Why Me? Talk 6th of April 2025 - Roy Clark

Why me?... that is a seriously big question. I suspect everyone present here this evening has a path to faith is as unique as my own, shaped by a tapestry of experiences, emotions and encounters. For me like many others becoming a Christian wasn’t a single moment, but a gradual unfolding, a journey that might echo the mystics pursuit of God through longing, questioning and discovery. Thank you for allowing me to share my journey with you this evening.

My parents were not religious people, certainly not church attenders except for special occasions, the inevitable births marriages and deaths. However, if ever an official form needed to be completed such as the census, they would tick the box marked Church of England. I guess you could say they were cultural christians, essentially non believers but consciously...and unconsciously their outlook and beliefs were shaped by Christian ideas and values. Somehow for them...for us, it was all part of being English.

We Baby Boomers were the last generation to grow up immersed in Christian culture. If it didn’t entirely form us, it certainly deeply influenced our world view in a variety of ways.  Every morning at school we would have a Christian service replete with hymns, prayers and bible readings. In our classroom in primary school after the teacher took the register we would stand for a prayer. I can hear Miss Jones now. "Right children hands together and eyes closed!”  Religious Education classes were a standard part of the curriculum; that is to say Christian religious education, there was no such thing as world religion studies in those days. This was the same for virtually all schools state or private. Outside of school l was a keen boy scout and every first Sunday of the month that meant attending Church parade and an even bigger one on St Georges day.

 After that? Well you might say as a young adult l continued to have a nodding acquaintance with Christianity. But to me, the Christian idea of God was still a stern patrician figure floating above the clouds. I found the prospect of taking literally the confusing, conflicting and sometimes alarming advice and exhortations to be found in the bible an unappetising prospect. Most of it didn’t appeal or seem to relate to my life. It was all external, part of the establishment, lip service to respectability. It was a dying cultural landscape as I then saw it. it. I was a young man keen to experience all the pleasures and material benefits that life had to offer.

and yet...and yet...

Fast forward...l was in my early 50s, I had a successful career lecturing at London Metropolitan University, teaching the vocational arts and media design based subjects l loved and had just started leading the photography team at Kew Gardens. My personal life likewise was happy and so l thought going well.

Then, out of the blue, I started experiencing a range of alarming physical symptoms. Numerous visits to the doctor and a battery of tests over many months followed. Symptoms persisted and got worse. New ones emerged.

I remember sitting one afternoon with my GP. After another batch of tests had come back negative, he gently suggested my problems might due to a depressive illness, l recall saying “I  thought you had to be depressed to be depressed!" It wasn't meant to be a joke, l meant it, depression just didn't seem the right fit.

However, over time, it became increasingly apparent that my physical symptoms, though painfully real, were somatic in origin, and l was going through a severe depressive episode. During the next few years on and off, my struggles continued, ultimately costing me my career as l was simply unable to work for long periods of time. My world grew steadily smaller, and l struggled to live day by day... minute by minute at the worst times.

Initially, l tried to hold on to those parts of my life that still worked at least in terms of outward appearances. But like a polar bear prowling an iceberg that is gradually melting, l was clinging on to smaller and smaller pieces. One by one all the masks l wore fell away, and the facade collapsed. When the bottom falls out of your life and you can't find anything to cleave to, it hurts...it hurts a lot. Another way to describe the process is being caught in an ever tightening net, the more you struggle to escape and resume your old way of life the more you become entangled.

Anyone who has been through depression will readily tell you, at its most intense it is the worst thing that a human being can experience. Life becomes devoid of meaning and vitality, filled with crushing physical symptoms and a dread of everything. It bears no resemblance to anything l experienced before. It is also very difficult to describe...

In his book Darkness Visible, a classic account of depression the celebrated American novelist William Styron encounters the barriers of language as he attempts to communicate the most deeply felt experiences of his life. He talks of what he went through as being so mysteriously painful and elusive, that it is close to being beyond description.

Anyone who has walked a long time with depression and its close relation anxiety will immediately recognise the truth of Styrons' hard-won characterisation. As soon as we try and say it, we find ourselves saying too much...or too little.

Nevertheless, despite everything, it turns out to have been the greatest gift l have ever received. From where l am now on the other shore, l can see that my crisis was a necessary part of my journey of faith. It was my dark night of the soul as St John of the Cross so memorably and accurately puts it.

Depression, or the voice hidden in the depression must find a way to say what it needs to say. When we are depressed we are nearly always being asked to loosen our grip on some long cherished ideas and beliefs about life.

A sage once said “Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth".  Not the words of a Christian writer, but Pema Chodren a Buddhist nun. Nevertheless for me that eternal truth lit my way to my Christian faith.

