What Drives Me To Continue

The last few additions have been dedicated to responding to questions which were posed to me by a reader.  Here are the questions for your reference and consideration:

Can you explain to me your grounding belief in the Trinity? I can’t explain internally the need for formal religion and rules and commitment. 

I agree that when you drill down to the bottom of all... be good treat people as you want to be treated..  try to correct wrongs when you can etc. 

Does it come down to blind faith? What drives you to continue?  Do you ever feel that your energy would better placed in just straight up social justice?

Today I will respond to the question: “What drives you to continue?”   That is a very personal question which I am not sure I have a complete answer for as it is a work in process.   The first thing that I ask myself is, what is it that I continue?   Is it my life long involvement with the church?  Following on with that thought, is it my decision to seek ordination as a priest which I continue to be and continue to serve, albeit in a different and less active role in retirement.  Is it someone who believes that dreams are one of the many ways, indeed one of the important ways, a way that God speaks to us and who works with others in discerning their meaning?   It is as a Spiritual Director which I have come to more recently?  Is it my attempts to be a husband and father to my spouse and children as flawed as they are?

Or is it more basic than all that.  Is it to continue to explore and discover how I can be the person I believe I should be and by extension become the person that I believe God created me to be? All of those things are connected and the idea of discovering and making incomplete and flawed and halting efforts in all those ways are what drives.  It is what I come back to no matter how I try to avoid it or rationalize not following that path which apparently God has laid out for me.

Let me give one example which I am most clear about.  I first felt the call to ordained ministry in my thirties.  I had been and continue to be actively involved in the church all my life.  At that point it was in the United Church of Canada.  I entered into the discernment process and followed that for some time until circumstances convinced me it wasn’t the time to pursue that path, I told myself that it really wasn’t for me ̶ perhaps a case of sour grapes.  In any case, my journey continued in fits and starts and sometimes what seemed to involve many disastrous wrong turns and dead ends.  

After some searching I ended up in the Anglican Church as my church home.  I continued on with life and was approaching retirement from my first career as a civil servant.  I began to be drawn to take courses in theology at Huron College, out of interest of course and never with the intention that it might lead to where it eventually did.  I continued on taking courses part time categorized as a ‘Special Student” which always tickled me as I secretly thought I was special.  I retired and after a short, brilliant (just kidding) career as a “consultant” still taking courses as a Special Student, I began to fell the pull to explore the possibility of ordination on the Anglican Church.  As I have said at other times I was hoping for a “Road to Damascus Experience” to get a clear massage that this was a call I should answer.  That never came, at least not that clearly as St. Paul received his (thank God).  It was more a case of God continuing to nag me which, I have concluded is often the way God works.

In any case I decided the only way to discern if God was actually calling me to this path was begin to follow it.   This is what I did and continue to this day.  One of the signposts along the way which I like to recount (as am therefore going to here) was a case of synchronicity (a Jungian term for significant coincidence).   I applied to be a full-time student in the MDiv program (apparently no longer ‘special’) and had an interview with the Dean of Theology.  After what was a very positive interview I was driving home and had my radio tuned to CBC as usual (radio 1 for those who listen to CBC).  There was a program in which three clergy were being interviewed about their experience of being called to ministry as mature adults (at least chronologically).  I took this as a sign I as on the right path. 

A big part of what drives me to continue is to keep trying to discern where God is calling me in my life.  I try do this in as many ways as possible.  I believe that God speaks to us in many different ways.  We are all more open to some ways than other but it is for us to try and discern the voice of God however we can.

Blessings on you journey and keep your eyes and ears and all your senses attuned to the voice of God.