Sunday 3 March 2013

In which I know everything and nothing at all

Studying, what larks eh? Hours in the books, eons over essays and in our case a bewildering ninety minutes with our brilliant but brain fuddling tutor each week. You emerge, you hope slightly better informed, but more than anything completely, blatantly aware of you own huge inadequacies. Man, I love it! I can feel my wings spreading out with every passing moment, my mind stretching, my perceptions blowing wide open.


The whole process of coming into training has been a suspension of control. Rather than being able to plan out where my life is going and set neat little markers up so I can see where everything is and the way ahead now I just live day by day. Sure, I have hopes and dreams and a vague sense of where it is all going but the particulars and details are all in the imagination of God and I'm just doing what he has laid out on the table before me right now. Each day is completely spontaneous and entirely dictated by other people, it is terrifying and liberating. Every week I am asked to do something utterly bizarre that nine times out of ten I'm not totally convinced I can do. But then I do it and it's ok and my confidence grows.

What I'm learning is that if the future isn't meticulously planned out then there is nowhere else to live but the present moment. There is nothing but the opportunities that present themselves and then going for it with laughter and enthusiasm.
 
This week I spent an hour colouring talking about the merits of blue v.s purple hair with eight year olds, an evening dancing to the most insanely cheesy music man has every recorded to CD with a bunch of trainee vicars, mulled over the ins and outs of divine wisdom, plumbed the depths of my understanding of the mother heart of God and wore bright yellow shoes just for the fun of it. I find myself grabbing moments, grabbing life by the shirt collars, giving it a good shake and seeing what comes out.

As the end of term two beckons I'm so glad to be here. To be simultaneously discovering everything I want to be and landing firmly on my backside realizing everything that I'm not. Being a total idiot one moment and being more than I thought I could be the next. Knowing everything and knowing nothing at all.


1 comment:

  1. That sounds like perfect training for the real thing, which is just as varied and out of your control. :-)

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