I've just spent the morning at the Student's Union, meeting up with people from the other Christian Unions in Manchester. The University of Manchester, Salford University, The Royal Northern College of music and Manchester Metropolitan were all represented. It's strange; I wasn't at all up for going this morning, I got up late and didn't feel well, and for the first hour or so I was wondering why I'd bothered. Nothing to do with the quality of the meeting or the material, both of which were good, but mainly due to tiredness and feeling like it's becoming impossible to keep up with all of the things that I have agreed to be involved in this year. I serve within the Christian Union (commonly abbreviated 'the CU') as part of a committee of leaders selected each January to oversee the general running of the society. There are nine of us, each ostensibly with a different role, all of whom are current students of the University and members of the CU. We meet each week to pray, discuss all aspects of the life of the CU and to plan for the future. We are responsible for, and have final say in how our main meetings are organised, how we put on evangelistic events and and what the focus of the CU is to be.
Within that, my role is to co-ordinate 'prayer and praise'. I look after the worship music each week, arranging for musicians to play, helping to choose songs and the format, and making sure there are regular practices. I am also responsible for co-ordinating prayer within the CU, this is quite a broad mandate, ranging from arranging prayer meetings and other events, to publicising prayer events in general. It's a demandinhg role; one that I struggle with, but one that I also enjoy. Leadership is a massive responsiblily, and not one to be taken lightly. I am certainly sometimes guilty of not making my work with the CU the priority it should be. I use the excuse that I am very busy, and I'm not sure if I understood how much work I would be taking on by agreeing to fulfil the role. I'm in my third year of an English degree, and although my contact hours are minimal (six hours of class time per week), I have an extensive ammount of reading to complete each week, and a part-time job, which takes up about fourteen hours per week (including travel), plus work within my Church, helping out with kid's work every few Sundays. I am also leading a CU Bible study group this year, which takes place every Wednesday.

This wasn't originally a post about 'burn-out', but I know that I will have to be careful how much I take on in future. Talking to a friend recently, it is amazing how many young Christians (I speak of this particularly within a Christian context because that's the environment I have experienced it in) come to breaking point because they simply cannot fulfil the duties that they have taken on and are unable to 'say no' when asked to serve. I know from experience that there is a very real danger in Christians, particularly recent converts, taking on a lot of 'Christian work' because of a misguided over-enthusiasm before finding that they have over-stretched themselves and are simply overwhelmed. For me that has probably been the case to an extent. I would say it's spiritual immaturity that has been one of my problems, and a sense of over-keeness that perhaps comes with this. I know I need to be careful, and that I perhaps need to look at lightening the load.
The real danger perhaps isn't simply physical or even 'mental' fatigue, but a spiritual fatigue, which I would argue is far more harmful than either of the other two. To not experience peace, to feel that you have no time to pray, little time to read the Bible, little time to reflect, is a far more difficult situation than simply being tired or worn-out. For sure, people can get by on little sleep, little food, little time to rest, for a certain ammount of time, and indeed there may well come times in anyone's life when this is necessary. But to feel that you are neglecting your spiritual life, or that you simply don't have any time to pause, pray and read from the Bible, is a situation that I don't think any Christian can sustain without it affecting them adversely. The verse in Philippians 4 springs to mind:

"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do anything through him who gives me strength."
Philippians 4:12-13

This seems to state the fact of the matter clearly; it is not our temporal circumstances that matter most in the long run, but our spiritual. I believe that, though different people will have different basic needs, that we are all adaptable to changes in temporal circumstances at least up to a point, but for us to lose the time we need spent in prayer to God and being involved in the process of knowing Him more deeply is a massive, massive danger to be avoided at all costs. So, although it might sound initially selfish, perhaps especially within our current western culture, with its seeming emphasis on productivity and work, it is vital to guard against any form of burn-out which could compromise a true and full relationship with God.

You will have to forgive me for not remembering the story exactly, but I think even a sense of it conveys the meaning I am trying to express. It concerns the former England international Rugby Union coach, Sir Clive Woodward, and the preparation for the 2003 world cup in Australia, which England won. Woodward, apparently, was fond of drilling home to his squad the importance of the 'small things' and their part in the 'bigger picture' (my phrasing, I can't remember the exact words) , and as such encouraged his players to think differently about the significance of their actions, even at the level of training and off-the field activities. One one occasion, during a motivational talk some time in advance of the world cup itself, one of his players came in late to where the rest of the squad were assembled. Woodward didn't shout, apparently, or throw teacups (these football managers, such highly strung primadonnas..) but simply glanced at the player, before informing him that he had just cost England the world cup.
Whether this is strictly true or not I don't know, but one can imagine it containing a certain ammount of accuracy. Why was Woodward so harsh, and blatantly irrational in condemning a player for simply being five minutes late to a pep talk? Was he actually a terrible coach, with no idea how to motivate players? Was he deluded, misunderstanding at a basic level the discourse of professional sport and believing that world cups are won on the basis of punctuality? I doubt it.
I think, if the story is true, that the explanation of the coach and those who were also involved, would be rather different.
The sense I get from the story is that Woodward saw, in fact, how small things can lead to much bigger things. He saw a relation between cause and effect that went beyond simple human reasoning, and towards a holistic understanding of the way that human beings think and act.
In relating one player's lateness to the winning of the world cup, he seems, in effect to be saying that, however small and seemingly insignificant the action may seem in the moment, it may have further reaching consequences than one might have ever imagined. Especially at the level of international sport, where the dividing line between success and failure can seem so paper-thin, where every action, every small sacfifice, every extra second on the training pitch or out of the bar can be the deciding factor between victory of defeat.

