Spiritual gifts, sarcasm and sex

Crossing the Line - part 11

Although I knew the direction my life should take, that didn’t mean it was easy.

Disentangling myself from my school persona took time and effort.  Some of my friends didn’t want me to stop doing the things I did.  Saying ‘no’ to the temptations I had embraced was hard enough, but telling people why was an even bigger challenge.  Some friends tried to understand, but others just wrote me off as a religious nutter – the sort of person you don’t want to be around.

The school’s overwhelming emphasis on competition and academic achievement had a darker side.  There was a correspondingly inadequate emphasis on personal growth and development. It was ideal for potential investment bankers, lawyers and captains of industry, where winning is what matters.  Where it fell down was in responding to anyone who was different.  Sarcasm and derision was the standard response to anyone who didn’t fit the mould.  Now I found that I was the object of this ripping sardonic wit.

At home, I stated reading the Bible every day.  I joined a home group where we worshipped, prayed and discussed the scriptures together, while hoping for the spiritual gifts which we had seen in evidence in the big meetings we went to.  The Bible started to make sense to me in a new way.  I did not approach it uncritically but as I asked my questions, I found that the overarching meta-narrative made sense.  It held together with a coherence which surprized me.

Then one evening at the home group, I experienced what I had seen others receive – Baptism in the Holy Spirit.  It didn’t happen in the over-hyped, noisy atmosphere of a big rally but in a time of silent prayer among half a dozen friends.  I began to feel a warmth in my heart of a kind I had never known.  It grew and grew until I felt I couldn’t contain it in my body anymore.  I thought I was going to burst with a sense of God’s love, more real than anything I had experienced before, with waves of gentle power washing over me.  It was electric.

In the middle of this, I sensed God prompting me.  “Now speak in tongues.” It wasn’t a voice, but it was real.  With more than I little trepidation, I remember doing the only thing I could think of.  Under my breath, I counted down.  “Five, four, three, two, one…” As I reached zero, I opened my mouth and to my great surprize, found I was speaking out loud in a language I did not understand.

I don’t know who was more surprized, me or the other people in the home group.  I was only 14.  After I finished we waited in silence.  A few moments later another person in the group gave an interpretation with God’s encouragement for us all.  I can’t honestly remember a word of it – I was still in a kind of shocked rapture.  My heart was on fire and I felt like I was plugged into the mains.

If I still had any doubts about my new direction in life, this laid them to rest.  At school, I responded to the sarcasm with an even stronger resolve to follow God.

Benny and Chris in our Sunday best!

I was also not alone.  God was working in the life of Chris, my oldest friend who helped get me through my early years.  We sang together in the church choir from the age of 6 or 7 and now Chris’s faith also came alive.  In a Pentecostal Church a few miles away, he too was Baptised in the Holy Spirit and sometimes I went with him to church there.  I remember the fiery sermons, the intense times of prayer, and the Pastor who couldn’t quite believe that an Anglican could speak in tongues.   Chris was a huge encouragement to me and together we grew in faith.  Chris eventually went on to be a missionary, first in Turkey, then in Azerbaijan, and now heads up a support ministry for Azerbaijan in the USA.  God’s hand was on both our lives.

There was one thing that bothered me though.  When I had realised that God was real, I remember worrying about a part of my personality which I thought would be at odds with following God.  After shaking off my childhood fear of authority, I now hated being told what to do and what to think.  Authority in and of itself had no authority as far as I was concerned.  It had to be earned.  If there were no reasons for the rules, the norms, the expectations, then I was more likely to rebel against them.  I had discovered my rebellious side and   I remember asking God, “Does following you mean that I have to stop being rebellious?”  The answer surprized me.  “Not at all – you just have to be rebellious for me!” 

That was something I could do.

At school, when I was called names or shunned for my newfound Christian commitment, I rebelled against this mindless conformity.  In fact, it strengthened my resolve to follow God.  I started wearing Christian badges, putting Christian stickers on my exercise books, and smiling a people who insulted me.

