discernment:

It is less important what we do - it is the manner in which we do it that counts.

Peaseblossom, Bell and a Charitable Mechanic

We have bought a car.  Cue champagne - music - lights!

Very second - actually thirdhand - but a CAR.

It has felt like climbing Mount Everest - just getting to the point of decision - but we are there and it is done.  (For those into MBTI - my partner and I are both INFP - need I say more?)  I am exhausted emotionally (Drama Queen) - just because this is unfamiliar territory and we knew we needed an impressively good deal.  It has worked out well, I think;  I hope.  I would never have imagined I would find it that difficult though!  Weird.  It's a car not a major life-transforming event! 

Ironically I don't find shifts in a psychiatric hospital; sitting by the bedside of someone dying or even accompanying people as they make personal and spiritual connections exhausting to anything like the same degree.  Maybe it is to do with what is familiar and what I am comfortable with.  Maybe...

We now have the highly pleasurable task of deciding with the family what her name is to be.  I have a sense that she is female and as she is a deep green I am already toying with earthy names - Gaia (which might well wind up a much loved colleague who will think I am being wacky!) to Meadowsweet (too twee)?  Peaseblossom?  Good provenance but a tad fay?  Maybe Hilda or as she has been purchased on the commemoration of Elizabeth Ferard - the first English Deaconess - maybe Ferard?  I daresay my son will favour naming her after a Star Wars or Harry Potter character.  We will have fun establishing her identity and will be sorry to say good bye to Hector - our trusted Land Rover - but we need space and 7 seats!  Retreatants need comfort - and so do we.

It does make me mad the way technology is increasingly utilised to reduce consumer choice.  Even if you try to buy a relatively uncomplicated car - there are still various things that can only be fixed by the manufacturer's own franchises because the replacement part interfaces with this and that; needs to be assessed using the latest computer software and then realigned once it is installed.  The guys I feel sorry for are the independent chaps who are highly experienced mechanics and have a passion for motor cars but are disenfranchised from undertaking these tasks because they do not wish to join a franchise.  I met a smashing one today who looked over the car before we bought her.  A passionate person with a love of cars.

We have been reading 2 Corinthians in morning prayer recently and I realise I must be mellowing.  I usually get quite miffed with S. Paul's letters and his extraordinary capacity to apparently encourage whilst actually being rather autocratic and manipulative (no projection there then!).  This morning's reading made me smile.  I suddenly had a flash of insight and felt desperately sorry for Paul.  The poor man is battling with his ego, conscience and desire to hold community together.  He is trying so hard to make it all right.  I found myself, as we fell into our customery period of silence, wondering if he had ever felt able to take his own spiritual advice.

I have been second marking assignments for the Theological Institute today which has been great fun.  After Practical Theology/Spirituality - Ethics and Church History are favourites of mine.  Today I was marking mostly level one Church History and they were highly imaginative and inventive responses to the assignment.  I wished I had been undertaking the task as well!

I have been trying to get together a reading list for those considering life in community.  In recent weeks I have read:

Homan, David., Radical Hospitality: Benedict's Way of Love (2007) Wild Goose.

Once you get over the American 'shine' in the presentation it makes some powerful points about incarnational living.

Bell, John, Hard Words for Interesting Times (2003) Wild Goose.

I loved Bell's chapter on The Guardianship of Creation and Midwifery for Pensioners.

Tutu, Desmond, God Has A Dream: A Vision Of Hope For Our Time (2005) London: Random House.

Tutu has such an engaging style - and his Epistle to contemporary society and the Church is moving and evocative.

Johnson, S., Who Moved My Cheese? (1998) London: Random House.

Don't bother to read any of the introduction - make straight for the story which begins on page 25.  The story concerns the discernment of a group of laboratory mice caught in a maze.  It is a wonderful approach to discernment based on understanding and acknowledging our preferred styles of relating to decision-making.  It was written as a managerial tool - but should be embraced for its delightful, gentle insights into how behaviour affects outcome.  It can't all be blamed on the Holy Spirit.

