friarmike

14 October: Katey Day

I have decided to embrace 14 October each year as katey day. It is the day that she quietly slipped her moorings and set sail on the translucent eternal ocean that is God’s liquid love.

This year I visited Quarr Abbey, enjoying the warmth and sunshine of this St Martin’s Summer. Of course today more fashionably renamed ‘Indian Summer’ thanks to a colonial friends in the USA - a time when the first nation’s were seen to return home for harvest and winter and the colonists could expect all raids to cease until the following spring.

However, before this it was St Martin’s Summer describing any period of unexpected sunshine from the end of September until St Martin’s feast day on November 11.

I can’t say I thought too much about St Martin, although he has been in my thoughts. A good friend of mine moved from Pompey to St Martinsfield in Martinstown in Dorset - neither of us know why it was named after St Martin.

Still my trip to Quarr was made as a pilgrim. I had my scrip (day sack) and staff and walked from my house to the car ferry that carried me to the Isle of Wight. En route I paused and prayed at the roofless Garrison Church. 

This had once served as a hospital named Domus Dei or House of God. It was built in 1212 to offer hospitality to traveling pilgrims on their way to Chichester, Winchester and Canterbury. It was a time to reflect on Katey’s final day on earth when she received such kindness and welcome from a modern day hospital - on her pilgrimage to God’s presence.

I then tipped my hat to the cathedral, dedicated to St Thomas a Becket and as such a reminder that even servants of the Crown can be transformed by the love of God: Dr Fox et al take note!

A gentle crossing, followed by my walk to the Abbey and a day of wonderful reflections in the pilgrim chapel, surveying the ruins of the original abbey and visiting a beautiful Norman parish church in Binstead.

I could not help recalling that as I was able to sit out in the Abbey’s grounds in this unexpected yet welcome autumnal warmth, that Katey herself had burned brightest and radiated such a warmth of welcome, calm and beauty in the early and unexpected autumn of her life. And just as this St Martin’s summer will swiftly disappear so her mortal life quietly faded and was extinguished that fateful autumnal evening. 

On that occasion as we left the hospital we were sprinkled with raindrops - creation’s tears mingled with our own. However, on this the third anniversary I returned across the Solent gazing upon a glorious sunset; a reminder of Katey’s most glorious inheritance. I smiled and went my pilgrim’s way.

 

A Time to Speak

Following my first week long silent retreat, I knew that I was required to be silent. Hence no blogs for a while. The silent - or directed - retreat took place at the Carmelite Friary in Aylesford in Kent. The retreat was directed in as far as I had up to 30 minutes available with a spiritual director each morning.

This was a wonderful time in which I could chat about what God was talking through with me. My director, a delightful lady, listened, asked questions and placed some useful resources in my hands. As for the rest of the time it was in silence, including meal times. I found it enriching and deeply engaging. I captured the experience as best I could in my journal. I had arrived with an agenda based around what I describe as the fourth chapter of my life. This may sound strange so allow me to enlighten you.

Chapter One was my childhood and education - happy memories soaked in sunshine as though it never rained. Chapter Two was conversion and christian service, a time of great opportunity, fun and remarkable successes. Chapter Three saw me thrust into the role of conflicted carer as I sought to find the means and the grace to care for my wife Katey as she battled her MS. This paralysing disease eventually demanded her life in 2008. And so to the present - Chapter Four entitled ‘Disconnected and Confused’! Here I had stumbled and ground to a halt - writer’s block - not knowing how to fill the first page of this new chapter. Various attempts such as revisiting the substance and acquaintances from Chapter Two had failed to ‘re-launch’ my life. Here was my diet for a week of silence.

Significantly God had his own intentions for our week together. Notably, whilst retainng my agenda inviting me to look at it through a different set of lenses. The struggles I had been experiencing in seeking to resume my past life were cut away from me. I was invited by the Spirit to consider who I had become through the rough and tumble of the previous years, more especially chapter three. I was freed to once more gaze at and embrace the original calling I had experienced when at Oxford and upon first finding God. This was energising and my whole being relaxed. The call to Christian service was restated and reinforced.