I learned some years later that this led to concerns among my teachers about ‘religious mania’.  Apparently, my name came up regularly at staff meetings.  I didn’t fit the school’s secular mould and was definitely seen as non-conformist in more ways than one.  Fortunately, I was saved in the staff room by the fact that alongside my growing Christian faith, I was also improving academically.  I was moving up the class in English and Maths to the point where I was fast-tracked with others, going on to get grade A’s in both O Levels a year early – something which would have been unthinkable 12 months before.  It is hard to fully explain this, except to say that alongside a growing confidence in faith, there was a growing sense that nothing was impossible, including school work!

Of course, I must have been insufferable at times.  Being filled with a belief that God can do anything doesn’t make you as sensitive to the needs of others as I would now hope to be.  My life had certainly changed though, and I thought there was no going back. There was however, another way in which my growing commitment to Christ could be undermined.  One which I didn’t see coming.

I first met Carol at the village Christmas fair.  In fact, she deliberately tripped me up to get my attention.

Being at an all-boys school meant there wasn’t much opportunity to meet girls.  I felt awkward around them like any teenage boy.  I didn’t know how to talk to girls, especially if I ‘fancied’ them.  It was the normal mixture of tongue-tied embarrassment, with the self-defeating desire to run away as fast as I my legs could carry me.

Carol was different.  She was from the opposite end of the village to me.  I lived in a big house, an only child.  She lived in a council house at the wrong end of Whitehall Lane with her mum, step-dad and eleven other brothers, sisters, step brothers and step sisters.  It was an overcrowded house full of shouting, and the loudest, most aggressive voice usually won.  At 14, she already had a probation officer who she had to see every Thursday.  Her last boyfriend had been a local gang-leader.  She knew how to get what she wanted, and for some strange reason she wanted me.

We were going out together within 2 days.  I fell head over heels in love with Carol almost instantly, with all the intensity of a first romance.  My parents were horrified, especially when her last boyfriend’s gang knocked on the vicarage door summoning me to meet their boss.  The more my parents tried to pull me away, the stronger my determination to stay with her.  The relationship quickly became sexual and although I didn’t stop going to church or reading my Bible, my faith was soon taking second place and my relationship with my parents was becoming very strained.  I became manipulative, deceptive and sometimes goaded them into losing their temper a little too much, knowing that they would feel guilty in the morning and leave us alone for a while.

Nor was Carol a bad person.  She had many admirable qualities. She simply wanted to escape her predetermined path and live a different life.  Carol came to church with me and even joined the choir.  I went with her to see her probation officer each week.

 

But something wasn’t right.

Over the months which followed, our relationship became unbalanced.  Our physical chemistry became overwhelming and put in the shade all the other elements of a healthy partnership.  I became aware of the damage this was doing to my Christian commitment and my relationship with my parents.  As they got better at holding back, I got better at seeing that we were not a good fit for each other, but I was also scared of what would happen to her if we split up.  I began to feel trapped.

My salvation came in the form of a Mission to Manchester led by David Watson, vicar of St Michael le Belfry in York, a well-known Anglican Charismatic Church.  I went twice during the week and then, at Salford Rugby Ground on Saturday 10^th June, 1978, I knew I needed to go forward as an act of commitment. I needed to repent of the things I knew I was doing wrong, and put God back in the driving seat.

I had never felt the need to do that before.  After all, God had always been there as I grew up; there was never a time when I didn’t know him.  In that sense I had always been a Christian.  And yet now I knew I had to make my adult commitment to God – a formal declaration, a definite decision.  I needed to grow up, and take responsibility for myself before God.  In the words of the classic ABC altar call, I ‘Admitted’ my sins, ‘Believed’ in Christ, and ‘Committed’ myself to be his disciple.

The next day, as painful as it was for both of us, I broke up with Carol and I promised myself that I would never again go into a relationship which had the potential to undermine my relationship with God.

Sometimes I hear people saying that if you are not ‘right with God’ then you will find your spiritual gifts drying up and God becoming distant. Behind it, I suppose there is a theology which says that you have to be living a holy life to be used by God, or be close to God.

