I got up early, attended Morning Prayer and had breakfast in College before a tutor team meeting. Nobody talked much at breakfast about 'Vicar Academy'. Some involved had previewed it earlier, many stayed up and watched it together, and probably discussed it before going to bed, so the atmosphere was somewhat subdued, as the students steeled themselves after a late night for the dash into town for lectures, armed with their picnic lunch bags - many have afternoon classes, making return to College impracticable. University based theological education, albeit desirable, is a hard taskmaster. It may just about teach people to think in fresh ways, but I'm more concerned that it will turn them into busy workaholics who don't feed themselves properly.
This morning I was assigned a room to use as a study at the west end of the top floor corridor, with a view over the perpetual traffic congestion down Cardiff Road. On a sunny day it looks great. I have a desk and Core i3 Toshiba laptop from which I can access the College network for material I need for supporting students. The desk and shelves are all empty and the room needs some decoration, before it becomes congenial. Despite the rumble of traffic below it's a quiet bare little monastic cell at the moment, and I quite like that.
I lunched in College, configured the laptop's Chrome browser to suit my needs, read a superb essay about the influence of media on the presentation of the Gospel, sent me by one of the students, popped home to get a book, then wrote a few emails I would have otherwise done at home. Then it was time to meet the tutor group. Cath led us in study and reflection on Psalm 40, which turned into a conversion about the disturbing experience of spiritual barrenness which seems common among students, and is often barely understood or mis-interpreted. It really took me back to my time in their situation.
The struggle to cope in an unfamiliar environment, without the comforts and consolations which may have been instrumental in awakening one's vocation is much the same now as it was forty five years ago. To my mind, it's the fruit of imbalance, an excess of head learning (made worse by having to reflect and work with computers and other electronic devices so much of the time). There's not enough proper physical activity, space for creativity, silence or solitude. Too much stressful activity and background noise to allow the mind to settle into the heart in order to restore the balance. The positive exposure to pastoral life that comes through parish placements and domestic family elements of College life compensates to a degree, but how can more space be made for all kinds of people to allow them to find themselves afresh, and irrigate barren devotional lives? It's a perennial problem.
I was late leaving College and arrived late at my Chi Gong class, which I hate doing. However, the conscious and deliberate nature of the exercises themselves disciplines the player to 'drop in at any time' as Christie our teacher says. So even while I was tying my shoes, the training to unwind and stretch was already starting to function. It's ten years since I started to acquire this habit. Would that I had known about it, let alone learn to do it back in my student years.