The vehicle I had travelled in and somehow either tumbled or been tipped out of - evangelicalism - could be safely abandoned. My purpose and my call remained intact. My God still beckoned me forward. I might choose the vehicle for the future to realise all God had invested into me. Hence upon returning home I embraced a further period of silence and reflection to better clarify all my Beloved had entrusted to me. I am the richer for that time and shall again begin to write. However, write from a fresh, if not a new place. 

I am grateful for the road I have travelled, and those who proved to be companions along the way. However, my road has now branched off and I will explore alone or until joined by fresh companions for this next chapter. I shall continue to explore Formation and share all I see, feel and discover with fellow pilgrims in search of the heart of God and willing to build the solidarity that is at the heart of all true Christian community. This feels good, if challenging. I also feel alone yet at peace within, secure in the knowledge of God’s call and confident that as I have found grace sufficient for Chapters 1 through 3, there will be sufficient grace for the whole of Chapter 4 as it unfolds.

I have no need of tomorrow’s grace, today!

The Intimacy of Aloneness

It was a fine evening last night. I set out for a walk around my beloved Southsea just as the daylight was slowly ebbing away. Its departure heralded the arrival of dusk, that strange in between time when darkness gently creeps in to fill the void before finally shrouding everything with its inky black creating a sombre silence.

In this ‘in-between’ time, I took Dylan, our black and tan Chihuahua, for a walk. Dylan is physically exceptionally small and yet has the largest personality proportionate to size of anyone,  
animal of human, that I have ever met. And he is keen to assert that ego on any and every occasion he might. However, last evening he was comfortable trotting along exploring the sights and smells of the verges and to treat passing quadrupeds with arrogant disdain as opposed to engaging in a barking competition.

As we walked toward the sea, we were confronted by a most beautiful sight. Rising above the horizon and casting an elongated shadow of light across it, was an almost full moon. However, this moon presented itself in the most translucent pink and created a stunning sight. We both paused, although I think I was alone in admiring this phenomenon of nature.

It was whilst I stood and gazed that I was overwhelmed with this huge sense of my own diminutive size against the vastness of nature, and also its constancy against a backdrop of change and human mortality. The moon and the sun revolve continually and have done so from that moment when they were called into being. Whilst our lives are snuffed out in a moment, dwarfed against this monumental staging of the diurnal/nocturnal dance of the centuries. 

Indeed, as an aside, it is this growing awareness, aided by the passing of my physical years I am sure, that has provoked me to stop engaging with ‘the news’. This latter is of course not news but rather those things carefully collected, collated and then finely crafted by news agencies before being presented to us, the public, as significant events. We, the consumer, obediently accept this categorisation and presentation. As a result they become the substance of our own conversation and assume a meaning within our own existence that is far beyond and substantive importance they might have. As with beauty, this management of news is purely in the eye of the beholder. When standing in the vast theatre of creation, dwarfed both by its immensity and its longevity, the machinations of politicians and the efforts of sportsmen and women shrink away as a minor irrelevance - irritation even -  an insignificant diversion from the main act of life and living.

Returning to my walk and gaup confronted by this most magnificent moon, I realised again how alone I was - any of us are - within this immense creation. I may chase intimacy in relationships; I might seek to make meaning of my life within the interactions such relationships provide (both good and bad) yet my reality and purpose can only be found within the heartbeat of creation itself. 

As I stood and stared I was immediately aware of my own mortality, yet unafraid. For many years I think I have pursued relationship for fear of loneliness, and yet those with whom we forge the closest of bonds must eventually abandon us, or we them, as our life fractures and fragments into handfuls of dust. In that moment last evening I was reminded of the intimacy of aloneness - not loneliness. I sensed my own self as a powerful reality, and recognised that the only intimate relationship that would never die was that with the creator and director of this vast theatre of nature. Although unseen this person is not unknown to me. That relationship is indeed the source and substance of the intimacy that lies at the heart of aloneness.