I have to say that is not what I have found in life.  While I was with Carol my faith did not dry up; neither did experiencing spiritual gifts in my home group, prayer life and church.  Despite becoming aware that this wasn’t what God wanted for me, despite being decidedly ‘unholy’ in my dealing with my parents, despite realising in time, that it had the potential to undermine my relationship with God, I continued to grow as a Christian.

Later in life, I saw this in Hong Kong too, working with heroin addicts in Jackie Pullinger’s ministry (but more of that later).

God doesn’t come close to us because we are holy.  He comes close to us because we need his holiness and grace.  We can never make ourselves holy enough to experience God.  No matter how hard we try, there will always be parts of our lifestyle, attitudes, or relationships that would disqualify us from God’s power or presence.

God draws close to us simply because he loves us.  What opens the door to God in our hearts and lives is not our paltry, pseudo-holiness – it is what Jesus Christ has done for us.

As Isaiah says, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6)

The miracle of God’s grace is that he comes to us, and sends his Spirit to us, even though we are unclean.  As John says, “This is love: not that we love God, but that God loved us, and sent his Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10)  and he goes onto say, “This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: he has given us of his Spirit.” (vs 13)

There are two dangerous mistakes in thinking that particular sins can close the door to God in our lives.  The first is when we think that God won’t have anything to do with us if we stray from his way.  Falling into that trap means we assume God will be distant from us at the very time when we need him most!  Time and time again, I have found that it is God who sticks with me no matter what, not the other way round.  And when I am lost, he comes after me like the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep on the hillside while he searches for the one who wandered off.

The second danger is that we try to use our sense of closeness to God as a kind of spiritual barometer for how well we are doing.  This is sometime expressed as

“If God is still with me, then the things I do must be ok.  My attitudes, my lifestyle, my relationships must be ok if he is still using me and pouring out his Holy Spirit on me.” 

I cannot think of a single verse in the Bible which would back up that kind of twisted theology.  It is the sort of theology which results in TV Evangelists using prostitutes, or church leaders abusing children.  

It also makes ‘successful Christians’ less willing to examine their attitudes or prejudices towards others – whether in racism, homophobia, or social stigma.  Just because God is blessing us, doesn’t mean that we have got it right.

It was through God keeping close to me when I was going wrong, that I became aware that I was going wrong.  The challenge then, is to respond in a way which continues to build our relationship with God.

So that is what I began to do.

Click here for part 12 - Gotcha!

Click here for an introduction to Crossing the Line

Real or imaginary?

Crossing the Line - part 10

Starting senior school was great.

When I joined the prep school, I joined a year late.  Everyone else started there aged 8, and I joined a class where everyone knew each other and knew how the school worked.  I knew no-one and every day was a new experience of uncertainty and finding my way.

When we moved up to the senior school, all the prep school classes were jumbled up and we were joined by an equal number of boys who were new.  This time I was one of the boys who already had friends and knew how the school worked.  I soon found my place in our new class, manipulated the seating plan so that I sat with my friends, and discovered a new confidence.

Not that my academic achievement improved.  I was still bottom of the class in English and Maths but there were new subjects to get stuck into.  Some like Latin were a disaster but others, like Physics and Geography caught my imagination.

By half way through my second year I had successfully partitioned my life.  At home I was the vicar’s kid.  I sang in the church choir, attended church without complaint and was polite to everyone.  At school I was a typical pre-teen, starting to discover a bigger world and make my own decisions.  I was also very careful to keep the two apart.  I got the occasional detention after school but not enough to attract much attention.  The only time my parents were called into school was after I threw my bag across the classroom at another boy after an argument.  He ducked and my bag smashed a large glazed print of Picasso’s Guernica on the wall behind him, showering him in broken glass.  That was a bit difficult to hide.

I learned the art of not getting caught when I broke the rules.  The class I was in had an obsession with gambling, and I discovered an entrepreneurial streak, renting out packs of cards and poker dice to my classmates on condition that my name was kept out of it if they got caught.  I kept my stock of cards in the class library desk.  After the key to the desk had been lost, I was the only person who could pick the lock and was rewarded by being appointed the class librarian.  It was the perfect hiding place and before long I was also storing my classmates inevitable ‘dirty mags’ there too, for a fee.  As a result, if our classroom was searched during lunch or break (when classrooms were out of bounds) nothing untoward would be found. 

