I do not understand the nature of wifi... it misbehaves for around twenty four hours then it reverts to good behaviour just after I've purchased a month's worth of mobile broadband... ah well, it may come in useful in the next couple of weeks.

I do not understand the nature of this blog platform... it stops letting me comment until I post as much then it lets me comment again.

I do not understand spell checks which seem to miss blatant mis-spellings and wrongly identift correct, if unusual, spellings

The perverse nature of inanimate objects, as my mother would say.

The web is clearly conspiring against me this week - between a wobbly wifi connection, a laptop that sulks if I use a LAN connection (though it's on one just now!) and a blog platform that has decided not to let me comment on its blogs for some unknown reason, it is proving 'interesting' trying to do anything online.

Helen's comments on yesterday's post were quite thought provoking, and served to remind me of the importance, sometimes, of what MS word calls 'noun qualifiers' - they were adjectives when I was at school but there you go.  I did, I checked, refer to "appropriate vulnerability", albeit not quite as directly as that.  This phrase was used when we were being trained in pastoral care, recognising that there is a role being fulfilled and lines need to be drawn somewhere in a 'helping relationship.'

So, phrases that came to mind as I pondered this were...

• Appropriate vulnerability
• Intentional outsider/Intentional Isolation
• Profession detachment
• Creative tension

I suspect each of these needs unpacking, and could I think, be useful avenues of exploration if I do ever get around to researching "Public Christianity and Private Pain."

What exactly is 'appropriate" vulnerability?  Who determines what is appropriate?  How far is too far?  How far is helpful?  Indeed, what is helpful and when?

It is John Rackley who I heard coin the phrases "intentional outsider" and "intentional isolation" to refer to the role of the minister within a church.  Whilst the minister is part of the local church they are never completely 'of' it.  Not because they don't love the people but because their calling, as pastor-prophet or pastor-teacher necessitates some degree of separation.  It isn't a kind of wilful "I'm not one of you" but a chosen, or at least accepted, separation, not in hierarchical sense but of 'intention', the 'why I am here.'  But again, what does that mean and what does it look like?

Professional detachment is something that all people in so-called caring professions have to manage - not getting involved with clients/patients in a way that undermines objectivity.  There are times when ministers certainly need a bit of this, but I'm not entirely convinced it works the same in churches as, say, in counselling.  The minister is not a professional pastoral-care-giver; intentionally outside or not, they are (or should be) in a deeper relationship with church members.  I've conducted funerals for well-loved church members and at such times there is a need to be, temporarily, a bit detached in order to cope (though as I type that I recall Jesus at Lazarus' tomb).

So, creative tension.  The phrase some people love and others hate!  How do I hold together in some creative sense these three phrases and what they mean?  How do I find a level of vulnerability that is appropriate for one who is to some extent an intentional outsider needing on occasion to exercise professional detachment?  I am sure there is a balance that can be struck that is helpful and healthy, but what that will look like will be different for each minister nad each congregation.  This, what might be termed 'personality' effect on the balance, is why it is so tricky: one size cannot fit all.

I have a suspicion that it is probably slightly more accepted for women ministers to do the vulnerability - the flip side of the (often mistaken) view that we are intuitivley more pastoral/caring.  Likewise I suspect the detachment is more accepted in men who are (equally erroneously) assumed to be more objective.

Anyway, appropriate, intentional, professional, creative - these seem like good 'noun qualifiers' to describe the task of a public Christian ministering through private pain.

I will be glad when I am finally able to submit my MPhil, though this is now looking like it won't be until after my surgery.  Some people have asked will I ever go back and finish the work, to which the answer has been 'don't know' (and it's probably wise not to prejudice the pass/fail by saying either way at this stage!). 

However, my current experiences are leading me to want to explore more thoroughly what I am loosely terming "Public Christianity and Private Pain."  I have been struck by the challenges of being a minister (a public Christian) dealing with serious health issues (private pain), and how my desire for openness and authenticity has had to be tempered by pastoral responsibility and pastoral sensitivity.  Responses to what I have posted on this blog - both via comments and through emails and conversations - suggest that people value the honesty, yet all too often it would be easier simply to collude with the myth of the serene Christian whose peace permanently transcends comprehension.  I think some empirical work, seeing how others have experienced their own public-private tensions could be fascinating and potentially liberating.  I have a hunch that if our ministers could model a more honest, and appropriate, brokenness and vulnerability the people in the pews would find release from the pressure to 'perform' as if nothing was wrong.

By naming this publicly I am somehow committing to give it some energy in the future - and declaring my faith that there is future in which to explore it.

