Today I have been battling a migraine, and while it has mostly passed and my head feels more manageable I have also been batting a major depressive episode that has been creeping up on me over the last week. I began to notice that I was sleeping a lot and struggling with social things, work is mostly OK but I am having to take my time and do things one step at a time. Interestingly when folk have asked how I am and when I have spoken to people today I have been more likely to mention the migraine than the depression; the reason is simple, as much as I talk about what it is like to live with depression it is really not very well understood. Twice last week I was asked whether or not I had managed to pull myself together as if that were a real and physical/mental possibility.
I am much better than I was in November but am very aware that I am not operating at full capacity, I am able to work but sometimes the demands of work mean that I need to take time out to breathe, that breathing may mean walking or drawing and I see both as a form of prayer because they give me space to root myself in God.
So should I berate myself for suffering from depression? Would I berate myself for having a complex break to my leg or heart disease? No I would consider them painful and difficult and would probably receive more understanding and support than I get when I say apologetically , "actually today has been a tough day", but the truth is today has been a tough day and I barely got through yesterday, yes I stood and led a Covenant Service, and I am thankful for those who thanked me for it, and I knew that I was doing the right thing because the prayer we prayed speaks for itself;
'I am no longer my own but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you, exalted for you, or brought low for you; let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing: I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven.'
You see being depressed is not a sign of lack of faith, nor is it a sign of weakness, in fact I would dare to say that to stand firmly in the deep love of God in Christ is more of a strength than a weakness. I can truly say that I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me, but not that Christ strengthens me to do all things. Depression is teaching me to rest in Christ, teaching me to accept my limitations and to say no, teaching me that if I push myself beyond the boundaries of self care and self love, both of which Jesus taught, that I have no strength. Depression is teaching me to draw deep from the ancient wells of contemplation and meditation and to realise that the power of the Gospel is not the power of the world and the triumph of God has more to do with the cross and the slowly, gently, quietly revealed ressurection. The ressurection that loosed the deep spiritual power of regeneration, of rediscovering, or returning to who we truly are in those who dared to see it as it is.
I am no longer my own, and in that truth I rest, as for God I trust that because he loved me first all will be well. So I accept that if I am to love God and to love others then I need to learn to love and care for myself, and through that I am finding a well of wisdom, not in my self love, but because at the end of all love there is God's creative, re-creative, healing presence...
I had no idea what to expect from the final episode of Rev in series 3, it could have been nothing, it could have been a cliched triumphal nothing, instead, like resurrection it left us with questions, wonderful profound questions and images of the new beginning of hope.
I found it to be real, raw and gritty, and full of hope. It is rare that Holy Saturday is dealt with in telling the story of the Passion and Easter, but in confusion and in depression this episode did that brilliantly in my eyes. We witnessed the growth of hope as each of the characters turned to prayer and Adam wrestled with God from under his duvet, his slow reciting of the beatitudes was powerful.
The episode ended with the long awaited baptism of Katie, a sense of a new beginning and a knowledge that this is not the end, Adam 's simple acknowledgemet is not a triumphal shout but a gentle acknowledgement; " I seem to be in a cassock again Lord, it seems that you won't let me go..."
For me perhaps the most powerful image was the image of breaking into the church, turning on its head the notion that the sealed church offered us the image of the sealed tomb, and showing that somehow with the closing of the doors and the sealing off of the building in the centre of the community the source of life has been removed from all, and all had entered the tomb even without knowing it.
This was not a happy-ending story, it was a this has not ended story, what we thought was the tomb became the womb of re-birth, there are new possibilities here, nothing has changed, yet everything has changed...
We are left with the sense that there is more to come, we have no idea what that more is, and for me that speaks so well into a life of faith, for so often it is a step by step day by day process, and sometimes like Adam we need a friend to come along and haul us out of bed! The precious thing has been kept alive, it now needs nurture and care...
Perhaps the most poignant words were spoken by Adam to Katie after her baptism, " that was horrible wasn't it..."
Yes it was, it was horrible, painful, testing and exhasuting, but life has triumphed, the candle is lit, the waters of baptism have been entered, and life goes on. If we wanted a simple, happy, triumphant ending to the series we will have been dissapointed. I was not dissapointed, for as I have been reflecting resurrection dawns slowly, and new life begins in the dark...
I find I cannot agree with some of the criticism brought against the series, this from Alison Graham of the Radio Times insists that Adam remains comfortable and nice;
The Rev-lovers of my acquaintance and I feel it lost its way when Adam kissed Ellie in episode three, an episode that was written by Tom Hollander. Oh dear, I wish actors wouldn’t do this; I wish they would act and leave the writing to others. Remember when actor Alan Alda became far too involved behind the cameras in the mighty M*A*S*H and it became a drearily humourless anti-war polemic, stripped of its delicate subversion?