Increasingly however, I began to recognise the emerging contradiction in the two lives I was living.  The Christian faith which I lived at home and my school persona were pulling in two opposite directions.  I realised that I would have to choose one or the other.  One night, I remember coming to the conclusion that I needed to decide whether this God who I had been brought up to believe in was actually real.  If he was real, there was no question in my mind – I had to follow him wholeheartedly.  But if he wasn’t real, I could do whatever I wanted!  To be honest, I was looking forward to the latter.  I had discovered a rebellious part to my personality which didn’t like obeying rules and my fear of authority was waning fast.  I wanted to run my own life, making my own decisions unencumbered by divine expectations.

Over the 12 months which followed however, God left me in no doubt that he was real.

The first part of my reality check came as my parents started to explore Charismatic Renewal.  The years at Blackrod and the abortive defection to Rome had resulted in a dry period for their faith.  They both faithfully continued to follow God’s calling, but the joy and sense of direction had gone.

Then mum read a book called “Nine o’clock in the morning” which talked about a renewed faith, lived in the tangible presence of God through the power of the Holy Spirit.  After patient perseverance, she persuaded dad to read it too.  Soon they began to look for events and meetings to explore this ‘new life in the Holy Spirit’.  Manchester wasn’t far away and there were lots of opportunities there.  It was in the days when preachers like Colin Urquhart and David Watson were filling major venues, and my parents took me along to the meetings with them.

For the first time, I saw Christians who actually looked like they were enjoying their faith.  I heard contemporary worship songs with a beat and saw people enraptured as they sang them.  I also heard stories of God’s healing, of smuggling bibles behind the iron curtain, and saw people being ministered to in prayer.  This was a new, vibrant, exciting Christianity and while part of me had reservations, and some of the things were more than a little strange, I recognised something significant was at work here.

The second part of my reality check was much more disturbing and happened a long way from home. 

When I was 12, I went on a school trip to Paris with a coachload of boys from my year.  During my first night there, on the 7^th floor of the hotel, I tried to kill myself in my sleep.

I had always had a problem with dreams, as long as I remember.  I used to have night terrors as a small child.  As I grew older, I began sleepwalking and the dreams became more violent, resulting in me hitting or kicking my parents more than once as they tried in vain to wake me.  Although I never told anyone, I also heard voices from time to time, calling my name.

That evening in Paris, I heard the voices again, but for the first time they were angry.  That night, in the hotel room I was sharing with two others, I dreamt that I was responsible for the deaths of millions of people.  The feeling of panic and remorse was so vivid and I couldn’t live with myself.  I got out of bed, walked over to the balcony doors and tried to open them.  One of my room-mates woke up and asked me what I was doing.  I replied “I’m going to kill myself”.  My plan was simple.  I was going to get out onto the balcony and jump off, seven floors down to the concrete below.

What saved me was being unable to open the doors.

There was no reason for that.  There was no lock on the doors, and we had been out on the balcony earlier that evening without difficulty.  Now the doors would not open, no matter how hard I pushed and pulled on the handle.  After a few moments of futile frustration, I realised that my roommates had turned on the light and were starting to get out of bed.  I stormed into the bathroom, locked myself in and started to run a bath with the intention of drowning myself.  Looking back, I realise how futile this would have been, but at that moment, the wish to die was so much stronger than the will to live, and any possibility of achieving this was an option.

As the bath slowly filled, something began to change in me.  The will to live started to resurface.  Although I still believed that I had killed millions of people, something inside me started to draw me back towards life rather than death.  As that feeling grew within me, the strength to live began to grow too, until after what seemed like an age, I reached out and pulled out the plug.  The water started to drain away.

