I had an email from the Priest today, about some things that I've been avoiding. It has just been such a challenge to get through each day, that actually working through what my issues with our Church has been in the 'too hard' basket. So the email from her forced me to decide: either write back something bland and trite, or actually answer the concerns.
So I did it. I answered her concerns. This is what I sent back:
I am sorry to hear that your family have colds - it really is miserable when little ones are ill. Make sure you get plenty of sleep (well, as much as you can, anyway), and lots of warm fluids: make some Chicken Soup for yourself and Ian. It is not just an old wives' tale, it is actually very, very good for people with viral infections (including the ubiquitous cold).
I didn't know that you and Tony had a 'difficult' conversation, and I am quite out of the loop, so I'm hearing things only in fits-and-starts on the occasional Sunday at Church, as well as what I heard on the site tour the other week. The grapevine doesn't seem to be stretching my way at present!
The stoles were actually started - using fabric paint techniques - some time back. The principle design is a length of Celtic border-type knot along the stole in the seasonal colour (using Gold for White), and there was to be a filial-style end design on each one. That was the sticking point, from whence came the delay. Jason had some ideas about the use of symbols that I felt trivialised the stoles and their place in the service. Before we could work through those, Jason left, and then my life fell apart. Now it is coming back together, and I am more than willing to finish the work, but would like your feedback on the end-designs. I can't find my original e-mail correspondence on the matter, so we may have to start from scratch again. I think we were working from the seven spiritual traditions, plus an eighth that had to be intelligently placed in the context of the others.
Regarding Dave and Harlin, I think you misunderstand me. It is not to do with them, per se.
I find great support in 'traditional' liturgy: when my children were small, the service could carry me while I looked after them, and I still felt part of it, even though intellectually I was often absent. In later years during times of great struggle, the same thing was true. A very wise Sister once told me that until the words of the prayer are indelibly etched in your mind you can't go beyond their surface meaning: so, you learn the prayers (by rote, I suppose), and maintain the discipline. One day you find that you are moving beyond the words and feeling the currents in the history and the spirit of them. I actively search and yearn for this sensation in my prayer life. When I am mentally or emotionally tired, then I know it won't be there, but the words, their feel and the memory of those moments of epiphany support and nurture me. So my first point is that in times of difficulty I need to feel that I KNOW the service: if I have to use the prayer book beyond reading the psalm, then I feel the service differently. Then I am a stranger in my own space.
The second issue is to do with the format of the Gospel Reflection. This has sustained and supported and fed me through a series of massive upheavals because - and this is the important bit - everyone knew the rules, and I was free to keep my reflections and feelings purely personal. The rules I am talking about in particular are:
• We hear the text read out loud - we do not individually read our own copies. Hearing the words uses different parts of cognition to reading. When hearing a person read you hear their understanding in the way they emphasise or gloss words, and your mind focuses on words that sink in on of their own accord. If you hear something read out loud, and have a copy in front of you two things happen: you short-circuit the 'listening' part of cognition, and go straight to the 'reading comprehension' part; the second thing that happens is that you tend to read back over the text looking for 'important' or 'relevant' points. These function together to subtly change the focus from what resonates within a person, to what the passage is 'meant' to teach.
• We don't reflect on what other people say. This means that it is safe to have the 'wrong' interpretation, because the only person the meaning matters to, is you. The Spirit talks to everyone differently at different times, and we cannot know how something 'should' be heard by someone else. The recent tendency to conversation and debate on what the passage is 'really' saying means that it takes a lot more energy to contribute because I have to be more careful about what I say.
• We are searching to hear the voice of the Creator speaking to us, individually, in our present lives. If someone wants a sermon, and formal teaching, then there are plenty of other places where this is offered.
When these rules are not followed, then I can't release my mind to the internal experience that I seek in our service. Because the general feel at St Paul's has been that Dave and Harlin won't be with us for long, we have let them do as they please with the reflection, and I feel that it is now hard work on a level that I don't have the energy for, and the result does not feed me.
These two issues are very personal to me, they are not criticisms of either Dave or Harlin, and if the style of service is supporting others, then it is not actually a 'problem' as such, simply a poor fit.
The other thing I am experiencing discomfort with is to do with the 'Calling' people may be experiencing within our community. I find it frankly offensive to have someone tell me that because they have a 'calling' to be somewhere, or that they have prayed about something, that they think they 'know' what God wants them to do about it. I am wary of anyone who really thinks they know what God wants from them - they are at a very serious risk of stomping on other, possibly more fragile, understandings of other's callings on a 'holier than thou' pretext. I am intensely uncomfortable when someone says "I've prayed about this, and this is how it should be". It is entirely possible that the result of their prayer is that they are supposed to hear others views and change their mind! After all, in our context, everyone is praying about the whole place pretty much all of the time, and how can anyone possible discern whose prayers are more special, better linked to God's plans, or just plain better? I think we should do the traditional Anglican thing and use the three legs - Tradition, Scripture and Reason - when dealing with issues. Each situation has its own history (tradition), each person involved has a duty to engage prayerful reflection and interaction with God on the matter (scripture) and what follows is discussion and, hopefully, a path to resolution (reason). Failure to find the path may even be it's own path. We should be wary of any process that is so rushed that there is insufficient time for persuasion of the unready by reasoned discussion. I think it is very important that use of the "I-Prayed-About-It Card" to trump other's ideas is actively discouraged.
So, in summary, the increasing distance I am feeling with St Paul's is a combination of the variable service format, undisciplined reflection practices, and the insidious appearance of an almost papist suggestion that some people infallibly know God's will. There are minor irritations that are happening from time to time, but they are just that, minor. My issues are those that centre on how I experience the Creator, the Redeemer and the Sanctifier in my home parish, and I am finding that I just don't fit any more.
I am happy to meet with you to talk further about these matters, but I have not drawn these conclusions lightly, and I have limited energy to pursue further change for myself.
This was quite hard for me, because now I have to move on. I have been safe, and nurtured at St Paul's for 17 years, and now it's time to find somewhere else. In other circumstances, or other times, it may have been time for me to change, but there has been too much change, and I need to have spiritual sustenance to survive.
I sent the letter first to Tony for his feedback; he really liked it, and wanted me to send it to the Bishop. But to what end? This is entirely personal, I can't see how any of this relates to the wider issues in any helpful way. Tony still thinks there could be a battle that may be winnable, but I can't do it. Well, now it's gone. 17 years, all gone.
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