Thankyou Margaret Silf

I'm currently in New Norcia, WA for a 'reading week', amidst the prayer and serenity of this lovely monastic town. I brought with me a few books to read (or at least to attempt to read), but the one that has really captivated me thus far is not one that I brought myself, but one that was loaned to me by a friend in Perth. I think it's really been the case of God's timing in putting this book into my hands exactly when I needed it.

My usual drill when visiting New Norcia, is to fly to Perth on a Monday, stay overnight with my friend Adrienne, and then catch the bus to NN on the Tuesday morning. So in the process of our conversations on Monday night, I was telling Adrienne about some of the emotional turmoil I've been experiencing in recent months, and how exhausting it's all been.

Adrienne very wisely recommended I read a book by Margaret Silf called The Other Side of Chaos; breaking through when life is breaking down. Adrienne is a bit of a fan of Margaret Silf, having attended a couple of retreats that she has run when she's been in Australia, and has a number of her books (and has also recommended her to me in the past, so it's good to finally get to read one of her books).

So Adrienne handed me this book, and suggested I take it with me to New Norcia, that it wouldn't take very long to read, and I might just find it interesting. So I took it with me, and started to read it on the  bus. I got about a third of the way through it in that first sitting, and since then, in two afternoons have almost finished it (only about 50 pages to go- it's been slower going since I got here, because I've been taking copious notes- because it's not my book, I can't exactly underline or highlight bits I want to remember).

The 'chaos' in the title refers to the chaos of change, and the messiness of transitions. Margaret Silf claims that change is something to be embraced, rather than feared; that transitions are never comfortable, and that in the chaos of crises (or 'breakdown') there is often opportunity for 'breakthrough', as the other side of the coin.

Now, I know that on the surface, this could sound a bit like when you're going through tough times and a Christian friend, trying to be helpful, quotes Romans 8:28 at you ('We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose'), and you just want to smack them (or maybe you don't, but I usually do). But this is really much deeper than a platitude, and some of the things she says in this book really got me excited.

With one particular experience I've had in recent months, I could really resonate with her breakdown/breakthrough idea. I described in an earlier blog post the 'loss of a particular relationship' that had been a cause of grief and a whole miasma of confusing feelings for me (to the point that at one stage it felt like the inside of my head was full of slimy spaghetti, all knotted up and a great mess). The thing that made this situation really hard for me to deal with was not the situation itself, but the fact that it hooked into a whole lot of emotional baggage that I've been carrying for a long time, and that was really painful.

When I decided to enlist the aid of a counsellor to help me navigate through the spaghetti in my head, she very astutely and quickly put her finger on the historical baggage, and said that this was what she wanted to work on with me, because I'd been living with it for 47 years, so it was time to try to sort it out.

So, to relate this to what Margaret Silf is saying, the 'breakdown' (the loss of relationship) led to a 'breakthrough' (seeking counselling and through that getting the opportunity to work on some long-term underlying issues that I otherwise wouldn't have worked on). So this made me think that in a way, the painful situation I was experiencing has really become a great gift to me, as it has enabled me to recognise and start to deal with some deep internal issues far more significant and damaging than the situation itself could ever be.

A quote I really liked:

Are we hoping that God, or faith, will rescue us from the breakdown and repair the damage, or dare we trust that God is inviting us to engage in the coming to birth of something new, in and through the labour pains of loss and disintegration? (p.16)

I have found lots of other wisdom in the book, which I might share a bit later, but needless to say, I currently find myself in a place where I am much more at peace with all the emotional turmoil that's been happening recently, and really think I've turned a corner in coming out of the pain and confusion. The combination of the therapy I'm undertaking, the opportunity to come away to this beautiful place of prayer and peace, and this book, have all breathed life and hope into the painful corners of my heart and mind. God is indeed good!