That was the last thing I remember of that night.  My roommates told me in the morning that I came out of the bathroom, threw myself on the bed and didn’t stir until morning.  When I awoke, the memory of the previous might was still in my mind, but I thought it was simply a horrible dream.  It is hard to overstate the shock when they told me it actually happened.  I was terrified.  What if it happened again tonight, or another night?  What if the doors to the balcony opened next time?

During the day we went to the Sacré Coeur Basilica. Amid the throngs of tourists, I managed to find a quiet corner set aside for prayer.  There I sat, pouring out my fears and bewilderment.  As I did this, I found a strange peace enfolding me, and a sense that God was putting his arms around me, saying, “I am here, and I will protect you”.  It wasn’t a voice, but something deeper and stronger.  I left there with a remarkable sense of assurance that everything would be ok.

What I didn’t know until later was that back in England, my mother had woken up and the same time as my ordeal the night before, with a strong sense that they needed to pray for me. 

While I was in France they had travelled to stay at Whatcombe House in Dorset.  At that time, it housed a charismatic community of healing called the Barnabas Fellowship.  While they were there mum was healed both emotionally, from many of the traumas of her childhood, and physically, from increasingly severe arthritis. It was a turning point for them in their Christian faith.  At the very time I was distraught and trying to kill myself, she was waking dad to pray for me.  The coincidence was uncanny and to this day, I believe that their prayer is what stopped me being able to open those balcony doors.

I saw that God was real.

When I got back home and told them what had happened, they were horrified and then deeply worried.  I was taken to the doctor and referred for psychiatric tests.  I remember being wired up for an EEG scan (Electroencephalogram) to look for any abnormalities in my brain patterns.  Although I didn’t know it at the time, there were also worries about schizophrenia.  In the end, all the tests came back ok, but my parent’s understandable fear remained, and they took me to see a wise Christian leader in the Anglican charismatic movement called John Gunstone.  After we talked for a while, he said some simple prayers with me, casting out any evil spirit which may be behind my experiences.  I have never been the sort of Christian who sees demons around every corner or spiritual warfare as the reason for every testing time, but I do know this; after his simple and undramatic prayers with me, I never heard the voices calling my name again and my night terrors stopped.

I now knew that God was real – and I knew that I had to follow.

Click here for part 11 - Spiritual gifts, sarcasm and sex

Click here for an introduction to "Crossing the Line"

Turning a corner

We are taking a pause from ‘Crossing the Line’ this week.

Alongside looking back and reflecting on the past, life carries on.  Treatment, family, faith and work continue.  My own journey continues and I this week I would like to share something positive in the present, rather than reflections on the past.

In treatment, I am now into my second cycle of palliative chemotherapy, and I have benefited from a short course of radiotherapy.  After the first hormone therapy failing, I am now on a different course, and the drop in my PSA count proves it is being effective.   My third cycle of chemo was due to start on Christmas day.   Strangely, the chemo ward only wants to deal with emergencies that day (I can’t think why) and so I will have 2 extra days of feeling better over Christmas before getting hit with the next infusion.  I think that’s good timing.  J

As a family we are looking forward to Isaac returning from his first term at University next weekend.  Iona has her mock exams this week and is working hard at her new part-time job to buy the components to build a gaming computer.  Mel has changed her hair for a ‘Curly Girl’ look.  She is beautiful as always.  We are praying for everyone to be free from colds over Christmas, especially as the cold Mel has at the moment has meant us sleeping apart to protect me from infection.  L

It is in my faith and work however, that I feel I have turned a corner.

When I first wrote about my diagnosis, I said that my most uttered prayer has been “Really God?”  I felt cheated on all kinds of levels, and of course that feeling still continues in various ways - plans, hopes, dreams - but there was one area I didn’t mention in that first blog post.

For the last two years, my ministry has been in encouraging vocations to Christian ministry.  It is a tremendous privilege.  I get to hear the stories of what God is doing in the lives of the people I meet, with a depth and clarity that is often breath-taking.  I am often astonished at how people exploring vocation put their trust in me, opening up their life stories, sharing their deepest experiences in faith, and their doubts.  It takes great trust to make yourself that vulnerable, and I am continually humbled by the experience.

