I am a naturally anxious and fearful person and, as my children say, I can worry for England. I have been thinking about the courage that I need to follow my leadings and how I have often gained strength from reading about the experience of others. While still at school the first spiritual autobiography I ever read was John Bunyan’s Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners and I was much struck by it. One passage in particular spoke to me then and has continued to be an inspiration even if I don’t always manage to act on it.

Bunyan was also a fearful person, continually anxious that God might forsake him. Imprisoned for preaching his faith he thought that he might be hanged and imagined himself on the gallows, standing ‘on the ladder, with the Rope about my neck’. He asked God for comfort but none came. Then Bunyan realised that he had to trust in the love of God without asking for any assurance in return –
‘Wherefore thought I, the point being thus, I am for going on, and venturing my eternal state with Christ, whether I have comfort here or no; if God doth not come in, thought I, I will leap off the Ladder even blindfold into Eternitie, sink or swim, come heaven, come hell; Lord Jesus, if thou wilt catch me, do; if not, I will venture for thy Name.’

I wrote that passage down in my commonplace book and many years later I added another passage which seems to be giving the same message about trust. Sonia Johnson’s autobiography includes the story of a dream which a woman in Missouri told to her. The woman dreamed that she was standing on the top of a high building and that in order to get home she would have to jump off. Her longing for home was so great that she leapt. Sonia Johnson continues –
‘As she began to fall, a rope appeared before her; she reached out, grabbed it, and swung way out over the street. At the end of its arc, she knew that if she didn’t let go, she would swing back to where she had been before and not be any closer to home. So she let go. As she began to fall again, another rope appeared. Grabbing it she swung out to the end of its arc and let go again. Trusting herself, letting go, reaching out, swinging out over the abyss, trusting, letting go, reaching out, she found her way home.’

I haven’t always managed to trust God and let go of fear but I am still trying and these two passages have helped me.

I’ve just been writing in my journal about what has been happening to me over the past few days and how I am feeling about it. I write there only for myself, although I wouldn’t mind if my family read what I had written sometime in the future, possibly after I’ve gone. A friend of mine who was facing a possibly fatal illness once asked me to destroy her journals if she should die and I realised that I just couldn’t do that. The archivist in me obviously runs very deep!

Then I sat and thought about what I might say in this blog and that felt different, more like writing an article for an audience, although I’m not sure who. It certainly feels more public and I wondered whether that made me more careful about what I write, perhaps more conscious of how I write it. After all I am drafting this post and will go back over it and correct and maybe polish it.

So how does all this relate to spiritual autobiography? The definition of this sort of writing which I’ve developed over the years goes something like this – An account of a person’s spiritual journey written by themselves in order to be shared with others in some way at some time. This is not the same as an ordinary autobiography as, depending on our perceptions, outward events and even people may not be part of the story. Although diaries, journals etc. can contribute to spiritual autobiography they are not the same thing because they are written about the present and to write spiritual autobiography it is necessary to look back over the past and make sense of it in some way. For me the two vital elements are looking back and sharing what we find. Of course if I do eventually manage to write my spiritual autobiography, even if only in fragments, I could publish that as another blog!

I have always been very clear that everyone has a spiritual autobiography to write. The finished product does not have to be literary, it does not have to be long and it does not have to be packed with incident. It is just as valuable to share and make sense of our failures as to talk only of our successes. One of the main reasons which early writers of spiritual autobiography had for writing was to give others the encouragement which they felt they had lacked. As Alice Hayes, a Quaker writing at the beginning of the 18th century, put it “Truly I have thought that if I had met with the like Account of any that had gone through such exercise, it would have been some Help to me”.

So I will go on writing my diary, reading it back as I come to the end of each volume every year or two, trying to make sense of where God is leading/nudging/pushing me, and finding ways to share it all. I’ll keep you posted.