Life at present (2)

Another brief installment of what I hope doesn't become a regular series. This is a photo of pre-study: coffee and music. I was listening to Rush 'Power Windows' (1985).

Life at present (1)

This photo is a very accurate representation of life at present: library, laptop, headphones, green tea drink. The fact that I am taking a photo of it and blogging about it suggests the reality: procrastination and distraction.

Cathedral Vision

I was told about the Christchurch earthquake while I was at a clergy development day. We were hearing a lecture on Matthew's Gospel.

The priest at the church where I am a student is also from Christchurch. At a bit after 10:30 he came over and told me what had happened. All he knew was that there had been an earthquake in Christchurch, the Cathedral was ruined and there were fatalities.

When he said this, I had a vision, which I have attempted to draw above. It was of the front of the Cathedral and all about was red. What the image doesn't have is the feeling that accompanied it. It was an empty pit, a vast hollowness. It is very had to describe.

I left the room and tried to contact my brother and mother. I couldn't get hold of them. I rang my wife and asked her to try to contact them. I wandered around outside in a sort of daze, having no idea of what was happening back home.

My wife texted me with a message that said "I think I should come and get you." This sounded like very bad news. My first thought was that my mother had been killed. I started to think about my brother, his wife and three kids. My friends started to pop into my head.

Sarah came and picked me up, and we drove back to our house. The news on the car radio said they had pulled out of the rubble. There would be many fatalities. I broke down.

Since then I have been in contact with so many people. My mother was fine, and my brother and his family are ok too. I have had contact with most of my friends, and they are ok too. There are a few not accounted for as yet.

The last few days have been completely surreal. I wish I was back home with my family and friends. There is nothing I would like to do more than have a cuppa with them.

Christchurch

Yesterday my home town was devastated by an earthquake. 75 people have been confirmed dead. The CBD is destroyed.

All the while, I watch this on TV here in Newcastle, Australia.

I have never felt so helpless, sick, restless and homesick. There is no way I can understand what my friends and family are going through. There is nothing I can do to help them.

Like many, it was the sight of the Cathedral in rubble that bought the whole thing home. The Cathedral is the centre of the city, physically and spiritually. Christchurch is a predominantly Anglican city, and the Cathedral is right in the centre. It would be hard to live in Christchurch and not have a story or an incident that involves the Cathedral.

As a non-Christian, I used to go to the Cathedral on Friday evenings while on my dinner break from work. I used to sit and listen to the choir as they rehearsed.

The cathedral was the place of my conversion, sort of. It was while watching Midnight Mass at Christchurch Cathedral on Christmas Eve on the telly that I first became a Christian. It was at the cathedral that I had first received Holy Communion. It was at the cathedral that I first prayed.

I was talking with a friend last week about how it was my wish that when I am ordained a priest (God willing) that it might be possible to have the ceremony in Christchurch Cathedral. The chances of this were always remote, but it was a hope.

All of this seems quite pathetic and selfish now. As I sit here and watch the news, read facebook updates on how everyone is, and wonder about those we haven't heard from, my interests and hopes have become insignificant and feel wrong.

I have no understanding of how awful it must be for everyone.

Listening

Tonight I watched 'The Simpsons' with my family. It was the episode "Jaws Wired Shut." In this episode, Homer gets his jaw broken and is unable to talk. He discovers that his family is quite interesting, summed up with "Wow, Bart has feelings."

The point is that usually Homer is talking about himself and his life, that he does not hear what his family is saying. because he is so involved in his own life, he does not take the time to hear what the rest of his family are saying. Within his enforced silence, Homer becomes a better man. Not only does he hear his family, he hears what they are feeling.

I have been through a similar breakthrough in the past three months while undertaking CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education). Within this course, I learnt how to keep myself quiet and listen to patients. Not only hear what they are saying, but what they are feeling.

I am a talker. I like talking, and am guilty of talking about myself. Often. I am quite a selfish person in that respect, and no one would know that better than my family.

However, during the last few months I have found myself listening more and talking less. It has been quite a change. One for the better, for the most part, yet I wonder how long I can keep it up.

The thing is, the quieter I am the more I hear, the more I am tuned in to what is going on. So far, this hasn't all been a pleasant experience. By not filling space with gabble, the more I 'hear' the dissatisfaction in living, my own, and those around me.

