The Great Unlearning

As part of my new role with the NRCC (Resource Officer for the Northern Regional Council of Congress) - I have embarked on a journey of unlearning. At our brief stint at the Northern Synod-in-Session earlier this year, I overheard one of the local Elders explaing that sometimes you need to carry more than one basket at the same time. In other words, multi-tasking is inherent in leadership roles amongst First Nation Peoples. But of course, extending this same metaphor, there is also a limit as to how many baskets can be carried at any given time. And so, in order for me to learn to pick up some of the baskets required of me in my new role, I am simply going to have put down some of the baskets that have sustained me in ministry over many years.

This is not as easy as it sounds. Some of these baskets have been my trusted travelling companions through thick and thin. Some of these baskets have been a source of security and identity. I have developed skills and credentials and qualifications, and invested heavily into the kind of baskets that have served me well in ministry. I have a PhD exploring the 'Hermeneutics of Followship' and the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer; years devoted to learning contextuaised narrative theologies and radical discipleship, preaching and teaching in faith communities, congregations and colleges, pastoral care and chaplaincy in congregations, schools, universities and aged care; and more recently developed skills in strategic leadership and corporate governance. And yet all of these things will need to be set aside, or at least unlearned and relearned, within a new ministry context and calling. To some extent this happens all the time when ministers change roles. But my role with NRCC presents a whole new ball game.

I will need to learn new langauges, and new ways to move my tongue and teeth and shape my mouth in order to pronounce words that are vehciles for new meanings. I will need to learn new ways to tell (and understand) old stories. I will need to learn how to listen. Really listen. Listen patiently, and talk slowly, in order to think deeply. I will need to learn to talk quietly (!!!) and read the language of the landscape and the weather and the trees. I will need to learn to avert my gaze, and change my posture, and challenge my assumoptions. All of them. I will need to set aside the things I thought I new - put down some of the old baskets - in order to learn which new baskets to pick up. And I will also need to learn how to carry them in ways that gift the new community that I am serving.

This is all new. And it is very exciting. And it is also quite daunting.

This great unlearning is a living lesson in humility.

Perhaps this is something of what John's gospel alludes to when we read that we must be 'born again'.

Or - Perhaps this is what Paul means when he writes 'in Christ Jesus there is a new creation - the old has gone and the new has come'.

And yet...

I am already tripping over baskets I previously put down - and have creases in my fingers for the ones I refuse to let go of... and there are baskets piking up at my door waiting to be picked up..

This is my life now.

And I can't stop smiling.