Fearless and fierce: Following after Mary of Nazareth

Behold, for I am fearless and therefore powerful.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.

For weeks I have wanted to bring this quote into dialogue with my emerging ideas of leadership and power, but I’ve not known where to start. Shelley’s words, spoken by her monster as it torments Victor Frankenstein, are not comfortable ones to sit with. A power rooted in fearlessness is surely dangerous power? Isn’t fear a key regulator of leadership? Fear of inflicting pain (and the correlative desire to bring healing), fear of making mistakes (and the correlative striving for excellence), fear of letting co-labourers and those we serve down (and the correlative other-ness at the heart of Servant Leadership) – these fears are surely healthy, in moderation, and enable leaders to keep their power in check.

And yet the quotation has not let me go, and I need to ask why. What part has fear played in my own leadership? Was it healthy? What about in others I observe? Has fear been the positive driver for healthy exercise of power, or does fear, like anxiety, actually infect, paralyse and harm institutions, spreading through groups in the virus-like ways that Edwin Friedman identified so well?

Fearlessness makes us powerful, but so does fear. The drive to constantly cover our mistakes lest we are found out, to cast others aside for fear we ourselves will be left behind, the relentless push for success and growth that leaves us paralysed with exhaustion and still no less fearful of our fate: these are powerful forces that have great potential to cause harm. The current Netflix hit Squid Game offers gruesome but insightful commentary on the power of fear to as it feeds discontent, paranoia and egotism (content warning: that links direct to the horrifically violent episodes on Netflix).

I want to redeem the idea of fearlessness, not as recklessness or lack of self-regulation, but as a way to seek transformative power: power that brings change and builds wellbeing.

And in the midst of these reflections, I discovered both Ann Loades’ book, Grace is not Faceless, as well as Elisabeth Frink’s sculpture Walking Madonna, at Salisbury Cathedral (both courtesy of Edward Dowler’s review of Loades in the Church Times).

Frink’s introduces us to Mary of Nazareth in her old age. Her she is, not as the pious virgin that so many preachers and commentators would like us to imagine, but ravaged by the sword destined to pierce her soul from the moment of her “yes”. The Walking Madonna is fearless. Turning with her back to the Cathedral, she strides boldly towards the town. This frail elderly lady turns her back on the mammoth structure of the institution, and hurries away to – to what?

Nicholas Mutton / Walking Madonna statue, Salisbury Cathedral / CC BY-SA 2.0

Let’s take Frinks’ Madonna back in time for a moment. I have written before about my encounter with Bellini’s painting The Presentation of Christ. I have shared my own journey of motherhood, and how Bellini helped me unlock the narratives of Mary of Nazareth not as pious virgin, but as fearless mother of Jesus Christ. What I noticed recently was not just the torment in Mary’s eyes, but the position of Christ in the painting.

Unlike Luke’s Gospel, in Bellini’s painting, Mary doesn’t let go. She holds that boy with all the lioness passion of the postnatal woman. Mary stands flanked by women: the world of women coming alongside the world of men. And where is Christ? Turned towards the women, eyes fixed on the one who brought him fiercely to birth, with his back to the men who might so easily stand for the patriarchy of institutions whose “deep cultural structures legitimate women’s exclusion” (Beard, 2017,83). Christ turns his back on the power and privilege that long to take him, shape him, and raise him as their own. It is a turning away that we see Christ do time and again in Luke’s Gospel: away from power and privilege; towards the oppressed and the marginalised.

If women are not perceived to be fully within the structures of power, surely it is power we need to redefine, rather than women?

Beard, 2017, 83.

It was Mary of Nazareth who helped me to use my own experience of motherhood to redefine power. The attentiveness I had to give to each present moment as gift (and having no energy to do anything else!), the fiery compassion as I came to see every person as someone’s child, the letting go of ambition and strategy – these things formed my vocation as a female leader. Motherhood affirmed, proclaimed and enriched my identity as priest and disciple.

We need to redefine power. Isn’t that what Mary herself said, as the seeds of divine rescue plan took rest within her?

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour…

…He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.

Luke 1, NRSV.

There was something about motherhood that helped me to find my fearlessness. Motherhood took me through the worst pain I had ever experienced: physically and emotionally. Motherhood brought me face to face with the reality of death: in the lives lost in my womb, in the trauma and danger of childbirth, in the postnatal depression that left me suicidal. Motherhood was the sword that pierced my soul, and left me standing with Mary in solidarity, and fearlessness.

It is this fearlessness that helps me stay alert to the dangers of exercising leadership. It is fearlessness that stops me in the tracks of self-interest, that reminds me to speak out for the voiceless even at a cost, because so often I have a voice where others don’t. It is fearlessness that keeps me serving within an institution that leaves so many dear friends burned out. It is fearlessness that focuses my gaze back on the present moment: attentive to today without too much concern for next year.

