DDO

One Foot in the Graveyard

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Moving age-groups not houses

Shortly after finally making contact with the DDO (see Communication Breakdown) I attended a workshop for those on the discernment path. I had been to several before, including one a year ago which covered the topic this was to cover: the dreaded and artificial BAP Pastoral Letter Exercise. Back then I had spoken to the other candidates not just about what it was like to go to a BAP but what it was like to be rejected, or not recommended as the Church of England like us to call it. Giving the talk had left me unable to focus on the Pastoral Letter Exercise so a second opportunity to do so in the company of others, and with the insight of the DDO and a particularly caring and constructive BAP Advisor, was to be welcomed.

The time I had spent over the past year picking the brains of those with good pastoral experience and skills, coupled with the thoughts of others present on the day, meant that I finally felt I understood what BAP Advisors expected to see in a candidates response. Even more encouragingly I felt like I might be able to write one that would at the very least be acceptable and not spat out like a rancid piece of food. That was just as well for the DDO dropped a bombshell into the conversations that shook several of us to the core.  There was no sugar-coating of the pill, there was just the bare facts: the funding and training pathways for ordination had changed. 

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Communication Breakdown

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Communication breakdown
It’s always the same
I’m having a nervous breakdown
Drive me insane!
Led Zeppelin

I started the summer waiting to move into the next stage of the discernment process: meetings with Examining Chaplains and a Bishop to decide if I should go to a ordination selection conference (the BAP). I was still waiting by the end of the summer.

I had suspected my Diocesan Director of Ordinands (DDO) had been a little optimistic in his planning for the next stage of my discernment journey but I had no reason to question his judgment on how the next stage would progress. Prior to heading off into retirement my DDO was handing those he was guiding to the remaining DDO , for her to arrange the meetings.

Whereas when I reached this stage before I had been asked to write 3 essays to give the Examining Chaplains an insight into my mind, personality and faith (see Rescued from the darkness; Defining Ordination is harder than you think!; and Challenging and Exiting Times). This time though things had changed, and sensibly so.

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Ground Control to Major Tom

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It is time to prepare for re-entry

There was a time when exploring ordination felt like being on an express train: things happened regularly and quickly. Each week there was something new, some new issue to wrestle with, some new emotional struggle to document. More recently it has felt like being on a canal boat or the International Space Station: slowly drifting along, detached from the goings on of life. The detachment has been somewhat comforting. Like astronauts left alone on the International Space Station I have been able to observe the fragility from afar, whilst similarly connected to it by the sporadic communication from the Ground Control that is the church. But the time has come to re-enter the world of ordination and face the fire that comes with it. Continue reading →

Unpastoralised

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Like a phoenix from the ashes, I will rise.

Loathing, disdain and vitriol threaded their way through the report, it was not pleasant reading.

I had been handed the report by the BAP Advisers by my DDO and read it in silence.  Its tone took me aback.  Never before had I read such a bitter report.  It was anything but constructive, instead it seemed intent on destroying me, my spirit and my hopes. Continue reading →

Please Sir, can I have some more?

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The Bishop’s report came as I was heading home from work.  I was a passenger in more ways than one and leapt to the email like I had done with each incoming email throughout the day.

The opening complimentary paragraph passed me by as I went straight to the reason that I wasn’t recommended.  It was frustratingly short, vague and confusing.  Concerns had been expressed against some the selection criterion but the explanation was limited at best.

I didn’t recognise some of the person being described and there were things that were simply unfair.  What was more painful though was the person I did recognise.  The Advisers had not taken to me.
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Strange days (aka Going to a BAP)

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A sanctuary for strange days

A sanctuary for strange days

It is done.  My Bishops’ Advisory Panel is over.  It was quite an experience, quite a week.  There are many people’s experience of a BAP that can be read, many practically focused, some even dealing with the pain of not being recommended.  This is my account of my experience; an account of the emotions, fears and joys that someone has and can go through and that needs more words than other types of accounts of going to a BAP.

So if you’re willing and ready, read on! Continue reading →

T minus 1 week

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Wells Cathedral

“My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?” John 14:2

I’m worn out.  I haven’t even got to the Bishops’ Advisory and I’m worn out.

I knew this was coming.  It wasn’t a word from God, a message from the Holy Spirit. It was far more mundane than that. It was a mixture of circumstances and the compression of 6 months BAP preparation into 6 weeks.

After putting our house in market last week, in an equal act of faith and practicality, we had been overwhelmed by the response.  We had put our house on the market previously and had 1 offer in 10 months.  This time, admittedly with a different set of economic conditions, we had 4 offers in 4 days.  The house was sold, subject to contract, in under a week.

Now if God isn’t part of our house sale I will eat my hat, and believe me when I say that I don’t like eating hats. Continue reading →

Remembering the reason

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There is a reason for all this activity

There is a reason for all this activity

The decision had been made and put into action.  All that remained to cement the position and secure the place at a Bishops’ Advisory Panel in mid-May was a report on me by my sponsoring Diocese and DDO.

I am always intrigued by other people’s views about me.  Even if they can be uncomfortable to hear they can be more accurate than my own.  Seeing myself from other people’s perspectives helps me understand how I am understood, and how to change if I am not.  This report on me by my DDO would be a key bit of information the advisors on the panel would use in getting to know me and in working out what questions they wanted to ask.

Unlike my references for the BAP, I was given a chance to read the report.  Thankfully I recognised the person written about, but reading it was like an out-of-body experience.

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Oh no, not again!

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“Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.”, Douglas Adams

There I was: sitting down, contemplating the future.  Six months in which to prepare for a Bishops’ Advisory Panel lay before me.  Plenty of time to sit back, read a bit, debate a bit and contemplate all that God has to offer.  No rush, no pressure.

In the midst of this peacefulness my computer and phone sang out in unison. I had mail.

It was the DDO.  She had a surprise.  I was being invited to attend a BAP in mid-May.

I didn’t expect that.

The tranquility shattered and, not for the first time on this journey, everything that I had envisioned doing fell apart.

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