by Pioneer Deacon Lindsay Smith
Lindsay is a pioneer deacon in the diocese of Bath and Wells. She recently completed a placement in St-M artin-in-the-Fields https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/ in London, and this is her reflection.
The calling of a distinctive deacon is distinctive by its very nature, but what makes it distinctive can be hard to define. Especially when it’s the foundation calling of all priests and bishops. They, too are called to work with their fellow members in searching out the poor and weak, the sick and lonely and those who are oppressed and powerless, reaching into the forgotten corners of the world that the love of God may be made visible.
They, too, have done the same underpinning theological training, the same time in curacy as myself. They, too, call themselves Rev and insert a white piece of plastic into their collar that mysteriously sets them apart, to be with those searching for hope and faith.
So, from the outside, we sort of look the same. So, what makes my calling distinctive ?
Maybe its distinctiveness comes in its unknowing; ‘Great is the mystery of faith’.
I deeply feel this unknowing and delight in her, delight in her foolish bravery, delight in the places she sends me and the transforming love she has for all of us, including the poor and weak, the sick and lonely and those who are oppressed and powerless.
I delight in knowing that she is already in the forgotten corners of the world, a guiding light so that the love of God may be made visible.
I feel this ministry in the silent spaces and embody it in the tears that I weep. It sits beyond the physical and is almost formless, as neither words nor images express what my heart understands.
My time at St Martin’s gave me a chance to see, touch and inhabit the heartfelt words that God silently and gently places in my heart.
Nestled in the fields of broken bread
A Radical cross, a portal of hope.
For all who wander between the fading lines of certainty.
A holy space boldly held in humble silence.
Where buckets of laundry are transformed into the love of Christ.
Where a smile is a signpost to safety
For this is our God, and we trust these mysterious ways.
A Jesus-shaped mother house, weaving an organic trellis of diffused difference
nourished, rooted and grounded in the grace of the gospel.
Do not be afraid of the rootedness or petrified of the possible
Nor of the spirit-filled dreams that fill your heart.
Reach out, see, touch and inhabit these holy whispers.
Live these prophetic actions of love.
Be with those who live in darkness, those who die unnamed
You are the storyteller of the voiceless, a community without borders.
Naming, seeing, interceding.
Called to walk in the great cloud of witnesses,
Seeking out the lost, homeless, the sick and lonely, and those who are oppressed and powerless, reaching into the forgotten corners of the world so that God’s love may be made visible and embodied,
releasing the gifts of others through gentle, holy Manifestos of divine love.
CofE Network of Distinctive Deacons 