Tuesday 14 April

Thirty days!

Today I had my final 'official' chat with my spiritual director, with whom I have been meeting for about 4 years. We have decided it's best for me to find another director for this next season, simply because over time Pam* and I have developed multiple relational intersections. (In the same way that you wouldn't want to invite your therapist to your birthday party, it's preferable that your spiritual director doesn't wear too many other 'hats' in your work or social life.)

While I feel so grateful for the ways our friendship and working relationship is developing, I also feel sad about this ending. I got to thinking about what it has meant to me to meet with Pam over the past years, a season that has been far from easy. She has helped me to navigate some turbulent years of parenting an anxious child through high school. She has listened to me process the relational and community losses that have been part of moving to Spain. And she has walked alongside me as I adventured into a whole new ministry focus.

The image that came to mind as we reflected together on the past 4 years was of a tent peg, one of those old-fashioned wooden ones with the top a bit squished from being hammered into the ground so many times. I pictured my life as a tent that might have been blown away from its moorings were it not for the willingness of people like Pam to play a part in tethering me to Truth, to Presence, to Love.

When I described this mind picture to her, Pam remarked that she hadn't felt she was doing much. Except for showing up. Now, this is exactly what you would expect a good spiritual director to say, that they simply show up to listen to and notice the work of the true Director, who is God. But it got me thinking about what it means - well, what it feels like perhaps - to make our unique contribution to the world.

It reminded me of the time outside Wycliffe College in Oxford, when I bumped into Tom Wright after he had just given a talk. When I thanked him for what he had said, he made some comment about feeling rushed and having galloped through his material. I was shocked (and a little encouraged, I have to say) that such an admired teacher should still feel this vague need to qualify his perceived shortcomings.

And it made me think of a video clip of a brilliant woodturner who had worked on a particular bowl not just for days, but for years if you count from the time he picked out the wood. He offers this quite stunning piece to a friend as a gift, and one of his first remarks is to point out where he'd gone a bit wrong and had been obliged to find ways to fix his heavy handed chiselling.

This is why, on art retreats, when participants gather to share with one another their creations, we always emphasise the 'no disclaimers' rule. Else almost everyone will introduce their piece with some comment about why it didn't turn out differently.

Could it be that we all under-estimate the value of our unique gift to the world?

I come to this question in part as a result of another conversation I had today. I had called an author friend to ask her advice about the writing process. During the conversation, I expressed my hesitation to add my little voice to the cacophony of voices out there, all seeking to make themselves heard. Who am I to think that I have anything to add to the general level of noise that already exists in the world, so full of words and talk? My friend reminded me of Madeleine L'Engle's urging of us to 'dare to disturb the universe,' that each one of us has something unique that can only be communicated or offered to the world by that one.

Funnily enough, earlier in the day the liturgy I had chosen to read over our family breakfast was the one Douglas McKelvey had titled, 'for those who have not done great things for God.' At the time, it seemed a fitting prayer for this time of home confinement. Now I wonder if perhaps none of us feel we have truly done great things for God? Perhaps we wrongly understand greatness, perhaps we fail to appreciate the greatness there is in our own unique, yet ordinary-feeling, contribution to the world.

Here is part of that liturgy:

How many times have I been told,

O Christ, by well-meaning people,

that it is my destiny and my charge

to go out into the world

and do great things for you?

How many times in response

have I prayed earnestly,

asking that you would bring

such things to pass -

that you might use me mightily

for the work of your kingdom?

How many times have I then

waited expectantly.

And waited.

And waited

for that great thing, whatever it might be,

to be made obvious.

How many times have I felt then

the gradually settling weight of disillusionment,

of disappointment and confusion,

when no great thing materialised, when no

life-changing opportunity suddenly

arrived at my doorstep, when no such moment

of call or clarity was ever manifest at all?

I think back to this picture of my spiritual director as a tent peg. Could it be that the stake itself is most aware of the ways it gets repeatedly hammered into the depths of the ground; sometimes soft, sometimes hard. While the tent - well, the tent is most aware of the gift of the tent peg, that holds it firmly tethered when the winds blow.

Maybe each of us, as we offer our gifts to the world, feel most conscious of the ways we get battered. Maybe we find ourselves wishing the ground in which we're planted were softer, less punishing. At these times, it would be easy to berate ourselves for not doing great things for God (or great things compared to so-and-so).

But think of the tent. The tent is held, and that is enough. That, in fact, is everything.

[* not her real name.]