Scrutiny

A visit to the Practice Nurse this morning for a routine check-up, linked in to a medication review with my GP next week. Now that Spring weather is here and I'm riding by bike again, I'm feeling amazingly well these days, but it doesn't exempt me from the usual tests to ascertain whether or not I'm at risk of anything new. It's a duty I reluctantly perform. If I had something fatal would I really prefer to know well in advance or not? Enjoyment and good quality of life can't be medically monitored.

My College tutor group met for the last session of term this afternoon, and I had a chance to look at the students' work portfolios, as a preliminary to writing end of year reports on each of them. It's what's required by the ordination training process, and I can't say I'm happy with having to assess them in detail. My perception of each student is limited by the nature of the contacts I've had with each of them, only part of the picture of the whole person and how they are developing. I fear I may miss things out. Having too much information may make it difficult to see them in a context that is always moving and changing. The more we may think we know, the less we may actually know. 

I don't imagine that Nurse is as uncertain of the worth of her investigations into the state of my health as I am about my students. I try to see myself as I was in the days of my ordination candidacy, and honestly wonder, would I have survived selection and passed muster if judged by today's standards? I think not. I was chosen by people willing to trust in what I might become with the right encouragement and guidance, rather than through the lengthy process of evaluation and testing. Keeping faith with those I looked up to was part of what kept me on track and opened the way for me to become what I became as a missionary pastor. It kept me in the church, and kept me in the service of the church. And it was quite personal, less than objective - a risk of faith maybe? I was blessed by it anyway.