There is a positive, and a large one at that. By experiencing quiet, I have been able to hear God more clearly. The gentle voice that has guided me once had to eke it's way through my own nonsense. Now, it is a more regular murmur.

Don't think I'm going crazy and hearing voices. It's not like that. Hearing is the wrong word. Like how Homer started 'hearing' his family when he stopped talking ("Wow, Bart has feelings"), it is the same with 'hearing' God. By keeping quiet, God is revealed in the silence.

Service, music, and another year

Saint Cecilia

Well, 2010 is done, and my blogging stopped in July. It was a very busy year I guess, with a lot more church work and essays and stuff, random thoughts posted online shrunk into nothing over the past 12 months.

The other consequence of the busyness was a lack of music composition. 2010 is the first year since 2004 that I didn't "release" an album or a major work. My intention was to finish a piece that I began in May in the last week of the year, but the process of living meant that Ascension sits incomplete in my hard drive.

This has led to a serious consideration: up until this time I have regarded myself as a composer or a musician. The last break I took was in 2003 when my daughter was born and time and energy to compose was scarce. The reason for a "break" in 2010 was also to do with time, but rather than parenthood it was theological study and ministry that caused the music to stop.

Since becoming a Christian, I have regarded my music as part of my ministry. For good or no, it was part of my service. In 2010 several of my pieces were used in worship and meditation services, often (to my surprise) to great effect. This was an affirmation of part of my ministry, but also a realisation that the pieces may be of limited appeal!

Anyway, I have to consider where my music and how much time I devote to it will fit into my life as of now. I am not ready to give up composing, yet I know that time is only going to become scarcer.

I know I was called into the service of the Lord, and my understanding of that has been as a priest. However, if that means giving up music, is that really serving as best I can?

Now there are varieties of gifts,

but the same Spirit;

and there are varieties of services,

but the same Lord;

and there are varieties of activities,

but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

1 Corinthians 12:4-7

This all may sound rather precious and ego driven, but I assure you it is not so. My love of music, my own music, and my thoughts on contemporary church music are at an important juncture. I think most hymns are lacking in mystery and spiritual depth. I struggle to feel connected with God or able to worship to most of the musical drivel in church. The indwelling of Christ becomes a very distant glow that is rather a memory than a moment of oneness when singing most hymns. However at a contemplative service late last year, Christ was present for those present, and it was very humbling that one of my pieces was part of that experience.

The music that I have composed since my conversion has all been with such an experience in mind. To know that in 2010 I let myself down in the creation of a new piece to be a part of that ongoing work is a bit painful.

But, at the end of the day, it is whether the piece will exist or not that is the issue. As the writer of Ecclesiastes says:

Do not say,

‘Why were the former days better than these?’

For it is not from wisdom that you ask this

Ecclesiastes 7:10

The ups and downs

I have just returned from a 3 day retreat. As a group of ordinands, we do this every year, and it is always a wonderful time.

This time, I left with a definite sense of melancholy. Had I used the time right, did I waste the experience, did I really listen to my companions, did I really listen to God?

I read Elisabeth of Schonau's First Book of Visions and Hildegard von Bingen's Scivias. Both hard work and enjoyable.

We discussed our calls to the priesthood and how we think this will look, what it means, all that sort of stuff. It was here that the melancholy kicked in. My call was instantaneous and life changing, like 180 degree turn around. It was completely impossible to ignore and difficult for everyone around me.

My call is still as strong, but what I think my ministry will be is really quite different than what I expected. I probably was in fantasy land in what I thought the job entailed, but the reality seems to be a rather harsh and unforgiving role that seems to ask for disrespect and criticism.

Whinge, whinge, whinge.

All of this would be a complete load of nonsense and absolute awfulness if it wasn't for the presence of the living Christ in each moment of my life.

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

Mark 8:34

I don't do it on my own. Christ is with me. But by hokey sometimes it feels like a wrong turn. Sometimes I feel like a complete fraud. Other times I feel like I don't actually know anything. Of course there are other days when it is rolls along smashingly, and it is so clear as to be a blinding light, yet one that soothes the eyes.

This whole priesty thing is easily the biggest challenges I have have had. It has pushed my limits like nothing else, and has made me question my very existence and the existence of God. And it has also given me moments of gentle joy and sublime consciousness.

It is a difficult path, no question about that.