Actors are of course close to the parts they play, but they might want different things from a character – maybe the chance to show off their acting abilities. (Hollander doesn’t need to do this, he’s great, his hapless, tender Adam is the reason why I watch.) But this is an irrelevance to anyone watching. We know Adam and he would never have kissed Ellie. He might have been temp- ted, as he once was at a vicars and tarts party, but he would never have given in. He just wouldn’t.
Still, it happened and the train of events gathered momentum to the point where Adam is ruined, degraded and humiliated, rejected by nearly everyone who once professed to love him. NO! Rev devotees don’t want this; we watch Rev because of its kindness and its imperfect view of an imperfect world. We don’t watch to feel despair and helplessness. It might be trying to be grittily realistic but real life is too realistic for most of us and we welcomed our half-hour escape into a different, gentler world. But that’s all gone now.
I applaud Tom Hollander for not being comfortable and nice, and instead entering into a deeper and darker place, but kindness has not gone, and hope has been restored....
I have to confess, if that is the right word, that I am a real fan of Tom Hollander's BBC2 series Rev, the penultimate episode in the series, the last one is this evening, actually reduced me to tears, and I know that I am not alone in that. I consider the current series (3) to be the best so far, it has been heart warming, challenging and gut wrenching, it has shown not only the humanity of the clergy but also the struggles, the very real struggles that many of us face.
It started as a sit-com, but has become, according to some, a compelling social commentary. It’s always been compelling for me – but the latest series of Rev. has proved to have more of a Marmite quality, sharply dividing opinion. Comments from the Archbishop of Canterbury and Dr Tim Stanley are probably the tip of an iceberg of discomfort: ‘vicars should not be like this’ – and anguish – ‘goodness, some are’.
Why do I find it compelling? Not because of Adam’s personality or his performance in role. If he and I were colleagues I can only imagine it going badly. Adam should get himself sorted out – that seems plain enough. But in this he is no different to Fr Ted or the Vicar of Dibley. You don’t make good entertainment out of perfect exemplars.
And:
What’s compelling about Rev. is the clinical way it depicts the actual, improbable but apparently intractable situations that fill ministrial days and minds. The tragedy is that some of the situations are avoidable and others are manageable.
The thing about Adam is that he makes good mistakes – the sort that we (the real people who watch the fictional him) can feel something about and learn from.
The great thing about Rev. is that it brushes nothing under the carpet. In fact, it lifts up the carpet and exposes all the dust and dirt that has been swept there. That’s why it’s uncomfortable and unbalanced, but also why it is good watching for Lent, and compelling matter for reflection in Holy Week.
Provided we don’t think it’s just a matter of Adam getting a grip.
"Provided we don't think it's just a matter of Adam getting a grip", for me that is where the wonderful, freeing, miracle releasing, resurrection affirming possibility of the whole story turns, and it is so easy to miss that. In today's Gaurdian James Mumford offers a critique of the programme, claiming that it undermines the Church of England, I don't agree, Mumford states that Rev goes nowhere near the supernatural and asks why the drug adict Colin has not been miraculously, or otherwise changed by his encounter with the church. He ends his critique by proposing a scenario;
Let's imagine a plot line that has a woman knocked over over on Shoreditch High Street. Her spine damaged, she comes to St Saviour's and asks for prayer. With low expectations Adam agrees but suddenly she claims she's been healed and runs down the aisle. Adam wife Alex invokes the power of suggestion but parishioners think it a miracle.
Now, that would be interesting, even funny. But don't expect it in Rev. Denying the insider view denies the rich diversity of the church in England. This is both a lack of creativity and a failure of representation.
He seems to think it unlikely that the programme would tackle such a theme because it steers well clear of the supernatural. I don't agree with his critique and here is why, I see subtle and wonderful signs of God at work through the script, I do see transformation, perhaps not so much in Colin, though I would argue that there are signs of grace at work in Colin, but also in the once very cynical Archdeacon, and even in the character of Adam himself. These changes are subtle changes and as I have already said, subtle changes are easy to miss, but I believe that subtle changes are often the sign of something going on deep in the soul of a person, something vulnerable and valuable, something of God. It may be that Hollander himself is not aware of what impact simply writing this series is having upon him!
Now don't get me wrong I am not criticising the more Charismatic part of the church, infact I have been the witness to and even more amazingly the vehicle for healing prayer and for that I can only thank God. I am not someone who claims that spiritual gifts are not valid in the church today and I would encourage folk to seek them and again I thank God for them. I do believe in the resurrection, and the virgin birth, and I do believe that God is alive and active in the world today, and I know this because I know that I am unable to get it together, I need to know the power of God at work in and through me.
I cannot do it, that is my not so secret, secret, and I truly relate to the Adam who having carried a cross through the streets of London finally admitted to God that he was struggling to keep something precious alive, and to the Adam who pleaded with the Bishop to let him go.
He had reached the end of himself, and I am more and more convinced that it is when we reach the end of ourselves that true resurrection life and power can be made known in us, and that is because we need to let go, we need to let go of our crazy notion that we can serve, please or earn something from God, we need to let go of the notion that we deserve something, and that any of this wonderful life of faith is down to us. The power comes in the surrender and it all begins inside, in the doubts and fears and the dark, and often those doubts and fears are all tied up with the fear that we are not enough to be loved by God.
