The challenge of filling your blank page or keeping it empty

The start of a sabbatical sets Ian Hamlin thinking through the tension between contemplation and action.

Ian Hamlin

Ian Hamlin has been the minister of a Baptist church since 1994. He previously worked in financial services.

A notebook is open at two blank pages. a pen rests across the page.s.

Photo by Mike Tinnion on Unsplash

The famed anxiety inducing nemesis of any writer or creative, the ever-daunting blank page. Well, I’ve bought myself a new notebook, so I have a literal open page in front of me, but also something more.

I’m starting a three-month sabbatical from my role as a Baptist minister. Stepping down from my day-to-day responsibilities of work, but also, to a degree, away from the basic structures that define my life; the people, purpose and rhythm of, not only what I do, but who I am. It’s a weird sort of job like that.

What would you do with three months off? From work, family commitments, whatever it is that defines your day to day ordinarily? Well, buy a notebook, obviously, but after that?

I’m conscious, of course, that this is a rare privilege, a consequence, I guess, of the strange link between a professionalised clergy and academia from days past, but also, a recognition of the all-encompassing nature of the role. Maybe, because of that, it’s also a real challenge, a true ‘blank page’.

The first instinct, I guess, is to take a break, to stop, to breathe. That’s undeniably good, but how long for? Is that it? At what point does stopping and breathing become lazy indulgence? I’ve been reading quite a lot lately, perhaps subconsciously preparing for these months, about taking time out, resting, slowing down. Often, these thoughts have been expressed as an exploration of the notion of ‘Sabbath’ that Judeo-Christian notion of keeping a period of time, a day a week, special, sacred even. This, of course, is the route from which ‘sabbaticals’ have grown, not so much the ivory towers and quadrangles after all, but more the Hebrew prophets and itinerant Jewish preachers of ancient days, seeking to find the rhythms of a fulfilled life There’s John Mark Comer’s ubiquitous The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, which seems to have touched a cultural nerve, but also Ruth Haley Barton’s Invitation to Solitude and Silence. Then, out of the blue, I was invited to reflect again on Walter Brueggemann’s sense of Sabbath as:

‘the refusal to let one’s life be defined by production and consumption, and the endless pursuit of private well-being’.

He also observed that, recognizing just how we, like multiple generations before us, each in their own way, are utterly enmeshed in systems and structures designed, not so much for our well-being but rather the benefit of others,

‘the departure into restfulness is both urgent and difficult, for our motors are set to run at brick-making speed.’

(A reference to one of those earliest structures, highlighted in the Bible, where Egypt’s Pharaoh had Hebrew slaves building ever larger structures, to assuage their growing thoughts of freedom.)

Most recently of all, I’ve been struck, by following Pete Grieg’s pilgrimage walk from Iona to Lindisfarne, and the passing comment that the original Celtic monks, in making the same journey, eschewed the offer of horses to ride, preferring to walk, fearing that the increased pace of travel might cause them to miss something.

I’m sure I’ve missed lots, I’m convinced I’m caught up in a whole range of hectic, consumerist structures, and I’m often tired, so rest, gets a big tick from me. At least I think it does, but barely do I sit down, and I’m feeling restless again. How long can/should I keep this up? There are so many things to do, opportunities to explore, people to please. I need to justify this privilege of time and space.

His speaking, his marching, his campaigning and protesting, even his sitting, was driven with a passion and an urgency that was infectious, and effective.

And then there’s that ever-present sense within me, my natural instinct if you will, true, I’m sure, of many. That I like the idea of contemplation, the need for it even, but, actually, I’m more driven by activism, by getting stuff done. The focal point of my whole break, planned for quite a while now, is a trip to the USA to follow the life of one of my spiritual heroes, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Now, there’s an activist if ever there was one. His speaking, his marching, his campaigning and protesting, even his sitting, was driven with a passion and an urgency that was infectious, and effective. His consistent rage against injustice has been a call to arms, both to his immediate contemporaries, and generations subsequently, to get up, go out and do. Ultimately, of course, he poured out his whole life in the cause. It’s taking me an age to read a few preparatory biographies of him, stimulated as I am from every page, challenged to act, to never let injustice rule while I have voice and agency.

So, there we have it, another paradox, in the complicated business of being the person I’m meant to be, realizing the best of God’s investment in me. The conflict between rest and exploration, being and doing, contemplation and activism. I imagine we are all drawn to a certain place on that spectrum.

Blank pages, freed up days and diaries, only serve to underline what we already are. But, I suspect, we can all also hear the call to either end of the range; to be stirred to action by the things that break the heart of God, and to lay down our burdens, take upon ourselves the easier yoke, and live increasingly in ‘the unforced rhythms of grace’. Maybe, to start with at least, listening to that call, recognizing the tension, while not allowing it to create pressure in us, is enough. Hearing, praying, scribbling my first, semi coherent, thoughts on that vast empty page, making myself another coffee, and wondering what I might do next.

Article

Comment

War & peace

25 September 2024

6 min read

How Ukraine reckons with its reality

From Kyiv's coffee shops to the front line.

Mark Meynell

Mark Meynell is the author and minister.

A woman squats and touches a war memorial

War memorial in Bucha.

How on earth it came up I have no idea, but I vividly remember chatting with my grandmother about the ‘Phoney War’ of 1939. I can’t have been much older than 10. It’s not that I was especially inquisitive about history, nor that I had the presence of mind to ask for stories from her extraordinary life. How I wish I’d done that with all four of my grandparents. But my hunch is that it was prompted by sitting in the garden on a glorious summer’s day. We were probably shelling peas or peeling potatoes or something—she always got people staying to do jobs.