What is more, it is the first role for many years where as soon as I saw the post advertised, I knew it was what God wanted me to do.  I have felt in the right place at the right time and closer to God as a result.  I had been prepared to commit 10 years to it, taking me almost to retirement, and it has been going well.

In my earlier years of Christian ministry, I was blessed with a very clear sense of what God wanted of me each step along the way.  I found it easy to trust him.  I knew I was walking in the footsteps he had prepared for me to walk in.  Whenever I faced change in life, things would fall into place (sometimes last minute) and I knew I was walking with God.

As time went on however, in the complexities of life and a number of disappointments, I have found it more difficult to hear God’s clear guidance each time I came to a place of decision on a new post, role or ministry.

In some ways, of course, this is simply growing up.  Walking by faith is not always accompanied by clear signs and calling.  That is why it’s called faith!  The less clear the future, the less clear the sense of call or direction, the more we must simply trust that the way we go is God’s will for us.  I accept that and much of the last 17 years has been walking in that kind of faith, rather than in absolute certainty.

At times it has been hard.  At times it has felt like navigating at sea without compass, sextant, or GPS.  I trusted that I was heading in the right direction.  I prayed and in the absence of a neon sign from heaven, I headed towards what appeared to be God’s path for me.

Then three years ago, I saw the advertisement for Vocations Coordinator in Salisbury Diocese, and for the first time since 2001, I knew this was God’s appointment for me.  When I was offered the post, I was delighted to once again have that sense of certainty.  I have enjoyed the challenge of encouraging more people to consider lay and ordained ministry.  I am one of the few priests working in the CofE who has a defined numerical target for growth attached to their job description.  When I was asked at interview how I felt about this I replied, “I’m fine with that – as long as God knows!”

What is more, the role has been going well.  Numbers are growing, people are coming forward and I work in a wonderful team.  Two years in, I was beginning to thrive again.

And then cancer. 

“Really, God? What are you playing at?”  Just as I had rediscovered that clear sense of being exactly where I was supposed to be, it was all being taken away again.  I felt cheated, like I was being played with.  Really, God?

More recently though, I have turned a corner.

I have reflected that most of my Christian ministry has involved conflict, and mostly with his Church!  Whether in fighting ‘Churchianity’ which only makes the religious more religious while putting everyone else off; or in fighting the Church Commissioners on social action and responsibility; or in campaigning for a greater openness in the church on issues like sexuality; or in standing up to bullies in the church who were used to pushing others around; I have been in the midst of conflict for much of my ordained ministry.

I haven’t minded this.  I knew it was coming ever since I read Ezekiel chapter 3 and knew that God was calling me to the same ministry – to speak whether God’s people listen or refuse to listen.  I have been unyielding when I needed to be.  My forehead has been harder than flint, and I have not been terrified when called to say unpopular things.

But now, working in Vocations, I have the privilege of playing a purely positive role, building the church rather than challenging it, a role of encouragement rather than discomfort and it has been so refreshing to be free of areas of conflict for once. 

Crucially, I now realise that far from cheating me, God has entrusted me with this positive, uplifting task to complete as my last role in his church.  Instead of feeling cheated, I now feel grateful.  Instead of being angry at God, I simply want to serve him in this last role for as long as I am able to do so.  Instead of carrying on working with a heavy heart, I now value being part of a team who are identifying and encouraging the next generation of priests, lay ministers, chaplains, pastors, pioneers and worship leaders.  What a privilege to be able to do this as my last role in his church!

So I have, in this respect, turned a corner.  From anger to gratitude; from despondency to inspiration; from feeling cheated to feeling honoured.

Even though I did not know what God was doing, he did.

Walsingham Baby

Today, on his birthday, we interred my Father's ashes in Puddletown church yard, alongside my Mum's.

After his death last year, I posted 'Shilvia Shishishons' - a tribute to his calling to ordination.  Today, I would like to post a short joint tribute to him and my Mum, in gratitude for the way in which I came into the world.

It has taught me never to dismiss the faith of others - even when it may seem very different to my own...

