Writer's block

Strange thing, writing: you flow, you stop. Deadlines may apply but not in many cases. Some of us do not have editors to cajole, love, threaten or otherwise move us into working.

Writer's block. Now that is something.

I have months of inability to compose (poetry). Usually because my psyche is decomposing. That is, my mind is gripped fast by anxiety and depression. Worse, the legacy of guilt which Evangelical Legalism and the Protestant Work Ethic strapped onto my soul and dug deep into it not long after I accepted the unconditional love for me in Christ and began my journey of discipleship. I had nothing to lose but my liberation, in some ways, in those years. The scars persist.

Recently God brought to my mind other psychological events: the fall-out of a pastoral intervention when I was a Vicar. There was a crisis in my church involving a man whose behaviour was abusive and tyrannical and, due to the fear he inspired in others, had garnered to himself key positions of lay leadership. His wife came to see me (and my wife)  in the dead of night while he slept, saying she would leave him due to his abuse and neglect. I said I would call next day and tell him to resign and out his house in order. By the time I got there they were equally in denial and vitriolically aggressive to me.

I did sack him, but he took his time to hand over his jobs. In the end the church was liberated into fresh growth, but as they frequently attacked me in public and I felt unable to disclose confidentialities, I went downhill, eventually into breakdown and out of ministry.

One night of sleeplessness, several months into illness, I wrote down a phrase which buzzed round my mind. Like tissues out of a box, words kept coming which formed my first poem.

Twenty five years on my poetry still flows - and stops. So much depends on where I am on the illness cycle as well as other contingent factors. But the fresh water rule applies: allow water in and water will flow out.

I am at the moment in a highly productive phase of poetry, and I thank God for all that I am learning as I write. It gives the lie to a joke a son once made, that you have to be dead to be a poet. My vocation is to be priest/poet, a pastor and theologian who uses words to explore beyond words. I agree with the saying that poetry is saying more in less, though earlier generations were prolix at times.

I offer you these reflections because they are flowing out of me, and I need to read them.

Thoughts on being a Cathedral Chaplain

I've been away from it, on Crete in blazing sunshine and welcome heat. Jane and I saw Knossos and the museum but were often content to laze around the swimming pool and 'be', and read. (Jane unfortunately had a virus for three days which knocked on the head a five hour walk in Samaria Gorge).

I read the whole of A Place of Greater Safety, Hilary Mantel's wonderful novel about Desmoulins, Danton and Robespierre. I also re-read (backwards!) Fr Dumitru Staniloae's first of six volumes of Dogmatics, The Experience of God, and learnt much to my blessing.

So I've been away from Chaplaining for a short while. This is a good thing. I'm so looking forward to being back. I always think that a Chaplain, when (s)he is there is God's person for the task. But so what? God has other people too. It doesn't matter who is there so long as someone is who is going about the task, being on pilgrimage, and not too full of self.

Chaplaining is an -ing as well as a -cy. It is service in motion. You need to expect to be changed by it, and come back again and again to be refreshed as well as to serve. You need to expect the unexpected each time, the serious, the funny, the sorrowful, the uplifting, the (let's face it) boring, the   alerting of spiritual antennae, the willingness to love right through the day.

For me, starting at the Feretory and often continuing round different stations is vital. I know that others have their own important places within the Church. But we must be on pilgrimage, whether it's on our own or in the company of others who happen to be there. The Vergers, Stewards, Guides, Bedespeople (have I forgotten anyone? Oh the Canons Residentiary and the Celebrants) are all your ministers as well as people to serve. I learn so much too from the ad hoc conversation, no matter what depth it is at.

I've been Chaplaining for very nearly twenty five years, and am still practising. The Church continues to amaze me, and come up with new revelations. Visitors, Pilgrims, Congregants likewise.

I'm writing this because I need to read it and remind myself of what a blessing and privilege it is to serve God and his people in this way.

On Those Who Stand In The Way

16^th December 2012

On Those Who Stand In The Way

They were the brave,

they were the few

who held up the skies

in fast and frail craft

while evil carved across Europe.

Falling, falling, the survivors now,

but always remembered.

They were the brave,

they were the few

who spoke up for victims and

sheltered and saved them

from hate’s discriminating atrocity.

Falling, falling, the survivors now,

but always remembered.

They are the brave,

they are the few

who stand in harm’s way

to shelter and save the innocent

from abuse and pain and brutality.

Fallen, fallen, the heroes now,

but always remembered.

In liberty’s chaos and freedom’s choices,

who are the brave, who are the few?

Are we not all the many,

to speak up for justice

voices for goodness in a bedlam of shouting?

Rise, rise, be heroes now

and always remembered.

Advent Reflection

13^th December 2012

Advent Reflection

The purpose is not the stress

of the ever more demanding holiday,

but the straining,

the straining of the sense

of waiting, watching, expecting:

all the senses alerted

and put on notice,

looking out,

staring into night for the first glimpse of dawn.

So,

like a man sucking at a dry pipe

before it is filled and lit and savoured,

I am waiting and preparing,

taking steps to be ready

yearning with longing for the eternal,

a hallowed nostalgia

for the already here but partially recognized,

familiar in the handed down knowledge of mystery.

I’m staring into night for the first glimpse of dawn.

All in the mind

It's all in the mind is a phrase I've seen used a lot recently, on subjects as different as:

how to play the Indian spinners (Geoffrey Boycott, who knows)
how to be responsible about sex and guarding against abuse
how to be a young, inexperienced driver (though hormones play a part too)

Some critics of Christian faith also suggest that it's all in the mind.

Time to emphasise St Paul's words to the Roman Christians:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

St Paul, who is often subjected to vitriolic abuse himself, wrongly, has it right: living a good, acceptable and perfect way of life does depend on the grace of God which comes through renewal. Freedom comes through submission to Jesus Christ.

Remembrance

5^th November 2012

Remembrance

In hundreds, thousands and millions they died,

and some unknown in the lonely loss

of a blast-dissected body,

all alone, unrecognizable,

or drowning in the toxins of gas,

or the ice-grip of a monstrous sea,

but all remembered.

Some were burnt and fell to earth but rose up high.

Some, tortured and warped, dying by inches for us

(or our enemies).

Some live to forgive and some can not,

and there are minds and hearts so gripped by trauma

that they do not know where to go.

And the families, the families! I cannot comprehend their injuries.

But I will remember them all, and pray for

the hurt and the harmed

and the heroes and the cowards

and all the dismembered of the wars,

And still remember that I was made because of war.

Hair raising Fund Raising Stunt

Yesterday I had my hair and beard dyed in the Romanian National colours, Blue, Yellow and Red.

I emerged from Riley's Hairdresser in Barnard Castle multi-coloured, and braced for what others see and what I will not be able to except in a mirror or a photo. I plan to stay this way till Christmas, and to raise at least £500 for J.A.R.S., a charity in Romania which I serve as a Trustee. So grateful thanks to those who have already given so generously. 

The work of J.A.R.S. in Romania is among all sorts of people, but specially at the moment among Roma (Gypsies), proclaiming the love of God in Jesus Christ by both word and action. Your gift will make a difference and enable love to help poverty.
This link will give you further details. I am thrilled to say that I am already 66% of the way to my target, which I hope to exceed considerably.

https://my.give.net/davidgrievejars

Watch this space for updates!