Tuesday 7 February 2012

Deacon? (17) A final twist

My conscious decision to wait on approaches from others where my future direction was concerned, and to respond willingly to their suggestions or invitations, led me into a confrontation with some of my own doubts and with my reluctance to admit to them, when asked about becoming an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion* (10.01.11  An ongoing call).
I had found myself being presented with what I thought was the one thing I would have to decline; as though having stepped into a trap of my own making, or being taught to be more careful with how I opened myself up to new ideas and directions.
( * I have been wrongly referring to this as Eucharistic Minister: a mistake derived not only from the widespread habitual but inaccurate use of the term, but also from its being the expression used at the time by the person by whom I had been approached. )
The thought has only now occurred to me that the same situation arose when being asked about the diaconate. Other than as part of the reason for my surprise at being asked, I have remained unaware of it. Yet having already explained my reasons for being unable to assist with the distribution of Holy Communion had not prevented the same person approaching me about becoming a deacon.

Again I have failed to respond to an approach from others in the way I had consciously set for myself.
For a while, I have not been sure where that leaves me in my determination of the direction in which I am meant to be travelling, but I now find confirmation and further strengthening in it as I recognize my folly in having placed an unquestioning reliance on the leadings of others. I had, in effect, extended an open (though unvoiced) invitation to all, and had passively opened myself to possibilities from almost any source. That had not been my intention, but I now see that this is what I had brought about.
Perhaps the two declined invitations, coming as they did from a safe and trustworthy source, were extended in response to prompts whose true intention had been, not to create a deacon, but to block other misguided possibilities that, through my foolhardiness, may have beckoned me, occupied me, and drawn me away in an entirely wrong direction. Certainly my time has been spent in focussed thought on something worthwhile, and I have arrived at convictions which otherwise would have remained assumptions and hazy half-beliefs, or even completely unexamined.

I now find myself being filled with the sobering thought that the past few months may have been no more than a continuation of my being taught, at a still deeper level, that I must continue to wait, to be ready, and to trust. Following that direction of possibility puts my conviction of not being called to become a deacon in a whole new light: not just in terms of whether I am being called to that end or not, or even, as felt, whether I am actually being called to remain firmly planted among the laity. Instead, such questions are becoming increasingly irrelevant, even as I write.
All that matters perhaps: what I am in fact being called to, is what underlies both possibilities, towers above them, and is at the very heart of every call to a deeper commitment to Christ. It is the call that has been running through much of what I have been pondering and writing about in this lengthy series of posts, though I have failed to fully grasp it – even while thinking and writing. It now seems that there has been only one call echoing through my entire experience of the question and all that has followed on from it; a call that has finally become audible and visible in the space created by my sense of relief at having finished with my thoughts on the diaconate.

It is the call “to radical availability”.
The message, the gift, the desire, the requirement, the obligation: the ALL for each of us, whether ordained or not, is the call to devote oneself to Christ “by means of complete availability”. 
It is to this that the deacon is ordained, but in spite of a conscious awareness that it is not specific to the diaconate, my knowledge of that fact has continued to blind me to the fullness of an essential reality: that this call is not for the deacon alone. It is the ALL to which I am being called; to which we are all being called.

‘Going deeply and honestly into our personal doubts and certainties ... will teach each one of us that our spiritual path leads into an “all or nothing” situation.  And this is precisely the lesson we all need to learn. It is our ALL that is being asked of us.’

Those are my own words, written here just a few days ago.
How is it that as soon as I believe I have finished with this subject, they speak back to me so clearly of what this has all been about.
There are other lessons written here for me; placed somewhere between the lines of my own thinking, and perhaps, even now, my thoughts on them are not finished.

I received an email today from a Benedictine friend who has read all that is contained in these ‘Deacon ?’ posts. It included a sentence that at once helped me to see how things really are, and which fits well with how I feel about this whole diaconate question in relation to myself.
 ‘You certainly know your own mind on the deacon question, but it sounds as if you were pleased to be asked, if only that it gave you a diving board for plunging into your own depths.’

Perhaps I had needed a reason and the means to dive that deep in order to learn that I cannot exclude myself: that I too am being called to give Him my all.
Perhaps too, I am being told more clearly that I must continue with my delving deep into uncertainty; that I must reach the point where I am ready to rely on my own judgment and discernment. And that must include my choice of the few in whom I should place my trust, disregarding the distractions that will always come from others.

‘Do not model your behaviour on the contemporary world,
but let the renewing of your minds transform you, so that you may discern for yourselves
what is the will of God - what is good and acceptable and mature.’
(Romans 12:2)

About Me

Who I am should be, and should remain, of little consequence to you. Who you are is what matters; who you are meant to be is what should matter most to you. In coming closer to my own true self, I have gradually been filled with the near inexpressible: I have simply become "brim full", and my words to you are drawn from those uttered within myself, as part of an undeniable overflowing that brings a smile to my every dusk, and to my every new dawn.
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