And another one by John Bell:

States of Bliss and Yearning: The Marks and Means of Authentic Christian Spirituality (1998) Wild Goose.

I am still reflecting on an excellent talk Bell gave which is reproduced in the book on Matthew 7.21 - "Not everyone who calls me Lord..."

Bell calls this section 'Tricky Bits in the Bible'.  The understatement works.

There's also a very interesting section called 'The Discipline of Waiting' which is especially powerful for me.  I have spent significant periods of my life being able to do a passable impression of a caged lionness!!

Found another property by the by at Lochgoilhead.  The house has a chapel.  Oh, no I hear you groan...

Return to HQ

It feels an age since I blogged and indeed it is.  Apologies.

I've had an exciting and demanding few weeks with various folk on retreat, a Summer School with the Theological Institute of the Scottish Episcopal Church at the monastery in Kinnoull, Perth and some time to reflect on possible futures for and in community.

All good, necessary and exciting.

There are periods when so much of what I do is confidential, that at the end of the day, when I might naturally blog, if I were to start, by necessity I would end up discussing things which are less than authentic to the moment or the experience at that time.  It's moments like this I wish I was a bird watcher or could get excited about tales of dog walks!  I guess I'm saying that I am pretty lousy at small talk - sadly - it seems even small talk with a computer.  How tragic is that?

We are continuing to work on the where and how of creating community. 

I had a terrific conversation the other day with a friend who likened the process of finding places and possibilities to stumbling upon the clues in a Treasure Hunt.  You are never sure whether the latest development is 'the one' that is the treasure or just another clue along the way.  It is all a matter of heart, intuition and discernment. 

In that sense there are tremendous similarities between the search for a home for community and the process of working alongside students preparing for authorised Christian ministry.  Ultimately whatever is presented, the process of discernment as to whether a vocation is just that, is legitimised by discernment - by the individual, by those who facilitate his learning and by the Church as a whole.  In the case of ministry - does this person bring life to others?  Would they be a valued and trustworthy colleague?  Will they be faithful and responsible in the service of God or will they struggle with the demands made upon them in ways which will not bear 'spiritual fruit' and might even hurt or damage them and/or others?  These are tough calls - in every sense imaginable.

Summer School went well and reminded me of many summer programmes in the past.  The mix of students getting to know each other well with a challenging programme of speakers and activities, encouraged considerable reflection and thought.  This isn't an easy process, but as a staff member I was genuinely thrilled to see students making connections and risking thinking in new ways.  These are the moments teachers live for and priests even more so.  Like all good courses, the staff were challenged too and it was incredibly valuable to have a Bishop in residence with us all week who is a consumate theological educator in his own right.  We were able to dream dreams about the future of theological education in Scotland.  A pretty perfect week from my perspective.  Now we need to make dreams happen... something I love doing.

Whilst discerning a base and context for community, the questions are much the same as those articulated for human vocations.  Will this place be a place people will come to and will it be a place which brings healing and life?  What about those, who we increasingly specialise in offering space to, who need utmost privacy and freedom to make their own journeys uninterupted by social interaction or expectation?  What about those who feel stifled and at odds with the Church and much of what it conventionally stands for?  Will the place provide an environment where each member committed to community can evolve their vocation and challenge, stimulate and be a witness to the Church and Society?

The questions are relatively easy to identify.  It's always the answers that take time.

In the early morning

I love and at the same time curse nights like last night when I feel I have barely slept.  Last night was a good one though because I was able to enjoy the solitude and think.  Not the mulling pettifogging of a restless spirit, but quiet contemplation of what is important and valuable in life. I felt befriended in the night.  Supported.

Two old favourites came to mind:

Isadora Duncan:

"Don't let them tame you!"

and:

"Today isn't any other day, you know."

Lewis Caroll.

Roll on day...