Peace in the Face of War

the ups and downs – ‘up to the sky and down again to the depths’ – our lives
are on the right course.
Alex had his share of the storms of life. He seems to have been involved in the
church from a young age. After leaving school and working for a few years,
he started on the path towards ordination, first trying to get some academic
qualifications that he’d not managed to do at school. It didn’t work out and
after a year he gave it up. Marriage and family life followed, with various jobs,
including looking after the home full time. He trained and was licensed as a
Reader. After twenty years, the marriage came to an end, with the inevitable
wounds, hurt and grief for all concerned. This was something he never spoke
about. At about the same time, he’d been training for ordination and was
ordained deacon in 1990 and priest in 1991. This 30 June would have been
the 25th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood, something I was
hoping we would celebrate with him. He ministered, as a self-supporting
priest, in two parishes, and then in October 1992 went to St Wilfrid’s, Lidget
Green in Bradford, to assist Father Paul Bilton, who’d been recently widowed
and had a young family. He remained there until he came to the Monastery
in October 2014. He endeared himself to the people at St Wilfrid’s with
his quiet, unassuming and kindly ways. To Paul he was a loyal and faithful
colleague, willing to do what was needed, whilst remaining something of a
mystery because of his reticence and self-effacement. He began visiting us
and became an Associate and then asked, completely out of the blue – I was
stunned – if he could come and join us. After some discussion, we decided to
give him the opportunity. He continued with his quiet, unfussy ways amongst
us, reluctant to say almost anything about himself – not a bad virtue for a
monk, would that the rest of us had some of it – and getting on gently with
the basics of life – prayer, reading and work. He was happy here. Indeed, he
said to several people that it was the best thing he’d ever done.
Unknown to us, almost a lifetime of smoking had done its damage and
after various investigations, very speedily done, incurable cancer was
diagnosed in the middle of February. In some ways he seemed reluctant
to engage with this but there were also some signs of acceptance that this
was it, and he needed to get on with it. It was the final storm of life. As the
illness progressed and he needed full-time care, there was evidence that an
internal struggle was going on, but by this stage he was unable to articulate
it. As often happens in such circumstances, it was the love and prayers of
others that kept him going in the right direction. A place at the College of St
Barnabas couldn’t have been better, surrounded as he was by a community
of prayer, all seeking to steer their own little boats in attentiveness to
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