Category: ministry

Education is about opening doors – doors of vision, opportunity, possibility, understanding. Not that I thought this while I was being a nuisance at Secondary School, and giving the French teacher a particularly hard time by deliberately mangling spoken French with an exaggerated Lanarkshire accent that must have sounded like a gearbox change without a depressed clutch.

When a few years later, having got Higher French at night school, I took French Studies at Glasgow University, I didn't expect that particular subject to provide some of the richest educational experiences of my student days, and on into my life. But that's what happened. For two years I studied the novels of Camus including his masterpiece, La Peste, read Le Figaro and followed the current affairs of France in 1971-2.

We reviewed 20th Century French Art such as Impressionism and post-Impressionism, cubism, dada and surrealism, and French Theatre including a study of Les Mains Sales by Sartre, the history of the French Republics, the political career of De Gaulle and the relations of France to Europe and its colonies. Immersion in the literature, history and language of another European nation was a profound intellectual experience of new perspective, sharpened perception and freshly cultivated sympathies. I am so glad I took that course; it made me a better human being by introducing me to the reality of worlds other than my own, and helped to shape me as a pastor in ways theology never could. 

Amongst the lasting voices from that course is Antoine De Saint Exupery. I read Vol de Nuit, (Night Flight) and immediately discovered a writer who wrote of loneliness, achievement, challenge, humanity. For Saint Exupery earth and sky are elemental realities, but also metaphors for those human experiences by which we grow and change, attempt and fail, take risks and fly or fall. His Wind, Sand and Stars contains some of the most beautiful reflections on human friendship that I know. Great writing has to have more than depth; it has to make you want to dive; writing that endures does so because it's living energy transfuses with the mind that reads it and shapes its future thought; transformative writing does not merely persuade or permit some new thoughts, it generates ideas, rearranges the familiar assumptions that furnish the mind, and fundamentally changes the way we think.

The first time I read Le Petit Prince I was taken aback by its strangeness. Yet repeatedly I found sentences and phrases and thoughts replete with that wisdom that is effortless, offhand, sentences of unremarkable words arranged with remarkable insight. Now some of its sentences have become familiar furniture in my own mind;

"What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well. "

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

"A goal without a plan is just a wish."

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”

I doubt I would have discovered Saint Exupery if I hadn'e been compelled by an MA course structure to take a modern language, and opted for French Studies, and without knowing what I was doing, opened doors – doors of vision, opportunity, possibility, understanding.

My friend is a great fan of Duke Ellington. Naturally, he is an amateur expert on Jazz, and all things Ellington. He first introduced me to the Sacred Concerts

Visiting him now, this good old friend, over the last few years, has increasingly been affected by alzheimer's disease. Pastoral care and visiting are now important occasions of kenosis, of self-forgetful love. The fragility and uncertainty of communication, not knowing whether we are recognised at any level registering within the heart and mind  of my friend; then, our friend's overwhelming tiredness of body and mind, and the consequent and apparent vacancy of a face well lined with the wrinkles and muscle movement of tens of thousands of past smiles.

There is conversation all around the day room; some of it is the banter of carer and cared for; some is the talk of those still able to build the scaffolding of meaning, to keep the conduits of communication alive with words and memories and shared experience.

And then, some is the one way conversation of a lover with the beloved, a child with the parent, a friend with a lifelong friend, a husband or wife with the one who has shared decades of a life that had become symbiotic, a two way traffic journey of love, companionship and conscious commitment to see life together. It is this dynamic but complex relationship between human love and dementia that raise deep and searching questions about who we are in relation to those we love, and who they are in relation to us.

Because now for the lover who comes to visit the beloved one, to care and to be with this so long loved person, all this shared life story seems to have become the responsibility of the one; and a life once shared is now constricted after all these years, to singleness of intent, when only one is left to sustain the two way covenant and having to do so alone. Shared imagination and hopefulness are now the responsibility of the one in whom those precious human gifts are still at the service of this uniquely crafted human relationship.

