Well they have arrived, the reports on my work and ministry, the reports that I have been dreading! One of these reports is from the District Tutor, looking at my ability to reflect theologically, the other from my Superintendent Minister who has assesed my practice.
I didn't want to open the e-mails, but when I did I was both shocked and surprised; one described my accademic work and reflection as of a very high standard, while the other described me as a more than competent Presbyter. Now I am not saying this to blow my own trumpet, because to be quite honest my first reaction was not to breathe a sigh of relief and say that is OK then, it was actually more a reaction of panic; the response oh cr*p sprang to mind!
Why oh cr*p, well first because it means that I must press on, must continue in this process of becomming that I have been called to, and second because I find it difficult to receive praise. Yes I find it difficult to receive praise. I think it is a cultural thing, not only do we Brits root for the underdog, if the truth be known in many ways we prefer to be the underdog, and I suspect that because of that we fail to acheive our full potential. I also think that it is part and parcel of being a woman, generally we don't do praise well...
In some ways I guess that I look at these reports and know that I have many faults and flaws but I also know that these have not been overlooked but treated and received with grace. I have been given some advice and some ideas of things to work on but that has not diminished the good reports in any way, in fact in some ways it has added to them, so I am left with the question as to why I find it so hard to receive them, and can only come back to the problem of knowing and loving myself...
I know that I am loved, but struggle to love myself, and because of this it is hard to accept praise and oh so easy to live with my own paranoia. The truth is that my situation is not that unusual, women particularly find it difficult to accept praise; a few years ago I blogged on a paper from Valerie Saiving on The Human Situation, it took an anthropological view of the feminine situation- asking whether it is right to challenge women on the sin of pride- suggesting that the major feminine sins are sins of distraction and lack of focus- these stem from the acceptance and passivity of an expected role of nurturer and sustainer of a family unit...
Saiving has tried to awaken theologians to the fact that the situation of women, however similar it may appear on the surface of our contemporary world to the situation of men and however much it may be echoed in the life of individual men, is, at bottom, quite different - that the specifically feminine dillemma is, in fact, precisely the opposite of the masculine. Women are quite simply more likely to sin by denying their God given gifts and talents than they are to fall prey to the sin of pride.
I know for myself that I struggle with this; writing is a joy; well it is until somebody is going to assess it, at this point I enter into the procrastination zone, not because I am lazy, but because in some perverted way I fear my own abilities. Is this all rather strange, well quite possibly it is to the oposite sex, as for me I will continue to struggle with myself before God. I will try to not only live up to the praise but also to step into being the person it calls me to be, all the while acknowledging that I do so by the grace of the one who has called me. S/he knows me and S/he loves me, and that is enough...
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