Roller Coaster by TERRY CONLAN

JVC – whoa! This is a programme that can change one’s life. In fact, change a nation, change the world – as there are many JVC programmes throughout the world. JVC is a journey of uncertainty and desolation. The values are spot on and challenging, the staff are great support and I am sure that they have great support in the Jesuits. I guess we all join JVC, including the staff and Jesuits, for a deeper journey in our feelings with God, for it is our feelings that take us on this journey.

I can’t speak for the other JVC volunteers, but I can express my feelings on my journey so far in JVC, which are neither negative nor positive about my experience so far, so please take it as the truth, and be encouraged, this is what I wish to value in this writing, the truth. I will also add a poem to show you how I was feeling.

I am a person with high expectations, but find it difficult to be proactive in these expectations. People have told me not to have such high expectations, and others have said it good to have high expectations. I believe it is good to have high expectations, even if you shatter your soul through them; at least you give it a shot. Life is about taking risks. I will be honest, I have had many set backs in fact been hammered into the ground with the mistakes and choices that I have made, but I wouldn’t change a thing, and I will keep taking risks in life, I have had many desolate moments in my life in fact I am in desolation while I write this.

My relationship with God has changed. I don’t know if it has gone deeper or weaker, I see God in a different way, and I am sure I will see God even more differently when I finish. My struggles with the fact I am a Christian distract me from getting deep with God. But I don’t feel scared about this, in fact I feel a sense of liberation. Maybe that’s working in social justice projects for you – the more injustice I see a lot less matters about Christianity.

One thing is for sure, discovering more about yourself is the journey for me. It’s been really painful but also really exciting,

How can one benefit and do a better job in doing social justice, you need to search deep, this might involve crying, yelling, depression, anger and of course desolation.

OK.

On a lighter note, a passion has been born and refreshed on the JVC journey. Seeing through the eyes of injustice, and feeling through the heart of justice, consolation is gathered in this part of the journey. We feel so powerless and hopeless, yet amazingly liberated. Our search for faith overcomes our imperfection and weakness as a human being when we feel God close to us.

It’s quite difficult to write this only six months into the programme, as there are still five months left to complete the journey, but it’s the journey that is the fulfilment, not the end product. My feelings are more alive and real, whereas if I write this at the end of the programme it would take a different form.

The journey

Created with purpose, pulse, feeling and a soul.

Crawling walking running flying!! freedom!!, fumbling slipping falling cant get up!! pain!! Watching wondering thinking!! lost!!! Crying smiling shocked confused angry!! feeling!!! Learning growing humble!! wisdom!!! ( A warrior never gives up in fulfilling their journey)

Covered in darkness, drunk with shame, my anger alights with a raging flame, looking from the eyes of a shadow, listening with the ears of sin, kissing death with thorns in my heart. Isn’t it so easy to follow the person with the horns ( A warrior never gives up in fulfilling their journey)

Waves of energy embrace a skyline, dried up sandstorms weep,

Wind fighting against the detestation (desolation?), a hurricane delivering its irrational thoughts, comets fall with reason, the sea swallows its tongue, God roars with freedom!!!!!! (A warrior never gives up in fulfilling their journey)

One things for sure, without feelings the journey is dull or even dead. My conclusion; life is a journey, no matter how painful or light it is, it’s yours to be felt and respected with all your feelings. Don’t forget, God is with you every step you take in your journey, so go and embrace your destiny – which is the journey itself

Faithful To The Text by CATHRINE CORLESS

Carol Batton is a talented Manchester poet, writing about the plight of people with mental health problems and campaigning for their rights. She has completed literally thousands of poems hundreds of which have been published. Cathrine Corless describes her reason for including ‘Harvest Sow’, one of Carol’s poems, before presenting a poem based on her own spiritual reflections.

Harvest and Sow
Harvest and sow.
Harvest and sow.
God in his garden,
might let us grow.

Fallow and full.
Fallow and full.
God in His garden
Might give us All.

Mellow and mild.
Seed pod and child.
God in His garden
Leaves us to crawl.

Below or above
Below of above
God in His garden…
Show us some love!

Lawn and dawn.
Lawn and dawn.
God in His garden,
Also brings down.

Soil when we’re short of…
We get caught in the might have…
God in His garden,
Let us know that we couldn’t have.

Harvest and sow.
Harvest and sow.
God in His garden
might let us grow

Carol Batton October 2001

 

I think Harvest and Sow communicates a sense of frustration and abandonment that can be felt both by people who have, and who don’t have a faith. People in a Christian culture (or perhaps any religious culture), however faint, may feel they are under an expectation (rather than an offer) to believe in an all powerful, and concurrently all merciful God. People who have suffered – perhaps through loss, abuse and abandonment from the hands of our damaged world – may find the proposal laughable, even highly offensive. I think experiences like this are reflected in Carol’s piece.

For some people there might be the discovery of a complex set of contradictory feelings about the question of the existence of a God; the seeming impossibility of his existence opposite a sense of still being angry with him or her. Maybe even an envy of those who have experienced enough fortune and/or love in this world to hold some faith. I feel sad that my belief is that the experience of our Church, for many people, has been that it has asked them to tolerate positions of servitude or even oppression and then asked them to cope with it well – or even be grateful for it.

As a Christian believer (although not a very committed one) for me Carol’s work speaks of times of frustration and distance in my relationship with God. In my interpretation it even reflects the thorny difficulty I personally have of trusting God in my journey with him

—————-

Lover,
They – the other stars were there when I started the expedition.
With them I moved along our distant shore – all of us orientated from different spheres, different directions – all with the vague hope of getting close to you.
We were all still lit from some time ago. The moment – the instant – when you had first touched us. First shown your light as truly real, not a fantasy, not an inherited piece of identity. A living, breathing, uncontainable force. But for all, the light had changed intensity now. Some stars were searching, some following along the motions, some waiting. All moving – tracing the course of the maiden night in their own style. I followed, tracking them along the void of the galaxy.
But this day I was drawn then urged, deeper into the atmosphere of the night. I saw the setting. I remember milky moonlight against the striking, black ocean – vast and dark.
The Oceans’ deafeningly deep voice… in the same breath inviting, threatening, and promising. “Come…”
Suddenly I saw you.
I was in the full glare.
My face greedily staring at yours.
I was transfixed, absorbed – led into light. Walking on towards you. Completely careless – carefree of all else.
Pulled into orbit. Aching to be naked. Unashamedly open to consumption. More…
Then no straining, just surrendering to embrace. Engulfed by your breathtaking beauty. The satisfaction to see my shadow shine on your face. To turn my self only to you – drunk by the awesome wave of love. Caressed by the tentacles of your rays. A few seconds free of the heavy and archaic earth. A glimpse of a liberated eternity, to circle and be encircled by you?
A momentary pleasure of being thee desirable entity – suspended in the all-searching, all-loving will of you to have me, and me to have you. The closeness of the encounter. Locked in complete Intimacy. Enslaved by an erotic passion – also completely free.
One day when I finally beat the black and white of the urgent – the “To Do” list, and the hum of mundanity quietens – I’ll come to the back beach to meet you again. Will you still be there? Some of the other stars say the promise dictates that you will. Perhaps the question should be – Will I still be able to see you?
Love…
Cathrine

Cathrine Corless was a JVC volunteer at Hearng Voices Network from 2006-7