I set out to return home, turning my back upon that wonderful moon, yet deeply impacted both by its visible presence and the mystery that lay behind it and in fact originally gave it birth. I walked home alone, accompanied by Dylan of course, yet I walked home complete. Dylan to date has not shared his reflections with me - but maybe its best if we keep such things to ourselves and simply benefit from the personal enrichment they bring!

 

 

A Good Journey

Richard Rohr states that, “A good journey begins with knowing where we are and being willing to go somewhere else”. I came across this quote this morning and immediately the lights went on. I know that my struggle over recent years has been around ‘where I am’ and so attempts to progress ‘somewhere else’ have inevitable ended in frustration.

 Yesterday I attended a transition meeting at a church I had served in for 21 years, a good percentage of these in leadership. My wife, Jayne, was with me and she had been one of those who had originally planted and established it. The meeting went well and of course afterwards it was a joy to chat to many old friends. 

However, one conversation with someone I had known for years, but who was not part of the church itself, completely threw my equilibrium. Within seconds of being asked a perfectly reasonable and natural question I descended into talking gibberish and although from within my head I observed my behaviour with some alarm, I was completely unable to shut my mouth and end the flow.

 On reflection I cannot recall what I said. Rather I carry a somewhat uncomfortable feeling toward the pit of my stomach therefore knowing I neither enjoyed the experience nor can recollect why it took place. It might best be described as a feeling of pain at every level of my being. And then this morning as I began my daily first office, I discover this quote and a commentary emerges in my head. A commentary that I trust will provide healing going forward.

 The person to whom I verbally gushed and who I emotionally rushed, in many ways personified my past journey to this point in time. Until called to care for the lovely Katey, my first wife, who sadly lost her brave battle with MS, I too was fully absorbed in a world of evangelical, house church life, platform, and certainty. However, caring introduced an unwelcome, but oh so timely, fire break into my life's pilgrimage. I believe that yesterday’s conversation captured something I have been grasping at for quite some time. How to effectively move ‘somewhere else’ rather than returning to where I had stepped off my career course with my enhanced learning - practical and spiritual. It is in fact that I have failed fully to let go and release the personification that I was and the places where I had been. Merton would describe this personification as an expression of my 'false self'.

Many years ago my wonderful third order, Franciscan novice counsellor, Kay, had advised me of two things. One that my ‘horizontal’ relating and relationships were very developed and effective. However, my vertical relationship - with God, the ultimate source of value or whatever helps you,the reader, to engage with what I am saying - was impoverished. For me this was God since I am a Christian. I initially reacted quite strongly but alas I believe Kay was more right than I have ever given her credit!

Second, she pointed out that as I journeyed through life the path I was on would soon take a sharp right hand turn. This would mean leaving the well worn track which was easy to walk along and the one that had been walked by many generations before me and was in fact the reason it was a recognised pathway. I would then find myself in open countryside where the only path was the one I forged for myself. Obviously, as one who loves and thrives on change and has a very low boredom threshold, I embraced this thought with relish. Little did I realise just how painful that would in fact prove to be. 

I know I have taken that turn some time back. I have been on the path that demands greater focus upon the vertical relationship at the expense of horizontal relationships. Yet, I have constantly scampered back to the well worn path being somewhat unwilling to let go of the comfort of the horizontal frame of reference, perhaps frightened by the imagined loneliness, assumed poverty and very uncertainty of the path I was being invited to pioneer. 

Today I realise that I have spent some considerable time trapped between two worlds. I trust that I can now move forward on the uncharted path God has invited me to walk. A path requiring that I embrace solitude and silence as my companions and travel comfortably with the discomfort of the unknown. Now I know where I am I feel a rising confidence that I am willing to travel ‘somewhere else’. Perhaps yesterday was as much a release to enable me to transition as it was for one church leader to hand over to another.

