I've been back in Flanders' Fields now for just over a month and a half, and I've just finished writing the first draft of the first essay requested by the Vocations Committee. Another step taken.

I realise that I've missed doing this: research, reading, puzzling information together and pouring it into a neat essay-mould.
But while it is a very rewarding feeling (I did this on my own!), it can also at times be a very lonely one (I did this all alone!).

They don't prepare you at Theological Faculty for the marathon race that vocation to ordination is, it is! No sprints, a marathon! No Jamaican firebolts, Ethiopean long-distance runners! That's a lot of steps.
But when you get over the initial shock of how long the process might in fact take, there is another aspect of this process that is not often discussed, and it should be: it is a very lonely process.
Let me clarify: it is a process of an individual vis-à-vis their Maker-Redeemer-Sustainer; it is a process of an indiviual vis-à-vis an institution; it is a process of an individual vis-à-vis themselves. You're on your own, and yet you're not. Loneliness, not only negative, because you learn so much about yourself during this time.

We live in a quiet suburban cul-de-sac and because I've returned home in order to prepare for the Church Exam and write, I'm pretty much on my own during weekdays between 9 and 5 (I've noticed I talk to the cat a lot, but that is fodder for another blog).
After 4 months as Lay Minister intern at a busy parish, it came as bit of a shock to the system, when al of a sudden... nothing! From the pulpit back to the pews, litterally!
Into isolation, to the study, to what I loved doing all through all those years at university... and yet, just that isolated academic tower is no longer enough for me! Luckily in a way, else I would be in serious trouble applying for parish ministry.
And sometimes, just sometimes, that dark cloud of doubt and loneliness comes and hangs over you, ominously (still only temporarily though!) and you think: hmmmmm is it all worth it, shouldn't I help my partner bring home the bacon???!! And then this still small voice of calm, or at times a bash over the head, and of we go again, re-energised.

Someone recently asked me what vocation felt like. My reply: like a very nagging housewife, because the Holy Spirit is very patient, very persistent and very tenacious!! Anyone here seen The Big Bang tv-series? Know the character Sheldon (totally brilliant, yet socially inept)? Remember the way he knocks on people's doors? THAT to me is vocation (it took years to finally pluck up the courage and open that door)!

Coming Friday I'll be meeting the Vocations Committe in London (and will be shopping with my friend for the rest of the weekend, fyi!). My progress in this process will be on the agenda, and yet they will also go back to the beginning and ask: are you sure?
Does that sound frustrating? It is! But you have to understand that not all steps back are really steps back, just another way of taking a step forward. Ordained ministry after all is a big step.

So onwards and upwards... next step, Friday, then the second essay, then the sermon, then the viva voce exam, then the advise and decision... on and on and on, one step at a time.

19-06-2013, 18:57 geschreven door jojanv