{The Assistant Bishop}[15th March 1990]

[Redbook7:88][19900315:1716b]{The Assistant Bishop}[15th March 1990]

19900315.1716

[continued]

The difference between my interview* with the Archbishop of […], […], last Autumn – he is now laid up by too great stress** – and that with the Assistant Bishop, […], this morning – was that the Archbishop was genuinely and deeply interested, and contributed to my ‘confession’; the Assistant Bishop, courteous and helpful though he was, and giving the impression of interest, fundamentally I think was not interested, and did not contribute (merely asking me to tell him about myself); and in the end, unintentionally I believe, cut me short. The result was that this morning I could never really get the spiritual pitch of my audience right, and I suspect verged on the incoherent.***

****

#*

*The [Assistant] Bishop took notes....

**{A heart attack, in fact}

***{See [[Redbook7:104-114][19900328:1738]{Tested Again}[28th March 1990],] 105}

****On the other hand, if (as I believe) the [Assistant] Bishop is a practical man, my discourse may have been inappropriate only when I fought against its tendency to stick to the practical. So my prayer beforehand# for guidance might have been more completely answered in the circumstances if I had allowed it to be.

#{to the Holy Spirit, I think}

#*{I do recall now that having asked me to (eg) tell me about myself, the Assistant Bishop at some stage (in response I think to my attribution of vocational significance to some personal event) commented with words to the effect that imagination (or wishful thinking?) often filled in the gaps in memory.}

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