 

Wrestling and Resting

Life has an unusual way of taking centre stage. By which I mean my life is easily driven by external urgencies and anxieties.  

I don’t know if it is observing life around, the many conversations with friend, family and stranger, or the constant bombardment from media - news through entertainment - but external agents appear to create internal anxiety.

Russell Brand was interviewed by Mr Paxman on Newsnight. In his own inimical somewhat effeminate yet engaging bohemian style, he explained his marriage and attempted divorce from the cult of personality. What once appealed to a lonely Essex boy living beneath the leaden skies and abandoned industrial landscape of Essex i.e. fame had now, once achieved, become a tyranny beyond Russell’s control. 

His response was simply to critique in an attempt to warn others of the Midas principle that is the substance behind to lust for personality. However, many would still yearn that all they touch might turn to

gold, for all they have otherwise is few copper coins that leave them imprisoned beneath their own leaden skies and desolate landscape. 

Perhaps as many of us ‘poor boys’ have discovered (and poor is not only a reference to finance), ‘we have squandered our resistance for a pocketful of mumbles such are promises’, to quote Simon and Garfunkel.

Of course we have then equally discovered the substance of those mumbled promises, ‘all lies and jest’ and yet the self deceit is complete for, ‘a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest’.

I wish Mr Brand well - I like his extrapolated ego that rushes me and overwhelms me through my TV screen. However, as he charts his course I also chart mine, be it with the privilege of privacy. 

The substance of my reflection lies in the learning that comes from the realisation that God is bigger than me! You may wonder at the simplicity, even stupidity, of so obvious a statement. Yet after many years of walking with God I still struggle to wrestle control of my life from his hands. The more I wrestle the more anxiety I embrace. The more anxiety the less focussed I become upon what he asks of me. 

In my new role I have a wonderful vision framed role offering opportunity to serve God’s invitation to me. Yet I want to wrestle over the resources that are available to provide my necessities - food, clothing, pleasures! The level of anxiety such basic instinctive drives can generate are huge and I am surprised at myself. Such anxiety can make one hard to live with, and I don’t always recognise myself, or perhaps the ego I like to impress upon my immediate surroundings.

The anxiety leaves me wrestling with my own fears and doubts, my own self inflated notion of my own significance, comparing and contrasting with others and all such woeful negative energies that lead to hatred - of self, others and life - and no doubt an early grave.

The invitation from God is that having found each of us, and us him, is to enjoy resting in his presence. His promise is neither to fill nor forsake us, and life’s experience to date only goes to provide a river of data in support of such a promise. So if I ate, was clothed and enjoyed yesterday, last week, last decade, can tomorrow really be quite so hard?

It may be that the demons unleashed by fame and the cult of personality are no different to those generally unleashed as a result of our fractured humanity. It is only when we can find sufficient ground to stop wrestling that we begin to enjoy the resting - even though we so often forget, I so often forget, I am no longer a wrestler but a rester.

Smile

I remember as a child my parents pausing to find encouragement in my bedroom as I slept. The source of such encouragement? The fact that I laughed, often out loud, always long and hard, whilst I slept. And of course there is nothing like laughter to breed laughter in others. So having been summoned by my dream induced merriment, they departed in a better frame of mind. Now of course I only have their testimony to this effect - but Katey, my late wife, confirmed this in those glorious years of marriage we enjoyed together.

Well just over the last week, I have woken myself up laughing. Some dreams I remember, like the practical jokes we played on each other as youth workers, and I awake with a smile on my face and a lightness throughout my whole being. It is a wonderful feeling! Warm and comforting. It feels as though a part of me that I thought had long since been lost is attempting to resurface. The serious rather focussed individual I had become, perhaps as a result of challenging responsibilities, is just possibly making room for the cheerful character that I remember from my childhood and youth.

 Joy is something we should never treat lightly. It is by definition momentary and can neither be induced nor captured and held to ransom. It is triggered through sight, scent or an occasion - often one that occurs as a short paragraph to a much longer chapter. 

