Scotch Pies

From Reverend Sharon Grenham-Toze, Anglican Priest and Prison Chaplain:

I’ve been a priest for nearly 15 years now, and over the course of that time I’ve talked and cried, laughed and wondered with people of all ages, in every kind of situation, good and bad. Much of the past decade has been spent as a prison chaplain - not a glamorous posting, that’s for sure, but one which has been fascinating and frustrating in equal measure.

People ask me if I enjoy working in jail, and I usually reply with some jokey remark about a ‘captive audience.’ But that question is a difficult one - how can I enjoy working in often quite grim conditions, with difficult, sometimes dangerous, people, all finished off with a liberal dose of ‘oh no here comes the God Squad’ when I round the corner.

Well the truth is, I don’t always enjoy it. I don’t always think I’m making a difference, I’d be rather naïve if I thought that vast swathes of my ‘flock’ were instantly going to sort themselves out and become churchgoing pillars of society. I do it because I truly believe that change is possible. But on my less positive days, I’m not so different from plenty of other priests and ministers up and down the country, from the quiet rural parish to the big city church. And no different to leaders, and followers, of many other faiths too.

We slog it out, just like anyone else. We love, we laugh, we cry. We make mistakes, we fail, we doubt. Yes, even doubt our faith now and then, in the face of things we struggle to understand. It’s worth remembering that not every person who holds a spiritual belief is a religious bulldozer, without intelligence or integrity. In these difficult days, let’s guard against our own caricatures.

I think it’s a lot healthier to hold any belief, religious or not, alongside a willingness to ask, and be asked, plenty of questions. It’s what stops us being, as the saying goes, ‘too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use.’ Instead, I love how the American writer Frederick Buechner puts it like this: “Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.”