She was reminiscing about how weird those months in mid-1939 were, in particular remembering how lovely the summer had been, far brighter and drier than normal. Even after the Nazi invasion of Poland on 1st September (thus triggering Britain and France to declare war two days later), the weather remained good. A sense of war’s inevitability had hovered throughout 1939, so even after Chamberlain’s famous ‘final note’ was rejected, nothing much changed. At least, not for ordinary Britons. Life went on. It would take many months before the conflict came all too close to home.

I couldn’t help but think about this during my visit to Kyiv and Lviv earlier this month. The difference, of course, is that there was nothing phoney about Russia’s 2022 invasion or the horrors inflicted on eastern Ukraine since the 2014 annexation of Crimea. But for the majority, routines continued uninterrupted. As they must.

For example, assuming the worst, I had contacted several Ukrainian friends offering to bring any scarce or unavailable items from Britain. No one took me up on it; it was unnecessary, they all said. After wandering through both cities, it was obvious why. Although trade will undoubtedly have been slower than before the war, shops seemed well stocked with all the necessities and not a few luxuries.

Then on my final morning, I was quietly sipping a cappuccino in Lviv’s historic Rynok Square when the air-raid sirens suddenly cranked up into their now familiar whine. Being kept awake by Kyiv’s sirens had been a new experience for me (a mark of our Western privilege that we have avoided all-out war on our soil for decades). But this was my first daytime alert. It was even accompanied by booming Ukrainian announcements, although the advice was inevitably lost on me. As it was on all around me, who seemed assiduously to ignore it. The few mid-morning pedestrians—few tourists come here— maintained their ambling pace unchanged; the taciturn waiter patiently took orders at the next table; a middle-aged businessman on the square continued his negotiations on the phone while gesticulating with his briefcase. So naturally, I kept sipping.

This was not because the sirens cried wolf. Just 10 days before my visit, Lviv had suffered one of the worst air attacks of the war, with 7 killed, over 60 injured, as well as the destruction of schools and historic buildings. Moreover, I met a friend for lunch an hour later who told me that some man-sized drones had attacked his side of Lviv and he saw one or two shot down. So it was all real enough. What was everyone thinking?

Those who keep going amid a siren’s whine are not perhaps ignoring it but taking calculated risks in their perseverance.

Ignoring reality

T. S. Eliot famously observed that "Humankind cannot bear very much reality." So perhaps that was what was going on here. After two and a half years of war, I can quite imagine exhaustion and resignation to what was going on. So it just gets ignored. Ordinary life must go on. After all, only a small proportion of the population is actively engaged in the war; the rest, if they haven’t already left, must try to keep calm and carry on. In fact, men aged between 18-60 are unable to leave at all without the necessary papers and these are hard to come by. Perhaps the only way, then, is to avoid thinking altogether. On a beautiful day, once autumn has begun to temper Ukraine’s oppressive summer heat, sustaining the illusion is simple. Life carries on.

Of course, it can’t last. Every single person I spoke to had family or friends at the front; some had already been killed. The destruction caused by air raids brought a distant conflict onto people’s doorsteps. However, it was driving through the pleasant Kyiv suburbs of Bucha and Irpin, both of which I had previously visited several times, that reinforced the impossibility of ignoring reality. Bucha is now emblematic of the invasions very worst atrocities, from when Russian forces had Kyiv almost entirely surrounded before being pushed east. Locals were rounded up and slaughtered, with the bodies of several hundred civilians later found to have died from bullet wounds rather than shrapnel. But as we drove through, it was impossible to conceive of those horrors. Apart from anything, the weather was so lovely. Atrocities don’t occur on beautiful days… or in lovely places… surely?

Persevering amid reality

What impressed me most in those areas was the speed of the rebuilding work. Entire shopping malls and neighbourhoods had been razed. But after only twelve months or so, a memorial to Bucha’s 500 dead had already been erected. As we drove through, major construction projects were underway, with multiple cranes towering over rapidly rising apartment blocks and retail parks.

These are not signs of reality ignored but faced. These are signs of gritted hope. So it struck me that those who keep going amid a siren’s whine are not perhaps ignoring it but taking calculated risks in their perseverance. Just as it is unwise, if not impossible, to live on a permanent adrenaline rush, so one cannot always exist in flight or fight mode indefinitely. It is simply that in wartime, risk thresholds change. Human beings are resilient and adaptable. They endure the most extraordinary setbacks and conditions.

So, to be with Ukrainian friends in my limited, deficient expression of solidarity, has been inspiring. No one I met had any illusions about the realities of Ukraine’s current plight (especially with a harsh winter looming as Russia systematically destroys power stations). But still they persevere.

Seeking deeper perspectives of reality

However, Eliot did not primarily refer to bearing the reality of the mundane. As the novelist Jeanette Winterson explained, Eliot was identifying how little twentieth century society (that of his Waste Land in particular) could bear of spiritual reality. He meant the phenomenon of resistance to a journey towards God or of facing themselves as they stand before God.

However, the horrors of invasion and the nightly anxieties of air raids have put paid to all that. One friend I was glad to see again is Andriy, previously a fairly well-known Ukrainian journalist and now a church pastor. He regularly goes to the frontline as an unofficial chaplain, visiting troops in their camps and the injured in hospital. He was unequivocal. Before the war they would undoubtedly have been shrugged off. But now, he has not met a single soldier who is uninterested in the things of God and eternity. War has forced them to face their mortality and Andriy has found that most are desperate to talk about little else. These things matter. Even on a beautiful, bright, early autumnal day.