I feel I had in many ways forgotten the lightness that humour creates in and around human frailty. I am deeply grateful to have woken for a least two mornings this week with a smile on my face and in my heart. Good days ahead I trust.

Smile though your heart is aching 

Smile even though it's breaking 

When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by 

If you smile through your fear and sorrow 

Smile and maybe tomorrow 

You'll see the sun come shining through for you 

Light up your face with gladness 

Hide every trace of sadness 

Although a tear may be ever so near 

That's the time you must keep on trying 

Smile, what's the use of crying? 

You'll find that life is still worthwhile 

If you just smile

Fundamentalists Frighten Me!!

I was watching 'The Bible: A History' on Channel 4.  What became apparent was that the need for certainty is, as we know, simply 'fools gold'. The very nature of faith is that it lies beyond scientific demonstration and in fact neither requires proof nor is based upon certainty. Rather faith is about reaching for something or someone we can perceive, sense, even know - and yet never concretely confront. It is about mystery - and it enhances life's richness and depth.

Why is it that there is the perennial search for final proof of everything? My own journey of love with my late wife, Katey, was a journey begun and lived in faith. I well remember we sat down one year of marriage under our belt - July 29, 1979 - and looked at each other. It was one of those moments of stillness and silence when both of us knew something would be said. However, it was not a poetic crafting of a love poem that eventually emerged from our lips. Rather it was the admission - or confession- that we were both surprised and grateful that we were still together as a married couple one year on. Observable evidence and experience had convinced us both that we would not stay the course!

Perhaps not the most romantic exchange on so significant a celebration! Yet it was truly a celebration, a celebration of our faith and faithfulness to the commitment we had made before each other, friends, family and of course God who we chose to love and serve. The journey had begun in faith, we had negotiated a year (not without its hassles and peevish behaviours) and now could look forward. The journey would continue in faith with no evidence as to its viability or authenticity, or indeed long term success, than what we made of our relationship. It was only as real as the choices I made to be faithful, fun, creative, and present in my marriage - and without Katey doing the same it could only founder and fail.

We of course met plenty of fundamentalists promoting marriage from some religious or political polarity - but of course all they had were certainties built from theoretical first principles. However, what we had was a fragile friendship that could be nurtured for as long as we attended to it or destroyed by the choice of either one of us. When Katey began to be eaten alive by the MS then the context changed and we had to continue to walk forward in relationship by faith - indeed in the early days a social worker informed me that evidence indicated that I would abandon Katey and I must not feel bad as and when that happened!

I took the opportunity to engage in a very gentle conversation stating that I am sure she was accurate in that the evidence statistically supported her objective perspective. However, I journeyed by faith and although I did not know if faith was sufficient for the challenges that lay ahead at this point faith enabled me to embrace today and exercise hope for tomorrow. Rather than surrender to the statistical evidential facts, I would commit myself to the the uncertain way of faith.

Fundamentalists come in all shapes and sizes - there are religious fundamentalists and non- religious fundamentalists - most recently the fundamentalist atheists led by Richard Dawkins. I find them all repugnant. Secure in their certainty they paint the world in various shades of grey whereas I live in glorious technicolour! What is this need for certainty other than a vane attempt to suppress the questioning uncertainty that underpins all of life - who can forecast an earthquake in Haiti, who can choose if they suffer from MS or not? No, once we embrace the fact that life is uncertain then faith provides a means of engaging fully with all of live and living to the max. 

So I for one am frightened by fundamentalists who, to misquote Oscar Wilde, quite literally know the facts about everything and the value of nothing. I remain comfortable with my uncertain faith and  enjoy the conversations with many fellow faith  pilgrims of all faiths and none!!

What's in a Name?

It is official! I am no longer Mr. Michael Morris but now I am Dr. Micha Jazz. The official deedpoll has arrived together with enough legal copies to set about advising all official bodies that Mike Morris has ceased to be. Today I start with submitting my new name for a new passport.

