A wing and a prayer

In her last column for TES, Rev Kate Bottley reflects on her time as a college chaplain
2nd September 2016, 1:00am
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A wing and a prayer

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archived/wing-and-prayer

It’s the end of an era. I’m stepping down as college chaplain and this is my last column. I started as a further education chaplain five years ago, taking over from a colleague who found it wasn’t the right match after a brief stint in the role.

It has been my first post since my ordination and the end of my training. Combined with the three churches I also look after, it’s been not only challenging but also frustrating, hilarious, life-affirming and, at times, utterly depressing. FE is a place of extremes: chaos and peace, stability and fragility - and yet, somehow, there’s a kind of assurance and certainty all the while.

When I started, it was clear that the role could be anything I wanted it to be. No one seemed able to give me a straight answer as to what a chaplain actually did. I’m not sure I know now. “Holy hanging around,” was how my bishop at the time described it. One thing is certain, a big part of it is to do with presence; simply being, rather than doing. Some days I get paid to smile and drink coffee. It’s about making connections, having conversations and just being there.

In five years, I’ve handled more breakdowns, bust-ups and trips to the clap clinic than I ever thought possible. There have been some truly golden moments. A tutorial with the beauty therapy students about key figures of the 21st century springs to mind. During a conversation about Martin Luther King, one learner asked: “Wasn’t he in The Shawshank Redemption?” When I showed a picture of Mother Teresa and explained her work, Chantelle said: “Well, she might have helped loads of them poor people, but she could do with doing summat about them pores.”

I’ve ministered at learners’ weddings and the christenings of their babies. I’ve experienced the sadness of sitting by colleagues’ bedsides and standing at their funerals. And if I had a pound for every time someone has mistaken me for a nun, I’d be retiring, not resigning.

The big thing, I guess, is that I don’t know what’s next. I don’t, strictly speaking, have a job to go to. I’m going to be a sort of “supply vicar”, covering for clergy chums when they are on leave or ill, and I’m hoping to do some more media stuff. I can’t imagine I’ll be out of education for long, though - it’s sort of in the blood.

It’s an exciting and nerve-racking time. Like the college I’ve called home for the past five years - and the rest of the FE sector - a constant state of flux seems to be the only constant. And perhaps it’s in that flux where the role of a chaplain is to be found. The job of those of us who work in the sector is to provide as much stability as we can for as long as we are able.


Rev Kate Bottley is chaplain of North Nottinghamshire College
@revkatebottley

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