Fearless leadership can be powerful leadership, but not how we might think. This is not the power of Frankenstein monster, intent on tormenting its creator without care for consequence. This is a leadership which is powerful in its letting go of self-centredness. This is a leadership which is powerful in its commitment to the present moment. This is a leadership which is powerful in its deep awareness of what is “going on” in any given context: resisting anxiety and fear as drivers to quick words and action, and knowing the power of silence and stillness when all around is chaos and panic.

Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful.

The Walking Madonna leads us in this way of fearless leadership. Where is she walking to? Perhaps that’s not so important as what she is walking from. There is great power in this small figure, with her back to the Cathedral, echoing Bellini’s portrayal of her infant son, similarly frail, similarly fierce: united by their turning away, and their turning to.

Is this how we begin to redefine power? With a fearlessness that makes us all for the other and which is unapologetic about the ‘turning from’ that we need to do if we are to cultivate a healthy leadership that will last the course, no matter how many times the swords pierce our souls?

We need to talk about power

Last week, on International Women’s Day, I attended a virtual book launch for Gabrielle Thomas’ monograph For the Good of the Church. Gabby was joined by Tina Beattie and Paula Gooder, both of whom spoke about their experience as women navigating their ways through male-dominated spaces: the volume of the male-authority voice, the silencing of women, male fragility and guilt, the idealising of women including the pressure to ‘mother’, the requirement to dialogue in male ways rather than female ways, and the locking away of the authentic female voice, which is often neither heard nor understood.

Blood, mess, and tears: A Candlemas song

This is a reworking of an earlier blog post, so please forgive the self-plagiarism!

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Her silence screams through this story. Voiceless amid the raging hormones, she presents herself and her child: vulnerable but strong; polluted by blood destined to make others pure. This is her story, told by men, through men, for men.

This is Candlemas. A scene unfolding around the healing body of a woman who would have been torn open in childbirth, and who was about to hear the terrifying prophecy of a sword piercing her soul at the pain she would watch her son encounter as he grew.

A pregnant pause: waiting with Mary

The last few days of pregnancy were terrible. I thought it would be all Downton Abbey boxsets and chocolate on tap.

It wasn’t.

It was anxiety and discomfort and last minute jobs and mad rushes to the hospital for monitoring and wondering and second guessing and mess and pain.

It was the physical strain of being so close to the end, so close that every hour mattered. Every hour the pregnancy went on was another hour of my body stolen from me. Of comfort taken away and of a tortuous, drawn our anticipation of the tiny life which would turn my own completely upside down in ways yet to be realised. The fear of what might happen – could happen – even with the reassurance of modern medicine. Lonely hours spent in hospital bays, waiting, wondering, hoping…

Resilient Praxis: Together Apart

Resilient Praxis is a new series of blog posts here on Out of the Chancel, exploring “Pastoral Theology in the wake of a pandemic”.

In the middle of a crisis it is difficult to reflect effectively. We are learning and adapting in ‘real time’. There will be time, in the months and years ahead, to tidy up this work of reflecting and learning. To trim the edges and plump up the middles.

But for now, pastoral care is still happening. Ministry is still happening. In fact we never stopped. And so these posts will give some space for reflection on what has been, what is, and what is to come. Not tidy, packaged praxis. But praxis that is rough around the edges. Praxis that hasn’t stopped. Praxis that will get us through. Resilient praxis.

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Together; apart.

The lovely people of Timperley Parish might be fed up of hearing me use this phrase! It’s one I used early on in the pandemic, quoting Leo Varadker: to be together… we have to be prepared to stay apart”

Together; apart is a motif that has stayed with my preaching and reflections through this pandemic. It describes so much our scattered life – each of us within our various bubbles, but still networked together through friendship and prayer.

Resilient Praxis: Prayer is not private

Resilient Praxis is a new series of blog posts here on Out of the Chancel, exploring “Pastoral Theology in the wake of a pandemic”.

In the middle of a crisis it is difficult to reflect effectively. We are learning and adapting in ‘real time’. There will be time, in the months and years ahead, to tidy up this work of reflecting and learning. To trim the edges and plump up the middles.

But for now, pastoral care is still happening. Ministry is still happening. In fact we never stopped. And so these posts will give some space for reflection on what has been, what is, and what is to come. Not tidy, packaged praxis. But praxis that is rough around the edges. Praxis that hasn’t stopped. Praxis that will get us through. Resilient praxis.

 

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O blest communion, fellowship divine,
we feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

Hymn: For all the Saints

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As places of worship in the UK are asked to suspend gathered, in-person acts of worship, we’re seeing the rise of a phrase I’d hardly heard before 2020.

“Private prayer”.

As in: “The church will be open for private prayer”.

