Sadly (or maybe not), I don't get an end of year report to take home from where I am studying for my MA. However, as I have just passed the first anniversary of stepping back from full-time ministry, I want to try to make sense of these last 12 months.
The first thing that became obvious was the loss of a sense that people understood what I was doing. For all the misconceptions people may have, saying you are a Parish Priest conveys a meaning. I am just starting my first book post-final assignment hand in, and I came across this sentence
There are no easy routes to self-realisation; it begins, ironically, with self-abandonment.
I had carefully prepared my CV as I finished last December, and have used it as I have applied for PtO (Permission to Officiate is the somewhat nebulous term to indicate I have the Bishop's permission to minister and that I am up to date with things like safeguarding training and so forth). Having relinquished, I realised how ironic it was to be a bit piqued not to be given a range of plum little projects to work on which would have sounded so impressive as I explained them to people. Instead, as I seem to have found more than once, the path to fruitfulness usually begins by heading in the opposite direction. What's the point of relinquishing stuff if it doesn't stay relinquished?
I continue to preside and preach out in the sticks, trying to listen and discern the health of each as they work to appoint a new person in that Team, and I have become involved in the CAP centre locally. I have been very busy sorting out my Dad's estate after he died suddenly back in February, and I try to keep tabs on my Mum.
Studying has been a most unexpected blessing. There is the roller-coaster of emotion excitedly starting a new module, then the low points of realisation the vast amounts one doesn't understand, rounded off with the immense relief and sense of satisfaction actually handing something in. I have engaged with issues I would not have had any reason to go near had I not been doing this MA, and this has given me a lot of new insights to use in preaching.
As the photo shows, I continue my discipline of walking with my camera and have just started a plan for a substantial walk next year which is both exciting and a little daunting. I have so much to reflect on and am looking forward to more learning in the year to come.
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