Moving on....

This week I spent some family time at my Nan's house. She has moved into residential care and the small house needs to be cleared for sale. I came home with a share of 'useful' objects as well as some bits that are part of remembering her and Grandad specifically. We also had time with old family photos - part memories part new encounters with younger versions of family members.

At the same time a friend has been sorting and packing their house to move to a new post as a minister, and I had a conversation with another friend who has been making the decision to move next year. That and the fact the tenants in my extravagant but small purchase of a retirement flat are moving on leaving me to find new folk...

It has got me thinking about my own worldly goods, and my life as an itinerant minister.  My ordination was a time when people outside of 'the system' wondered if this would mark a move to a new area. It doesn't but even with the set 3 years I have left here, if feels so brief.  A reminder that the long term future of the congregations I support is in their hands (and God's!) and not mine.

I moved in nearly 3 years ago, and settled as if here for the forseeable (and 6 years will be longer than any other place I have been since 18!) But 3 years is a short time to have left, do I invest in the garden work, or begin to think of myself as a temporary resident?

'Life is a journey' and yet roots are important too.  How do we balance travelling light yet daring to commit to the places where we are, and can I get my head around a possible 5 major moves ahead of me. Maybe there is a time to not look at the full journey and just at the next leg of it, I am here and need to be fully here whilst here, whether  a long or short time.

It is done...

(written a few days ago, but no access to post it as too lazy t o hike laptop all the way to the conference centre!)

The promises made, the hands laid on... I have been ordained.

With all the ‘I do’s the comparison with marriage is not unreasonable.  On Sunday morning at the gathering of conference in worship we stood on the stage and together agreed to be committed to the church that nurtured and trained us and that church affirmed our role as ministers.

Then in the evening we were scattered in class groups to various churches for the ordination services. I was with college friends and a local colleague at Wesley Methodist Church in Camborne. Distance meant that no-one had hordes of supporters present but that made having those who did make the long journey even more special. 

Having family with me was so important but also was the presence of my assisting minister* and his wife, he has been very ill and has serious treatment still to come but as a couple they have been alongside me since I was 18 through all the ups, downs and diversions of my path to be a minister, and in my journey as a fragile human being.

All that travel through life – its joys and its appalling depths – concentrated into a moment.  A minute of kneeling and receiving that prayer and those hands on my head as the end of years of preparation, was it an anticlimax or a fulfilment?  The moment passed quickly but the service and the day will stay with me, the moment when all present proclaimed each of us worthy to be ordained. 

I am now ordained, a status that will remain with me, there is no divorce process for this set of promises.  I have promised myself to God and to the church, but that is in response to God’s commitment to love me before and despite anything I do or ever did.  

As an ordained minister I may be very busy  doing but essentially I am called to be, so whether I am ‘employed by you or laid aside by you’ ‘I am yours and you are mine’ (quotes from the Covenant Service where Methodists reaffirm the commitment to follow God’s call).

So I am changed by being ordained? Well it is a huge landmark, especially given that I had good reason in my breakdown days to doubt I would ever get here, but ultimately I am still me, still the person God made me, just another step in fulfilling the potential of ‘life in all its fullness’ (John 10:10)

* Methodists are ordained by 3 people – someone representing the authority of the conference (President or former president), someone from the wider world church, and an assisting minister chosen by the person being ordained – someone who is significant in their journey.

Christmas - a season survived!

The week before Christmas I was dragging myself through each day. If I hadn’t arranged – and advertised – for the church to be open each day, and being too stubborn to force my mad ideas on the already over busy members, I wouldn’t have got out of bed at all. As it was making it into clothes for the 5 min walk around the corner to open up for 11 o’clock was a massive daily achievement. And once upright and moving I was able to get some other important things done – the Christmas home communions.

I would have beaten myself up if I had not done them, but that one-on-one being with people and keeping the professional face on cost me all the resources I had left. Christmas Eve services were on auto pilot, and Christmas morning having not been able to sleep, I finally did waking only minutes before I was due to be at church!

I spent the remainder of the day with some church folk, but where I could be me, not the minister. It was great to just slot into their day and so different from the stressed version I would have at home. I was occupied enough to be distracted from my pain without any expectations or eggshells, and emotionally overwhelmed to be included in presents not just from hosts but other guests, ok so the alcohol helped too.

Then a week with family, it is hard to be fully open about my feelings with them. They either don’t get it or over react. Their normal rhythm is hard work for me, in lots of little ways I can’t explain, and would offend them if I tried, life there grates at me and when this low...  I suppose a lot of my coping with life is linked to having control of my own space – what I eat and when, not facing disapproval if I don’t get dressed and stay in PJs, not having to defend having one glass of wine at a celebration dinner when rest are on Shloer.

And when I do let on that I am so fragile the fuss is that I am ‘working too hard’ as if depression is directly related to working hours. I accept that stress affects it but it is not that simple. And if they can’t help then there is little to gain by sharing the pain, I am worried about them, worn down physically, emotionally and mentally themselves caring for my Nan who has Alzheimer’s. There again I have nothing to offer them either, so it was a case of retreating earlier than planned back to my own domain. A couple of rest days here has been very good for me – as long as I have blinkers to the chaos of abandoned Christmas service props.  I may even get those cards and letters written...well, only maybe.  

When I look back at what I wrote a few days ago at my parents –

I have a black dog. His name is depression.

Over the years we have got used to each other, adjusting to life together. At first he seemed in control of my life, dragging me this way and that. But with help I got him under control, we both learned that I was the boss in this house. And most of the time that is true, he may bark and make a nuisance of himself for a while but I can get him by the collar and send him to his bed.

But every so often he fights back and is on the brink of overwhelming me. Now is one of those times. For the first time in a long time I can feel the depression reaching into my mind as well as my emotions. I have learned that despite the reality of the ache I feel it is the illness talking, it is depression distorting my perceptions, like a fuzzy image that blocks out the positive and sees double of anything vaguely negative. That awareness is the dog’s collar, the means by which I keep control when he tries to drag me where I don’t want to go.

But the last week or so I have had moments where my mind is missing the grip on that collar, where I start to believe what depression tells me.  I am sure that this too will pass, but begin to wonder what damage will be done on its way.

I am glad to say things have moved on from that – I have a grip on myself, tired, numb, in neutral, yes. But in agony, no. Not today.

A new year? Yes, but as always it is made up of lots of New Days. And Tomorrow is always one of these.