I know what we mean by it. We mean that buildings are accessible for anyone to come and pray quietly. That the sanctuary and peace of these thin places is open to all who need it. And that the activity that takes place within will not be “co-ordinated”, or “synchronous”, or “organised”, or “gathered”. “Private Prayer” is a helpful shorthand for this.

But our language matters. And prayer is never, ever, private.

Resilient Praxis: Praying through trauma when you’ve never prayed before

Resilient Praxis is a new series of blog posts here on Out of the Chancel, exploring “Pastoral Theology in the wake of a pandemic”.

In the middle of a crisis it is difficult to reflect effectively. We are learning and adapting in ‘real time’. There will be time, in the months and years ahead, to tidy up this work of reflecting and learning. To trim the edges and plump up the middles.

But for now, pastoral care is still happening. Ministry is still happening. In fact we never stopped. And so these posts will give some space for reflection on what has been, what is, and what is to come. Not tidy, packaged praxis. But praxis that is rough around the edges. Praxis that hasn’t stopped. Praxis that will get us through. Resilient praxis.

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I’ve never been very good at prayer.

Well, not if “prayer” is kneeling by the bed. If prayer is rehearsed immature rhymes and tick lists of requests and begging and grovelling and words I don’t understand to a god I don’t want to know.

Thank God that none of those things have to be prayer. Not if they don’t work.

I’m grateful to a great spiritual thinker, John Drane, for the various conversations he invites on his social media pages about life. John is perceptive, wise, and real. And he says that there are some important questions for us to ask about prayer. Even if – especially if – we’ve never prayed before:

How should we pray?
Who should we pray to?
What should we pray for?
What if I get it wrong?

“I’m ready, my Lord” – Vocation for realists

This is a sermon I originally wrote for The Preacher publication, for the coming Sunday (which happens to be Vocations Sunday). Despite the fact it was written before Christmas, I’m reproducing it here without edit, recognising that our preaching is happening in very different ways, at present. And yet still, God is calling, and people are answering… What does it look like to work out vocation in darkness?

Some time ago I wrote a reflection on that, which is a different piece to this. You’ll find it here, featuring Leonard Cohen, who also appears below…

However you are preaching and teaching at this time, I hope this is helpful in sparking your own ideas for reflection.

Resilient Praxis: Sing with me – An Easter sermon

Resilient Praxis is a new series of blog posts here on Out of the Chancel, exploring “Pastoral Theology in the wake of a pandemic”.

In the middle of a crisis it is difficult to reflect effectively. We are learning and adapting in ‘real time’. There will be time, in the months and years ahead, to tidy up this work of reflecting and learning. To trim the edges and plump up the middles.

But for now, pastoral care is still happening. Ministry is still happening. In fact we never stopped. And so these posts will give some space for reflection on what has been, what is, and what is to come. Not tidy, packaged praxis. But praxis that is rough around the edges. Praxis that hasn’t stopped. Praxis that will get us through. Resilient praxis.

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The following is a reflection written for the Parish of Timperley and shared on our blog, along with Easter Sunday worship resources. I’ve shared it here too, for readers from further afield!

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Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.

POPE JOHN PAUL II

 

An Easter like no other.

History will remember these months as extraordinary. We will tell our children and grandchildren, for generations to come, about the year that we were not able to celebrate Easter in our church buildings.

I know we have had moments of despair at this thought. In my sad moments, I have remembered the joy of previous Easters here in Timperley. The egg hunts, the bacon sandwiches, the bucks fizz, the excitement, the flowers (oh, how I will miss the Easter flowers after the stark emptiness of Lent!), the marking and lighting of the paschal candle as a sign of ever-present hope, the joyous acclamation that “Christ is risen!”

Resilient Praxis: Chasing Rainbows – Pastoral Ministry in a time of Covid

Resilient Praxis is a new series of blog posts here on Out of the Chancel, exploring “Pastoral Theology in the wake of a pandemic”.

In the middle of a crisis it is difficult to reflect effectively. We are learning and adapting in ‘real time’. There will be time, in the months and years ahead, to tidy up this work of reflecting and learning. To trim the edges and plump up the middles.

But for now, pastoral care is still happening. Ministry is still happening. In fact we never stopped. And so these posts will give some space for reflection on what has been, what is, and what is to come. Not tidy, packaged praxis. But praxis that is rough around the edges. Praxis that hasn’t stopped. Praxis that will get us through. Resilient praxis.

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Rainbows have sprung up everywhere. Some scribbled in crayon, others splatted in paint, and still more printed carefully and geometrically on an inkjet. Signs of defiant hope and deep courage in the face of immense change and loss.

And how quickly we were swept along by change. Watching the evening news bulletins felt enough to induce dizziness and disorientation. “The world’s gone mad” seemed to be a common sentiment, as new phrases and words tumbled into our everyday use: social distancing, self-isolation.