And so what relevance does this story have? Well I think quite a lot. Because isn't this true also of life, in the wider sense? Our actions can have surprising consequences. What we do today, may have no consequences tomorrow, but what about the day after that, or even the one after that? How do we know that what we do today isn't the making of what we do tomorrow? That the piece of kindness done today isn't the making of something else tomorrow?
I say 'something else', because I'm not suggesting that our actions will necessarily bring expected consequences. I'm not suggesting that if I am kind to this person, then that person will be kind in turn to me. I may never be repaid for my kindness. The Bible teaches clearly that this is to be expected, in fact. I am not to be kind so that I will recieve a reward from the person that I am kind to. Sometimes of course, it may work like this, but it shouldn't be the reason that I choose to be kind in the first place. Jesus talks about the subject in Matthew 6

"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your father in heaven." (6:1)

It is clear that while such 'acts of righteousness' aren't to be done in order to gain favour with others, they are done for another reason. Jesus talks here about gaining favour with 'your father in heaven', and this, I think, is the crucial point. Doing such things has significance not because the consequences will be seen in this world, but because they will be seen in another, a world quite apart from our own. And they will be seen by another, by 'your father in heaven', as well as through human eyes. They will be seen by God. And if these acts, which are not shown or demonstrated to the world, are seen by Him, then what of all our other acts too?
Everything we do has eternal significance to God. There is nothing that we do that is irrelevant, not worthy of mention, but everything has, in fact, massive importance. It is tempting to think that certain activities and actions are spiritually less important than others; church activities of various kinds, musical worship and singing, reading the Bible, can all seem like more spiritual activities than chatting to a housemate, making a sandwich or driving to work. But in some senses, none are actually more 'spiritual' than the other. In any of those latter situations, we could be tempted by pride, greed, anger, and be led to feel that it's unimportant because we aren't engaged in spiritual activity. This isn't to deny God's grace, to claim that we must worry ourselves constantly, legalistically, that we have slipped up. But it is to give pause for thought. We are, I believe, justified by faith in Jesus Christ, not through our own percieved acts of righteousness. Yet in a sense, to deny that our actions do have eternal significance, is to be mistaken. They do. In everything that we do we shold be 'running the race' that Paul talks of in Philippians 3:

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Fogetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:12-14)

It is this race that the Christian must keep running, must keep straining to look towards, even when it looks as if it is remote and out of sight. It is this which must be foremost in the mind each day, even when it is an effort and a trial to do so. It is this, and no less, to which we are called as followers of Jesus Christ.

RW

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I want to post something on the topic of my studies this year. This term I will be completing two course units, with a total of 9000 words of assessed work, due in for November and January.

It is my poststructuralism course that I want to cover over the next few posts, if only to help me to get a handle on some of the concepts that it encompasses. I think it's important, particularly with difficult conceptual stuff to engage in dialogue with others about it. It's very hard to grasp what some of the material is suggesting without being able to bring it into debate and discussion.

Thus far, five weeks in, we have looked at the work of Saussure, Freud, Lacan, Frantz Fanon and Kobena Mercer.

I plan to look at each theorist in this order, in a series of short blog posts over the next few days. I want to look at my understanding of each, but also my individual, subjective response. I would appreciate any comments from anyone reading too.

I didn't intend for this blog to be a personal record of my emotions, experiences, difficulties and joys. I'm not sure what I did expect it to be. Perhaps I envisioned perfectly objective disscussion of the salient topics of the day, rather like some absurd eighteenth-century essay writer, fresh from a hard afternoon at the chocolate house debating the relative merits of the Social Contract and the importance of getting your servants to make you really good quality French Coffee. I don't know.
I also don't know how I could expect something that I had written not to have the image, impression, likeness and even, dare I say, the very smell of me all over it. How could I separate myself from my opinions, my ideas, disown them and discount them as if not my own?
The reality is, this is a personal thing, because I'm writing it. That doesn't mean that it's a diary, or a record of my social life, but it also doesn't mean that it has to be objective; indeed, how can it be? So I don't want to be hesitant about being honest here, about writing from my point of view, however imperfect or ill-formed or illogical; it's the only one I've got.