Every now and then I watch the odd episode of River City the Glasgow-based soap broadcast only in Scotland.  At the moment they have an ovarian cancer storyline and yesterday this was one of the central themes as the character began to come to terms with her chemotherapy and its inevitable effects on her hair.  I felt it was very sensitively handled and the moments when she was pulling out odd strands of hair had a real resonance.  There was a scene where she challenged the patronising speech of her local MP (MSP? not sure which) and I found myself thinking 'you tell 'em girl!'  (An aside, I think there was a fact error, though I'd have to listen again to confirm this, where they said 1 in 3 women get breast cancer when it is actually 1 in 9).  The most poignant part was the closing scene where the character was having her head shaved by her husband; although it was obvious (to me anyway) that this was fake, the sound of the clippers and the panning around the photos in her home was incredibly moving - and why when I reached that point I chose to have it done at a hairdressers.  Scarlett is a feisty character and I feel a good 'ambassador' for real women facing cancer treatment.

Ovarian cancer is the 'silent killer,' and has claimed the lives of two women I counted friends, so it is good that it is being made part of a central storyline.  I hope, though, that the script writers are willing to allow the story to unfold in real time - the chemo part ought to last around four months, the hair loss part at least eight and then see her emerge with very short hair.  Too often we are impatient with story lines seeking quick resolution.  Obviously this is one storyline among many and it will recede into the background - but I will be hacked off if in a couple of months time we see the character with her hair long again.

You can check out the episode here, at least for seven days from this post... English readers may want to campaign for Shieldinch to shown in your neck of the woods (subtitles available if your language skills aren't up to it!!)

This morning I have tried to track down a post I wrote a few years back on James 1, where I wrote about being cross with an old friend (James is my favourite book of the Bible) for what he had to say about suffering at a time when the little church in Dibley was suffering big time.  Because I can't quite recall when it was and because I don't have the patience to search through every post I've ever written (well over a thousand of them), and because I couldn't find it via Google I can't link it.  Which is annoying as I'm sure it'd be useful to see what I thought back then. [Update - after I'd posted this I did another trawl and the older post can be found here.]

James 1:2 - 7 NRSV

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.  But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

What I do recall was being quite angry that James suggested that trials be perceived as joy and trying to work out if the development of endurance or maturity was reason enough for suffering to be purposeful.

Yesterday's IBRA notes suggested that suffering 'can' help develop such characteristics as patience, wisdom, maturity.  I can go with that, but it isn't what James says - he talks about trials, which may well not be synonymous with suffering, and he is more emphatic: it will produce endurance leading to maturity. 

I'm not so struck by the requirement never to doubt either... whatever happened to "I believe, Lord help my unbelief'?  I find myself recalling the old hymn "Just as I am" with its verse

Just as I am, though tossed about

With many a conflict, many a doubt

Fightings and fears, within, without:

Oh Lamb of God, I come.

I believe that faith is stronger than doubt (as part of hopeful imbalance between that which brings life and that which deals death) but it doesn't dismiss the reality that sometimes I do doubt, do question.  So is James right, then, that I should not expect to receive anything from God because I am double-minded?  I think maybe the answer is 'yes and no' and harps back to ideas about the priesthood of all believers.  Based on my own trembling faith, my own real fears, my own honest doubts, then the answer would be that he is, regrettably, right  But that's only part of the story because this is balanced - or hopefully outweighed - by the faith and hope of others who can expect to receive from God what is prayed for.  Maybe somewhere along the line we have got too focused on the individual and personal and lost sight of the corporate?  It is not for nothing that creed-saying churches often use a form of words along the lines of "this is our faith, we believe..."; the responsibility for believing, hoping, praying is not held by the individuals, thus heaping guilt when they fail, but by the body, where someone is always (we trust) able to do the believing, hoping and praying.

So, will current experiences teach me anything?  I hope so!  I hope that I might discover more of myself and more of God.  I hope that telling my story - as it happens and maybe, reflectively, afterwards - will help others in their own walk of faith and doubt, hope and fear, laughter and tears.  I hope, not in a wishy-washy wishful thinking kind of a way, but in a hope-in-Christ kind of a way.  And of course it is the hope that this experience can transform me for good, can somehow speak for and to others, can somehow be put to good purpose by God, that mysteriously allows me to be authentic trusting that ultimately all will be well.

Consider it joy?  Well, no, not in a trivial way.  Be joy-filled within it?  Well, that's what we are equipped to be by God's Spirit if we understand joy as some sort of irrepressible force for things positive.

A long post, mostly "off the top of my head" but I think we need to avoid either trivialising tricky passages or just avoiding them.  James is an old friend - and I enjoy wrestling with what he has to say.