Apparently when I was about 6 or 7 I wanted to be a Priest. I have no real recollection of this phase of my life, but my mother assures me that this is what I wanted to do.
As a young Catholic boy it is quite possible that this is true, I'm sure that lots of boys go through this phase. Catholic priests are a big part of the community and at that age the priest we had - who is now dead - was very cool. He liked football, drinking, smoking, in fact almost all of the vices apart from the one that 6 year olds don't like. Girls. That being said he was at one point sent to - what he himself in later life referred to as - a home for naughty priests. No he was not into small boys or girls but drank too much and may have had a 'fling'. He was, after all, only human.
I have always had a side of myself that has been interested in the big questions, the metaphysical questions, the nature of God. So a desire to follow that interest into a work place, to a vocation makes sense. So when at the age of 23/24 ish I left college - having studied theology - I was natural that I take up a 'calling'. Mine was not as a priest but as a youth worker, based in a church. It backed up what I knew about God and his plans and his church and his ways and him. But it didn't work.
So that left me in a difficult place. What do you do when you think that you are supposed to be doing something and you are unable to do it. Well you do something else but with the belief that you are in the wrong place.
I've been there for the last 8 years. Believing I did something wrong and not being able to fix it. Till this year and in reality in the last few months.
I was chatting to a friend the other night and looking at the idea of the 'big picture' we came to a point where we realised we have seen a bigger path and have walked it - ok we got much of it wrong but it taught us that we are paradoxically crucial to the plan of the divine and surplus to requirements that is great news. It should be liberty but at the same time it just makes us feel or know that we can make a difference. Here's the trick... we do. After years (even) of thinking I was in the wrong job that I should have been a Christian Youth worker, I realised - and only this year in the last few months - that I had a greater influence where I was than I could ever have in a church. And even though - or perhaps because - I am a sick foul mouthed bum I can still have an impact for the love of Christ - we have always argued Christ he hung around with prostitutes, drunks and those who lacked a morally self riteous attitude, so how do we think he wants us to spread his love for humanity? To be with real people in the place where they really live.
In an earlier blog I highlighted that I loved Dali's 'Christ of St John of the Cross' it is transcendent and mystical, but I also love the image of Christ at the well with the Samaritan woman, normal, human Christ who spends time with those he loves.
He is both, surely.
No comments:
Post a Comment