Following the Spirit
I have recently been reading The Best of Blue, an anthology of some of Rabbi Lionel Blue’s shorter writings. One recurrent theme has been the risk of following the leadings of the Spirit—you need to pack well before embarking on an adventure with ‘Old Smokey’ (as Blue calls it) as a companion.
He’s right. Not going well prepared, and I really don’t know what being well prepared would mean because I don’t think any amount of prayer leads to preparedness, can leave one a bit stranded feeling, despite the companion. Having followed the path of the established church’s selection for ministry process to its logical conclusion, i.e. the bishop said no (I’m too progressive, haven’t suffered enough in life and he just didn’t like me), I had the chance on angry Sunday mornings in bed rather than in a pew to think about what I really believe. The bishop didn’t force me out of the Church of England, but he was the catalyst.
He didn’t force me to decide to be a lawyer either. I am very excited about the prospect: I really want to make a difference for people. But as I think about following the leadings of the Spirit, trusting, to paraphrase George Fox, the promptings of love and truth in my heart to be part of my divine experience, what am I doing? Am I postponing the inevitable? One of my friends says that I’m a marked man; those who God wants to minister, God gets. I think she still hopes to see me cassocked and reluctantly knelt before a bishop but that certainly won’t happen. I’d hang myself with the stole and if I was sceptical of bishops before, I’m phobic of them now. It’s hard to minister at the bar but if I’m helping a family or defending civil rights, maybe I am.
The leadings took me back to where I never should have left and somewhere I may never have discovered. I loved the Unitarian church I was part of in California. When I came to Britain and lived in Leeds, I found the local Unitarians very Christian in an odd way—plus it was far too hard to get there on a Sunday morning from where I lived. I should have given them a second chance and a third chance. I encountered Quakers for the first time there too. It’s easy now to berate myself for not having accepted that I was happy and pushing myself through misery to rediscover that. As Rabbi Blue also writes, admitting to oneself that one’s reasons were the wrong reasons is very powerful.
Following one’s heart, listening for the Spirit isn’t a straight road. It can’t be a straight road because it’s a journey of self discovery and we are all complex beings. Everything created and beautiful is.
My advice? Travel light heartedly, pray as the Spirit moves, engage, enjoy. The Spirit isn’t always an easy travelling companion but, then again, are you?