And then there is the remembering of the one and the not remembering of the other. Memory is fading, memory, that precious essential component of personality and character. Memory is failing or failed, and previously vivid pictures are now gray, ambiguous, perhaps even blank for all we know. Memory, where resides the plot and purpose and repository of the unique story of all that has been for these two people, slips into confusion and eventual emptiness. Remembering too becomes the willingly borne burden of the one, in whose memory the other lives, and in whom their identity retains definite and cherished existence. These are burdens hard to bear, and requiring pastoral care that combines the delicacy of a neurosurgeon touching raw nerves, and the faithfulness and courage to be there in the anger, anguish and bereavement of a lover forgotten by the beloved.

Visiting a unit which specialises in the care of people with dementia, therefore, requires a deep kenosis of the spirit. Our competence as communicators, and our training in saying the right thing, are stripped of much of their effectiveness, Our dependence on the usual ways of relating through touch, eye contact, sound of voice and particularly the currency of words, concepts, and ideas, has to be abandoned, because with this person, at this time and in this place, much more is required of us.

Oh yes, words still matter; the speaking voice remains an essential reaching out to the other; and eye contact, touch and gesture retain their value as gifts of the self to the other. But without the comfort of knowing that the beloved other understands, will respond,  will reward us with recognition, acknowledgement, and those exchanges that enrich, enhance and confirm our relationship. This is loving with no thought of reward; this is casting the bread of our caring upon the waters with no promise whatsoever that they will return to us.

The great prayer of Ignatius Loyola, wih minimal adjustments, can be a useful prayer which we say before going to visit in a unit dedicated to caring for people with dementia.

Teach us, good Lord, to serve these your children, as they deserve;

To give, and not to count the cost,

to speak and not to heed the empty silences,

to toil at being present, and not to seek for rest,

to labour with tireless heart, and not to ask for any reward,

save that of knowing that to these your children,

we are conduits of your love, and bringers of your Presence.

Amen  

Over at the blog Faith and Theology, Kim Fabricius has his now regular doodlings on life, faith and disbelief at what Christians get up to, think, and how we sometimes behave in ways that bring Jesus into disrepute!

Amongst his later comments I found the following poignant, pointed comment about what matters, who matters and why.

Want to pare your Christmas card list? Ask yourself: if I am afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease, who will come to visit me, sit with me, stay with me, speak my name, talk about the old days, and, above all, tell me how wonderful it is to see me?

In one of those strangely compelling connections of thought we sometimes have, I remembered Jesus words about who to ask for dinner. Not those who can reciprocate, not those who will even appreciate, but those who can't pay back, those who may not even notice your kindness they are so hungry. Or those who no longer recognise you, have no way of remembering your kindness from one minute to the next, and therefore for whom friendship as the collected memories of love, companionships and shared life, now has to be lived in the present moment. So ask those who will never know it was even you – better still, visit those who don't even know who you are and why you are there. And perhaps, then our kindness, compassion and mercy is the beginning of that habitus of friendship that is something of what it means to accept Jesus' own invitation to "take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and my burden is light, and you will find rest for your soul" – [and perhaps, through you, so will others]

And maybe going back to the Christmas card list, I want to make sure there are the names of those who will not send me one, may not even know any longer who I am or what a Christmas card stands for. But I do, and somewhere in that mystery we call love, such otherwise pointless gestures taken on the significance of sacrament. And that sacrament becomes the more redemptive of friendship if it is embodied because I take the card rather than post it.

Blessed are those who mourn,

for they shall be comforted.

Mourning is a process of diminishment, a weakening of purpose, the reflexive ache of the human heart traumatised by loss. The death of someone whose life is entwined with ours in friendship, loving commitment or long years of shared experience creates an abyss of loss at the edge of which we tremble. 

But there are other deaths – the dying of a loving relationship that is now suffering from a sclerosis of those channels of trust and communication that are the oxygen of of love. The loss of work, when a hoped for career doesn't work out, when redundancy means more than the technical word for being paid off, but takes on a note of fixedness that defines a human being as being superfluous to economic requirements. Illness and the loss of health, the recognition that the human body is so made that it naturally slows down, grows old and gradually loses its powers. The loss of place, when home no longer feels that secure, familiar retreat where welcome, renewal and belonging simply happen because that's what home is.