"Getting into parish life did nothing to soften my parents’ Anglo-Catholic fervour.

My dad never seemed to be out of his 39 button cassock with biretta on special occasions.  They were both Oblates at CSMV, the convent where mum had been a nun, and they made regular pilgrimages to the Shrine of Our Lady in Walsingham.

After a second curacy in Doncaster, they moved south to High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, where dad was priest in charge of the church at Downley.  He was responsible for a daughter church of the infamous parish of West Wycombe where Sir Francis Dashwood founded the ‘Hellfire Club’ in 18th century and carved caves out of the chalk beneath the parish church for their hedonistic rituals.

The church of St James the Great at Downley Common was much less salubrious.  The initial builders planned a huge church, but only the Sanctuary was ever built which left one whole side of the building sheeted in wood and corrugated iron as a makeshift wall.  Nevertheless life on the Common was a long way from the industrial north and they embraced this new environment.  Irene took on her role as ‘vicar’s wife’ and David served the village community as priest and kept close to his roots by joining the Labour Party.

There was one thing missing from their lives however.  Irene in particular, longed for a baby – but they tried without success.  Long term medical concerns about the health of her womb did not help and they began to wonder if they would ever have children.

Then in 1962, they made the journey to Walsingham with a special intention.  They drank the water from the sacred well, and lit a candle at the shrine of Our Lady, and asked Mary for her prayers for a child.

The thought of not having children grieved Irene deeply, and I am reminded of Hannah praying for a child in 1 Samuel 1 “in deep anguish… praying in her heart… pouring out her soul to the Lord”.  Hannah made a deal with God that if he heard her prayer and gave her a son, she would dedicate him to God for all the days of his life.  I sometimes wonder if Irene made a similar deal with God.

Whether she did or not, their prayers were answered.  From Walsingham, they went for a short holiday in Dorset, and 9 months later I was born in January 1963 at “The Shrubbery” in High Wycombe – a most peculiar name for a maternity unit.

Just as Hannah named her son Samuel ‘because I asked the Lord for him’, Irene and David named me Benedict which means blessing.  Every year in my childhood, we would make the trip to Walsingham to give thanks at the Shrine of Our Lady.  Often this would be during the big annual pilgrimage in May, and we would join with other pilgrims in the great procession and open-air Mass, singing the Walsingham hymn as we processed past the demonstrators from the Protestant Truth Society who were condemning such idolatry.

As an Evangelical Christian now, I am not sure what I think of such overwhelming devotion to Mary, but I can never forget that I was born after heart-felt prayer at the Shrine of Our Lady in Walsingham.  Sometimes it feels like a private joke between me and God, when I hear fellow evangelicals being disparaging about a more Catholic spirituality, but it has also taught me an important lesson.  We may not always understand the faith and spirituality of others.  Sometimes we are too eager to dismiss other expressions of faith as mistaken or wrong.  But if God is happy to be at work through those expressions of faith, who are we to dismiss or condemn.

Much later in my teenage years, I remember hearing a South American Pentecostal preacher called Juan Carlos Ortez talking about his children when he returns home from a preaching tour.  His son would come up to him and ask him to play tennis, “Oh dad, I’ve been waiting for you to come back so I can play tennis again.”  Then his daughter would come up to him and ask him to play tennis, “Oh dad, I’ve been waiting for you to come back so I can play tennis again.”   So he would ask them, “Why don’t you play tennis with each other?” and they each had their reasons why they wouldn’t play together; excuses like “He always hits the ball too hard” and “She always loses the balls”.  In the end, he would play tennis with his son and he would play tennis with his daughter – but he also longed for them to play tennis with each other.

Too often that is what we are like as Christians – all wanting to play with God, but full of excuses why we won’t play with each other.  We often separate ourselves from other Christians or other Churches.  We choose who we will play with, work with, pray with – but in the end, we are all children of God.

So in the end, I thank God that I am a Walsingham baby, even if it does not fit my neatly worked out theology.  It reminds me that walking with God is often much messier than our well-ordered categories, and being a Christian is, above all else, about walking with God.