To accept that we are loved, valued, treasured and wanted by the God who knows our name, the God who will come alongside us when we reach the end of ourselves and gently squeeze our shoulder, look deeply into our eyes and utter the freeing words " I understand, and remember I am always with you" is perhaps our greatest challenge. To accept that nothing can seperate us from that love means accepting that neither can anything take us deeper into it either, we don't have to get it right, we don't have to understand, we don't have to earn it, we are loved because we are loved, plain and simple!
I don't know what resurrection will look like for Adam, or if there will even be one in this evenings episode, but this I do know, as I begin to accept God's very real and deep and totally overwhelming love for me I find myself being transformed. Hehas not worked in the way that I might have expected, or even the way that at points in my life others have demanded. Resurrection "magic" does its own work, because it comes from God, and his love, not my own effort, nor the demands of others is what makes the real difference.
I am still mulling over my response to Easter this year, as I made my way through the gospel accounts of Holy Week, and as I encountered the Easter Story itself I was struck afresh by the power, the gentleness and the subversiveness of it. I got myself into trouble with one or two Church members by not beginning any of my Easter Sunday Services with the traditional shouts of "Alleluia Christ is risen", but rather with the quiet fear-filled story of the women at the tomb. We did come to the shouts of Alleluia, but they were framed by questions, and primarily the questions; "what has happened here?" an "what does this mean for me?"
If I am honest I am becoming more and more convinced that our propensity to demand certainties does not serve us well, and I fear that we sometimes treat Easter Day like a birthday party, lots of preparations, one big blow out and then back "to reality". My problem is that I do not believe that the true message of Easter allows us to go back to reality, for through it reality itself is changed. Nor do I believe that the resurrection message can be encountered through a once a year party, celebrating a one time event. Resurrection is ongoing, it should be unfolding and taking place in our lives day by day, it is surprising, confusing, demanding and at times down right scary.
There are times when we will resist resurrection, times when we will deny it or doubt that we can ever be a part of it, times when the story will leave us confused and disoriented. Perhaps at those times the we need to find our way back to the real power and simplicity of the story. C.S Lewis brings a fresh set of eyes to it through the Narnia stories;
"Susan and Lucy had just witnessed the horrific death of Aslan, and were now said to be “walking aimlessly,” unsure of how to proceed.
At that moment they heard from behind them a loud noise — a great cracking, deafening noise as if a giant had broken a giant’s plate…. The Stone Table was broken into two pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end; and there was no Aslan.
“Who’s done it?” cried Susan. “What does it mean? Is it more magic?”
“Yes!” said a great voice from behind their backs. “It is more magic.” They looked round. There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again) stood Aslan himself.
“Oh, Aslan!” cried both the children, staring up at him, almost as much frightened as they were glad….
“But what does it all mean?” asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer.
“It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.”
I wonder how often we try to cover our aimless wandering with a paper thin veneer of proclaimed certainties, how often we long to rush past the "deeper magic" , power and wonder of the resurrection accounts and get back to our daily lives lest they call us into the dramatic changes of our world-view and therefore our lifestyle, and even perhaps more challengingly the way we see ourselves and relate to others.
Resurrection is gentle but insistent if we dare to receive it as a work of the Spirit within us, through it God begins to reveal our true selves to us, peeling away our masks and falsehoods, and showing us that by some miracle we are at once unworthy, yet worthy of his love. Showing us that somehow even our past mistakes, sins and injuries can be transformed. The first disciples did not understand the fullness of what had happened among them. They were not able to produce a wonderfully inspiring three point sermon explaining it, not even Peter at Pentecost had everything buttoned down and sewn up.
What they did know however is that somehow all of this was centered on God's revelation of himself in Christ, and that somehow that revelation itself had been enlarged and changed as life overcame death and evil, pain and that somehow all of this had both personal and at the same time cosmic consequences. Even St Paul's conversion on the Damascus was not a neat, tidy sudden event, just read the account and meditate upon it. Not only was he blinded, but he spent 3 days in prayer and fasting before he was ready for Ananias prayer. Even then he spent time learning and praying, and his letters show his own grappling with the question "what has happened?" Scripture does not perhaps offer us as many certaities as we assume, and I think that deep within we know this, maybe that is why we don't like to linger too long with it.
So this year I have been challenged to linger a little longer in the shadow of the resurrection, for I long for the power of it to work a deeper magic within my soul, I need that deeper magic. A "magic" I cannot contain or fully explain, a work of God that asks me to dare to give myself to it, and that I need not fear it.
I will end with two quotes that offer no answers, but rather form an invitation to us all in different ways, an invitation to linger at the tomb of our own being, and to allow that tomb to become a womb of possibility where life itself might enter in;
“That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.” C.S.Lewis; The Great Divorce
"New life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.” Barbara Brown Taylor
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