I love seascapes. Particularly ones like this where three different elements meet. Land, sea and sky. Each one complementing the others and being inseparable from it. I remember chatting with a friend about what kind of creature we thought might be able to live in all these elements. I forget what we decided, but the conversation stayed with me. Partly because I dislike things. elements, being split off or separated. As a therapist much of my work is in allowing my patients to come to know their “unacceptable” parts. None of us are comfortable with our shadow side. Our envy, our hatred, our jealousy. But they are a part of us. As inseparable as the elements are in this photo .The sky, the rocks and the sea all contribute to this landscape / seascape /skyscape. Take away one element and we are looking at something different.

In my teens, twenties and thirties I was a charismatic Christian. I lived in a Christian community for some years where we would meet for breakfast and worship each day. At 6:30 in the morning! And agian at nine in the evening. Such was my “devotion” that I would aim to have done a half an hour’s bible reading before the main morning session. I lost count of how many times I sat at my desk, head in my hands, more asleep than waake. No matter! I was there. Being “spiritual”! For this and many another reason, I eventually left Christianity behind.

One central reason was the dichotomy between my Christian life and my life as a psychiatric nurse. I had to split myself in half. The Christian half who lived in a fundamentalist christian community and the psychiatric nurse me, daily working with people whose lives were a million miles from anything I knew. I assume that the choice I made to leave fundamentalism rather than nursing was a good indicator of my core values. Or, as the theologian Paul Tillich puts it, what were my ultimate concerns? What was the ground of my Being? (Which is existential speak for “God”.)

Coming back to some sort of faith world view has surprised me. I assumed I’d left it behind along with Volvos and bad haircuts. Tillich’s theology gives me a way to think about my own ultimate concerns. It also gives me a vocabulary with which to talk with my patients. Many of our conversations are about their ultimate concerns and what they mean to them. I thoroughly enjoy these conversations. We can do “God talk” without my having to silence a voice in my head telling me that “All they need is Jesus.”

There are plenty of places people can go if that’s what they want to hear. I’ll stick to Tillich, ultimate concerns and the ground of my being. That place allows me encounter all the elements that make me who I am. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Wind, Sea and Rocks. And not deny the contribution each makes to the me-ness that is me.

I’ll finish with this quote from Tillich. “Faith is an act of a finite being who is grasped by, and turned to, the infinite.” (The Charismatic in me longs to shout “Amen and Amen”. But I’ll do it quietly so I don’t worry my neighbours!)