Personas of the imagination 1 — perseverance in context — Father Chad

I've found imagined personas helpful, going into difficult places.

For me, that might be interacting with people who see life very differently from me, or taking on a task for which I feel inadequate, or continuing with an undertaking when I am very tired, or simply staying when I want to go. As an easily discouraged, low energy individual, I have to find wellsprings — founts of energy nourishing me through times when my inner resources feel markedly insufficient.

In writing my Hawk & Dove series of novels, I explored ways to hold oneself together, and how to hold together with others in relationship, and how to hold together with Christ especially when inspiration runs dry.

By nature I tend towards extremism and absolutism — I'm a black-and-white, hundred per cent type of being. I embrace, I give all, I walk away; it's hard for me to simply plod on, or to compromise, or to settle for half, or to do the best job I can while knowing the results are mediocre.

And that's when I need to find my inner Father Chad. 

For most of the series, he was prior of the abbey. In a priory, the prior is the superior, the overall leader; in an abbey, he's second in command, the deputy head, tasked with ensuring the smooth running of the place and seeing to it that the vision of the leader is carried out and the wellbeing of the community is robustly undergirded. 

The prior has to get on well with people, needing a certain geniality and ability to forge relationships. He shouldn't be hot-headed, he must be able to grasp the bigger picture but also take in the details. The sort of man who can keep an eye on the time, see things are put away and locked up, bear responsibility for smooth running, remember what needs to be done. Cautious, forbearing, temperate, diffident, restrained.

Just at the moment in my present circumstances, I am leaning heavily on Father Chad. I'm trying not to make hasty decisions or express my thoughts too freely. In this stretch of the journey I'm going cautiously, conscious of walking on thin ice, unsure of my chances of making it across to the other side.

Father Chad is helping me, in that through the leadership crises of his community he didn't give up. He wasn't admired and he didn't have the makings of a great leader himself; he was more of a background person who relied on the leadership of others. He didn't question his faith, and he prayed deeply, and he did his best.

The thing about Father Chad was that he was just there. He could be boring, his attempts to step up to the plate merely irritated everyone, his pastoral efforts were unappreciated. Father Chad helps me to hold in place at times when I am neither celebrated nor especially welcome but I still must persevere with making a contribution; because if I don't and you don't and we all leave everything to somebody else, what will be left?

Alongside Father Chad in my imagination, I have a mental video on loop of a nun walking. Not the sort of nun who gets to wear a medieval-style habit and wimple, but the post-Vatican-II intensely boring and self-effacing modern kit sort of nun. She has a simple black polyester veil over her short, dark hair. She has a mid-calf A-line grey skirt in some easy-care fabric that goes through the wash with good results. She has a blouse so boring I can't even visualise it, buttoned right up to the neck. She's wearing a navy blue acrylic cardigan. She has tights in Natural Tan and on her feet flat sandals that buckle up securely. Erm . . . what colour are her sandals? They might be black, or navy blue, or plain brown. She doesn't really mind; they're basically the same as the rest of the community wears. But they have crepe rubber soles that allow her to pass through the world without making a single sound and that includes not squeaking on the linoleum. The way she walks facilitates the preservation of silence. Her glance is mild, never bold, and if you approach her she looks up with a pleasant and helpful expression. She doesn't often laugh. Her name is Sister Kathleen, and her family came from Ireland. 

And this nun is tired, and often discouraged; she shares with Father Chad the deepest sense of not really doing a good job, but this is her calling — which means life, at the deepest spiritual level, offers nowhere else to go.

Sister Kathleen does the ironing and she sweeps the floor and takes the mail in and chauffeurs the sisters around. Father Chad dusts the books and takes his turn ringing the bell to call the brethren to prayer and is never late when he's on the kitchen servers' rota. 

And are these things not part of the fabric of Christian faithfulness? After all, it's not entirely cloth of gold, is it? There are also the grey threads, the forgettable browns, the indeterminate mauves, and the judicious use of synthetics that stop the end product shrinking when it needs laundering every now and then.

Father Chad. Nobody aspires to be him (why would you?) and most people only notice him when he's getting on their nerves; but he does his best to understand and to follow faithfully; he's realistic about his own shortcomings, and he's perennially willing to keep trying and when necessary to start over and give things another try.

As things are right now, I walk beside him and Sister Kathleen, profoundly glad of their company.