From Mr David Harries
Sir, - I am glad that the Revd Tim Gunter (Letters,
23 January) has found his 41 years in the ordained ministry a
satisfying spiritual experience. The Church needs dedicated parish
priests like him. But, having read the Back Page Interview with
Maggie Ross (16
January), I can see that for someone of her temperament,
ordination would indeed have been "spiritual suicide".
St Paul is clear that ministry can take many forms. Maggie Ross
has chosen, or been called, to an unusual one. From of her
self-imposed seclusion and undistracted by parochial duties, she
has written an impressive number of books on spiritual topics which
have given encouragement to those who wish to lead a contemplative
life.
There is no conflict between the spiritual life led by Mr Gunter
and that led by Maggie Ross. They are both expressions of the Holy
Spirit working through their individual temperaments. I hope that
in the future the Anglican Church will give encouragement to those
who, like Maggie Ross, wish to lead lives of seclusion, meditation
and prayer.
DAVID HARRIES
59 Prospect Road, Hythe CT21 5NL
From Canon Peter Mullins
Sir, - I suspect that when Maggie Ross spoke of "the spiritual
suicide of ordination" she was being more poetic than provocative -
and certainly less extreme than the Revd Tim Gunter in his choice
of the words "negative and idiosyncratic rubbish" about her.
A meditation by Lord Williams on some Desert Fathers' strenuous
attempts to avoid ordination includes "exercising a public role in
the Church's worship involves standing in the furnace of divine
action which unites earth and heaven; if we can't see that this is
a dangerous place, we have missed something," and continues: "the
ordained person may be at risk because of the spiritually intense
place where they must stand, but they are also at risk from the
more prosaic, but still spiritually damaging, effects of hierarchy
and deference." This is creative and mainstream wisdom.
That Mr Gunter and I are willing to engage in the self-harm of
writing letters to the press rubbishing other Christians may mean
that neither of us is quite as spiritually unscathed by many years
in the priesthood as we might like to tell ourselves.
PETER MULLINS
23 Littlecoates Road, Grimsby DN34 4NG