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Prayer & Midlife Ministry

By John Rackley.

Midlife is not the same as middle-age - it may begin well before a chronological middle-age and last long into ‘senior’ life. It is, however, an opportunity to rediscover yourself in God, although it may not feel like that. It will often be experienced as difficult and dark. It may feel like suspended animation. We know we are going through the motions whilst seeking purpose. Yet in this breaking down of what we thought was safe and secure is the potential for new growth and faith.

We cannot live the afternoon of life according to the programme of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie. (Carl Jung)

In 1995 I was part of a small research project that explored the spiritual experience of Baptist ministers. One spoke vividly of trying to have a morning Quiet Time and comparing it to trying to start an old car engine on an autumn morning. There were just a few chugs and then a flat battery. It was a demanding time of change in his life when various priorities were jostling for their place. This was reflected in how he tried to shape the pattern of his prayer and faith journey. It was an experience of midlife in the midst of a demanding ministry. He is not alone. I consider the image of the morning and afternoon of life as more than a Jungian construct. It describes an authentic experience, which may be physical, emotional, and spiritual. Midlife is not the same as middle-age. It may begin well before a chronological middle-age and last long into senior life. Here are some of the characteristics of the experience:

• A feeling of being split; always hovering between having to do things and wondering whether one should bother;
• A sense of regret that some choices one made were the wrong ones and other choices will never come one’s way;
• A desire to stop being driven by circumstances and events and become responsible for the direction of one’s own life;
• A recognition of loss and change has become a regular experience;
• A need to battle with isolation and misunderstanding arising in one’s relationships;
• A restlessness that prevents one feeling settled and makes one feel betwixt and between;
• A discovery of unexpected temptations to say and do things out of character.

All these experiences can happen at any time of life, but they gather strength as life goes on and seem to cluster waiting to spring on the unwary. They hunt as a pack and, for some people, it does really feel they are being chased down by powers greater than they can handle. There are obviously links with such experiences as the death of parents, the marriage of a child, unexpected illness, surprise invitations to move on which have to be rejected, but these external experiences mirror the turmoil of the inner life. Ministers are not immune to any of these. They take special shape in our life. The expectations of the local church or parish may be for us to be in the morning of life when we need to be in the afternoon! We might be expected to entertain ways of pastoral care, evangelism, worship which we not only question on theological grounds, but into which we cannot put our heart. We come to recognise that this is a matter of authenticity. The question of midlife is: “who am I really to be?” We carry this question within us and meet our church members who tell us that:

• their once loved church can no longer be their spiritual home;
• hymns that once carried their faith have lost that gift for them;
• there is more questioning than certainty in their faith;
• they can no longer value what they once believed;
• they feel they need to worship in a new way;
• they are angry with God, disillusioned by people;
• they need things to be different - more simple/complex, intricate/rigid;

And we say to ourselves: “Me too!” Our colleague ditched his autumnal Quiet Time and took himself off to a local convent for Compline. He let its strange form and language accompanied by much sprinkling of water and incense carry him into a new way of relating to God. He had travelled from morning to afternoon. Midlife is an opportunity to rediscover yourself in God. It may not feel like that. It will often be experienced as difficult and dark. It may feel like suspended animation. We know we are going through the motions while seeking purpose. Yet in this breaking down of what we thought was safe and secure is the potential for new growth and faith. As never before, we must hold to the Johannine image of the seed dropping into the dark earth, breaking its outer casing and then in the intimate seclusion of the ground, allowing itself to die so that new life can arise. So in fact midlife can be a rediscovery time, a time when three questions need to dominate our search for a healthy spirituality.

1. What matters to me?
2. Does God really matter to me?
3. Does what matters to God matter to me?

These are the enquiries of spiritual renewal. Our Compline-going Baptist had discovered a new way. It was not easy. There was guilt. It was a break with the past. It was not something that he could do in his church so what would they think? Whom could he tell? Would other Baptist ministers understand or just think: “I’m not surprised, knowing him!” There was also delight. He was not alone. Others were doing similar things. Midlife Spirituality in all its turmoil and exploration is not just about what we do. As in all Christian spirituality, it is also about the faithfulness of God. We lean on the words of the Psalmist:

God, you have searched me and known me; you know where I am and where I go. Where shall I go from your spirit? Where shall I flee from you presence?

The Psalmist rests on the security of the Lord’s presence and his healing grace. The temptations of Jesus are the testing ground of midlife. In his work, In the name of Jesus, Henri Nouwen summarises our Lord’s temptations as the call to be relevant, spectacular and to be powerful. He suggests that these are temptations for the Church. They are clearly temptations for the minister! Our Lord came through to his security in his Father’s grace. So must the minister. It is interesting to note that Nouwen explores the alternative to the third temptation by reflecting on the words of Jesus in John 21:18, where Peter was told that a time would come when others would decide his future. Paradoxically this is what midlife needs to explore. It is a time when we become more self-conscious and needing to reconcile what we wish with the expectations of others. Yet it is also a prelude to life offering us fewer options, for, towards the end of the ‘afternoon’, others will start trying to decide how we shall spend the evening! For ministers this will be about that final phase of ministry with all its pressures, issues of housing and pension, grey-haired in a denomination that can often be ageist. The gift of midlife to this time is not the shell of ‘the harder I work the more I will be tolerated’ approach that some of us adopt, but the capacity to live with vulnerability. In the gospels’ accounts of the temptations of Jesus, the Holy Spirit’s role is emphasised. It is the driving, leading, pushing Spirit that takes our Lord into that time of struggle and discernment. It becomes a demanding time for prayer in the Spirit in which nothing is held back as the demons of false destiny assault Jesus. It is a time when he entrusted himself to the word of God and the grace of God in his baptismal calling. Jesus faced this at the beginning of his ministry. Speaking personally, the longer I stay in ministry, the more pertinent his temptation experience becomes. So what help is there for the minister in a midlife prayer crisis? I was pleased to read Paul Goodliff writing in the Spring 2005 Edition of Ministry Today that:

“only by a deliberate re-prioritising of spiritual formation to the heart of the educational process that forms ministers of word and sacrament can the central task of that process be accomplished…and the churches receive ministers of depth and ability to meet the challenge of pastoral leadership in a culture that is both post modern and post Christendom.”

I know this is consistent with the aspirations of the Hyde report on theological education and I hope our colleges will begin to implement them. But how long will it take? And at what depth? This may serve the need of those coming into our ministry in the future, but what of those of us in it now? Let me offer some suggestions.

1. For each minister, let there be a place or a person or a group that offers intimacy, trust and confidentiality where issues of personal faith and relationship with God are regularly challenged, explored and developed.
2. In each regional grouping of churches and congregations (e.g. Association, Deanery, Circuit, etc.), let there be a policy regarding the spiritual welfare of ministers and who is responsible for its implementation.
3. Let the content of in-service weeks and sabbaticals be considered not only in terms of their ‘work’ value, but their personal value for the minister, taking into account the morning-to-afternoon journey that we have been exploring.

And perhaps most crucially of all:

1. Let the local church become a place of spiritual nurture and formation for all, including the minister. I think this is the really essential challenge. I know how difficult it is, for the relationship between minister and congregation is complex. The congregation does not exist for the minister to work out his way with the Lord from a position of influence and authority, but neither can a congregation or minister maintain a cosy stand-off, with the minister seeming inviolate to spiritual trauma, and the congregation not understanding that sometimes, and perhaps for some time, this is what he or she will be serving them with.

This is an issue for mission too. If we are now to be evangelising in a Spiritual Age, then in a post-modern culture this must at least be from a position of vulnerable strength. I think the guidance coming from groups such as the Group for Evangelisation and Living Spirituality Network implies that effective encounter in matters of the Spirit require a level-playing field approach to whomsoever offers insight and how. The values are openness, intimacy, trust, patience, and respect for all by all. Is this impossible for a local church? Let us hope not. But I want to move on from answering the question in terms of structures and whatever shape our church may be in, to offering a few discoveries that have proved helpful for people in the midlife experience of prayer:

• Immerse yourself in the Psalms, especially 38, 103, 131 and 139;
• Explore the image of Christ that is sustaining you.
• Pray the Lord’s Prayer when nothing else sustains. Explore its new versions, e.g. Jim Cotter: Night prayer;
• Explore the understanding of the Atonement that can really bring the transforming power of the Cross into your life;
• Work at different ways of praying, with people who are comfortable in their use;
• Accept the hospitality of another Christian tradition or place of prayer;
• Make a pilgrimage in helpful company to significant places in your life so far, and prepare for this to be a bitter-sweet experience;
• Map your journey of faith, and offer it again to the Lord in all its incompleteness;
• Accept the discipline of the Ignatian Exercises or a Spiritual Director;
• Develop your own confession of faith;
• Explore the impact of the needs of the world on your spirit and how you share in the carrying of its cross with Christ today.

In this brief article I have sought to acknowledge a common experience for people of our time, and suggest its relationship to ministers. I think for some people it is no more than a summer cold whilst for others it has the devastating impact of a prolonged bout of winter ‘flu’. But I do believe it to be more than unhealthy introspection. Midlife, like the Beatitudes, begins with our recognising our own poverty of spirit and mourning the grief-burden of the world. It is as we seek our wholeness in Christ that we discover the blessings of the meek and pure and righteousness-seeker as we journey to peacemaker blessing. Our desire needs to be that our experience of midlife is as much an offering to God as any other time of life. It may contain very special gifts that our Lord can use. As Robert Bly writes:

“where a person’s wound is, that is where his genius will be…wherever the wound appears in our souls, that is precisely the place from which we will give our major gift to the community”.

Midlife is an experience of our wounded-ness. We serve a God who heals through wounds. May that include ours? Suggestions for further reading: Celebrate Mid-life, Janice Brewi and Anne Brennan, Crossroad 1998, ISBN 0824 50953 6. The Second Journey, Gerald O’Collins, Paulist 1987, ISBN 0891 2209. The Sacred Journey, Mike Riddell, Lion 2001, ISBN 0745 94425 6. The author of this article is developing a programme which offers to help people explore the experience of midlife and will be glad to hear from anyone interested in this. Please Email: jr.msbc@btconnect.com. www.godstrugglers.org.uk