As l discovered with my illness, as long as l fought it, denied it, no good came of it. I slowly came to realise l needed to let go and let God through the holy spirit do his transformative work. Only to the extent that l exposed myself over and over to annihilation could that which is indestructible in me finally be found. At the time it happens pain is simply pain and suffering is suffering. It feels pointless and endless, but as l discovered after giving up fighting, the acceptance and befriending of whatever seems to threaten our very existence is at the heart of any real human growth and healing. I had resisted the pain of life which challenged my concept of myself and undermined the way I understood my life. The dark night of the soul, or more precisely the night of the spirit released a Grace that l didn’t know was there. In a sense, its not really suffering any more and leads to deep inner peace when accepted.

Let me put another way…when we undergo a personal crisis we can either shut down or open up totally and expose our fragile, fractured, frightened selves. With vulnerability, tenderness comes in. It leads to insight about ourselves, about others, and how things really are. It is often only when we fall to bits with nowhere to run ..nowhere to hide that  true change occurs. As the great Christian mystic Meister Eckhart reminds us “what used to be a hindrance now helps you most - for in all things you notice only God”.

As I found my way to recovery, amongst the riches l discovered were a deep reservoir of empathy and a joy in doing good for its own sake and a new authenticity of living.

As you may have noticed, I have been quoting some Christian mystics tonight and name checking some others. I have learned much from whose wise and wondrous folk who have trodden this path before and experienced the direct personal experience of God. Figures such as St John of the Cross, St Teresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich and in our own time Thomas Merton. But there is another facet of the mystic tradition, exemplified St Francis of Assisi, and more recently Henri Nouwen  of standing with the oppressed, the marginalised, the lost and vulnerable, of seeking equality for all people and of working for a better society...a better world... the Kingdom of God.

 One who took this road and who extensively explored the question Why me? Was St Augustine of Hippo. In his Confessions, thought to be the first autobiography, Augustine wondered how a man like himself, formally something of what we might these days call a playboy, proud and self-indulgent, was able to “find God.” He wrote...

“Where then did I find you, God, so that I might learn to know you? You were not in my memory before I learned to know you. Where then have I found you, if not in yourself and above me?”

He goes on to answer his own question...and indeed my own with these words...

“You were always there inside me, and I was running around outside,” . “I was looking for you out there, and confused as I was, I threw myself upon those beautiful things that you had made. You were always in me, but I was not always in you.”

I have experienced a shift in consciousness away from myself...that is to say my small or egoic self, towards a greater reality... slowly...somehow and continuously.

By cultivating a holistic attentiveness to my inner landscape and life as a window to God’s presence and love, l knew that l wished to make a commitment. Simply resting in the stillness and being present to the divine within, l felt moved to be Baptised and Confirmed. I  do not see Confirmation as just a formula or doctrinal affirmation but instead an opportunity for genuine engagement with the divine, as l committed to continue to follow Jesus teachings about love, forgiveness, nonviolence, humble use of power, and a simple lifestyle.

Anyway, so...here l am. That's something of the Why me? ... but why here?

I have come to love this church. I am deeply affected by the powerful music framed by sublime architecture and the cadence of the Eucharistic prayer never fails to centre me in the divine. I feel a deep spiritual communion. That is not to say that the silent, humble prayer traditions of for example the Quakers are not also beautiful and profound... but this is my spiritual home.

I also really admire the courage l have heard spoken from this pulpit.  It takes bravery to push boundaries within a traditional framework on such issues as human sexuality and inclusiveness. For example a recent sermon commended Pope Francis on his comments that all religions are pathways to reach God. I know this is contentious to some and l respect those who dissent from this view, but l humbly believe that there is much to learn from other spiritual traditions and moreover there is an urgent need to foster peace and understanding. As l see it, the Christian way is one of love and forgiveness not fire and brimstone.

I am indebted to someone else. He gave me the nudge l needed. One day you cross paths with a warm approachable priest, someone who doesn't just preach from a pulpit, but meets you where you are. He notices your hesitation, your questions and instead of overwhelming you with doctrine he offers something simple and profound. Thank you Father James! Thank you to all the clergy who l have come to know here and who all have their special gifts and insight to the service of God...and us. As Augustine says “ we must fly to our beloved homeland” and this church is mine.

With that in mind and just before l conclude l would like to read you a few lines from a poem by Derek Walcott, it's entitled Love after Love.

The time will come... when... with elation

You will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, who knows you by heart.

Every moment we are arriving at our own door. Every moment as Jesus teaches us we can open it. In every moment, we might enter the Kingdom which is within us and love again the stranger who is ourself and who is God, who knows us as the poet says by heart.

Actually we already know ourselves by heart in every sense of the word, but we may just have forgotten that we do.

For me its been quite a journey of faith and has led me ... still leads me to arrive at my own door.