Comfort is more than the emotional security invested in a 'comfort' blanket. The word is about strength, fortification, en-couragement. But what strengthens and fortifies is the presence of the one who stands alongside, the one who is there for us. There is something to be said for holding on to the now obsolete name of the Paraclete. And even if it needs recovered significance, refreshed meaning, semantic repristination, there are few words that say better what it is that the mourner needs. A Paraclete, someone who is there for us.

The Matthean text uses the divine passive – comofort isn't available on demand from our own resources. It is that which is given, the gift of presence, the accompaniment of one who understands us, and stands under us, upholding with a strength that supplements our own weakness, and with a persitence and constancy that remains despite the changes that loss has made inevitable.

Mourning is the slow process of sorrow adjusting to loss, of reduced vitality and struggling hopes; comfort is the presence of one who is there for us, looks out for us, who enourages us towards a future still possible.The marble relief below is a moving image of the two poles of this beatitude – mourning and comfort, loss and presence, the reality of sorrow and the alternatiuve reality of hope.

 On the trip to Vienna I went walkabout with one of the friends we were visiting. Came across the statue of Mozart and this arrangement of flowers. There aren't many comparisons I would dare make between myself and Karl Barth and Hans Kung - but a love for the music of Mozart, and a sense of the theological inspiration it provides is one that seems safely modest.

While posting this I'm listening to the Ave Verum Corpus which is one of the most beautiful and spiritually consoling pieces of music I know. The incarnation, the atonement and the humility of God are deeply embedded in this serene, composed and gentle hymn of divine self relinquishment.

This week is the anniversary of my ordination to pastoral ministry – the book I've bought to commemorate that milestone is Edward Oakes' new volume, Infinity Dwindled to Infancy. A Catholic and Evangelical Christology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011). Oakes is one of the best interpreters of Hans Urs Von Balthasar and has written a major study of Von Balthasar's Christology.

Years ago the veteran theologian T C Oden wrote a three volume systematic theology based on what he called the ecumenical consensus. It remains a repository of ecumenical theology, both constructive and incorporating a wide range of voices from the diverse streams of the Christian theological tradition. This Christology is a major work of ecumenical and eirenic theology, an account of the person of Jesus Christ that seeks to be faithful to the ecumenical consensus but also considers and interacts with contemporary Christological thought. At the heart of hearts of pastoral ministry and Christian faith is the beauty and mystery of the incarnation, the intersection of eternity with history, the impossible reality of the divine becoming human, the majesty of love expressed in the self-surrender of God.

 It is that mystery and beauty and majesty and that impossible reality that is sung in Ave Verum Corpus. The combination of such musical truth telling and heart searching on the one hand, and an ecumenical essay in Christology that takes with utter seriousness the truth of God Incarnate on the other, is for me a reminder of the central core of faith – the mystery of Jesus Christ, revealing the self-giving love of God for a creation gone far wrong, but entered in the power of a love that suffers and absorbs that wrongness, reconciles the alienated, restores and renews so that once again life is lived in the fullness of God. To be a follower of Jesus Christ, a lover of such a God as Jesus reveals, an agent of the Kingdom of God responsive to the Holy Spirit – whatever else ordination means, it means surrender to truths of such magnitude that wonder, gratitude and love for God and all God has made are only the beginnings of an adequate yes to the divine call.

Elizabeth Goudge is an author whose kind of writing would now be dismissed as old fashioned. Most of her novels were written in the middle of the 20th century and she was classified as a writer of novels for women. Just goes to show – such categories are useless at best and mischievous at worst. I've read a lot of her novels, and remember a conversation with an English teacher who knew her novels, who said The Dean's Watch was the most complete and satisfying novel she had ever read. On her recommendation I read it – and twice again since. I have a lovely first edition hardback with a quaint dustcover that is unmistakably mid twentieth century.

I was thinking about her the other day, and now today came across an epigraph at the start of a chapter in The Disciplined Heart. Love, Destiny and Imagination by Caroline Simon. This is a very fine book, the kind of writing I revel in.  A philosophical discussion of key human experience, opening into theological reflection, and laying tribute on literature and bible. At the centre is the meaning of human love in all its diverse and rich expressions, including friendship – an area of human experience coming to the fore in theological consideration today.

And here is the epigraph – taken from Goudge's novel, The Scent of Water:

If you understand people you're of use to them whether you can do anything for them or not. Understanding is a creative act in a dimension we do not see."

