Brother Philip Taylor, s.P.
There have been many high points and a few low points along my religious journey. There is one theme that stands out enough so as to be worth sharing: It has been in the unexpected, the unplanned, the uncontrollable times where God has been most tangible to me. The motley little group of my life's stages and phases when I have not been behind the steering wheel of my own destiny can simply be termed as "untidy." As I picture significant moments in my religious story, the "untidiness" is not so much a picture of a parlor or lounge or bedroom with things strewn across the floor. Rather, I see a good space which is neither sterilized like a hospital room, nor is it a dump. As analogies go, we are talking "lived in" and "homey."
Gospel images for my story are numerous, but Peter's call is a good one to illustrate how God invites us unlikely souls with untidy lives.
I was born 45 years ago in England, and raised as a nominal member of the Church of England. It was not until my early twenties that I realized I was being pushed to new horizons by the gifts of stability, goodness and generosity that I had received from my parents, older siblings and friends. I read and discussed as much as I could about various religions and Christian denominations. I eventually concluded that Catholicism was the one true faith for me. Less than two years after my confirmation I entered the seminary to study for the diocesan priesthood. Despite a very happy time as a new Catholic and even newer seminarian, I pulled out of the seminary just under twelve months before diaconate. A return to lay life came about for a plethora of "untidy" reasons: serious reservations about my initial motivations for becoming a Priest had not been resolved, my human development had lagged lamentably behind my academic formation, and those perennial questions about whether the vows (or promises in the case of diocesan candidates) are livable.
At this juncture it is fair to say that the theme of God working effortlessly in my life through its untidy phases had not yet registered in my soul; nor was it to register in any coherent way until well into my Servant of the Paraclete vocation. What I did experience, however, was a continual desire to, on my own, clean up the untidiness. After all, leaving a job I enjoyed, upsetting my family and friends by becoming a Catholic, and entering a seminary only to leave four short years later spoke of the kind of untidiness which has failure, futility, confusion, betrayal of family, and missed opportunities as its hallmarks. Even the priesthood which would ostensibly have made sense of that pain, was not attained; that is what I call "untidy." No wonder that I wanted to control, force and contrive some kind of tidiness of life which could be predicted, anticipated and guaranteed. To this end I then spent almost ten years earning a living as a district manager of a transit company, and a very good ten years they were, too.
Of course, God did not ruthlessly force me to give up on the control thing, nor did God make life overwhelmingly difficult for me as I tried every trick in the book to make my life tidy. What God did though, was to quietly and subtly point me beyond where I was at; a little like being pointed beyond the tremendous good of my Anglican family background to Catholicism. I cannot recall a single event in my religious journey where the shift has been from bad to good; invariably, I have experienced good to better, deep to deeper and so on. God, in my life, has been a God of transformation and conversion, even by means of seduction, but never a God of destruction. Perhaps that is why it seems God is so familiar with untidiness: nothing is ever discarded to make things tidier. And so, God gently and subtly beckoned me toward religious life.
I first met the Servants of the Paraclete at our house in England in 1990. Seven years later after two resignations from the transit company, and two withdrawals of those resignations, I entered the congregation. Those seven years were about many things, not least the fact that I truly enjoyed my job and life-style as a layman; I enjoyed the freedom to travel and be my own boss.
With hindsight though, the major factor in that slow and torturous period between meeting and actually joining was that old attraction: tidiness. Clearly it would not be tidy to give up my good job to enter the congregation. What if it did not work out, would it be a carbon copy of my seminary journey, would I be able to travel, be my own boss, would I be able to get my good job back if things backfired, are there any guarantees on the table...? Who knows how God convinces a searching soul? But God does, and God does it by eventually making untidiness look attractive, even beautiful! God does so, not in a cosmetic way, but truly in a lived in, homey kind of way. It actually feels right, it fits well, and for the first time in my life, I feel that God's will and my response have more than a hint of harmony about them.
That harmony has an uncanny way of revealing deeper and deeper truths about my identity as a child of God, member of a Catholic religious congregation and fellow traveler with the men who come to us for help. It would not be too profound to say that untidiness as I have illustrated it, is a theme that runs through most, if not all of those to whom the Servants minister.
So too with all our lives. Can any of us control, anticipate or foresee how your prayers and benefaction will advance our ministry and the Kingdom of God? No, but God continues to knit together all you are doing with all we are doing, and His healing works through any and all the untidiness any of us face.
As a student soon to graduate from theology school, and then to begin professional studies for counseling, the untidiness of not yet being directly involved in our ministry is made so much more bearable because of your faithful encouragement and support.
Gospel images for my story are numerous, but Peter's call is a good one to illustrate how God invites us unlikely souls with untidy lives. I also would like to share with you the short poem on this page by Gerard Manley Hopkins, chiefly because I believe that it speaks of God's acceptance, and love of variety, and I dare say, untidiness.
- Gratefully,
- Brother Philip Taylor, s.P.