Today I’ve been on one of my regular(ish) pilgrimages to Durham. In fact I’m at the resonance station waiting for the train home.

It’s a four hour journey to Durham and a four hour journey home to spend one hour chatting to one of my old tutors about how life is and how it might relate to God. You may think I’m mad, but my priestly ministry would fall apart without it.

My spiritual director is a pretty good guy, inspiring to be around and pretty deep. But it’s not him I’ve really come to meet. I’ve put myself out to spend an hour with God.

It’s valuable because my SD is not my best friend, but he is friendly. He does not let me get away with things, but he is gentle. He often tells me things I already know, but he doesn’t present this stuff as new information. He listens but doesn’t pry.

For many years I was put off spiritual direction because I carry enough of my own guilt without someone giving me another list of things to do that wouldn’t get done and would make me feel worse. Instead, God has blessed me with two in a row who listen to me and listen to God and try and bring me a little closer to Him.

So, I’ll keep on making my pilgrimage-by-train until the time comes for the next thing.

I know it’s Thursday, but it has taken me a while to process this…

Starting this week with The Inner Life.  I had helpfully not marked where I was up to, so I started on page 11.  This quote jumped out at me ‘But when we encounter even a little trouble, we are quickly discouraged, and turn to human comfort’.

This is a real problem for me (and I guess lots of others of us).  When I am troubled and discouraged (which is several times a day at a low level), I eat stuff which takes my mind off things.  Distracted eating, human comfort.  This is not good for me and so I have decided that I need to start a diet.  It’s not a low fat diet, nor is it a complex points and exercise regime (which I wouldn’t keep up for more than 10 minutes anyway).  It’s a ‘don’t eat because you’re stressed’ diet.  I’m going to try (at least) to think about why I want to eat and remember that God loves me and that whatever thing I haven’t done (and these are usually the causes of my stress moments) would happen quicker if I didn’t make some toast/eat a yogurt/ walk to the shops and but chocolate).

Those of you who know me well will be able to see whether it’s working over the next weeks.

The eating thing is my human comfort, what’s yours?  For some it’s drugs, fags and alcohol.  For some porn or some other fantasy world.  Even something good like exercise can become our distraction from tough things.

I really do believe that it’s the truth that sets us free, I want to make more time to hear the truth rather than the voices in my head that tell me I’m not good enough and that disaster is just around the corner.

Now… not the toaster, but the next thing on my list…

On Thursday I went to Durham to visit my spiritual director. We take an hour to talk about life, what God is saying and how my spiritual life is developing. This time we were talking about dealing with stress. We all have our own ways of getting through the day. When I’m stressed I get headaches and eat rather more than is healthy. If you came to see me, I would tell you to bring your anxieties to God and get his peace. I’ve read Phillipians 4:4-7 so I know the answer.

Yet, knowing the answer is a bit pointless if you don’t follow your own advice (and I often don’t). So how do I change my settings and live out the things I believe to be true? Well, the best way is to develop and deepen my life with God.

In the story of the woman at the well (John 4, read it, it’s good!), Jesus tells the woman that if she asked him, he would give her a spring of water to draw upon, rather than coming back to this well every day. I think that’s a powerful picture for us of our Christian walk.

Think for a minute about a well. Wells are good. There is safe water there and, generally, they don’t run dry. Whenever you need the water, you can let down the bucket and get some. Pretty good really.

But Jesus tells the woman that a well is not good enough. She can instead have a spring. The water just bubbles up. All the time. In fact, springs overflow. More water than you need for the moment, in fact enough to give away, enough to supply the water needs of others. If you’ve got your own personal spring, a well seems pretty poor in comparison.

So how do we get a spring? How do we get enough of God that it overflows from us, that we find ourselves agreeing with the Psalmist, ‘my cup overflows’ (Ps 23). The good news is that the spring is there, we don’t have to build one. Jesus’ promise to the woman at the well holds good for us too. If we follow him, he gives us a spring of life that is never exhausted. What we need to do is make time to notice that it’s there.

Some of us (myself most definitely included) are often thirsty for more of God. But we wait until we’re pretty dehydrated until we start our trek to the well, whether that’s spending some time in prayer and worship, taking a walk somewhere beautiful or going on retreat. The challenge that my spiritual director has left me with is to live like I have access to the spring and to make the most of it each and every day. I know that God is always there and ready to meet me, but does my life reflect that truth?

So, yesterday I went to our reunion at Cranmer Hall in Durham.  We were invited to a sherry reception followed by a meal on Wednesday night and then those who got a degree of some sort graduated this morning.

It was a strange event.  Sad on a number of levels.

It was the last time that most of us will all get together in one place.  One person commented on how it all seemed so normal when we got together, but that it was really unlikely to happen again.  Sad.

It was the end of our (Catherine and my) real association with Durham.  We have one set of friends who will still be there next year, but it won’t feel like home again in all reality.  Very sad.

Finally, there was the loss of Cranmer Hall as a safe place and as home.  This was particularly marked.  It’s not news that the Warden resigned last term and that a new one has been appointed.  I still don’t know exactly what caused the resignation (and I probably don’t want to know in all honesty), but it is obvious that it was an acrimonious divorce.  At the reunion, Anne was never mentioned, it was a bit like after a nasty split where one partner cuts the other out of all the photos in the album.  She simply no longer existed.  That was sad.

At the reunion buffet (not really what we were expecting for an evening meal) we were told that it was great that we had come back and that they were really pleased to see us.  That didn’t really ring true for me, the sherry reception had no sherry (although there was wine).  We received letters which had half the dates from 2010 still on it and were given about 4 days to respond in the December madness that is Christmas.  Essentially, despite being told in a speech that we were not forgotten, it felt that we had been.  I wanted to feel warm, welcome and at home, but I didn’t and I understood that this was the last time I would be at Cranmer and feel like I belonged.  I knew that would happen eventually but I didn’t expect it to be so soon.

The final comedy moment, was being told that recommending Cranmer to others would be a good thing.  The people currently asking me about theological colleges are both women, and I feel that I couldn’t honestly offer Cranmer a recommendation, as the entire Anglican staff are now men (apart from one part time tutor who teaches one two week block course a year, amazing as she is, she simply isn’t in college enough to provide a significant Anglican priestly role model for women). There are other great women around the place (the college chaplain in particular is ace), but enough of them aren’t Anglican priests.  Perhaps in a couple of years when the new Warden has settled in and made the place his, and they have employed some women I’ll feel differently.  It’s sad that I feel like that after spending a year on a team trying to recruit ordinands and telling everyone the place was great. Very sad indeed.

All sorts of different sadness, change is never easy.  And I understand that some of the way I feel is to do with the changes I’m going through.  The reality is that everything will eventually be ok, but it would have been nice to have had longer to take it all in.

[This post was updated following communication from the college principal.  I have made it clearer that these are my personal feelings and/or deductions and that my perception of reality may be different to others.  I would also like to make it clear that I was disappointed by my visit to Cranmer Hall last week because my training there had been so fantastic.  I wish the new Warden every success, he faces a challenging job.]