I have found the last two weeks a massive struggle, and at the moment it doesn't look like getting any easier.
I am a third-year English student, I greatly enjoy my studies, and have been successful in my first two years of my degree. I am quite heavily involved with my University Christian Union, I am relatively active in terms of kid's work and other student/Sunday meeting stuff at a local church, and I have a job at Whittard in Manchester city centre at weekends. I have a reasonably busy, full life. I wouldn't say I find friendships easy, particularly sustaining them, but I feel that I have great friends who I can trust and feel comfortable with. I have a very loving and supportive family. I have a really good house, with fantastic housemates. I have enough money to live on, and am not worried at the moment about my finances.

And the big shock is, it's not enough.

Why is it such a shock?

It's a shock because I keep waking up, morning after morning, feeling the same, the same sense of sickness. It's a shock because this isn't a position that I thought I'd find myself in, but I keep waking up to a feeling of mild horror that I know exactly what the day is to hold before it has even begun, that I know that this feeling will persist, will continue until the next night, and will begin again promptly the next morning too.

It's a shock because this shouldn't be happening to me.

Why not?

It's a shock because I thought I was fulfilled. Granted, I know there are a lot of issues that I have with personal relationships, (ha ha, 'issues', that catch all term...) but thinking of the postition I was in this time last year, I can't see how I was any better off in that department then. Yet I didn't feel this then. I thought I was fulfilled, not because I was successful (by worldly standards I'm not, particularly) or because I was in a great relationship (I'm not, and I wasn't previously at any point either) or because I was weathly (no, I'm not) but because I am a Christian.

I thought I was fulfilled because I had found salvation in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet looking back, to before I started to feel this emptiness, was that the case? I'm not sure.

I'm not sure if I was gaining fulfillment through my acceptance of Jesus Christ, through my conviction of my weaknesses and sins, and through my faith in God. I'm not sure if I was drawing my comfort and satisfaction, joy and contentment through my faith in Jesus Christ.
Though with my mouth I may say I was, and sincerly mean it, I feel now that it wasn't, and isn't currently the case.
And so now this, this waking every morning to a stupour that is only briefly relived during the course of each day, to another day of the same, the same this, the same that. The same E-Mail inbox, the same breakfast, the same cupboards full of food I am no longer even thanful for, the same Bible, the same phone-calls or text messages, can you make this, can you ask them that, can you be there for 3pm? Of course I can (and why not?), the same purposeful walk down upper brook street, back and forth, back and forth. The same sense of foreboding; what have I forgotten? The same air of menace; will I have enough time? Will I even have time to finish my degree?

Spread too thin? That isn't the half of it.

It's my own fault. I agreed to serve on the CU committee, and agreed, by definition to serve with joy, not resentment. I agreed to help lead a CU smallgroup, and to help out with the Kid's work at church on Sundays, and way back, to be part of a team planning a CU missions week, and to help out and be there and put things away and set the PA up and arrange prayer meetings, and make sure there is a worship band and make sure and make sure and make sure until the point that I don't feel sure about anything any more.

It's burn-out, happens to us all, dear boy. Take two asprin, have a rest for a day or so. Go out with friends, have a break. Take in the sea air, or go for a walk.

It isn't supposed to be like this. But at the same time, it is like this, so I have to deal with it.

Lately I have been prayerless, or when I do pray, it's only for a short time, with no focus. I've been dry spirtually; I feel no passion, no desire, no longing, just a small, dull ache, and it is like an ache in that it isn't in any way a sharp thing, but blunt and cold and exacting. It's a gradual erosion of something, an erosion of love, of care and compassion for people, for those who I see begging outside Tesco on Oxford Road, or for friends and family, who I earnestly want to see come to faith in Jesus Christ. Compassion for friends suffering a rough time, interest in other people. Desire to make a difference truly, and I think I'm justfied in saying this is the truth, for the kingdom of God, desire to be conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ. All this, all this feels so far from me now, I feel frazzled, worn-down, on the edge of something. It's a kind of 'overfullness' in places, not perhaps an emptiness. I feel over full with facts, both Biblical, (Persians, Greeks and Romans, Hellenisation) and not (New Grub Street written 1891, 1870 Forster act, modernist period indefinable, but probably at its peak in 1920s) over full with the futlility of a life lived for anything other than God. Over full with desires, desires for everything, sex, food, excessive comfort, pleasure, success. But not desire for God. That's the emptiness.

Today hasn't been ostensibly hectic, but I feel like I have both got a lot done, and still have an awful lot to do, mostly in relation to my course, but also as regards CU.

