My changing story...

‘Please God, not again!’ Do I have to tell yet another person where I’m from, what degree I’m doing and the seemingly accidental spiritual meanders that have brought me to this place? Could I not just get a T-shirt printed covering the basics? You too may be at this point.

This time last year, I arrived, unpacked, told my story to new found friends and at the end of my first week started to feel a little more secure in my institutional life. If that is your experience, I’m afraid that I have some bad news because now that story will all start to move beneath your feet.

Over the last year I have met people with whom I have prayed and sung, debated and argued, danced and drank, sometimes whilst outlining exactly how I would have improved on the last Federation Service. If only they had listened.

I have read things that questioned long-held beliefs but also challenged more of my doubts. I have been asked to do things which I thought myself unable to achieve and was encouraged by generous people when I didn’t get it right.

In-between all of these experiences- in times of prayer, in the Eucharist or just staring out of the study window across a lawn. In these moments things have clicked, I have suddenly understood why things happened many years ago and what it means for where I go next. And so, my story has changed.

So I would advise you to share your story but not cling to it. To know that the ground will shift beneath you but that it is Holy Ground. And to know that God has brought us here, now, with these people for a purpose, if only we will make the time to discover it.