So, I gave my paper in a cramped room, with students arranged in a square and with nowhere really suitable to display my 'visual aids'... oh how I'd have loved to chuck out the tables and the projector and get everyone in a circle with no barriers... Still, you can only work with what is available.
The class was about 20 people aged between 18 and 50, of very diverse personalities and experiences. This was the midday slot in week 8 or 9 of ten - they were tired, overloaded with stuff and possibly not really up for yet another hour of listneing, but for the most part, they stayed engaged and listened respectfully (when was it I learned to distinguish between doodling as a way of concentrating and doodling as disengaged distraction?!)
Overall the talk went OK. One young girl looked so close to tears in the early bits that I had to avert my gaze, and as I've noted, one person doodled the entire way through. This was the first time, though that my St Paul 1, Catriona 0 comment (on the day my hair feel out big time and I had to wear a scarf to church to preach) fell flat... not even a hint of recognition, never mind the chuckles that arose with the other two audiences. Even mentioning it was from Corinthians and Paul's views on women in worship failed to illicit the slightest response. Oh dear, Biblical illiteracy is getting worse. Given that, my Julian of Norwich quote, Taize song and Jesuit PAYG probably went right over their heads!
The Q and A session went really well, though, some good, thoughtful questions from some very earnest students. I suppose what slightly wrong-footed me was one of the questions that, rightly, arose from what they'd been exploring in the 'input' hour before I arrived, which was about 'how we hear God'. One person explained this and then said, 'how did you hear God in all of this.' Good question to which I bluffed an answer which went along the lines of, 'in the advice of the medical professionals, in friends and in a sense of God being at hand even in my most terrified moments.' That was all true, but my problem - which I was only able to recognise and articulate on my way home - is that God isn't always to be heard. The whole apophatic tradition is predicated on a God who is silent and seemingly absent; the 'Dark Night of the Soul' and other such writings lead us away from any simplistic (and ultimately flawed) assumption that God will always be heard, or indeed, speak... what of Gethsemane, Golgotha... Or, as I suggested in a post on the college's FB page, the experience of Elijah on Horeb when God was heard in..... sheer silence. Presence in absence... a true mysterium. And of course I added my favourite Jewish ghetto prayer:
I believe in the sun when it isn't shining
I believe in love when I can't feel it
I beleive in G-d when G-d is silent.
Right at the end the tutor asked me what one thing would I say about pastoral care (wish I'd had foresight to guess that was coming or had notice of it) so again I bluffed something about listening, being real and not projecting, that people understand when your intent is good even if what you say is dumb. What I wish I'd said, and which I also left on their FB page was along these lines.... that it's OK not to know what to say, that you can say you don't know/understand, that you can say it's not fair/just, that you don't have to have a Bioble verse or a promise, that sometimes what's needed is someone simply to come and share the confusion or darkness, and in so-doing to normalise the experience.
My brain is so slow these days... I was always a reflective learner (a mull-er-over) but I was reasonably good at Q and A. I'm not going to beat myself up over what I said or didn't say, and I'm glad there are ways to feedback further thoughts, but maybe I need to do a bit more ahead of time thinking nowadays...