My Tutor E-Mailed me this morning, saying nothing other than he agreed to meet me to talk about my dissertation, either this morning or on Thursday morning at 9:30. As I got the E-Mail after the time he specified for this morning, I will see him on Thursday. In the mean time, I am trying to come up with a reasonable abstract to present to him for my new topic, which is the experience of the city in modernist literature.

It's been a tough day, and I've been home from work for about two hours now, and I feel I want to put some of my thoughts about the last couple of days down 'on paper', as it were.
This week has seen major changes in my thinking about my dissertation. It was last March when the original forms had to be in confirming a provisional title, a short summary of intentions and aims and a signature from the tutor responsible for supervising the work. I think, first off, that a March deadline is ridiculous, especially in light of the fact that this is generally the time when the greatest number of essays are due to be handed in. In the Autumn 2005 term I had one piece of written assessed work and a presentation to complete. The essay itself was 1500 words. In the spring I was expected to hand in two essays, both 3000 words, in during the first week of January, another by the 23rd, and then a further five of varying length, plus another presentation by the return after the Easter holidays on April 24th. This seems completely unbalanced. In addition to that, I was expected to decide upon a suitable topic for my dissertation find a supervisor to oversee my studies. Why was this not left until after the exam period at the end of May? Why did it have to be completed by March, the busiest time of the year for me, and I'm sure many other students?

I originally elected to write on the topic of Philip Roth's milenial novels, but I've since had some real difficulties locating myself within the tradition of American fiction. My course is almost exclusively made up on English writing, and follows a roughly linear chronological path, eg Renaissance and early English novel in the first year, then options of enlightenment British writing, Romanticism, Nineteenth century literature and culture in the second. This year I will be looking at modern English Fiction, poststucturalism, 20th century British drama and British literary culture 1970-2000. There isn't really, within the course units that I've chosen, anything that would give me the proper preparation for a dissertation on a contemporary American writer.
This wouldn't necessarily be a major problem, if I didn't feel almost no enthusiasm for the task either.

Put simply, I think I was backed into a corner by the universities requirement to choose a topic and supervisor so early, that I panicked and jumped into any boat that I could, so to speak. I didn't clearly consider what my chosen topic would entail.

Over the summer I read the two novels American Pastoral and The Human Stain. I had already read the other book in the 'trilogy' (I don't know if there is any real authority for referring to them as a trilogy, as they seem so loosely connected, another potential problem with choosing them as a topic) I Married a Communist. But I didn't find anything that I could link them together with to look at them as a whole. I really wasted a lot of time, and that has to be due to my indecisiveness rather than an intrinsic problem with my dissertation. But I have felt trapped over the summer, and I am concerned that I am leaving it too late without producing anything meaningful. Worse, I am showing no sign of any enthusiasm for the topic, which is worrying when the deadline is getting closer and reading needs to really be done now, not next March/April.

So over this past week I have been looking at changing my topic. I don't know, as yet, whether this is possible. I need to know that for sure as soon as possible, so that I can get the wheels in motion, so to speak.

My new proposal would be to look at something like the 'experience of the urban in modernist literature 1910-1940'-certainly something about the idea of the city which emerges during this time. It's a topic that I think I have been reasonably interested in for quite a while; I can see traces of it in my thinking and writing at least as far back as last summer. I haven't necessarily thought about it in relation to modernist literature or that period before, but I think that my interest in the period would be an asset too. Maybe one of the first places to look would be Raymond Williams' essay 'The Country and the city'. I also read Mrs Dalloway earlier this year, and was fascinated by the whole tapestry it seemed to weave. It was an introduction to modernism, I suppose, and I certainly found that it showed me something that previous books, certainly those I'd studied, perhaps didn't.

I'm going to have to find out if this is possible first: when I know that, then I can decide what to do next...

A very interesting seminar on 'Howard's End' this afternoon. It's certainly got a bit more interesting and a bit more challenging this year-it's something about the pacing and the fact that you are assumed to be competent and capable, rather than a little unsure and in need of a great deal of explantion and 'spelling out'.

I may have a new idea for my dissertation too. I'm really unsure about looking at the Millenial novels of Philip Roth (American Pastoral, I Married a Communist, The Human Stain) and would rather choose another topic.
At the moment I am very interested in the concept of the metropolis that emerges in modernism-partly as a result of my course units this year, partly because the idea has just set me alight these past few days. I wil look into it, see if it's possible, pray about it, and then look at starting it as soon as possible, if I decide it's what I want to do.

I've been busy with Christian Union stuff all day-mostly very basic stuff. The mixer is now insured-that's a relief. We sorted a couple of other things out too, and overall we had a productive meeting this afternoon. In the main meeting, we heard Maurice McCracken speak. He was fantastic, speaking on Colossians 1:1-14.

That's all for tonight. Off to bed after a long day!