This may come as a surprise to those
who have shared many Meetings for Worship with me, but I don't like
giving spoken ministry. Actually, I kind of dread it.
Giving ministry opens one up. It is,
to me, an act of vulnerability. It gives one a chance to fail – to
not adequately express what the Spirit has given, to be
misunderstood, to inadvertently misrepresent the Divine. It forces
one to reveal, even if indirectly, some of the content of your own
spirit and psyche – while ministry comes from the Spirit, it is
focussed through the lens of our own nature and experience. It opens
one up to criticism, as the motive behind the ministry may be suspect
in the eyes of some Friends.
This vulnerability is part of what
gives ministry its strength. In opening ourselves to the Spirit, and
opening ourselves to the meeting to share the gift that may come, we
expose more of ourself than we might necessarily realise – perhaps
more than the other Friends present realise. Sometimes we are saying
something that we ourselves are uncomfortable with, but in
faithfulness to our traditions, our methods, we give voice to it.
Sometimes, for various reasons –
some of which I do not feel are appropriate to discuss publicly – I
actively avoid giving ministry. Out and out refusing the call to
minister is difficult, and unpleasant, in my experience. The Spirit
doesn't like us to withhold what it would have us say, and unless
substantially the same ministry comes through someone else in the
same meeting, I find that the effort of refusing leaves me
uncomfortable for some time afterwards. So, if I wish to avoid giving
the ministry, there are two basic options: I can reduce the
likelihood of being given the ministry, or I can find ways to satisfy
the Spirit other than standing and speaking.
The first of these is actually rather
easy. Ministry won't usually come if I'm not centred down properly.
So I just avoid properly centring down, usually by somehow
distracting myself. It doesn't always work – with the weight of
presence in the meeting, it can push through a lot of distraction. It
also rather means that I am not fully joining in the Meeting for
Worship, whether other people can tell or not. Yet sometimes it is
the easiest way.
The other method has actually led to
some of the written ministry shared on this blog. I let the ministry
flow, just out onto paper. I pull out my ever-present notepad, and my
always-in-my-pocket pen, and write it down, just as it comes. Not all
of my written ministry came in this way, nor even most of it, but
some certainly did. To be faithful, I need to share it after writing
it down; I don't imagine that the Spirit is going to punish me in
some way if I don't. That would be pretty difficult, given my
conception of the Divine. However, I do think that I will be doing
myself a disservice if I don't.
So the first method avoids the
vulnerability of ministry completely, while the second moves it, in
time and in space. I find myself worrying what the others I worship
with will think of either method, when they notice it, but being
polite and conflict-avoiding as British Quakers seem to now mostly
be, I'm not sure if I'll find out.
