a day to remember

Twenty years ago, on 15th October 1994, I was ordained priest by Bishop David Moxon on the Feast Day of St Teresa of Avila at St Peter's Cathedral in Hamilton. 

I could not have imagined then the adventures which lay ahead: almost immediately came the opportunity to spend a year with my family in Canterbury, Kent studying for an MA in Applied Theology; then came the end of nearly a decade of ecumenical chaplaincy at Taranaki Polytechnic [now WITT]; the beginning of spiritual direction and ministry supervision practice; the responsibility of co-ordinating the Spiritual Directors Formation Programme for Spiritual Growth Ministries [www.sgm.org.nz]; being drawn - unexpectedly, and with great trepidation -  into aged care ministry where I now spend most of my working hours, a ministry which takes more of me than I could ever have imagined, where God sustains me - both on good days when I am a reasonably uncluttered channel of grace and on the 'other' days when my own stuff gets in the way.

Woven into these stretching opportunities were the challenge and amazing joy of going to study at St George's College in Jerusalem,  and the complex process of bringing five books to birth - labour intensive, tinged with moments of panic and moments of great joy when the creativity of the Spirit fired my imagination and lifted me up from the 'miry bog' of writer's block. 

God has sustained me through these past twenty years. Over and over I've been invited to do something that scares or surprises me, something that always stretches me and makes me lean more and more on God's equipping and less and less on my own 'self'. As the years in ordained ministry have unfolded, I've been learning to accept my shadow and acknowledge that I make mistakes - something the perfectionist in me tried so hard for many years to avoid!
[ There is a certain freedom in being old enough now to have genuine 'senior moments' - rather than 'menopausal drift'!] Most importantly though, for me, is coming to know in my innermost being, that I am - just as each person everywhere is - deeply beloved of God. 

As a fatherless child, I've always valued the father love of God deeply so the  Romans 8.15 reading for St Teresa's day, in the Message version is especially apt: 

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurous, expectant, greeting God with a child-like,'What's next, Papa?'

No matter what unfolds, what's next, God is with you, with me, with us all.

The first step

                                                            I'd just finished writing my fifth book and my husband kindly said,
'Well, that's the last book done!'

I hadn't thought of it that way, didn't want to think of it that way, as if an ending had been sprung upon me, not of my doing.

But ... as the weeks and months have unfolded since that March moment, I've accepted that there was wisdom in his words - as there often is - and see that, at this time in my life,  I'm being invited to a different form of creativity, one that is manageable in the midst of a work that takes me deeply into death and dying, one that allows me to reflect on the unfolding mystery of the 'ordinary' where Grace is found, always, if I care to look.

And so I am venturing into the unknown, not a big venturing like Abraham, just a small one, a bit like the Owl and the Pussycat. I am putting out into the global sea, with nothing more, nothing less, than the breeze of the Spirit in my sails, the friendship and challenge of Jesus for company, and the warmth of the love of God in my heart.

The process and the content will unfold in time: a poem here , a quotation there , a reflection, a picture ... it will be what it will be.

Unfolding is a time of vulnerability - the magnolia bud is at the mercy of the sharp-eyed wood-pigeon, the kereru, keen to sample the sweet petals before they grow into fullness of form. There is a certain vulnerability in blogging, as there is in living, and in loving. So here goes ...you are welcome to join me.