Perseverance (2): Katie-style

My post a few days ago about the squirrels was meant as a stand-alone piece. But, well, this brain of mine kept on ruminating on the subject, and so here is a follow-on.

Short version: squirrels are cleverer than me. They know when to give up and try something else.

Long version: here goes...

Perseverance is a Christian virtue, isn't it? After all, St Paul says to us in Romans chapter 5 in the Bible that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint. So perseverance is a good thing, surely? It's part of a positive chain reaction, part of our growth towards Christian maturity. And I have always been good at getting my head down, pushing on through, not giving up - at persevering. Well done me.

But when is perseverance actually stubbornness? Does it sometimes mean I end up keeping going when I should stop, or should change direction? My mum (let me be careful here, as I know she will read this!) is determined, courageous, committed - and also sometimes downright stubborn. Seriously stubborn. Try getting her to do something she doesn't want to, or not do something she's decided on! I love her dearly, and I hope I have inherited some really positive characteristics from her, but one I have definitely, increasingly shown over the years is plain old stubbornness. Nothing wrong with a bit of grit and determination: it has got my mum through many tough times, and it's done that for me too. When difficult things need to be faced, or there's a goal that is worth pursuing despite obstacles, then stubbornness is very useful. But there are also times when wisdom means knowing when to give in, when to give up, when to change the plan.

That can be a challenge to our pride, our sense of independence, our sense of achievement. But for me, the problem wasn't that I couldn't face that challenge; it was simply that I didn't realise perseverance, or stubbornness, was no longer serving me well.

Looking back, I can see now that for all of 2019 I was not in a good way. At the start of the year, I remember thinking, "I have no life" - not in a moany "woe is me" way, but a genuine feeling that my life had shrunk to an unhealthy extent, had become too much about ministry and too little about anything else. But perseverance said, don't give in to self-pity; this next season is going to be tough but it won't last for ever, so look for the positives and keep going. So I made my plans and carried on.

Then in March 2019, I sat in a seminar room on a training course, thinking how I would try yet again, after so many efforts, to approach things differently the following week; to reprioritise my to-do list for the thousand-and-first time; to get my life sorted and in order - and I thought, I just can't kid myself anymore that I can do that. I can't keep saying, it'll be better next week. I could almost write the book on time management and prioritisation, but those techniques had long since stopped helping me. I realised that I needed help. And perseverance said, don't despair, but instead seek help, be open to learning and challenge, and improve your practice. And so, once back home, I signed up for the clergy coaching that my diocese offers. Four sessions with a very good coach helped me to reframe some of my internal drivers, articulate my goals in different ways, and so gain a different sense of priorities and perspective. That kept me vaguely functional for another few months.

But by the autumn of 2019, the wheels were seriously wobbling. I knew I wasn't well. But I put it down to my ongoing thyroid illness, assuming my hormone levels were out of whack again. So now perseverance said, don't go off the deep end about it; be practical, look at the obvious reason for why you might be feeling off; take it step by step. I contacted the GP, got blood tests done, and waited a few weeks for a follow-up appointment with the GP. The bloods didn't shed any particular light on what was going on; my levels were reasonably good. By now, I didn't even have the energy to think what else to investigate or do.

On I ploughed, through leaden fatigue and pea-souper-style brain fog, surviving a day at a time, winging it far too much (sorry, folks in these parishes, for any times when that showed in what I was doing - but I really was doing all that I could manage). By this stage, all out of other options, perseverance said, very simply, keep going until the vacancy in the team is filled in early November. Wait for your new colleague to come, and then everything will be so much better. Head down, keep going, just - keep - going - - -

It wasn't that there weren't warning signs. From the yellow flag in January, to the red flag in March, to the incident in September when I burst into tears on a friend's shoulder (thank you, you know who you are) on the cathedral lawn after the service where my curate was ordained which should have been such a high, there had been signs. But I became increasingly unable to recognise them.

My new colleague arrived in post, and, surprise, surprise, life was not instantly transformed into something manageable and happy. I was too far gone for that.

As it turned out, God had to take me several thousand miles away for me to see the reality of my situation. Later in November, I went with two clergy colleagues, who are also close friends, to Kenya, to visit our partner churches there. Kenya is the country where I spent my teens, which I've loved reconnecting with in recent years. It is one of my happiest places on the planet and I should have been bouncing and annoyingly silly with joy to be there. I wasn't. I felt utterly emotionally flat. Numb. In conversation with one of my friends towards the end of the trip, I talked and talked, and essentially heard myself for the first time. It was suddenly so obvious, unavoidably so. If I had heard someone else speak as I was speaking, I'd have strongly suggested they needed to seek medical help. At this point, my constant companion perseverance gracefully gave way, slipped out of the room, and let honesty and pain speak up instead.

Three days later (there's something biblical about that...), back in the UK, I was on the phone to the doctor's surgery, in the first of several tear-filled conversations that were to mark that day.

So, back to my fluffy-tailed, nut-stealing friends outside. It took the squirrels about two days to realise there was no point persevering with the squirrel-proof caged bird feeders. They settled instead for getting their occasional treat of nuts from their own feeder, and otherwise making the most of the rich pickings that the Hermitage garden naturally provides.

In contrast, it took me about 11 months to realise that my friend perseverance didn't have all the answers. And I'm supposed to be the more highly evolved being...

Actually, to be fair to good old perseverance, it is still my friend, as recovery certainly takes perseverance. But its voice needs to be balanced with other voices, to make sure its efforts are well-directed and lead to healing rather than harm. Perseverance never meant to drown out those other voices; I had just got so tuned into perseverance over the years, that I didn't recognise what the others were trying to say.

Perhaps I need to spend more time watching the squirrels...