A number of people have expressed an interest in why I have done this. The short answer is that it significantly marks the transition that was forced upon me a year ago. I had known dear Katey for over 40 years, and been married for 30. As a couple we had always been known as Mike and Katey Morris. Even though Katey was a school teacher and I was a a minister, we were always talked of in the same breath - Mike and Katey. 

On all occasions Katey faithfully stood by my side and invested her many talents into supporting me in what I was doing, from initiating Spring Harvest to facilitating youth gatherings. Everything was about Mike and Katey. We wrote popular books together, spoke together, and counselled together. We were always together.

I can remember whilst at university we took a holiday to the Scottish isle of Iona, many years before it became popular with modern day, new monastic pilgrims. Single and not yet engaged, the people on retreat with us dubbed us the ‘young marrieds’. My suspicion was that it was because we wore very similar Arran jumpers that they assumed we were together legally as well as spiritually.

However, last October Katey went to be with the Lord, her long battle with MS concluding peacefully and constructively. I was no longer Mike and Katey - the best of me had just departed. In coming to terms with this I felt strongly I must change my name. A season was over. There was no disappointment or shame to that season, rather the opposite. I was proud to have walked with Katey as my friend and bride, and celebrated the natural association in peoples’ minds as the dynamic duo, Mike & katey! Indeed one very dear friend of many years standing pointed out over a pint that probably there was no other couple who were always spoken of in the plural in the way Mike and Katey Morris were. He was correct.

So what of the new name? Micha is an unusual variant of Michael and keeps the meaning - ‘one who resembles god’. No I am not big headed but do believe in living out of my highest values rather than accommodating to the overwhelming pressure of whatever values that surround me. Micah was also a prophet in the OT who was committed to ethical issues and detested official corruption. I would aspire to similar commitments.

Jazz for me captures who I have discovered that I am and the role I have come to play through my working life. As one source states, ‘Jazz is not found in websites or books or even written down in sheet music. It is in the act of creating the form itself, that we truly find Jazz’. I love creating and I love new forms. I am forever exploring forwards - reaching beyond what I can see to that which I sense. Jazz also relies on a group of individuals, each highly talented in their chosen instrument, listening to and collaborating with each other to make music - to deliver Jazz! Collaboration is my signature tune.

As Wynton Marsalis wrote, ‘The real power of Jazz ...is that a group of people can come together and create...improvised art and negotiate their agendas...and that negotiation is the art’.

This is what I love. Neither conformity nor constructed forms. Rather the creativity that is released when creatives deliberately commit to work in harmony with each other. Lasting and meaningful change can only be realised in this way. And this is the change I want to contribute to and be a part of. I leave you with one final quote,

‘Jazz is not the result of choosing a tune, but an ideal first created in the mind, inspired in one’s passion and willed next into reality. It is in the act of creating the form itself that we truly find Jazz’

Myers-Briggs & transitioning to an INFJ

Well how many of us have endured the Myers-Briggs personality sampling? I know for many years I emerged as an ENTJ - but was never that convinced by the descriptions. However, recently I did the test again. This time it was as I emerge from a ‘fallow’ year following Katey’s death and in preparation for my re-emergence into the world of work. 

This time I emerged as an INFJ and the descriptions knocked me out with their accuracy. The INFJ is an idealist and my combination places me as a counsellor. Strange as this is the road I had begun to explore post my holiday in January reflecting on my future. I quote,

‘Counsellors have an exceptionally strong desire to contribute to the welfare of others, and find great personal fulfillment interacting with people, nurturing their personal development, guiding them to realize their human potential. Although they are happy working at jobs (such as writing) that require solitude and close attention, Counselors do quite well with individuals or groups of people, provided that the personal interactions are not superficial, and that they find some quiet, private time every now and then to recharge their batteries. Counselors are both kind and positive in their handling of others; they are great listeners and seem naturally interested in helping people with their personal problems.’

