A Man at Home with Himself

This is a memory of a Conference given by Timothy Radcliffe OP to the Religious of Arundel and Brighton in my early days in Hastings.

He walks into the room looking like he fell out of bed in his clothes – a well worn aran sweater, the tail of his shirt hanging out, hair tossed. He tells us he intended wearing his habit but when he picked it up this morning it had too many coffee stains, so he dropped it. And I find myself in admiration of this unworldliness, this total lack of vanity! It's as if humility himself walked in the door.

Vanity clings to me like a disguise, a cover for my interior shabbiness and I'm thinking that Timothy Radcliffe must have great interior strength, a man so self-possessed that he doesn't require the kind of nice exterior appearance that many of us think we need.

Here is a man at home with himself. His eloquence becomes his clothing and I could have listened to him all day.

He's very polished in the way he speaks, well read, very intelligent but says everything in fairly plain language. Straight away I'm pleased to hear him say that he doesn't like the word "Leadership" - even though that's the theme of the day - as it's spoken in modern religious circles. I said as much to a friend the other day.

The term "Leader" has taken the place of "Superior" and we like to talk about service rather than power but the reality we are trying to escape can still hide behind the new tag. Years ago Henri Nouwen wrote about how service can become power; Timothy spoke of how service can become bossy. And I've come across people whose demeanor is humble but who are always trying to get you to do what they want done.

Humble! Timothy speaks about a leadership that is humble and vulnerable, able to let go of control.

My vulnerability has been there for all to see and by it I have been humbled. Now I have come to the time of letting go of control.