Rev Revelations (ordination health warning)

It is ordination season and I woke this morning with vivid memories of my own ordination as priest 12 years ago. I was reminded of an aspect of that service which I have never spoken about publicly. I felt a ‘God prompt’ that it was time to do so…

“The sudden pain almost immobilised me.

A burning sensation from the back of my calf up to my right hip. It took my breath away.

It came on the moment it was my turn to stand up and step forward to be ordained as priest. I put my right foot forward hesitantly, not sure if the pain would come again but, no, only a throbbing after-effect remained. I made the dozen steps from my seat to the place where I was to kneel.”

And that is the strongest memory I have from the whole of that service. The rest was pretty much a blur but there is photographic evidence that I was there!

Let me just backtrack. Before that service of ordination I had been in training for three years at college and in parish. Immediately prior to starting I had been the most ill I’d ever been in my life to that point: an illness which culminated in my gallbladder being removed and my training almost being postponed. I recovered just in time but arrived at college on a special diet and was then struck by plantar fasciitus in my right foot. (If you have never had this, believe me it is very painful and very miserable and causes you to limp, it heals but very very slowly).

These two factors of pain and restricted diet may be vulnerable and led to a crisis in college during which I felt deeply misunderstood and also undermined by someone very senior whose good opinion I had previously craved.

The result was: I cried for a whole weekend, I nearly didn’t go back to college and… we got a dog! So at least one good thing came out of it.

The dog plan worked. Even though blessed with a supportive spouse, there’s nothing like the unconditional love from a soft affectionate creature who thinks you are the best human being on the planet and whose emotions are not affected by whatever the current church related crisis.

Anyway, back to the day of my ordination as priest. I hadn’t had pain in that leg for over two years, so why such a searing sensation at that precise moment?

It never happened again in the same way although my right hip still aches from time to time. I didn’t tell anyone at the time and have only mentioned it to a few people since. What it has come to mean to me is this: it felt like the Holy Spirit was underlining my inadequacy for ministry. Not in a negative way ‘you’re useless’ kind of way (even though it hurt). It was a nudge that said “if you think you can do this on your own, think again”. It was a reminder of my fragility. 2 Corinthians 4:1 says “therefore since it is through God’s grace we have this ministry, we do not lose heart” . For many years I had that verse taped to the frame of my computer screen.

And over and over again in the last 12 years I have learned the truth of God’s strength being made perfect through my weakness. Whenever I have crumpled, others have stepped up. But oh how I hate to be weak!

About four years into my ministry and one month into my first incumbency post I went down with a virus that put me on the sofa for two full weeks and knocked me off balance physically, emotionally and spiritually for several months. Moving from the position of curate to the position of incumbent is huge. The level of responsibility is of a completely different order and suddenly you are in charge, you can’t refer to someone else, it’s no longer your job to be the popular beloved curate. It is your job to be the unpopular “not quite what anyone wants” / “who does she think she is” vicar. It’s not a good time to fall ill and feel as weak as a kitten. Especially when you are in a post or deanery where there is no other clergy cover, you can’t ring in sick, when there isn’t anyone else to take the service (some how there always was even though I very rarely admitted defeat).

Archbishop Justin Welby once spoke in Coventry Cathedral to a gathering of clergy. He had served as an incumbent in Southam in our diocese. And he spoke about his time as incumbent there as the toughest and most lonely job he had ever done. I cried. Someone had said out loud what I had so often felt.

I don’t feel that way now. I’m no longer an incumbent, I work part-time and I have a lower status and therefore less responsibility, I also have a team and alot more experience under my belt. Nevertheless 13 years after I was first ordained, I still regularly have to remind myself that it is not all on my shoulders, I am called to be faithful and not ‘successful’.

So that’s my revelation. I dedicate this particular blog post to Pip who was ordained deacon today and had to contend with challenges of her own, I hope that she too will be given grace to embrace weakness as well as strength. I have known Pip since she was a little girl and she was only 13 when I was ordained. When I woke this morning with that God prompt on my mind, I had no idea what would unfold for Pip at her ordination today. It was a joy to witness this moment in her life and a reminder to pray for those called to ordained ministry. Only 2% of the church is ordained, it’s good to remember that too!

God bless you Pip (and the several other friends I know being ordained this weekend), may you step up bodly knowing that God has called you by name and that he holds you by your right hand.