There is an entire week's teaching of pastoral theology waiting to be extracted from that. Unfazed empathy, imaginative listening, accessible wisdom, thoughtful compassion, accompanied waiting, patient faithfulness, persistent presence. There are few more therapeutic moments in our lives than when we feel and know ourselves understood. One other person stands alongside us, exactly where we stand, and knows, with that intuitive gift that is kindness and friendship, just knows, how it feels at this precise moment and in this exact place. And we know they know.

"The lessons of the crisis of faith may have helped us and may help us still to know the glory of the Triune God, the Creator, the Judge and the Saviour of Humanity, and to proclaim it with more humility, more love, and more understanding of those who find faith hard…it is through the facing of dark nights, whether in the mysery of God or in the agonies of the world, that the deepening of faith is realised."

Michael Ramsey was writing in the 1960's  – but those simple priestly words have considerable resonance for the confused and anxious Church of the 21st century on these islands. In them he identified humility as the essential tone of missiology in a secular society, and love as the distinctive hallmark of truly Christlike discipleship, and compassionate understanding as the required emotional psychology of the follower of Jesus. Hard to improve on that.

What is the connection between leadership and management? And what then is the connection between leadership, management and grace? And finally what is the connection between leadership, management, grace and an authentic way of being the Body of Christ in the world?

My problem is one of resistance to and suspicion of theologically misleading discourse. Leadership and management are about efficiency, control, direction, achievement, development, intentional actions, presumed effectiveness and humanly contrived success. All of which is fine in the company, the business, the  commercial organisation, the corporate entities that make up most of contemporary social structures. But is the church that is the Body of Christ a corporate entity of the same order as all the others in the world, or even entirely of the same ontological sphere?

The church exists to embody the life and reality of the risen Lord Jesus, the Body of Christ. And as such, its organisational principles, its ethos and values, its convictions and actions, are likely to be qualititatively different, perhaps even threateningly alien, to the principles, ethos, values, convictions and values of other corporate bodies with no transcendent affiliation. Or is that just too radical? Is such a disconnect between the culture of managed commercial and political society and the culture of the church just too unreal? Are the basin and towel embarrassing relics, revered symbols, sacred ideas – or are they part of a story that is to be lived, practiced and perpetuated in the witness of the church? And is the table, set with bread and wine, the place for private, individualised devotional reverie and remembrance, or the place where we are reminded of that vast disconnect between power and brokenness, between management and mystery, between the lust to control and the passion of surrender, and that surrender which is the Passion.

So any discussion of church leadership which presupposes forms of management and hierarchical models of direction and authority, for me will always be judged by those radical symbols of disconnect – the basin, the towel, the table, and yes, the cross. Which brings me back to the awkward and disconcerting juxtaposition of the words management and grace. And to that table around which Christians gather to be reminded of how different from the pervasive cultural norms we are called to be. And to be recalled to a way of life, a form of being, a lifestyle of convictional practices that show why this disconnect, this radical difference is not only necessary, but is the benchmark of faithfulness to a Gospel of grace which enables and renews the mind, heals and restores the heart, beckons and summons the will, humbles and lifts the spirit, breaks down the barriers of our mistaken self-confidence, and remakes in us the capacity to trust, to love and to serve.

Grace and management presuppose a different order of relationships; leadership and grace only co-exist in Christian discourse and practice when acts of service, not expressions of authority and power, bear witness to that example that was given at the heart of the Christian story, and is told out around the Christ-given table. At that place, the Christian table, the radical disconnect between the styles and activities of managerial leadership and the lived practices of the Body of Christ as a graced community are most visible, and there witness is borne to the way of Jesus.

And if you ask what that means in practice – I'm sorry the specifics will only arise in each of our lives when we make those choices that mean for us what it meant for Jesus who laid aside the garments of status and took the basin and the towel; and when we learn what it means in our own living, in this particular relationship now, to not count our own status a thing to be clung to; and when grace as gift, as being weak yet strong, as being generously given thus a generous giver, as not looking to our own interests, when grace not our own overriding intentionality, takes of our not much, and multiplies it in blessing to others. Because that's what God is like.