So, I’ve been away. For quite a time – it’s coming up towards two years since my last post. The truth is, I’ve been on a Journey. A Pilgrimage, maybe, towards some holy destination. Or a Quest, to seek and find my True Self.
In my last post, I wrote about a part of that spiritual journey I had been on since retiring back in 2016. It’s a mistake to suppose that, if you’ve been a Christian for 45 years and a vicar for 37 of them, you have somehow ‘arrived’. At certainty, or a place where you no longer have any progress to make, or something. Pretty much the opposite of the case. I’m sure I’m not the only retired vicar who finds themselves
a) relieved beyond measure that they’re no longer responsible for running a parish, filling in all the returns required by the Bureaucracy, keeping up to date with the law regarding marriages, burials and what have you
b) but also, asking themselves, What was that all about? I know it’s impossible for people in many professions to measure how successful they’ve been, but: Did I actually achieve anything? Was it worth all the hard work and soul-searching? Do I really believe all the things I used to preach to others, or at least, thought I ought to preach? Was it all even true?
So yes: some time around the start of the Pandemic, I had been disturbed by reports of growing antisemitism in many European countries, including the UK. I started reading about the history of antisemitism, and especially the role of the Church, and many of its most famous preachers and theologians (St John Chrysostom, Martin Luther, et al.) in promoting and institutionalizing this hatred of Jews and Judaism. Soon I was wanting to learn about what it was that they hated: Did I even know very much about Judaism.
To cut a long story short, I fell in love with the faith I was reading about. The contribution that Judaism and its adherents have made to the world is beyond reckoning, far greater than you would expect from a people who number probably less than 0.25% of the world’s population. I thought that Christianity grew out of, or at least alongside, the Rabbinic Judaism we know nowadays. Yet I found that many of the articles of Christian faith which I found most difficult and unpalatable were simply not there in Judaism. Like Original Sin. The need for blood sacrifice to turn away God’s anger so that He will not punish us for our sins. The need for people to ‘believe in and accept Jesus Christ’ in order to be ‘saved’. Because God incomprehensibly chose to create a human race of which the vast majority are destined for everlasting punishment if they don’t believe the right things about Him. The dualism of ‘Spirit Good, Matter Bad’. The Patriarchy and suppression of women’s voices and contribution.
You could say (as I did), “I don’t like Christianity very much.”
As well as reading a lot about Judaism, I also started using Jewish prayers for my daily prayer. And I loved them! There’s so much less of the whinging and grovelling that Christian prayers sometimes feel like, trying to curry favour from a mean and ungenerous Deity. The standard mode of Jewish prayer is Thanksgiving, in the form of blessing God 100 (or more) times a day. Blessing God for everything. The prayers frequently take the form of
- Blessing and praising God because He does X
- Asking God to do X
- Thanking God for doing X.
For a time, I even contemplated converting to Judaism. I spoke to a rabbi about it, and she said “You can’t.” (I think that, like the Benedictines, they deliberately don’t consider wannabe converts until the fifth time of asking, because it takes five attempts to prove they are serious.)
The great thing about that episode of ‘not liking Christianity very much’ was that I never stopped believing in God. In fact, I came to believe in and love God even more, as I learned to thank God more and more, in and for all things. And came to suspect that He often doesn’t like Christianity very much at the moment. And I’m immensely grateful for this time of wilderness wandering, when I was not entirely sure about who I was, or where, or where I was meant to be and meant to be heading.
And then, Someone apparently decided it was time for me to come ‘Home’, or at least somewhere approximating to it. Alison wanted to go to a week’s conference at Lee Abbey – a place that’s hard to get to without a car. So my services as chauffeur were required. I hadn’t been to Lee Abbey for years, and was glad for the incentive to go again. So we both went to a conference entitled ‘The Call of the Wild: The Feel of the Holy’, on the themes of Pilgrimage, holy journeys and places, and the Celtic Christian tradition, led by Michael Mitton and Russ Parker. They are great friends and a great team; their talks are much more like witnessing a dialogue between two men who know each other well, have abundant wisdom, and above all enjoy each others’ company and their subject.
I found the ‘worship’ hard going. There were lots of ‘worship songs’ which as far as I’m concerned were anything but. But the talks, the walks around the Lee Abbey grounds, and the opportunities to talk and pray together at the seashore, among the trees, and on the hilltops, were times of real blessing. Russ recommended to me a book on theories of the Atonement, which for all that it was weighty, was very readable and helpful. By Fleming Rutledge, it’s called The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ.
I thought I’d give Christianity, especially of the Celtic variety, another chance. This was how, about six weeks later, I found myself driving Alison to Swanwick for the Annual Gathering of the Community of Aidan and Hilda, which is “a dispersed, ecumenical body drawing inspiration from the lives of the Celtic saints.” Getting excited about it as a ‘place’ that offers refuge and encouragement to people like me who feel disillusioned with much of what we see in the contemporary Church, and applying to become an ‘Explorer’, as they call wannabe members of the community.
So yes, it feels like coming ‘home’. And it feels like taking some tentative steps away from the spiritual home I’ve known, though not really away, but let’s say, forward, on new adventures of life and faith.
Watch this space, then…
Godspelled 