Interestingly this comes as I have taken the decision to develop the house in Southsea into a small retreat centre capable of providing hope and hospitality for people. I am also exploring how to get some form of counselling certification to build upon my life’s experience - childless, adopted father, full time carer, and young widower. However, I do not want to engage in a long period of training having just completed my Ph.D.

It is again of great interest that my interest in mediation is this week being developed on a CEDR course as coaching people through their conflict to discover that they can identify a creative solution for themselves is something that excites me.

So is it that I now know myself better than I did and stherefore completed the questions more honestly? Or have I really changed through the challenges life has pitched at me? One thing is for sure. My love of community must surely stem from my commitment to a few intimate relationships and perhaps I confused my personal preference with a biblical norm for all these years. This helps me feel more at rest and also clarifies what I do want from my social and working relationships into the future. A mighty helpful revelation indeed!

The relevance of relationships

I have been helpfully challenged to rethink my views on the nature and character of relationships. Not so much the romantic ones, rather the everyday interaction that takes place between neighbours, colleagues and friends. Often termed 'mates,, 'friends', 'acquaintances' there is a lot of slack for investing whatever meaning I choose to give to such terminology with little thought over what meaning the other person invests in such linguistic descriptives.

For myself I entered into following Jesus and adopting a Christian way from a hippy lifestyle imbued with international socialist philosophy. Perhaps that philosophy was more influential in informing my so called 'Christian' understanding of relationships. Community was an ideal and I have continued until now to work at expressing that as a global value for everyone. I am now considering this is perhaps the persistence and arrogance of youthful idealism, rather than the true biblical reflection of relationships.

My journey led me to a church, part of whose attraction was its mantra around relationships. Surely here was a group of people that wanted to invest in the ideal of total availability and unlimited liability for each other because we were all slaves to Christ. How wrong, naive, or just plain deluded could I be! And it is worth underlining I blame no-one but myself for this. My main regret is that I dragged my late but darling wife with me, such was the confidence of my assumptions.

As we journeyed with this lively, party going, high living congregation, we learnt that the first adjective one needed to apply to relationship was 'strategic'. This was short hand for what might better be termed those connections that might lead to personal advancement. I resisted such nonsense, for there is little evidence Jesus did too well when it came to 'strategic' relationships. Rather than a bunch of chav artisans and ladies of the night he might better have deployed his time in shmoozing the political and religious brokers of his day. Surely that would have launched his message and movement far faster - or maybe that wasn't his message or the substance of his movement.

Katey then fell ill and the long journey is best described as less a way of sorrows (via dolorosa) and more a way of desertion - when she died there was only the extended household available to hold her hand and commit her into the arms of her Lord. Good job she had a high self esteem and knew God at a deeper level than most I have encountered. It was at this juncture I had that sinking feeling that maybe I had been singing the wrong tune all these years. I should have anticipated that the false self seeks out affirmation, meaning, and self realisation through relationships, whilst the true self is simply content to be at one with God. We come into this world alone and depart this earth alone. It might be that the 'alone' bit has more to offer to us in living God's way in God's creation than I have perhaps given credence to. Back to the drawing board.

However, since Katey's departure there has been plenty of time to be alone, and a chance to spend many hours with the very few good friends I have. I use the word friend because these are people who have committed to total availability and unlimited liability with me, and that is a brave and somewhat awe inspiring commitment because I am not an easy guy to walk alongside! I am grateful.

Furthermore the time without relationships a plenty has not led to loneliness but rather an increasing sense of the joy of solitude, so much so that I am actually seeking it out. Can one become addicted to solitude? I don't know but I shall explore this reality.

Suffice to say that relationship is perhaps more a tool of the powerful elite to manipulate the vast masses to do their bidding hence corporate relationship words such as citizenship, nationality, political party etc. all provide an unhealthy sense of belonging and create 'the other' with whom relationships can be made or broken depending on information that the elite divulge. 

So these are the preliminary thoughts of a recovering relationist - and only such. I have no conclusions, but for the first time I am prepared to concede that a relational model may be a deceitful diversion from the business of honestly loving God. Help what has happened to me?