Until my sudden departure from paid employment (last March), I was a vicar, let it be known. On a single day, over thirty years of - I hope - useful and effective ministry was brought to what at the time seemed like a permanent end. It felt almost as though I had ceased to exist - for almost the whole of my adult life this had been not only my job but my identity. I had lost not only my paid job but my status and position, and of course my home. The journey on from that point has been a hard one, but it is beginning to feel like a journey with purpose and destination. I have been tempted to give up hope, tempted into believing that I have never had any genuine call into this work. I'm not in that place now - but that doesn't mean there aren't flashbacks.
I don't need to go into the whys and wherefores that lie behind the events of the past few months; they're not important. But I probably should say that, for me, the life of faith has always involved the persistent reality of doubt. You can't have the one, can you, without the other? So what is the origin of faith, and what are the reasons for its persistence, given that doubt also persists? I have found my faith to be renewed and revived through the witness of others, and because of the ministry and prayer they have offered. This has been so important to me through the past weeks and months. I have known myself to be surrounded and sustained by love - despite the times when I have been spiky and difficult and quite unloveable . . .
For now, I continue to be work in progress.
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