Tuesday, September 06, 2005

 

Finding a voice

Yesterday, I had a meeting (session?) with my spiritual director, John, in Bury St Edmunds. As an ordinand, you're strongly encouraged to find someone who isn't attached to your course/college, to whom you can talk about your spiritual life/growth, and who has no reporting relationship with anyone else. They're supposed, I think, to help you explore and deal with issues around spirituality and your own Christian life which aren't explicitly academic (for which you have a tutor) or pastoral (for which you have a local ordained supervisor). The course will keep an eye on your spiritual development, of course, but it's considered useful to have someone who's out of the loop to whom you can go from time to time, and who can give you some guidance. After a couple of false starts over the past two years, I've settled with John, who was a tutor of mine when I read theology at university (I was at King's College, Cambridge, and spent two of the four years I was there doing the theology tripos Part II). We've kept vaguely in touch, and he was one of the first people I went to see when I started down the road to ordination. I respect him, value his wisdom, and know that I can talk at all levels with him. I was very pleased when he agreed to be my spiritual director, and yesterday was my first official session (we'd had a preliminary one a couple of months ago, and had to cancel one when I was ill).

As I see the process of writing this blog as part of my theological reflection, and it's intended to take at least part of the place of a journal, we had quite a long chat about it, and at the end of the session, I gave him the URL so that he can look at it (and maybe even comment - who knows?) - hi, John! We talked about a bunch of things, including (in no particular order):

What we talked about most, however, was why I was writing this, and not a private journal. You're encouraged by the course (ERMC) to write a journal in order to record issues and be able to have something to return to and share with others (including staff) on the course from time to time. I decided to write this, instead - or at least as well as. I expect that from time to time I may want to record some thoughts privately, but so far, I've not felt the need, and I've tried to be honest about things here. I don't think I'm trying to hide from creating a personal journal: more, as I tried to explain, it's because I've tried it before, and I've never really found a voice that I'm happy with when I'm writing privately: a voice that feels like me. However, when I'm writing this, I sort of know who I'm writing for. It's for friends, but also for the person I think I'd probably be if I were outside the church, looking in. Hopefully receptive to ideas, but wanting detail and honest discussion. He wonders whether I am avoiding it, because I find it hard to find a voice, and whether that lack of voice for myself (as opposed to the voice that I can find to address other people, even if they are, to a large extent, "posited" people, and not specific people I'm addressing - an "ideal" audience, in other words) should be an issue about which to be concerned. This led on from - and back into - a discussion of how I find my position as a corporate Christian easier, at some times, than as an individual. Clearly, the individual side of my relationship with God is important, and if this is a symptom of a paucity in this area, it's to be watched.

An interesting evening, anyway. Today's been fairly standard - went to have a talk with someone at CacheLogic this afternoon, which is unlikely to lead to any commercial collaborations, but might lead to a paper or two, which would be good.

Music Today


# posted by MikeCamel @ 12:00 am
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