My sabbatical research into 'public faith and private pain' has now gone 'live' and responses are coming in, for which I am very grateful. Already two separate people have alerted me to a newly published book called Soul Pain: Priests Reflect on Personal Experience of Serious and Terminal Illness, Edited by Jennifer Tann pub. Canterbury Press 2013. As the title suggests, it relates to pretty much the same the same interface/question but is approached via a collection of essays in which Anglican priests reflect on their experiences.
A decade ago when I did my undergrad research on single people's experiences of church, a book was published about two weeks before my submission date that covered almost identical ground, and I had frantically to amend my work to note its existence and to explain why I had not included it in my reflections.
Sometimes I wonder if I am always one step behind God's Spirit (as distinct from keeping in step with God's Spirit) or is it maybe that the ripples need time to spread and I am always a little way from the epicentre? Either way, the book will be a valuable input to my thinking and serves as confirmation that the time is ripe for these questions to be explored.
