Pottery and Pilgrimage — a reflection on vocation

Towards the end of my first year at theological college, reflecting on the nature of my vocation I wrote in a report that “We feel increasingly strongly that small, struggling churches are places of great opportunity and we are excited about the possibility of ministering in such parishes”. As I approach the end of my curacy (a training period at the start of ordained ministry) it is encouraging to look back and see this having recently been appointed as Vicar of a group of five small, sometimes struggling churches.

In some ways, therefore, you could say that my vocation hasn’t changed all that much in 5 years but of course to say that is to oversimplify the nature of any vocation into a mere job description. I feel called now to small, struggling churches just as I did then but my sense of vocation today is grounded in 5 further years of experience of the day to day realities of multiple churches, small and large, struggling and thriving, rural and urban, as well as significant theological study and reflection. That variety of experience gives me a greater confidence in this vocation as I look back and see how God has been shaping me over many years for this ministry that I am now preparing for.

Sometime around 1628–29, as the poet George Herbert was exploring his own sense of vocation to be a priest he wrote a poem entitled “The Priesthood” in which he reflects on his sense of call to the “Blest Order”.

This poem begins by describing his hesitancy at

…exchanging my lay-sword

For that of th’ holy word.

This vocation to the priesthood emphasises for Herbert his unworthiness before God:

“…thou art fire, sacred and hallow’d fire;

And I but earth and clay: should I presume

To wear thy habit…

And in even stronger terms:

I am both foul and brittle; much unfit

To deal in holy Writ

For Herbert this sense of vocation sends him into turmoil as he seeks to be faithful to God’s call yet also honest about his own nature, a tension I certainly wrestle with myself.

However at this point the poem shifts its focus away from Herbert himself and, prompted perhaps by his description of himself as earth and clay, he begins to reflect on the work of human potters, and how he has seen

…by cunning hand

And forces of fire, what curious things are made

Of wretched earth…

Noting the delight that these “curious things” give to their owners Herbert begins to see that those called the priesthood are, like himself, “such vessels”, which

have one beginning and one final summe

And that it is God who, like a potter, makes them, and him, worthy of this vocation.

There is for Herbert, it seems, a kind of reassuring paradox here whereby

their hands convey him, who conveys their hands

That is to say that the priest whose hands carry God to the people is him or herself carried by God in this holy task. This enables Herbert to find a way to resolve this tension between his calling and his nature by throwing himself at God’s feet like a lump of clay where

There I will lie, untill my Maker seek

For some mean stuffe whereon to show his skill:

Then is my time.

As Herbert describes here, vocation is a process of being formed for the work which God is calling you to. As I look back over the past 5 years I can see ways in which God has been shaping me. Taking temptations and tendencies within me and gently (or not so gently!) challenging them through particular people and situations I’ve been faced with.

Pryce, in his article on the reflective ministry of another poet-priest, R. S. Thomas, draws on Thomas’ metaphor of vocation as pilgrimage. For Thomas, “Faithful ministry imagined as pilgrimage does not imply an easy journey…but a way of travelling in which the pilgrim engages at the deepest level with the people and the territory s/he encounters on the way”. This, I think, parallels with Herbert’s image of vocation as being moulded by God. A pilgrimage is as much an inward journey as an outward journey and the pilgrim expects to change and grow as they travel.

Reflecting back on my journey thus far as I prepare to leave the training phase of my ministry I can see how God has been working within me through the ‘people and territory’ among which I have ministered. But Thomas’ image, perhaps more than Herbert’s, is a reminder that this does not mean that I am fully formed. The pilgrimage will be lifelong and although the next phase of that journey will take me through a group of five small, sometimes struggling churches, at this point I do not know what land lies beyond that. For now I must simply place myself and my call at God’s feet

…untill my Maker seek

For some mean stuffe whereon to show his skill:

Then is my time.

Rev’d R C May 2017

Sources:

Mann, R. (2016) ‘The Priest Attends to the Word: Parish Poetics’ in Coakley, S. & Martin, J. (eds) For God’s Sake: Re-imagining Priesthood and Prayer in a Changing Church (London: Canterbury Press Norwich) p.78–90.

Pryce, M. (2013) ‘A Pilgrimage to My Own Self? R. S. Thomas and the Poetic Character of Reflective Ministry’ in Moving On in Ministry: Discernment for Times of Transition and Change by Ling, T (ed.) (London: Church House Publishing) p.79–97.

Wilcox, H. (ed.) (2007) The English Poems of George Herbert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).