Passing Clouds by Nicola Slee

Today we are in something like week 14 of (partial) lockdown in the UK, though such is the strangeness of these times, it is very hard to keep the sense of what day or week it is. Lucy Winkett preached an excellent sermon from St James, Piccadilly recently, for Rogation Sunday, reflecting on boundaries and how many of ours have collapsed or, in some ways – such as the physical 2-metre boundary that is supposed to separate us all – intensified due to coronavirus. 

As it happens, the onset of lockdown coincided for me with a period of sabbatical study leave. (I am aware that some of my readers may fondly suppose my life is one long sabbatical, since I have written several books on sabbatical, my last one on the very subject of it!  I do feel extremely fortunate to work for an institution that offers its academic staff regular sabbaticals, although this is only my third in twenty-three years at Queen’s, so hardly excessive.) In the early weeks of lockdown-cum-sabbatical, I felt a huge measure of relief at the extra imposed levels of quiet and solitude imposed by COVID-19.  Acutely aware of the suffering, pain, anxiety and enormous pressures all around me being experienced by others, I am at home with my partner and cats, with plenty of physical and other kinds of space, without burdensome duties to home-school and my life not immediately under threat.

I enjoy the luxury of being able to give myself, if not completely at least in very large measure, to reading, writing, thinking, contemplation and prayer. Why, I wondered, did it take a global pandemic for me finally to live the kind of life I’ve been longing to live for years: quietly and simply, day after day, in the same place, getting on with the same work, watching the same plants grow, gazing at the same moon and stars at night, living companionably with the woman and animals I’ve chosen to share my life with? Somehow, too, the lack of boundaries between internal and external worlds, between the conscious controlling mind and the freewheeling unconscious, have enabled a stream of poems and writing to pour out of me during this time, and I’m well on my way with my next book (Abba Amma: Improvisations on the Lord’s Prayer, to be published by Canterbury Press). 

Yet as the weeks have worn on, the euphoria has gradually dissipated and other more difficult feelings crept into this gift of space and time.  As has happened to me on every previous sabbatical I have had, I’ve been in a degree of physical pain, my fibromyalgia mysteriously flaring up for no apparent reason other than, perhaps, that it can.  Night-time, in particular, can be difficult, when the pain wakes me up and I can’t sleep.  I have taken to padding downstairs, making a drink, lighting the candles in the grate and settling down with the cats for an hour or more, to write in my journal, pray and sit in the silence.  Eventually, I get back off to sleep again, and feel lousy the next morning. 

More insidiously, I had an attack of acedia last week (four weeks into my sabbatical period), that noon-day demon with which the earliest monastics were very familiar, variously translated as spiritual sloth, carelessness or malaise.  The combination of physical pain and acedia left me waking late to the day and not wanting to face it, listless and, at the same time, full of fear and dread: of no particular thing except for the meaninglessness of my life.  In one of my early morning sessions, I wrote the following in my journal:

‘Shut away at home, getting on with my book, going nowhere and seeing no one have finally palled, after weeks of ecstatic joy and contentment. Is any of it any good? Does it amount to anything at all? Do I have anything new to say? Who needs another book from Nicola Slee? Is this simply an enormous distraction from the reality of my life, which is destined for the dust of death? Even if such thoughts don’t actually form, they hover about my head like summer flies, creating a buzzing that robs me of peace and prevents my heart from centring, my mind from focusing. It’s a relief to bring them to consciousness, set them down on the page, see them and confess them for what they are, erratic, momentary feelings to which I don’t need to attach.

‘Like the ecstasy and the contentment, these feelings of dread and dejection will come and go, like passing clouds.  I don’t need to give them any more attention than any other feelings. I only need to let my heart be fixed, grounded by the greater reality of God; keep on with the normal, everyday routines – rising, praying, eating, working, relaxing, playing, resting when I can. Should the noonday devil assault my mind or the demon of pain wake me in the night, I only have to hold on, clutch my holding cross made of New Zealand rimu, precious gift from my time at Vaughan Park, and repeat my mantra – “Abba, amma, have mercy” – until the demons tire of me and leave in search of another poor soul to assail.’

Perhaps another way of thinking about the assault of acedia and fear is to see it as a sharing in the anxiety and fear that is washing around everywhere in society as a result of what we are all experiencing. Why should I be immune from the perils and dangers facing others? Indeed, why should I want to be? If I have any meaningful soul work to do at this time, it is not simply my own private work of reading, writing, praying and thinking, but must be a participation in the greater work of the prayer of the Church which goes on mysteriously, day in, day out, and perhaps most powerfully in the dead of the night by those small, aging communities of monks and nuns who may be holding this world from flying apart.  If I wake at 4 a.m. and join them for a while, I am thankful and blessed to be able to do so, even whilst in pain. 

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This is the latest Lockdown Blog article by one of Darton, Longman and Todd’s amazing authors, offering a personal reflection on our current situation in life. These blogs post are written sometimes in reference to one of the writer’s books, and sometimes about how they are living in response to the coronavirus and our current world situation. We hope it will give you a taste of the depth and diversity of DLT’s list – books for heart, mind and soul that aim to meet the needs and interests of all.

Today’s post is by Nicola Slee, author of the recently-published Sabbath, which you can buy here, and Faith and Feminism, which you can buy here.