A date with destiny (and quiche)

My first tentative step towards exploring my vocation came about a year ago, when I saw a diocesan advert for a young persons’ vocations day and my husband suggested I go along. I decided to go just to check that I had indeed taken leave of my senses and that I was absolutely 100% not what they were looking for.

You see, I had a pretty clear idea of the kind of person who would be there. My image of a young priest wannabe was an earnest teenager with a Jesus t-shirt, as wholesome, ethical and plain as an organic wholemeal loaf. Whereas I at least aspire to be smart, sexy and professional – all the things the church isn’t. Even being female is a bit avant-garde.

Moreover, everybody else there would be a fully-paid-up Christian who’d served their time in the church. Their CVs would be packed with youth work, PCCs and missionary expeditions to Papua New Guinea. My only qualification for ordained ministry was looking good in black.

So with typical bloody-mindedness, I put on a smart skirt, a low-cut top and high-heeled boots. I might be a Christian now, but I was damned if I was going to let it show. “Great!” my husband enthused. “You look just like a woman priest!”

****

Whatever I’d expected from the day, the reality was beyond my wildest dreams. The leader started by asking what we wanted to get out of the day and I raised a laugh by saying I hoped they’d put me off. To be honest I thought there were only two options – either I would realise that I didn’t have a vocation after all, or I would realise that I did and that it was going to be next to impossible to realise it. Out of those two, the first would be distinctly better. I certainly hadn’t expected to come out thinking it was actually possible.

When I arrived there were two boys and two girls already there, all looking a lot more convincing than me, and all absolutely quiet. My cheery greeting reverberated in the silent room like a small nuclear explosion. My chance of hiding at the back was blown. This is it, I thought; I just hope I can get to the end of the day without them kicking me out for wasting their time.

But then the leaders introduced themselves – a reassuringly diverse and confident bunch of priests and ordinands. The Diocesan Director of Ordinands (DDO), the man who held all our fates in his hand and was therefore second only to God in the fear and awe he inspired, turned out to be the pleasant approachable chap I’d already unknowingly said hello to. Then one of group put on a video, and within minutes my preconceptions had been shattered. I learned two important lessons from that video – it’s okay to be a Monty Python fan, and you won’t get blacklisted just because you’re able to look straight at the screen during love scenes.

The DDO then explained the process. The first step is to talk to your own parish priest who will usually refer you to the DDO for a one-to-one talk. Then follows a series of semi-informal interviews with various “advisers” who report back to him, followed by a meeting with the “Examining Chaplain” who makes a report to the Bishop. (Are you following all this? Good.) This, if positive, leads to the Bishops’ Advisory Panel, formerly known as the selection conference, which is arranged on a national rather than diocesan level and sits through the whole year. This “BAP” is an unavoidably scary experience but – and this is an important but – recommends two-thirds to three-quarters of the people on each conference. Basically, BAPs cost money and they don’t send you unless they think you have a good chance.

Most importantly, it doesn’t have to take forever. I had previously been under the impression that even getting an audience with the DDO required your priest to petition on your behalf for several months. Yet here he was, eating quiche. So I took my life in my hands and came clean. I’m not even baptised, I explained. How long is this going to take?

Anything from six months to two years, he said.

Six months to two years before I approach my parish priest, right? I clarified.

No, six months to two years before selection.

And so he sent me off with a bag full of vocations literature (which felt like contraband) and a head full of crazy dreams, walking on air.

Book review: “Suddenly he thinks he’s a sunbeam” by Adey Grummet

This unthreateningly slim and cheery-looking book was the first thing I dared to read on vocations. It was published in 2000 without much fanfare and went out of print. By the time I came to get a copy, they were being exchanged online for two or three times the cover price.

This book deserves to be popular because it’s an enjoyable and easy read. But I suspect the main reason it commands such a premium is that potential ordinands and their spouses feel so at sea about the whole process. Adey is such a spouse, and the book is about how her husband – demonstrating once again that God can’t resist a challenge – metamorphosed from a “perfectly normal, angst-ridden, atheistic, socialist hippy actor” into an Anglican priest.

Adey (I can’t bring myself to call the poor lass Grummet!) is a highly witty and engaging writer, and this story gives much to encourage those who, like Adey, formerly thought of vocation as an exotic disease that happened to other people. At the same time, it’s as frustrating as it is enjoyable. Although she makes it clear there were a lot of long waits, it’s never really explained how long or what was happening in them. Also, perhaps to preserve her husband’s privacy, Adey barely touches on what was going on in his head during all this. The overall impression given is that his conversion and vocation are due to the effect of English air on his Antipodean constitution.

After reading this book, I took some comfort from knowing that I was suffering from a recognised condition – although I did speculate quite seriously on whether emigrating to the other side of the world was an essential prerequisite for selection. But the overwhelming impression of the Church of England discernment process was of poverty, frustration, a constant anxiety to appear respectable, and a lot of waiting. There was no alternative but to find out for myself.