Column: Pilgrim's Progress: Philip Hobday: Diary Dipping
This is the time of year the Church of England welcomes new priests. This makes me reflect on what’s changed since I first started.
One noticeable difference is everything now happens more quickly, or at least people want it to. When I began in the trade two decades ago, you were thought efficient if someone left you a message on your landline answerphone and you rang back the following day; nowadays you are thought a bit slow if you haven’t replied to an email or text message within minutes!
Modern communications, their ease and speed, do make many people’s working lives more pressured. But the most important thing for newbie vicars is taking time out to say their prayers and read their Bibles; if your job is helping others in their spiritual development you need to be keeping an eye on your own.
Is there something you struggle to give time and priority to? Maybe because of all the communications, time spent online, responsibilities for work or family or voluntary tasks? A good exercise I sometimes encourage colleagues to try is a ‘diary dip’ where they see exactly what they’ve spent their time on, identifying what’s essential and what’s not, seeing if the balance needs a bit of adjusting. Whether we’re working or looking for work, a volunteer or a carer, a student or a retiree, why not try this good practical discipline – sometimes we realise we’re not giving enough attention to something or wasting time on something that’s less important. And since time and talents, the Bible tells us, are gifts from a creative God, thinking about how we use them well is an important spiritual discipline too.
Philip Hobday
Wakefield Cathedral